Full Transcript for Chasing Shadows: A True Story of the Mafia, Drugs and Terrorism - Miles Johnson | Underworlds with Mark Shaw

Jack Kelly is investigating. Miles Johnson 00:06:18 And that brings us to our last character, so to speak, who is a man called Mustafa Bader Adin. Miles Johnson 00:06:24 And he is a sort of legendary and extremely deadly and violent master bomb maker who has worked in the orbit of Hezbollah. Miles Johnson 00:06:36 He's eventually recognized as a sort of Hezbollah figure, but who he always works for is unclear of his career, but he has an extremely long career, decades starting out from his early twenties, his teens, where he's pulled off a series of extremely violent and bloody terrorist attacks in Lebanon. Miles Johnson 00:06:56 And in 2016, he is now middle aged, almost at retirement, has been dispatched to Syria because Hezbollah has become involved in the syrian civil war, defending the Assad regime. Miles Johnson 00:07:13 And Mustafa is dispatched there as effectively as commander in Syria. Miles Johnson 00:07:18 Now, how does that interact with the other two characters? Miles Johnson 00:07:20 That's because there are these money laundering cells that Jack Kelly and the DEA is investigating, who he suspects are laundering cocaine money in Europe and sending it to the Middle east to fund hezbollahs extremely expensive incursion into Syria, where Mustafa is commanding. Miles Johnson 00:07:42 So the money is what sort of connects these characters together in that sense. Mark Shaw 00:07:47 Mozart is sort of this triangle of three characters. Mark Shaw 00:07:51 Can I ask, did you know them separately at different times? Mark Shaw 00:07:57 Did you come across one? Mark Shaw 00:07:59 When did you make the connection between the three? Mark Shaw 00:08:03 Give us some background, how you stumbled on the three, and then you sort of pulled together the story, which is very character driven, makes it very interesting. Mark Shaw 00:08:15 Just some background, I think would be really helpful. Miles Johnson 00:08:18 Yes. Miles Johnson 00:08:19 So I was working. Miles Johnson 00:08:23 I work for the Financial Times. Miles Johnson 00:08:24 I'm an investigative reporter, but I've also worked as a foreign correspondent. Miles Johnson 00:08:29 About three or four years ago, I was working as the Rome correspondent for the FT. Miles Johnson 00:08:37 I was covering a lot of stuff like politics and the economy and society, but I was also covering organized crime from a particular angle. Miles Johnson 00:08:45 So I was looking at the italian organized criminal groups had become quite financially sophisticated. Miles Johnson 00:08:51 They started to sort of intersect the world of high finance and sort of laundering their money through complicated financial products and various scams. Miles Johnson 00:08:59 And so that was sort of my way into it. Miles Johnson 00:09:01 I started reading a lot of indictments and speaking to a lot of prosecutors and financial police and stuff like that. Miles Johnson 00:09:09 And I started to come across various

cases, and people were sort of telling me, what you've got to look at is not just where the cases end, because frequently the italian anti mafia police do amazing work, and they prosecute these huge, sprawling indictments involving hundreds of people sometimes. Miles Johnson 00:09:29 But there are sometimes elements of those cases when they leave the borders of Italy, where they stop because they just simply can't chase someone into Brazil frequently or figure out where all the money has gone around the whole world. Miles Johnson 00:09:42 It's just not really practical with their main focus, obviously, organized criminals in Italy. Miles Johnson 00:09:47 And so there was this one case where there was this very interesting figure involved where the money was sort of sent through a figure who was from Lebanon, who was connected into this network, which the DEA had sort of investigated, which was really present across Europe. Miles Johnson 00:10:06 So there was this quite important money laundering network in Europe, operating in France, in Spain, in Belgium, in Germany, in Italy. Miles Johnson 00:10:16 And I started to sort of look more at that network and sort of follow the trail of money and see get into the indictment in the United States, look at basically different elements of this case. Miles Johnson 00:10:30 And that's sort of how I started to got into contact with Jack Kelly. Miles Johnson 00:10:37 And then Jack Kelly is this extremely impressive investigator and had really very interesting conversations with him. Miles Johnson 00:10:47 And I started to see the whole