00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:25.120
Hi, this is Rob Moore. Please leave
a message and I'll get back to you.

00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:28.120
I'm a reporter with
the Toronto Star in Canada, -

00:00:28.200 --> 00:00:33.520
- calling with regards to the allegations
made against you at the High Court.

00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:41.800
Hi, I'm a reporter at the Sunday Times.
I understand your view -

00:00:41.880 --> 00:00:45.760
- is you were doing this in the interest
of trying to expose subterfuge.

00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:49.760
But I would be keen to have
a chat with you about this.

00:00:52.080 --> 00:00:55.080
Rob, it's Bill.
Are you OK?

00:00:56.560 --> 00:01:01.080
I ain't bothered about all the people
who might be slagging you off.

00:01:01.160 --> 00:01:03.360
Please look after yourself.

00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:06.880
Please, look after yourself.

00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:18.760
If you Google me, -

00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:23.280
- you'll read that I'm
one of the worst people in the world.

00:01:23.880 --> 00:01:29.720
Responsible for undermining a global
public health campaign for money.

00:01:33.960 --> 00:01:36.520
And betraying people.

00:01:39.640 --> 00:01:43.480
But the thing
that I've been publicly shamed for -

00:01:43.560 --> 00:01:47.920
- is actually the proudest thing
I've done in my life.

00:02:06.840 --> 00:02:12.400
When making a film, watching the
very first footage is always interesting.

00:02:15.040 --> 00:02:20.040
So, is this the scene where we drive
and park and then have a chat?

00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:22.640
It's just all the equipment behind.

00:02:26.040 --> 00:02:28.200
Why do you think
we should make this film?

00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:30.680
Well, I ...
Careful, careful.

00:02:30.760 --> 00:02:33.000
Just in case he pulls in.

00:02:33.080 --> 00:02:35.240
I think we should make ...

00:02:39.160 --> 00:02:44.320
I think we need to make this film,
because I think it's also a story of ...

00:02:45.480 --> 00:02:50.080
I think it's a story of a whistleblower.
People deny that I'm a whistleblower, -

00:02:50.160 --> 00:02:53.640
- but it is a story of what happens to you
when you do.

00:02:54.040 --> 00:02:56.000
Just for this test shooting, -

00:02:56.080 --> 00:03:02.200
- I just need like very, very short answers
and questions, and then it's like:

00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:06.080
So what do you want to prove?

00:03:06.160 --> 00:03:07.640
Yeah.
OK.

00:03:07.720 --> 00:03:11.240
What I want to prove is that I haven't done
what I've been accused of doing.

00:03:11.640 --> 00:03:15.160
But why should I believe you,
when they don't believe you?

00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:20.840
I'm not expecting you to believe me now.
I would like you to see the facts.

00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:23.400
And also, you know, -

00:03:23.480 --> 00:03:28.240
- I've been financially destroyed
and reputationally destroyed by this case.

00:03:28.320 --> 00:03:33.000
And all I have left now
is the truth, as I see it.

00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:44.320
I remember
I didn't believe Rob Moore at all.

00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:48.800
And to be honest,
I'm still not sure what to make of him.

00:03:51.240 --> 00:03:55.960
My intention was to make a film
about a spy who deceived others.

00:03:56.920 --> 00:04:00.480
But he will later claim
that I deceived him.

00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:08.920
Rob was exposed as a corporate spy
in 2016.

00:04:10.880 --> 00:04:12.800
Over a period of four years, -

00:04:12.880 --> 00:04:16.720
- he had been paid by
the corporate investigation agency K2 -

00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:20.920
- to infiltrate the global campaign
to ban asbestos.

00:04:21.440 --> 00:04:26.640
And feed the secrets of the activists
back to the asbestos industry.

00:04:29.200 --> 00:04:33.840
It is not unreasonable to suggest
that in Western Europe alone, -

00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:38.800
- more than half a million people will die
from asbestos-caused diseases.

00:04:38.880 --> 00:04:42.680
Let me repeat that figure.
Half a million people.

00:04:46.360 --> 00:04:48.960
If you just hold it like that.
Exactly.

00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:51.040
You have to take a picture.

00:04:51.400 --> 00:04:53.360
I think you can see ...

00:04:57.400 --> 00:05:00.160
Soon after he began
spying on the campaigners, -

00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:03.120
- Rob claims he had a change of heart.

00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:09.040
He says he became a double agent.

00:05:12.040 --> 00:05:15.120
And that he has documents
and sound recordings to prove -

00:05:15.200 --> 00:05:17.520
- that he actually was a whistleblower -

00:05:17.920 --> 00:05:23.120
- working to undermine the asbestos
industry, at great risk to himself.

00:05:23.880 --> 00:05:27.520
What I'm literally doing
is exposing the corruption of the client -

00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:32.400
- on a massive global scale,
and keeping the agency out of it.

00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:35.800
If we are talking former Soviet or mafia, -

00:05:35.880 --> 00:05:37.760
- they may just -

00:05:38.320 --> 00:05:40.680
- assassinate you.

00:05:42.440 --> 00:05:46.640
It was a fascinating story,
but complicated.

00:05:46.720 --> 00:05:52.680
Rob wanted me to make an investigative
documentary about corruption and oligarchs.

00:05:54.280 --> 00:05:58.160
I wanted to make a film
about how we tell stories, -

00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:03.040
- and if Rob's manipulation and lies
could be justified.

00:06:04.280 --> 00:06:08.040
Then suddenly, Rob told me
he was going to make a podcast -

00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:11.920
- with two of Britain's
top investigative journalists.

00:06:13.960 --> 00:06:16.840
I thought this would be
the end of the documentary.

00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:19.400
That they would steal my idea.

00:06:20.360 --> 00:06:23.480
But it turned out to be the beginning.

00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:36.560
That's the key thing.

00:06:36.640 --> 00:06:41.040
A lot of it is audio recordings I made.
And I recorded everything.

00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:43.680
Which is one of the
things that got me into trouble, -

00:06:43.760 --> 00:06:47.320
- but also one of the things that means
I can prove what really happened.

00:06:47.400 --> 00:06:49.520
I'm recording this as well.

00:06:49.600 --> 00:06:52.520
Because I found it's quite useful
to have a record -

00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:55.920
- of everything that was said.

00:07:02.240 --> 00:07:04.280
I'm good, thanks, Alexi.

00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:07.960
Nice to meet you.
Thank you for having the time.

00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:13.680
I think one of the objectives today
is to work out: What is there to look at?

00:07:13.760 --> 00:07:16.800
And what do you need
to understand it?

00:07:18.400 --> 00:07:20.760
So, this is the timeline ...

00:07:25.880 --> 00:07:28.800
When I first met Rob,
I was actually really excited.

00:07:28.880 --> 00:07:32.600
Here was a person who was bringing us
a massive exclusive.

00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:36.000
About working for a corporate
intelligence agency for years.

00:07:36.080 --> 00:07:40.240
About turning into a double agent.
About being a whistleblower.

00:07:40.320 --> 00:07:41.960
It had everything.

00:07:49.440 --> 00:07:54.040
Rob Moore was hired in 2012 by K2 -

00:07:54.120 --> 00:07:57.920
- to get inside information
on the anti-asbestos campaign.

00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:01.600
The allegation is that he spied
for pretty much four years.

00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:03.880
Four and a bit years.

00:08:04.880 --> 00:08:08.000
He targeted Laurie Kazan-Allen.

00:08:11.200 --> 00:08:14.520
Rob developed a relationship
that he himself described -

00:08:14.600 --> 00:08:19.600
- as being like son and mother with
one of the most high profile campaigners.

00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:23.480
He went on holiday with them.
He cooked for them.

00:08:23.560 --> 00:08:26.120
He couldn't have become closer.

00:08:26.200 --> 00:08:32.640
And at the same time he was writing report
after report back to the asbestos industry.

00:08:36.360 --> 00:08:40.360
There are so many things I did that,
for me, -

00:08:40.960 --> 00:08:43.480
- justified the subterfuge.

00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:48.360
This industry is killing
at least 300,000 people a year.

00:08:49.040 --> 00:08:52.400
I didn't act out of selfish reasons.

00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:56.240
I've both been an activist
and a whistleblower here.

00:08:56.320 --> 00:08:58.760
Hear me out.

00:08:58.840 --> 00:09:02.440
In the court case, there was
an open statement that you drafted.

00:09:02.520 --> 00:09:06.120
I'm not sure if you read it out,
but it's in the documents.

00:09:06.200 --> 00:09:09.240
And it says that you profoundly regret -

00:09:09.320 --> 00:09:12.840
- your failure
to tell the claimants the truth.

00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:18.160
I do regret the pain
I caused Laurie, in particular.

00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:21.080
She was the person
I was probably closest to.

00:09:21.160 --> 00:09:25.600
And she would treat me ...
She came to treat me as her son.

00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:30.560
She was incredibly fond of me,
and I was incredibly fond of her.

00:09:30.640 --> 00:09:33.360
This is what Laurie wrote
in her witness statement.

00:09:33.440 --> 00:09:38.520
I wondered if you could read it
and then tell me what you think about it.

00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:42.360
"Rob Moore has abused our trust."

00:09:42.440 --> 00:09:46.240
"He has misled us
and compromised our life's work."

00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:48.320
"I have no doubt that my reputation -

00:09:48.400 --> 00:09:51.200
- and ability to be effective at my job
will be damaged."

00:09:51.280 --> 00:09:54.960
"When people become aware that
I have been taken in by this person, -

00:09:55.040 --> 00:09:58.600
- and that information I gave him
has in all probability -

00:09:58.680 --> 00:10:02.360
- been sent via him
to the asbestos industry."

00:10:02.440 --> 00:10:04.240
I remember that paragraph very well.

00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:10.120
There's another one where she says she
feels emotionally raped by what happened.

00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:21.760
So the conflict I had with Rob
is kind of at the center -

00:10:21.840 --> 00:10:24.960
- of the whole story, I think.

00:10:25.320 --> 00:10:28.760
Because what he really wanted,
in my opinion, -

00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:33.040
- was for someone to look at
the paperwork, to believe him, -

00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:37.760
- and to tell his story in exactly the way
that he wanted it to be told.

00:10:37.840 --> 00:10:39.800
He wanted control.

00:10:43.400 --> 00:10:45.160
Hey, are we doing that?

00:10:45.240 --> 00:10:46.880
Yes.

00:10:47.480 --> 00:10:50.440
I'm sure he's a great journalist.
I'm sure he's a lovely guy.

00:10:50.520 --> 00:10:53.640
But I felt no connection with Alexi.

00:10:53.720 --> 00:10:58.640
I'm happy for him to ask
the tough questions he wants to ask.

00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:01.240
But I don't want to tell my story to him.
He's not listening.

00:11:01.320 --> 00:11:06.920
And I want to talk to someone who does.
And I would actually like it to be you.

00:11:08.200 --> 00:11:11.400
So I think we have
a relationship that works.

00:11:11.480 --> 00:11:13.200
Definitely.

00:11:15.040 --> 00:11:19.640
But I don't have an option
to take Alexi off the project.

00:11:19.720 --> 00:11:24.960
So in the end, it only works if you have
a relationship with him that works, as well.

00:11:25.040 --> 00:11:27.840
On no level does it work.

00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:39.600
I think the way that the studio time
was set up before, was really not ideal.

00:11:39.680 --> 00:11:42.920
Because it didn't give us enough time -

00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:45.480
- to go through all the stuff
that we needed to go through.

00:11:45.560 --> 00:11:47.800
But there are going to be
challenging moments -

00:11:47.880 --> 00:11:50.440
- because we're not
the Rob Moore PR agency.

00:11:50.520 --> 00:11:53.200
And it would really
increase the authenticity ...

00:11:53.280 --> 00:11:54.640
That's why I'm here.

00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:58.440
In order to take you through
the reports and the recordings, -

00:11:58.520 --> 00:12:01.560
- and so that you understand
both the material, -

00:12:01.640 --> 00:12:05.880
- because you did tell me that you
hadn't listened to the recordings yet ...

00:12:05.960 --> 00:12:08.400
No, I didn't.
I said I had listened to some.

00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:12.760
I have been spending
fucking hours on your material, OK?

00:12:12.840 --> 00:12:16.360
Like, literally weeks of my life
on this material.

00:12:16.440 --> 00:12:19.440
I understand it,
and it's slightly annoying -

00:12:19.520 --> 00:12:24.240
- that you're implying that I have somehow
skirted over it. I haven't.

00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:28.480
Don't worry, we'll get another journalist
to do it. We will.

00:12:28.560 --> 00:12:33.080
But we will also do the podcast.
And it will involve you, but without you.

00:12:33.160 --> 00:12:34.720
So it's a two-way street.

00:12:34.800 --> 00:12:37.880
Are you gonna do my story
without interviewing me?

00:12:45.520 --> 00:12:49.920
As a filmmaker, conflict
is something I'm always looking for.

00:12:50.400 --> 00:12:53.560
And it would be great
to have two experienced journalists -

00:12:53.640 --> 00:12:55.480
- to fact-check Rob's story.

00:12:57.000 --> 00:13:00.520
I have to find a way
to convince Rob to continue.

00:13:01.520 --> 00:13:06.440
I don't want to say that you should do this
or not. It has to be your decision.

