The Auckland City Mission The sweets were included in food parcels distributed by anti-poverty charity Aukland City Mission Police in New Zealand are racing to trace sweets containing "potentially lethal levels of methamphetamine" after they were distributed by a charity in Auckland. Up to 400 people may have received the sweets from Auckland City Mission as part of a food parcel, said the anti-poverty charity. The sweets were donated anonymously by a member of the public in a sealed retail package, it added. At least three people, including a child, sought medical attention afterwards though none are currently in hospital. "We did not know that the lollies contained methamphetamine when they were distributed," the charity's spokesperson told the BBC. Each individual sweet could have a street value of around NZ$1,000 ($601; £468), according to the New Zealand Drug Foundation. Police say while the incident could be accidental rather than a targeted operation, they had not drawn any conclusions as it is “a bit early to say”. The charity alerted the authorities on Tuesday after being alerted by a recipient about the "funny tasting" sweets. Helen Robinson, chief executive of Auckland City Mission, said that some of the charity's staff members tried the sweets themselves and agreed with the complaints, and started to "feel funny" afterwards. They then sent sweets that were still on site to the NZ Drug Foundation for tests, which confirmed that potentially lethal levels of methamphetamine were contained in the samples. In a statement, the foundation said they found about 3g of methamphetamine in a sweet that was sent for testing. “A common dose to swallow is between 10-25mg, so this contaminated lolly contained up to 300 doses,” says its head Sarah Helm, adding that swallowing such amount of the drug is "extremely dangerous and could result in death". Methamphetamine can cause chest pain, racing heart, seizures, hyperthermia, delirium and loss of consciousness, according to the foundation. According to Ms Robinson, the mission distributes around 50,000 food parcels a year and only commercially manufactured food are included in these parcels. New Zealand Drug Foundation Each of the meth-laced sweets could have possibly been worth NZ$1,000 ($601; £468) Police have asked people that have sweets wrapped in brand Rinda's yellow pineapple flavour packaging to contact them immediately. "It's vital the public are aware of these lollies and the hazard that they present," Detective Inspector Glenn Baldwin said in a press conference on Wednesday. Describing it as a "deeply concerning" matter, he said that such cases of food laced with meth had happened before and they would likely work with Interpol on the investigation, which may take some time. Rinda, a Malaysian confectioner, told BBC News that it has come to their attention that their products may have been misused in connection with illegal substances and the company "does not use or condone the use of any illegal drugs" in their products. "We will work closely with law enforcement and relevant authorities to address this issue and protect the integrity of our brand," the firm said in a statement. Steven Peh, the general manager of Rinda, told local news site Stuff NZ that the contaminated candy he had seen in photos was white, whereas Rinda’s product is yellow. The authorities are still trying to understand the scale of the spread. 16 packets have been recovered so far – police say each packet could possibly contain 20 – 30 sweets but they don’t know the exact number in the 16 packets. Up to 400 people have been contacted by the charity. Ms Robinson said the sweets likely came into the charity's posession in about mid-July, but that they are calling everyone as far back as 1 July to be safe. Ben Birks Ang, deputy director of the NZ Drug Foundation, said the organisation believes the incident was unlikely to be intentional as "disclosing substances as something else to smuggle it into another area is common". But there are still fears that other charities could be affected. Ms Robinson said she had contacted other charities to check for their sweets. "To say we are devastated is an absolute understatement," she told the press, adding that one in five in New Zealand experience food insecurity, which makes the incident “deeply distressing”. _Additional reporting by Peter Hoskins from Singapore_

BBC **In January 2015, Abdullah, the 90-year-old king of Saudi Arabia, was dying in hospital. His half-brother, Salman, was about to become king – and Salman’s favourite son, Mohammed bin Salman, was preparing for power.** The prince, known simply by his initials MBS and then just 29 years old, had big plans for his kingdom, the biggest plans in its history; but he feared that plotters within his own Saudi royal family could eventually move against him. So at midnight one evening that month, he summoned a senior security official to the palace, determined to win his loyalty. The official, Saad al-Jabri, was told to leave his mobile phone on a table outside. MBS did the same. The two men were now alone. The young prince was so fearful of palace spies that he pulled the socket out of the wall, disconnecting the only landline telephone. According to Jabri, MBS then talked about how he would wake his kingdom up from its deep slumber, allowing it to take its rightful place on the global stage. By selling a stake in the state oil producer Aramco, the world’s most profitable company, he would begin to wean his economy off its dependency on oil. He would invest billions in Silicon Valley tech startups including the taxi firm, Uber. Then, by giving Saudi women the freedom to join the workforce, he would create six million new jobs. Astonished, Jabri asked the prince about the extent of his ambition. “Have you heard of Alexander the Great?” came the simple reply. MBS ended the conversation there. A midnight meeting that was scheduled to last half-an-hour had gone on for three. Jabri left the room to find several missed calls on his mobile from government colleagues worried about his long disappearance.   For the past year, our documentary team has been talking to both Saudi friends and opponents of MBS, as well as senior Western spies and diplomats. The Saudi government was given the opportunity to respond to the claims made in the BBC’s films and in this article. They chose not to do so. Saad al-Jabri was so high up in the Saudi security apparatus that he was friends with the heads of the CIA and MI6. While the Saudi government has called Jabri a discredited former official, he’s also [the most well-informed Saudi dissident](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-52790864) to have dared speak about how the crown prince rules Saudi Arabia – and the rare interview he has given us is astonishing in its detail. By gaining access to many who know the prince personally, we shed new light on the events that have made MBS notorious – including [the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45812399) and the launch of [a devastating war in Yemen](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29319423). With his father increasingly frail, the 38-year-old MBS is now de facto in charge of the birthplace of Islam and the world’s biggest exporter of oil. He’s begun to carry out many of the groundbreaking plans he described to Saad al-Jabri – while also being accused of human rights violations including the suppression of free speech, widespread use of the death penalty and jailing of women's rights activists. An inauspicious start --------------------- The first king of Saudi Arabia fathered at least 42 sons, including MBS’s father, Salman. The crown has traditionally been passed down between these sons. It was when two of them suddenly died in 2011 and 2012 that Salman was elevated into the line of succession. Western spy agencies make it their business to study the Saudi equivalent of Kremlinology – working out who will be the next king. At this stage, MBS was so young and unknown that he wasn’t even on their radar. “He grew up in relative obscurity,” says Sir John Sawers, chief of MI6 until 2014. “He wasn’t earmarked to rise to power.” Getty Images Mohammed bin Salman always felt the need to prove himself among his fellow Saudi royals, according to a former UK offical The crown prince also grew up in a palace in which [bad behaviour had few, if any, consequences](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-46437631); and that may help explain his notorious habit of not thinking through the impact of his decisions until he had already made them. MBS first achieved notoriety in Riyadh in his late teens, when he was nicknamed “Abu Rasasa” or “Father of the Bullet”, after allegedly sending a bullet in the post to a judge who had overruled him in a property dispute. “He has had a certain ruthlessness,” observes Sir John Sawers. “He doesn’t like to be crossed. But that also means he’s been able to drive through changes that no other Saudi leader has been able to do.” Among the most welcome changes, the former MI6 chief says, has been cutting off Saudi funding to overseas mosques and religious schools that became breeding grounds for Islamist jihadism – at huge benefit to the safety of the West. MBS’s mother, Fahda, is a Bedouin tribeswoman and seen as the favourite of his father’s four wives. Western diplomats believe the king has suffered for many years from [a slow-onset form of vascular dementia](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35370801); and MBS was the son he turned to for help. Several diplomats recalled for us their meetings with MBS and his father. The prince would write notes on an iPad, then send them to his father’s iPad, as a way of prompting what he would say next. “Inevitably I wondered whether MBS was typing out his lines for him,” recalls Lord Kim Darroch, National Security Adviser to David Cameron when he was British prime minister. The prince was apparently so impatient for his father to become king that in 2014, he reportedly suggested [killing the then-monarch](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-59032931) – Abdullah, his uncle – with a poisoned ring, obtained from Russia. “I don’t know for sure if he was just bragging, but we took it seriously,” says Jabri. The former senior security official says he has seen a secretly recorded surveillance video of MBS talking about the idea. “He was banned from court, from shaking hands with the king, for a considerable amount of time.” In the event, the king died of natural causes, allowing his brother, Salman, to assume the throne in 2015. MBS was appointed Defence Minister and lost no time in going to war. War in Yemen ------------ Two months later, the prince led a Gulf coalition into war against the Houthi movement, which had seized control of much of western Yemen and which he saw as a proxy of Saudi Arabia’s regional rival Iran. It triggered a humanitarian disaster, with millions on the brink of famine. “It wasn’t a clever decision,” says Sir John Jenkins, who was British ambassador just before the war began. “One senior American military commander told me they had been given 12 hours’ notice of the campaign, which is unheard of.” The military campaign helped turn a little-known prince into a Saudi national hero. However, it was also the first of what even his friends believe have been several major mistakes. A recurring pattern of behaviour was emerging: MBS’s tendency to jettison the traditionally slow and collegiate system of Saudi decision-making, preferring to act unpredictably or upon impulse; and refusing to kowtow to the US, or be treated as head of a backward client state. Jabri goes much further, accusing MBS of forging his father the king’s signature on a royal decree committing ground troops. Jabri says he discussed the Yemen war in the White House before it started; and that Susan Rice, President Obama’s National Security Advisor, warned him that the US would only support an air campaign. However, Jabri claims MBS was so determined to press ahead in Yemen that he ignored the Americans. “We were surprised that there was a royal decree to allow the ground interventions,” Jabri says. “He forged the signature of his dad for that royal decree. The king’s mental capacity was deteriorating.” Jabri says his source for this allegation was “credible, reliable” and linked to the Ministry of Interior where he was chief of staff. Jabri recalls the CIA station chief in Riyadh telling him how angry he was that MBS had ignored the Americans, adding that the invasion of Yemen should never have happened. The former MI6 chief Sir John Sawers says that while he doesn’t know if MBS forged the documents, “it is clear that this was MBS’s decision to intervene militarily in Yemen. It wasn’t his father’s decision, although his father was carried along with it.” We’ve discovered that MBS saw himself as an outsider from the very beginning - a young man with much to prove and a refusal to obey anybody’s rules other than his own. Kirsten Fontenrose, who served on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, says that when she read the CIA’s in-house psychological profile of the prince, she felt it missed the point. “There were no prototypes to base him on,” she says. “He has had unlimited resources. He has never been told ‘no’. He is the first young leader to reflect a generation that, frankly, most of us in government are too old to understand.” Making his own rules -------------------- MBS’s purchase of a famous painting in 2017 tells us much about how he thinks, and his willingness to be a risk-taker, unafraid to be out of step with the religiously conservative society that he governs. And above all, determined to outplay the West in conspicuous displays of power. In 2017, a Saudi prince [reportedly acting for MBS](https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabias-crown-prince-identified-as-buyer-of-record-breaking-da-vinci-1512674099) spent $450m (£350m) on the Salvator Mundi, which remains the world’s [most expensive work of art ever sold](https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210819-where-is-the-worlds-most-expensive-painting). The portrait, reputed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci, depicts Jesus Christ as master of heaven and Earth, the saviour of the world. For almost seven years, ever since the auction, it has [completely disappeared](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/11/arts/design/salvator-mundi-louvre-leonardo.html). Getty Images Whether the Salvator Mundi, a 500-year-old painting of Christ, was painted by Leonardo da Vinci is contested Bernard Haykel, a friend of the crown prince and Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, says that despite rumours that it hangs in the prince's yacht or palace, the painting is actually in storage in Geneva and that MBS intends to hang it in a museum in the Saudi capital that has not yet been built. “I want to build a very large museum in Riyadh,” Haykel quotes MBS as saying. “And I want an anchor object that will attract people, just like the Mona Lisa does.” Similarly, his plans for sport reflect someone who is both hugely ambitious and unafraid to disrupt the status quo. Saudi Arabia’s incredible spending spree on world-class sport – it is the [sole bidder](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/68449959) to host the FIFA World Cup in 2034, and has made multimillion-dollar investments in staging tournaments for [tennis](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/68732673) and [golf](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/61732801) – has been called “sportswashing”. But what we found is a leader who cares less about what the West thinks of him than he does about demonstrating the opposite: that he will do whatever he wants in the name of making himself and Saudi Arabia great. “MBS is interested in building his own power as a leader,” says Sir John Sawers, the former Chief of MI6, who has met him. “And the only way he can do that is by building his country’s power. That’s what’s driving him.” Jabri’s 40-year career as a Saudi official did not survive MBS’s consolidation of power. Chief of staff for the former Crown Prince Muhammed bin Nayef, he fled the kingdom as MBS was taking over, after being tipped off by a foreign intelligence service that he could be in danger. But Jabri says MBS texted him out of the blue, offering him his old job back. “It was bait – and I didn’t bite,” Jabri says, convinced he would have been tortured, imprisoned or killed if he returned. As it was, his teenage children, Omar and Sarah, were detained and later jailed for money laundering and for trying to escape – charges that they deny. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has [called for their release](https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-calls-saudi-arabia-free-relatives-former-spy-chief-2022-06-10/). “He planned for my assassination,” Jabri says. “He will not rest until he sees me dead, I have no doubt about that.” Saudi officials have issued Interpol notices for Jabri’s extradition from Canada, without success. They claim he is wanted for corruption involving billions of dollars during his time at the interior ministry. However, he was given the rank of major-general and credited by the CIA and MI6 with [helping to prevent al-Qaeda terrorist attacks](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-52790864). Khashoggi’s killing ------------------- The killing of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018 implicates MBS in ways that are very hard to refute. The 15-strong hit squad was travelling on diplomatic passports and included several of MBS’s own bodyguards. Khashoggi’s body has never been found and is believed to have been hacked into pieces with a bone saw. Professor Haykel exchanged WhatsApp messages with MBS not long after the murder. “I was asking, ‘how could this happen?’,” Haykel recalls. “I think he was in deep shock. He didn’t realise the reaction to this was going to be as deep.” Dennis Ross met MBS shortly afterwards. “He said he didn’t do it and that it was a colossal blunder,” says Ross. “I certainly wanted to believe him, because I couldn’t believe that he could authorise something \[like\] that.” Reuters Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi had criticised the policies of MBS MBS has always denied knowledge of the plot, although in 2019 he [said he took “responsibility"](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/mohammed-bin-salman-speaks-about-role-khashoggis-murder-first-time/) because the crime happened on his watch. A [declassified US intelligence repor](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56213528)t released in February 2021 asserted that he was complicit in the killing of Khashoggi. I asked those who know MBS personally whether he had learned from his mistakes; or whether having survived the Khashoggi affair, it had in fact emboldened him. “He’s learned lessons the hard way,” says Professor Haykel, who says MBS resents the case being used as cudgel against him and his country, but that a killing like Khashoggi’s would not happen again. Sir John Sawers cautiously agrees that the murder was a turning point. “I think he has learned some lessons. The personality, though, remains the same.” His father, King Salman, is now aged 88. When he dies, MBS could rule Saudi Arabia for the next 50 years. However, he has recently admitted he fears being assassinated, possibly as a consequence of his attempts to normalise Saudi-Israeli ties. “I think there are lots of people who want to kill him,” says Professor Haykel, “and he knows it.” Eternal vigilance is what keeps a man like MBS safe. It was what Saad al-Jabri observed at the beginning of the prince’s rise to power, when he pulled the telephone socket out of the wall before speaking to him in his palace. MBS is still a man on a mission to modernise his country, in ways his predecessors would never have dared. But he’s also not the first autocrat who runs the risk of being so ruthless that nobody around him dares prevent him from making more mistakes. _Jonathan Rugman is consultant producer on The Kingdom: The world’s most powerful prince_ _Top picture: Getty Images_ [_BBC InDepth_](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/bbcindepth) _is the new home on the website and app for the best analysis and expertise from our top journalists. Under a distinctive new brand, we’ll bring you fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions, and deep reporting on the biggest issues to help you make sense of a complex world. And we’ll be showcasing thought-provoking content from across BBC Sounds and iPlayer too. We’re starting small but thinking big, and we want to know what you think - you can send us your feedback by clicking on the button below._

