Schattenwelten: Das globale Gangster-Netzwerk
Die Macht der Organisierten Kriminalität reicht weit über Drogenhandel oder Schutzgelder hinaus. Die dritte Folge der ZDFinfo-Doku-Reihe "Schattenwelten" beleuchtet die Strukturen und globalen Verflechtungen von Mafia-Organisationen und kriminellen Clans.
Illegale Geschäfte wie Menschen-, Waffen- und Drogenhandel sowie Cyberkriminalität werden zu einem milliardenschweren Netzwerk verbunden, das Politik und Wirtschaft weltweit massiv beeinflusst. Die Dokumentation fragt, wie es diesen Schattenmächten gelingt, ihre Netzwerke im Verborgenen auszubauen, welche Bedrohungen daraus für Staaten und Gesellschaften entstehen und ob dieses globale Gangster-Netzwerk überhaupt noch zu zerstören ist. Ein tiefgründiger Blick hinter die Kulissen der sichtbaren Welt, der aufzeigt, wie Kriminalität und Terrorismus von den gleichen globalen Strukturen profitieren.
🏷️
Organisierte Kriminalität,
Mafia,
kriminelle Clans,
Gangster-Netzwerk,
illegale Geschäfte,
Drogenhandel,
Waffenhandel,
Menschenhandel,
Cyberkriminalität,
Geldwäsche,
Schattenwirtschaft,
Globale Kriminalität,
Geheime Mächte,
Korruption,
Terrorismusfinanzierung,
ZDFinfo Doku,
Fernsehserie,
Verbrechen,
Ermittler,
Unterwelt,
Politische Einflussnahme,
Finanzkriminalität,
Transnationale Kriminalität,
Bedrohung,
Clan-Kriminalität,
Rockerkriminalität,
Wirtschaftskriminalität,
Kriminelle Strukturen,
Hashtags (mindestens 25)
#OrganisierteKriminalität,
#OK,
#Mafia,
#KriminelleClans,
#GangsterNetzwerk,
#Schattenwelten,
#Doku,
#ZDFinfo,
#GlobaleKriminalität,
#Unterwelt,
#Geldwäsche,
#Drogenhandel,
#Waffenhandel,
#Cybercrime,
#Verbrechen,
#Kriminalität,
#Hintergrund,
#GeheimeMächte,
#Korruption,
#Justiz,
#Polizei,
#Terrorismus,
#VimeoDoku,
#DailymotionDoku,
#Transnational,
#Illegalität,
#Schattenwirtschaft,
Die Macht der Organisierten Kriminalität reicht weit über Drogenhandel oder Schutzgelder hinaus. Die dritte Folge der ZDFinfo-Doku-Reihe "Schattenwelten" beleuchtet die Strukturen und globalen Verflechtungen von Mafia-Organisationen und kriminellen Clans.
Illegale Geschäfte wie Menschen-, Waffen- und Drogenhandel sowie Cyberkriminalität werden zu einem milliardenschweren Netzwerk verbunden, das Politik und Wirtschaft weltweit massiv beeinflusst. Die Dokumentation fragt, wie es diesen Schattenmächten gelingt, ihre Netzwerke im Verborgenen auszubauen, welche Bedrohungen daraus für Staaten und Gesellschaften entstehen und ob dieses globale Gangster-Netzwerk überhaupt noch zu zerstören ist. Ein tiefgründiger Blick hinter die Kulissen der sichtbaren Welt, der aufzeigt, wie Kriminalität und Terrorismus von den gleichen globalen Strukturen profitieren.
🏷️
Organisierte Kriminalität,
Mafia,
kriminelle Clans,
Gangster-Netzwerk,
illegale Geschäfte,
Drogenhandel,
Waffenhandel,
Menschenhandel,
Cyberkriminalität,
Geldwäsche,
Schattenwirtschaft,
Globale Kriminalität,
Geheime Mächte,
Korruption,
Terrorismusfinanzierung,
ZDFinfo Doku,
Fernsehserie,
Verbrechen,
Ermittler,
Unterwelt,
Politische Einflussnahme,
Finanzkriminalität,
Transnationale Kriminalität,
Bedrohung,
Clan-Kriminalität,
Rockerkriminalität,
Wirtschaftskriminalität,
Kriminelle Strukturen,
Hashtags (mindestens 25)
#OrganisierteKriminalität,
#OK,
#Mafia,
#KriminelleClans,
#GangsterNetzwerk,
#Schattenwelten,
#Doku,
#ZDFinfo,
#GlobaleKriminalität,
#Unterwelt,
#Geldwäsche,
#Drogenhandel,
#Waffenhandel,
#Cybercrime,
#Verbrechen,
#Kriminalität,
#Hintergrund,
#GeheimeMächte,
#Korruption,
#Justiz,
#Polizei,
#Terrorismus,
#VimeoDoku,
#DailymotionDoku,
#Transnational,
#Illegalität,
#Schattenwirtschaft,
Kategorie
📚
LernenTranskript
00:01February 2021. A cargo ship on its way to Hamburg.