00:13:06.520 --> 00:13:09.040
You don't need to do it for me.

00:13:09.120 --> 00:13:12.200
You don't need to do
the podcast for me, Rob.

00:13:12.280 --> 00:13:13.800
Well ...

00:13:14.280 --> 00:13:18.440
What if ... I'm just inviting more abuse?

00:13:28.680 --> 00:13:30.440
What did you decide to do?

00:13:30.520 --> 00:13:33.720
So we decided that Alexi
would carry on with the investigation.

00:13:33.800 --> 00:13:37.840
But I should take the relationship with Rob
and I should handle that.

00:13:40.520 --> 00:13:43.680
Can you start by pretending
that we haven't met?

00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:45.120
Yeah.

00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:49.840
And tell me how someone
with your character and background -

00:13:49.920 --> 00:13:52.760
- becomes a corporate investigator.

00:13:52.840 --> 00:13:54.400
A spy.

00:13:57.320 --> 00:14:01.520
Ceri, would you mind bringing the mic in
a little bit closer?

00:14:01.800 --> 00:14:03.800
-Are we all good?
-Yeah.

00:14:04.440 --> 00:14:07.640
Finally, the project is moving forward.

00:14:08.280 --> 00:14:11.400
Ceri is going to be the narrator
of the podcast.

00:14:11.480 --> 00:14:15.360
And I think it's a great idea
to use his narration in the film -

00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:20.800
- to tell Rob's complicated story
in a simple and understandable way.

00:14:20.880 --> 00:14:23.880
Ceri will be the critical journalist.

00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:27.040
And I can be a friendly fly on the wall.

00:14:28.480 --> 00:14:30.280
-Camera?
-Yeah.

00:14:30.360 --> 00:14:31.960
OK.

00:14:34.280 --> 00:14:38.040
Rob always tends to start his story
in the same way.

00:14:38.120 --> 00:14:40.160
With his days in comedy.

00:14:41.160 --> 00:14:44.040
You can start Rob's story
in a whole bunch of places, -

00:14:44.120 --> 00:14:49.440
- but this is the one that makes
the most sense of how he became a spy.

00:14:49.720 --> 00:14:52.560
-Hello, mate. How are you doing?
-Good.

00:14:52.640 --> 00:14:56.440
This is Ceri.
This is John Hopkins.

00:14:56.520 --> 00:15:00.480
-Simon Farnaby, Ben and Tom.
-Hello.

00:15:00.560 --> 00:15:04.040
-You've known Rob for donkey's years?
-Yeah.

00:15:04.120 --> 00:15:08.600
Apart from getting all these comedians
together for no money, -

00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:12.640
- Rob had, like, enthusiasm.

00:15:15.280 --> 00:15:20.440
The most famous show that I worked on
was a show called Brass Eye.

00:15:21.960 --> 00:15:26.280
It got real politicians,
celebrities and members of the public -

00:15:26.360 --> 00:15:31.040
- involved in ridiculous scenarios, but
they would believe them to be real.

00:15:31.120 --> 00:15:33.640
I'm Bernard Ingham,
and this is a piece of cake.

00:15:33.720 --> 00:15:37.400
You eat a bit of it, about that big,
to sustain the trip.

00:15:37.720 --> 00:15:40.200
It was sort of hidden camera,
but sometimes open camera.

00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:46.800
What is cake? Well, it stimulates the part
of the brain called Shatner's bassoon.

00:15:49.160 --> 00:15:52.360
Rob worked on some of
the best shows around in the 1990s.

00:15:52.920 --> 00:15:56.000
He ran a big British TV comedy studio.

00:15:56.320 --> 00:15:59.640
He got jobs in Los Angeles,
driving around in a soft-top car -

00:15:59.720 --> 00:16:04.200
- and working out of an office
right under the Hollywood sign.

00:16:04.280 --> 00:16:06.600
And then it all came crashing down.

00:16:08.560 --> 00:16:13.120
At 39, my career was over.
I'd lost my home in a divorce.

00:16:13.480 --> 00:16:15.800
I was living back with my parents.

00:16:15.880 --> 00:16:19.400
And I remember thinking, my god.

00:16:20.240 --> 00:16:22.560
I've just spent a decade in comedy -

00:16:22.640 --> 00:16:25.280
- where I basically know how to wire
up this room -

00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:28.120
- and make something stupid
happen in the middle of it.

00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:31.120
And that is a non-transferable skill.

00:16:31.200 --> 00:16:34.960
No one else needs that.
There's not any other line of work -

00:16:35.040 --> 00:16:39.520
- where my expertise
was going to be at all useful.

00:16:40.880 --> 00:16:45.640
When I heard you were a gardener,
I was like, "That'll be great."

00:16:45.720 --> 00:16:50.280
And then, when I heard you got
into corporate spying, I went, "Oh, no."

00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:52.320
"That's not going to end well."

00:16:56.200 --> 00:16:58.880
Blagging.
Slipping into character -

00:16:58.960 --> 00:17:04.160
- and tricking famous or powerful people
into making fools of themselves.

00:17:04.480 --> 00:17:07.760
In the end, those skills,
the blagging skills, -

00:17:07.840 --> 00:17:13.040
- were the thing that made him interesting
to the investigations agencies.

00:17:14.120 --> 00:17:15.920
These investigations agencies -

00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:19.880
- are doing the work on behalf of people
who can afford to hire them, -

00:17:19.960 --> 00:17:23.040
- which tends to be
big law firms, big banks, -

00:17:23.120 --> 00:17:25.360
- the great and the good, in fact.

00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:27.800
So at this stage, -

00:17:27.880 --> 00:17:32.560
- your impression is mostly that it's
corporations spying on each other?

00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:34.240
Yeah.

00:17:35.960 --> 00:17:39.120
To begin with,
it all felt quite legitimate.

00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:41.360
In fact, nearly all my cases ...

00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:43.960
Nearly all my cases felt legitimate.

00:18:02.840 --> 00:18:04.440
Good girl.

00:18:05.760 --> 00:18:07.480
Come on.

00:18:15.320 --> 00:18:19.880
So this is a Garrya elliptica. Really
beautiful tassel tree, as you know.

00:18:20.280 --> 00:18:25.600
It's got a lot of dead in it, and I would
like to clear away ... That's dead.

00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:28.880
Clear out some of the stuff,
to get the actual shape of it.

00:18:29.240 --> 00:18:31.720
And then you'll get
a more vibrant tree.

00:18:31.800 --> 00:18:35.480
-You're free to do whatever you want.
-Brilliant. Thank you so much.

00:18:50.440 --> 00:18:53.760
Like all proper spying operations,
the one that sent Rob undercover -

00:18:53.840 --> 00:18:56.960
- among the asbestos campaigners
had a code name.

00:18:58.600 --> 00:19:00.400
Project Spring.

00:19:01.640 --> 00:19:06.400
That's the project,
and this is the day it starts, in June 2012.

00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:09.680
In the offices of
K2 Corporate Investigations.

00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:21.160
Rob's handler
is one of the top dogs in K2.

00:19:21.800 --> 00:19:26.760
The executive managing director
of K2 Intelligence, Matteo Bigazzi.

00:19:38.680 --> 00:19:43.480
I remember sitting down with him
and him saying, "I've got a new case."

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:47.800
I would never be told
who the client was, -

00:19:47.880 --> 00:19:51.720
- but Matteo said
the client is a US investor.

00:19:53.120 --> 00:19:57.720
One of his investments is chrysotile.
White asbestos.

00:19:57.800 --> 00:20:00.480
He wants to
find out if his investments are safe, -

00:20:00.560 --> 00:20:03.840
- or whether there is the prospect
of a global ban.

00:20:04.760 --> 00:20:08.160
You get quite a lot of freedom to decide
how to do the job, don't you?

00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:12.880
Obviously you have the brief, and then
actually you are asked to go away -

00:20:12.960 --> 00:20:15.000
- and think about
how you would answer it.

00:20:17.960 --> 00:20:22.120
As soon as the asbestos job
comes Rob's way in June 2012, -

00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:26.600
- he decides to follow a playbook
he's used on previous assignments.

00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:30.640
His cover will be
that he's a TV documentary producer -

00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:33.080
- making a film
about the dangers of asbestos.

00:20:37.280 --> 00:20:41.000
I probably knew as much and as little
about asbestos as the next person -

00:20:41.080 --> 00:20:43.000
- before Rob Moore came along.

00:20:43.320 --> 00:20:44.960
During the last hundred years, -

00:20:45.040 --> 00:20:48.160
- asbestos fibers have been used
in thousands of different products -

00:20:48.240 --> 00:20:51.320
- in the construction industry,
in shipyards and in ...

00:20:51.720 --> 00:20:56.760
I knew it was highly dangerous, and I'd
assumed it was banned in most countries.

00:20:56.840 --> 00:21:01.480
But I didn't know that a product called
chrysotile, so-called white asbestos, -

00:21:01.560 --> 00:21:05.240
- is still widely used,
especially in Asian countries.

00:21:08.440 --> 00:21:12.920
The asbestos industry argues to this day,
in spite of all the scientific evidence, -

00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:15.960
- that there are ways to use it safely.

00:21:16.280 --> 00:21:21.600
The big arguments happening in countries
today like India, Thailand, Vietnam, -

00:21:21.960 --> 00:21:25.560
- are about whether or not
to ban chrysotile.

00:21:35.080 --> 00:21:40.520
When Rob goes undercover, the first
big call he makes is to Rory O'Neill.

00:21:43.960 --> 00:21:47.400
Rory runs a magazine called Hazards,
and does a lot of work -

00:21:47.480 --> 00:21:51.680
- on dangerous materials
for trade unions around the world.

00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:57.040
His presentation was that -

00:21:57.120 --> 00:22:00.920
- he was caring.
A Buddhist, a nice guy.

00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:05.800
And he talked about double standards.

00:22:05.880 --> 00:22:10.200
Wealthy nations exporting chemicals
to poorer nations -

00:22:10.280 --> 00:22:14.640
- and the consequences of that.
And that's my bread and butter.

00:22:14.720 --> 00:22:19.840
We spend a lot of time trying to engage
the media to expose the truth.

00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:23.760
Why won't they tell the story
about asbestos? Why won't they?

00:22:23.840 --> 00:22:29.080
And when someone comes offering that,
then your defenses go down.

00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:32.880
I was his gateway to the networks.

00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:37.040
They went in,
having been recommended by me.

00:22:37.440 --> 00:22:41.760
-But you can't blame yourself for that.
-I shouldn't, but I do.

00:22:41.840 --> 00:22:44.200
I can make decisions for myself,
take risks -

00:22:44.280 --> 00:22:46.360
- and be cavalier
about my own circumstances -

00:22:46.440 --> 00:22:49.240
- because I think there may be a benefit.

00:22:49.320 --> 00:22:54.640
But I can't take that risk for someone
in Vietnam, India or Pakistan.

00:22:54.720 --> 00:23:00.360
They're working in a different landscape.
This is potentially life and death.

00:23:02.320 --> 00:23:06.520
We've talked about some of this,
but what harm did Rob do?

00:23:07.800 --> 00:23:11.320
People lobby their governments
and then find out that their governments -

00:23:11.400 --> 00:23:15.280
- have been approached by asbestos lobbyists
that know a lot about them, -

00:23:15.360 --> 00:23:17.720
- know their family history,
their weaknesses.

00:23:17.800 --> 00:23:20.200
They're going to face economic harm,
reputational harm.

00:23:20.280 --> 00:23:24.040
They're going to face attacks of a type
that won't come to me on my doorstep.

00:23:24.120 --> 00:23:26.720
So that's what makes me angry -

00:23:26.800 --> 00:23:29.360
- at Rob Moore.

00:23:29.440 --> 00:23:31.560
And -

00:23:31.640 --> 00:23:37.840
- I regret that I've placed people who
placed trust in me, in potential jeopardy.

00:23:46.760 --> 00:23:51.280
It was powerful to meet
one of the activists Rob infiltrated.

00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:55.680
I can understand
that they are angry at Rob.

00:23:56.560 --> 00:23:59.040
For me personally,
what provoked me the most -

00:23:59.120 --> 00:24:02.280
- was how Rob used
my professional title.

00:24:04.840 --> 00:24:07.080
It's something for me about lying.

00:24:07.160 --> 00:24:13.280
If too many corporate spies, like you,
use the filmmaker cover, -

00:24:13.360 --> 00:24:16.640
- you understand what happens
with trust in society?

00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:19.200
Well, it depends what for, Håvard.

00:24:19.280 --> 00:24:20.920
Do you understand that?

00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:24.880
You're saying it makes it difficult for you.
And I'm sorry for that.

00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:28.480
If too many people out there pretend,
if I take that kind of a job -

00:24:28.560 --> 00:24:31.800
- and you take that kind of a job,
pretending to be a filmmaker, -

00:24:31.880 --> 00:24:34.880
- it's impossible to be a filmmaker
in the end.

00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:40.280
I'm frustrated by
this big, massive hurdle.

00:24:40.360 --> 00:24:43.600
Either that's the thing
that we can't get over -

00:24:43.680 --> 00:24:46.680
- or can we just get to what it is
that I have done?

00:25:10.080 --> 00:25:12.000
Who's a good girl?