ENRIQUE GARCIA MEDINA/AFP Leonardo Bertulazzi (R) was originally arrested in 2002 but then released (file pic) Police in Buenos Aires have arrested a man wanted in Italy for decades for a kidnapping carried out by the far-left militant group the Red Brigades. Leonardo Bertulazzi, who for years had refugee status in Argentina, is facing a 27-year prison sentence in Italy after almost 44 years on the run. Now aged 72, Bertulazzi was sentenced in absentia in Italy in the 1970s for kidnapping Pietro Costa, a naval engineer from a wealthy ship-owning family in Genoa. He was first arrested by Buenos Aires police in 2002, after reportedly entering the country from Chile on a false passport, but he was released a few months later and his extradition was blocked. Gianni GIANSANTI/Gamma-Rapho The body of Red Brigades victim Aldo Moro was found in the back of a car in Rome in 1978 - one of the group's most notorious crimes Leonardo Bertulazzi was given refugee status two years later but that was revoked when Argentina's right-wing president, Javier Milei, came to power. "Bertulazzi is responsible for crimes that undermined democratic values and the lives of many victims," said a statement from the government in Buenos Aires. The Red Brigades was a Marxist guerrilla group that kidnapped and killed a number of state officials in the 1970s and '80s, including a former prime minister, Aldo Moro. That period of political violence became known as "Years of Lead" because of the string of far-left and far-right crimes. Bertulazzi had been part of the Red Brigades' Genoa section that kidnapped Pietro Costa on the street and then held him for 81 days before receiving a big ransom. The money it received from the kidnapping was then used to buy a flat in Rome which was used in 1978 for the Red Brigades' most notorious crime, the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro. Moro was abducted when his car was ambushed on the way to the opening of parliament. He was held in the flat for 54 days before he was shot and his body abandoned in the boot of a Renault car in the centre of Rome. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni praised the authorities in Buenos Aires for arresting Bertulazzi, adding that his detention was made possible by "intense and fruitful collaboration" involving authorities in both countries as well as by Interpol. Bertulazzi's lawyers have appealed to Argentina's national commission for refugees (Conare) to prevent his extradition. Italian attempts to have other former members of the Red Brigades extradited from France have failed in the courts.

BBC Paul Watson insists he has done nothing wrong **A court in Greenland has ruled that anti-whaling activist Paul Watson must remain in custody pending a decision to extradite him to Japan.** The veteran campaigner, who has featured in the reality television show “Whale Wars”, was apprehended by police in July as his ship docked in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk. They were acting on a 2012 Japanese warrant which accuses him of causing damage to a Japanese whaling ship, obstructing business and injuring a crew member during an encounter in Antarctic waters in February 2010. Officials in Japan argue that whaling and eating whale meat is part of the country’s culture and way of life. However, it has been heavily criticised by conservation groups. Dressed in jeans and a white shirt, Mr Watson sat beside his defence lawyers and listened to proceedings through an interpreter as several of his supporters looked on. “This is about revenge for a television show that extremely embarrassed Japan in the eyes of the world,” he told the small courtroom. “What happened in the Southern Ocean is documented by hundreds of hours of video,” Mr Watson said. “I think a review of all the video and of all the documentation will exonerate me from the accusations.” However the prosecution argued that the defendant was a flight risk, and the judge concluded he should remain in custody until 2 October. Paul Watson is the former head of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which he left in 2022 to set up the Captain Paul Watson Foundation. He was also a founding member of Greenpeace, but they parted ways in 1977, amid disagreements over his radical tactics. The 73-year old Canadian-American campaigner has been a controversial figure known for confrontations with whaling vessels at sea. Mr Watson’s vessel, called the M/Y John Paul DeJoria, had been heading to the North Pacific with a crew of 26 volunteers on board, in a bid to intercept a new Japanese whaling ship when it docked to refuel in Nuuk on 21 July. He was arrested and led away in handcuffs, and has been held at the local prison for the last seven weeks. His defence team have appealed against the decision to keep him in custody before Greenland’s High Court. Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark and, although the court in Nuuk is overseeing the custody hearings, the decision about Mr Watson’s extradition lies with Danish authorities in Copenhagen. Last month, Japan asked Denmark to hand Paul Watson over, even though there is no extradition treaty between the two countries. Police in Nuuk are carrying out an investigation before handing their findings to Denmark’s ministry of justice and a decision could be expected within the next few weeks. “It’s a serious case, and it has to have some serious consideration. It has a deep impact on Mr Watson if we get to the point that he has to be extradited. So I will take the time needed to do it properly,” Greenland chief prosecutor Mariam Khalil told the BBC. At the defence’s request, the judge granted permission for a video clip to be played, which appeared to show a zodiac-type speedboat sailing alongside a Japanese ship and firing a stink bomb. However, Mr Watson's lawyers say a second video clip, which was not shown, proves no-one was on deck at the time. “We have video footage of a stink bomb being shot on to the ship, and the position that the Japanese claim the sailor should be in, he simply isn't there,” Jonas Christoffersen told BBC. “There’s no evidential basis for the allegation that somebody got got injured.” Lyon-based international police body Interpol has confirmed the existence of an outstanding red notice for the arrest of Mr Watson. In 2012, Paul Watson was also detained in Germany, but left the country after learning that he was sought for extradition by Japan. Masashi Mizobuchi, assistant press secretary for the Japanese ministry of foreign affairs, told the BBC that Japan had not yet received any response from the Danish authorities. “We will continue to take appropriate measures, including necessary outreach to the relevant countries and organisations,” Mr Mizobuchi said. Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission and resumed commercial whaling in 2019, after a 30-year hiatus. However, it had continued whaling for what it said were research purposes. French President Emmanuel Macron's office has asked Denmark not to extradite Paul Watson, and there has been vocal support from legendary actress turned animals rights activist Brigitte Bardot. Meanwhile a petition calling for Mr Watson’s release has surpassed 120,000 signatures.

A man has been arrested in Italy over the 1977 murders of two women, Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett, who were found dead in their [Melbourne](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/melbourne) home on Easey Street, Collingwood. A 65-year-old man, a Greek-Australian dual citizen, was arrested at a Rome airport on Thursday evening, Australian eastern time. Victoria police will seek an extradition order for his return to Melbourne. Armstrong and Bartlett were killed in January 1977 in their rented Collingwood terrace house while Armstrong’s 16-month-old toddler slept in another room. The women’s bodies were found in the house on 13 January, three days after they had last been seen alive, with the child distressed and dehydrated but otherwise unhurt. * [Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email](https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=copyembed) Both Armstrong, 27, and Susan, 28, had been stabbed multiple times, police said. The Easey Street murders, as they became known, was one of Melbourne’s most high-profile cold cases, remaining unsolved for decades. The case was the subject of a number of books and podcasts. In 2017, a $1m reward was offered for anyone who had new information that might lead to the arrest and conviction of people responsible. The chief commissioner, Shane Patton, on Saturday described the case as “an absolutely gruesome, horrific, frenzied homicide”. Police had been looking for years for the arrested man, having identified him as a person of interest, Patton said. Due to Greece’s 20-year statute bar on initiation of murder charges and the time that had elapsed before there was sufficient evidence to bring them, the man could not be charged while he was in Greece. An Interpol red notice was issued for him instead, and Italian authorities acted on that when taking him into custody at Leonardo Da Vinci Airport in Rome. While the investigation is ongoing, Patton said that the arrest of the man was “an important breakthrough”. “For over 47 years, detectives from the homicide squad have worked tirelessly to determine who was responsible for the deaths of Suzanne Armstrong and Susan Bartlett,” Patton said. “An enormous amount of work has been done by many, many people to bring us to the position we are in today … This was a crime that struck at the heart of our community – two women in their own home, where they should have felt their safest.” Patton also recognised “the enduring resilience of both the Armstrong and Bartlett families, who have grieved for over four decades and no doubt this will be a very emotional time for them”. Patton said the timeline for extradition would depend on the Italian authorities, but that he expected it would be at least a month before police would travel to [Italy](https://www.theguardian.com/world/italy) to give evidence to justify the extradition. The families of Armstrong and Bartlett requested privacy in a joint statement on Saturday afternoon. “For two quiet families from country Victoria it has always been impossible to comprehend the needless and violent manner in which Suzanne and Susan died. The gravity of the circumstances surrounding their deaths changed our lives irrevocably,” the statement said. “We will be forever grateful for the support and understanding shown to us by our friends and family over the past 47 years. It is difficult to sufficiently express our appreciation to Victoria police and the many investigators who have tirelessly pursued answers and justice for us over such a long period of time. “The perseverance and dedication required to achieve the result today is something to truly behold. For always giving us hope and never giving up, we simply say, thank you.”

Immigration officers in Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali have arrested a Chinese suspect sought by Beijing for helping run over $14 billion investment scam to clients in China JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesia's immigration officers on the tourist island of Bali have arrested a Chinese suspect sought by Beijing for helping run over $14 billion investment scam to clients in China, officials said Thursday. The 39-year-old man, identified only by his initial, LQ, was arrested on Oct. 1, when an immigration auto-gate in Bali’s Ngurah Rai international airport denied him departure for Singapore. The biometric data in the computer registry at the airport identified him as a suspect wanted by Beijing, which led to his arrest, according to Silmy Karim, the immigration chief at Indonesia’s law and human rights ministry. He had been listed on an Interpol warrant since late September. The suspect first arrived in Bali from Singapore with a Turkish passport as Joe Lin on Sept. 26, just a day before Interpol released a so-called Red Notice for him, a request to law enforcement agencies worldwide to detain or arrest a suspect wanted by a specific country. Indonesian authorities brought the suspect, wearing a detainee’s orange shirt and a facemask, before reporters to a news conference Thursday in the capital of Jakarta. The suspect did not make any statements and was not asked any questions. “He was wrong to use Indonesia as a transit country, let alone as a destination country to hide,” Karim said, lauding technological advances and cooperation between immigration and the national police. Krishna Murti, the chief of the international division of the National Police, said the decision to deport or to extradite the suspect to China will take some time. Indonesia needs to confirm whether he has truly become a Turkish citizen in the meantime or if he used a fake passport to enter Indonesia. “We have to respect the suspect’s rights,” Murti said, adding that the suspect has not committed any violations inside Indonesia. The man was named as a suspect by Beijing, which requested the Red Notice from Interpol, after he allegedly collected more than 100 billion Chinese Yuan ($14 billion) from more than 50,000 people in a Ponzi scheme. Indonesia, an archipelago nation on the crossroads between Asia and the South Pacific, is attractive to local, regional and global organized crime because of its geographical location and its multi-cultural society. Last month, Indonesia arrested [Alice Guo,](https://apnews.com/article/indonesia-philippines-fugitive-arrest-79b8a2a3d742aef31ab4ffe4c7d84dda) a fugitive former mayor of a town in the Philippine accused of having links to Chinese criminal syndicates. She has since been deported to the Philippines. In June, [Chaowalit Thongduang](https://apnews.com/article/indonesia-thailand-fugitive-arrest-deportation-2770db8beab9379641d9e1a5129b9988), one of Thailand’s most wanted fugitives was escorted back to Thailand on a Thai air force plane after being arrested in Bali following months on the run in connection with several killings and drug trafficking charges in his homeland.

Alex Maxia/BBC Police arrested a 13-year-old after shots were fired in this quiet area of Gothenburg last week The 13-year-old boy should have been in school last Thursday, instead of sitting in a police station in central Gothenburg. But police say he fired shots outside the offices of Israeli tech firm Elbit Systems. “He was basically caught in the act,” said police spokesman August Brandt, who said the shots were being investigated as an “attempted murder and weapons offence”. Kalleback on the outskirts of Gothenburg is a fairly sleepy residential neighbourhood with upmarket developments, a supermarket and a few offices. Nobody was hurt and little more is known about why a child might have opened fire on an otherwise quiet Thursday morning, outside an Israeli company that sells defence and homeland security solutions. But this was no isolated incident. In fact there have been several this year. Alex Maxia/BBC August Brandt of Swedish police said two officers were already at the scene when the shots were fired Earlier this month, Israel’s embassies were targeted both in Sweden and neighbouring Denmark. First there was a shooting outside the Israeli embassy in Stockholm, then two Swedish teenagers aged 16 and 19 were arrested in Copenhagen after hand grenades were detonated near the embassy there. Nobody was hurt, but Sweden's security service Sapo said immediately that Iran may have had a hand in both. Sapo head of operations Fredrik Hallstrom said Tehran’s involvement was an “objective hypothesis”. Reuters Two teenagers were detained after grenades went off outside Israel's Danish embassy earlier this month Months ago Sapo accused Iran of recruiting Swedish gang members to carry out attacks on Israeli or Jewish interests. Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the allegations as “unfounded and biased” and based on what it labelled misinformation emanating from Israel. Many of the suspects have been teenagers, and some as young as 13 and 14. “To understand why we see young Swedish teenagers attacking Israeli companies and embassies we need to first acknowledge that we have had an ongoing gang conflict here in Sweden for a long time,” says Diamant Salihu, an investigative crime journalist with Swedish public service television SVT. One of Sweden’s most violent criminal gangs, known as Foxtrot, has brought a wave of violence to the streets of Sweden, often involving teenagers tasked with criminal errands ranging from shooting at the door of a rival, to detonating explosives to contract killings. That spiralled in 2023 when Foxtrot gang leader Rawa Majid entered into a deadly feud with Ismail Abdo, a former friend who had become leader of a rival gang known as Rumba. When Abdo’s mother was murdered at her home in Uppsala, north of Stockholm, in September last year, it opened a darker, increasingly violent chapter in Sweden’s gang wars. A pair who were 15 and 19 at the time were found to have carried out the murder. Majid fled abroad facing an international arrest warrant, an Interpol red notice and a growing list of enemies. Born in Iran to Kurdish Iraqi parents, he had moved as a child to Sweden with his family. He left Sweden for Turkey in 2018 then moved to Iran last year. Israeli’s Mossad intelligence agency alleged that Majid had been working with Iran for months. It has blamed both his and Abdo’s gangs for the recent attacks. When counter-intelligence chief Daniel Stenling said Sapo “can now confirm that criminal networks in Sweden are proxies that Iran uses,” Iran summoned Sweden’s highest diplomat in Tehran in protest. Sweden has also sought the arrest of Majid’s rival, Ismail Abdo, who was arrested in Turkey last May but reportedly released on bail. Journalist Diamant Salihu says Tehran has sought to persuade the gang to “commit crimes for the regime,” although Abdo’s gang has denied involvement with Iran. While the gangs themselves may have been put under pressure by a foreign power, that cannot be the case for the teenagers who have become caught up in the wider Swedish problem of gang crime. An estimated 14,000 people in Sweden are caught up in criminal gangs, [according to a police report from this year](https://polisen.se/aktuellt/nyheter/nationell/2024/februari/totalt-62-000-bedoms-aktiva-eller-ha-koppling-till-kriminella-natverk/), and a further 48,000 people are said to be connected to them. ANDERS WIKLUND/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP Gang violence has claimed many innocent lives in Sweden in recent years “Today's 13- and 14-year-olds who commit these grotesque offences were three or four years old 10 years ago,” conservative Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a televised debate of party leaders on public TV last weekend. The debate turned into a blame game between the centre-right coalition currently in power and their predecessors on the centre left. Social Democrat former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson called for a “completely new approach” but Kristersson said “a very large extent of this is a problem linked to poor integration; and the integration problem is built on too high immigration”. A disproportionate amount of gang members are men from immigrant backgrounds, but this has shifted, to the extent that Diamant Salihu says young people and adults from ethnic Swedish backgrounds are increasingly becoming involved. Criminology specialist David Sausdal of Lund University, in the south of Sweden, says it has become increasingly difficult to monitor networks as they have become fragmented online, dragging people into a “gang gig-economy”. "The people involved in it are just hired guns, paid for services. They deliver a pizza or a hand grenade as good as they can. “They're not super talented at it, they’re not motivated by inner hate or conflict as such. They're just doing a job.” It is that kind of change in Swedish society that is worrying police and politicians alike. Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer has spoken of three parallel threats to Sweden’s security – terror, state actors and organised crime. But the latest gang attacks, in David Sausdal’s words, go against conventional understanding of what has previously driven serious crime.

Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature **Starmer** said the world needs to wake up to the severity of the threat posed by illegal migration. (See [9.13am](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?page=with:block-67287c5d8f0869c6d52e5acb#block-67287c5d8f0869c6d52e5acb).) And he says he would work with “anyone seriuos” to address the problem. > I will work with anyone serious who could offer solutions of this, anyone, because without coordinated global action, it will not go away. > > And unless we bring all the powers we have to bear on this in much the same way as we do for terrorism, then we will struggle to bring these criminals to justice. > > And that, in a sense, is my message here today; people smuggling should be viewed as a global security threat similar to terrorism. > > We’ve got to combine resources, share intelligence and tactics and tackle the problem upstream, working together to shut down the smuggling routes. We do that with terrorism. > > When I was the director of public prosecutions, it was my personal mission to smash the terrorist gangs, and we worked across borders to ensure the safety of citizens across Europe and across the world. > > Now, as the UK’s prime minister, it is my personal mission to smash the people smuggling gangs. Starmer said that the new government was adopting this approach. Instead of “gimmicks” and “gesture politics”, it was “approaching this issue with humanity and with profound respect for international law”. And it would not withdraw from the European convention on human rights, he said.  Keir Starmer speaking at the Interpol general assembly in Glasgow. Photograph: WPA/Getty Images [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6728afa28f08b3d97c364f74#block-6728afa28f08b3d97c364f74) Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature **Keir Starmer** ended his speech to the Interpol general assembly by saying that, if together they could tackle the problem of people smuggling, that would be as important as what was achived at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow. He said: > It’s your collective efforts that bring organised criminals to justice wherever they seek to hide, and it’s your leadership today that can help make a decisive breakthrough against this vile trade in human life. > > Because if together we could win this war against the people smugglers, then this gathering will have achieved a victory for humanity every bit as significant as [the Glasgow climate pact](https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-glasgow-climate-pact-key-outcomes-from-cop26), because you will have helped to smash the gangs, secure our borders and save countless lives. [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6728b59f8f0869c6d52e5d5f#block-6728b59f8f0869c6d52e5d5f) **Starmer** went on to say the government was “going to treat people smugglers like terrorists”. And he explained what that meant. > So we’re taking our approach to counter terrorism, which we know works, and apply it to the gangs with our new Border Security Command. > > We’re ending the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies, recruiting hundreds of specialist investigators, the best of the best, from our National Crime Agency, Border Force, immigration enforcement and the CPS \[Crown Prosecution Service\] and our intelligence agencies, all working together. > > We are making border protection an elite Border Force, and not just within our country. We’re also working together with international partners, sharing intelligence and tactics. > > Earlier this year, I visited the headquarters of our National Crime Agency. I saw first hand the ways we are already collaborating and what it takes to intercept, to disrupt and destroy these networks. > > There are so many tools at our disposal. We could seize their phones at the border, identifying and tracing smugglers wiring payments. We’ve already trained sniffer dogs to detect the smell of dinghy rubber and, working with Bulgaria, stopped more than 100 small boats upstream long before they made it to the Channel. > > And as we understand how these gangs work, we can invest in new capabilities and enhance powers to smash them. > > So we’re giving our new Border Security Command an additional £75m pounds of new funding, on top of the £75m pounds we have already committed. This will support a new organized Immigration Crime Intelligence Unit, hundreds of new investigators and intelligence officers, backed by state of the art technology. > > We are also investing a further £58m pounds in our National Crime Agency, including strengthening its data analysis and intelligence capabilities. And we’ll also legislate to give those fighting these gangs enhanced powers too. Starmer said this approach worked with counter-terrorism operations. > We have the powers to trace suspects’ movements using information from the intelligence services. > > We can shut down their bank accounts, cut off their internet access, and arrest them for making preparations to act before an attack has taken place. > > We don’t wait for them to act. We stop them before they act. > > And we need to stop people smuggling gangs before they act, too. [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6728b2178f0869c6d52e5d30#block-6728b2178f0869c6d52e5d30) **Starmer** said the world needs to wake up to the severity of the threat posed by illegal migration. (See [9.13am](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?page=with:block-67287c5d8f0869c6d52e5acb#block-67287c5d8f0869c6d52e5acb).) And he says he would work with “anyone seriuos” to address the problem. > I will work with anyone serious who could offer solutions of this, anyone, because without coordinated global action, it will not go away. > > And unless we bring all the powers we have to bear on this in much the same way as we do for terrorism, then we will struggle to bring these criminals to justice. > > And that, in a sense, is my message here today; people smuggling should be viewed as a global security threat similar to terrorism. > > We’ve got to combine resources, share intelligence and tactics and tackle the problem upstream, working together to shut down the smuggling routes. We do that with terrorism. > > When I was the director of public prosecutions, it was my personal mission to smash the terrorist gangs, and we worked across borders to ensure the safety of citizens across Europe and across the world. > > Now, as the UK’s prime minister, it is my personal mission to smash the people smuggling gangs. Starmer said that the new government was adopting this approach. Instead of “gimmicks” and “gesture politics”, it was “approaching this issue with humanity and with profound respect for international law”. And it would not withdraw from the European convention on human rights, he said. [](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news#img-2) Keir Starmer speaking at the Interpol general assembly in Glasgow. Photograph: WPA/Getty Images [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6728afa28f08b3d97c364f74#block-6728afa28f08b3d97c364f74) **Starmer** told the Interpol general assembly that that UK increasing its funding for Interpol projects by £6m this year. He said this would include “support for improved data sharing and faster communications capabilities, the first ever global fraud threat assessment and new regional networks, from strengthening cooperation across the Pacific to tackling drug and gun smuggling networks in the Caribbean”. [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6728aef58f080a1fc5f96132#block-6728aef58f080a1fc5f96132) **Keir Starmer** is speaking now at the Interpol conference in Glasgow. He started from stressing the importance of international cooperation in the fight against crime. He knew this from his time as director of public prosecutions, he said. > Crime is global. Criminals do not respect borders. [](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news#img-3) Keir Starmer speaking at the Interpol general assembly meeting in Glasgow this morning. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/PA [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6728ad958f080a1fc5f96123#block-6728ad958f080a1fc5f96123) **David Lammy**, the foreign secretary, has said the concept of reparations for former British colonies affected by slavery should not be about cash payments. Speaking [to the BBC in Nigeria](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgkpy4634go), where he is starting a tour of African countries, he said the reparations concept “is not about the transfer of cash”. At the recent Commonwealth summit, Keir Starmer’s reluctance to talk about reparations led to complaints from other leaders who said [the UK should be doing more](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/24/keir-starmer-urged-to-engage-on-reparations-at-commonwealth-summit) to address the ongoing problems linked to the legacy of slavery. No 10 has ruled out cash reparations, even though when Lammy was a backbench MP he did express support for the idea. Lammy told the BBC in Nigera that reparations were not about money, “particularly at a time of a cost of living crisis”. Instead, the government is interested in other forms of reparatory justice. [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-6728aa238f0869c6d52e5c83#block-6728aa238f0869c6d52e5c83) **Sir James Dyson**, the entrepreneur, has written [an article for the Times](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/james-dyson-labours-budget-will-rip-apart-the-very-fabric-of-our-economy-zcvssv09x) today accusing the government of “spiteful” changes to inheritance tax rules. Farmers are furious because farms used to be exempt from inheritance tax, but under changes announced in the budget the 100% agricultural property relief (the exemption) will no longer apply on farms worth more than £1m. The government is also changing the rules on business property relief, which means that some shares in family businesses will no longer be exempt from inheritance tax. In his article, Dyson condemns this as a “20% family death tax” and he claims this will lead to “the very fabric of our economy” being ripped apart. Pointing out that there are almost five million family firms in the UK, he says: > It beggars belief that Labour proudly boasts of trying to attract foreign investment, while at the same time eviscerating homegrown businesses. \[Chancellor Rachel\] Reeves killing off business property relief (originally introduced by a Labour government in 1976 and reinforced by the Brown government with entrepreneurs’ relief) means that British families are landed with an unpayable tax bill every time an owner dies. > > Yet companies operating here but owned by overseas families won’t have to pay Labour’s tax. Private equity-owned firms won’t pay. Public companies listed on stock markets won’t pay. No, it is just homegrown, British family companies that will pay. This is a tragedy. > > Make no mistake, the very fabric of our economy is being ripped apart. No business can survive Reeves’s 20 per cent tax grab. It will be the death of entrepreneurship. Think of the jobs for “working people” that will be lost — or never created … > > Every business expects to pay tax, but for Labour to kill off homegrown family businesses is a tragedy. In particular, I have huge empathy for the small businesses and start-ups that will suffer. > > Labour has shown its true colours with a spiteful budget. It detests the private sector and has chosen to kill off individual aspiration and economic growth. Dyson became a billionaire through the firm selling his eponymous vacuum cleaner and other inventions, but he also has a large farming business in the UK. In his article he acknowledges that his family would lose out from [Labour](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour) tax changes, but he does not say by how much. In an interview with Times Radio, asked about Dyson’s article, **Yvette Cooper**, the home secretary, said she “clearly” disagreed with his claim that Labour hated the private sector. She said the budget involved “difficult’” decisions, but that they were necessary. > I think this was a budget that had to do three things. It had to deal with the public finance chaos that we inherited and had to put the public finances back on track. That’s fixing the foundations as Rachel has described it. Also make sure that we’ve got plans to boost growth for the future … And then thirdly, to make sure that we can start to repair the deep damage to our public services and particularly our national health service, which I am deeply worried about. > > In order to do all of those things and to deal with that inherited chaos that we had, that has meant some difficult decisions, including on employers’ national insurance contributions. But it’s also been done in a way to protect people’s pay slips and you’ve got no increase in the national insurance for employees. [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-67289b028f08b3d97c364e62#block-67289b028f08b3d97c364e62) **Yvette Cooper**, the home secretary, has been doing an interview round this morning ahead of the PM’s speech to the Interpol general assembly later. In an interview with LBC, she condemned the Labour MP Dawn Butler for sharing a tweet describing Kemi Badenoch as [“the most prominent member of white supremacy’s black collaborator class”.](https://news.sky.com/story/labour-mp-dawn-butler-shares-tweet-linking-kemi-badenoch-to-white-supremacy-in-blackface-13248072) Cooper said she had not seen the tweet, which Butler quickly deleted. But she said: > The words that you have read out are clearly appalling and I would strongly disagree with them. > > So, I haven’t seen the post. I don’t know the circumstances around it but I think we should congratulate Kemi Badenoch on her election. > > I will continue to disagree with her on all sorts of issues, but, nevertheless, I congratulate her on her election. Asked if Butler should be disciplined by the party over the tweet, Cooper said that was a matter for the whip. [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-672897b28f08b3d97c364e2f#block-672897b28f08b3d97c364e2f) **Archie Bland** has a good summary of the challenges facing [Kemi Badenoch](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/kemi-badenoch) in his First Edition newsletter. [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-672897308f08b3d97c364e2b#block-672897308f08b3d97c364e2b) Kemi Badenoch, the new Conservative leader, has already made some appointment. Rebecca Harris has become the new chief whip. This was announced yesterday, but the outgoing chief whip, **Stuart Andrew**, who posted [these on social media](https://x.com/StuartAndrew/status/1853128905810423886). > It has been an honour and a privilege to serve as the Conservative Party Chief Whip. @RebeccaHarrisMP is a great friend and a brilliant Whip. I wish her all the best in the role. > I would like to thank the Whips and the MP’s that have helped the Whip’s Office for their dedication and assistance in helping me steady the ship over the past three months. > At an uncertain time for our Party it has been challenging at times, but we have kept the show on the road and had some great successes. And Badenoch has appointed two Conservative co-chairs, PA Media reports. They are Nigel Huddleston, a former Treasury minister, and Dominic Johnson, a hedge fund manager (he ran an investment firm with Jacob Rees-Mogg) who was given a peerage and made a business minister when Liz Truss was PM. It is normal for the Conservative party to have two co-chairs – one an MP, focusing on presentation and party management, and another focusing on fund raising. Often a new opposition leader announces the new shadow chancellor first but, as **Dan Bloom** explains in [his London Playbook briefing](https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/the-small-boats-police/) for Politico, there is a reason why it makes sense to start with choosing a new chief whip. > News that Badenoch had appointed Rebecca Harris as chief whip emerged because Harris will be helping Badenoch make the other appointments, two people tell Playbook. One said: “There’s a lot of knowledge in the whips’ function as the HR department of the party — who’s reliable, who turns up, who is a good colleague.” Best behaviour! “Who’s reliable, who turns up, who is a good colleague?” Badenoch should find out what the Tory whips used to say about her. As **Eleni Courea** reports, on these criteria, some of her colleagues would not rate her highly. [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-672891c38f080a1fc5f95fd4#block-672891c38f080a1fc5f95fd4) Good morning. Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organisation, which has 196 member countries, has a general assembly and, for the first time in 50 years, it is meeting in Britain. **Keir Starmer** will address the meeting in Glasgow and he is going to deliver a “wake up” call on illegal migration, saying that the world needs to face up to the scale of the problem and that tackling the problem needs to be internationalised. Britain cannot do it on its own, he implies. According to extracts from the speech released in advance, Starmer will say: > The world needs to wake up to the severity of this challenge. I was elected to deliver security for the British people. And strong borders are a part of that. But security doesn’t stop at our borders. > > There’s nothing progressive about turning a blind eye as men, women and children die in the channel. > > This is a vile trade that must be stamped out – wherever it thrives. So we’re taking our approach to counter-terrorism - which we know works, and applying it to the gangs, with our new Border Security Command. > > We’re ending the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies. In the headline of its news release, No 10 describes people smuggling as a “national security threat”. **Rajeev Syal** has a full preview of the speech here. You might think some of this language might appeal to the Conservatives. Like Starmer, [Kemi Badenoch](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/kemi-badenoch), the new opposition leader, also believes that the previous government failed on illegal migration. But the Tories are saying Labour’s approach will not work because there is no deterrent. Badenoch is appointing a shadow cabinet today, and so there is no proper shadow home secretary in place this morning (James Cleverly is stepping down), but last night **CCHQ** put out this statement from a party spokesperson. > Keir Starmer’s announcement on tackling gangs will mean absolutely nothing without a deterrent to stop migrants wishing to make the dangerous journey across the channel. > > It is a shame that Starmer has not recognised the extent of the crisis in the channel sooner, as he and the Labour party voted against numerous measures to stop the gangs while they were in opposition. > > If Starmer continues to ignore the need for a deterrent to stop migrants crossing the channel, there will be more deaths in the channel as more and more migrants continue to cross it, he needs to get a grip of the crisis in the channel. (Some experts in this field prefer to use the term irregular migration, not illegal migration, to describe people crossing the Channel in small boats because claiming asylum is not illegal under international law and, even though UK law says it is an offence to enter the country without proper authorisation, people who claim asylum don’t get prosecuted. But the government is using the term illegal migration, as the previous government did.) Here is the agenda for the day. _Morning:_ Kemi Badenoch, the new Conservative leader, is due to meet party staff at CCHQ this morning. She will also be working on shadow cabinet appointments. _11am:_ [Yvette Cooper](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/yvette-cooper), the home secretary, is speaking at the Interpol conference in Glasgow, ahead of Keir Starmer who is delivering a speech too. _11.30am:_ Downing Street holds a lobby briefing. _Morning:_ Steve Reed, the environment secretary, is due to meet the NFU leader Tom Bradshaw to discuss the budget plans to ensure that some farms are subject will be subject to inheritance tax. _2.30pm:_ Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, takes questions in the Commons. _After 3.30pm:_ Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, is opening for the government in the resumed budget debate. If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word. If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian). I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog. [Share](mailto:?subject=Starmer%20says%20people%20smuggling%20should%20be%20seen%20as%20‘global%20security%20threat%20similar%20to%20terrorism’%20–%20UK%20politics%20live&body=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/nov/04/keir-starmer-labour-migration-interpol-kemi-badenoch-conservative-shadow-cabinet-uk-politics-latest-news?CMP=share_btn_url&page=with%3Ablock-67287c5d8f0869c6d52e5acb#block-67287c5d8f0869c6d52e5acb)