00:07Dutch investigators are focusing on five containers.
00:11Their suspicion? Cocaine is being smuggled here.
00:14They alert their German colleagues.
00:16Hamburg customs investigators are taking the containers to a special facility.
00:20Have an x-ray.
00:22Bullseye.
00:24There were cans of filler in one of the containers.
00:26Hidden inside were hundreds of packages of cocaine. A total of 16 tons.
00:31Never before has such a large quantity been found in Europe.
00:34At least 17 million euros had to be paid in advance to pay for the cocaine in South America.
00:41The trail leads to Paraguay.
00:43A front company is set up here to package and ship the cocaine undisturbed.
00:49An effort that is worthwhile.
00:51The goods alone have a street value of over one billion euros.
00:57The cocaine is usually cut three times its original strength.
01:03An investment of 17 million euros could have yielded up to three billion in profit.
01:09The profit margins in the drug trade make it the most important field for organized crime.
01:14Investigators worldwide are trying to keep up. Often in vain. Estimated drug sales increase year after year.
01:23Organized crime has developed into a multi-billion dollar industry. Forty or fifty years ago, that was unthinkable.
01:30The profits are used to procure weapons, buy politicians, and finance terrorism.
01:38Every time someone thinks there's nothing wrong with snorting a line of cocaine at a party, they are financing death in Central America, in Brazil, and ultimately in the Middle East.
01:52In October 2018, Chief Public Prosecutor Wolfgang Zöllner in Hamburg is preparing a crackdown on organized crime.
02:17A group of marijuana dealers is to be broken up.
02:22During the briefing, someone eventually realized, damn, today of all days is the first second division derby between HSV Hamburg and St. Pauli.
02:32The game is tying up too many police officers. The arrest of the dealers is postponed. They will remain under surveillance.
02:40The hope was that if they continued their covert investigation, they might witness a delivery live.
02:44Under the watchful eyes of the investigators, the suspects rent a white van.
02:50When it came to these delivery vans, people actually thought that maybe a few moving boxes of marijuana would arrive, and the plan was that...
02:57Anyone caught putting anything into the delivery van will be immediately prosecuted.
03:01The van drives to a terminal in the port. Several men get out there. They are interested in a very specific container.
03:09They had the shipping documents as electronic documents. So they knew which containers were involved.
03:16How did the men obtain this precise information?
03:21We know that mid-five-figure sums in euros are spent on people who work in the port.
03:26Because it's no use to me if the container containing my goods is on the third floor of the port and nobody can get to it.
03:33A truck picks up the container. The suspects follow the white van. They are equipped like the police.
03:40They had handcuffs with them, they had police equipment with them, like a blue light, a paddle to wave someone out.
03:47The investigators are following trucks and vans. South of Hamburg, they turn around and drive back towards the city. The police are trying to clarify the situation.
03:59And there it was determined that a driver swap had apparently taken place. This then caused quite a stir among the investigators.
04:06The driver and his truck were apparently hijacked. A police helicopter followed the convoy back to the port, where the truck was unloaded.
04:17They observed this for a while and then granted access.
04:20A mobile task force has arrested several suspects. They had repackaged hundreds of parcels from the hijacked truck into bags.
04:28It contained cocaine. Total amount: 1,100 kilograms.
04:38Following their arrest, some of the suspects are cooperating with the police. They claim to have been hired specifically for this operation.
04:45If the clients couldn't get their hands on the cocaine any other way, they should hijack the truck and its container. They are Plan B.
04:55And even if they themselves hadn't done anything more, I believe they would have each received a payment of 10,000 euros, according to their own statements.
05:04The investigators also arrested the leader, one of the heads of the Hamburg Hells Angels.
05:10He arranged the job independently of the bikers. The man is sentenced to ten years in prison.
05:17In court, he admitted to hijacking the truck, but remained silent about who commissioned it.
