All language subtitles for r.b.i.2024.1080p.web.h264-baldneonsalmonfromasgard_track3_[eng]

[♪]

[Nick] I mean, the whole thing
was like out of a spy novel.

I travelled
halfway around the world

for a clandestine meeting
with a shadowy figure.

We all know,
or at least we suspect,

some shady things happen

in business deals
around the world,

in dark corners,

a wink and a nod,
a briefcase full of cash...

...but in all my years
of reporting on corruption,

I had no idea how vast,
how pervasive it could be.

I was at work one day,

and there was a letter sent
from somewhere overseas,

lots of stamps on it,

and it was a typed letter.

No one signed it,
or no name,

it was almost like

you cut out the letters
and you stick them on,

and it basically
had instructions,

"If you want to get the biggest
corruption story in the world,

hide a secret code
in an advertisement

in a French newspaper."

It was intriguing,

but I didn't know
who this guy was,

uh, and he wouldn't meet.

He was refusing to meet
or identify himself.

All I knew was
he had significant information.

He was extremely scared.

He went through
this elaborate series of steps

to protect his identity.

This said to me,

"If this man is so scared,

he must be sitting on
some pretty serious secrets."

[♪]

[cash register dings]

[♪]

[Nick McKenzie] Iraq has
the fifth-largest oil reserve

in the world.

Countries and companies

have been scrambling
for a century

to get their hands on it.

[newsreel] The Iraq Petroleum
Company's new pipeline

from Kirkuk to Baniyas

passes not far from the ruins
of the ancient city of Palmyra.

What was once
a local marble arch

is now only
a monument to the past.

[♪]

[Nick] For decades,

Saddam Hussein siphoned off
his country's oil wealth

with rampant corruption.

[jets flying over]

Then the criminal
mastermind fell.

And it was so hopeful at first.

Iraq's billions of dollars'
worth of oil

was going to help
rebuild the country.

Think about this.

The West went to war in Iraq,

Australian soldiers,
American soldiers.

People died
fighting to liberate Iraq.

Iraqi exiles returned
to lead the country

and bring some semblance
of legitimacy

to this long-corrupt regime.

[reporter]
By invitation, about 80 Iraqis

representing different ethnic,
regional, and religious groups

met with the newly returned
Iraqi exiles

to start the work of
planning an interim government.

[Nick] The new Minister of Oil,

Hussain al-Shahristani,

instituted
a literally transparent system

for oil contracts,

a glass box with bids
from foreign companies.

[applause]

A few years later,

a major pipeline
was finally in development

that would nearly triple
the county's oil exports.

Iraq's Prime Minister
at the time,

along with his Deputy
Prime Minister for Energy,

and other executives,

ceremonially opened the project.

[applause]

This was huge news
in Australia.

Shares in Australia's
biggest construction firm,

Leighton Holdings,
soared today,

up 39% on last year.

[reporter] The workers
on this Australian barge

are assembling
a new undersea pipeline,

the biggest export expansion
in Iraq's oil history.

[Nick]
Leighton built this country.

This was the gem
of Australia.

[reporter] Leighton says

it expects to return
to profitability in 2012

after being awarded

a $4.5-billion contract
in December.

The promise of jam tomorrow
went down well with investors.

[Nick] But during
a six-month investigation,

I discovered

that many of Leighton's
overseas contracts,

including some in Iraq,

were won through bribery.

[reporter]
Leighton is being investigated

by the federal police

over allegations
of paying bribes

to help win business in Iraq.

[Nick]
When my story was published,

it sent shockwaves
around the country.

The Sydney Morning Herald
reported

building giant Leighton
was rife with corruption,

and they disclosed evidence

of massive bribery
and corruption

in the way their contracts
were being won around the world.

[reporter] There's been
a flood of evidence

of foreign bribery

sanctioned by top executives
at Leighton Holdings.

Leighton Holdings
has sacked a senior manager

over the alleged
Iraq bribery scandal.

[Nick] Leighton executives
deny any wrongdoing,

but I knew someone in Iraq
was on the take.

I just didn't know how the money
was getting to them.

The answer came

from my mysterious
new whistleblower,

who had asked me to place an ad

in a French newspaper,
Le Figaro.

"Put a code name
in that real estate ad."

So I did it
for a house on Sydney Harbour.

The code name
is "Montechristo"

and include my details
to contact me,

so I nicknamed my source
"Figaro," Le Figaro.

After a few days,

he reached out,
and we began to correspond.

He said, "Okay, come to Paris.

Meet me here,

and then
I'll tell you the secrets."

I flew all the way
to the other end of the world.

I was meeting
this secret source.

I had no idea whether
they were a man, a woman,

if they were young, old.

I agreed to meet him
outside the Louvre.

He said,
"There's a red newsstand.

I'll be holding a newspaper,
you'll know it's me."

He doesn't show.

I'm left there like an idiot,

'cause I've flown halfway around
the world at great expense

thinking that I've got
the story of a lifetime,

and I have nothing.

So I sent him messages
and said,

"Man, you have
screwed me over here.

"I'm stuck here.
Probably gonna lose my job.

"I've spent all this money
getting here,

and for what?

You stood me up.
Thanks for nothing."

He said, "Okay, let's not
make it Paris.

Come to Marseille."

So I got a train
down to Marseille.

At the arranged meeting time,
a black car pulls up...

...door opens, and there's
my mysterious Figaro.

I could tell
he was looking at me, going,

"Who the hell
is this Australian?

He looks about five years old.

Is he the guy
I should be trusting

to unlock this story?"

[Figaro]
It's true that I was nervous.

Look, this involved

some of the biggest companies
in the world,

some of the most powerful
politicians in the world.

If this really came out,

I knew both Nick and I
would have targets on our backs.

[Nick] He explained to me
how it worked.

You've got
these multinational

oil and engineering
companies.

They want access
to billion-dollar contracts

in places like Iraq.

The people
who sign those contracts,

well, sometimes they want
something in return.

Now, what I didn't know was

there's this thriving industry

of middlemen, of bag men,

who know how to bribe
and who to bribe,

and they insulate
everyone else who's involved.

[Figaro] I said,
"I work for the middlemen.

I know who paid the bribes,

not just
for the Australian company,

but for so many
other companies."

But these were big companies,
powerful companies,

and I was scared.

I wasn't ready
to give away the details.

It was like a game.

He was dangling information
before me

but not giving it to me.

And he kept saying, "Nick,

there's a hard drive
with all these secrets on it,

these thousands
and thousands of emails

with hard evidence
of corruption in them."

You know,
I left that meeting thinking,

"I've gotta
get that hard drive."

[Alexandra Wrage]
It frustrates me

that people see corruption
as a victimless crime.

I worry that people
don't take the issue

seriously enough,

and it's doing
extraordinary damage

in huge swaths of the world.

I suspect that most of you

have had to debate,
at some point,

whether bribery
is just inevitable,

"the way business is done,"

"it really
just amounts to a tax,"

or the really tired phrase,

"it's really
just a victimless crime."

A Chechen woman
bribed airport officials

for just a thousand rubles,

about $34,

enabling her

to sneak explosives
onto the plane.

[woman crying out]

[charges detonating]

Bribery contributes
to countless disasters.

It enables
the illegal wildlife trade.

It's central
to drug smuggling...

to gun-running...

human trafficking...

sex slavery.

There are real consequences
to bribery.

If people break into your house
and steal jewellery,

you call the police,
you feel outrage.

There's this general sense
that you have been violated,

but there are whole countries
stealing all of the jewellery,

and there isn't
that same level of outrage.

I spend my career
traveling the world

working to track and expose
and combat bribery.

I don't think
I've ever seen a place

as rife with corruption as Iraq.

It's almost overwhelming.

You can see it in the shoddy
and half-built buildings,

the poverty in the streets,

and all of this

in one of the most oil-rich
countries in the world.

Over the last few years,

Iraq has seen huge protests
over corruption,

hundreds of thousands
of young people

marching in Tahrir Square
in Baghdad.

Alaa al-Sattar was one of them.

[chanting]

[Alaa al-Sattar speaking]

What did it feel like here?

That's the worst thing
you can say

in this country, isn't it?

- Yes.
- Yeah.

How does corruption
affect your life,

you, personally?

[speaking in Arabic]

[speaking in English]

[Wrage] Alaa wanted me
to meet his friend, Mohammed,

who's been a leader
in the anti-corruption protests.

He lost both a hand and a leg

while fighting ISIS in Iraq.

But we heard stories
about, you know,

the Americans coming in with
so much cash, so much money.

[speaking in Arabic]

Is corruption

a more formidable enemy
than ISIS?

You have some videos
from the protests.

Can I look at them?

Yes. Of course.

I have many.

This just seems
outrageous to me,

that you protected
the Iraqi people from ISIS,

you paid
an incredible price for that.

You shouldn't have to fight
that hard for your country.

[Alexandra] The amount of money
that's being paid by the corrupt

through bribery

is an extraordinary sum.

It's been put
over $1 trillion a year,

and generating more anger
about that,

more indignation about that

is important to me.