broader context of why this money laundering operation was in existence in the first place, which was obviously very dependent on the geopolitical situation of the time and the extremely awful and bloody and complex conflict in Syria. Mark Shaw 00:11:04 Also, I mean, you started in Italy and sort of then completed the triangle through that route. Mark Shaw 00:11:13 Tell us something about Kelly. Mark Shaw 00:11:17 I mean, he was clearly open to being interviewed for talking. Mark Shaw 00:11:24 The description of his frustrations of the bureaucracy, the wider bureaucracy, the sort of turf battles in the us government. Mark Shaw 00:11:33 What kind of individual is he like? Mark Shaw 00:11:37 Was he eager to talk? Mark Shaw 00:11:40 Was he surprised to be approached? Miles Johnson 00:11:42 I think, you know, he is someone who's extremely passionate about his work. Miles Johnson 00:11:47 He's now retired, but he was really someone who is a bit of an obsessive. Miles Johnson 00:11:52 You know, he really would sometimes spend every waking hour on his work. Miles Johnson 00:11:59 And I was so passionate about it. Miles Johnson 00:12:01 I think, you know, he, he was, he, he could understand I was coming to him, you know, respectfully to try and better understand, really what happened in a situation which is very complex and hard to explain to a general audience. Miles Johnson 00:12:15 And I think. Miles Johnson 00:12:16 I think he was in. Miles Johnson 00:12:19 Wanted to engage on a. Miles Johnson 00:12:20 On a level where we would discuss it in a way which was intelligible to general. Miles Johnson 00:12:27 But that said, it's also, you know, it's a complicated story, and it also doesn't always have the elements of a story which you would see in a film. Miles Johnson 00:12:35 You know, part of. Miles Johnson 00:12:35 Part of really what I was trying to do with the book was trying to give a portrait of how chaotic and sprawling modern transnational criminal organizations and networks are. Miles Johnson 00:12:47 They don't neatly fit into. Miles Johnson 00:12:50 You know, there's not sort of frequently, there's not just sort of one guy at the top who sort of controls absolutely everything. Miles Johnson 00:12:57 And it's like a sort of scarface as character. Miles Johnson 00:13:00 There's often interacting networks and different power structures and things which cross borders and get quite messy. Miles Johnson 00:13:08 And what Jack's job really was to do was to sort of sit in his office at the DEA and receive this vast amount of information and so trying to make sense of it. Miles Johnson 00:13:19 So I thought he was a fantastically interesting character to show the difficulties and sometimes even the futility of trying to make sense of this ocean of illicit activity across borders. Mark Shaw 00:13:33 Martin what's so interesting is Kelly clearly has competition in the system. Mark Shaw 00:13:40 There are others who have different interpretations. Mark Shaw 00:13:43 The DEA has a particular place in the firmament of the security agencies of the US. Mark Shaw 00:13:48 So how does he operate? Mark Shaw 00:13:50 I mean, he showed clearly his frustrations to you of trying to sell his and their interpretation of what was going on. Miles Johnson 00:13:59 Yeah, I mean, I found that really fascinating in the sense that there's a sort of a philosophical. Miles Johnson 00:14:03 You know, the DEA is technically part is part of the us intelligence community, but it obviously is a law enforcement agency. Miles Johnson 00:14:11 You know, its job is to get convictions. Miles Johnson 00:14:13 That's what it does. Miles Johnson 00:14:14 Whereas an intelligence agency does not care about criminal convictions in the same way. Miles Johnson 00:14:20 So there's a philosophical difference. Miles Johnson 00:14:22 It was just really interesting to see where increasingly in the world there is this intersection between national security threats and transnational criminal threats. Miles Johnson 00:14:35 We had hybrid actors. Miles Johnson 00:14:39 Someone I was writing a lot about last year was Yevgeny Pragosin of the Wagner group, who was designated as a transnational criminal organization by the US, but is also obviously national security, a guy national security interest, you know, running a mass