05:24However, none of the defendants were willing to make any statement regarding other perpetrators who have not yet been identified.
05:30There is another structure there, but we were unable to elucidate it.
05:34The structures of professional criminals often remain shrouded in mystery. They operate with a division of labor and adapt quickly to new situations.
05:43If I were to summarize all the major problems in the fight against organized crime,
05:48Then I believe there is a major misunderstanding in the public and in politics about the dimensions of organized crime.
05:54I believe that hardly any politician in the German Bundestag is aware that we have to discuss over 4,000 to 5,000 organized crime groups in Europe.
06:06When organized crime is discussed in Germany, the discussion usually revolves around the so-called Arab clans.
06:15We say it is perfectly clear that so-called clan crime dominates the political debate so strongly only because it belongs to the dumber groups, namely those who cause trouble on the street.
06:31I see it in our own ranks, how many personnel resources we have to invest in raids, the subsequent evaluation of the relevant mobile devices, and so on and so forth.
06:45On the other hand, it is highly likely that the even more professional organized crime groups are unable to sleep for laughing precisely because they naturally continue to remain under the radar.
06:57The really big fish only come into focus when they murder people. Like in Duisburg in 2007. Six Mafiosi were killed.
07:09I am of course also aware that the public only discusses it when there are dead bodies lying in the street again, to really put it bluntly, as we had in Duisburg a few years ago.
07:20In May 2019, an unknown perpetrator shot and killed two men in a house in the village of Forst, east of Cottbus.
07:27The case has received little public attention. The victims, two Serbs, were members of a drug gang.
07:35The police quickly became certain that a professional killer had struck.
07:40These murders are carried out relatively professionally because there are contract killers who have already gained experience in killing during armed conflicts.
07:51And for the perpetrators, it doesn't really matter where their respective victim is located.
07:58And that makes it clear that where these rivalries play out can also be a matter of chance. They can escalate at any time, right in our midst.
08:05The victims belong to a group that is bitterly fighting with another Balkan mafia clan for market share.
08:13There are dead in Amsterdam. In Malaga. In Athens. And especially in the Balkans themselves.
08:22I may look young, but I've been in this job for quite a while. I've been working as an investigative reporter for twelve years.
08:37He points to a crime scene. A man was killed here. A member of one of the rival drug clans, originally from the town of Kotor in Montenegro.
08:48As the man drove into the garage, two men appeared and opened fire on him. A policewoman was sitting next to him. She was unharmed.
09:00The Serbian police are embroiled in the underworld war.
09:04We are in Braccia. This is a part of Belgrade, where there have been many mafia murders recently.
09:15This is a very wealthy area where many mafia members buy houses.
09:20Organized crime spread rapidly in Serbia after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc.
09:25Our first democratic leader, who helped bring down Milosevic, was killed by a criminal gang in 2003.
09:33She also smuggled drugs and had teamed up with parts of the secret service. A sniper then killed the victim.
09:40This murder demonstrates the power of organized crime.
09:45Deutschinovic and his editorial team have been trying for years to shed light on the Serbian criminal underground.
09:50Also in the current gang war.
09:52At least 50 people who were recently killed belong to these gangs.
10:01The feud was triggered by a drug shipment. One gang accuses the other of stealing cocaine. The amount was comparatively small.
10:11They were fighting over 200 kilos of cocaine. But 200 kilos isn't much for these gangs.
10:17The gangs are major players in the global cocaine trade and hire professional killers.
10:27These gangs have organized perfect silicone masks for their people that really look like a human face.
10:35The men are not afraid of being filmed, so they commit the murder and also mislead the police.
10:42The Balkan mafia also obtains its cocaine directly from South America.
10:47In June 2019, nearly 20 tons were seized in the port of Philadelphia.
10:52The group in Montenegro had bought the drugs from a cartel in South America.
10:58They are not interested in street sales. They exclusively sell large quantities of drugs to other European gangs.
11:04The godfathers from the Balkans export not only large quantities of cocaine, but also death.
11:13Vienna, 2018, shortly before Christmas.
11:18A hitman ambushes two men as they leave a restaurant.
11:23One dies, the other is seriously injured.
11:26The men belong to a rival Serbian drug clan.
11:29Once again, the perpetrator leaves no trace.
11:33The Vienna murders remain unsolved three years after the crime.
11:37The killing continues.
11:40Specialists from the United Nations are based in Vienna.
11:44The Italian Angela Mee has been analyzing for years what makes the cartels so dangerous and powerful.