00:25:12.080 --> 00:25:14.840
We're going to go back to a garden.

00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:18.320
There are two or three
simple things in Buddhism.

00:25:18.400 --> 00:25:22.560
One is that you believe
in the law of cause and effect.

00:25:24.320 --> 00:25:27.720
And so the aim in life, -

00:25:27.800 --> 00:25:31.040
- on a very basic level,
is not to do harm.

00:25:31.720 --> 00:25:37.000
But I do believe that the purpose
of being alive is to create value.

00:25:41.760 --> 00:25:43.720
From very early on in Project Spring, -

00:25:43.800 --> 00:25:46.320
- Rob is checking in
with his Buddhist friends.

00:25:46.400 --> 00:25:49.000
Asking if it's OK
to take money from K2 -

00:25:49.080 --> 00:25:53.320
- to go undercover
among the anti-asbestos campaigners.

00:25:55.160 --> 00:25:59.280
I spoke to my Buddhist leaders
and the guidance was, -

00:25:59.360 --> 00:26:04.160
- yeah, I could be the mechanism
for turning poison into medicine.

00:26:04.240 --> 00:26:09.080
Turning something fundamentally negative
into something profound and good.

00:26:11.520 --> 00:26:15.000
Rob's version is that within months
of taking on Project Spring -

00:26:15.080 --> 00:26:19.440
- and meeting Laurie Kazan-Allen, he
realizes he's working for the wrong side.

00:26:19.520 --> 00:26:21.440
And he flips.

00:26:22.360 --> 00:26:25.800
He says he doesn't become a double agent
in an instant, -

00:26:25.880 --> 00:26:28.160
- but he does become one.

00:26:28.240 --> 00:26:32.760
The theme we're going to keep coming back to
is the poisoned medicine theme.

00:26:33.120 --> 00:26:37.440
This is a moment where you can see
quite a lot of the poison.

00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:40.640
And the medicine -

00:26:40.720 --> 00:26:43.040
- is this hypothetical thing.

00:26:43.120 --> 00:26:46.040
So why don't you bail out at that point?

00:26:46.120 --> 00:26:48.920
Well, it's a totally fair question.

00:26:49.800 --> 00:26:52.120
Why don't I bail out at that time?

00:26:52.200 --> 00:26:54.600
I could just walk away from it.

00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:58.440
But I had no understanding -

00:26:58.520 --> 00:27:01.800
- of how I was going to turn poison
into medicine.

00:27:01.880 --> 00:27:06.840
I didn't know the answers at that stage. I
had a belief that I could create some value.

00:27:24.520 --> 00:27:28.840
Rob throws himself
headlong into the campaigners' world.

00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:33.840
Sharing news, planning, strategizing
about how to ban asbestos, -

00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:38.040
- getting together for meetings
in Brussels, New York, Bangkok.

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.160
I have to admit, Ceri,
that sense of being undercover, -

00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:48.000
- it was definitely an element
of excitement about:

00:27:48.440 --> 00:27:51.400
Can you get away with it?
Can you pull this off?

00:27:51.480 --> 00:27:53.320
What can you find out?

00:27:56.760 --> 00:28:01.840
You can tell the world you're
a TV producer, of course. But not forever.

00:28:01.920 --> 00:28:05.360
Rob tells K2 that's the problem
he's going to run into in the end.

00:28:05.440 --> 00:28:10.520
If he doesn't actually make
some sort of film, his cover won't last.

00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:14.360
K2 reluctantly agreed
that it would be all right for me -

00:28:14.440 --> 00:28:18.080
- to make some campaign films
that I believed in.

00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:23.960
Asbestos-related diseases
are not curable.

00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:29.480
It's like dry drowning.

00:28:30.200 --> 00:28:32.520
Your body needs air, -

00:28:32.600 --> 00:28:36.320
- but your lungs
are simply not able to breathe in.

00:28:38.400 --> 00:28:40.600
I'm not a natural liar.

00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:42.240
I promise.

00:28:42.320 --> 00:28:47.520
The only thing I could sustain as a
congruent, consistent story was the truth.

00:28:47.600 --> 00:28:53.280
So the one thing I didn't tell the
campaigners was that I was being paid by K2.

00:28:53.360 --> 00:28:57.840
But in terms of
was I trying to make films? Yes, I was.

00:29:00.640 --> 00:29:04.720
Rob Moore started work for K2
in the summer of 2012.

00:29:04.800 --> 00:29:09.480
But as the new year got underway, he was
still in the dark on a crucial question:

00:29:09.560 --> 00:29:11.800
Who was he really working for?

00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:15.360
Who'd paid K2
to send Rob undercover?

00:29:16.760 --> 00:29:20.640
It's crucial, because if you want
to turn poison into medicine, -

00:29:21.040 --> 00:29:23.680
- you do need to know
who's mixing the poison.

00:29:24.320 --> 00:29:27.920
He has operation in his throat, -

00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:32.480
- because in the hospital
they got to know that he had cancer.

00:29:32.960 --> 00:29:36.040
Has he ever worked with -

00:29:36.840 --> 00:29:39.480
- selling roof sheets?

00:29:39.560 --> 00:29:40.880
No.

00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:44.040
Does he live in a house
with roof sheets?

00:29:46.600 --> 00:29:50.480
If you look at my reports from
the first Asian Conference I went to, -

00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:53.680
- I went to see
lots of roof-sheet directors -

00:29:54.200 --> 00:29:57.960
- and asked them
where they get their asbestos from.

00:30:09.560 --> 00:30:12.120
On the tape, Rob is talking to
a man who runs a company -

00:30:12.200 --> 00:30:14.400
- which makes
what they call roof sheets.

00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:16.360
In Thailand, it's everywhere.

00:30:16.960 --> 00:30:20.480
And a lot of it
is still made with asbestos.

00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:24.880
One of the roof-sheet directors
told me about -

00:30:24.960 --> 00:30:27.920
- this Kazakh owner of a mine.

00:30:28.920 --> 00:30:31.120
Called "Tantiep."

00:31:05.880 --> 00:31:08.760
Your ears obviously prick up
as you're hearing it.

00:31:08.840 --> 00:31:12.720
There and then, what did you think
the significance of that moment was?

00:31:12.800 --> 00:31:17.040
Well, I'd found
a Thai roof-sheet director -

00:31:17.120 --> 00:31:20.680
- who was willing to talk to me about
the people he bought the chrysotile from.

00:31:20.760 --> 00:31:24.120
And more than that,
he delivered me this news about the bribe.

00:31:24.200 --> 00:31:26.240
I guess this was the first time
I had a name.

00:31:26.320 --> 00:31:29.960
Even if, at the time,
I'd heard or wrote down the wrong name.

00:31:34.800 --> 00:31:38.920
What I really wanted to do, of course,
was to try to identify the client.

00:31:39.720 --> 00:31:43.920
And in 2013
I was given the name of the client.

00:31:45.360 --> 00:31:49.880
It's hard to pin a date down because
it was something I was told in the office -

00:31:49.960 --> 00:31:54.760
- by the investigator
who had actually introduced me to K2 -

00:31:54.840 --> 00:31:58.520
- and brought me in. And he was
very disaffected with the company.

00:31:58.600 --> 00:32:01.320
And eventually he said,
"I'm leaving, Rob."

00:32:01.400 --> 00:32:04.440
"These guys
are working for all the bad guys."

00:32:05.920 --> 00:32:07.920
And I said I'm going to stay.

00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:12.640
And he said, "In that case,
you need to know the client is Kusto."

00:32:12.720 --> 00:32:16.720
So there it is. Rob's colleague
tells him it's a company called Kusto.

00:32:16.800 --> 00:32:21.040
Not some American investor.
Which is paying for him to go undercover.

00:32:21.120 --> 00:32:22.480
He's never heard of them.

00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:26.640
Eventually, I found the website.
No mention of asbestos.

00:32:29.080 --> 00:32:32.240
Even though the website
doesn't mention asbestos at all, -

00:32:32.520 --> 00:32:36.160
- it does have photos
of some of Kusto's top people.

00:32:36.640 --> 00:32:42.240
And he finds out that Kusto is owned by
a Kazakh oligarch called Yerkin Tatishev.

00:32:44.160 --> 00:32:48.400
When I got back to Bangkok in 2014, -

00:32:48.480 --> 00:32:52.120
- I brought the web page of the board
of directors from Kusto Vietnam with me.

00:32:52.200 --> 00:32:55.720
And I went back to see
the roof-sheet director who told me -

00:32:55.800 --> 00:32:58.640
- about this mine owner called Tantiep.

00:33:26.760 --> 00:33:31.360
One of the things that confuses Rob,
is that the director talks about Tantiep.

00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:34.360
And Rob played that to me
and he says:

00:33:34.440 --> 00:33:38.240
"I couldn't hear it then, but I can hear now
that he's actually saying Tatishev."

00:33:38.760 --> 00:33:42.240
Mr. Tatishev flew to Thailand
to talk with me and my boss.

00:33:42.320 --> 00:33:46.800
Now I get it. You say you hear "Tatishev,"
and I do hear "Tatishev" when he says that.

00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:49.840
Now you do. When you hear something
with a thick, strong accent -

00:33:49.920 --> 00:33:52.240
- and you're not expecting
to be given the prize, -

00:33:52.320 --> 00:33:55.520
- because you don't
understand what the prize is ...

00:33:55.600 --> 00:34:00.400
I definitely, sincerely thought it was
Tantiep, which is why I put it in my report.

00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:05.920
If you're trying to join the dots here,
what dots does that conversation join?

00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:10.320
It joins the dots between Kusto,
the investment vehicle, -

00:34:10.720 --> 00:34:16.320
- and Tatishev, the owner of the mine
that produces the asbestos.

00:34:16.400 --> 00:34:18.800
And that Tatishev, as I now realize, -

00:34:18.880 --> 00:34:22.560
- had manipulated the government by flying
into Vietnam with a suitcase of cash -

00:34:22.640 --> 00:34:26.200
- to persuade the government
not to go ahead with the ban.

00:34:26.280 --> 00:34:29.600
You know,
it was a major, major moment for me.

00:34:37.800 --> 00:34:40.720
So in the space of 2013 and 2014, -

00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:44.160
- Rob joins two dots
no campaigner, no journalist, -

00:34:44.240 --> 00:34:47.000
- nobody has joined before.

00:34:48.520 --> 00:34:51.280
No one knew about Tatishev.

00:34:51.360 --> 00:34:53.600
They knew that the asbestos came
from Russia, -

00:34:53.680 --> 00:34:56.720
- but they didn't know
who was behind it.

00:34:57.360 --> 00:35:00.720
He figures out who Kusto are,
and he believes he's got -

00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:04.240
- not hard evidence, not complete proof,
but a solid lead -

00:35:04.320 --> 00:35:07.320
- that they own
a massive asbestos mine.

00:35:07.400 --> 00:35:09.840
It really is new news to the world.

00:35:24.240 --> 00:35:27.960
One thing Rob keeps coming back to
again and again, -

00:35:28.040 --> 00:35:32.920
- is that he wants us to investigate
Tatishev and his company, Kusto.

00:35:34.200 --> 00:35:35.920
Rob believes that Tatishev owns -

00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:39.760
- two of the largest chrysotile
asbestos mines in the world,

00:35:39.840 --> 00:35:42.200
Kostanai in Kazakhstan.

00:35:42.480 --> 00:35:44.640
And Orenburg in Russia.

00:35:46.280 --> 00:35:49.040
But we find no evidence of this.

00:35:52.960 --> 00:35:55.720
How important would it be
if Tatishev is -

00:35:55.800 --> 00:35:57.680
- one of the main players
in the asbestos trade?

00:35:57.760 --> 00:36:02.200
If you can prove that Tatishev is a
big player in the global asbestos trade, -

00:36:02.280 --> 00:36:04.640
- and no one has been able
to prove that so far, -

00:36:04.720 --> 00:36:08.720
- I think it would be a big deal
if you could get there.

00:36:08.800 --> 00:36:14.480
Just so you know, Rob, I mean, initially
after I sort of got parachuted in, -

00:36:15.040 --> 00:36:18.760
- Alexi's position was that
he didn't want to be involved at all.

00:36:19.040 --> 00:36:24.280
I have been leaning on him to get involved
in the investigative aspects, -

00:36:24.360 --> 00:36:28.040
- to pick up where you left off with Kusto,
to pick up with Tatishev.

00:36:28.280 --> 00:36:30.480
All of that.
And I think I might succeed.

00:36:30.560 --> 00:36:34.520
The idea of moving something forward
after all this time, is ...

00:36:34.600 --> 00:36:38.440
That's such a powerful thing
to hope that it will happen.

00:36:38.520 --> 00:36:42.360
Moving the story forward
in some way is just ... yeah.

00:36:42.440 --> 00:36:45.760
It's something I'm really hopeful for.
So that's great, Ceri.

00:36:49.720 --> 00:36:53.560
I don't think Ceri understood that this
Zoom meeting would mark the beginning -

00:36:53.640 --> 00:36:56.920
- of a major conflict
between him and Rob.

00:36:57.840 --> 00:36:59.840
The problem was that Rob believed -

00:36:59.920 --> 00:37:03.920
- Ceri promised to get Alexi
to investigate Tatishev.

