Palma Massacre

Posted by on Jun 19, 2023 in Articles | No Comments

A Hidden Catastrophe, Uncovered Just after 2pm on March 24, 2021, 500 rebels from the ISIS-affiliated al-Shabab group in northern Mozambique attacked the coastal town of Palma, adjacent to a 16,000-acre liquid natural gas (LNG) plant being built by TotalEnergies, and other partners, on the Afungi peninsula, south of town. To assess the impact on […]

The Siege of the Amarula

Posted by on Jun 8, 2022 in Articles | No Comments

“I’m Still Alive but Sh*t Is Getting Wild”: Inside the Siege of the Amarula Jun 1, 2022 When vast gas reserves were discovered off the idyllic coast of northern Mozambique, a crew of roughnecks flew in from around the world to make their fortunes. But in March 2021, Islamist rebels attacked, and the foreigners and […]

The World’s Most Dangerous Mountains

Posted by on Oct 21, 2021 in Articles | No Comments

Oct 18, 2021 Each year an estimated 300,000 smugglers, known as ‘kolbars,’ haul millions of pounds of contraband from Iraq to Iran over the 14,000-foot peaks of the Zagros Mountains. More than 50 of them will die—shot dead, killed in accidents, or freezing to death—and countless more will be arrested and imprisoned. Alex Perry travels […]

The Plot to Kill the Olympics

Posted by on Apr 20, 2021 in Articles | No Comments

Apr 19, 2021 When Konstantin Grigorishin—über-wealthy Ukrainian businessman, aspiring philosopher, former pal of Russian oligarchs—introduced the upstart International Swimming League in 2019, he made the first move in an ambitious plan that could blow up Olympic sports and usher in a new era of athlete fairness. He also commenced a game of chicken with some […]

Every Second Counts: The True Story of the White Island Eruption

Posted by on Apr 17, 2020 in Articles | No Comments

Apr 15, 2020 Last December, around 100 tourists set out for New Zealand’s Whakaari/White Island, where an active volcano has attracted hundreds of thousands of vacationers since the early 1990s. It was supposed to be a routine six-hour tour, including the highlight: a quick hike into the island’s otherworldly caldera. Then the volcano exploded. What […]

The Last Days of John Allen Chau

Posted by on Jul 30, 2019 in Articles | No Comments

In the fall of 2018, the 26-year-old American missionary traveled to a remote speck of sand and jungle in the Indian Ocean, attempting to convert one of the planet’s last uncontacted tribes to Christianity. The islanders killed him, and Chau was pilloried around the world as a deluded Christian supremacist who deserved to die. Alex […]

Excerpt of Long Shot

Posted by on Dec 17, 2018 in Articles | No Comments

I have had many names, but as a sniper I went by Azad, which means “free” or “freedom” in Kurdish. I had been fighting for sixteen months in Kurdish territory in northern Syria when in April 2015 I was asked to leave my position on the eastern front, close to the Turkish border, and join […]

Hiding in plain sight

Posted by on Dec 17, 2018 in Articles | No Comments

Edoardo Archetta first opened the folding doors of his Italian restaurant, Bucci, at 195 Balham High Road in south London, 33 years ago. Over time, it became the kind of establishment that completes a neighbourhood, that “little place I know”, loved by regulars for its homely preparations of risotto ai funghi and calamari al balsamico, […]

Organised crime in the UK is bigger than ever before. Can the police catch up?

Posted by on Dec 17, 2018 in Articles | No Comments

One afternoon in April, as we climbed into an armoured car outside her office in Vauxhall, south London, I asked Lynne Owens, the country’s most senior police officer, to describe 21st-century crime in the UK. Her answer spanned most of the next two hours, as we crawled east through the traffic to Chelmsford, Essex where, […]

Blood and Justice: The Women Who Took on the Mafia (Book Excerpt)

Posted by on Jan 25, 2018 in Articles | No Comments

                In Calabria, Lea Garofalo’s disappearance required no explanation. The local Mafia, known as the ’Ndrangheta, had a term for people who simply vanished: lupara bianca, or “white shotgun,” a killing that left no corpse. Residents of Pagliarelle, the mountain village where Garofalo’s family lived, added her name to […]

Load More