11:50One advantage is that they do not have to answer to anyone, unlike governments, which are accountable to the people and act according to certain standards.
12:03Criminals are unfamiliar with such standards.
12:05They use any method to control their territory, not just violence.
12:11That makes them stronger. And no government can stop them.
12:14The USA wants to put a stop to this. Richard Nixon makes a start in 1971.
12:31The superpower is waging war on drugs.
12:36Colombia is a battlefield.
12:38The US is sending soldiers and money. Dealers are being hunted down, cocaine fields poisoned, and crops burned.
12:48But even 50 years of struggle can't harm the business.
12:54Drugs remain the illegal market that generates the most profit for organized crime. By a wide margin.
13:02Organized crime generates up to two trillion dollars annually. Drug trafficking alone accounts for up to 700 billion dollars.
13:14US authorities register hundreds of boats annually that transport cocaine from Colombia to Mexico.
13:20From there, the goods are smuggled into the USA, the world's largest market. Cocaine has changed Mexico.
13:26When the government first tried to crack down on drug trafficking, violence exploded.
13:36The pressure from the Mexican government has undesirable consequences.
13:43This disruption reduced the amount of cocaine that could be exported from Mexico.
13:50which led to further tensions, as the groups had to fight for a smaller piece of the pie.
13:54When it comes to violence, Mexico has truly paid the highest price.
14:06For years, it has been primarily civilians who have paid this price. This is the case in the province of Veracruz.
14:1427 journalists murdered since 2007.
14:18The reporters had reported on cartels, their crimes, and corrupt politicians.
14:26Maria Elena Ferral was one of them. Her daughter Fernanda had warned her.
14:31My mother had already received this threat since I was six years old.
14:39And since then we've had bodyguards. We had bodyguards for 14 years.
14:44She always prepared me for the possibility that something might happen to her.
14:52Despite the threat, the mother criticizes a corrupt, local top politician.
14:56She was shot dead in front of her car in March 2020.
15:05The subsequent protests faded away.
15:08Daughter Fernanda is protected by bodyguards. She wants to continue her mother's work.
15:13First, they tore me away from my home, from my familiar surroundings, away from my work, from where I had spent most of my life.
15:24That had a huge impact on me. Now I'm not even allowed to say where I am.
15:29There's nothing I can do here. I can no longer work as a journalist.
15:34When Fernanda visits her old homeland with her brother, killers are waiting for her there.
15:39I was on my way back from Papantla. I went there because it had been my mother's birthday the day before and I wanted to visit her in the cemetery.
15:53Suddenly a pickup truck approached us. She started shooting at us.
15:58Then I couldn't see anything anymore because my bodyguards were covering for me.
16:01She continues to live in fear. Those who ordered her mother's murder have not been ousted.
16:10They don't really want to find those responsible. That's why my life will always be in danger.
16:22Those who wanted my mother dead know that I know what she knew.
16:28Because I worked with her and for her.
16:31Fernanda is running for a seat in the Mexican parliament in the summer of 2021.
16:37She draws attention to the families of the murder victim.
16:40Since 2006, 125,000 people have died in the Mexican drug war.
16:45Mexico is a rich, representative country with much to offer and many opportunities.
16:52But none of this is being used to do good.
16:54Drugs are smuggled from South America directly to the USA, Europe, and also to West Africa.
17:10Mali is an important transit country.
17:13UN troops are stationed here to push back Islamist militias.
17:18But they are becoming increasingly powerful because they profit from cocaine smuggling.
17:23As an expert for the UN has discovered.
17:27I was asked by the United Nations to lead a project.
17:32We found that most of the criminal groups operating in Latin America,
17:36Those attempting to bring cocaine to Europe must use historical transit routes or trade routes in Africa.
17:43It is therefore impossible for these groups to bring drugs into Europe,
17:46without paying taxes to various terrorist groups along the way.
17:50Groups linked to Al-Qaeda are particularly profiting from the drug trade in West Africa.
17:59The police simply look the other way because they get much more money from these particular groups.
18:04In certain parts of the world, these groups are the biggest power factor.
18:07We have reached a point where it is completely unclear how to effectively oppose this development.
18:12The UN mission is becoming more difficult. An attack is carried out against the German Armed Forces in Mali in 2021.
18:24Terrorists are also profiting from the drug trade in East Africa.
18:30This is not about cocaine, but about heroin from Afghanistan that is smuggled on towards Europe.