00:37:04.840 --> 00:37:07.160
But Alexi had other plans.

00:37:11.840 --> 00:37:17.640
Is your role going to be to, sort of,
give me ammunition to shoot at him?

00:37:17.720 --> 00:37:19.040
Totally.

00:37:19.120 --> 00:37:23.120
When we talked about sort of
swapping you out and me coming in, -

00:37:23.200 --> 00:37:25.080
- I think what we talked about
with Rob was:

00:37:25.160 --> 00:37:28.720
I'll do the conversation with Rob,
Alexi will do the investigations.

00:37:28.800 --> 00:37:33.840
I don't for a second think that he thought
that you would be kind of investigating him.

00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:36.680
And that's, for him, that's going to be ...

00:37:36.760 --> 00:37:40.040
That's potentially
the worst of all worlds, isn't it?

00:37:40.120 --> 00:37:42.840
-We're going to have to tell him.
-Are we, though?

00:37:42.920 --> 00:37:47.880
He's not our collaborator.
We're not working in partnership with him.

00:37:47.960 --> 00:37:52.640
He's a source and I really don't see
why we need to tell him -

00:37:52.720 --> 00:37:56.680
- about anything to do with
what I might be involved with or not.

00:37:56.760 --> 00:37:59.040
It's none of his business.

00:37:59.120 --> 00:38:03.880
You're right.
You wouldn't ordinarily tell a source -

00:38:05.080 --> 00:38:08.440
- you know,
how the sausage is being made.

00:38:09.640 --> 00:38:13.560
You'd show them the sausage
at the end of it.

00:38:13.640 --> 00:38:15.080
And that's the deal.

00:38:33.320 --> 00:38:37.560
All the while, as he goes deeper
and deeper into the anti-asbestos world, -

00:38:37.640 --> 00:38:41.480
- Rob is building his networks,
seeking out all the top contacts.

00:38:41.560 --> 00:38:43.720
Hi, lovely to meet you.
I'm Ceri.

00:38:43.800 --> 00:38:45.960
-I'm Krishnendu, hi.
-Lovely to see you.

00:38:46.040 --> 00:38:50.000
Close friends and family of
Krishnendu Mukherjee call him Tublu.

00:38:50.080 --> 00:38:54.440
He's another champion of people
who've fallen victim to asbestos.

00:38:54.960 --> 00:38:59.920
I wanted to ask you about Rob Moore. What
were your impressions of him to start with?

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:02.560
I thought he was a very enthusiastic -

00:39:02.640 --> 00:39:05.000
- and very personable person.

00:39:05.560 --> 00:39:09.200
At the time, I was in a very painful
and messy divorce.

00:39:09.280 --> 00:39:12.680
And Rob was ...

00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:18.680
He was available.
He himself had gone through a divorce.

00:39:18.760 --> 00:39:25.720
And whatever, you know, he's done in terms
of working for the asbestos industry, -

00:39:25.800 --> 00:39:30.200
- I will always be thankful for that support
that he gave me during that period.

00:39:30.480 --> 00:39:32.800
Even with all that's happened since, -

00:39:32.880 --> 00:39:36.960
- you still look back on that
as a sincere friendship?

00:39:38.040 --> 00:39:43.040
Well, you know,
I don't know what his motivations were -

00:39:43.120 --> 00:39:47.600
- in befriending me.

00:39:48.080 --> 00:39:51.800
But I'd like to think that
the friendship that he provided, -

00:39:51.880 --> 00:39:55.880
- wasn't purely for
his professional purposes.

00:39:55.960 --> 00:39:58.120
I'm sure you know what Rob says, -

00:39:58.200 --> 00:40:01.680
- which is that he quickly realizes
he's working for the wrong guys.

00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:05.080
His heart is with the campaigners,
he wants to do good.

00:40:05.360 --> 00:40:11.440
The problem I have with Rob Moore's
defence is that we were never privy -

00:40:11.520 --> 00:40:15.360
- to the fact that he was working for
the Kazakh asbestos industry.

00:40:15.440 --> 00:40:20.840
If you were genuinely a double agent,
you would have come earlier.

00:40:20.920 --> 00:40:23.400
Told people what you were up to.

00:40:23.480 --> 00:40:27.200
You would have said,
I want to turn the table on these guys.

00:40:27.280 --> 00:40:30.360
What is the information
that you need?

00:40:30.800 --> 00:40:34.520
And do you think that...
Do you think Rob Moore did harm?

00:40:34.600 --> 00:40:38.760
Looking back at the reports
that he sent K2, -

00:40:38.840 --> 00:40:44.000
- there was information about
who was active in the networks globally.

00:40:44.080 --> 00:40:48.120
I don't think the ultimate purchaser
of this information -

00:40:48.200 --> 00:40:53.880
- would have continued purchasing it
if it was of no practical use to them.

00:40:53.960 --> 00:40:57.400
I'm not going to say
he's some sort of evil person.

00:40:57.480 --> 00:41:02.920
I won't do that. But I'd say he was
absolutely seduced by the money.

00:41:03.000 --> 00:41:06.920
Probably had
no other form of employment.

00:41:07.200 --> 00:41:10.240
And then he found himself
in this business -

00:41:10.320 --> 00:41:14.880
- and thought, well, I'm not
very comfortable with this. You know?

00:41:14.960 --> 00:41:19.560
And I need an exit strategy.
And how do I create an exit strategy?

00:41:19.640 --> 00:41:22.480
So that's what I would say.

00:41:30.280 --> 00:41:34.680
By early 2015, Rob's got his two feet
planted in separate worlds.

00:41:34.760 --> 00:41:40.360
One in the world of the anti-asbestos
campaigners, the other solidly in K2's.

00:41:41.640 --> 00:41:43.320
He's making good money.

00:41:43.400 --> 00:41:48.680
Over four years on Project Spring,
he earns about £330,000.

00:41:49.400 --> 00:41:52.360
And there's another £130,000
in expenses.

00:41:53.560 --> 00:41:57.320
Most of what he sends back
is in written reports.

00:42:00.120 --> 00:42:04.640
I set up a Gmail account
called Benthic Zone Solutions.

00:42:06.040 --> 00:42:11.040
The benthic zone is a name for
the bottom of any body of water.

00:42:11.120 --> 00:42:14.560
Where all the mud
and the ooze and the slime is.

00:42:14.640 --> 00:42:18.360
That's what I felt like
working in corporate investigations.

00:42:18.440 --> 00:42:21.360
I was swimming in that murky world.

00:42:24.560 --> 00:42:28.080
So I would write a report,
save it in the draft section, -

00:42:28.160 --> 00:42:32.600
- text or call Matteo
and say there's something in the zone.

00:42:37.680 --> 00:42:41.960
Rob sends photographs, emails between him
and anti-asbestos campaigners, -

00:42:42.040 --> 00:42:44.480
- and long reports
on all the places he goes -

00:42:44.560 --> 00:42:48.000
- and the meetings he has
with campaigners.

00:42:48.080 --> 00:42:51.560
But in all the hundreds of reports
and other pieces of information -

00:42:51.640 --> 00:42:56.480
- he sends up the chain, he
says there's nothing which does harm.

00:42:56.560 --> 00:43:01.000
Instead, there's what he sometimes calls
chicken feed, sometimes rubbish, -

00:43:01.080 --> 00:43:02.640
- sometimes utter bollocks.

00:43:12.080 --> 00:43:14.440
When you come back
from a conference -

00:43:14.520 --> 00:43:19.120
- and the client has just spent ten grand
or something on your flights, -

00:43:19.200 --> 00:43:21.560
- hotels, subsistence ...

00:43:21.640 --> 00:43:24.920
It was important
to try and deliver something.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:28.040
And my aim
in these sorts of documents -

00:43:28.120 --> 00:43:31.400
- was to try and be
as bland as possible.

00:43:31.480 --> 00:43:35.520
If the point is here that it's full of
the blindingly obvious and meaningless, -

00:43:35.600 --> 00:43:39.400
- show me some blindingly obvious,
meaningless stuff here.

00:43:39.480 --> 00:43:40.960
"New efforts to highlight -

00:43:41.040 --> 00:43:45.000
- what is described as the criminality
of the asbestos industry."

00:43:45.080 --> 00:43:47.720
So this is a reference
to my own investigation.

00:43:47.800 --> 00:43:50.360
The reason I keep writing
that the industry's being investigated, -

00:43:50.440 --> 00:43:53.280
- is that it gives me something
to write about that sounds alarming -

00:43:53.360 --> 00:43:58.600
- and therefore valuable to the clients and
might encourage them to carry on funding.

00:43:59.080 --> 00:44:01.320
Blah, blah, blah.
I mean ...

00:44:01.680 --> 00:44:05.400
That whole next section
is entirely made up.

00:44:05.480 --> 00:44:09.720
Nothing you've read so far
could be helpful to the client.

00:44:10.040 --> 00:44:15.720
The bit that I found really interesting,
actually, was that you tell the client -

00:44:15.800 --> 00:44:19.840
- about your claim that
Tatishev had been paying bribes.

00:44:19.920 --> 00:44:21.840
That seems to me -

00:44:21.920 --> 00:44:26.080
- a really useful piece of
information for the client to know.

00:44:26.160 --> 00:44:31.040
Since he obviously goes around bribing
governments all the time, it is his tactic.

00:44:31.560 --> 00:44:34.880
What can he do
with that information?

00:44:34.960 --> 00:44:37.360
He can adjust the way he behaves.

00:44:37.440 --> 00:44:40.880
Have we told him who told him that?

00:44:40.960 --> 00:44:46.080
Did I write down, "There's this loudmouth
roof-sheet director?" No, I didn't.

00:44:49.800 --> 00:44:52.240
There's certainly
a lot of rubbish and deflection -

00:44:52.320 --> 00:44:55.040
- in the written reports
Rob sends to K2.

00:44:55.120 --> 00:44:58.200
But we end up going back over
what Rob told K2 -

00:44:58.280 --> 00:45:02.360
- about the director of
the roof-sheet company in Thailand.

00:45:03.040 --> 00:45:08.320
The one who helped him join the dots
between Kusto and the asbestos mine.

00:45:09.720 --> 00:45:13.960
It was report 134,
Southeast Asia Update.

00:45:14.040 --> 00:45:17.240
In 2014 he goes to Thailand
to meet roof-sheet directors, -

00:45:17.320 --> 00:45:20.280
- including one who told him about
the Kazakh mine owner -

00:45:20.360 --> 00:45:24.080
- who'd bribed
the Vietnamese government in 2010.

00:45:24.160 --> 00:45:28.640
Then he shows a photo of Kusto's directors
to the roof-sheet boss.

00:45:28.720 --> 00:45:32.920
At that point,
Matteo comes back and says that -

00:45:33.640 --> 00:45:38.160
- the client loved the report
and thought it was dynamite.

00:45:42.160 --> 00:45:45.680
And then I put in my notes: Why did
you include that allegation in your report?

00:45:45.760 --> 00:45:49.240
If I was Tatishev, I might be
very angry at this roof-sheet director.

00:45:49.320 --> 00:45:52.080
Why do you think Matteo
was so pleased with that report?

00:45:52.160 --> 00:45:57.720
Could it be because Tatishev was getting
an insight into what was reported about him?

00:45:58.160 --> 00:46:00.920
This is a source, a vulnerable source.

00:46:01.000 --> 00:46:03.400
Someone who told him some information
in good faith, -

00:46:03.480 --> 00:46:05.400
- thinking that Rob is an activist.

00:46:05.480 --> 00:46:10.880
And Rob is passing it back to the client
in a way that could endanger that source.

00:46:19.840 --> 00:46:24.560
Actually, I realize that report 134, -

00:46:24.640 --> 00:46:27.320
- the Southeast Asia Update ...

00:46:27.400 --> 00:46:32.600
Actually, we'd looked at the wrong bit
of it. So that bit at the top there.

00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:35.200
"As reported in previous updates, -

00:46:35.280 --> 00:46:39.320
- the director of a Thai roof-sheet
manufacturer has claimed that -

00:46:39.400 --> 00:46:42.960
- employees of Kazakh chrysotile mine
told him in 2003 and 2004 ...."

00:46:43.040 --> 00:46:45.840
Yeah.
Um, so there you go.

00:46:45.920 --> 00:46:48.120
I did name them.

00:46:48.200 --> 00:46:50.400
I still maintain that -

00:46:50.480 --> 00:46:52.960
- without naming
the roof-sheet director -

00:46:53.040 --> 00:46:55.880
- or being asked by them
who this roof-sheet director was ...

00:46:55.960 --> 00:47:00.360
Because there are a number of companies.
I didn't endanger him.

00:47:00.440 --> 00:47:06.840
But compared to what we discussed,
that's more useful information to Tatishev.

00:47:06.920 --> 00:47:11.200
I would still maintain that it's
the least of his crimes out there.

00:47:11.280 --> 00:47:13.760
And it's such standard practice.

00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:18.640
But, you know, I hear that
that could have been a slipup.

00:47:19.040 --> 00:47:21.400
You're constantly making these -

00:47:21.480 --> 00:47:26.640
- really very difficult to make judgments
about what will help the client, what won't.

00:47:26.720 --> 00:47:29.480
What you have to do
to build your credibility.