Nine boats carrying 572 people have been intercepted while attempting to cross the Channel, according to the Home Office. The latest crossings come after [Keir Starmer](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/keir-starmer) announced plans to tackle what he described as the “national security threat” of people smugglers, pledging an extra £75m and a new team of detectives. The arrivals on Saturday brought the total number of people who had made small boat crossings this year to 32,691. The figure is up 22% on the same time last year (26,699) but 18% less than had been recorded by November 2022 (39,929). There have also been more deaths in the Channel, with four bodies discovered off the coast of Calais on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the French coastguard. Excluding the latest deaths, which are still being investigated, there are believed to have been [60 fatalities](https://www.thetimes.com/article/047cf05a-2432-4832-b4da-daf25819c2d4?shareToken=c5dbf209d70d22d76d5b9201e9182be4) among people attempting to cross the Channel, five times more than last year. Kent police also said the body of a man was pulled from the Channel on Tuesday as officers were called to Dover lifeboat station. The prime minister said during a speech at the Interpol general assembly in Glasgow last Monday that the government [would double funding to £150m](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/nov/03/keir-starmer-to-create-team-to-tackle-national-security-threat-of-people-smugglers) for the border security command, the enforcement agency launched by the government in the summer. On Thursday Starmer announced deals to boost intelligence sharing, expertise and cooperation with Serbia, North Macedonia and Kosovo at a meeting of the European Political Community in Budapest, Hungary. Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, a UK charity, said the government’s “smash the gangs” slogan would not work and appealed for an orderly and fair asylum system to support refugee integration. [Writing in the Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/07/keir-starmer-migrant-crisis-tony-blair-crime-channel-crossings), Solomon said: “Smugglers who exploit and endanger the lives of desperate people fleeing brutal wars or tyranny must be stopped and made to face justice. As enforcement tightens, they are cramming more people into boats and pushing off from more dangerous spots.”

The suspect in a drug trafficking case was wanted in France in connection with three tons of cocaine seized near Marseille in 2020 but had fled abroad. He was placed on a list of fugitives flagged for arrest by Interpol, the international police organization, and later detained in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. France filed an extradition request with Dubai, but then the French authorities discovered that the suspect, Tarik Kerbouci, 39, had been removed from the Interpol list. Set free by Dubai, Mr. Kerbouci vanished. A long investigation by French and other law enforcement agencies into how the Interpol arrest flag, called a Red Notice, had disappeared led to an unlikely destination: the former Soviet republic of Moldova. There, a scheme that helped remove Mr. Kerbouci and at least 20 other wanted fugitives from the list unraveled this summer. The Red Notices are a system of requests to border guards and police forces around the globe to locate and detain fugitives. The notices have been [dogged by abuse](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/world/europe/interpol-oversight-red-notices-blue-notices-databases-abuse-dissidents.html). [China, Russia and other autocratic countries](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/20/world/europe/interpol-strongmen-abuse.html) have [regularly tried to use them](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/world/europe/how-moscow-uses-interpol-to-pursue-its-enemies.html) to pursue dissidents and other perceived enemies living abroad, a problem that Interpol has in recent years worked to curb. Evidence collected by French investigators and prosecutors in Moldova exposed a flip side of such abuse: Fugitives would arrange for the lifting of Red Notices against them by paying corrupt officials to exploit provisions intended to protect dissidents and others seeking asylum. In Moldova, according to Veronica Dragalin, the country’s chief anticorruption prosecutor, the scheme involved Interpol’s liaison office in the capital, Chisinau, as well as immigration officials. Also under scrutiny for possible involvement is a former senior Interpol official from Moldova who relocated to Dubai after leaving the police organization in 2022. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and [log into](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F15%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fmoldova-interpol-fraud-scheme.html&asset=opttrunc) your Times account, or [subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F15%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fmoldova-interpol-fraud-scheme.html) for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? [Log in](https://myaccount.nytimes.com/auth/login?response_type=cookie&client_id=vi&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F15%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fmoldova-interpol-fraud-scheme.html&asset=opttrunc). Want all of The Times? [Subscribe](https://www.nytimes.com/subscription?campaignId=89WYR&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2024%2F11%2F15%2Fworld%2Feurope%2Fmoldova-interpol-fraud-scheme.html).

I’ll never forget the first time I heard the Killers. It was 2004, I was nine, sitting in the car outside JB Hi-Fi with my dad, a self-proclaimed new wave, post-punk tragic who had bought their debut album, Hot Fuss, after one review compared it to New Order. (It was no coincidence: the Killers were named after a fictional band in a New Order music video.) Dad popped the CD in and Jenny Was a Friend of Mine began. With its surging synth, a bassline that could rival Peter Hook’s and Brandon Flowers’ brooding voice, we both knew we were hearing something special. Little did I know that, 20 years later, that album would still have pride of place in my own car, or that I’d be about to see them for the 10th time live. After that first track, Mr Brightside, Smile Like You Mean It, Somebody Told Me and All These Things That I’ve Done followed, and my music education began. Every car trip, dad would play me bands he thought had influenced the Killers. New Order, yes, but also the Cure, the Smiths, Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys. We also discovered new bands from the indie rock revival – Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, the Strokes. (I’m aware this is now considered [“dad music”](https://x.com/NoContextBrits/status/1669051895741046799) but I swear at the time it wasn’t.) Music became our thing. The first time I saw the Killers live was at a festival in 2009. By then I was 14 and boy-obsessed, despite having never actually spoken to one. If I’m honest, it wasn’t so much boys as it was [Brandon Flowers](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/oct/15/brandon-flowers-killers-fast-mormons-las-vegas): I had his photos everywhere, my teachers knew him by name and my friends had no choice but to listen to the Killers too. [](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/06/the-killers-australia-tour-feature-sydney#img-2) Brandon Flowers fronts the Killers in New York in 2004. Photograph: Greg Allen/Rex Features Despite the festival being restricted to over-18s, Dad and I bought tickets. I dressed how I thought an adult would: Doc Martens, a skull scarf and black eyeliner. I was convinced I looked like [Alexa Chung](https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/alexa-chung). As they scanned our tickets, I kept my head down and we made it through. I’ve seen many bands since but none compare with the show the Killers put on that day. I was hooked. For my 15th birthday, my parents planned a trip to Sydney to see the Killers at the Enmore theatre. The band were headlining the Good Vibrations festival but this was the only sideshow they were doing that was open to under-18s. We were driving to the airport when we found out the show had been cancelled due to a family illness. My plans for the weekend – mostly involving staking out the Intercontinental hotel in the hope of seeing Flowers – vanished in an instant. When Good Vibrations made its way to Melbourne two weeks later, we thought we’d try our luck. But no dice: Mum and I were immediately knocked back. We went home, deflated – before we decided to drive back and try again. A different, more sympathetic security guard let us in. I’ll never forget running towards the stage, Mum at my side, as the Killers began to play Bling. [](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/06/the-killers-australia-tour-feature-sydney#img-3) The Killers perform in Melbourne in 2018. Benita Kolovos can be seen in the crowd dressed in blue, to the left of Brandon Flowers’ hand. Photograph: Rob Loud Fast-forward to 2017: I was in my 20s and working my first job in journalism. A media alert: the Killers were holding a press conference at the MCG before the AFL grand final. Up until then, I was trying incredibly hard to prove myself as a mature, serious journalist. But 15-year-old me came out: I told my chief of staff that if he did not send me, my heart would break into a million pieces. He relented. The next night I ended up sneaking my way into their secret show at Howler. I told myself I wouldn’t lie to get in but when someone wearing a lanyard asked, “Are you here to review the show?” I didn’t correct them. There were only about 300 people there. Add Richmond winning the premiership, the Killers at the MCG and [their duet to Mr Brightside with Jack Riewoldt](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAuPAKRIojM), and it became one of the best weekends of my life. That night one of my best friends came with me. We had bonded at school over our shared love of the Killers (though some might say I’d practically forced their music on her). When they toured again in 2018, we went to see them twice, in Sydney and Melbourne. My partner came along too, to just one gig: it turned out he had memorised Hot Fuss after it was played on a family road trip. By now the Killers had graduated to confetti cannons, lasers and costume changes – they had grown up too. [](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/dec/06/the-killers-australia-tour-feature-sydney#img-4) The Killers on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury festival in 2019. Photograph: Richard Isaac/Rex/Shutterstock The last time I saw the Killers play was two years ago, again with my friend. Before the show I told her over a drink I had a feeling my partner would propose. She said I was overthinking it. Four days later he did. She had known the whole time. What is it that I love about the Killers? Yes, they put on an unforgettable show, but it’s more than that. Maybe it’s because music from our teenage years becomes part of who we are ([science backs this up](https://slate.com/technology/2014/08/musical-nostalgia-the-psychology-and-neuroscience-for-song-preference-and-the-reminiscence-bump.html)). More likely, it’s because every time they come to Australia, I get to belt out their songs with those dearest to me. As I head to Sydney for my 10th Killers show on Friday, I’m thinking about how this band has soundtracked my life. I think about how lucky I was to have a dad who saw something light up in me that day in the car and fostered it. How my mum didn’t say no to her underage daughter sneaking into festivals, who instead said, “Can I come too?” I think about how my best friend was always there listening along with me, how much we’ve both grown and how both our lives are changing. But as the Killers sing, “It doesn’t really matter, don’t you worry, it’ll all work out.”

It’s fair to say the TV show Schitt’s Creek would have been a lot less funny had it concerned the family of a deposed dictator rather than the family of an embezzled video store mogul. Even so, it’s a strange but undeniable fact that when [toddlers are stumbling out of dungeons](https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2024/dec/09/men-women-and-children-emerge-from-sednaya-prison-in-damascus-video), and the unspeakable horrors of the former Syrian regime are [still being revealed](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/10/tuesday-briefing-what-happened-when-the-doors-of-syrias-most-notorious-prison-were-finally-opened), a significant part of the human impulse is to thirst for details of the dreadful Assad family’s new lives in Moscow, then remark tartly: “Well, they’ve gone down in the world.” And of course, the Assads may yet plunge further – for all the overly impressed reports of apartments in [glittering Moscow skyscrapers](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14173011/Syria-monster-Assad-new-life-Russia-Asma-Assad-dictator-husband-Moscow-family-luxury-flats.html), I must say I’d have picked something on the ground floor myself. For now, Syrian refugee Bashar al-Assad might be telling himself that if Vladimir Putin has offered him asylum, he can’t possibly be angry with him for putting Russia’s unrivalled network of military bases in Syria at serious risk. In which case, it’s possible Bashar is about to go on a journey of discovery as long as the Trans-Siberian railway. Then again, it could be much, much shorter. But perhaps Assad’s comfortable with limbo. He has, after all, spent the past two decades apparently unable to decide whether he is or isn’t growing a moustache. Follically speaking, I guess he now finally has time to pick a lane. Or, as I say, doesn’t have time. For while the man who used chemical weapons [against his own people](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/27/syrian-regime-found-responsible-for-douma-chemical-weapons-attack) may be physically located in Moscow, in security terms, and for the rest of his entire life, he cannot be at all clear where he stands. Nor, at present, can the Syrian people, who deserve so much more than a few days of giddy celebration. None of it is unalloyed, given the utter grimness of the stories being disgorged from Assad’s torture prisons, and the ominous uncertainty of what comes next under victorious [Islamist rebel chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/10/syria-new-leader-two-identities-ahmed-al-sharaa-abu-mohammed-al-jolani). Having said that, you have to celebrate the bright spots. What is not to love about that footage of a toppled Assad Sr statue being hooked to the back of a truck and [ridden through the streets](https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/12/8/syrians-ride-on-toppled-assad-statue) by cheering Syrians? Elsewhere, one of the best bits of any successful coup against a murderous tyrant is watching their giggling former people swarm through the private chambers of their ghastly palace. And [so it has been with the Assads](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/09/luxury-cars-labels-syrians-assad-family-residences). Here are half a dozen oppressed citizens grinning as they take goofy photos on a souvenir sofa; here are a few hundred helping themselves to all the incredibly expensive things that got bought instead of food and medicine for the country’s children. No doubt Assad’s wife, Asma, will be aware of this, and sobbing into a diamond-encrusted iPhone to anyone who’ll still listen (an increasingly small field) that she “can’t watch the news footage”. No doubt it feels like a … what’s the word? … violation? Perhaps Asma could distract herself by writing one of those end of year family letters that always cause so much appalled merriment for those who receive them. “Well, we finally made the big move to Moscow! Downsized a little bit, for sure – but we keep saying it’s so cosy. BTW if anyone sent greetings to the old address, it’s not totally clear they’ll be forwarded to us by the new owners. Incidentally, we heard on the grapevine that people thought our dear friend Vladimir was angry with Bashar. We assure well-meaning friends that this could NOT be further from the truth. Vladimir adores Bashar. He keeps inviting him to come and drink tea with him, which seems so hospitable, and we mean to take up the invitation just as soon as we finish unpacking the money.” Anyway: the money. For some reason, news reports about fleeing dictators often peg their fortunes at the $2bn mark, and I duly read this week that Assad had escaped with $2bn of squirrelled-away funds; “$2bn” must be the answer to the question “what’s the precise amount of money that sounds like an ill-gotten running-away fund?” But if the megarich Assads are nevertheless wondering what happens next – guys, get used to it! The not knowing is the whole fun of being a former dictator! Your shit creek may yet become shitty enough to satisfy even your most persistent detractors. It’s definitely possible that at some point, your gracious hosts will get bored of being gracious – [as hosts in these situations historically have](https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2006/INTERPOL-applauds-speedy-arrest-of-Charles-Taylor-in-Nigeria) – at which point you might be suddenly forced to take a trip to The Hague after all. Ultimately, I wouldn’t say nature is healing – but at least late-2000s magazine power lists are finally starting to make sense. It was back in 2007 that the US magazine Details ran a list of [the most powerful men in the world](https://people.com/celebrity/kevin-federline-lands-cover-of-details-magazines-power-list/) under the age of 45, in which Assad was ranked a full 14 places below Kevin Federline, who at the time was Britney Spears’ unemployed former backing dancer ex-husband. If that felt like a slight misreading of the then-Syrian leader’s status – and, indeed, of Kevin’s days of smoking weed and hammering the PlayStation – this week it is starting to look more rational. K-Fed may very well now be more than 14 places more powerful than Bashar al-Assad. At the very least he can holiday outside Russian airspace – and not have to worry about whether the food delivery guy really is the food delivery guy. * Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist * _**Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our [letters](https://www.theguardian.com/tone/letters) section, please [click here](mailto:[email protected]?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city/town/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.).**_