18:36So we have several terrorist groups in two large regions of Africa,
18:42who cooperate and profit when these two types of drugs are brought further into Europe.
18:48In the Mediterranean, European ships are picking up not only migrants but also drug smugglers.
18:54Italian investigators seized a shipment of Kapta-Gon, a stimulant, in June 2020.
19:00Shipped from the Islamic State. Street value one billion euros.
19:08At the UN in Vienna, a Northern Irishman, analyst and ex-police officer knows how explosive it is when drug trafficking and terrorism merge.
19:17When I was eleven or twelve years old, I was standing in a shop with my father one Saturday morning,
19:25when suddenly the windows were smashed. There was a huge bang.
19:28We went out into the street; there were dead people lying on the ground.
19:36For decades, British soldiers fought against the separatist terrorist group IRA in Northern Ireland.
19:42It is financed by organized crime.
19:46As a police officer in Great Britain and at Europol in The Hague, I have repeatedly come across information,
19:52which proved a connection between organized criminals and terrorists. Such connections have always existed.
19:58The IRA fears informers and traitors. Contact with criminals is considered a risk.
20:08Terrorist organizations isolate themselves from all risk.
20:13Therefore, members must figure out for themselves how to organize extortion, kidnappings, or drug trafficking.
20:19The IRA likes to present itself as a political and moral force. One subgroup even pretends to fight drug dealers.
20:31In fact, the IRA itself deals in cocaine on a large scale.
20:36The bloody conflict over Northern Ireland has been officially considered over for more than 20 years.
20:40Tony Blair negotiated the so-called K-Fridays Agreement with the IRA in 1998.
20:50But that doesn't mean the old habits are gone.
20:57Whether it is an active dissident group or a group that has agreed to the provisional peace,
21:06They all need financial resources for their propaganda in order to recruit members.
21:11to pay them salaries and even pensions when they have retired.
21:15To remain competitive, both sides smuggle cigarettes, weapons, and people.
21:23It's also a multi-million dollar business in Northern Ireland.
21:28To ensure their own financing, all these groups continue to participate in organized crime at various levels.
21:36And not just in Great Britain or Europe, but worldwide.
21:40For example, we have uncovered links between paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland and the Middle East.
21:45The issue was money laundering.
21:48A used car dealership on the outskirts of Düsseldorf.
21:52A native Lebanese man runs the unassuming shop.
21:55And launders hundreds of thousands of euros there.
21:58Until his arrest in November 2018, he was a key figure in money laundering.
22:04We know of dealers who use used cars to transport cocaine in Europe.
22:10Within the Schengen Area, the cocaine was packed in hidden compartments of the car.
22:14And then they traveled from Germany to Spain, from Spain to France.
22:19Cash was transported in the same way.
22:24The car dealer has long been under observation by German and American investigators.
22:29Right under their noses, he uses drug money to buy cars in Europe and resells them in West Africa.
22:35Until his arrest, he was in contact with the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
22:43Hezbollah is supported by Iran.
22:46It controls parts of Lebanon, is active in Syria, and incites hatred against Israel.
22:52Thousands of Lebanese are fleeing abroad due to the constant conflicts.
22:56To Africa, Europe, the USA and especially to South America.
23:00Hezbollah used its worldwide network of followers to establish relationships with organized crime.
23:09This allowed her to offer services to criminal gangs.
23:18In 2019, Lebanese national Nadar Mohamed Fahad was arrested in South America on suspicion of money laundering.
23:24The criminals not only have to launder the money, but also transport the goods. This service is also offered.
23:32US authorities have been cracking down on Hezbollah's money launderers for years.
23:36In 2019, one of the leaders was sentenced to five years in prison. Others are still awaiting trial.
23:43Almost everywhere in the world, Lebanese exiles have contact with Hezbollah, a global network of organized crime.
23:50Hezbollah is like Amazon DHL and Western Union of the criminal underworld.
23:59A raid in Europe. Combating transnational criminal syndicates is becoming increasingly complicated for the European police agency Europol in The Hague.
24:09Organized crime no longer consists of groups, but of networks. It also uses service providers.
24:21This includes experts in financial, legal, or logistical matters. The aim is to minimize risks and costs.
24:29Everyone cooperates with everyone else. Alliances change overnight. Borders no longer matter. For Europol, such flexibility is still a distant dream.
24:41When I started working here at Europol, the way people deal with organized crime had completely changed.
24:51To be honest, the situation is much more difficult than I expected.