00:47:29.560 --> 00:47:31.960
I mean, look.
It's a ...

00:47:32.040 --> 00:47:34.960
It's a dangerous game.

00:47:37.160 --> 00:47:39.840
Sharing information.
It's a dangerous game, -

00:47:39.920 --> 00:47:43.760
- what one is trying to pull off here.
Very clearly.

00:47:43.840 --> 00:47:46.200
But I still think I can argue -

00:47:46.280 --> 00:47:50.640
- that I was the person
putting myself in most danger.

00:47:50.720 --> 00:47:56.240
You're entitled to make a judgment
about risk to yourself.

00:47:56.320 --> 00:48:01.600
But you're much less entitled to make
judgments about risk to other people.

00:48:01.680 --> 00:48:03.680
It's difficult this one, isn't it?

00:48:03.760 --> 00:48:09.440
Because as nothing did happen to the
roof-sheet director, we're talking about -

00:48:09.520 --> 00:48:13.400
- the potential that I might have got
that judgment call wrong.

00:48:13.480 --> 00:48:17.480
I am certainly not intending -

00:48:17.560 --> 00:48:20.200
- to cause anybody any harm.

00:48:20.800 --> 00:48:25.520
So, yeah, I made that call.
That was one of the calls I made.

00:48:32.800 --> 00:48:36.680
Okay, mate, I've got to run
to a nearby hospital.

00:48:40.080 --> 00:48:41.200
Good luck.

00:48:41.280 --> 00:48:44.920
Oh, this is easy.
This is just losing some blood.

00:48:54.840 --> 00:48:58.440
Can you tell briefly
about your cancer diagnosis?

00:49:00.040 --> 00:49:04.480
I got diagnosed with cancer
in April 2022.

00:49:06.320 --> 00:49:10.360
So I've been on chemotherapy
for the last year and a quarter.

00:49:10.440 --> 00:49:12.080
And the -

00:49:12.400 --> 00:49:14.560
- prognosis is not great.

00:49:17.680 --> 00:49:19.640
So realistically?

00:49:19.720 --> 00:49:22.200
Two or three years, probably.

00:49:32.600 --> 00:49:36.400
So how does this affect this podcast?

00:49:38.080 --> 00:49:41.480
I don't know how many more projects
like this I'll be able to do.

00:49:41.560 --> 00:49:43.840
So it makes this one even more ...

00:49:43.920 --> 00:49:49.440
It feels even more important to get it right
than it would on a normal kind of project.

00:50:02.920 --> 00:50:07.000
You've joined these dots between Kusto
and the mining company.

00:50:07.080 --> 00:50:10.840
You're excited about it.
What do you do next in trying to find out?

00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:16.600
At this time,
I also meet Bill Lawrence.

00:50:16.680 --> 00:50:21.040
I've heard from campaigners
that he's this old campaign veteran -

00:50:21.120 --> 00:50:26.080
- who would track ships carrying asbestos
that were coming into Europe.

00:50:26.160 --> 00:50:29.640
Bill was telling me about all the
different information you could find -

00:50:29.720 --> 00:50:32.120
- from these customs data.

00:50:32.440 --> 00:50:35.200
And it was only
when I managed to raise some money -

00:50:35.280 --> 00:50:40.280
- to start buying the customs data and
get Bill's help understanding the data, -

00:50:40.360 --> 00:50:43.680
- that this fascinating world appeared.

00:50:51.840 --> 00:50:53.960
Bloody hell!

00:50:54.040 --> 00:50:57.520
-You're looking well, pal.
-Thanks, mate.

00:50:57.600 --> 00:51:00.080
-Better then the last time.
-Come on in.

00:51:00.160 --> 00:51:03.520
-Would you like a coffee?
-Yes, please.

00:51:04.360 --> 00:51:07.160
"No Russian asbestos
through European Community."

00:51:07.240 --> 00:51:09.040
Here's a better one.

00:51:09.640 --> 00:51:12.560
Yeah, that's great!
Where'd you get that done?

00:51:12.640 --> 00:51:14.280
I made it, man.

00:51:14.360 --> 00:51:17.400
That is superb, these are our guys.

00:51:22.520 --> 00:51:25.720
OK, Bill. So why
are you the only campaigner -

00:51:25.800 --> 00:51:29.080
- who believes that
there might be some truth in my story?

00:51:29.960 --> 00:51:31.760
Because I know it's true.

00:51:31.840 --> 00:51:34.520
But what makes you think that?

00:51:34.600 --> 00:51:37.440
The amount of work we did together.

00:51:37.800 --> 00:51:40.560
I wish people understood
why we're so close.

00:51:40.640 --> 00:51:44.920
Because we worked together
for 15 or 18 hours a day at times.

00:51:50.840 --> 00:51:54.920
During the time that Bill and I
were reviewing all the customs data, -

00:51:55.440 --> 00:51:58.280
- we started rearranging it
so that we could work out -

00:51:58.360 --> 00:52:00.920
- who were the banks
mainly funding this thing?

00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:03.920
Who were the trading companies
they used?

00:52:04.000 --> 00:52:05.840
OK, so now we got somewhere.

00:52:05.920 --> 00:52:09.320
We found huge discrepancies
and documentary evidence -

00:52:09.400 --> 00:52:13.680
- that led us to believe that they were
using known money launderers -

00:52:13.760 --> 00:52:18.040
- and UK shell companies
to trade their asbestos.

00:52:23.440 --> 00:52:28.200
The crunch behind whole thing is
it's a money laundering operation.

00:52:28.280 --> 00:52:32.400
Asbestos comes out of the ground
for about $150 a ton, -

00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:35.120
- and somebody buys it for 400.

00:52:35.400 --> 00:52:37.760
Somebody else sells it for 450.

00:52:38.200 --> 00:52:42.160
And by the time it gets to Vietnam,
the man who's paid £450 for it -

00:52:42.240 --> 00:52:44.560
- in Kazakhstan or Russia, -

00:52:44.640 --> 00:52:48.560
- is buying it back off himself
for $1100 a ton.

00:52:59.120 --> 00:53:02.560
This is the address
of Minerals Global Trading.

00:53:04.320 --> 00:53:07.760
Let me just tell you a bit
about this one.

00:53:07.840 --> 00:53:10.920
So in 2015,
a company registered at that address -

00:53:11.720 --> 00:53:16.840
- handled 83% of the white asbestos
from Orenburg Minerals -

00:53:16.920 --> 00:53:21.240
- and 65% of the white asbestos
from Kostanai minerals.

00:53:23.360 --> 00:53:27.800
You think these companies
are shell companies for money laundering?

00:53:27.880 --> 00:53:32.840
Shell companies whose registration documents
are signed by known money launderers.

00:53:33.200 --> 00:53:36.240
And London is the money laundering
capital of the world.

00:53:51.800 --> 00:53:56.880
Hello. We were looking for a company
called Minerals Global Trading.

00:53:58.200 --> 00:54:00.360
They were registered here.

00:54:00.440 --> 00:54:05.040
Right. Well, they're not here.
We probably acted as a postbox.

00:54:05.120 --> 00:54:07.000
Oh, OK.

00:54:07.080 --> 00:54:09.920
If you put your request in writing,
perhaps we can help.

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:13.640
OK, but I'm right in thinking
that your law firm -

00:54:13.720 --> 00:54:17.280
- helps set up shell companies
for Russian and Kazakh organizations?

00:54:17.360 --> 00:54:19.880
-Put your request in writing.
-OK.

00:54:19.960 --> 00:54:22.800
Do you know that some of the people
who signed the registration documents -

00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:28.720
- of the companies that are registered here,
are known money launderers?

00:54:28.800 --> 00:54:33.760
I have no personal knowledge,
so I can't comment.

00:54:38.880 --> 00:54:43.240
If you can prove that the world's biggest
producers and suppliers of white asbestos -

00:54:43.320 --> 00:54:47.240
- are money laundering,
practicing bank fraud, -

00:54:47.320 --> 00:54:50.680
- real estate fraud,
customs fraud, -

00:54:50.760 --> 00:54:53.760
- you may have a chance
of convincing governments -

00:54:53.840 --> 00:54:56.960
- that they shouldn't be doing deals
with these people.

00:54:57.040 --> 00:54:59.080
Or to convince Western banks -

00:54:59.160 --> 00:55:03.400
- that they shouldn't be lending money
to these people.

00:55:08.960 --> 00:55:11.440
For the film,
it would be a perfect turning point -

00:55:11.520 --> 00:55:15.360
- if Rob is right in his assumption
that Tatishev and his company, Kusto, -

00:55:15.440 --> 00:55:18.520
- were involved in financial crime.

00:55:24.320 --> 00:55:28.000
I am struggling to understand the link
between Tatishev, money laundering, -

00:55:28.080 --> 00:55:30.800
- and British trading companies.

00:55:31.400 --> 00:55:36.720
And even if there is a link,
this is obviously not easy to prove.

00:55:41.160 --> 00:55:45.440
Rob believes he had identified Tatishev
as important in the asbestos trade.

00:55:45.520 --> 00:55:48.920
But he hadn't really
got very far with that.

00:55:50.400 --> 00:55:52.880
There are structures
that are very difficult to get beyond.

00:55:53.360 --> 00:55:57.560
Shell companies based in overseas
territories, registered in other names.

00:55:57.640 --> 00:56:00.680
Those things are incredibly difficult
to get beyond.

00:56:00.760 --> 00:56:04.720
And even if you spend years,
you may not get there.

00:56:08.600 --> 00:56:13.280
To this day, Kusto deny both the main
things Rob came to believe about them.

00:56:13.360 --> 00:56:16.040
They deny they were K2's client
on Project Spring, -

00:56:16.120 --> 00:56:18.520
- or that they own that asbestos mine
in Kazakhstan.

00:56:24.160 --> 00:56:26.400
So how do we take that ...

00:56:26.480 --> 00:56:29.320
How do we take this forward now?

00:56:31.280 --> 00:56:35.480
I guess there's more we could do
to look into Kusto.

00:56:35.560 --> 00:56:40.840
This is what Rob would want us to do,
isn't it? To follow up his leads.

00:56:40.920 --> 00:56:43.480
-I don't find it particularly interesting.
-What story does that take us to?

00:56:43.560 --> 00:56:47.920
I think for me, the wider issue, -

00:56:48.000 --> 00:56:50.960
- which we should probably
put more resources into:

00:56:51.040 --> 00:56:54.560
The behaviour
of the private intelligence companies.

00:56:54.640 --> 00:56:56.600
Yeah.

00:57:01.400 --> 00:57:04.760
Ceri and Alexi's decision
not to continue the investigation -

00:57:04.840 --> 00:57:09.480
- into Tatishev and Kusto
puts me in a difficult situation.

00:57:09.560 --> 00:57:11.720
I have to hide this from Rob.

00:57:13.640 --> 00:57:16.520
Because my contract with Tortoise
states -

00:57:16.600 --> 00:57:20.480
- that I can't tell Rob
about the content of the podcast.

00:57:21.600 --> 00:57:27.240
This makes me think about how provoked
I was when Rob lied to the activists.

00:57:27.320 --> 00:57:30.840
But if I don't lie,
I'm afraid I will lose him.

00:57:34.080 --> 00:57:36.880
So you met Alexi and what did he say?

00:57:36.960 --> 00:57:42.560
Is he just investigating me,
or is he also investigating the client?

00:57:42.640 --> 00:57:45.360
I think that he ...

00:57:45.440 --> 00:57:49.520
I don't know very much more about it.

00:57:51.560 --> 00:57:54.200
I think you have to ask Ceri.
It's much better to ask him.

00:57:54.280 --> 00:57:59.080
Because if I tell you something
that is wrong, it will be bad.

00:57:59.160 --> 00:58:03.640
So, I don't know exactly.
It's a little bit hard for me to say.

00:58:05.160 --> 00:58:08.760
So at one moment
you decided not to investigate Tatishev.

00:58:08.840 --> 00:58:12.480
Should you have told Rob
at that moment?

00:58:12.560 --> 00:58:15.000
Yes, arguably.
I mean, I ...

00:58:17.600 --> 00:58:19.320
I think it's ...

00:58:20.560 --> 00:58:22.360
I don't know, Håvard.

00:58:22.440 --> 00:58:26.720
You run the risk then
of losing the relationship altogether.

00:58:26.800 --> 00:58:29.320
And that's the difficulty of that balance.

00:58:37.000 --> 00:58:38.640
Lara, it's OK.
Shush.

00:58:44.200 --> 00:58:46.480
-Hey, Ceri.
-An empty pool!

00:58:47.160 --> 00:58:49.440
Hello.

00:58:49.520 --> 00:58:51.360
-You all right?
-Yeah.

00:58:51.440 --> 00:58:53.560
How are we doing this?

00:58:55.720 --> 00:58:59.840
-Nice to see you in your ...
-Yeah, in my element.

00:58:59.920 --> 00:59:03.480
-What's your history with this garden?
-Very recent.

00:59:03.560 --> 00:59:06.480
But this is the kind of job that I do.

00:59:06.560 --> 00:59:08.680
This is Japanese blue steel.

00:59:08.760 --> 00:59:13.640
So it sharpens incredibly well
and it holds its edge. Be very careful.