For a long time, bribery
was just considered

to be a cost of doing business.

It was like
any other expense.

It could be deducted
from your taxes,

like any other expense.

All of this came out

during a Congressional hearing
in Washington today,

and Lockheed officials deny

that they were using taxpayers'
money for the foreign payments.

Under the circumstances,

it's a cost
of winnin' a competition.

Then why isn't that a bribe?

If a payment is made
by Lockheed

in order to secure that sale,

why isn't that a bribe?

I prefer to call them
a kickback,

but you can characterise it
the way you want.

Go ahead.

Uh, my counsel, uh,

says he prefers
to characterise it

as a kickback,

but, uh, you know...
- [crowd noise]

...if you want
to call it bribes,

then, uh,
I guess it's all right.

The U.S. was among
the first countries

to say "No.

Doing business internationally,

you cannot pay off
government officials overseas,"

and they made that statement
in 1977,

with the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act,

but companies were on notice
that their conduct,

paying bribes

as an absolute routine course
of doing business,

that had to change.

[reporter] Alexandra Wrage

is the President
of TRACE International,

an anti-corruption firm,

and literally wrote the book
on fighting bribery.

Alexandra is founder
and president of TRACE Intl,

as well as a prolific author
in her own right.

[Alexandra]
I founded this organisation

to highlight the damage
that bribery does,

and to help companies
steer clear of corruption.

Welcome back.
So, should the U.S. government

be prosecuting companies
that pay bribes

in order to get business done
in foreign countries?

[Alexandra]
I was asked to come on CNBC

and give
the anti-corruption argument,

and I remember
laughing at the time, saying,

"well, is there somebody
that you found

who's going to give
the pro-corruption argument?"

[Trump] Now, every other country

goes into these places,

and they do
what they have to do.

The sad part,

every other country
in the world is doing it.

We're not allowed to.

So it puts us
at a huge disadvantage.

There it is! Is he right?

Are payoffs just a fact of life
in many countries?

Well, the answer is certainly

not encouraging
a climate of lawlessness.

U.S. companies
never benefit from lawlessness.

It's just mind-boggling

that anyone
would make that argument,

but Trump actually tried
to get rid of the FCPA

as soon he became President.

Ahem!

"In the spring of 2017,

Trump perked up
at the mention of bribes

and got rather agitated.

He then told
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson

he wanted him to help

get rid of the Foreign
Corrupt Practices Act."

Quote, "It is just so unfair

that American companies
are not allowed to pay bribes

to get business overseas,"
Trump told the group.

"We're going to change that."

We've all heard
people like Trump say

that it's a stupid law

and that it puts American
companies at a disadvantage,

because Chinese companies
and Russian companies

and others can pay bribes.

It would be more profitable

to be able
to dump sewage into rivers

and to hire child labour,

but nobody is arguing
that we should be doing that.

In the end, it is just
a grubby act of crime.

[anchor] Breaking news
this morning out of Iraq,

where at least 82 people
have been killed

in a fire at a hospital
in Baghdad.

[Alexandra] It's insidious.

Corruption taints everything,

and in
some really unexpected ways.

[British reporter]
The Iraqi PM has fired

key officials
over the incident,

blaming negligence
by authorities.

[Alexandra]
I met an Iraqi journalist,

Nermeen al-Mufti,

and she took me
out to the site of that fire,

which was tied directly
to corruption.

Is this it here?

[speaking in English]

And the fire
was attributed to corruption.

How does, how does that
fit into the story?

- As a crime?
- Yes.

- And rooted in corruption?
- Yes.

[Alexandra] Nermeen
introduced me to the head

of an Iraqi
journalist association

to show me another impact
of bribery in her country.

You advocate
for press freedom in Iraq.

Is there freedom to report

on corruption,
specifically corruption?

[speaking in Arabic]

[gunfire]

[Nick] Reporting
on corruption is dangerous,

and it's damn hard to report on,

since it's all done
in the shadows.

That's why I was so excited
about this leak from Figaro.

After months of negotiation,

I finally got my hands
on the evidence.

When the hard drive arrived,

I did a search on how many files
I'd have to go through.

I think it was 317,000.

And I remember this Italian
reporter saying to me,

"Nick, having a million files
is as good as having no files."

And at the time, I thought,
"Well, man, fuck you.

I can get through this."

I started to go through
the emails

literally one by one,

just all these thousands
and thousands of emails

with corruption, hard evidence
of corruption in them,

the officials
who were being bribed,

the executives
at the big Western companies

who were directing those bribes
to be paid,

and it all points

to this small company
I'd never heard of

called "Unaoil."

[reporter] Unaoil
brokers contracts between

governments and international
oil service giants.

[reporter]
Unaoil has worked as an agent

for multinationals

like Rolls-Royce, Samsung,

Halliburton, Hyundai,

and the offshore arm

of Australia's
Leighton Holdings.

[reporter] This company was
formed in Monaco in 1991.

[reporter] ...an
oil-industry consulting firm

run by Monaco millionaires.

Bribe-paying
was the family business.

But who are the people
behind these bribes?

[Figaro] Unaoil's role
was to help Western clients

get deals in the oil sector
around the world,

especially
in the Middle East.

It was founded by Ata Ahsani.

He was an Iranian ex-pat
and a skilled engineer.

Ata Ahsani seemed like a man

who'd come from nothing
to everything.

[Figaro] Then he brought
his sons into the business.

[Nick]
Cyrus was a mover and shaker,

a bit of a playboy.

Elite education
at the best schools.

He had a taste
for the finer things in life.

Saman was a more serious,
more business-minded brother.

He thought he was
the business brains.

And then we could see
both Cyrus and Saman,

absolutely, they deferred
to their father, Ata.

Ata was the godfather
of the family,

the patriarch.

He and his sons hobnobbed
with billionaires and royalty.

They did have

Prince Albert of Monaco
attending their function.

They did have Richard Branson
attending their functions.

It's in a lovely setting,

a beautiful evening,
nice and cool.

[Nick] Celebrities,
powerful business people there,

giving them money,
slapping them on the back.

24,000!

[applause]

Absolutely, I have to say,
on behalf of my father,

who is the chairman

of the Unaoil Energy
Children's Fund,

that I think
tonight was a success.

[Nick] The Ahsanis' mission
was to build themselves up

as these generous,
wonderful people of Monaco,

and they pulled it off.

This was clearly gonna be
a huge investigation

against people
with serious wealth

and serious connections,

so I brought
my colleague Richard Baker

in to help me.

We only had one opportunity
to speak with the Ahsanis,

just as we were starting
our investigation,

and Richard made the call.

Give me, give me a listen.

- Ah...
- Ata. Ata Ahsani.

[phone dials on recording]

[line ringing]

[call ends]

You can't be fairer than that.

- Yeah.
- Straight to the point.

He seemed very, very cool
and very calm.

Very cool. Very calm.

And he sold it.
He sold a good story.

[Nick] But as we started
to go through the emails,

a drastically different
story emerged.

I started
looking through documents

and saw references

to lots of companies
that I recognised.

And then I noticed references
to this strange term,

"holiday."

I mean,
there were hundreds of them.

And the people involved
in these holidays

had strange names, like

Lighthouse, Teacher,

Captain,

Doctor, The Big Cheese.

It dawned on me
that these might be codes.

To discover the codes hidden in
the emails was really exciting.

They were codes aimed
at covering up

how many millions of dollars

these corrupt officials
were getting,

and for me,
that was manna from Heaven.

I wanted to find out
who these people were,

and how much was going
into their pockets.

We figured out
that a "holiday"

was a $1-million bribe,

and each of the strange names

referred to prominent government
or Unaoil officials

engaged in bribery.

Knowing the codes allowed us

to start cracking
these e-mails open.

I mean, it was like
a jigsaw puzzle.

You start with thousands
of pieces,

nothing fits in.

And you fit one to another,

and slowly, you're saying,
well, over here, in Iraq,

I can see that there's been
a bribe paid for this contract,

and in Libya,
there's a bribe paid over here,

and the whole picture,
over time,

starts to take shape.

The puzzle taught me that

what my mysterious source,
the Figaro, had promised,

that this was perhaps

one of the world's biggest
bribery scandals, was true.

It's the first time

I've ever got outside counsel
involved prior to a story.

[Bartlett] Yeah,
they're incredible stories.

We have got
millions of documents.

Now, this is all...

you've gone through
all our bits and pieces?

Yeah. So...
you've been through them.

We can't see
any flaws in them, so...

it's really,
really strong evidence.

Just things jumping out here,

"The best medicine
for a calm life

is a dose
of George Washington."

- [Bartlett laughs]
- Why not?

Yeah, absolutely!

The real issue is

there are so many companies
mentioned.

There are so many
individuals mentioned.

Yeah, they could
sue us for libel.

The Ahsanis could claim,
"This is all made up.

There is no evidence."

[Bartlett]
We need to assess the risk,

but, um, the documents
stand for themselves.

These are incredible documents.

[Nick] There was just
one more thing to check out.

In the documents,

I saw reference
to this organisation, TRACE,

which had apparently
granted Unaoil a certificate

that they had been vetted

and were members
in good standing

of this anti-bribery
organization.