24:57Europol regularly presents videos of police operations in Europe. Group after group, dealer after dealer, money launderer after money launderer are arrested.
25:05But the police are fighting a hydra.
25:09Whenever a seat becomes available, someone is found who takes it in no time at all.
25:16Often, only small fish get caught in the net. And without bankers and lawyers in the background, the business wouldn't work.
25:22Therefore, one must focus on the leaders of the groups and not on the small fry.
25:30A battle that is almost impossible to win. This also applies to the Netherlands.
25:34Lawyer Dirk Wierschum was shot dead here in September 2019.
25:40He represents a key witness who wants to testify against Moroccan drug smugglers.
25:45Eighteen months later, journalist Peter de Vries is murdered in Amsterdam.
25:49He also advised this key witness. The clients come from the big cocaine trade.
25:55We should acknowledge that organized crime poses an ever-increasing risk to EU member states and society as a whole.
26:04We must act now before it's too late.
26:08The secure outpost of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court.
26:12A controversial procedure reflects the new reality.
26:16Members of the Mafia are alleged to have lent money to Turkish defendants for a cocaine deal with Moroccans.
26:22The public prosecutor's office is using undercover investigators.
26:26The dealers at the end of the chain earn 5000 euros per kilo.
26:31They are part of an international shadow economy that the German justice system can hardly touch.
26:37I can't think of any point where we have managed to really deal a blow to organized crime.
26:45Because that would mean we would also be setting political goals.
26:49Only if we were to discuss this could we then be measured against it.
26:54For decades, criminal clans have succeeded in building structures in Germany.
26:58For example, the Italian Drangheta.
27:02Sandro Mattioli is researching how the group from Calabria is successful in Germany.
27:09The image of cancer is accurate in many respects, because cancer essentially forms metastases and affects the entire organism.
27:18But as a result, the infected organism often dies.
27:21But the Drangheta has no interest in that.
27:23Rather, the Drangheta is not concerned with remaining a foreign entity.
27:27She wants to mix with the economy, she wants to mix with politics, she wants to integrate.
27:33Mattioli has read thousands of pages of files from Italian authorities about the Drangheta.
27:38The investigators overhear mafiosi praising Germany.
27:41You can do anything there.
27:43To ensure that this remains the case, one must be calm, like in church, la chiesa.
27:47They know exactly the boundaries they can operate in so as not to attract attention and to avoid fearing any consequences.
27:55And that's basically the problem: this area is too large.
27:58Duisburg city center.
28:01Directly opposite the regional court, Mafiosi have been calmly laundering money for years through an ice cream parlor.
28:09Ten years ago, when I first started to study the Mafia, I always thought you didn't really know who belonged to the organization.
28:16I now know that the police have a great deal of knowledge regarding affiliation.
28:24And one knows exactly who moves in which circle, but it does not lead to any further consequences.
28:31Innkeeper Mario L. becomes a respected person in Baden-Württemberg.
28:35Basically, every investigator who dealt with him knew that he was a Mafioso.
28:41He just opens one restaurant after another, and probably many more through straw men.
28:45Italian records mention a number of over 140.
28:49Mario L. organizes the catering for the CDU and meets the future EU Commissioner Oettinger.
28:55After living undisturbed in Germany for years, Mario L. was sentenced to ten years in prison in Italy in 2019.
29:02The biggest Mafia trial in years has been taking place in Calabria since the beginning of 2021.
29:10355 defendants, hundreds of defense lawyers.
29:14The prosecutors want to expose the entire structure. In Germany, they are far from achieving that.
29:21If we make no effort to recognize this system, to analyze it, to understand what it is,
29:27Then we will not be able to effectively combat this system.
29:32In Italy, prosecutors like Nicola Gratteri have been trying to take on the 'Ndrangheta for years.
29:42He already carried out the spectacular Operation Metropolis against the Mafia in 2013.
29:50Italian investigators at the time uncovered a link to Northern Irish extremists.
29:55A former member of the Provisional IRA is arrested.
29:58During Operation Metropolis, the paramilitaries literally had mountains of cash they wanted to invest.
30:08And the Mafia said, we can help you launder the money by investing it in a legitimate business.
30:15The Mafia develops land and has luxury apartments built.
30:19If necessary, she puts pressure on former owners.
30:22Some are active members of the faction, others are not.
30:27They may be retired or have withdrawn from active combat.
30:32The Mafia is laundering 450 million euros for the IRA in this way.