organization, et cetera, in Ukraine. Miles Johnson 00:14:56 So there's this sort of weird places where this stuff crosses over, especially in terrorist fundraising. Miles Johnson 00:15:02 But there is this big clash of philosophies where if you're an intelligence agency, you want to observe targets, you want to build information, you want to maintain good sources. Miles Johnson 00:15:16 You might find and frequently people did an agency like the DEA coming in and arresting people and staging sting operations abroad problematic or annoying? Miles Johnson 00:15:28 It can act contrary to your interests. Miles Johnson 00:15:31 And so it was very illuminating for me to sort of I spoke to a lot of people in a lot of different sort of organizations and in different countries and sort of tried to build up a pretty good picture of because a lot of these organized, these operations, you know, they would involve police from countries in Europe or, you know, other agencies from around the world. Miles Johnson 00:15:51 And there's a lot of sort of there's a lot of characters involved. Miles Johnson 00:15:53 Everyone has a slightly different perspective depending on where they sat. Miles Johnson 00:15:57 But they definitely agreed on one thing, that there were a lot of clashes. Mark Shaw 00:16:00 Well, you mentioned that you conducted a lot of interviews. Mark Shaw 00:16:05 You're reaching out to people. Mark Shaw 00:16:07 I mean, give us a sense of how you do it. Mark Shaw 00:16:10 These are people who don't necessarily want to speak. Mark Shaw 00:16:13 Either they're in state security organizations or they're in criminal organizations. Mark Shaw 00:16:18 Do you just call them up? Mark Shaw 00:16:21 What do you say if you do? Mark Shaw 00:16:22 Do you reach out through intermediaries? Mark Shaw 00:16:24 All of the above. Mark Shaw 00:16:25 I mean, do, are there any tricks you think, that you use to get people, people to talk and then do you build a relationship with them? Mark Shaw 00:16:34 Clearly, in the case of Kelly, it appears that you did just give us your. Mark Shaw 00:16:40 What did it take to get the sources to write the book? Mark Shaw 00:16:42 I know that's within your wider reporting as well, but just in terms of the building, this enormous number of interviews, which then pulls the story together, your approach and perhaps your frustrations around doing some of that. Miles Johnson 00:16:57 Yeah. Miles Johnson 00:16:57 No, I mean, it was a big challenge. Miles Johnson 00:16:59 And I think I'd say what I like as a reporter where I feel comfortable is we go with it's a foundational sort of document trail. Miles Johnson 00:17:10 So whatever I'm doing, which I can use as a sort of architecture to build, to identify who I should be approaching to talk to. Miles Johnson 00:17:18 So frequently in this book, there were a lot of different criminal cases, dating, overdose, you know, 30 years. Miles Johnson 00:17:29 There were also

all sorts of other sorts of, you know, there was a un tribunal evidence, you know, and, you know, different documents from different agencies, you know, documents from colombian agencies or czech agencies. Miles Johnson 00:17:43 And, you know, there were so many. Miles Johnson 00:17:46 And it gives you, you know, that gives you a sort of firm footing to then think like, okay, well, who was working there at the time? Miles Johnson 00:17:54 Or, you know, in an indictment? Miles Johnson 00:17:57 You know, you know, these people were named. Miles Johnson 00:18:00 You know, frequently, you know, you begin by sort of in the case of criminals, often they're in prison in many, many instances or dead or fugitives. Miles Johnson 00:18:11 So they're difficult to contact, for sure. Miles Johnson 00:18:14 And, you know, we, we obviously have to be sort of, we want to give people the right, the most basic level, just the right to reply and to make an effort to contact them. Miles Johnson 00:18:28 And so that could be through their lawyers or that sometimes people do actually want to talk. Miles Johnson 00:18:35 Sometimes people surprisingly want to talk. Miles Johnson 00:18:39 And there's obviously a lot of, there are contentious issues, and sometimes people feel like they haven't been heard or portrayed fairly. Miles Johnson 00:18:49 But, yeah, so it's sort of, it was a process of exploration where you sort of map out your universe and you try and get in contact with people sometimes who are impossible to get in contact with, sometimes who you think are impossible, but actually somehow you find them and you are just trying to be straightforward and honest and explain what youre, what you're doing and what you want to talk about. Mark Shaw 00:19:14 Oswald in that process. Mark Shaw 00:19:15 Was there a moment of, like, extreme frustration for you? Mark Shaw 00:19:19 Somebody not replying, some sort of key part of the story not coming together? Mark Shaw 00:19:25 Was there that kind of time period in which you thought, you know, my goodness, I need to get this or this document