We see mafias as vast, powerful organisations, harvesting billions of dollars across the globe and wrapping their tentacles around everything from governance to finance. But is this the truth? Travelling from mafia initiation ceremonies in far-flung Russian cities to elite gambling clubs in downtown Macau, Federico Varese sets off in search of answers. Using wiretapped conversations, interviews and previously unpublished police records, he builds up a picture of the real men and women caught up in mafia life, showing their loves and fears, ambitions and disappointments, as well as their crimes.

Mafia Life takes us into the real world of organised crime, where henchmen worry about their bad managers and have high blood pressure, assassinations are bungled as often as they come off, and increasing pressure from law enforcement means that a life of crime is no longer lived in the lap of luxury. As our world changes, so must mafias. Globalisation, migration and technology are disrupting traditions and threatening their revenue streams, and the Mafiosi must evolve or die. Mafia Life is an intense and totally compelling look at these organisations and the daily life of their members, as they get to grips with the modern world.

                                                             – Oliver Bullough

Following the release of the Panama Papers and with David Cameron hosting a major conference in London aimed at tackling cross-border corruption, the Frontline Club held a timely debate on how best to investigate – and combat –transnational organised crime, money laundering and tax evasion.

Drew Sullivan, co-founder and editor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), began by highlighting the common misconception that corruption has little impact on the everyday lives of most people.

“When you think of corruption in England you think that someone stole some money but in developing countries such as Bosnia, Moldova, Ukraine Russia, when you have corruption it can significantly impact the economy and destroy lives.”

Citing the role the UK plays at the heart of the global money laundering system, author and journalist Oliver Bullough, who chaired the debate, said that one of the most amazing things about the Panama Papers, was “that it was able to connect people not being paid in Azerbaijan with people buying flats in Knightsbridge”.

Merion Jones, former head of investigations at BBC Newsnight, said that with billions of pounds funnelled through British accounting firms and out to tax havens in the British dependencies, “London is at the core of this theft”.

“You can’t find the people involved, their money is invisible, the companies often disappear, and that what was so great about the Panama Papers. It gives us a chance to dig in after these corporate villains and find out what they’re really doing, that which is technically illegal and what is immoral.”

Daniel Balint-Kurit, leader of the Special Investigations team at Global Witness, stressed that while it is easy to write off “fantastically corrupt” countries, the issue of offshore-companies was pervasive and widespread and affected companies and people here.

The phrase "fantastically corrupt" seems appropriate, and it's neither Nigeria nor Afghanistan, but here. https://t.co/sY6fDi9q79

— Peter Hiett (@NotAsGoodAsPete) May 11, 2016

“What we do know is that companies registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVIs) are an established vehicle for corruption.”

What many people don’t understand, said Sullivan, is that the so-called ‘criminal services industry’ is a multi-billion dollar industry that is not just operating in British overseas territories but in almost every country around the world.

“There’s an entire second economy out there that the developing world uses and it’s the offshore industry.”

According to Sullivan, we are witnessing “the largest transfer of wealth from poor countries to the rich countries since the Conquistadores” and that is why the revelations in the Panama Papers are predominately centred around businesses based in the developing world.

With an estimated $300 billion dollars moving from the developing to developed world each year worldwide, the knock on effect of this massive transfer of wealth is not only to bankrupt these source countries but also create a huge discrepancy between the amount of money sent back in aid versus the amount of capital taken out of the country.

“It is a bit like bailing out a sinking boat with a teaspoon,” said Sullivan and “you are going to end up with some really poor countries that are really unstable, which in turn creates a very dangerous world and an unstable nightmare that is going to blow up and some point in our faces.”

For Balint-Kurit,while many of the companies involved in these operations are based in London or listed on the London stock exchange, the legal and financial systems that support them, coupled with “a lack of curiosity from investors and completely moronic arguments from the powers-that-be” have made holding those responsible to account almost impossible.

“There is supposed to be the principle of open justice in this country but now we are seeing it privatised.”

Daria Kaleniuk: "In Ukraine we can't get our stolen assets back or even tell our #anticorruption story b/c of operation of UK legal system."