[Matt Burgess](https://www.wired.com/author/matt-burgess/) [Lily Hay Newman](https://www.wired.com/author/lily-hay-newman/) Jan 14, 2025 4:00 AM Huione Guarantee, a gray market researchers believe is central to the online scam ecosystem, now includes a messaging app, stablecoin, and crypto exchange—while facilitating $24 billion in transactions.  Photo Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images The scam ecosystem has been [booming around the world](https://www.wired.com/story/pig-butchering-scam-invasion/), with criminals honing a handful of strategies to trick victims into voluntarily sending their money into the abyss. And as the cash—or, typically, [cryptocurrency](https://www.wired.com/story/27-year-old-codebreaker-busted-myth-bitcoins-anonymity/)—flows in, a set of digital services and [infrastructure](https://www.wired.com/story/pig-butchering-scams-go-high-tech/) offerings have increasingly emerged. The scam economy helps criminals with everything from creating fake social media pages to buying SIM cards—and, crucially, with money laundering. Now, researchers say that in the pantheon of dark web marketplaces, the “largest illicit online marketplace” ever is now one that sells services to other scammers rather than focusing on drugs or other contraband. New [findings](https://www.elliptic.co/blog/huione-largest-ever-illicit-online-marketplace-stablecoin) from the crypto-tracing firm Elliptic show how one of the biggest players in that sphere, [Huione Guarantee](https://www.wired.com/story/pig-butchering-scam-crypto-huione-guarantee/), has likely enabled $24 billion in gray market transactions—with the volume of activity on the platform rocketing up 51 percent since [initial investigations last summer](https://www.wired.com/story/pig-butchering-scam-crypto-huione-guarantee/). At the same time, the platform is offering more services than ever, including launching its own messaging app, stablecoin, and cryptocurrency exchange. Expanding the empire means more profits for administrators, but it may also be part of an effort to, according to Elliptic, flood the zone and protect Huione Guarantee from potential law enforcement action or technological crackdowns. “What platforms really do is help scammers to scale up their operations, and it’s really enabled the industrialization of online scams,” says Tom Robinson, Elliptic’s cofounder and chief scientist. “Huione Guarantee is a key node in this network of facilitators of online scams. Preventing it from operating would have a significant impact on online scams and would have an immediate beneficial effect on victims and potential victims.” A Chinese-language platform that has wider links to businesses associated with the Cambodian ruling family, Huione Guarantee first emerged in 2021 as investment scams—or so-called “[pig butchering](https://www.wired.com/story/interpol-pig-butchering-scams-rename/)” scams—from Southeast Asia boomed. One of the platform’s centerpiece features is a deposit and escrow service, connecting buyers and sellers to help facilitate their transactions. But the service also acts as a general store that fulfills every scammer’s needs, with sellers hawking victim contact details, deepfake tools to trick targets, fake investment websites, and more. Huione Guarantee mostly operates through the social media app [Telegram](https://www.wired.com/story/how-telegram-became-anti-facebook/), organized around groups and bots that have tens of thousands of members and followers. Transactions typically take place using the Tether stablecoin. Telegram did not return WIRED’s request for comment about Huione Guarantee’s activity and growth on its platform. Tether also did not respond to a request for comment. Huione Guarantee itself did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment. However, last year, following the publication of [Elliptic’s previous research](https://www.wired.com/story/pig-butchering-scam-crypto-huione-guarantee/), Huione Guarantee [posted a statement to its website](https://www.hwdb.la/gonggao/detail/2237) where it claimed to be an “information publishing and guarantee trading platform,” and the services “are provided by third-party merchants and we only provide guarantee services.” The company also said that after it saw Elliptic’s previous report, it removed some sellers. Adding an in-house communication service known as “ChatMe,” a cryptocurrency exchange (Huione Crypto), and US dollar-backed stablecoin (“USDH”) suggests that Huione Guarantee is looking to become a truly full-service, self-sufficient platform. The website for USDH, the Elliptic researchers say, describes it as “not restricted” by regulators around the world and says that it “avoids the common freezing and transfer restrictions” that can be applied to other cryptocurrencies. In its work last year, Elliptic found that in the first three years of its operation, Huione Guarantee sellers [moved around $11 billion](https://www.wired.com/story/pig-butchering-scam-crypto-huione-guarantee/) on the platform. Less than a year later, the researchers now estimate that cumulative total to be $24 billion. The platform’s various expansions are all contributing to the increase, but ultimately its escrow and transfer services are the core service. “With Huione Guarantee, the primary thing being sold is actually laundering of the proceeds of online scams,” Robinson alleges. “The vast majority of the funds that are going through the marketplace is in relation to vendors that are openly offering money laundering services who talk about the types of fraud proceeds that they’re willing to accept.” Meanwhile, as business booms, the researchers say that the platform’s owner, Huione Group, has worked to downplay its association with the marketplace and the connection between Huione Guarantee and other linked services, like Huione Pay. The marketplace has even been rebranded as “Haowang Guarantee,” though Huione Group confirmed to the researchers that Huione Guarantee is still a “strategic partner and shareholder.” “The Huione Guarantee Group on Telegram continues to be used extensively, with over 139,000 users,” says Jason Tower, the country director for Myanmar at the United States Institute of Peace. “Telegram groups are used to move large sums of cryptocurrencies at a significant discount. By comparison, competing platforms have lost a significant number of users. This is likely a result of [crackdowns](https://www.propublica.org/article/casinos-cambodia-myanmar-laos-southeast-asia-fraud-cybercrime) by the Chinese government.” Robinson says an initial analysis from Elliptic has found around $6 billion passing through one Telegram bot that is allegedly “used primarily for online gambling on Huione Guarantee.” The researchers’ analysis suggests this may also be allegedly linked to money laundering. Users deposit crypto into a wallet and then can move their balance into individual minigames that exist in their own Telegram groups. The “games” are extremely rudimentary, though, and don’t seem to involve any skill. Players also tend to bet consistently over very long periods of time, wager similar amounts, and leave precise intervals between their bets. All of this “together suggests automated gambling for the purposes of money laundering rather than entertainment,” Robinson alleges. In spite of Huione Guarantee’s apparent too-big-to-fail strategy, the Elliptic researchers say that the platform is far from being totally self-sufficient. So far, Huione’s stablecoin and cryptocurrency exchange have failed to register significant volumes of transactions, Robinson says, despite some promotion within its existing communications channels. As the marketplace works to push the transition, its ongoing reliance on third parties could still be a weakness—at least for now. “Huione Guarantee is still dependent on certain centralized infrastructure, Tether and Telegram,” Robinson says. “I think there is an opportunity now to suppress it through those service providers. I think if we wait too long, then there is a chance that they move to their own infrastructure and that becomes more challenging.”

A Libyan general wanted for alleged war crimes and violence against inmates at a prison near Tripoli has been arrested in the northern Italian city of Turin **–** and then released after an apparent mistake by prosecutors. Osama Najim, also known as Almasri, was detained on Sunday on an international arrest warrant after a tipoff from [Interpol](https://www.theguardian.com/world/interpol), a source at the prosecutors office for the Piedmont region confirmed. But Rome’s court of appeal did not validate the warrant issued by the international criminal court (ICC) after the arrest was declared to be “irregular” by the city’s attorney general because it had not been preceded by discussions with Italy’s justice minister, Carlo Nordio. “As a result, the conditions for validation are not met and, consequently, a request aimed at the application of the precautionary measure results in the immediate release of the person received,” according to the court order reported by the news agency Ansa. Nordio said earlier on Tuesday that he was evaluating the transmission of the ICC’s request to Rome’s attorney general. La Stampa reported that Najim, who was wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as alleged rape and murder, is already on his way back to Tripoli. He was reportedly chief of Libya’s judicial police and director of Mitiga prison, a facility close to Tripoli condemned by human rights’ groups for the arbitrary detention, torture and abuse of political dissidents and migrants and refugees. It is not clear whether he is still in either role. He was arrested on Sunday at a hotel in Turin. He was in the northern Italian city for a football match on Saturday between Juventus and AC Milan accompanied by other Libyans, according to reports in the Italian press. The NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans wrote on X that the arrest “came after years of complaints and testimonies from victims, sent to the international criminal court, which conducted a difficult investigation”. Nello Scavo, a journalist on the Italian newspaper Avvenire, wrote about the general in his book, _[Le Mani sulla Guardia Costiera](https://www.chiarelettere.it/libro/le-mani-sulla-guardia-costiera-nello-scavo-9788832966435.html)_, in which he described him as being “among the figures capable of blackmailing Italy and Europe with boats”. In the book, Scavo alleged that Najim illegally transferred migrants “from both unofficial and official places of detention in Tripoli to the Mitiga facility, for the primary purpose of using them for forced labour as a form of slavery”. The Libyan judicial police reportedly condemned what they described as Najim’s “arbitrary detention”, calling his arrest an “outrageous incident” on Facebook. The arrest puts the spotlight on a controversial pact between Italy and Libya, signed in 2017 and renewed every three years. The deal, approved by the European Council, involves Italy funding and equipping the Libyan coastguard to prevent boats of refugees leaving the north African country. Humanitarian groups have criticised it for pushing people back to detention camps where they face torture and other abuses. In November 2022, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), a German NGO, filed [a criminal complaint](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/30/european-politicians-accused-of-conspiring-with-libyan-coastguard-to-push-back-refugees) at the ICC against several high-profile European politicians for allegedly conspiring with Libya’s coastguard to illegally push back people trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of refuge in Europe. Scavo told the Guardian that many testimonies from migrants and refugees presented to the ICC had provided evidence for the investigation into Najim. “It would be a turning point if a trial could be opened before the ICC, but I fear that many countries are afraid of what he might say, because these are representatives of authorities who have relations with Italy, with Malta and in general with Europe,” he said. The hardline immigration policies of Georgia Meloni’s government, including a similar deal with Tunisia, are at least partly credited for the sharp decrease in refugees crossing from north [Africa](https://www.theguardian.com/world/africa) in 2024.

Giorgia Meloni’s government is under pressure to clarify why a Rome court refused to approve the arrest of a Libyan general accused of war crimes, allowing him to return home to a hero’s welcome on an Italian secret services flight in what critics believe was a tactic to shield alleged abuses committed in the north African country as a result of a migrant pact with Italy. Osama Najim, also known as Almasri, was detained in Turin on Sunday on a warrant issued by the international criminal court (ICC) before being freed on Tuesday owing to a procedural technicality. Najim, who is chief of Libya’s judicial police, is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as alleged rape and murder. He also presides over Mitiga prison, a facility near Tripoli condemned by human rights organisations for the arbitrary detention, torture and abuse of political dissidents, migrants and refugees. In a statement on Wednesday, the ICC said Najim was released from custody and transported back to Libya “without prior notice or consultation with the court”. “The court is seeking, and is yet to obtain, verification from the authorities on the steps reportedly taken,” the statement said, added that it had engaged with the Italian authorities and asked them to consult the court without delay if any problems arose that would “impede or prevent the execution of the present request for cooperation”. The arrest warrant was issued after many testimonies of his alleged crimes were provided to the ICC. News of the general’s release was issued to the Italian media about 20 minutes after his flight left Turin’s Caselle airport. An image of him arriving in Tripoli to celebrations was shared on the Facebook page of Libya’s judicial police authority, which had called his arrest an “outrageous incident”. In a document seen by the Guardian, Rome’s court of appeal did not validate the ICC warrant after the arrest was declared to be “irregular” by the city’s attorney general because it had not been preceded by discussions with Italy’s justice minister, Carlo Nordio. Andrea Delmastro, the undersecretary at the justice ministry, denied accusations that Najim’s release was a favour to Libya. A source familiar with the situation said Najim had entered Italy from France on Saturday in a hire car registered in Germany. Accompanied by other Libyans, he attended a football match that evening between Juventus and AC Milan at Turin’s stadium. He was arrested at a hotel in the city by Italy’s anti-terrorist squad, Digos, after a tip-off from Interpol. Opposition parties have asked Meloni to urgently explain the “very serious” development while calling on Nordio to resign. “Last night, a state plane landed in Tripoli and brought Almasri home, an \[alleged\] torturer welcomed with applause and great celebration in his homeland,” a group of opposition parties said in a shared statement. “This is enough to ask for urgent information from Meloni and the resignation of Nordio.” Ilaria Salis, an Italian MEP who last year spent five months under house arrest in Budapest after demonstrating at an anti-Nazi rally in the Hungarian capital, said: “The government must provide explanations, and they should do so especially for prisoners held in Libyan concentration camps.” Others noted that the move appeared to contradict the Meloni government’s repeated pledges to crack down on criminals engaged in human trafficking. “The Italian government claims to want to hunt down human traffickers wherever they are,” said Nello Scavo, a journalist with Avvenire who claimed in his book, [Le Mani sulla Guardia Costiera](https://www.chiarelettere.it/libro/le-mani-sulla-guardia-costiera-nello-scavo-9788832966435.html), that Najim was “among the figures capable of blackmailing Italy and Europe with boats”. “But when the possibility of bringing one of those suspects to international justice arose, Italy returned him to his country, where he now enjoys greater fame and greater consideration because thanks to Italy, a country with strong interests in Libya, he managed to escape the process of the international court.” The Najim case has put the spotlight on a controversial pact between Italy and Libya, signed in 2017 and renewed every three years. The deal, approved by the European Council, involves Italy funding and equipping the Libyan coastguard to prevent boats of refugees leaving the north African country. Humanitarian groups have criticised it for pushing people back to detention camps where they face torture and other abuses. Luca Casarini, the head of mission of the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans, believes the Italian government did not want to hand Najim to the ICC as it would expose Italy’s complicity in the abuses suffered by migrants and refugees in Libya as a result of the pact. He said: “Because if people start talking \[in court\] it will show that what they do is criminal and a violation of human rights, and it is done in agreement with \[European\] authorities. This is a shameful, and I believe unprecedented, episode for Italy.” The Guardian has written to Libya’s judicial police authority with a request for comment.