TRACE, as an NGO,

its job was to fight
against corruption,

and for Unaoil, this was

"We've got TRACE
telling the world

that we are the good guys,

that we're not corrupt,
that we have integrity,

that we're not paying bribes."

I rang the person
who signed that certificate.

It was really early
in the morning,

and the phone rang.

She picked up the phone.
I said,

"My name's Nick McKenzie.
I'm an investigative journalist,

and your organisation, you,

have given the stamp
of "no corruption"

to one of the most corrupt
companies in the world.

What... what the hell
has happened?"

He just started asking
a series of questions

about had we done
a background review on Unaoil?

Did I have concerns about them,

and could I verify

that we had, in fact,

done this background check
on Unaoil?

Which, um, I knew,
off the top of my head,

that-that we had.

I could hear her going "Fuck!"

Because everything she stood for
and everything TRACE stood for,

fighting corruption,
reforming the world,

was on the line.

Most companies

are trying to get
these things right

most of the time.

Very few companies are set up

almost entirely
as criminal organisations.

It's a case study

on what can go wrong
with compliance.

[Nick]
I'd done all the outreach,

all the vetting,
all the fact-checking.

We were ready to publish.

But I knew the minute we did,

they would be shredding files
and burning laptops,

shutting down
the whole corrupt operation,

so I could either
publish my story

and have the shredders going hot
in the Monaco offices of Unaoil,

or I could tell the police

that I intend
to publish a story,

and say, "Listen,
if I was you guys,

maybe you want to get in there

before those shredders
start destroying evidence."

Surely, any sensible-minded
criminal would destroy

probative evidence
that would sink their ship.

Tom Martin emerges as...

I'll never forget
talking to him.

Tom Martin
was instantly aggressive

and full of energy.

He basically said, "Look,

you've got seven days,
and I'm publishing,"

or ten days, whatever it was.

We were absolutely
panic-stricken,

because it meant
that we had 10 days

to actually do something,

because if these documents
actually exist in situ,

they're going to destroy them,

so, um, yeah,
the pressure was on.

So we got ourselves
over to Monaco.

The Ahsanis
were British citizens

and captured by
the U.K.'s jurisdiction,

and so we enlisted

the assistance
of the Monégasque Police.

I went to the main premises
at Unaoil.

I think it was a bit of a shock.

I think it was probably quite
a terrifying experience

for the staff.

In we go.

It's slightly unnerving
for a Brit

to be on a search

where the search commander's
looking very glamorous

with a Glock 9-millimeter
strapped to her waist,

but you know, it's a lot for me,

as a, uh, slightly square
criminal lawyer.

"Oh, what's going on?"

We gathered up
all the relevant documents,

computers, laptops,
mobile phones,

uh, even a server,

and we realised
that we were sitting on

an absolute gold mine.

[Nick] With the evidence
in the hands of the authorities,

we went to press
with the Unaoil exposé.

It was wildly big.

Think about, you know,

just one reporter in Australia,
a nobody,

taking on the oil industry,

the biggest corruption scandal
in the oil industry.

We called it "The world's
biggest bribery scandal."

[reporter] A Monaco-based
energy services company,

Unaoil, is at the centre

of major bribery
and corruption allegations.

The exposé alleges
that that company

helped major international
oil companies

pay bribes
throughout the Middle East

in order to get oil deals.

Nick McKenzie
is The Age newspaper's

investigative reporter
who uncovered the scandal.

It's gonna be
one of the biggest

global bribery investigations

that the world
has seen in some time.

[speaking in Persian]

This is just an excellent piece
of-of journalistic work.

[reporter]
Reporters are calling it

"the biggest leak of files
in the history

of the oil industry."

In the compliance community,
this was an enormous case.

Actual real-time conversations

between fraudsters,
between people

who were planning
corrupt negotiations,

and their counterparts
within companies.

We'd never had
anything like that before.

This is bribery on a scale
that had never been seen before.

It was epic.

Billions of dollars'
worth of contracts.

It may even have been over
a hundred billion in the end.

The figures were eye-watering,

and the level of corruption
and manipulation

was on a scale
that I'd never seen before.

We put together a team
of lawyers,

investigators, accountants,
computer experts.

Uh, there were about 50 of us
who were doing this

in order to sift the material

and bring the Ahsanis
to justice.

The U.K. government gave us
12 million pounds

in order to conduct

the investigation
and prosecution,

understanding that
it was an unprecedented case.

It was called Operation Pivot

because we saw Unaoil
and the Ahsanis as the pivot.

We were getting, uh,

a throughput of information

that we'd never really
seen before.

It was a unique
set of documents,

a tantalising opportunity

to really break open

what was going on
in the oil-and-gas sector.

[Alexandra] Tom Martin's role
is to prosecute crimes.

Figaro's mission,
as a whistleblower,

is to expose this corruption.

Nick's, as a journalist,
to bring it to the public.

Mine is to try
and help fix the system,

so I've embarked
on this documentary

to show how pervasive
bribery can be,

and how difficult it can be
to root out.

- Alexandra, hi.
- Nick. Hi.

Good to see you.

[Nick] I'm excited to work
with you on this film,

and there's
still so many questions,

like how the Ahsani sons

were inculcated
into the business.

So dad's corrupt, we presume.

At what point does he say,

"Okay, boys, this is
the way business is done"?

[Alexandra] So this is where
you have it all mapped out.

This is... the Unaoil universe,

and to understand this universe
is to understand the scandal.

It seemed like anyone
who was anybody in the oil game

was hiring Unaoil
to do their work,

so I was like,
"Who the hell is Unaoil?"

At the centre,

we've got the heart
of the Unaoil enterprise,

the Ahsani family,

the godfather, Ata Ahsani,

and his sons, Cyrus and Saman.

Who is Unaoil working for?

The companies...

biggest multinationals
in the world.

Household names.
- Yeah.

Big players
in the oil industry.

Unaoil was doing its business

wherever there was
that lucrative oil field...

Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan,
Iran, Iraq, Syria,

Tunisia, Algeria,

Yemen, Cameroon.

[Alexandra]
Corruption hotspots.

[Nick] Every one of them,
and of course,

their hub being Monaco,

what a nice place to live,

but also a stone's throw,

a quick flight,
to many of their key markets.

Mm-hmm. It's not
a very big organisation,

from what I can see.

If you're running
an organised crime gang,

you keep it small.

Keeping it in the family
was critical for Unaoil,

because who knew the secrets?

It was the Ahsanis,

and they thought those secrets
would never be spilled.

The one person
that laid the secret bare

is this guy, the whistleblower
at the centre of this.

He worked for Unaoil,

and his code name
is Le Figaro.

So eventually, you get
an enormous tranche of emails.

And all these emails
lay bare Unaoil's secrets.

You can see some
bits and pieces over here.

They never said "bribe."

In fact, you could search

in these hundreds
of thousands of emails

for the term "bribe",
you're not gonna find it.

In fact all you'll find is them
saying, "We don't pay bribes,"

and that was
the most critical finding.

A "holiday" was a bribe.

"One day" was $1 million.

Yeah, it's a pretty good
indication of guilt

when people start referring
to their transactions by code.

So how did you go about
cracking the code?

There was
one critical email here.

The old man, Ata,
he's got a bad memory.

Mm-hmm.

He needs to know
who's who in the zoo,

what do the codes link to?
He's forgotten.

So one of the Unaoil staff
helpfully says,

"Well, "Lighthouse,"

that's senior Iraqi oil official
Diaa Jaffa al-Mousawi."

Boom! We understand
who Lighthouse is.

"The Spaghetti House"
was a code for Eni,

large Italian company.

"Ivan." Oday al-Quraishi.
Boom! We understand who Ivan is.

Why "Ivan"?

Do we know why they picked that
as a code name?

He was called "Ivan"
because he loves...

apparently loves
Russian sex workers.

[Alexandra]
Yeah, that's charming.

[Nick] Says a lot about the man.

So using these code names,

we then search
across all the e-mails again,

and understand
who's getting paid bribes,

and how.

Right here we have an email

to a man,
code name, the Doctor.

"The net holiday allowed to you

is the biggest
we've considered."

So what's this all about?

The Australian company Leighton
hired Unaoil,

who worked
with this intermediary,

who claimed he could
reach powerful politicians

including the "Teacher."

And Unaoil said that,

"The Teacher is confident
he can knock out"

Leighton's competitor

on a $733-million
pipeline project.

What will help to do that

is this "holiday"
to the Doctor.

How much is that?
We jump to another email,

over to here,

$16,000,000, U.S.

One bribe, one person, one job.

So we're talking, you know,
big, big bucks.

Huge scale.

But also, this is where
I first see your name,

and TRACE,
your organisation comes up.

I can see it.
It's our TRACE certificate.

[Nick] We know
what they thought of TRACE.

In this email here,
they describe

"These TRACE wankers,
just box-tickers,"

so they saw you as,

I mean, the good guys
trying to do a job,

but they thought,
"We can circumvent

these checks and balances
that TRACE have in place."