30:38The Northern Irish are posing as property developers.
30:41The key figure in the money laundering plot is one of those responsible for the IAA bombings in the 1970s.
30:54He must go to prison for years.
30:58The post-Brexit situation demonstrates just how explosive the situation in Northern Ireland still is.
31:03Most of Northern Ireland is controlled by paramilitary groups.
31:10There are certain parts of Northern Ireland that the police simply cannot control because they are not allowed to enter the area.
31:16Once there, you hear that we are ruled by paramilitaries.
31:22Even in England itself, there are areas inaccessible to the police.
31:26Hezbollah is secretly storing cooling pads in a London warehouse.
31:33Thousands. Full of ammonium nitrate.
31:40Ammonium nitrate is mainly used as a fertilizer.
31:43However, it is also frequently found in medical equipment.
31:48The summer of 2020 in Beirut shows what ammonium nitrate can do.
31:53500 tons explode in the port, destroying parts of the city.
32:02You can't just walk into a pharmacy and buy three tons of ammonium nitrate, like the ones seized in London.
32:10That's why these networks around the globe are very helpful.
32:13People buy cooling pads and first-aid kits and slowly build up a supply.
32:19And at some point, there will be enough to bring in the bomb makers.
32:23In 1995, US right-wing terrorists used ammonium nitrate to blow up a building housing several federal agencies in Oklahoma.
32:33A substance that alerts investigators.
32:36Hezbollah has also established structures and stored ammonium nitrate in Germany.
32:47Hezbollah was banned in Germany in the spring of 2020. However, it continues to operate illegally.
32:59Hezbollah is similarly patient to Al-Qaeda. It takes its time to select the locations where it can achieve the greatest impact.
33:07Because ultimately, their purpose in life is terrorism.
33:14Terrorist groups like Hezbollah, just like drug cartels, need to launder their money, to move it around the world.
33:21The major financial centers are often helpful in this regard.
33:24Former financial regulator and banker Graham Barrows experienced this firsthand in London.
33:35London is a kind of perfect storm. The right legal system, the right corporate structures.
33:42It also offers many opportunities for money laundering.
33:45For example, there are companies that exist solely to move money around the world.
33:5380 percent of global trade is conducted in dollars.
33:58A few large banks therefore play a key role.
34:03Only they have the license to inject dollars into the financial system. Like Deutsche Bank.
34:09They had a number of deals on their books that have become infamous because so much dirty money flowed through them.
34:18This was then forwarded via Deutsche Bank to other secure locations.
34:22FBME Bank from Lebanon is one of these customers.
34:27Deutsche Bank is pumping $618 billion into the financial market with this, the New York banking regulator noted in July 2020.
34:36A large portion of the money can be traced back to terrorist groups and drug cartels.
34:42There is a global network of companies, banks, and brokers that offer these services to anyone in the criminal economy.
34:50Whether it involves organized crime, corruption, or terrorist financing.
34:56The financial crisis reveals why many financial authorities are only half-heartedly taking action against this system.
35:02The global economy has long been too dependent on dirty money.
35:08The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime once said that the only thing that saved the world economy from collapse at that time was the dirty money that was pumped into the system.
35:19This makes it very clear how important this money is for the global economy.
35:23The dependency hasn't changed much. Up to three trillion euros are earned illegally every year.
35:31This is almost equivalent to Germany's domestic product and thus up to three percent of the world's gross national product.
35:37If we were to simply wipe out three percent of the global economy tomorrow, we would have the worst depression the world has ever seen.
35:46The global economy would collapse. So there is this close connection between crime and the economy that cannot simply be eradicated.
35:57Prague. Czech Republic. Member of the EU. Like neighboring Slovakia, the country is considered to be infiltrated by organized crime.
36:06In 2017, journalist Pavla Holvova began researching the influence of the 'Ndrangheta on the government together with her Slovak colleague Jan Kuciak.
36:21Jan called me one day and told me that the Prime Minister had a very young new assistant.
36:27She was a former Miss Universe contestant, and it was unclear what qualified her for such a position.
36:36We started digging a little deeper and found out that she ran a business with Antonino Vardala.
36:42He comes from Calabria and may belong to the 'Ndrangheta network.
36:49Jan Kuciak was 27 at the time. He worked from home as an investigative journalist.
36:55Jan was interested in analyzing documents, less so in conversations with confidential sources.
37:02He was more of a quiet, analytical type who gathered the individual pieces to understand the overall picture.