or this person? Mark Shaw 00:19:34 Or was it sort of fitting together over time? Miles Johnson 00:19:36 There are some, always some complicated issues relating to the status of criminal cases. Miles Johnson 00:19:43 You know, when you're in different jurisdictions and when you're, it's a kind of quite technical thing, but just, you know, we, sometimes things can be under appeal for many, many years, and it can complicate the process of reporting on them. Miles Johnson 00:19:57 But, I mean, it's, you have to sort of get lucky as well. Miles Johnson 00:20:03 You know, sometimes there were, there were documents, and I didn't think I was going to be able to get hold of, which I, which I did. Miles Johnson 00:20:11 And then those led me to being able to contact people who I didn't think I was ever going to be able to reach. Miles Johnson 00:20:17 But, no, I mean, there was interesting elements to this because, especially, for example, in the mafia strand of the story. Miles Johnson 00:20:25 So in the Salvatore story, the Ndrangheta are quite, because they are family based units. Miles Johnson 00:20:35 It's not a sort of top down structure. Miles Johnson 00:20:37 It's different kind of families who operate in a sort of constellation of crime families, and they're very hard for law enforcement to penetrate because frequent, you know, organized crime groups are based on sort of blood and marriage are sort of less likely to betray each other, basically. Miles Johnson 00:20:54 And so historically, it's been hard to have, you know, what in Italy called pentiti, like sort of people who become state witnesses and stuff like that. Miles Johnson 00:21:03 But in the case of Salvatore's family, there are actually a relatively large number of people who had become state witnesses over time. Miles Johnson 00:21:13 And some of them. Miles Johnson 00:21:14 So there were sort of, I was using two, and that meant that they gave a vast amount of testimony. Miles Johnson 00:21:20 You know, they sit down with a prosecutor and they do interviews going on for hours and hours and hours, which I got hold of those interviews. Miles Johnson 00:21:28 And so that gives you sort of a very different way into understanding a world and personalities and motivations than an indictment, for example, because you have people sort of talking about often the sort of quite small details, the banalities of what they do, and it's. Miles Johnson 00:21:50 And in the case of Salvatore, he had a girlfriend. Miles Johnson 00:21:54 He was having an affair with a ukrainian woman called Ogthana, who is an important character in the book. Miles Johnson 00:21:59 And she became a state witness. Miles Johnson 00:22:01 And her perspective is extremely fascinating. Miles Johnson 00:22:05 Nothing, only because she's a woman in an extremely kind of chauvinistic and male dominated environment. Miles Johnson 00:22:13 But she was not directly involved in crime. Miles Johnson 00:22:16 She's someone who. Miles Johnson 00:22:18 She was aware of what was going on because Salvatore would come back home after a day's work, so to speak, and he would sort of sit in her kitchen and he would unload about his day about as maybe everyone would. Miles Johnson 00:22:34 You start talking about this guy who owes me money, hasn't paid me any money, he's an idiot. Miles Johnson 00:22:40 Or this person hasn't screwed up this deal with this guy. Miles Johnson 00:22:45 So he's just sort of telling all of his. Miles Johnson 00:22:47 Just frustrations of his life. Miles Johnson 00:22:48 But in the kitchen, the italian financial police had put a sort of ambient or listening device. Miles Johnson 00:22:54 So you're just getting all of this stuff where they're watching tv. Miles Johnson 00:22:58 They'll be watching a show with, you know, an action film with people running

around with kalashnikovs. Miles Johnson 00:23:05 And he just turns around his girlfriend and says, oh, you know, I've got two kalashnikovs. Miles Johnson 00:23:09 And she goes, oh, that's really interesting. Miles Johnson 00:23:11 You know, it's just this sort of these strange moments which add a sort of texture to. Miles Johnson 00:23:19 They're not sort of legally important, but they paint the sort of universe that these people live in where, you know, the sort of the. Miles Johnson 00:23:27 The fact of the normality of that sort of thing, which would be quite shocking to anyone else. Miles Johnson 00:23:34 So, yeah, it was always been a process of sort of building this picture through a mixture of documents and human sources that luckily, over time, with a lot of effort, I got what I needed. Mark Shaw 00:23:46 Thanks, Miles. Mark Shaw 