It shows that they were
absolutely playing,

playing the whole process.

Must make you pissed off.

More than a little pissed off.

[♪]

[Alexandra] Seeing so clearly

how the Ahsanis
had worked the system,

I really wanted to go to Monaco

to find out
how they'd done it.

It's a totally different
world here.

You're among the wealthy. Right?

Right. The ultra-wealthy.

Yeah.

[Alexandra]
I met with Lindsey Mitchell.

He was a former Unaoil employee,

and it was Lindsey
who walked me through

how the company
operated in Monaco.

So, describe Sammy for me,
well, the whole family,

but start with Sammy,
because he seems to be

the larger-than-life
personality.

He definitely is.

He's one of these guys that
doesn't really break a smile.

- Ah.
- You know? He's a serious.

And Cyrus, he was the handsome,
good-looking guy of the group,

and really laid back.

Was there pressure from
the Ahsani family to pay bribes?

Yeah.

People want to understand.

People have to know
how easy it is to fall prey

to the bribery side
of the industry.

I can tell you,
from my own experience.

The Ahsanis had me do it once
in Libya.

Unaoil was trying to get
a $45-million contract

with the national oil company.

They asked me to pass
a thick envelope of cash

to a guy I knew
at the Libyan company,

in exchange for intel
on competing bids.

The whole thing made me sick.

The next day, I resigned,

and got on a plane
and headed back to Canada,

and eventually cooperated
with the authorities

against Unaoil.

[Alexandra] So, your cooperation
with the authorities

must have
infuriated the Ahsanis?

Yeah, you know,
these people that have wealth,

that have been dealing
with foreign governments

for a long time,

they are connected to people.
- Connected, yes.

There seem to be a lot of people
afraid of them.

Definitely.

And my family as well,
have been very concerned.

Really? So you did have,

you had concerns
for personal security?

Still, to this day.

It's like, "Is anything
gonna happen?" You know?

Every time a car goes by,
I look at the driver,

so, be aware.

You know? Be aware.

[Alexandra]
So this is the building here?

[Lindsey]
This is the old office.

[Alexandra] The scene
of the crime, in my book.

[Lindsey] Yeah.

- After that first payment...
- Yeah?

It would have just been
a routine occurrence.

Totally.

I believe this
about bribery, right?

You open the floodgates,

and now you've said
to somebody on the other side,

"I'm willing to engage in this
criminal activity with you."

It's an invitation.

Once you pay the first bribe,
you're kind of married now.

- Yeah.
- You're kind of married.

I think there are still people

who believe that
you can pay just one bribe.

"I'll just do it
this one time." Right?

And it doesn't work that way.

No, they keep on
coming back for more.

Word gets out that
you're willing to play along.

- Yeah.
- Yeah, absolutely.

[Lindsey]
So yeah, this was our day...

we, uh...
come down through here,

and our office
was right through here.

Sammy's here! I'm fucking off.

Yeah.

[Alexandra] Okay. He's going.

Sammy's here.

By the time I got up here,

Lindsey took off,
and I got up here,

and I think
he was standing right there.

I think he had seen him
through there

and he was over by that...

I'd love to speak to Sammy.
You know?

He, uh... he defrauded
my company.

Where's Lindsey right now?

Where is he? I don't know.

He started
walking that way, and...

[Lindsey] I said
probably a phone call.

Sorry, Alexandra.

- No! No, no, no.
- It was him.

It was Sammy.

- It was him?
- 100%.

- Huh! Did you...
- Same shirt he always wears.

He was walking this way.

So he was just chasing us off?
Was that the idea?

He, uh...

It certainly was... was him.

- Yeah?
- 100%.

[Nick] Anyone
who came after the Ahsanis

was in the crosshairs,

including me.

As soon as the article
was published,

they came after me
and my company.

Unaoil was like a blinded boxer,
just throwing punches,

trying to hit us...
any way they could.

Well, what was their story?

The emails were...
were fraudulent?

You had no business
publishing them?

I mean,
the emails told the story.

Yeah. "The emails are stolen."

We'd received stolen property.

"These guys, these journalists,

they're idiots,
what would they know?"

"Unaoil's the victims of
some international conspiracy."

They were feeding stories
to reporters

that Figaro was not only
a thief of company documents,

but that he was trying
to extort the Ahsanis.

And it worked!

They were on the front page

of the national paper
of Australia.

Day in and day out,
day after day,

I was reading...
it was bullshit.

It was trying to cast
a cloud of doubt over our work,

and it was all fed by Unaoil.

It was effectively

a PR campaign
disguised as journalism,

with one purpose,

to make Unaoil look clean

and the victim
of our reporting,

and to make us the bad guys.

[footfalls echoing]

Peter!

- Hello.
- Alexandra Wrage.

Very nice to meet you.
- Very good to meet you.

[Alexandra] Pretty soon
after this story broke,

there was some media
discrediting Nick's source...

Hmm.

...that he had

stolen the emails

and used them
to blackmail the Ahsanis,

so that
he may be a whistleblower,

but he was also
an extortionist.

I never knew
the identity of the source.

Um, I don't know today
the identity of the source.

Um, I never needed to know,

but I was confident,
after talking to Nick,

that, um...

he was not involved in
any improper activity at all.

The Australian newspaper

ran articles suggesting
that somehow,

Fairfax Media might be
working with this extortionist.

Oh, good grief.

It's laughable
that people say that.

I know Figaro.

What sort of idiot
conducts an extortion

and the next day
goes to the media

and says, "investigate"?

It was more
public relations nonsense

coming out of Unaoil.

That's how it was being used,
obviously...

- Right.

...to discredit not only Nick,

but the credibility
of the story.

[Nick]
The whole extortion thing

is a big sideshow
to distract everyone.

Unaoil is a crime gang,

and we exposed you,
tough titties.

Like, that's it,
at the end of the day.

[Figaro] Let me be clear,
I was not the extortionist,

but I did hear about this,

and it could've been
any number of people.

A few years
before the article came out,

the Ahsanis were worried

there might be an investigation
about their business deals,

so they sent a note out

that we need to put
any incriminating emails

onto a central server,

and then had our laptops wiped.

This is all the evidence
that these conspiracists,

these corrupt businessmen,

thought was gonna sink them.

For any kids at home

dreaming about
being a corrupt businessman,

keeping detailed records
of the bribes you paid,

who you paid them to,

all of the emails that
you've sent regarding that,

it's an absolutely
terrible idea.

[Figaro] I gave Nick
this information.

Who knows who else
had this information too?

Unaoil then gets
this nuts email

from this person
calling themselves "Komrade."

Russian,
or pretending to be Russian.

"I have purchased much data
about Unaoil

and all transactions..."

[actor as Komrade]
You will go to prison.

If you do not agree
to pay our fee,

I will send this data
to many agencies,

WikiLeaks, news,

and my staff put on internet
for everyone.

You, your father and brother

will likely face prison,
or worse.

The alternative,

you pay us 5 million USD
in Bitcoin.

My take on those emails

is that they were
clearly concocted

by someone trying to pretend
to be Russian,

and it caused
a huge degree of panic

within, um,
the Ahsanis' circle.

[Nick] Saman wrote back.

"We have agreed with you

that we will
come to an arrangement

so that we can purchase from you

the data
that was stolen from us."

The Ahsanis decided to pay

a small fraction
of what Komrade asked for,

to buy some time.

[Komrade] You are a snake.

Your payment, a joke.

This is insult.

You want to fuck with us?

We reject your offer.

This really was trouble,

because you pay him
$150,000 now,

he's gonna be asking for
10 million next time,

or whatever,

and they were thinking
about how they could, uh,

make this into
a binary situation

so that they didn't
have to worry about it.

[Nick] This "binary situation,"

Tom's euphemism
for "alive or dead,"

had the SFO concerned.

Behind the scenes,

one of the Ahsanis
conjures up a plot

to threaten the extortionist.

So how did you uncover that?

Well, the U.K. authorities
wrote to the Ahsanis,

uh, and their lawyers,

warning them, and say,

"Should evidence come to light

that confirms
or establishes

your client's involvement
in any criminal act,

then it will be
dealt with accordingly."

Were they really gonna go

and get A Day of the Jackal
style hit guy?

I didn't think so,
but I was worried

that they thought that kind
of stuff might be an option.

[Figaro] I never heard
about this threat.

All I knew was

the propaganda story
the Ahsanis used

to attack me and you.

[Nick] It felt like

it was me, you,
and Tom Martin of the SFO

versus the world,
a little bit.

Because they were saying
"We're gonna sue"

me and the company
that I work for,

for $100 million.

That would have
bankrupted my company.

I would've brought down
my entire newspaper,

and our legal counsel
for the newspaper called me,

I'll never forget it,
basically just saying,

"Nick, if you fucked up,
it's over for you. It's over."

[Figaro]
And then they come after me.

But then I called you up,
and you-you reassured me,

and then I called up Tom Martin.
He said to me,

"Hold tight, mate,
just hold tight.

It's going to happen.
They're corrupt.

Relax, calm down."

But a whole bunch of people
got caught up in this.