37:11We knew it could get tricky.
37:14But we expected the trouble to come from Italy.
37:18That's why we kept an eye out for whether we were being followed.
37:22We didn't believe that the story would have such a big impact.
37:26Nobody really paid attention to organized crime in Slovakia.
37:32On February 21st, in the middle of the night, a former soldier breaks into Kuciak's house.
37:39He shoots him and his fiancée Martina. She is also 27.
37:44When it became known that Kuciak had been investigating possible crimes in the Prime Minister's circle before his death, thousands demonstrated against corruption.
37:59Prime Minister Robert Fiskor is going on the offensive, offering a reward of one million euros. For information. In cash.
38:06But the questions remain.
38:14After Jan was murdered, we naturally tried to finish his work.
38:22Holwova is temporarily under police protection. She continues to work on Kuciak's trail.
38:28The reporter had focused primarily on a businessman well-known in Slovakia.
38:33Marian Koczner. The suspicion? Koczner is alleged to have evaded millions of euros in taxes.
38:40One day, Koczner calls Kuciak.
38:43He wrote down what the businessman said to him. "I will gather dirt on you and your family. Then you will stop writing."
38:52Koczner is under pressure. The killers are arrested. Evidence leads to his circle of acquaintances.
38:58Finally, Koczner is brought to trial as the alleged mastermind behind the murder.
39:05There, and by journalists, he will be scrutinized further.
39:10The most important pieces of evidence were two mobile phones belonging to Marian Koczner.
39:16One of the two mobile phones had Prima messages stored on it, and the call logs showed that he had contact with judges and prosecutors.
39:25The news reports prove that Koczner bribed politicians and judges. He had even set one judge on a colleague.
39:37He sent a message telling her to deliver the desired and promised verdict now. Otherwise, she would end up like Kuciak.
39:47Holwova publishes the news and causes an earthquake.
39:51Twenty-one judges were arrested. I can't recall anything like this ever happening in any other European country.
40:01The former police chief, who had investigated the Kuciak case, was also arrested. He is suspected of corruption.
40:09They were accused of leading a criminal group.
40:18In the Kuciak murder trial, Marian Koczner is initially acquitted. A shock for the victims' families.
40:24Then, in the spring of 2021, the Supreme Court ordered a new trial. Slovakia in the stranglehold of organized crime.
40:35With his decision, Marian Koczner destroyed a system that had worked for twelve years.
40:42Before the murder occurred, we could hardly have imagined that this system could ever change.
40:47It was simply too deeply ingrained in society.
40:51The island of Malta. When the small country joined the EU in 2004, many things changed for its 500,000 inhabitants.
41:00Malta is also becoming a gateway for criminals into the EU. A topic for reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia, her sister, recalls.
41:09She was reporting on politics in Malta. And that's how she came across the transnational crime.
41:18The last sentence her sister writes reads, "Gangsters everywhere." The situation is desperate.
41:27Sometimes it's incredibly frustrating because you feel like the criminals are winning.
41:32Caruana Galizia has been subjected to hostility and threats for years.
41:36At the end of her life, she was isolated. She was subjected to a long and intense campaign.
41:46It was socially tolerated that people made jokes about her being killed.
41:52When Daphne was murdered, we said to each other that the act was a shock, but not unexpected.
41:59Contract killers shadow the journalist and jump her into the air with their car.
42:11If you publish one story after another and nothing happens, you become the last line of defense for the rule of law.
42:19It's then very easy to simply eliminate that one person. And that's exactly what happened in Daphne's case.
42:24Following the murder, the police in Malta are cracking down on the criminal structures and arresting the perpetrators.
42:34As in Prague, the trail leads to the ruling party. This is causing protests.
42:39They underestimated who they killed.
42:58The suspected mastermind behind the murder was arrested at the end of 2019. He was on the run in his yacht.
43:09Four years after the murder, a verdict has still not been reached.
43:13The victim's family continues to fight for justice.
43:17The European Parliament is taking action. A chamber will be named after Caruana, Galicia.
43:22If you simply give up, you're essentially saying, yes, you were right. She was unimportant, it was justified to murder her.
43:31But they won't live to see that.
43:32If we set out to solve the problem of organized crime everywhere in the world, we would never succeed.
43:39But it's not about winning the whole war.
43:42In the end, it's all the small actions that will make the big difference.
43:46Organized crime is a global underworld.
43:56And only if his opponents also act globally do they have a chance.
44:01Crime is an opportunity.
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