After stepping off an aircraft belonging to the Italian secret services, Osama Najim was triumphantly carried on the shoulders of the crowd of supporters awaiting his arrival at Tripoli’s Mitiga airport. Najim, also called Almasri, was not a footballer bringing home a trophy but a police chief wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including alleged murder, torture, enslavement, rape and sexual violence. Two days earlier, Najim had been arrested by Italian police after the ICC had issued an arrest warrant. But the Italian government failed to validate the warrant and instead provided a government plane to fly him home from Turin. As Tripoli celebrated, in Rome there was outrage and dismay. Opposition leaders [demanded answers](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/22/giorgia-meloni-faces-questions-after-italy-frees-libyan-general-accused-of-war-crimes) from Giorgia Meloni’s government, as critics accused Italy’s leadership of pandering to Libya because of its reliance on the north African country to stem the flow of migration towards Italy’s southern shores. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/01/why-did-we-give-back-this-alleged-criminal-pressure-grows-on-meloni-after-italy-releases-wanted-libyan-police-chief#img-2) A Libyan officer stands guard on a boat during the rescue of 147 people attempting to reach Europe from a coastal town west of Tripoli. Photograph: Taha Jawashi/AFP/Getty Images Human rights activists accused Italy of complicity in the long-documented mistreatment of migrants and refugees held in Libyan detention camps, while those most profoundly affected – the victims of Najim’s alleged crimes during their detention at the notorious Mitiga prison, one of the facilities under his watch – [spoke of their pain](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/27/refugees-justice-hopes-crushed-italy-releases-libya-war-crimes-suspect-osama-najim) at Italy “crushing” their already fragile hope of justice. As the controversy raged on, Luigi Li Gotti, a lawyer and former justice ministry undersecretary, submitted a legal complaint that led to Meloni being placed under investigation for aiding and abetting a crime in connection with the Najim case. Meloni revealed the existence of the case against her – which includes interior minister Matteo Piantedosi, justice minister Carlo Nordio and Alfredo Mantovano, an interior ministry undersecretary – in [a video message](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/28/giorgia-meloni-invesigation-repatriation-osama-najim-libya) last week. “I was appalled by everything that was happening,” Li Gotti told the _Observer_. “Why did we give back this \[alleged\] criminal who did all these things using such vicious methods, now allowing him to carry on doing those things?” Najim, who also has Turkish and Dominican Republic citizenship, arrived in [Europe](https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news) from Tripoli on 6 January, making a stopover at Rome’s Fiumicino airport before travelling to London. A week later, he went by train to Brussels, before moving on to Germany, where he hired a car – using a Turkish driving licence – that he intended to drop off at Fiumicino. The ICC arrest warrant was issued in six EU states, including [Italy](https://www.theguardian.com/world/italy), on 18 January, the day Najim arrived in Turin. He went to a Juventus-AC Milan football match that evening and was arrested in a hotel room the next day by Italian police after a tip-off from Interpol. The news of his arrest first circulated on Libyan social media networks before it was reported by Nello Scavo, a journalist on the Italian newspaper _Avvenire_, via Italian sources. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/01/why-did-we-give-back-this-alleged-criminal-pressure-grows-on-meloni-after-italy-releases-wanted-libyan-police-chief#EmailSignup-skip-link-11) Sign up to Observed Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/01/why-did-we-give-back-this-alleged-criminal-pressure-grows-on-meloni-after-italy-releases-wanted-libyan-police-chief#img-3) A crowd carries and cheers Osama Najim on his return to Libya. Photograph: Rai News Italy’s justice ministry issued a vague statement regarding the ICC warrant but the arrest was only officially confirmed once Najim had been released and repatriated. Amid lingering questions over why Italy did not validate the warrant, as it is obliged to under the ICC’s Rome statute, Meloni said Najim had been swiftly deported because he had been considered a risk to Italy’s national security. “That we expelled him because he was deemed to be a highly dangerous character was even more mind-­blowing,” said Li Gotti. In her video message, Meloni took issue with Li Gotti and Rome’s chief prosecutor, Francesco Lo Voi, insinuating that the investigation was part of a leftwing vendetta against her. “I am not blackmailable, I am not intimidated. Onwards and upwards,” Meloni told her social media followers. On the contrary, critics believe the Italian government might have been blackmailed by Libya, its former colony. Apart from a deal that involves Italy paying the Libyan coastguard to stop migrant boats from leaving, the country has wide-ranging political and business interests in Libya. The country is also important for the success of Meloni’s much-touted [Mattei plan](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/29/meloni-to-unveil-plan-to-expand-italian-influence-in-africa), aimed at increasing European cooperation on the African continent in return for curbs on irregular migration. “In the absence of a precise explanation from the authorities, we only have a few theories,” said Scavo, who wrote about Najim in abook, _[Le Mani sulla Guardia Costiera](https://www.chiarelettere.it/libro/le-mani-sulla-guardia-costiera-nello-scavo-9788832966435.html)_, in which he describes the police chief as being “among the figures capable of blackmailing Italy and Europe with boats”. Scavo added: “We know there was a lot of agitation in Libya over the arrest. So a danger was certainly perceived, a threat also for the Italians and the Italian companies who are in Libya. However, I believe this also represents an element of weakness for Italy, a G7 country, which felt threatened by Libya. If anything, this reflects greater strength from Libya’s power system.” Meloni has long been at war with Italy’s judiciary, with her allies claiming she is being persecuted in a similar way to the late former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Relations are especially bitter as a result of judges having disrupted Italy’s controversial migrant scheme with Albania. Moreover, it is unlikely that Meloni will face trial, especially given that it would need approval from parliament, where her government has a majority. “Everybody knows that the investigation will not result in anything,” said Christopher Hein, a professor of immigration law and policy at Luiss University in Rome. “But this risks reducing the attention on what really happened in this scandalous Najim case.”

ROME -- Italy’s justice minister strongly defended the government's decision to repatriate [a Libyan warlord](https://apnews.com/article/italy-libya-almasri-hague-icc-7eb1009911e8687cebcb4fc4f60ae24b) wanted by the International Criminal Court, saying Wednesday that the court itself had made an "immense mess” of the case by issuing a contradictory and flawed arrest warrant. Justice Minister Carlo Nordio told the lower chamber of parliament that he was right to proceed carefully with the Jan. 18 warrant against Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, who is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He said that The Hague-based court later “corrected, or rather completely overturned the previous warrant” by changing the timespan of al-Masri’s alleged crimes. “The court itself detected them and tried to change them five days later, because it realized that an immense mess was made,” he told the Chamber of Deputies. The Italian government has been [under fire from the ICC](https://apnews.com/article/italy-libya-warlord-release-meloni-icc-court-6f52491049b4e2735dbf598f7a84abf9), human rights groups and opposition lawmakers ever since it freed al-Masri from prison on Jan. 21 and sent him back to Libya aboard an Italian military aircraft. Al-Masri heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force. [The ICC warrant](https://apnews.com/article/libya-international-criminal-court-prosecutor-arrest-warrants-f4839847dba63e85bc63fcfca62624c3) available on the court's website accuses al-Masri of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Mitiga prison in Libya starting in 2015 that are punishable with life in prison. The ICC said he was accused of murder, torture, rape and sexual violence. Al-Masri was arrested in Turin on the ICC warrant on Jan. 19 at 9:30 a.m., the day after he arrived in the country from Germany to watch a soccer match. The Italian government has said Rome’s court of appeals ordered him released Jan. 21 because of a technical problem in the way that the ICC warrant was transmitted, having initially bypassed the Italian justice ministry. Nordio repeated that argument Wednesday, saying that he only received an “informal email of a few lines” from Interpol three hours after al-Masri was arrested. But he added that the text of the original Jan. 18 warrant itself was full of contradictions, specifically the timespan during which al-Masri allegedly committed his crimes. While the text of the warrant spoke of crimes allegedly occurring between 2015-2024, the conclusions referred to crimes allegedly committed from “2011 onwards.” “An irreconcilable contradiction emerges regarding an essential element of the arrestee’s criminal conduct, regarding the time of the crime committed,” Nordio said. When the court announced it was unsealing the warrant on Jan. 24, it said that it was issuing an updated warrant to “correct certain typographical and clerical errors.” The revised warrant speaks only of alleged crimes between 2015-2024. Human rights groups have blasted Italy’s repatriation of al-Masri as a serious breach of its obligations as a founding member of the court. According to Article 89 of the Rome Statute, the 1998 treaty that gave birth to the ICC, member states must “comply with requests for arrest and surrender.” And opposition lawmakers have seized on the case to attack Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni. They have demanded that Meloni herself brief parliament, and on Wednesday they held up signs saying “Meloni the patriot at large” in the chamber. Italy has close ties to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, on whom it relies to patrol its coasts and prevent migrants from leaving. Opposition politicians have accused the government of essentially caving to the threat that Libyan militias might have unleashed boatloads of migrants had al-Masri been handed over to the ICC. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, who also briefed Parliament on Wednesday, denied al-Masri was ever an interlocutor with the government on the migration issue. And he denied that Italy had received any threats in connection with his arrest. Opposition leader Elly Schlein of the Democratic Party blasted Nordio’s presentation, saying that his legalistic arguments about the ICC warrant were misplaced and that he had no role to evaluate an arrest warrant from the court. “Minister Nordio, you didn’t speak to this chamber as a minister, but as the defense lawyer of a torturer,” Schlein said. Nordio’s attack on the ICC warrant is in line with the government’s overall attempt to focus attention on the judiciary’s role in the al-Masri saga. Last week, Rome’s chief prosecutor informed Meloni, Nordio, Piatendosi and another government official that they were being investigated for allegedly favoring irregular migration by repatriating al-Masri. Meloni has spent days complaining about Italy's politicized judiciary, echoing a frequent line of attack taken by her onetime ally, the late former Premier Silvio Berlusconi. But Meloni has also acknowledged that national security issues came into play in the al-Masri case: In an X post on Jan. 29, Meloni framed the issue as a matter of defending Italy. “When the security of the national and the interests of Italians are in play, there is no room for backing down,” she wrote. \_\_\_ Molly Quell contributed to this report from The Hague, Netherlands.

An alleged Russian spy tearfully told the Old Bailey she knew nothing of plans to deploy her as a “honeytrap” and claimed she was “lied to, manipulated, used, and exposed”. London-based Vanya Gaberova, 30, is accused of being part of a spy ring which targeted people and places of interest to the Russian state over three years. It is alleged she befriended Christo Grozev on Facebook to get close to the journalist who uncovered Russian involvement in the 2018 Salisbury novichok poisoning. In August 2021, Gaberova had accompanied Biser Dzhambazov, 43, to Vienna in Austria and stayed in a rented apartment near to Grozev’s home for surveillance, the Old Bailey heard. They allegedly followed him to Valencia in Spain where Grozev attended a conference organised by the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, with Dzhambazov’s partner, Katrin Ivanova, travelling on the same plane. Gaberova, described in messages as a “killer sexy brunette”, was sitting just metres from Grozev as he had breakfast with fellow Bellingcat journalist Eliot Higgins. On Thursday, the beautician told the court she knew nothing of the meticulously planned operation against Grozev, telling jurors: “Seeing all of this now, I was lied to, manipulated, used, exposed.” By September 2021, the spy chief Orlin Roussev and the alleged Russian agent Jan Marsalek were planning to engineer a “romance” between Gaberova and Grozev, jurors heard. As part of the honeytrap, Roussev suggested making a recording for the website Pornhub, saying Gaberova was “red hot” and a “swinger too”. Gaberova became emotional as she denied knowing anything about it, telling jurors: “These people had horrible plans for me.” In an earlier message, Roussev told Marsalek: “I put into action one of the brunettes. “She has a beauty salon in London and very good, wide network of people on Facebook and Instagram. “She sent invite to Grozev on Facebook and he was very quick to accept friendship.” The prosecutor Alison Morgan KC asked what she understood she was doing when she originally befriended Grozev on Facebook. Gaberova repeatedly denied knowing Roussev, despite having a contact under his Telegram handle, “Jackie Chan”, saved on her phone. She was asked why she made a screenshot of a post on Facebook in which Grozev’s new profile picture was described by an “attractive brunette” as beautiful in Russian. Morgan suggested this was the kind of woman Grozev might be interested in and bore a “very similar resemblance” to the defendant. Gaberova, who declined to hand over her Facebook password, told jurors: “Mr Grozev never liked my picture, I never messaged him, I never talked to him.” She told jurors Dzhambazov had claimed to be working for Interpol and had told her Grozev was a “bad journalist”. Dzhambazov, from Harrow, north-west London, and Roussev, 46, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, have admitted plotting to spy for Russia between 2020 and 2023. [](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/feb/06/alleged-russian-spy-denies-knowing-of-honeytrap-plan-to-target-journalist#img-2) Orlin Roussev (left) and Biser Dzhambazov (right) have admitted spying for Russia. Katrin Ivanova (centre), Dzhambazov’s partner, is also accused. Composite: BBC news Fellow Bulgarians Gaberova, her ex-boyfriend Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, of Acton, west London, and Ivanova, from Harrow, have denied involvement. The court has heard how Gaberova was charmed by Dzhambazov in Valencia and left her boyfriend Ivanchev, unaware the older Dzhambazov was still with his partner, Ivanova. Jurors viewed extracts of the former competitive swimmer Ivanchev’s police interviews, in which Morgan suggested he had attempted to throw Gaberova “under a bus” to save himself. He blamed Gaberova for getting him involved, accused her of “manipulating” him and claimed she was used as a “shield” by Dzhambazov, jurors heard. Morgan said Ivanchev’s account was “nonsense”, asking: “Do you know the expression ‘throwing someone under the bus’? “He is trying to put you in it to save himself, isn’t he? Give the police officers a bit of information here and there to make it seem like he is the reasonable one answering all the questions, meanwhile pretending that somehow or other he was manipulated into doing all this by you. And it’s not true, is it?” Gaberova replied: “Some of this was because Biser has told me that he is sick.” The trial continues.