You know, like TRACE.

Alexandra Wrage,

she feels like
she was scammed by Unaoil

to help them
achieve a corrupt aim,

and she's angry, I think.

[Figaro] Is she? Really?

TRACE's job was to kind of
protect the system,

but in the end,
they became kind of complicit.

When we accused Unaoil
of corruption, they said,

"Oh, how can we be corrupt?
TRACE."

[Figaro]
They're either very naive,

or they're part of the game.

Yeah. All right, let's ask her.

She's come with me on this trip,
and she wants to meet you.

Are you okay if she joins us?

[Figaro] Sure.

Hey there. I'm with Figaro.

[Alexandra] Yes?

Uh, he's, um...
he's agreed to meet,

so I'll come and grab you.

I mean, FYI, he's, uh...
- Okay.

...he's a mite skeptical,
so expect a few curly ones.

Um... okay.

See you soon.

She wasn't expecting that,
but I'll go get her.

[Nick] How're you feeling?

[Alexandra] Good.

So Figaro, I think he finds it
a little, little weird.

He said, "Do you trust her,
do you trust her?"

- Mm-hmm.
- Uh...

well, he question he has is,

are you naive,
or are you part of the game?

[laughing] Right.
Stupid or complicit?

Yeah, okay.

[footsteps]

Uh, Figaro,

Alexandra.

Hello. Alexandra Wrage.

Very nice to meet you.

So I have a lot of questions
for you,

but I think you have
some questions for me first.

[Figaro] I watched how
Unaoil used TRACE,

and I just have to wonder
what you were thinking.

Either you're
completely naive,

or you're in
on this whole game.

We had looked at Unaoil
for, I think,

ten years in a row,
for due diligence.

Every year,
we looked at it and said,

"I can't deny them
certification

because I have a creepy
feeling about this," right?

We do an executive summary
that shows all the red flags,

and Unaoil had
the maximum number.

It was five, right?

They're in a tax haven,
et cetera, et cetera,

So I never felt good about them,

but we didn't have
a smoking gun.

I mean, TRACE was used
to wash Unaoil.

Yeah.

[Figaro] You were duped.

Not only by your client,

you were duped
by all their accomplices.

Absolutely.
Their enablers, yep.

[Figaro] I understood

it was important
to have references

from blue-chip companies,

but the evidence today shows

that actually,
the whole bribery process

starts there.

Everybody is getting
comfort from something else,

and I know
that we took comfort

from the fact
that PwC was their auditors.

[Figaro] They carefully
chose an auditor

who was willing
to look the other way,

and they took it
one step further.

They made the crooked auditor
from PwC

their Chief Financial Officer.

Hang on. The auditor from
Price Waterhouse Coopers

became the CFO of Unaoil?

Went in-house at Unaoil?

You didn't know that?

Did not know that.

[Figaro] Yeah. Who better
to help you cook the books?

The person who was monitoring
the books in the first place.

He doesn't mind being
on the other side.

He has nothing more
to lose now,

because he was on the outside.

He might as well
be on the inside.

You've got to give it to them,
they were good at being corrupt.

Unaoil, geez!
- They were.

They were very good at this.

If they had put the same energy
into clean business

that they put
into fraudulent compliance,

they might have had
a good, good arrangement.

[Figaro] Look, bribery
was the business model,

but in 2003,
it really opened up for them.

[Nick] You mean
with the invasion of Iraq?

[Figaro] Yes. Iraq became
the Wild, Wild West.

There was no law,
no structure.

Everything was possible.

That was like the key
to the kingdom.

[Figaro] No question about it.

We went to Iraq,

and the levels
of corruption there

were just horrifying.

It would have been
the perfect playground

for a corrupt organisation...

- Gold mine. Gold mine.
- ...like Unaoil.

Pallets of cash.
That's, you know...

it's a cliché for a reason.

So when you understand

that Iraq was this land
of opportunity for Unaoil,

come have a look

at how much work they had
on the cards

with some of the biggest
companies in the world.

Rolls-Royce, aiming for
a $50-million job with Unaoil.

FMC, $60-million job,

Stone & Webster,
two $50-million jobs.

Weatherford,
huge oil services company,

SBM,
massive European company.

We know the biggest contracts
they're pushing for

were worth north of
a billion dollars, in the end,

so, massive bucks,
big stakes, big pressure,

and Unaoil there to deliver.

[Alexandra]
So, how did they do that?

To understand how Unaoil
does its business in Iraq,

one man is really important,

the Doctor,

and who was the Doctor?

He was our fixer,
Ahmed al-Jibouri.

So, the money bounces
from Ahmed al-Jibouri

to these Iraqi
senior oil officials,

including someone they were
calling the Teacher,

one of the top officials
in the country.

The idea was
there was money flowing

from the multinational clients
of Unaoil

through their fixers,
like the Doctor,

to people like the Teacher,

to unlock the contracts
in Iraq's oil fields.

[Alexandra]
I wanted to find the Doctor,

and I wanted to understand

his connection
to the Teacher...

so I asked for help
from a local journalist,

Nader Salman.

The al-Jibouri family,
this is a big family in Iraq.

They are a very wealthy family
from Saddam times,

so this is, I think,

what help him
to do his business.

What is the impression,
the overall impression,

that you have of him
and his business style?

Uh, I believe his loyalty,
to the money.

To the money?
His loyalty is to the money?

Yeah, actually, yeah.

Yeah, that's the case
with a lot of middlemen.

Do you think he'd speak with us?

If you are searching
for Ahmed al-Jibouri,

Ahmed al-Jibouri
will call you back.

If if he wants to be found,
he'll call you back.

Yeah, okay.

[phone call ringing]

[ringing]

Hello. Is that Mr. al-Jibouri?

Hi. My name is Alexandra Wrage.

I'm calling you
because we're working on a film,

and I was hoping
to talk to you about it.

It's the, um,
the story of Unaoil,

and I know there's always
two sides to every story,

and I was wondering
if you'd be willing

to chat with me
about it a little bit.

You're not interested?

I'm very keen to make sure

that we get
the whole, full story told,

and not be too one-sided.

It's a really good opportunity

for you to say
what you want to say.

Um, I guess, I guess
I don't really understand

what you mean
by "not interested."

The, the story...

[call ends]

I tried to be very fair.

- He's angry.
- He was angry?

100%. You make him nervous.

Does it surprise you,

um, would it be unusual,
in your mind,

that if somebody is implicated
in a story like this,

nobody ever investigates?

Can I keep silent?

[laughing]

You can, if you prefer.

Please.

- Okay.
- Yeah.

Uh, just for this question,
because this is... [chuckles]

No, it's, it's, I understand.
It's a difficult question.

One of the most corrosive things
about bribery, about corruption,

is that it almost always

involves
the most powerful people.

I agree with you, 100%,
yeah, this is the image here,

not just in Iraq, everywhere.

[Nick] So I was still left
with the big question,

who was the Doctor
sending all of this money to?

Who was the corrupt official?

I knew it was one of these guys
at the ribbon-cutting,

but which one of them
was the Teacher?

I can take you over this email.

The Teacher was one of

the biggest mysteries
in this scandal.

This email, or group of emails,
was absolutely critical.

They talk about the Teacher,

this very senior official,
very powerful official,

going to a certain site in Iraq
on a certain day,

so we matched
the Teacher's travel plan

with the Iraqi press,

and then, boom,
the lightbulb goes off.

Hussain al-Shahristani
is the Teacher.

[interviewer]
...his excellency,

Dr. Hussain al-Shahristani.

[reporter] Shahristani

was one of Iraq's
top nuclear scientists,

hand-picked by Saddam Hussein
to begin work on an atomic bomb.

His refusal
landed him in prison.

[reporter] Shahristani
spent nearly 4,000 days

in solitary confinement
under Saddam,

one of the most respected
exiles to return after the war.

[Nick]
The former Oil Minister,

the Deputy Prime Minister,

I mean, this guy was supposed
to be the hero of Iraq,

the pillar of transparency
with his glass box of oil bids,

and it looked like
he was on the take.

He's the man
that Unaoil believes

that it has to influence
to win the huge contracts,

and Unaoil believes

that by paying him millions
and millions of dollars,

they can exert influence
among the oil ministers,

so heaps of money gets
funnelled through Al-Jibouri.

What a waste of an opportunity
to clean up the country.

Iraq was massively corrupt
during Saddam Hussein,

and the great promise was,

topple Saddam,
free the country up,

corruption...
don't rid it completely, but,

It was so hopeful,
and it's all just fallen apart.

It actually makes you furious.

Mm.

[Alexandra] Iraq
has an Integrity Commission

that's supposed to look into
this kind of case,

and they did open up a file
on Unaoil.

[Alexandra] Despite the fact
that this case

got lots of media attention
in Iraq,

the commission's investigation
has gone nowhere.

[speaking in English]

What is the key problem
to bringing justice?

The emails from the Unaoil case,

they actually named
your minister of oil.

Winning contracts
through bribes,

how common is that in Iraq?

It's not measured?