— Chido Dunn (@chidodunn) May 11, 2016

What is required, said Balint-Kurit, “is a cast iron rule that corporate structures need to be transparent from the very top,” revealing who their investors are down to the private contractors they employ.

The major problem with the system, said Holly Watt from the Guardian, “is that it is deliberately very complicated and this why the issue of transparency is so important” so that in the end it will be the commercial advantage to outing these transactions that forces big accountancy firms to “turn game keeper”.

Another problem, said Sullivan, is that as well as being woefully underfunded and understaffed, law enforcement is national while crime is international.

“In the wild there’s no natural predator to these groups and the consequence is that they continue to thrive.”

There is also an assumption that these problems are not inter-connected and can be addressed in degrees at a local level, but if there was one thing the Panama Papers proved said Sullivan, was that in a global world, “other people’s crime is our problem”.

In April 2016, the OCCRP also had a hand in one of the largest leaks in journalistic history – the Panama Papers – which revealed the secretive offshore companies used by politicians, oligarchs, criminals and sportspeople to hide their wealth, evade taxes and commit fraud. The documents, obtained from offshore services provider Mossack Fonseca, again demonstrated that corruption and financial crime are widespread and systematic, and infiltrate governments, corporations and civil services – with the UK as no exception. Their prevalence is bolstered by an ability to operate with ease across many frontiers, and transparency remains their natural enemy.

On the eve of a Downing Street summit aiming to challenge cross-border organised crime and corruption, we will be joined by OCCRP co-founder and editor Drew Sullivan and others to discuss how best to report on – and combat – transnational organised crime and corruption, with a particular focus on the London link and recent Panama Papers leaks. We will be asking what the role of transparency and government data is in combating corruption, and what role journalism can play in preventing its occurrence and bringing those accountable to justice.

This event will be moderated by award-winning journalist Oliver Bullough – author of two books about Russian history and politics: The Last Man in Russia and Let Our Fame be Great; and expert guide for the Kleptocracy Tours initiative, which exposes money laundering via property in London.

The panel:

Daniel Balint-Kurti is a journalist and campaign leader of the Special Investigations team at Global Witness. He focuses on anti-corruption issues in Africa and has been at Global Witness since 2010, before which he worked on The Times foreign desk and as an Associate Fellow of Chatham House. He was based as a reporter in central and western Africa for seven years, from 1999 to 2006. At Global Witness he has investigated corruption scandals involving large Western companies in several African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea.

Meirion Jones is an investigative journalist and producer, and former head of investigations at BBC Newsnight. He won the London Press Awards Scoop of the Year prize for his part in the investigation on Jimmy Savile. He also received the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Daniel Pearl Award for his investigation into the dumping of Trafigura’s toxic waste in Africa. Meirion has conducted detailed investigations on vulture fund operations that diverted debt relief from some of the world’s poorest countries.

Drew Sullivan is co-founder and editor of OCCRP. His work has been awarded the Daniel Pearl Award, the Online Journalism Award for investigative reporting, the Global Shining Light Award for reporting under duress, the Tom Renner award for Crime Reporting and many other international awards. He worked as an investigative reporter for the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville and for the Special Assignment Team of the Associated Press in New York. He has also served on the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting.

Holly Watt has been on the investigations team at the Guardian for just over a year, spending the last eight months working on the Panama Papers. She previously worked at The Sunday Times and The Telegraph. She’s been nominated for Scoop of the Year at the Press Awards six times, and has received nominations for news reporter of the year and political journalist of the year. Holly was the Laurence Stern Fellow in 2008 and has reported from all over the world, including Afghanistan and Libya.

What do a dead poet, organised crime and the air we breathe have in common?
On Thursday 21 November the Frontline Club screened The Carbon Crooks – director Tom Heinemann’s exposé of the massive fraud and failures within global carbon trading schemes.

Heinemann introduced his picture thus:

“This film is a about a system where, one could say everybody are crooks, or nobody are crooks. . . . How can you nail a whole system? That was the challenge in this film. Maybe you’ll find a lot of crooks in this film, or maybe you’ll find no crooks.”