00:59:13.720 --> 00:59:18.960
And then here are some ... These are
for going in and doing the kind of ...

00:59:19.040 --> 00:59:22.240
-Not the bit I would have chosen.
-No. Obviously not.

00:59:26.920 --> 00:59:30.680
I don't know which narrative
you're going with. Is it the evil spy?

00:59:30.760 --> 00:59:32.200
Immoral whatever?

00:59:32.440 --> 00:59:35.920
Or is he the hapless idiot
who tried to do something good -

00:59:36.000 --> 00:59:38.360
- and just caused harm for everybody?

00:59:38.440 --> 00:59:42.320
-You know, both of those ...
-Other narratives are available.

00:59:42.400 --> 00:59:46.200
In there, when you said,
we want to know your motivation ...

00:59:46.600 --> 00:59:48.520
Trying to explain my motivation, -

00:59:48.600 --> 00:59:52.960
- which comes absolutely based on
my Buddhist practice, faith.

00:59:53.040 --> 00:59:55.360
It's about
what can you do where you are?

00:59:55.440 --> 00:59:59.000
Even that, I've had to go:
"Please, can we talk about this?"

00:59:59.080 --> 01:00:01.320
And the number of times
where you go:

01:00:01.400 --> 01:00:05.120
"I'm not really interested in Buddhism,
Rob." But that's my motivation.

01:00:05.200 --> 01:00:07.600
And if you don't understand
those things about me, -

01:00:07.680 --> 01:00:09.760
- of course you're going to be confused.

01:00:09.840 --> 01:00:12.800
I'm not confused about
the importance of -

01:00:12.880 --> 01:00:15.960
- your Buddhist faith to you.

01:00:16.040 --> 01:00:19.000
But there's still room for argument
about how to think about that.

01:00:19.080 --> 01:00:22.400
For example,
we had a conversation way back, -

01:00:22.480 --> 01:00:25.280
- I think you were a bit offended
at the time, where I said -

01:00:25.360 --> 01:00:28.480
- you were moral outsourcing.
-I was moral outsourcing?

01:00:28.560 --> 01:00:31.960
Outsourcing decisions
to Buddhist faith leaders -

01:00:32.040 --> 01:00:34.720
- rather than deciding them yourself.

01:00:34.800 --> 01:00:38.040
Moral outsourcing.
I would love the chance to deal with that.

01:00:38.120 --> 01:00:43.040
I mean, I call it taking responsibility
myself to do the actions.

01:00:43.120 --> 01:00:45.960
You won't engage with me about
what would you have done?

01:00:46.040 --> 01:00:49.680
What should I have done? We've never
got anywhere near those things.

01:00:49.760 --> 01:00:52.960
-We have!
-You don't really engage with that.

01:00:53.040 --> 01:00:55.520
I ask the question.
You don't ask it.

01:00:55.600 --> 01:00:58.440
-What would I have done?
-Yeah.

01:00:58.520 --> 01:00:59.880
Go on.

01:01:00.520 --> 01:01:03.200
Alright.
Well, I'll tell you ...

01:01:06.160 --> 01:01:09.360
The standard journalist practice
would be to say:

01:01:09.440 --> 01:01:12.040
It doesn't matter what I do,
this is about you.

01:01:12.120 --> 01:01:17.000
I want it to be humans,
rather than job title versus job title.

01:01:17.080 --> 01:01:19.680
If I start from the beginning, -

01:01:20.360 --> 01:01:22.760
- then I think -

01:01:22.840 --> 01:01:24.560
- I ...

01:01:25.320 --> 01:01:29.240
I think I wouldn't have taken
the asbestos job on.

01:01:29.320 --> 01:01:31.640
I think I would have said:

01:01:31.720 --> 01:01:34.360
Whatever the story
I've been told by K2, -

01:01:34.440 --> 01:01:38.240
- I'm clearly ...
acting for the wrong side here.

01:01:38.320 --> 01:01:41.760
What have I chosen to do
in taking the job?

01:01:41.840 --> 01:01:45.520
That can only lead to harm
for the campaigners.

01:01:45.600 --> 01:01:47.560
Not if I use it in my way.

01:01:47.640 --> 01:01:50.560
But then you're the only one
who's deciding that.

01:01:50.640 --> 01:01:53.840
I'm terribly sorry,
because that's the problem, isn't it?

01:01:53.920 --> 01:01:56.280
Who else, frankly?
Who else?

01:01:56.360 --> 01:02:00.280
Had I said to them, "I'm not taking that,"
do you think they would have gone:

01:02:00.360 --> 01:02:03.840
"Sorry, guys, we can't give this job
to the Buddhist gardener."

01:02:03.920 --> 01:02:06.480
"He's not doing it,
so that's it then."

01:02:06.560 --> 01:02:09.720
No, they would have got someone else.

01:02:09.800 --> 01:02:13.960
"Someone else would have done it"
is the worst excuse in history.

01:02:14.040 --> 01:02:16.840
I'm so sorry that that's actually
what would have happened.

01:02:16.920 --> 01:02:21.560
Is that where your story ends and starts?
"That's where he made the mistake."

01:02:21.640 --> 01:02:26.280
But what actually happens
matters as well, doesn't it?

01:02:26.360 --> 01:02:30.000
If we're looking for
the medicine that you created ...

01:02:30.080 --> 01:02:33.200
I basically told the campaign
who their number one enemy was.

01:02:33.280 --> 01:02:34.880
And how corrupt he was.

01:02:34.960 --> 01:02:38.520
"And here are the things
you have to go and do to find out."

01:02:38.960 --> 01:02:42.880
-Then why hasn't that changed anything?
-OK, we're back to this.

01:02:42.960 --> 01:02:45.920
I got discredited
and therefore my report.

01:02:46.000 --> 01:02:49.640
Even if it came from a place they thought
was tainted because of what happened.

01:02:49.720 --> 01:02:52.560
Seven years later, wouldn't they
have done something with that?

01:02:52.960 --> 01:02:56.840
I don't know. Why haven't you done
anything for several years about it?

01:02:56.920 --> 01:02:58.920
Why don't other journalists?

01:02:59.000 --> 01:03:02.120
I did the best I could
and I risked my safety.

01:03:02.200 --> 01:03:07.160
How many other campaigners
have risked everything to do what I did?

01:04:11.040 --> 01:04:16.880
By 2016, my reports
to the asbestos client became so poor -

01:04:16.960 --> 01:04:19.760
- that they stopped hiring K2
to hire me.

01:04:20.160 --> 01:04:24.800
But K2 obviously thought, here's a guy
who's prepared to infiltrate campaigners.

01:04:25.160 --> 01:04:29.080
So they gave me another case.
And this time -

01:04:29.160 --> 01:04:33.280
- I decided to blow the whistle straight to
the people I'd been asked to investigate.

01:04:37.800 --> 01:04:40.080
The beginning of the end
of Rob's story -

01:04:40.160 --> 01:04:44.320
- is at the Booking Office Restaurant
at St. Pancras Station in London.

01:04:46.240 --> 01:04:49.600
The man sitting across from Rob Moore
is Simon Taylor, -

01:04:49.680 --> 01:04:52.880
- from a charity called Global Witness
that fights the good fight -

01:04:52.960 --> 01:04:55.480
- for sustainability and climate.

01:04:56.320 --> 01:04:59.960
K2 is paying Rob
to get inside Global Witness -

01:05:00.040 --> 01:05:02.600
- to spy on the man he's talking to.

01:05:03.160 --> 01:05:06.520
And he's here
offering to turn the tables.

01:05:44.520 --> 01:05:47.680
I had gone to them.
An organization called Global Witness.

01:05:47.760 --> 01:05:51.560
And they actively encourage
whistleblowing.

01:05:52.920 --> 01:05:55.760
I brought real information to him:

01:05:55.840 --> 01:05:59.000
Here's my report
on the supply chain of asbestos.

01:05:59.080 --> 01:06:02.960
You've got a money laundering guy.
Could you help me understand how they do it?

01:06:03.040 --> 01:06:06.200
I need some help.
Can I come and work for you guys?

01:06:12.720 --> 01:06:14.280
Simon, hello.

01:06:14.360 --> 01:06:16.440
Hello.
Hi, Ceri, how are you?

01:06:17.160 --> 01:06:20.160
-Good, good. And you can see me?
-Yeah.

01:06:24.520 --> 01:06:29.520
Can you remember what you thought
as Rob started to unveil this plan?

01:06:29.600 --> 01:06:32.640
Whatever Rob was coming to us
with an offer of ...

01:06:32.720 --> 01:06:36.200
A. We didn't think he could tell us
anything we didn't know already.

01:06:36.280 --> 01:06:40.520
And B. We couldn't see how he could stay
in the game and play that role -

01:06:40.600 --> 01:06:45.120
- without us feeding him stuff. And we
thought, why should we feed him that stuff?

01:06:45.200 --> 01:06:47.440
Did you ever think of Rob
as a whistleblower?

01:06:47.520 --> 01:06:52.640
I think that's the case he wanted to make
to you: I've come to you as a whistleblower.

01:06:52.720 --> 01:06:57.880
From our perspective, a whistleblower ...
Whistleblowers are whistleblowers, -

01:06:57.960 --> 01:07:00.440
- but they don't usually
stay on the payroll.

01:07:00.520 --> 01:07:04.880
We concluded that this was whistleblowing
with having your cake and eating it.

01:07:05.160 --> 01:07:10.200
And if he really, really,
genuinely wanted to be a whistleblower -

01:07:10.280 --> 01:07:13.040
- and help the asbestos people, -

01:07:13.120 --> 01:07:16.000
- I guess a question
I would have to him would be:

01:07:16.080 --> 01:07:19.840
Why did he carry on for four years
on the payroll, -

01:07:19.920 --> 01:07:24.360
- which must have resulted in him
sending back actionable stuff?

01:07:24.440 --> 01:07:28.400
Or K2 are a bunch of idiots,
and I'm sure they're not that stupid.

01:07:28.480 --> 01:07:30.960
Why would they keep him on -

01:07:31.040 --> 01:07:36.200
- if he wasn't giving them
some kind of actionable intelligence?

01:07:36.280 --> 01:07:41.120
His claim is that he's fed only chicken feed
back to K2 and the client.

01:07:41.200 --> 01:07:42.360
Yes.

01:07:42.440 --> 01:07:45.280
Rob, we felt, was not in a position -

01:07:45.360 --> 01:07:49.000
- to guarantee
he hadn't put people at risk.

01:07:49.080 --> 01:07:52.040
And because he was carrying on going, -

01:07:52.120 --> 01:07:54.280
- we felt that had to stop.

01:07:57.960 --> 01:08:00.120
It's early August 2016 -

01:08:00.200 --> 01:08:03.760
- when Global Witness write to Rob
telling him to come clean.

01:08:03.840 --> 01:08:09.240
They want him to inform all the asbestos
campaigners that he'd been working for K2.

01:08:09.320 --> 01:08:11.480
And if he doesn't, -

01:08:11.560 --> 01:08:13.120
- they will.

01:08:27.800 --> 01:08:31.080
Out of the blue,
I got a letter from Simon Taylor.

01:08:31.160 --> 01:08:35.120
And this time
the whole tone had changed.

01:08:36.880 --> 01:08:39.880
Within three minutes, -

01:08:40.640 --> 01:08:42.840
- I felt physically ill.

01:09:18.320 --> 01:09:20.400
I was terrified.

01:09:20.480 --> 01:09:22.240
Not of them.

01:09:23.280 --> 01:09:28.720
I was terrified the client would find out
what I'd done. With their money.

01:09:38.480 --> 01:09:40.160
When we put it to him:

01:09:40.240 --> 01:09:43.560
"We think you should come clean
to the anti-asbestos people," -

01:09:43.640 --> 01:09:46.160
- he said he wasn't able to do it.

01:09:46.480 --> 01:09:50.240
I didn't really feel we had a choice,
to be honest.

01:09:54.120 --> 01:09:57.200
Rather than believing that
I was a genuine whistleblower, -

01:09:57.680 --> 01:10:01.160
- they decided that
I was a triple agent.

01:10:01.240 --> 01:10:05.080
Using my whistleblowing
as a cover to infiltrate them.

01:10:08.480 --> 01:10:10.840
They exposed me to a law firm, -

01:10:11.560 --> 01:10:15.520
- and that law firm
put me straight into court.

01:10:21.680 --> 01:10:26.280
He couldn't be asked
to take any level of care -

01:10:26.360 --> 01:10:29.400
- over the fact that I might be
who I was saying I was.

01:10:29.600 --> 01:10:34.160
And then he comes up with this
ludicrous idea that I'm a triple agent.

01:10:34.240 --> 01:10:36.000
But there is a risk -

01:10:36.080 --> 01:10:39.960
- to Global Witness because they know
you're still working for K2.

01:10:40.040 --> 01:10:44.440
I think it's a legitimate thing to raise.
So what do we do with that risk?

01:10:44.520 --> 01:10:47.960
Is this guy genuine or is he fake?
Let's find out.

01:10:48.040 --> 01:10:52.640
Then you're asking Global Witness
to spend some time and some effort, -

01:10:54.080 --> 01:10:58.080
- trying to reach a judgment
on what you've done.