00:23:46 Fascinating stuff. Mark Shaw 00:23:49 The other area which, reading it, I was really taken by, and I sense this was quite difficult, is that you have these three characters who don't know each other, who are at different time phases, and you've got to integrate them for the reader and bring linkages between them. Mark Shaw 00:24:09 So the chapters are moving very to different parts of the world, to different incidents. Mark Shaw 00:24:16 I mean, tell us something about structuring that. Mark Shaw 00:24:19 And I say so in your acknowledgments. Mark Shaw 00:24:20 I think you don't say it directly, but some of the frustrations of writing that come out, and I can imagine what they are. Mark Shaw 00:24:29 It's really challenging. Mark Shaw 00:24:31 Tell us what you were doing and what you were thinking and how difficult was it? Miles Johnson 00:24:36 Yeah, I mean, it was. Miles Johnson 00:24:37 It was a real challenge. Miles Johnson 00:24:39 There were certainly times when I would sort of sit surrounded by massive amounts of post it notes and sort of scrawled notes and stuff and be rather intimidated by the task I'd taken on the. Miles Johnson 00:24:53 Yeah, I mean, I think it was this extremely delicate balance between telling, you know, this is a true story. Miles Johnson 00:25:03 No detail is invented. Miles Johnson 00:25:05 You know, every piece of dialogue, every detail, every. Miles Johnson 00:25:08 If there's any description if the, you know, the color of a car, if it's red, that is the color of the car. Miles Johnson 00:25:13 There is a. Miles Johnson 00:25:14 If you know, the time someone did something, it is. Miles Johnson 00:25:17 It is. Miles Johnson 00:25:19 That is a sort of an integral part of the work. Miles Johnson 00:25:24 But it means that you then also have a lot of details that you have to get rid of because there's almost a sort of, in certain instances, this sort of strange thing where you actually have too much material. Miles Johnson 00:25:37 Because if you have 5000 pages of wiretap transcripts or something a lot of what people do in their daily lives is quite tedious. Miles Johnson 00:25:49 It's just boring stuff. Miles Johnson 00:25:50 You know, you like, go downstairs and put on the kettle and make a cup of tea and, you know, say hello to somebody. Miles Johnson 00:25:57 This is not stuff. Miles Johnson 00:25:58 You have to be very selective in what you're including in each chapter but then you're also having to be very mindful of not distorting what has actually happened. Miles Johnson 00:26:13 But then also just trying to be sort of, you know, careful about how you present the information. Miles Johnson 00:26:19 But instructionally, you're sort of thinking it's a little bit. Miles Johnson 00:26:25 This is maybe a somewhat strange way to put it but it's a little bit like if you were sort of editing an episode of reality tv in certain instances in the book, they're different things. Miles Johnson 00:26:34 Each part has been put together in a different way. Miles Johnson 00:26:35 As you said, the Jack Kelly session is much more about interviews and with him and also other people and documents as well. Miles Johnson 00:26:43 But in the sort of the italian side of the story, you have this massive amount of material including sort of surveillance photographs phone like, sort of location data, text messages, everything. Miles Johnson 00:27:02 And so you're sort of editing this live stream of a day in a criminal's life. Miles Johnson 00:27:08 And so that was a real, a real challenge structurally. Miles Johnson 00:27:13 But it's also a sort of nature. Miles Johnson 00:27:15 I was very determined to not make this a story where, look, I have a vast amount of respect for law enforcement and the work they do but I think it's a complex job. Miles Johnson 00:27:27 And I didn't want to just make it a story about, you know, just goodies and baddies and just these great, you know, and it make it a sort of very sort of, you know, Hollywood style thing where, you know, the goodies triumph in the end. Miles Johnson 00:27:39 Like, this is a messy world where, you know, as Jack's story shows, you know, people are fighting. Miles Johnson 00:27:45 You know, they're doing something right. Miles Johnson 00:27:46 They're trying to fight for, but it's difficult. Miles Johnson 00:27:49 You come up against just bureaucratic obstacles or difficulties in your. Miles Johnson 00:27:52 It's not just this simple process of just heroes coming in and, yeah, kicking, kicking ass, as they say. Miles Johnson 00:27:59 So it was a. Miles Johnson 00:28:01 I was quite determined that I would show the complexity of that. Miles Johnson 00:28:06 And also in terms of the ending of the story, that's an important year because this is not a world where anyone really walks away happily. Miles Johnson 00:28:13 This is not a place where everything is just perfectly resolved and it's all over. Miles Johnson 00:28:18 Crime has been solved and the world is just a perfect place. Miles Johnson 00:28:21 This is a world where

