Tag Archives: london

The Spiders Web

The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire, is a documentary that shows how Britain transformed from a colonial power into a global financial power. At the demise of empire, City of London financial interests created a web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and hid it behind obscure financial structures in a web of offshore islands.

Today, up to half of global offshore wealth is hidden in British offshore jurisdictions – the largest global players in the world of international finance.

How did this come about, and what impact does it have on the world today?

This is what the Spider’s Web sets out to investigate. With contributions from leading experts, academics, former insiders and campaigners for social justice, the use of stylised b-roll and archive footage, The Spider’s Web reveals how in the world of international finance, corruption and secrecy have prevailed over regulation and transparency, and the UK is right at the heart of this.

 

“Want to know more about the menace of tax havens and the role of the City of London & Overseas Territories? Then this great film is a must”

Frederik Obermaier, Journalist (Pulitzer Prize 2017)

Homegrown DMT: A Teacher’s Secret Lab

We visit a homemade DMT lab in the heart of London and see how the product is made. Splitting his time between teaching chemistry and making DMT, ‘Bob’ shows he has become a real life Walter White.

From finding the source materials online to developing the crystals themselves, Bob leads us through the step by step process of creating one of the most elusive and potent hallucinogens in the world. Bob escapes the classroom daily to work on his profitable hobby and explains why this drug is so sought after.

Recruited Online: Social Media and the Rise of Money Mules

Gangs are always looking for new ways to launder their money, and in cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester, using money mules has become one of their favorite methods.

Young and vulnerable people are convinced by criminals, often on social media, to let them use their personal bank accounts to receive and send on their illicit earnings. However, there can be serious consequences for those who get involved, from being locked out of the financial system, to even serving time in prison. This crime is still massively under-reported, which in part is what leaves many young people so vulnerable.

The Psychedelic Boom

The UK is experiencing a psychedelic renaissance. Young people in England and Wales are taking three times more LSD than they did five years ago, scientists at top universities are claiming hallucinogens can revolutionise how we treat mental illness and the use of magic mushrooms has been increasing by around 40 percent year on year.

Music festivals are awash with recreational trippers, but we also see how psychedelics have become a new health craze by attending a shamanic magic mushroom ceremony in which 50 people trip out in a London warehouse. Despite studies showing that psychedelics are some of the safest drugs you can take, we meet one person who spilled a bottle of acid on himself and never stopped hallucinating.

What is making this new generation of drug takers so interested in self-transformation? And as the self-help trend grows, what happens when thousands of people start trying to solve their mental health problems themselves by taking powerful hallucinogens in unregulated settings?

High Price: Jailed For Climbing a Skyscraper

George King disguises himself as businessmen, runners, and passed-out drunks — all to gather intel on some of the world’s most secure and iconic buildings so that he can illegally free-climb them without any safety equipment what-so-ever.

When he was just 19, after months of preparation, he climbed London’s famous Shard. The stunt landed him in prison – but since then his obsession has grown stronger.

We spoke to George and his childhood friend Caspar to hear how he planned his most famous climb, how his adrenaline-fueled hobby was born, and how it became more extreme over the years.

The Polyamorous Unicorn Movement

When a charismatic former alcoholic named Shaft had his life changed by Burning Man, he realized that he actually identifies as a unicorn. No longer able to face the monotony of work and life in the real world, he decided to form a polyamorous and hedonistic movement with other like-minded unicorns.

Donning glittery horns and galloping through London’s streets, Shaft’s unicorns set about trying to create a free-love utopia. But as the unicorn revolution begins to clash with the realities of life and love, some of the “glampede” became disillusioned, and Shaft’s reasons for starting this whole thing came into question.

Is this the hedonistic, free love revolution we were promised in the 60s? Or is it as fake as the unicorn horns they wear, a desperate and clever ploy by Shaft to escape his own inner loneliness by starting a cult?