Smugglers are getting rich from the world’s slimiest black market: baby eels. The fragile state of freshwater eel species, like the critically endangered European eel, has driven a multibillion-dollar international trafficking trade. We look at the crackdown on eel crime around the world, including Interpol’s war on smuggling in Europe, and the growing attempts to save a species on the brink.
Tag Archives: rich
Billionaire Loopholes: Living Above the Law
Let’s break down how the rich live above the law, set up systems to do it, and **** over the rest of us.
Welcome to Offshore.
The Real Life Robin Hood Who Stole 800kg of Gold
“Stealing from the ultra-rich is not a sin,” says the infamous thief Vincenzo Pipino who stole gold, art and jewels worth millions and shared his profits with the poor.
Now retired, he confesses all.
Banking on Slavery
Zing Tsjeng explores how the City of London and its financial institutions profited from slavery in America long after the trade was abolished. She uncovers the hidden history of European wealth built on oppression, exploitation, and colonial plunder. The legacy of colonialism is everywhere today—from our banks to the food on our tables—and it’s time we paid attention.
100 Million Views
With dark humour and caustic wit, 100 Million Views uncovers the truth about a platform that promised transparency and democracy, but hides an exploitative, censored and unaccountable underbelly.
After years making Youtube videos without success, Itamar Rose sets out on a mission – to discover the secrets of what makes a video go viral. Along the way he meets with YouTube stars past and present, from early viral sensations such as ‘The Double Rainbow’ and ‘David After Dentist’ to the modern breed of Influencers who have fine tuned the art of audience building, algorithmic tampering and fan engagement.
Itamar’s mission pulls back the curtain on an industry where even the viral success stories begin life with views bought from ‘click farms’, experts explain to us how success still depends on marketing experience and partnerships beyond the reach of ordinary YouTubers, boot camps train the next generation of fame hungry children and even the most unassuming creators are drawn into cynical practices that reward ‘gaming the system’.
As we go deeper, YouTube stars fall by the wayside exhausted by the demands to constantly create and ‘feed the beast’ or disappear from the rankings, and Itamar himself is ejected from a YouTube event for asking difficult questions.
While Itamar’s journey takes him into the heart of the YouTube machine, difficult questions emerge about how exactly this platform that was supposed to give everyone a voice, has evolved.
The Secret History of Oxford University
Zing Tsjeng visits Oxford to examine the ongoing controversy as universities across the UK reckon with their unsavoury connections to colonialism. People like slave owners, slave traders and white supremacists have historic connections to some of the UK’s finest universities. They don’t put that bit in the prospectus, but it’s the truth.
Empires of Dirt is a show about Europeans getting rich at the expense of everyone else. Zing Tsjeng uncovers the ugly history of the European colonial empires they don’t teach us in schools. Countries around the world were looted for their treasures, people were oppressed and exploited and European powers relentlessly profited. The far-reaching repercussions of colonialism are all around us, from our financial institutions to the food we have in our cupboards at home – and it’s about time we took notice.
Sugar and Slavery: Britain’s Bitter Legacy
Sugar was once so valuable it was called “white gold.” For centuries, Britain’s sweet tooth drove the world economy and helped build its colonial empire—at the cost of millions of enslaved Africans forced to work on plantations in the West Indies and America. At the center of the trade was Bristol, where men like Edward Colston grew rich from investments.
Zing Tsjeng travels there to uncover the human cost behind our addiction to sugar and reveal the enduring legacy of colonial exploitation, from financial institutions to the food on our tables.
The Price of Fairness
Why do we accept huge levels of inequality and social injustice? This is one of the central questions that The Price of Fairness sets out to answer, beginning with a surprising set of social experiments in Norway, which suggest that our willingness to support systems of inequality is far greater than we are often prepared to admit.
In Atlanta, we take a different look at fairness, from the perspective of a group of capuchin monkeys. Behavioural scientist Sarah Bronson’s work with the monkeys questions the idea that we have an evolutionary tendency towards selfish behaviour. Could it be that the outrage we feel towards systems of inequality have roots in our human need for cooperation?
We visit Costa Rica and Iceland to see how whole economies have been engineered to function with greater ‘fairness’, and the US where systematic racial injustices have tested many of their citizens hopes for a fairer justice system.
From the caste-biased villages of India to the race-sensitive streets of Ferguson, Missouri, this documentary explores our understanding of fairness and what it takes to change an unfair system.
Touching on issues of economic, political, racial and gender inequality, this film offers a thought-provoking and timely look at what fairness really means to us.