there's just this. Miles Johnson 00:28:25 People might be arrested, people will come and replace them. Miles Johnson 00:28:29 This is a world where the geopolitical forces which are encouraging or fueling this activity, it will remain in place or change into something else. Miles Johnson 00:28:42 So in terms of the structure, I wanted to make it book which was readable and relatable, but also something which accurately portrayed that world. Miles Johnson 00:28:55 And so that's why there's also a lot of focus on the, you know, the incompetence of some of the characters as well. Mark Shaw 00:29:02 It's amazing, actually, Maaz, you the degree to which geopolitics intervenes as a scene in the book. Mark Shaw 00:29:09 The US have been cooperating with the French, and then they're going to have a party to celebrate and then suddenly the party's called off because, of course, politics has intervened. Mark Shaw 00:29:19 And I don't know, it's a very real story that full of greys and real people. Mark Shaw 00:29:28 I think that comes across really, really well. Miles Johnson 00:29:31 Thank you. Mark Shaw 00:29:32 I mean, you've given this fascinating overview of the amount of work that goes into a book like this. Mark Shaw 00:29:38 I'm very interested in this idea of nonfiction, true crime. Mark Shaw 00:29:42 Actually, the term true crime is sometimes a little bit frustrating, actually, because it fits into a specific part of the library or the bookshop or whatever. Mark Shaw 00:29:51 And in fact, I, perhaps the. Mark Shaw 00:29:54 I at least would want to make the argument that these books are more important for another reason. Mark Shaw 00:29:59 They're about the wider political economy of how the world works, how politics is influenced. Mark Shaw 00:30:05 I mean, do you have those kinds of frustrations? Mark Shaw 00:30:09 Why do you work and write in this area? Mark Shaw 00:30:11 What do you want to achieve? Miles Johnson 00:30:13 Yeah, I think, you know, as you say, true crime can be a problematic label, and it can kind of encompass a vast amount of different things. Miles Johnson 00:30:23 And what I sort of always wanted to do as a journalist and an author is to try and illuminate a little bit the sort of strange elements of the world, how they work and things which often are very surprising. Miles Johnson 00:30:36 The world is a very strange place. Miles Johnson 00:30:38 It's a sort of huge cliche, but, you know, sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction. Miles Johnson 00:30:42 You know, people are absolutely stunned by some of these stories in that space. Miles Johnson 00:30:48 But I think it really interacts more also with things that people would consider kind of traditional non fiction areas like sort of geopolitics and history. Miles Johnson 00:31:01 These are understanding the way events in the world shape. Miles Johnson 00:31:08 Shape our surroundings. Miles Johnson 00:31:09 And I think in the case of this book, I was also very, um, very focused on trying to give an accurate depiction of this phenomenon to the point where it confounds certain expectations. Miles Johnson 00:31:25 So, you know, in the sort of world of sort of narrativized crime, you know, there are these expectations, especially in organized crime, of, you know, these all seeing all powerful bosses overseeing sort of very tightly run, centralized organizations, you know, and everyone being actually really competent, you know, the police being really competent, the criminals being really competent. Miles Johnson 00:31:47 And it all sort of working really quite well. Miles Johnson 00:31:49 And actually, the reality is much more chaotic than that. Miles Johnson 00:31:51 And, you know, in the book, there's a lot of scenes of criminals being just quite, you know, incompetent and doing things for quite stupid reasons. Miles Johnson 00:32:01 And also just showing the sort of one thing which really unifies all of these characters is that they, you know, my editor made a joke which I think is very accurate. Miles Johnson 00:32:13 He was sort of joking that this is also a book about middle management. Miles Johnson 00:32:17 This is a book about people who are in institutions who are just dealing with the sort of bureaucratic difficulties of being an institution, being