Scott Johnson

And so, you know, they had this digital, the FBI had this digital portal, they were soliciting information.

There was, there were, there was an investigation in the UK.

This guy had already been dragged, you know, had been taken to court by various victims in other scams and in other sort of criminal enterprises that, that had, you know, for small, small amounts of money, but still there were lots of people who'd, who tried to get him in court in the UK already.

The Indonesians, the authorities in Indonesia were looking at it.

The Americans were looking at it.

The Brits were looking at it.

So there was a kind of a net that was closing in.

COVID was further complicating it.

And yeah, here he was.

I mean, he was basically on the lam.

He was hiding.

He wasn't communicating with me or with any other journalists.

And he was doing his best to stay hidden.

And so...

And it was not a given that an effort to communicate with him in this way was going to be successful.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And also, you know, by that point, I had been talking to other people like in his family,

People had known him as a young person, people who had a much, much deeper understanding of his past and who he was and what he was capable of as a person.

And I had heard some really disturbing things about.