[Nick] In addition

to the Iraqi
Integrity Commission's

investigation into Unaoil,

the Australian Federal Police
had their own case,

and law enforcement agencies
across Europe,

in Italy, Monaco, Portugal,

Switzerland, France,

Guernsey, and the Netherlands,

assisted with
the wider global investigations,

as did authorities in Canada.

In the U.S.,
the Department of Justice

headed up
an American investigation,

along with the IRS,
the SEC,

and even
the Postal Inspection Service.

But it was the U.K.'s
Serious Fraud Office

that took the lead working
with all these agencies,

all in pursuit of justice
against the Ahsanis.

They realised,
basically, the game was up.

This was gonna end in a trial,
and they didn't fancy it.

And at that point,

it appears that Ata Ahsani
had fled to Iran,

and Cyrus had gone to Beirut.

Saman was essentially trapped
in Monaco

and couldn't leave,

and we were waiting
for him to turn up

in a third-party country,

where a Red Notice
would be executed,

and that's what happened
when he went to Italy.

He goes to the airport in Rome,

and he tries to board
a flight to Buenos Aires.

He probably thought,
"You know what,

that's a country that's
difficult to extradite from,

all my money's offshore,

and I can go live
in Tierra Del Fuego

and fish, or whatever,

and that's my lot. I'm done."

[Nick]
It's just a bizarre story,

what happened in Italy,

and it's where the whole case
really begins to fall apart.

So, Marco,
you're a journalist in Italy,

where this Unaoil story
has made headlines.

Take me through
what happened with Saman Ahsani

at this Rome airport.

So he went through this path,
he entered the airport.

He went through security check.

[beeping]

He handed his passport.

The police officer
checks against a computer.

There's a red alert.

There was
an European arrest warrant

issued by
the British authorities.

I had a flash on my computer.

So, "What's this?"

Basically, that passport number

would've shown "this person
needs to be detained,"

and he was.

Finally, we got hold of him?

Saman had been arrested.

I was cock-a-hoop. I was...

I was genuinely
absolutely ecstatic.

And here it is,
in its beauty.

This is Regina Coeli,
this is the prison.

The yellow, the cream building?

[Marco]
The cream building. Yeah.

This is where Saman Ahsani came.

Former monastery,
prison for 200 years.

[Nick] Yeah, it's,
uh, it's foreboding, isn't it?

I think maybe
'cause it's so ancient.

You can feel the pain inside.

[Marco] Yeah.
Nuns, and then inmates.

Definitely a place
of, uh, imprisonment,

in all sorts of ways.

[Nick] Would not want to be
spending a night here.

Finally got hold of him,

and we thought
we were on Easy Street,

and then we weren't.

[Nick] We go to meet
the cops who arrest him.

[Marco] This is a special
branch of the police,

and here is the police officer
that actually signed his arrest.

- Buongiorno, Commissioner.
- Buongiorno.

This is the folder
of Saman Ahsani,

with all the papers,

so the papers
that the criminal police

has issued that night,

together with
the INTERPOL papers

that they received
from Britain.

And, Commissioner,

what are the actual crimes named
in the arrest warrant?

So the arrest warrant
names "corruption"

- Yeah. -Yeah.
- ...as the crime.

[Nick] But then
we discovered something strange.

Our cameras caught a shot
of the arrest document,

which showed Saman
made a prison call

to a mysterious person
named Steph Davis.

So when he was arrested,

Saman Ahsani
got one phone call.

Who do you call? Your wife?

Lawyer.

Your lawyer, yeah.

But who's Steph Davis?
Is it a secret girlfriend?

Do some Googling.

"Steph Davis, FBI."

Hang on a second.
He makes his one call to the FBI

when he's arrested
fleeing U.K. justice?

What's going on?

My superior comes over and says,
"Mm, there's a problem."

And I get told
that the DOJ and the FBI,

they want us
to withdraw our warrants

so that he can travel
to the U.S.

And it was just like,
"What is going on?"

[Nick] The Brits
were absolutely apoplectic.

The case they spent
12 million pounds on

just got stolen from them
in Rome.

The FBI went behind the back
of the U.K. authorities,

cut a deal with the Ahsanis

so the Ahsanis
would begin to cooperate

with U.S. law enforcement,

and freeze
the U.K. investigation out.

Yeah, and those two countries

are supposed to be cooperating,
obviously,

in their fight
against corruption,

but it's interesting

that the Ahsanis thought
they would be better off

in the United States
than the U.K.

He thought he could
avoid a U.K. jail cell

if he did the deal
with the FBI.

You know,
if you're Saman Ahsani,

"Yeah, I'll become an FBI rat,
an FBI snitch.

I'll snitch
against the big companies.

They'll be fined,
and I'll stay out of jail."

I'm just gonna give my editor
in Melbourne an update.

- G'day, mate.
- G'day.

Listen, I'll just
fill you in quickly, Bach.

So I've got to Rome,
'cause this is the place

where Saman Ahsani, uh,
basically gamed the system.

Went for a run this morning
on the Tiber River,

and I'll tell you,
I was just filled with anger,

because it's like,

how the F did this guy,
this so-called global crook,

manage to spend one night
in a Rome jail cell

before ducking to America,

where he's probably
gonna walk out a free man?

Yes. Yep.

So he knew he could secretly
meet with the Americans

behind the back of the Italians,
behind the back of the British,

who wanted to arrest him

and throw him in a jail cell
in London,

and cook up a deal
with the Americans

to get out of Italy
to America,

in a way that would ensure

the only night
he ever spent in a jail cell

was that one night
in a jail cell here in Rome.

[Bachelard laughing]

I mean, it's-it's classic,
isn't it? How did...

That's their business model,
and it continues to work.

Yeah. Anyhow, it makes me...

Smarm and money.
Smarm and money.

Exactly. Exactly.

The Monaco millionaire
can still basically

get out of any problem
he finds himself in.

Yeah. Which sucks.

Yep.

This is a titanic scheme
that had been perpetrated,

and the tendrils
that went into that,

and went out to other places,

they wanted control of that.

We're talking about
36 multinational companies

who paid bribes to Unaoil,

all at multimillion-dollar
levels

across most of the world,

which implicated
very, very senior businessmen,

owners of companies,
government officials.

I think when there were
dollars on the counter,

you could see the DOJ thinking,
"Right, we want that!"

And that's the nature
of the beast.

Uh, the U.S. DOJ is going
after these corruption cases,

and the U.K. SFO
is going after these cases.

How do their styles differ?

In the States, you know,
flipping informants,

getting people to turn
against their fellow criminals,

that's pretty standard.

Whether or not people
are all telling the truth,

and whether or not they've
verified it's the truth,

ha! is up for debate.

But it's really down to this,

they're willing to flip people,
listen to what they're told,

use that information
to flip other people,

and go up the chain.

So, you've got the Ahsani gang,

Ata, Cyrus, and Saman,

and they're like
the meat in the hamburger.

The U.S. on one side,
they're helping the U.S.,

and the U.S. is going
after big companies.

The U.S. wants
to fine these companies

into kingdom come.

The problem is,
on the other side of the burger,

you got the U.K. crunching them.

England's Serious Fraud Office
could still bring charges.

They want to throw
the Ahsani gang into jail

for 10 years plus.

That's a problem for
the Ahsanis. What do they do?

They launch a full-court press.

How do you blow up
the U.K. investigation?

Tom Martin.
He is the thorn in their side.

They can destroy him...

they destroy
the U.K. investigation.

They didn't wanna
be prosecuted by me.

If I were them, I wouldn't want
to be prosecuted by me either.

Absolutely.
I totally agree with that.

I take it as a badge of honour

that they didn't want
to be in a court with me.

Yeah. Agreed.

The Ahsanis complain
to the U.S. authorities

about Tom Martin.

The U.S. then complain

to the SFO,
the Serious Fraud Office,

about an incident that happened
in a pub

two years before,

between Martin
and this man,

the FBI liaison
to the U.K.,

Special Agent Kevin Luebke.

Luebke had accessed SFO
databases without permission.

Kevin Luebke was in the U.K.
to liberate information

and get that information
back to the FBI.

Luebke and I had gone

to a pub around the corner
from the U.S. Embassy.

We had a little exchange

over him, uh, pilfering
information from the SFO intel.

It's alleged that I called him
a "quisling,"

a "spy," and a "cunt."

Now... I called him a quisling.

That's agreed.

I did not call him
those other things.

The U.S. then accused Tom Martin
of swearing at an FBI agent.

That complaint,
those swear words,

lead to Tom Martin
being suspended.

So name-calling between
two law enforcement guys

is enough to bump him
off the case?

The swearing was a proxy.

It was about getting rid
of the Brits altogether.

The crooks,
with the help of the U.S.,

got one up on Tom Martin.

And next thing, I'm at home,
playing with my train set.

I... you know.

In some ways, it's an absolute
masterstroke, isn't it?

You know, you've got
this fire-breathing prosecutor

who's on the charge,
trying to put you inside,

and you've managed to get him
out of the way,

you've managed to get
to the States,

where you're gonna get
a lighter sentence,

and they're not gonna
come after your money,

and you can go home in, what,
six months or whatever it is?

