Nov 14, 2023
This week, Emily Hart gets the inside story on the #NarcoFiles -
a new investigation into The Global Criminal Order, the largest
investigative project of its kind to originate in Latin America.
She speaks to OCCRP’s Latin America Editor Nathan Jaccard, who has
led and coordinated this project - right from its earliest seeds in
the 2022 hack to the incredible flourishing of reporting we’ve seen
this week, and which continues to emerge.
Last year, a group of 'hacktivists' known as Guacamaya infiltrated
the Microsoft Exchange server, enabling them to hack the system of
the Colombian Attorney General's Office, the entity in charge of
investigating and prosecuting crimes in Colombia. Five terabytes in
size, the leak contains more than 7 million emails, including
exchanges between the Fiscalia and numerous embassies, law
enforcement groups, and others. The documents in the leak reveal
unique details about the inner workings of international criminal
gangs as well as law enforcement efforts to dismantle them.
The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the
Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP),
Vorágine, and Cerosetenta gained early access to the data, and then
shared the leak with more than 40 other media outlets. Journalists
from over 23 countries worked on the investigation.
Nathan will be giving us the who, what, and how of this story, as
well as his insights into the new world of organised crime and
cocaine trafficking revealed by this hack – from the changes in
where cocaine is grown and produced to corruption of top officials
in Suriname, as well as the narco-nexus between huge banana
companies and Colombia’s political right wing, Israeli mafia in
Colombia, links to the Odebrecht scandal and more – stories
involving fruit, shark fins, and DEA Agents.
Emily will also be sharing with supporters and subscribers her top
picks from the NarcoFiles reporting from a number of outlets, with
translated versions - subscribe now to our Patreon to get
access!