01:10:58.160 --> 01:11:01.320
Trying to decide
whether you were actually -

01:11:01.400 --> 01:11:03.080
- a good guy or a bad guy.

01:11:03.440 --> 01:11:05.880
For me, this is kind of
the heart of the issue.

01:11:05.960 --> 01:11:10.080
Because there's always some harm
alongside the good that you're claiming, -

01:11:10.160 --> 01:11:11.720
- that just muddy the waters.

01:11:11.800 --> 01:11:14.160
You can never reach that judgment
definitively.

01:11:14.240 --> 01:11:17.400
But just to then
hand you over to a law firm -

01:11:17.480 --> 01:11:19.920
- that you work with on class actions, -

01:11:20.000 --> 01:11:26.080
- without any thought that this person might
have very real fears for his security.

01:11:26.160 --> 01:11:28.720
And that he might be telling the truth.

01:11:28.800 --> 01:11:34.320
Let me tell you the truth, because I've been
thinking about this over the last few days.

01:11:34.400 --> 01:11:35.960
I think, -

01:11:36.040 --> 01:11:38.480
- if I'd been Simon Taylor, -

01:11:38.560 --> 01:11:41.960
- I would have done the same thing.

01:11:42.040 --> 01:11:45.200
You would have gone to Leigh Day
and handed me over?

01:11:45.280 --> 01:11:50.280
I would have said there's a channel
of information between you and K2.

01:11:50.360 --> 01:11:52.600
From Global Witness' perspective,
that's a risk to them.

01:11:52.680 --> 01:11:54.840
But it's a risk to Laurie
and the others as well.

01:11:54.920 --> 01:11:58.640
And so I'm afraid
I can see why he did what he did.

01:11:58.720 --> 01:12:03.360
And I think in his position
I might well have done exactly the same.

01:12:03.440 --> 01:12:07.120
Well, we have
different value systems, then.

01:12:07.200 --> 01:12:10.720
I'm amazed, actually,
that you would think that ...

01:12:10.800 --> 01:12:13.400
"Whoa, that's too much to handle."

01:12:13.480 --> 01:12:16.360
"Let's just dob him in now
and let the courts work."

01:12:16.440 --> 01:12:18.320
Because your truth is so muddy.

01:12:18.400 --> 01:12:20.960
Yeah, but life is muddy.
Reality is muddy.

01:12:21.040 --> 01:12:24.440
And if you want to look at simplistic,
good, bad, then do.

01:12:24.520 --> 01:12:29.280
But I think you're missing what's important.
Yes, the truth is muddy.

01:12:29.360 --> 01:12:31.960
It's in the granular details of that mud -

01:12:32.040 --> 01:12:34.640
- you'll see what
people's real intentions are.

01:12:53.280 --> 01:12:58.120
This is one of the places
where I'm not sure if I agree with Ceri.

01:12:58.840 --> 01:13:02.760
Was Global Witness right
in exposing Rob as a spy?

01:13:05.800 --> 01:13:07.320
Hi there.

01:13:08.480 --> 01:13:10.200
Rob has wanted us to talk to -

01:13:10.280 --> 01:13:13.520
- the Emmy-winning
documentary filmmaker Dan Reed.

01:13:15.680 --> 01:13:17.960
Dan Reed and Rob
were working on a film -

01:13:18.040 --> 01:13:22.520
- that was part of Rob's plan
to come clean with the activists.

01:13:23.280 --> 01:13:25.000
The plan was -

01:13:25.840 --> 01:13:28.720
- to tell the story of how Rob Moore -

01:13:30.040 --> 01:13:34.200
- began working for K2,
realized who the clients were, -

01:13:34.280 --> 01:13:39.080
- his change of heart, his determination
to expose what was really going on ...

01:13:39.160 --> 01:13:44.200
And then the build up
to the Rotterdam conference.

01:13:44.280 --> 01:13:48.520
Which I think was
a big meeting about asbestos.

01:13:48.600 --> 01:13:51.120
And he was going to stand up and say:

01:13:51.200 --> 01:13:53.480
OK, this is what's really going on.

01:13:53.560 --> 01:13:56.600
You never actually filmed with him,
did you?

01:13:56.680 --> 01:13:59.120
I didn't record anything with him.

01:13:59.640 --> 01:14:01.680
But I was sort of saying to him:

01:14:01.760 --> 01:14:04.720
If we're going to do something,
we've got to start.

01:14:04.800 --> 01:14:08.800
And I think that was right about the time
he went to Global Witness.

01:14:08.880 --> 01:14:12.520
Were you always comfortable
thinking about him as a whistleblower?

01:14:12.600 --> 01:14:17.320
The story that I was drawn to,
was him as a whistleblower.

01:14:17.400 --> 01:14:19.640
All my interactions with him, -

01:14:21.840 --> 01:14:24.880
- left me feeling that he was sincere.

01:14:24.960 --> 01:14:27.880
I could understand his point of view.
He was on the inside.

01:14:27.960 --> 01:14:30.760
He did have an opportunity
with this big coup d'état.

01:14:30.840 --> 01:14:36.480
To really sort of blow a big hole
in the asbestos, chrysotile industry.

01:14:36.560 --> 01:14:40.520
We've talked to a lot of people
who hate him. Think he did real harm.

01:14:40.600 --> 01:14:44.960
The campaigners who felt betrayed
and deceived by him, -

01:14:45.040 --> 01:14:47.680
- and who think he's, in the end,
a kind of -

01:14:47.760 --> 01:14:50.840
- moral-free narcissist.

01:14:50.920 --> 01:14:54.080
It's worth saying that a lot of the ...

01:14:54.160 --> 01:14:58.160
A lot of the people that I've bumped into
who've exposed wrongdoing -

01:14:58.240 --> 01:15:02.720
- or achieved something remarkably useful
to humanity or whatever ...

01:15:02.800 --> 01:15:05.680
A lot of them have been
quite narcissistic.

01:15:05.760 --> 01:15:10.080
I think it's naive to think
that whistleblowers are all -

01:15:10.160 --> 01:15:12.360
- pure as the driven snow.
They're not.

01:15:12.440 --> 01:15:14.680
And narcissism is a strong driver.

01:15:14.760 --> 01:15:18.120
And it can lead people
to do great things.

01:15:18.480 --> 01:15:22.000
But Global Witness seems to have taken
a very reductive view:

01:15:22.080 --> 01:15:24.800
"OK, never mind
what you're planning, pal."

01:15:24.880 --> 01:15:29.600
"The fact is, you've been deceiving these
people and you're part of the problem."

01:15:29.680 --> 01:15:33.160
And I was shocked,
because I think ...

01:15:33.240 --> 01:15:37.880
I mean, the guy walked in
and volunteered this information.

01:15:37.960 --> 01:15:44.280
For me, the rules are that you don't
do that. You don't stitch up your informant.

01:15:45.200 --> 01:15:46.640
And then they took him to court.

01:15:50.920 --> 01:15:52.960
Sorry, the voice ...

01:15:54.000 --> 01:15:58.280
I'd just go from the top,
now that you've gone through it.

01:15:59.640 --> 01:16:04.000
The truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth.

01:16:04.080 --> 01:16:05.680
Rob complains violently -

01:16:05.760 --> 01:16:08.120
- that the legal action against him
wasn't interested in that.

01:16:11.680 --> 01:16:14.240
I had no idea that this big building, -

01:16:14.320 --> 01:16:19.560
- this gothic, Victorian building on the
Strand called the Royal Courts of Justice, -

01:16:20.240 --> 01:16:23.240
- might have been such a charade.

01:16:27.360 --> 01:16:31.600
The legal action against Rob
takes a little over two years to play out.

01:16:32.360 --> 01:16:36.880
Matteo Bigazzi, Rob's handler,
and K2 become part of it as well.

01:16:38.480 --> 01:16:42.520
And eventually
K2 offered to settle the case.

01:16:42.600 --> 01:16:46.560
To stop everything playing out
in open court.

01:16:46.880 --> 01:16:49.440
The outcome
was everything Rob feared.

01:16:49.520 --> 01:16:51.920
He was ruined
in just about every way.

01:16:56.600 --> 01:17:00.880
Disgrace is a really weird thing
to have imposed on you.

01:17:01.960 --> 01:17:04.160
It was a very, very dark time, Ceri.

01:17:04.240 --> 01:17:07.680
And it got darker and darker
as the money went, -

01:17:07.760 --> 01:17:10.920
- and the prospect of actually
telling my story -

01:17:11.000 --> 01:17:14.400
- seemed to fade
further and further away.

01:17:18.680 --> 01:17:21.120
Hey, Rob.
How is it going?

01:17:23.000 --> 01:17:26.560
I kept saying I only want to do this
if we're going to move it forward.

01:17:26.960 --> 01:17:30.360
And I don't actually see the proof -

01:17:30.440 --> 01:17:33.600
- that anyone is interested
in the client.

01:17:33.680 --> 01:17:39.160
The truth is that I am interested in
the investigation into Tatishev.

01:17:39.600 --> 01:17:42.280
But my idea was -

01:17:42.360 --> 01:17:48.400
- that this should be something
that I should film through Tortoise.

01:17:48.480 --> 01:17:52.920
And the plan was that
they should be the journalists in this.

01:17:53.000 --> 01:17:57.480
It feels to me that
you're just filming the process.

01:17:57.560 --> 01:18:00.360
-But you know what that feels like?
-Yeah.

01:18:00.440 --> 01:18:04.680
For filmmakers to just say,
"We sit and we watch."

01:18:05.000 --> 01:18:07.560
It feels a bit parasitic, really.

01:18:07.920 --> 01:18:10.560
I suppose
I've lost confidence in the film.

01:18:14.800 --> 01:18:18.280
Rob hits me
at my most vulnerable point.

01:18:19.160 --> 01:18:22.600
Why should I make a film
about Rob's lies and deception, -

01:18:22.680 --> 01:18:26.160
- when I could have investigated
the owner of the asbestos mines, -

01:18:26.240 --> 01:18:29.280
- killing hundreds of thousands a year?

01:18:30.960 --> 01:18:34.200
But the problem is still
that no one has been able to prove -

01:18:34.280 --> 01:18:37.520
- that Tatishev is
the owner of the mines.

01:18:38.360 --> 01:18:43.000
So we hire some investigative journalists
to start digging.

01:18:48.240 --> 01:18:52.280
It's difficult to figure out
who owns the asbestos mines -

01:18:52.360 --> 01:18:54.040
- because it is meant to be difficult.

01:18:54.120 --> 01:18:57.320
It is meant to be behind a lot of wraps.

01:18:57.400 --> 01:19:00.960
A lot of shell companies.
Companies that own other companies.

01:19:01.040 --> 01:19:03.240
Different jurisdictions.
Different rules.

01:19:03.320 --> 01:19:07.720
So it is difficult because it's planned
to be difficult. It's intentional.

01:19:08.360 --> 01:19:10.800
We know that Kusto, -

01:19:12.120 --> 01:19:15.000
- the company Tatishev
is founder and chairman of, -

01:19:15.080 --> 01:19:17.960
- we know that it has
at least four owners.

01:19:18.040 --> 01:19:21.960
But the legal ownership structure
is more complicated.

01:19:22.920 --> 01:19:26.960
And there is no apparent connection
between Kusto Group -

01:19:27.040 --> 01:19:31.280
- and the two asbestos mines,
Kostanai and Orenburg.

01:19:32.440 --> 01:19:35.280
We have an address.
British Virgin Islands.

01:19:35.360 --> 01:19:39.320
OK. This address
is just going to be a law firm -

01:19:40.120 --> 01:19:43.920
- whose business
is creating shell companies.

01:19:44.000 --> 01:19:46.400
That looks like a dead end.

01:20:05.800 --> 01:20:08.200
You have been worried lately.

01:20:09.160 --> 01:20:12.160
What shocked me
was being told that -

01:20:12.840 --> 01:20:15.680
- they consider the podcast done.

01:20:15.760 --> 01:20:17.840
And they're going to -

01:20:20.200 --> 01:20:22.160
- publish -

01:20:23.640 --> 01:20:25.720
- imminently.

01:20:25.800 --> 01:20:29.760
Which I think means,
you know, broadcast it.

01:20:29.840 --> 01:20:33.720
Which is frustrating because,
from my point of view, -

01:20:33.800 --> 01:20:39.560
- I don't think they do understand
the story yet. And if you've waited for ...

01:20:42.520 --> 01:20:44.440
Seven years.

01:20:45.240 --> 01:20:49.600
Six and a half years
to tell your story ...

01:20:50.360 --> 01:20:52.720
It's pretty frustrating -

01:20:52.800 --> 01:20:54.760
- if they don't -

01:20:56.080 --> 01:20:57.960
- tell it properly.

01:21:09.320 --> 01:21:12.760
Yeah, there are some things
I'd love to talk about.

01:21:12.840 --> 01:21:16.120
But let's start off with
what is your podcast about?

01:21:16.200 --> 01:21:19.560
Well, our podcast is -

01:21:19.640 --> 01:21:21.040
- your story -

01:21:21.120 --> 01:21:23.400
- within the context -

01:21:23.480 --> 01:21:28.200
- of the world
of private investigations agencies.

01:21:28.280 --> 01:21:31.640
-So am I the colour?
-You're ... It's...