frustrated by the institution they're in, and people who've also devoted their lives in some way to the values and ideas of different institutions, be that, you know, us law enforcement or the italian mafia or Hezbollah, you know, and ultimately, those institutions portray them. Miles Johnson 00:32:42 This is not a book where everyone ends up super, you know, happily living their life and vindicated. Miles Johnson 00:32:50 You know, these are. Miles Johnson 00:32:50 These are people who are often frustrated by the world they're in, and that applies across those institutions. Miles Johnson 00:32:56 So you see, you know, a lot of the time, it's sort of the forces that these people are dealing with are bigger than them, and they're trying, like any human to sort of somehow try and shape their own destiny and faith, you know, in this sort of extremely sort of, like, chaotic world they live in, and they come up against things which are too big and too powerful for them to really control. Miles Johnson 00:33:21 So in the simplest sense, you're just trying to organize from scratch a very audacious transatlantic cocaine shipment of. Miles Johnson 00:33:30 You're trying to sort of rest control of your own destiny and eventually fail it. Miles Johnson 00:33:34 And so that was sort of what I was trying to capture rather than the expectations of sort of everything just being extremely slick and perfectly run and. Mark Shaw 00:33:44 Masterful, as you've alluded to this because I think what you're saying, some of this comes across in the conclusion because it can't end neatly because there are a lot of, I don't want to say loose

ends, but in the greys of the world in which you are writing about, there aren't always happy stories or a clear resolution as you would have in a script written movie, so to speak. Mark Shaw 00:34:10 I mean, tell us something about this. Mark Shaw 00:34:12 Kelly doesn't go to his retirement party or he misses it or they hold it without him. Mark Shaw 00:34:17 Sort of a weird detail which I thought said a lot about how a bureaucracy thanks you for working. Mark Shaw 00:34:25 I mean, the other cases, it also has these very unsatisfying endings but illustrative of reality life, I suppose. Miles Johnson 00:34:35 Yeah, I mean no one really wins. Miles Johnson 00:34:38 I mean, I think Jack is ultimately vindicated by, I think consensus moves closer towards what he had been, been arguing. Miles Johnson 00:34:51 But it's. Miles Johnson 00:34:53 Yeah, it's a sort of situation where at the end maybe this is true of us all, you know, at the end when you, when you retire, you know, it's not sort of like, you know, the screen doesn't fade to black and you walk off triumphantly to sort of a soundtrack, you know, whether you're a criminal in law enforcement or anything. Miles Johnson 00:35:11 I think there are, you know, there's also just elements of age I think is another thing I find interesting in the book in comparison of the characters. Miles Johnson 00:35:20 You know, where we, the way we are as human beings when we're 20 is going to be different to when we're 50. Miles Johnson 00:35:29 And in the case of, for example, Mustafa Bader ad Din who has been operating in this sort of shadowy existence, this sort of ghost like figure since he was 1718 or something. Miles Johnson 00:35:45 He's in his fifties. Miles Johnson 00:35:47 And does he still believe the same things that he did when he was 20? Miles Johnson 00:35:51 Is he still doing it for the same reasons? Miles Johnson 00:35:54 Is he happy with the direction which his organization has gone in the same as the DEA agents who were doing these big international meaningful sting operations, generating a lot of attention and bringing in big targets? Miles Johnson 00:36:11 A lot of them were spoken to, a lot of them who were very disillusioned by the way the organization went sort of after sort of 20, 1617. Miles Johnson 00:36:20 And so, yeah, it's people who, they change over time. Miles Johnson 00:36:25 I think that was another sort of part of the book. Miles Johnson 00:36:27 Is just we tend to view people's motivations as quite static sometimes, especially in the sort of more ideological prisms of sort of like, you know, some things like terrorism and terrorist financing. Miles Johnson 00:36:40 Why someone does something, they might do the same thing, but their reasons for doing it might change over time and over their life. Miles Johnson 00:36:49 And so I found that quite interesting. Miles Johnson 00:36:52 But, yeah, really, these are people who, there is never going to be, as you say, it's never going to be a happy ending, a perfect ending. Miles Johnson 00:37:03 