I mean... well played.

But doesn't that infuriate you?

I, to be honest with you,

I take less issue about
what the Ahsanis have done.

They're criminals,
you know, you've got to expect

they're gonna do
some pretty revolting things

in order to get
to their ill-gotten gains

and ride off into the sunset.

That's their role here.

My role was to catch them.

I think where
I do have a legitimate gripe

is that I should've
expected more

from my brother prosecutors,

that when they being invited

to do something
pretty bewildering,

to make a complaint
on behalf of a defendant

against his prosecutor,

I think that that...
that was a low move.

[Nick] So Tom Martin is gone.

The U.K. case
is effectively dead.

Saman Ahsani
has gotten himself to America

and cooked up this deal.

His brother joins him,

and the DOJ
give their father, Ata,

immunity from prosecution
in exchange for a fine,

and the Serious Fraud Office

has lost one of the biggest
bribery cases in U.K. history.

I've worked
in the anti-corruption world

almost my whole career,

and I don't think
I've ever seen a case

fall apart
as dramatically as this did.

[Nick] Well, it turns out there
was another player involved,

this guy here.
His name's David Tinsley,

and he was pulling the strings
behind the scenes.

There's no photo of him.

He's ex-DEA,
Drug Enforcement Administration.

Spent 25 years going after
Colombian drug lords.

Starts this private firm
to help out people in trouble.

Tinsley uses his connections

to start to mix in with
the Ahsanis and the Ahsani case.

It's essentially
a behind-the-scenes deal

he's trying to strike
on behalf of the Ahsanis.

What is his role?

How does he have
all this access?

Well, as these emails
we've dug up show,

Tinsley had
these old buddies at the DOJ,

and he was
corresponding with them,

urging them
to give the Ahsanis a good deal,

and he's also secretly
behind the push

to get rid of Tom Martin.

The FBI and the DOJ
were talking to Tinsley,

and every week,

they were getting
on a call with us,

not telling us
what they were doing,

and asking us for information

about how our cases were going,
what were we doing.

I think
it's pretty duplicitous.

[Nick] But the Ahsanis
still have a problem.

Even without Tom Martin,

the SFO could still
bring charges against them,

if they wanted to.

So they hatched another plan,

sic the government
on some easy prey,

their own employees at Unaoil.

[Tom] Ziad was a former
schoolboy chum of the Ahsanis.

He'd been a country manager,

which was
in their sort of job spec,

that he was in charge
of paying bribes.

He was very much
sort of middle management.

There was another manager,
Stephen Whiteley,

and a chap called Paul Bond,
who worked for SBM,

who also got caught up
in the bribery scheme

in relation to the pipeline.

One of their chief lieutenants,

a chap called Basil al-Jarah,
code name the Captain,

he was a very effective
payer of bribes.

Let's call him a capo.

In sort of
American mafioso speak,

he's a capo.

[Nick] These were
the four unlucky ones,

the sacrificial lambs,
if you will.

Tinsley has these guys
in his sights.

He'd gone to the ears
of the Serious Fraud Office

and he said, "Hey,
there's some easy pinches here.

We can land A, B, C, D
in jail,"

convincing the SFO
to go after the foot soldiers,

the Ahsanis' lieutenants,

rather than
the Ahsanis themselves.

[Tom] Shortly after Saman Ahsani

had got himself
to the United States,

a new director
of the Serious Fraud Office

had been appointed,
a U.S. lawyer.

Lisa Osofsky
is an American British citizen,

a former lawyer of the DOJ.

She was not someone
who was well-known

within the white-collar
criminal community,

uh, in London.

[Nick] Over the course
of a couple of months,

Tinsley starts emailing
and texting with Lisa Osofsky,

and they have
these revealing exchanges.

Osofsky's texting
the Ahsanis' fixer

that she's "super honoured
that you're coming my way,"

and later, "I'm looking forward

to all we can
accomplish together."

Tinsley responds, "We're moving
to a good solution,"

and then, "You're the bomb."

Osofsky, "We work well together,
and will continue to do so."

Tinsley, then, texts to say

that she was his
"new most favourite person."

This guy Tinsley was able to go
to the Serious Fraud Office

and walk the halls
as if the agency was his own.

With the SFO Director
on his side,

the Ahsanis' lawyer and Tinsley

have this extraordinary dinner
with Ziad Akle,

one of the four Unaoil employees
facing charges in the U.K.,

trying to convince him
to take a plea.

The former employee
records the conversation,

[recording playing]

That's not how most law
enforcement agencies in Europe,

and I would say
pretty much around the world,

that's not how they operate.

Tinsley was essentially
selling these guys a line

that he'd get them
minimal jail time

if they cut a deal.

We couldn't do deals.

We were not legally
able to do that.

It was a clear
conflict of interest.

How they ever arrived
in that situation

is, is, frankly terrifying,

and, of course, it didn't help
the four guys in custody.

[reporter]
A former senior executive

of Monaco-based Unaoil

was sentenced to jail
over a bribery plot.

[reporter]
Paul Bond has been sentenced

to three and a half
years imprisonment.

[news anchor] ...and two
former Unaoil group managers,

Ziad Akle
and Stephen Whiteley,

were convicted.

This is the first win
for the SFO in quite some time.

The Ahsanis
have ultimately engineered

one of the greatest plays
in global corporate corruption

the world has ever seen.

Get in first,
do a deal with the FBI,

do a deal with the SFO.

If it means throwing
your childhood friend in jail,

so be it,

as long as the Ahsanis
stay out of jail,

as long as the Ahsanis
keep their money.

They were used as pawns
by the Ahsanis,

and it seems like at least
some of the authorities

were willing to take
this low-hanging fruit

and give the Ahsanis
what they wanted,

the golden ticket
to stay free.

[Wrage]
The DOJ wouldn't speak with us,

but seemed to get
what they wanted.

With the Ahsanis' testimony,

they built cases against
Unaoil client companies,

and those cases
got settled with fines.

TechnipFMC paid close
to $300 million,

while the engineering firm
Amec Foster Wheeler

paid $18 million,

SBM Offshore,
nearly $250 million,

Honeywell,
more than $200 million,

and Rolls-Royce, $170 million

to the U.S. government
to settle its case.

Whether or not
the DOJ was effective

really depends on

what you think
will deter future corruption.

If you send the message

that the misconduct
can all be resolved with money,

you're not
gonna deter corruption,

because corruption
is really, really profitable.

But then we get
this unbelievable news

out of the U.K.

[news anchor] Next up,

bad news
for the Serious Fraud Office

of the United Kingdom.

[reporter] A trio of men
linked to Unaoil

saw their convictions quashed
following SFO failures.

The only employees in the U.K.

who are actually
convicted of bribery

had their cases thrown out
on a technicality.

The SFO didn't disclose

that they had been
having secret conversations

with the Ahsanis' fixer,
David Tinsley,

and this led to a legal
and political firestorm

in the U.K.,

and ultimately, to hearings
in front of Parliament.

Order. Order.

Welcome to this evidence session

on the work
of the Serious Fraud Office.

Welcome, uh, Miss Osofsky,

and can I ask you
to introduce yourself?

Thank you,

and thank you for pronouncing
the surname perfectly,

Lisa Osofsky, the Director
of the Serious Fraud Office.

Uh, Ms. Osofsky, last week,

we saw Paul Bond
join Ziad Akle

in having their convictions
quashed by the Court of Appeal

in the Unaoil case.

Those are very disappointing
judgments for us

in those cases.

As head of the office,

I take responsibility

for everything that happens
in the office.

Why was it,
in relation to Unaoil,

that, uh, the SFO didn't proceed
against the Ahsani family?

They were moved from Italy
to the U.S.,

and they were cooperating
with U.S. authorities.

They were...

admitting to the full extent
of their crime.

I made a judgment call

that we were not
gonna get them back.

They were already in the U.S.

[Farris] The kind of blunder
is so basic.

Isn't it alarming for
members of the public to hear

that this could ever have
happened in the first place?

And the case collapsed
as a consequence.

I mean, it's been
highly damaging,

the David Tinsley relationship.

It was a damaging
relationship.

I appreciate, and apologise,

for the fact
that we had that meeting.

But were you had over
by David Tinsley, to use a--

- I'm sorry?
- Were you had over

by David Tinsley,
do you think, now?

I think... in some way, we were.

- Okay.
- We were.

[Tom]
I mean, Osofsky's admitted

she's been had over
by Tinsley now

before the Justice Committee.

Absolutely, with knobs on,

but ultimately, justice
has not been served here.

The evidence against
these people was overwhelming.

If Osofsky had sat on her hands
and done nothing,

these guys
would've been convicted.

If she'd had nothing
to do with Tinsley,

they'd have all been convicted,

but the people of Iraq here
have lost as well, haven't they?

You know, they've been subject
to kleptocratic behaviour

through the actions
of the Ahsanis and Unaoil,

and these guys
who were convicted.

They're gonna get nothing
out of this now, are they?

There's no justice for them.

