Transcript
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Charlie Higson (0:08)
APPLAUSE from Wondery. I'm Charlie Higson and this is the Spy who now Normally, in the world of espionage, everything is secret. We assume stuff is going on, but we don't know very much about it. But in the story we've been looking at in this series, the Poisoning of Sergei Skripal, suddenly this world of spies and assassins bursts into public view. Skripal's extraordinary journey from a high ranking intelligence officer to a target of public intrigue makes him a compelling and cautionary figure. One that became of interest to the journalistic group Bellingcat and sparked their extraordinary investigation. Now, as you've heard us say several times, the realm of the spy is often shrouded in secrecy. And it's often only when old historic files are dusted off and made public that any details are ever revealed. However, Bellingcat and its founder, Elliot Higgins, sought to change that. Elliot and his team used digital tools to uncover truths that often evade traditional media outlets. In this case, they exposed previously unknown details surrounding the suspects involved in Skripal's poisoning. I am very pleased to have Elliot join me in the studio to discuss just how he and his team managed to unveil the truth to the public. Welcome to the Spy who. Elliot, thanks for having me on. Well, thank you so much for being here today to talk about this. Well, I mean, it's quite an extraordinary case, isn't it? I mean, where did your journey begin? When did you first hear about Sergei Skripal?
Elliot Higgins (2:06)
Well, we heard about the initial poisoning as a kind of team at Ballingcat, but at that point there wasn't really much we could work with. So it's kind of interesting, but not something we were getting involved with. It was only months later when it really kind of developed and information was published by the police where we could get involved.
Charlie Higson (2:23)
So you saw it like everyone else when it came on the news?
Elliot Higgins (2:26)
Yeah, absolutely. And we kind of thought, could we investigate this? But at the time there wasn't really much to go on.
Charlie Higson (2:31)
But then things changed. So what did you think became important about it? Where you thought, aha.
Elliot Higgins (2:36)
Well, the identities were published by the British police of the two suspects. And there was a Russian newspaper who managed to get hold of the flight manifest for the flight they flew into the UK from. And that included their passport numbers, which were just a few digits apart. And that. That's kind of the first in we had into the investigation. And because those numbers were just a few digits apart, it was immediately suspicious because that shouldn't be happening for two people who aren't related to each other. And it's that point. One of my colleagues, Christo Grozev, who was a volunteer with Balin Kat at the time, he was very familiar with the Provid market, as they call it in Russia, the black market of data. In Russia, you can buy anything you want, data wise, if you know the right people. It's a country that's a police state and it's also corrupt from top to bottom, which means all that police data can be effectively brought online. So it was almost a gag at the time. It was like, there's no way they're going to be so easy to just have all this data available. So my colleague Christo, using his own money, he thought, I'm going to buy some of this. And it was a small amount. It was like €50 or something. And he got the registration forms for their domestic passports. And we got those forms back a couple of days after, and they were incredibly suspicious.