01:21:31.720 --> 01:21:33.600
-The example?
-No.

01:21:33.680 --> 01:21:35.360
You're not just a case study.

01:21:35.440 --> 01:21:40.040
It's your story that will be the spine of it
from beginning to end.

01:21:40.120 --> 01:21:43.320
"The man
who made the wrong decision."

01:21:43.400 --> 01:21:45.760
-You're being ...
-Facetious.

01:21:45.840 --> 01:21:48.480
I hesitate to say "unfair to me," but ...

01:21:48.560 --> 01:21:51.520
Forgive me for that,
because I am being a twat.

01:21:51.600 --> 01:21:54.880
But it's a twattishness
that is born of ...

01:21:54.960 --> 01:21:57.640
This is interesting coming from a man
who was undercover:

01:21:57.720 --> 01:22:00.600
I do feel I've been strung along.

01:22:00.680 --> 01:22:03.400
Tell me, what have you found out about -

01:22:03.480 --> 01:22:05.760
- Kusto or Tatishev or...

01:22:06.600 --> 01:22:08.920
Nothing that advances the story
beyond ...

01:22:09.000 --> 01:22:12.320
What, a Buddhist gardening
ex prank-show producer?

01:22:12.400 --> 01:22:17.120
Have you tested my work? Have you
bought more data and updated it?

01:22:17.200 --> 01:22:18.600
-No.
-Why?

01:22:18.680 --> 01:22:23.400
It's partly because we got to the position
where we had to make ...

01:22:23.480 --> 01:22:28.160
You couldn't tell it in the same story
as investigations agencies.

01:22:28.240 --> 01:22:31.840
We're not taking it
where you would like us to take it.

01:22:31.920 --> 01:22:34.880
You're not taking it
to the core of my motivation -

01:22:34.960 --> 01:22:38.360
- and the proof that what I did ...
You're not taking it to the medicine.

01:22:38.440 --> 01:22:40.640
You are looking at the poison, Ceri.

01:22:40.720 --> 01:22:44.040
And that means you are not
actually telling my story.

01:22:44.120 --> 01:22:45.720
You are using my story.

01:22:45.800 --> 01:22:49.200
I'm a human being who came to Tortoise
at the risk of myself, -

01:22:49.280 --> 01:22:53.360
- with my whole story and said,
"Please, investigate."

01:22:53.440 --> 01:22:56.040
And what's more frustrating,
which I don't understand, -

01:22:56.120 --> 01:22:59.080
- is why tell me for three years
that Alexi is doing it?

01:22:59.160 --> 01:23:01.920
That he is making progress?

01:23:02.000 --> 01:23:04.440
For me, Ceri, you've misled me on that.

01:23:04.840 --> 01:23:09.440
"What are you doing about the thing?"
"Alexi's onto it." How can you do that?

01:23:10.000 --> 01:23:12.560
I can totally see -

01:23:12.640 --> 01:23:14.720
- from your point of view -

01:23:14.800 --> 01:23:20.760
- that if we push that story forward,
that it adds validation to your story.

01:23:20.840 --> 01:23:25.800
But the agencies are unaccountable power,
which is interesting, isn't it?

01:23:25.880 --> 01:23:28.080
You are still ...

01:23:28.160 --> 01:23:31.680
- fiddling while Rome burns by going
after the investigations agencies, -

01:23:31.760 --> 01:23:33.880
- when I'm bringing you
a story of global death, -

01:23:33.960 --> 01:23:37.360
- more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki
every year, -

01:23:37.760 --> 01:23:42.240
- massive corruption
going through London's offices ...

01:23:42.320 --> 01:23:44.200
Those are the forces, OK?

01:23:44.280 --> 01:23:48.280
That's what I put everything down for.

01:23:48.840 --> 01:23:52.560
By telling your story, we will be
telling people stuff they don't know -

01:23:52.640 --> 01:23:57.000
- about the asbestos industry
and the way that all works.

01:24:01.840 --> 01:24:06.720
You are using my story, because
even the heart of my actions, -

01:24:06.800 --> 01:24:10.920
- even the heart of why I sacrificed
everything, and why I still am, -

01:24:11.000 --> 01:24:15.680
- and why I came to you, even that
doesn't mean anything to you guys.

01:24:16.120 --> 01:24:18.360
And it's heartbreaking.

01:24:20.520 --> 01:24:23.200
Just like Alexi was actually then
using my story -

01:24:23.280 --> 01:24:26.080
- and then Tortoise
promised me you wouldn't.

01:24:26.160 --> 01:24:28.280
And I'm tired of trying to ...

01:24:28.360 --> 01:24:30.480
I've so tried, haven't I?

01:24:31.400 --> 01:24:34.240
-It's OK.
-Let's take a break.

01:24:35.360 --> 01:24:37.040
Come on.

01:24:39.360 --> 01:24:43.880
Håvard, I might need a bit of a break.
I'm getting a bit ...

01:24:43.960 --> 01:24:47.000
I might break for the day.
Do you think we can do that?

01:24:47.080 --> 01:24:49.360
You can tell Rob
when you want to leave.

01:24:49.440 --> 01:24:51.200
I'll go and talk to him.

01:24:57.640 --> 01:25:00.120
He's mad.

01:25:00.200 --> 01:25:03.560
There's one obsession in Rob's mind
we can't get beyond:

01:25:03.640 --> 01:25:07.240
The idea that I'm not telling his story.

01:25:07.880 --> 01:25:09.880
That's the main reason
he's going to give -

01:25:09.960 --> 01:25:12.920
- for withdrawing his consent
from this whole project.

01:25:14.120 --> 01:25:19.720
And the thought of doing that
seems to be coming together in the garden.

01:25:19.800 --> 01:25:21.680
Sorry, guys,
I'm having some me time.

01:25:21.760 --> 01:25:25.080
-No, you're allowed. I might ...
-Oh, no.

01:25:25.160 --> 01:25:27.960
-I might ...
-I've exhausted you.

01:25:28.040 --> 01:25:30.440
I was just going to explain to you.

01:25:30.520 --> 01:25:35.440
I've just started a new course of chemo
which is a bit more brutal.

01:25:35.520 --> 01:25:39.440
So when you see me next,
all this will be gone.

01:25:39.520 --> 01:25:45.320
But it's messing with my voice, and it makes
me a bit tired. So I might call it a day.

01:25:45.400 --> 01:25:48.640
I'm really sorry.
I just feel I've ...

01:25:48.720 --> 01:25:53.520
-No, no.
-I've been aggressive, and, you know.

01:25:55.480 --> 01:25:59.560
So just to say, I'm not running out on you.
I know you understand.

01:25:59.640 --> 01:26:01.200
Yeah, I do.

01:26:02.680 --> 01:26:05.680
Please have a think about what I said.

01:26:05.760 --> 01:26:09.040
-I couldn't not, could I?
-Thank you.

01:26:12.040 --> 01:26:13.680
Oh, man.

01:26:13.760 --> 01:26:16.120
Come on.

01:26:16.520 --> 01:26:19.160
I'm really sorry, Ceri.

01:26:28.440 --> 01:26:31.400
For what it's worth,
I do think Rob meant to do good -

01:26:31.480 --> 01:26:34.560
- when he was out there
among the campaigners.

01:26:34.640 --> 01:26:36.800
A lot of the time, anyway.

01:26:38.320 --> 01:26:42.280
But he said it himself:
Good intentions only get you so far.

01:26:42.360 --> 01:26:46.080
Some actual good has to happen
for things to stack up properly.

01:26:49.200 --> 01:26:52.280
What you mean to do
is part of the truth.

01:26:52.360 --> 01:26:55.840
What you do
is part of it as well.

01:26:57.920 --> 01:27:02.360
I'm Ceri Thomas
and from Tortoise this is "Into the Dirt."

01:27:22.160 --> 01:27:26.800
After Tortoise published the podcast,
Rob stopped replying to my messages.

01:27:28.120 --> 01:27:31.680
I think he has given up
on telling his story.

01:27:35.000 --> 01:27:40.080
Was what Rob discovered, significant
enough to justify his deception?

01:27:40.160 --> 01:27:45.040
Or was it his attempt at
self-justification to clear his name?

01:27:46.400 --> 01:27:48.000
Over the past few months, -

01:27:48.080 --> 01:27:52.400
- our journalists have been struggling
to investigate Tatishev.

01:27:53.440 --> 01:27:57.160
Is there anything to Rob's theory
that asbestos trading companies -

01:27:57.240 --> 01:28:01.560
- registered in Britain
are involved in financial crimes?

01:28:02.760 --> 01:28:05.840
They've wrapped their activities
in secrecy -

01:28:05.920 --> 01:28:09.120
- and they're misreporting their income.

01:28:10.240 --> 01:28:13.960
There's no question that
large volumes of asbestos -

01:28:14.040 --> 01:28:19.200
- were shipped through these very
anonymous UK registered companies.

01:28:20.160 --> 01:28:24.480
We could see from both the trade data
that Rob gathered -

01:28:24.560 --> 01:28:29.520
- from the various databases,
and from some other leaked documents, -

01:28:29.600 --> 01:28:33.080
- that much more value
is pushed through those companies -

01:28:33.160 --> 01:28:35.920
- than is reported
in their financial statements.

01:28:36.000 --> 01:28:38.160
That is quite a serious red flag, -

01:28:38.240 --> 01:28:43.280
- because it's a criminal offence
to file false financial statements.

01:28:43.360 --> 01:28:46.840
So what you're saying is that
Rob found some red flags.

01:28:46.920 --> 01:28:49.440
And you have found
some other red flags.

01:28:49.520 --> 01:28:53.680
I would say not exactly
that we found other red flags.

01:28:53.760 --> 01:28:56.000
We found corroborating red flags.

01:28:56.080 --> 01:29:00.920
The same red flags if you like,
but just from another source.

01:29:03.480 --> 01:29:05.920
So what about Yerkin Tatishev?

01:29:06.000 --> 01:29:10.920
Is he the owner of some of the largest
asbestos mines in the world?

01:29:12.640 --> 01:29:15.240
The way we can frame
the conclusion here -

01:29:15.320 --> 01:29:20.000
- is that Tatishev and his associates,
they own the two mines.

01:29:20.080 --> 01:29:22.120
Kostanai and Orenburg.

01:29:22.200 --> 01:29:24.920
And collectively, those two mines -

01:29:25.000 --> 01:29:30.320
- account for almost 60% of the
world's chrysotile asbestos production.

01:29:30.400 --> 01:29:34.400
You can even say that Tatishev
and his business associates, -

01:29:34.480 --> 01:29:38.800
- they control almost 60 %
of the world's asbestos production.

01:29:38.880 --> 01:29:41.480
Which is extraordinary, isn't it?

01:29:41.560 --> 01:29:44.040
You got further
than I thought you'd get.

01:29:44.120 --> 01:29:46.320
It's an important piece of work, -

01:29:46.400 --> 01:29:50.720
- and it's taken us further than
anybody else has managed to get.

01:29:50.800 --> 01:29:54.480
We know that Tatishev
and his associates are the main players -

01:29:54.560 --> 01:29:58.960
- in the asbestos trade.
Why is this important to know?

01:29:59.040 --> 01:30:01.400
If I put myself
in the shoes of the activists, -

01:30:01.480 --> 01:30:03.520
- it has to be important
to know your enemy.

01:30:03.600 --> 01:30:08.880
I cannot think of any analogy
of a global trade this big, -

01:30:08.960 --> 01:30:11.160
- certainly one
that kills this many people, -

01:30:11.240 --> 01:30:14.560
- where you just don't know
who the people behind it are.

01:30:14.640 --> 01:30:17.560
Just at that level, -

01:30:17.640 --> 01:30:20.200
- it's a big step forward.

01:30:20.280 --> 01:30:23.680
Does this change your view on Rob?

01:30:26.720 --> 01:30:28.920
It doesn't, actually.

01:30:29.000 --> 01:30:33.000
He didn't need to lie. David didn't lie
to anyone to get this information.

01:30:33.080 --> 01:30:35.800
Rob didn't need to lie
to get this information.

01:30:35.880 --> 01:30:38.600
But he gave us the theory
that we needed.

01:30:38.680 --> 01:30:41.520
And we would never have done it
if it wasn't for his theory.

01:30:41.600 --> 01:30:43.880
That's probably true.

01:30:44.920 --> 01:30:50.560
Why doesn't the British government stop
this way of using British companies?

01:30:50.640 --> 01:30:55.520
The British government have allowed
shady figures from the former Soviet Union -

01:30:55.600 --> 01:31:01.080
- to use UK firms as cover for their
anonymous activities.

01:31:01.440 --> 01:31:04.600
For decades.
And it is a huge scandal.

01:31:05.560 --> 01:31:08.440
I believe that there are
successor companies, -

01:31:08.520 --> 01:31:11.320
- similarly structured,
similarly anonymized, -

01:31:11.400 --> 01:31:16.640
- that are doing large volumes of trading
in asbestos -

01:31:16.720 --> 01:31:21.560
- through UK-registered entities.
So I think the show goes on.

01:31:40.400 --> 01:31:42.880
Hi, this is Rob Moore.

01:31:42.960 --> 01:31:47.680
Please leave a message, and I'll
get back to you as soon as I can.