Three Bulgarian nationals accused of spying for Russia have been found guilty of espionage charges in a trial that heard how they were involved in a string of plots around Europe directed by a fugitive based in Moscow. After more than 32 hours of deliberations, a jury at the Old Bailey reached unanimous verdicts on Katrin Ivanova, 33, a lab technician, Vanya Gaberova, 30, a beautician, and Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, a painter and decorator, all of whom were living in [London](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/london) before their arrest. The three were convicted for being junior members of a spy ring that was ultimately directed by Jan Marsalek, an Austrian businessman who had fled to [Russia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia) in 2020 after a company he helped to run collapsed amid a €1.9bn (£1.6bn) fraud. Marsalek directed the hostile surveillance of Christo Grozev – an investigative journalist who had helped implicate Russian spies in the poisoning of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny – in Bulgaria, Austria and Spain. All three defendants were involved in the operation. The spymaster also directed gang members, including Ivanova, to steal mobile phone numbers of Ukrainian troops believed to be training at a US barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, using a military-grade snooping device not previously seen in criminal hands. Marsalek communicated directly with the ringleader, Orlin Roussev, 47, from Great Yarmouth, who in turn directed the surveillance activities from a former guesthouse in the Norfolk seaside town. The building was crammed with hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of electronic and surveillance equipment. Roussev has already pleaded guilty to espionage charges, as has his friend and deputy, Bizer Dzhambazov, 43. But the three more junior members had denied the charge of espionage, leading to an Old Bailey trial that lasted nearly three months. Police, however, said they were fortunate to have broken up the spy ring in February 2023, after an unknown period in which members were under surveillance by counter-terror police and MI5. The Met said it was unaware of the gang members’ intention to travel days later to Stuttgart to try to snoop on the phone numbers when police conducted a series of pre-dawn arrests. The head of the Met’s counter-terror division, Commander Dom Murphy, said “the core evidence was obtained from Roussev’s phone” and by identifying other key devices to retrieve 78,747 Telegram messages between [Roussev and Marsalek](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/07/spy-ring-trial-whos-who-spymaster-ringleader-minions) outlining six main plots and other smaller ones. Though Roussev was an IT specialist, he had not deleted the messages and they were not encrypted, painting a revealing picture of not just the spy ring’s activities, but the Kremlin’s interests around [Europe](https://www.theguardian.com/world/europe-news). At one point Marsalek appeared to suggest Grozev was targeted because “apparently Putin seriously hates him”. Counter-terror officers also said that Kremlin spying and sabotage efforts were still in operation, although largely conducted through criminals or other poorly trained proxies directed from a distance. “This won’t be the only activity Russia is conducting in the UK,” Murphy said. The court heard that Dzhambazov was [in a relationship](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/07/spy-trial-scheming-bluster-tangled-relationships) with Ivanova, his long-term partner, as well as Gaberova for a year and a half before their arrest. The third defendant, Ivanchev, was Gaberova’s ex-boyfriend. When police raided Gaberova’s flat, they found Dzhambazov in bed with her. Ivanova had been unaware of the relationship until after her arrest, and during the trial accused Dzhambazov of conducting “a parallel relationship” with Gaberova behind her back. Dzhambazov had also told the two women he had brain cancer, which was false. [skip past newsletter promotion](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/07/three-bulgarian-nationals-found-guilty-spying-russia-uk#EmailSignup-skip-link-14) Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning **Privacy Notice:** Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our [Privacy Policy](https://www.theguardian.com/help/privacy-policy). We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google [Privacy Policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Terms of Service](https://policies.google.com/terms) apply. after newsletter promotion Ivanova tried to argue she was manipulated by Dzhambazov and was not aware she was spying for Russia, while Gaberova and Ivanchev said they thought they were working for Interpol, after Dzhambazov showed them a fake ID card. All three were found guilty of being involved in conspiracy, contrary to section 1 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, to commit an offence under section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. It carries a maximum jail term of 14 years. Investigators traced at least €210,000 flowing from Roussev to other members of the gang. Of the three defendants, only Ivanchev was in court. The two women were present via video link from HMP Bronzefield. Ivanova and Gaberova, both seated, remained passive and subdued as the guilty verdicts were read out. Ivanchev, standing in the dock, nodded briefly as he heard the jury’s conclusion. Frank Ferguson, the counter-terror chief at the Crown Prosecution Service, said “this was a high-level espionage operation” with members working under Roussev’s leadership. “The police raid on Roussev’s home revealed a spy factory,” Ferguson said. Officers seized 221 mobile phones, 495 sim cards, 258 hard drives, 33 audio recording devices, 55 surveillance cameras, 16 radios and 11 drones plus wifi eavesdroppers, electronic jammers and 75 fake passports and identity documents in 55 different names. The vast bulk were recovered in Great Yarmouth. Ivanova was also found guilty of possessing fake passports and identity documents at her flat in Harrow, where she lived with Dzhambazov. Mr Justice Hilliard KC, presiding, remanded the defendants into custody until sentencing between 7 May and 12 May. A sixth man, Ivan Stoyanov, 33, from Greenford in west London, was also implicated in some of the spying. He had pleaded guilty before the trial began, but this can be reported only now.

A second Kremlin spy operation has been discovered targeting Russian dissidents in Britain, it can be revealed. [Roman Dobrokhotov](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/30/russia-fsb-seeks-to-arrest-journalist-who-worked-with-bellingcat), a journalist in the sights of the [six Bulgarians convicted of spying for Russia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/07/three-bulgarian-nationals-found-guilty-spying-russia-uk), said he had been informed of fresh attempts to surveil his family. “I received a warning from the police last spring,” said Dobrokhotov, 41, who moved to the UK in January 2023. “These attempts are ongoing.” The details of the warning given to Dobrokhotov, who fled Moscow in 2021, are being withheld on his request, as is the location of him and his wife, Kate, and their two sons, aged eight and 10. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/08/revealed-second-kremlin-spy-ring-targeting-russian-dissidents-discovered-in-uk#img-2) UK-based Bulgarians Katrin Ivanova, Vanya Gaberova and Tihomir Ivanchev were part of a six-strong Russian spying operation. Photograph: AP Six Bulgarian nationals with resident status in the UK – Vanya Gaberova, 30, Katrin Ivanova, 33, Tihomir Ivanchev, 39, Orlin Roussev, 47, Biser Dzhambazov, 43, and Ivan Stoyanov, 34 – were convicted of carrying out espionage operations at home and abroad. Jan Marsalek, 44, an Austrian national believed to be working as a Russian agent, [masterminded the British operation](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/mar/07/spy-ring-trial-whos-who-spymaster-ringleader-minions) from Moscow despite being wanted for his links to an alleged £1.6bn fraud at the disgraced German financial company Wirecard. Two of their targets were the journalists [Christo Grozev](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/dec/02/agent-for-russia-and-uk-based-bulgarian-planned-honeytrap-for-journalist-court-hears) and Dobrokhotov, who were responsible for [unmasking the two Russian military intelligence officers](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/23/skripal-salisbury-poisoning-decline-of-russia-spy-agencies-gru) who tried to murder Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury in 2018. Messages discovered by the police revealed that Dobrokhotov had been followed so closely that his iPhone pin number was picked up by one of the spies sitting next to him on a plane. There had also been discussions within the group about poisoning Dobrokhotov with ricin on the streets of London or abducting him using a small boat. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/08/revealed-second-kremlin-spy-ring-targeting-russian-dissidents-discovered-in-uk#img-3) Austrian national Jan Marsalek, who is believed to be working as a Russian agent, allegedly masterminded the British operation from Moscow. Photograph: Interpol/PA The police warning of a new attempt to target Dobrokhotov came months after the arrest of the spy ring in February 2024. Dobrokhotov is the editor-in-chief of the Insider website, whose investigative work has led to about 80 companies and 60 people being hit with economic sanctions by the west over their roles in facilitating Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Dobrokhotov said: “I understood that after the arrest of the Bulgarians, there must be still some continuous attention to me and Christo because we didn’t stop our work. “Also, because we were told by our source that, after this team controlled by \[the\] FSB \[Russia’s security service\] was arrested, the task – the same task – is now given to the GRU \[military intelligence\]. “We were expecting that there will be something continuing. So after police said that they know about some new attempts, that was not very surprising, just confirmation of what our Russian source was telling us.” Dobrokhotov said he recognised the need to be constantly on the move to avoid the attentions of the Kremlin. He said: “All my family are worried, of course. They worry about me and they understand that they are not safe – if they put novichok \[the biological agent used in the murder attempt on the Skripals\] on the door handle, they can all suffer. “On the other hand, it’s the worst situation when you don’t know whether you should be very much worried, or you can relax. You always doubt if you are paranoid about all of this stuff. So in some way, it’s good to know that you know this situation.” A counter-terrorism policing spokesperson said: “Counter-terrorism policing works closely with police forces, partners and communities to identify any repressive activity by foreign states in the UK and will seek to disrupt this activity where possible. “This has been shown to be the case with a number of recent arrests and charges that have been made in relation to offences under the National Security Act. “We would encourage members of the public to report any allegations of foreign interference to their local police force. “On receipt of any such reports, officers would also assess whether there are any safeguarding or security concerns or issues and, in liaison with specialist officers, would be able to provide individuals affected with appropriate safety and security advice and support as required. “Briefings on personal safety are not the limit of our activity to keep people safe, but they do create direct connections between individuals, organisations and policing. “The importance of that advice should not be underestimated, and neither should the scale of operational activity taking place within our proactive investigations teams and with partner agencies to keep people safe.”

Cherylann Mollan BBC News, Mumbai Getty Images Lalit Modi is wanted by Indian authorities in a major corruption case The prime minister of Vanuatu has ordered the cancellation of a passport issued by the island nation to fugitive Indian businessman Lalit Modi, who is wanted by Delhi in a corruption case. The order came three days after India confirmed that Mr Modi had got citizenship of Vanuatu, a string of more than 80 islands in the Pacific Ocean. Mr Modi, the former chief of the Indian Premier League (IPL), is wanted for allegedly rigging bids during his tenure as the head of the world's richest cricket tournament. Mr Modi, who has been living in the UK since 2010, has always denied the allegations. India has made several unsuccessful attempts to extradite him. On Friday, India's foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters that Mr Modi had applied to surrender his Indian passport in London. "We are also given to understand that he has acquired citizenship of Vanuatu. We continue to pursue the case against him as required under law," Jaiswal had said. The news of Mr Modi becoming a Vanuatu citizen had made headlines in India, where he was once the face of the glamorous, cash-rich IPL tournament. He was a regular presence on the social scene, rubbing shoulders with Bollywood stars and India's elite. But on Monday, Vanuatu's Prime Minister Jotham Napat announced that his country had decided to cancel Mr Modi's citizenship. Napat said a Vanuatu passport was a "privilege" and that "applicants must seek citizenship for legitimate reasons". "None of those legitimate reasons include attempting to avoid extradition, which the recent facts brought to light clearly indicate was Mr Modi's intention," a media release quoted Napat as saying. He said that background checks and Interpol screenings conducted during Mr Modi's application for a passport had shown no criminal convictions. But, he added, that in the past 24 hours, he had been made aware that Interpol had twice rejected India's requests to issue an alert notice on Mr Modi, citing a lack of "substantive judicial evidence". "Any such alert would've triggered an automatic rejection of Mr Modi's citizenship application," the release added. The move is likely to bring relief to Indian authorities. Unlike the UK, Vanuatu does not have an extradition treaty with India. Extradition treaties allow repatriation of people accused of crimes between countries. A day earlier, Mr Modi wrote in a [post](https://x.com/LalitKModi/status/1898429349272985938) on X (formerly Twitter) that there were no cases pending against him in any court in India and accused the media of peddling "fake news" about him. Mr Modi was instrumental in founding the IPL in 2008, which has now become a multi-billion-dollar industry. The main accusations against Mr Modi relate to rigging bids during the auction of two team franchises in 2010. He was also accused of selling broadcasting and internet rights without authorisation. In 2013, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) [banned Mr Modi from](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-24259469) any involvement in cricket activities for life. _Follow BBC News India on_ [_Instagram_](https://www.instagram.com/bbcnewsindia/)_,_ [_YouTube_](https://www.youtube.com/@bbcnewsindia/featured)_,_ [_Twitter_](https://x.com/BBCIndia) _and_ [_Facebook_](https://www.facebook.com/bbcindia/)_._

The former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has been taken into custody after the international criminal court issued a warrant for his arrest for his so-called [“war on drugs”](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/04/rodrigo-dutertes-war-on-drugs-in-the-philippines-explained-in-30-seconds-ntwnfb). The former leader, who will turn 80 this month, is accused by ICC prosecutors of crimes against humanity over his anti-drugs crackdowns, in which as many as 30,000 people were killed. Most of the victims were men in poor, urban areas, who were gunned down in the streets. The president’s office said Duterte was arrested on Tuesday morning at Manila airport after flying back from Hong Kong. “Early in the morning, Interpol Manila received the official copy of the warrant of the arrest from the ICC,” the presidential palace said in a statement. “As of now, he is under the custody of authorities.” A video shared by the broadcaster GMA appeared to show Duterte as he was stopped on board a plane. “You will just have to kill me. I won’t allow you to take the side of the white foreigners,” he said. Leila de Lima, one of fiercest critics of Duterte and the “war on drugs” who was jailed for more than six years on baseless charges under his former government, said: “Today, Duterte is being made to answer – not to me, but to the victims, to their families, to a world that refuses to forget. This is not about vengeance. This is about justice finally taking its course.” Josalee S Deinla, secretary general of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, which represents the victims of the war on drugs, said that justice was “finally catching up” with the former leader. Duterte, who remains an influential figure in Philippine politics, had previously responded to recent speculation that an arrest warrant was imminent, saying on Sunday: “If this is really my fate in life, that’s OK, I will accept it. There’s nothing we can do.” Duterte became president in 2016 after promising a merciless, bloody crackdown that would rid the country of drugs. On the campaign trail he once said that there would be [so many bodies dumped in Manila Bay](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/26/philippines-police-chief-echoes-presidents-call-to-kill-drug-traffickers) that fish would grow fat from feeding on them. After taking office, he publicly stated that he would [kill suspected drug dealers and urged the public to kill addicts](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/01/philippines-president-rodrigo-duterte-urges-people-to-kill-drug-addicts). [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/11/rodrigo-duterte-arrest-manila-former-philippines-president-war-on-drugs-ntwnfb#img-1) Security forces stand guard outside a military airbase where former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was allegedly brought to upon arrival at Manila’s International Airport Photograph: Francis R Malasig/EPA Since his election, between 12,000 and 30,000 civilians are estimated to have been killed in connection with anti-drugs operations, according to data cited by the ICC. Even as his crackdowns provoked international horror, he remained highly popular at home throughout his presidency. His daughter Sara Duterte is the current vice-president. Police reports often sought to justify killings saying that officers had acted in self-defence, despite eye witnesses stating otherwise. Rights groups documenting the crackdowns allege that the police routinely planted evidence, including guns, spent ammunition and drugs. An independent forensic pathologist investigating the killings has also [uncovered serious irregularities](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/26/they-were-shot-in-the-head-morgue-gives-up-truth-of-rodrigo-dutertes-drug-war) in how postmortems were performed, including multiple death certificates that wrongly attributed fatalities to natural causes. Duterte, who appeared before a [senate inquiry into the drugs war killings](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/28/rodrigo-duterte-testifies-philippines-war-on-drugs-inquiry) in 2024, said he offered “no apologies, no excuses” for his policies, saying “I did what I had to do, and whether you believe it or not, I did it for my country.” During the same hearing, he told senators that he had ordered officers to encourage criminals to fight back and resist arrest, so that police could then justify killing them – but also denied authorising police to kill suspects. Duterte also told the hearing that he kept a “death squad” of criminals to kill other criminals while serving as a mayor of Davao, prior to becoming president. Duterte’s former legal counsel Salvador Panelo said the arrest on Tuesday was unlawful, and said the police had prevented one of his lawyers from meeting Duterte at the airport. The ICC’s investigation into the anti-drugs killings covers alleged crimes committed from November 2011 to June 2016, including extrajudicial killings in Davao City, as well as across the country during his presidency up until 16 March 16 2019, when the [Philippines](https://www.theguardian.com/world/philippines) withdrew from the court. Human rights groups welcomed his arrest as a major breakthrough for families whose loved ones were killed. Human Rights Watch called it “a critical step for accountability in the Philippines” that “could bring victims and their families closer to justice”, and called on the government of President Ferdinand Marcos to swiftly surrender him to the ICC. Marcos – who took office in 2022 after a joint campaign with Duterte’s daughter, Sara – initially said he would not cooperate with the ICC, calling its investigation an “intrusion into our internal matters”. However [relations between the two families have soured](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/29/rodrigo-duterte-calls-philippine-president-drug-addict-rift-deepens-ferdinand-marcos-jr), and they are now embroiled in a high stakes struggle for power ahead of midterm elections. The Marcos administration later said it would cooperate if the ICC asked international police to take Duterte into custody.