No one ever comes into the end and says, you were completely right. Miles Johnson 00:37:07 You're amazing. Miles Johnson 00:37:07 You know that maybe that happens once, once in a while, but for most people, that's not how it works. Miles Johnson 00:37:12 And that was certainly the case for these guys. Mark Shaw 00:37:15 Miles, what is the, what has been the reaction to the book? Mark Shaw 00:37:18 I mean, you've been presenting it and talking about it. Mark Shaw 00:37:22 What do people say? Mark Shaw 00:37:23 And has any of that surprised you? Miles Johnson 00:37:26 Yeah, I've been really encouraged by the reaction in the sense of I've had a lot of general readers. Miles Johnson 00:37:33 So basically I've had people contact me who are not people who are of a huge sort of interest in this area, who have related to the book on its own terms, which has been very encouraging. Miles Johnson 00:37:47 I mean, I've had some interesting people contact me. Miles Johnson 00:37:50 I had one person who was a relative of a quite well known organized crime figure who had left the family and contacted me to say that they related very strongly to the depiction of the family dynamics in the book, in the mafia side of the story. Miles Johnson 00:38:19 So that was very surprising and very interesting to hear. Mark Shaw 00:38:23 Interesting, miles, I think, you know, the global initiative, we're doing multiple research projects on organized crime, illicit economies, trying to push forward a discussion precisely on what you are doing to understand the underworld, if you like, or the illicit better. Mark Shaw 00:38:44 You know, what can we do better? Mark Shaw 00:38:45 You know, what does the book illustrate? Mark Shaw 00:38:47 Are there areas that deserve more attention, this connection, organized crime, terra financing that you've uncovered? Mark Shaw 00:38:55 You know, is there, is there areas in the broader research community from where you sit, where things could just be better, where much more work is required? Miles Johnson 00:39:04 I would say. Miles Johnson 00:39:05 I think the work you guys do is absolutely fantastic. Miles Johnson 00:39:07 And the people who collaborate with you, too, I mean, I think. Miles Johnson 00:39:09 I wouldn't say errors. Miles Johnson 00:39:11 I think it's just. Miles Johnson 00:39:14 I think it's just a challenge for anyone who's looking at this area. Miles Johnson 00:39:18 It becomes more and more complicated. Miles Johnson 00:39:23 It feels, especially the world is becoming an ever more complicated place, which sounds like a little bit of a trite thing to say, but in terms of the nature of the actors who we would be counting as of interest and who they're interacting with. Miles Johnson 00:39:43 I think one thing I've become really interested in, which is connected to this book, is the interaction between states and, you know, regimes, governments which are hostile to the west, and organized criminal groups. Miles Johnson 00:39:56 You know, you've had these fascinating sort of interactions between, you know, effectively kind of. Miles Johnson 00:40:06 Yeah, like rogue states, sanctioned regimes, whatever you want to call them, and organized crime groups and how. Miles Johnson 00:40:13 I think that will probably that will become a very interesting. Miles Johnson 00:40:17 People have done interesting research, and if, I think that will become a more interesting area of research in the context were in where you have these massive economies which have been sanctioned and cut off from the western financial system, and how sanctions effectively create a need for people to turn into the international black market. Miles Johnson 00:40:38 If you cant buy something on the open market anymore, you need to find someone to get it for you. Miles Johnson 00:40:44 I think the nature of these bizarre collaborations between unlikely characters. Miles Johnson 00:40:50 So there was this fascinating case in the United States recently, earlier this year, involving Canadian Hells angels being hired by the Iranian Foreign intelligence service to assassinate dissidents in the United States. Miles Johnson 00:41:06 Bizarre people you just never would think would be in the same room, so to speak, together. Miles Johnson 00:41:10 And I think that will be a really interesting continuing our soul. Mark Shaw 00:41:15 What you're saying is there's plenty more material for you, Miles, to bring together these interesting characters. Mark Shaw 00:41:23 Really, really a pleasure to speak with you, and thanks for taking the time. Miles Johnson 00:41:28 Oh, the pleasure is mine. Miles Johnson 00:41:29 Thank you so much for having me, really.