Director Tom Heinemann. Photography Credit: George Symonds

The first question from the audience asked: “The VAT carousel has been known for 20 years. How is it possible that they didn’t think of it for emissions trading?”

“That’s a very good question,” said Heinemann, “that the EU Commission didn’t want to answer me either. . . . I don’t know who designed the system, but I’m sure someone has some red ears, somewhere. It took them way too long to stop this. Way too long.”

“Are we going to move away from market-based mechanisms?” followed another audience member.

“Well, I’m a journalist. I ask questions, I don’t give the answers,” began Heinemann. “But, my impression is that . . . the politicians today say, ‘We can’t do it better so we’ll pick the second or third best system.’ What can we do about this? I don’t know. Kevin Anderson, the advisor for the British government on climate issues has stopped flying. He has said, ‘I’ve used my credits.’”

https://twitter.com/CCESltd/statuses/403805857760428032

In response to a question on police investigations Heinemann explained:

“The real problem here is that most of the scam money came from organised crime. We have drug dealers, terrorist funders – the scum of the earth – have laundered money into these VAT carousels. There are a lot of investigations going on . . . there are employees of Deutsche Bank still accused of laundering carbon credit money.”

On why the authorities refuse to answer where the missing – traceable – credits have gone:

“Why don’t they tell us? Maybe it’s too embarrassing,” offered Heinemann. “Maybe it would reveal that these credits have been in so many ‘honest hands.’ . . .  You heard the Director of Europol, Rob Wainwright, saying it’s easier to hack into a carbon credit registry than stealing a car. I mean, that’s really trustworthy isn’t it? These questions need to be asked by people other than me, because there are a lot of people who don’t want to talk to me any more.”

Heinemann then expanded on the connection between carbon trading and international development:

“Gold Standard admits to us that half of their projects – about 60 – throughout the world are based on a system called ‘suppressed demand’. Meaning, you ask the poor people, ‘If I brought in a money tree, and you pluck it every day, would you then change your behaviour?’ . . . It’s not a big part of the system but a very important story. Because it was created by a lot of NGOs, based on a mathematical economic theory where the Danish professor says, ‘In the old days we had the vicar, we could go and get redemption. Today we have a long mathematical formula.’ So it fits!”

Heinemann concluded with his forecast for future carbon control:

“The head of communication for DONG Energy, a 80% state-owned Danish energy company, admits it has never been cheaper to pollute than today. It is cheaper than ever. Then there’s something wrong with the system. . . . The problem is that the market cannot reduce carbon emissions, apparently.”

More information about the film can be found at The Carbon Crooks website.

Despite the constant threat, she continues to work tirelessly to investigate armed conflict, drug trafficking, organised crime and issues around women and violence. Currently working for the national newspaper El Tiempo, in 2012 she was one of 10 women awarded the International Women of Courage Award and in October this year she was named as one of the 100 most influential journalists covering armed violence and conflict around the world, by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).

We are honoured to welcome Jineth Bedoya Lima to the Frontline Club, she will be talking to Ed Vulliamy, a writer for The Guardian and Observer, about her prolific career as a journalist in Colombia, the work she does on conflict-related sexual violence and the ongoing peace process.

“Only superhumans could be as good as them.” On Monday 8 July, the Frontline Club screened SMASH & GRAB: The Story of the Pink Panthers. With unprecedented access to the most successful diamond thieves in history, director Havana Marking took viewers on a candid journey into the minds of the Pink Panthers.

“What was in it for them?” This was one of the first questions from the audience, who wanted to know why such a secretive group – still on the run from Interpol – agreed to be interviewed.

Marking explained:

“In terms of why they did it I think each person had a different reason. Ego definitely played a part. Being the best at anything, you want recognition for that. … What I realised from Mike and Leila is that these are huge parts of their lives that they aren’t able to talk about. And actually, sitting down for two days talking to someone completely focused on them is in fact incredibly cathartic.”

Following on, the audience asked if there were any direct consequences because of the film.