[♪]

[Nick] The depressing thing
about this journey for me

is the system
that I thought was set up

to fight, expose corruption

doesn't actually expose
or stop corruption,

and some of it actually
aids companies like Unaoil.

It's like it's a big joke that's
being played on the whole world,

and we're powerless to stop it.

You know, Unaoil was
a bit of a turning point.

It was a turning point,
because...

this level of due diligence
for that level of sophistication

was the wrong fit.

Uh...

have you lost your trust
in corporates?

I'm not sure

how high my trust
in corporations has ever been.

There's more corruption
than I realised,

and I always knew
there was a lot of corruption.

There's more sophistication
around corruption,

and that's distressing,

because people
are getting better at it.

The system is-is broken,
and a lot of this doesn't work.

What we thought
was corralling these companies

and helping us all
get a little closer to the truth

is easily manipulated.

If the Ahsanis go down,
then that's something,

but of course,
if they do go down,

who's gonna fill their boots?

There'll be another set...

in fact, there's another
Ahsani family right now.

We just don't know about it.

There is absolutely
another Ahsani family right now,

but I think we've made it...
we, you, this case,

have made it harder
for the next Ahsani family,

because if you aspire
to be an Ahsani...

gruesome thought,

but if you aspire
to be an Ahsani,

and you watch what
they've been through

over the last couple
of years,

it's a little less glamorous
than it used to be.

And there's still
the sentencing hearing,

so I'm curious to hear
what you think.

What is your prediction?

I think they're gonna walk,

and I think, when they walk,

they're gonna
look at you in the court,

and just go, "Pfft!"

I mean, seriously.

That's the Ahsanis.

[Alexandra] It felt so strange.

I'd been following this case
for years,

and now, finally, I was gonna
see one of them, in person,

possibly face some consequences.

[photos snapping]

Saman walked
into the courtroom.

He frankly
looked a little scared.

The Assistant Attorney General
stood up

and outlined the extent of
Unaoil's corruption schemes,

and how Saman
had personally paid bribes

and destroyed evidence.

Then it was Saman's turn.

He admitted
he engaged in bribery,

he expressed regret,

he listened to the sentence
from the judge...

...and that was it.

Saman walked out of court,

jumped into a black SUV,

and he and his entourage
drove off.

[Nick] Hey, Alexandra.

Hi, Nick!

Can you hear me?
- Tell me...

I'm dying to know
what happened.

He was very quiet.

He looked pretty subdued
the whole time.

He came in,
he looked over at me.

I don't... I don't know
if he knows who I am.

I think he does.

Uh, but we made eye contact,

and I held it
for three or four seconds

before he looked away.

So, they went back and forth,

but the end result
is 12 months plus a day.

12 months jail?

Yep,

and then there's a 1.5 million
monetary penalty as well,

but, um...

he got off pretty easily.

I think, deep down,
I was expecting,

maybe because I'm so cynical

about how everyone's
walked away, no jail.

A year in jail
is a year in jail still.

How do you think this sentence

compares
to other corporate crimes?

12 months, given
the egregious conduct

and the period of time

and the extraordinary
sums involved,

this is low.

A slap on the wrist?

Slap on the wrist.

[Alexandra]
We tried to chase down

some of the officials
who accepted the bribes.

None of them
were ever charged,

and none would speak with us...

except for one,

the Teacher,

the biggest of the alleged
bribe-takers himself,

former Deputy Prime Minister
for Energy,

Hussain al-Shahristani.

Thank you so much
for meeting with us.

You are the only person
implicated in Unaoil's bribery

who's been willing
to speak with me.

Let me ask you kind of
the most difficult question.

Did you, while you were
in government positions,

accept bribes?

No. Never.

- You never accepted a bribe?
- Never.

From Unaoil people...

- From anybody.
- ...or anybody else?

I have not been aware
of anybody under my supervision

who have accepted a bribe
and I failed to punish him.

At what point in your career
did you first hear about Unaoil?

As an oil minister,
I've never heard of the company.

An Australian young journalist,
Nick McKenzie, have called me,

and he said that
there is a report coming out,

and my name is mentioned.

I just want to make sure
that I'm clear.

The first time you became aware
of the company Unaoil

was because of
the newspaper article?

Yes.

And as soon as this came out,

I asked the Prime Minister
to investigate the case.

I call upon the Inspector
General of the Ministry

to investigate.

That's my signature.

It's really difficult
to untangle.

Let me take you through

one of
the most surprising emails.

It's actually a pair of emails.

We have these code names.

Unaoil has this middleman
that they called The Doctor,

al-Jibouri,

who claims to have
an inside track

to a powerful politician
that they call The Teacher.

In one email,

they refer to the Prime Minister
asking Teacher

to go to the Leighton
oil facility,

and in another email,

they specifically say

that the Deputy Prime Minister
Shahristani, you,

have been asked
to go to that facility.

So, first email,

Shahristani has been asked...

- Yeah.
- ...you've been asked.

Second email,
they go back to the code name.

You, I think, did, in fact,

go to the barge.
- Absolutely.

- There was a Reuters article.
- Yes, yes.

- There were some photographs.
- I did, yeah.

Would you agree that they are
referring to you as Teacher?

Yes, it seems from this email

that he says "Shahristani"
at some point, and "Teacher."

What do you know
about al-Jibouri, the Doctor?

Uh, I never heard of him,

known him,
had any contact with him,

or knowledge of his contacts

with officials
at the Ministry of Oil.

You've never met him?

No, never.

So if we start
from the assumption

that, for whatever reason,

they are referring to you
as Teacher,

then it seems to me
there are two possibilities.

One possibility is

they have this corrupt deal
with you,

and they're trying
to protect themselves and you

by referring to you
as a code name,

and the other is

they are trying to intimate
that they have

this relationship with you
that they don't have.

Assuming that these emails
are genuine and correct,

my, uh, understanding would be

that these people
have tried to,

um, in Arabic,
we call it "milk."

You know "milk"?
- Yep. Yeah.

To get large sums for themselves

making some kind
of false documents

that they have passed the money
through to somebody else.

So if I understand
you correctly,

al-Jibouri
just doubled the number

and kept it all?

Why are they lying
about your involvement?

To make money for themselves.

Money and power corrupt,
for sure,

anywhere in the world,
in any culture.

But they only corrupt,
in my belief,

those who are susceptible
to corruption.

Power and money doesn't
make a person corrupt.

It makes a person reveal
his inner corruption...

- I agree.
- ...that he has been

hiding for too long.

[Nick] I'm about
to reunite with Le Figaro.

We set out together
on this course of justice.

I want to catch up with him

to see what he thinks of how
this whole case has unfolded.

- How are you?
- Hi, Nick.

[both laughing]

- Long time, no see.
- Yeah, good to see you again.

So pleased to see you.

Uh, should we, um...
- Yeah.

...walk through?

We shared a journey,
me and you,

so it's, it's lovely
to be catching up.

At the very start,
I remember asking you,

"what do you want to achieve?"
and you said,

"I want the big guys
held to account,"

the companies and the,
you know, the Ahsanis.

[Figaro]
That hasn't happened.

[Nick] The middle, not the boss.

[Figaro] Not the big guys.
They all escaped.

So, do you regret
coming forward to me,

or do you think it was...
- No, I don't.

...worth doing?

[Figaro] I don't regret it,
because it's the truth.

You were the first
corruption whistleblower,

then Lindsey Mitchell says,
"I paid a bribe.

I did this. I did that."
It was amazing.

[Figaro] What's remarkable
about this for me,

because when I started
to launch this battle,

I was expecting
not much reaction,

and when it happened,
I thought, wow, yeah,

maybe something, maybe it's
the beginning of something.

I mean, justice
has not been served.

The Americans
backdoored the Brits.

We know that now.

- Yeah, I know. Yeah.
- I mean, that's...

[Figaro] It's disappointing,
to be honest, yeah.

Yeah, it's...
it's actually extraordinary.

Yeah, if the Brits
had carriage of it,

if Tom Martin had his way,

Saman and Cyrus and Ata
would be in jail,

sitting in a jail
in London right now.

[Figaro] Yeah.

[Nick] And now they're going
to go to America and...

- It's insane.
- It's insane.

[Figaro] What's for sure

is that every regulation
that is put in place

has a few... cracks,

and some of these cracks
are there by mistake.

You don't know what the crooks

are going to do
with those mistakes,

what they're going to imagine
they can do with them,

but some of these cracks
are obviously left...

left to leave a door open
to continue doing things,

and that disturbs
the whole thing.

It means, really, something...
something wrong in the system.

[Nick]
To some extent, I think,

you're gonna be looking
over your shoulder

for the rest of your life.

I mean, I don't want
to freak you out, but...

- Yeah.
- It's, uh...

it's the reality
of being a whistleblower,

especially when you fight
the rich and powerful.

Yeah.

It may not be the Ahsanis,
but...

[Figaro] No, I mean, there's so
many people involved in this.

Is it an oil minister?

Is it an executive
you've disgraced?

Your conduct has disgraced
and wrecked lots of lives.

These people deserve it,
but they'll be angry,

and that's gonna be something
that follows you forever.

[Figaro] Yeah.

[♪]