Peru Ministry of the Interior Miguel Rodriguez Diaz was arrested in downtown Medellin, Colombia Police in Colombia have arrested a man suspected of being involved in the killing of 13 kidnapped workers at a gold mine in neighbouring Peru. Miguel Antonio Rodríguez Díaz, whose alias is "Cuchillo" (knife), was arrested in the city of Medellin in a joint operation between the two countries and Interpol, according to Peru's interior ministry and Colombian police. The bodies of the miners were recovered on 4 May from a tunnel at a mine in the Pataz district of Peru. A lawyer for Mr Diaz has denied his involvement in the killings. Peru is one of the largest gold producers in Latin America and has seen a surge in violence from illegal miners and organised criminal gangs. The 13 men killed in Pataz had been sent to confront a group which had attacked and occupied the mine but were ambushed and seized as they were trying to regain control of it, Peruvian authorities said. Mr Diaz is suspected of allegedly ordering the storming of the mine's entrance, with the aim of stealing gold extracted by miners, [Peru's interior ministry said in a statement](https://www.gob.pe/institucion/mininter/noticias/1168019-coordinacion-entre-policia-nacional-de-peru-y-colombia-permitio-captura-de-alias-cuchillo-presunto-autor-de-la-masacre-en-pataz). He is accused of "organised crime, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated homicide", it added. A video posted by authorities showed him being detained by armed police in a busy downtown area of Medellin. Colombian police chief Carlos Triana said Mr Diaz was located with the support of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and was subject to an Interpol red notice. Peru's interior ministry said they expected Mr Diaz to be extradited to Peru in the coming days. La Poderosa, which owns the mine where the murders took place, previously said 39 people with links to the company have been killed by criminal gangs in Pataz in total. This most recent attack prompted Peru's President Dina Boluarte to impose a night-time curfew in Pataz and to suspend mining activities for a month. Extra police and soldiers were also sent to the region.

Giorgi Bachiashvili is on the run. The urbane 39-year-old slipped a surveillance team two months ago to flee his home in Tbilisi, [Georgia](https://www.theguardian.com/world/georgia-news), midway through a trial at which he was destined to be sentenced to 11 years in jail. An Interpol red notice has been requested by the Georgian authorities asking law enforcement to find and arrest him over a $42m crime, and he further claims to have been informed by the intelligence services of two countries that there is an active plot to kill him. “Groups from the northern Caucasus, most likely Chechens,” he said. For more than a decade, Bachiashvili worked for Bidzina Ivanishvili, the reclusive billionaire who as the honorary chair of the Georgian Dream party is widely regarded as the de facto leader of Georgia, ruling from a hilltop glass business centre and residence in Tbilisi. In December last year, Ivanishvili was put under US economic sanctions for “undermining the democratic and Euro-Atlantic future of Georgia for the benefit of the Russian Federation”. He was further accused by the US of overseeing the violent repression of hundreds of thousands of people protesting on the streets of Tbilisi over his turn against the west and seeming alignment of Georgia with Moscow, the place he first made his fortune after the breakup of the Soviet Union. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/giorgi-bachiashvili-interview-georgia-bidzina-ivanishvili#img-2) Students and families of arrested protesters at a demonstration in Tbilisi. Photograph: Sébastien Canaud/NurPhoto/REX/Shutterstock Bachiashvili said he was the businessman-cum-politician’s “closest person, right-hand man”. “Consigliere, I would not say,” he added. “As consiglieri do the shady stuff as well.” Arguably few people have a more intimate understanding of the enigmatic mind of Ivanishvili, Georgia’s richest man, who was once an advocate of European Union membership. It is Ivanishvili who is today driving the hunt to jail Bachiashvili, the latter said, following a spectacular falling out. Bachiashvili has asked the Guardian for the location of the interview to be kept a secret due to fears for his safety. His account, albeit one from someone who has a grievance and is on the run, offers perhaps the most telling insight yet into the mentality of the man accused of bringing Georgia back into the Russian sphere, three and a half decades after the fall of the Soviet Union. “He will sacrifice the land, any interest for his personal wellbeing and security,” claimed Bachiashvili. The road to right-hand man -------------------------- Bachiashvili started working on real estate deals in the Moscow office of one of Ivanishvili’s companies in 2011 after his mother, a renowned eye doctor in Georgia, had mentioned to one of her regular clients her pride at her son’s success at a business school in France. The patient was Ivanishvili’s mother; her son was with her at the time and looking to recruit bright young things for his growing business and political empire. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/giorgi-bachiashvili-interview-georgia-bidzina-ivanishvili#img-3) Bidzina Ivanishvili, then prime minister, in September 2013. Photograph: Vano Shlamov/AFP/Getty Images It was Bachiashvili, in advance of Ivanishvili’s election as prime minister in October 2012, who helped sell his boss’s Russian assets, which were regarded as an obstacle to electoral success given Putin’s 2008 invasion in the north of the country. At the age of 26, Bachiashvili was appointed deputy chief executive of Georgia’s sovereign wealth fund – a position that placed him “always by \[Ivanishvili’s\] side” – and soon tasked unofficially with liaising with the bankers managing the then prime minister’s private wealth, he said. The 2016, Panama papers leak revealed that Ivanishvili had not disclosed he owned a company managed by Mossack Fonseca, a since-shuttered Panamanian law firm, but the company’s purpose remained a mystery. “It was owning and managing his \[$1.3bn\] arts portfolio stored in New York and London,” Bachiashvili said of the company, Lynden Management Ltd, which was one of his responsibilities. “In 2022, he brought all of this art back to Georgia \[because of the fear of sanctions\], and in order to avoid the paying the custom duties and fees and the property tax, and in the near future, the profit tax from sales of these art pieces he enacted an offshore law … Like, that’s $400m he’s just taken out of the pocket of Georgia.” Ivanishvili’s lawyer described this claim as “outright lies”, adding: “Using an offshore zone in itself is no crime.” During these early years, Bachiashvili had also set up a private equity fund for Ivanishvili in the Cayman Islands with the assets held in Luxembourg. This became Bachiashvili’s focus after Ivanishvili, said to be uncomfortable in a public role, stood down as prime minister in 2013. But there was little change in the way the country was run, Bachiashvili said. The relationship between Ivanishvili and Georgia’s various prime ministers remained that of an “angry boss and a stupid employee”, Bachiashvili said. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/giorgi-bachiashvili-interview-georgia-bidzina-ivanishvili#img-4) Bidzina Ivanishvili, left, and the Georgian prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, at an April 2024 pro-government rally in Tbilisi. Photograph: Irakli Gedenidze/Reuters “I was maybe the most regular guest in the Ivanishvili residence, in his business centre,” he said. “I would see prime ministers, judges, prosecutor general, ministers of interior, everybody walking to his meetings like employees. He would sometimes yell at them, sometimes call them worthless. It’s just like a sultan and his servants.” Ivanishvili’s lawyer described this claim as a “groundless attempt to discredit Mr Ivanishvili”. The tycoon had some other peccadilloes. He is known in Georgia for his collection of zebras, peacocks and other exotic animals. There were sharks and dolphins, said Bachiashvili. He had a habit of ripping up ancient tall trees from around Georgia for his private arboretum at his summer residence in Ureki, one of four homes in the country. “He has to own something to love it – that’s his worldview,” said Bachiashvili. The trees were regarded as a source of life energy, he said. “He was obsessed with his mortality,” said Bachiashvili. “He’s doing all these experimental, crazy procedures, such as stem cell transplants and all these crazy voodoo things. His voodoo master, Yulia Krushanova, lives with him.” [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/giorgi-bachiashvili-interview-georgia-bidzina-ivanishvili#img-5) Giorgi Bachiashvili in an undisclosed location. Photograph: Katarina Premfors/The Guardian Krushanova, who describes herself as an “anti-ageing medicine specialist”, is reportedly married to a Russian intelligence officer, but this could not be independently verified. Ivanshivili’s lawyer denied that a “voodoo doctor” lived with him. He said: “These statements by Bachiashvili are absurd. I can assure you that no doctor lives with him, much less with ‘occult’ deviations, and no experiments are held.” Krushanova did not respond to a request for comment. Accusations – and an escape --------------------------- Ivanishvili could blow hot and cold, Bachiashvili added, but he evidently enjoyed his financially lucrative work. “I’m not there to change \[him\], I’m there to do my job, which I was doing, I think, very well,” Bachiashvili said. It was in this role that Bachiashvili discovered that an adviser at Credit Suisse, Patrice Lescaudron, was sending them “cooked books” to hide his theft of hundreds of millions of dollars of Ivanishvili’s funds. He led a successful legal battle in multiple jurisdictions to get some of the money back. Meanwhile, allegations of a rigged election in 2020 triggered concerns in the European parliament about a concentration of power in Ivanishvili’s hands in a country that was on path to accession to the EU. Ivanishvili, who left Moscow in 2003, remained clear in private that Georgia’s path was with the west, while still maintaining cordial relations with Putin. Then in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Bachiashvili, who was by then spending more time in the US and on his own investments, including in cryptocurrency, said: “He started telling me, ‘I think this Credit Suisse saga is not actually Credit Suisse, but it’s some external forces like the Americans trying to strip me of my money and take it as a ransom for Georgia to go into war with Russia.’ I told him it didn’t make sense. “He would spend sometimes 30, sometimes 40 minutes on the call with me, especially while I was in the US, just airing his views on it, saying that he’s ‘such a type of person that even if you hold the gun up his head, he would not subdue to such things’. I thought, why is this guy talking to me about this for 40 minutes on the phone every day? Then I realised, he thinks that our line is tapped. He would sometimes say, ‘Yeah, and tell your friends that I’m of this opinion.’” The Georgian government then started talking about the US and the EU as being part of a “global war party”. Bachiashvili said: “I think that up until 2022 he had an illusion that Georgia would enter the EU under Ivanishvili’s shadow grip. It became evident that the EU will not accept Georgia with this sort of autocratic power.” A move towards Putin was the solution, he suggests. Ivanishvili’s lawyer called this claim groundless and said it was under Ivanishvili that Georgia became an EU candidate state. Bachiashvili posted pro-Ukrainian messages on his Instagram account at the start of the war, which prompted a call from Ivanishvili, he claimed. “It was the first time he was really out of his mind,” he said. “He was yelling, he was threatening. The message was basically, ‘You better stay quiet. You need to know your place.’” Ivanishvili’s lawyer denied that this conversation took place. The tide had turned. And a bitcoin deal would be Bachiashvili’s downfall. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/giorgi-bachiashvili-interview-georgia-bidzina-ivanishvili#img-6) Giorgi Bachiashvili said he had been advised of a death threat. Photograph: Katarina Premfors/The Guardian He had tried to get Ivanishvili interested in investing in cryptocurrency over the years but without success, Bachiashvili said. In 2015, he said he approached Ivanishvili again, but for a loan for a bitcoin investment he wished to make. Ivanishvili directed him to the bank he owned, CartuBank. A $5m loan was agreed by the bank with the caveat that the institution would reap 30% of the profits from investing the money in bitcoin, Bachiashvili said. After a year, Bachiashvili repaid the loan in full, plus the agreed kicker for the bank, he claimed. In May, 2023, Ivanishvili called to thank Bachiashvili for the latest win in the Credit Suisse legal case. But a few days later, Bachiashvili was invited to attend an interview with a prosecutor, nominally about an investigation into a hydropower plant, he said. Bitcoin was top of the agenda. Ivanishvili was claiming that he had done “what a father would not do for a son”, according to his witness statement, by being a $5m investor in the bitcoin deal. The allegation was that Bachiashvili had falsely claimed to have sold the bitcoins but instead kept them, reaping the rewards of their soaring value, and in effect stealing $42.7m in profits owed to Ivanishvili. The sole communication to Bachiashvili from his former mentor on the day of his first interrogation, he said, was a WhatsApp message to advise him to “talk to your lawyer”. His world was crumbling around him. Bachiashvili was put on criminal trial in January this year on charges of misappropriating Ivanishvili’s funds and money laundering. An offer was put to his lawyers that the criminal complaint would be dropped if he agreed to stump up 60% of the allegedly misappropriated bitcoins. The demand would rise by 5% for each month that he failed to agree. Bachiashvili would not fold to what he claims was extortion. Ivanshivili’s lawyer confirmed the offer but responded: “I believe that, with the parties coming to an agreement, and the plaintiff informing law enforcements of the absence of claims, the situation of Bachiashvili as a suspect in a crime could be much easier.” Bachiashvili claimed the trial was a foregone conclusion. “I think it’s one of the very few cases in the world where the claimant, the judge, the chief justices and the chief prosecutor all are sanctioned,” he said. Transparency International has described the case as being “devoid of both legal and factual grounds”. Ivanshivili’s lawyer said the NGO harboured “clearly defined political sympathies and objectives”. Two weeks before the verdict, Bachiashvili decided to flee. Bachiashvili said: “I got a message from one of the guys in the state security services that Ivanishvili has said that, ‘I will crush him in jail and I will make him do what I want.’” Ivanshivili’s lawyer described the claim as “just yellow press-level \[tabloid\] gossiping”. The escape was well-planned. For months, Bachiashvili had been making regular visits to a border region called Kakheti, in order to convince the security services that were surveilling him that this was normal behaviour. On the evening of 2 March, he told his driver and security man that he wished to go to Kakheti but that he would need to be dropped off halfway there to meet a journalist alone and in secret. “I jumped off from the car, so that the surveillance was a bit far, you know, behind a corner and I went through a building to a waiting car,” he said. He left his phone in a bag in the back of the car so that those tracking him would follow a false trail. Bachiashvili had been forced to surrender his Georgian and Russian passports. But the Russian document had lapsed and weeks earlier he had secretly applied for a renewal. It was this he used at the Armenian border crossing and then at the airport to get a 5am flight to Qatar. He had advised his parents and sister and her family to take a holiday out of the country at the time, and so they were safe. “It’s not easy, because you’re basically leaving everything behind. You don’t know whether you will be successful. \[But\] I knew that basically I was going to die in jail.” While in exile, he has been talking to various governments about his future, and it was during one of these discussions, he claimed, that he was advised of a death threat. “They told me that it’s not that they see a risk, but it’s that they know that it’s actually been ordered,” he said. He does not believe that Ivanishvili is behind it. He said: “My fear is that it could be coming from secret services or some forces from some country that would want Ivanishvili to become more vulnerable. If they can hang a killing on him then there is \[a\] much lesser chance that he’ll be able to have normal dialogue with the US or he will be more on a hook.” Bachiashvili, who intends to appeal against his conviction, believes Ivanishvili turned on him because he concluded that he could no longer be trusted to do his bidding, and that he may even be a western spy. “Ivanishvili’s grip on this power is existential for him,” he said. “He is fighting for his life. He’s like a machine only working in favour of his reptilian desires. And that desire is to stay alive.”