“I don’t think so,” replied Marking. “You realise that actually, people know who everyone is anyway. It’s whether you’ve got the evidence to do them for it, whether you can actually prove that they did it via fingerprint or whatever you need for court. So I don’t think I know any more than Interpol knows.”

The film set the context of the Pink Panthers’ formation in the chaos of the Yugoslav Wars. An audience member asked if there was a direct correlation.

“Maybe they would have done it anyway, and it’s a convenient excuse,” responded Marking. “But there’s no doubt that sanctions at that time had a huge effect. People love sanctions because it’s a non-violent response to something, but in the long run it’s very interesting to see the effects they have, and are probably having all over the world. In Serbia and Montenegro, just the geography meant the sanctions were catastrophic on the economy.”

The Pink Panthers’ network is integral to the monetising of their stolen goods. An audience member asked if diamonds are stolen to order, or if there is an open market.

“Before you do a robbery you know who is going to buy it.” According to Marking, “Anyone, really, can do a smash and grab. It’s not difficult. You just need to be incredibly.. you need to be like that [the Pink Panthers]. What’s really difficult is what you do with diamonds worth 50 grand. How do you sell it in a market which is supposed to be very controlled? That’s where the Panther network is genius, and that’s why they’ve survived so long. Because they’ve got those networks and those networks have been developed since the conflict era.”

In the audience was the Croatian actor and musician Tomislav Benzon, who played the Pinker Panther member Mike for the animation scenes. He shared an anecdote about happening to return from Dubai at the same time as the Wafi City robbery:

“They questioned me at Heathrow for 8 hours … they kept my passport for two weeks. I thought this was to do with immigration, but when I saw the film, I realised they were probably following me for two weeks. I was an innocent musician, not a Pink Panther, which I later on became involved with!”

Saw ace doc @SmashandGrabDoc at @frontlineclub earlier about 'The Pink Panthers' – the world's best diamond thieves. Great director Q&A too.

— Gavin May (@gavinmay) July 8, 2013

A final question from an audience member asked, “Did you think you’d be romanticising them, what were you moral feelings about that?”

In Marking’s experience: “That has been more of an issue in other countries, the Brits don’t seem to mind that so much! I think a Hollywood heist film, a Hollywood diamond thief film romanticises completely. The George Clooney, Oceans Eleven type thief. And then in documentary you seem under incredible pressure just to make them out as complete demons and you have to have the moral high ground.”

In conclusion Marking further elaborated:

“What I wanted to do was to get to the truth, which was really down the middle. That crime can pay, that it is quite exciting, there is action and adrenaline in these things; but I hope by the end you realise that a) they’re damaged people and b) it’s not just a disconnected group who aren’t hurting anyone, which is how they sell themselves. Actually, they’re connected to much deeper and darker forces. They’re connected to the whole diamond trade, which is connected to blood diamonds, they’re connected to smuggling routes and the people who do the smuggling, they’re also connected to sex trafficking and cocaine smuggling. It’s dark, and I hope that comes through by the end.”

(c) Roast Beef Productions

In the words of Pink Panther member Mike:

“There’s no panic when you do the job, the panic begins when you run. … This is the consequence of this job, paranoia.”

Smash & Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers was produced by Roast Beef Productions. Like their Facebook page to find out more about upcoming screenings.

View in iTunes

The Japan we know from films and TV is one of tradition, high technology and pop culture. But as with every nation, something more sinister lies beneath the bright lights of Sony and Nintendo.

Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice, a memoir of his time as an investigative crime reporter in Tokyo, is the only American reporter to be admitted to the Tokyo Metropolitan Press Club and writes of a country that where organised Yakuza crime gangs are rampant.

But is this the real Japan? With an expert panel including Jake Adelstein, Peter Hill author of The Japanese Mafia: Yakuza, Law, and the State and Satoshi Hashimoto, bureau chief & European editor Asahi Shimbun (Japanese daily newspaper) we’ll investigate the problem of organised crime in Japan and cast a light on the media’s reporting of it.

Chaired by William Horsley, BBC Tokyo correspondent from 1983-1990.

Pic credit: Colodio