How to Become an International Gold Smuggler

Before getting nabbed by the Policía de Investigaciones — the Chilean equivalent of the FBI — 23-year-old Harold Vilches acquired and resold over 4,000 lbs. of gold worth $80 million in under two years. It all started with a Google search for gold dealers in Peru and YouTube videos on how to make your own gold ingots.

Published: Mar 9, 2017
Length: 16 minutes (4,230 words)

Lost at Sea

How Salvador Alvarenga survived 438 days at sea, drifting from the coast of Mexico to the Marshall Islands.

Source: The Guardian
Published: Nov 7, 2015
Length: 18 minutes (4,508 words)

Cell to Cell

How Smuggled Mobile Phones Are Rewiring Brazil’s Prisons:

On January 18, 2013, prison guards in the Brazilian city of Joinville rounded up a group of inmates and began torturing them. Over the course of four hours, the naked men were shot with rubber bullets and doused with pepper spray. In a video clip, the men are seen in the fetal position, waiting for the attack to end.

The prisoners’ counterattack was swift and deadly. Days after the video surfaced, prisoners organized attacks across the six-million-person state of Santa Catarina. The homes of prison officials, police stations, and public busses were all attacked. “Prisoners decided to orchestrate the attacks to call the attention of the population and authorities to issues of management in the prison system,” said Col. Nazareno Marcineiro, the commander of Santa Catarina’s military police.

Source: Motherboard
Published: Apr 14, 2014
Length: 9 minutes (2,300 words)