WEBVTT 00:00:04.559 --> 00:00:07.360 You're listening to a stage talk titled Digging 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:11.539 for Gold in Import -Export Data. In this episode, 00:00:11.640 --> 00:00:14.160 we're joined by my colleague and Bellingcat research 00:00:14.160 --> 00:00:16.940 consultant, Catherine de Tolly, who brings a 00:00:16.940 --> 00:00:19.399 year's worth of investigative learnings from 00:00:19.399 --> 00:00:22.420 exploring the hidden stories buried within global 00:00:22.420 --> 00:00:26.179 trade databases. Catherine walks us through key 00:00:26.179 --> 00:00:29.300 insights she's uncovered. explains why this kind 00:00:29.300 --> 00:00:31.940 of data can be both powerful and perplexing, 00:00:32.200 --> 00:00:34.240 and breaks down a real investigation to highlight 00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:37.759 common gaps, blind spots, and pitfalls researchers 00:00:37.759 --> 00:00:40.579 are likely to encounter. You can find links to 00:00:40.579 --> 00:00:42.479 all the resources mentioned in the talk in the 00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:45.060 podcast description. This talk was hosted by 00:00:45.060 --> 00:00:47.420 me, Charlotte Ma, on Thursday the 4th of December 00:00:47.420 --> 00:00:57.850 2025 in the BellyCat Discord server. Hi, hello 00:00:57.850 --> 00:01:00.590 all. Thank you for coming to our final Stage 00:01:00.590 --> 00:01:04.269 Talk of 2025. If this is your first time listening, 00:01:04.469 --> 00:01:07.230 you can find all previous episodes on our RSS 00:01:07.230 --> 00:01:10.569 feed or on podcast platforms by searching Stage 00:01:10.569 --> 00:01:12.730 Talks with Bill and Cat. I'm sure one of our 00:01:12.730 --> 00:01:15.950 lovely mods can pop that in the chat. We talk 00:01:15.950 --> 00:01:18.150 about many different topics associated with open 00:01:18.150 --> 00:01:20.430 source research, from covering conflict, mapping 00:01:20.430 --> 00:01:22.730 environmental damage to building ship tracking 00:01:22.730 --> 00:01:26.489 tools. Today, though, we're diving into financial 00:01:26.489 --> 00:01:29.409 investigations. Catherine Gittoli, Bellingat 00:01:29.409 --> 00:01:32.510 Consultant and general amazing researcher is 00:01:32.510 --> 00:01:34.969 here to share her tips and tricks for shifting 00:01:34.969 --> 00:01:38.969 through import and export trade data. From finding 00:01:38.969 --> 00:01:41.549 the elusive information to sorting out what really 00:01:41.549 --> 00:01:44.370 matters in all of the numbers, listening as she 00:01:44.370 --> 00:01:47.069 shares her tried and tested know -how. Catherine 00:01:47.069 --> 00:01:49.349 has worked on major financial investigations 00:01:49.349 --> 00:01:51.590 uncovering who is behind one of the world's largest 00:01:51.590 --> 00:01:54.319 deep fake porn sites, The tracking online adds 00:01:54.319 --> 00:01:56.959 for dangerous drugs to Chinese trade market sites 00:01:56.959 --> 00:01:59.939 and social media. Whilst we talk, you can place 00:01:59.939 --> 00:02:02.299 your questions in the chat accessible on the 00:02:02.299 --> 00:02:04.659 right hand corner of your screen. But please 00:02:04.659 --> 00:02:07.079 remember that this is being audio recorded for 00:02:07.079 --> 00:02:09.599 the podcast. So if you don't want me to mention 00:02:09.599 --> 00:02:12.379 your username, please add that as a note in your 00:02:12.379 --> 00:02:15.419 question. You may have noticed that our cameras 00:02:15.419 --> 00:02:18.520 are off for this particular talk as well. Please 00:02:18.520 --> 00:02:21.180 don't panic. That's on request of the speaker. 00:02:21.479 --> 00:02:24.719 But we will be sharing screens, so just be prepared 00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:28.060 to also follow along as Catherine shares her 00:02:28.060 --> 00:02:33.240 slides. Okay, Catherine, over to you. Fantastic. 00:02:33.500 --> 00:02:36.120 Hello, everyone. It's wonderful to see so many 00:02:36.120 --> 00:02:38.580 people here. I didn't know that so many people 00:02:38.580 --> 00:02:41.340 were going to be interested in this obscure area 00:02:41.340 --> 00:02:44.419 of trade data. And certainly I found when I started 00:02:44.419 --> 00:02:47.520 using trade data that it was quite hard to find 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:51.879 people that knew about it. So I'm hoping that 00:02:51.879 --> 00:02:55.039 some of you might be experts and you're welcome 00:02:55.039 --> 00:02:58.400 to pop notes in the chat while I'm talking if 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:00.699 you think I'm talking rubbish or if something 00:03:00.699 --> 00:03:04.300 isn't clear because this has really been this 00:03:04.300 --> 00:03:07.319 year has been an area of exploration for me and 00:03:07.319 --> 00:03:11.759 as always I'm learning. So I am going to switch 00:03:11.759 --> 00:03:15.319 to sharing my screen and I will start my presentation. 00:03:15.979 --> 00:03:22.080 So I'm talking about what you can dig for in 00:03:22.080 --> 00:03:26.580 trade data. So trade data is really import -export 00:03:26.580 --> 00:03:29.400 data, and it's pretty obvious that when goods 00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:32.900 leave a country or come into a country, then 00:03:32.900 --> 00:03:37.180 data is collected. For instance, because of the 00:03:37.180 --> 00:03:39.580 kind of legal processes around shipping, who's 00:03:39.580 --> 00:03:42.860 liable for what, when, because of customs duties 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:46.099 and taxations, because governments need to know 00:03:46.319 --> 00:03:48.879 You know, when goods have left a country, that 00:03:48.879 --> 00:03:51.539 kind of thing. So that's really what trade data 00:03:51.539 --> 00:03:56.199 is. What I'm showing on my screen now is a generic 00:03:56.199 --> 00:03:58.599 version of what's called a bill of lading. So 00:03:58.599 --> 00:04:02.500 bills of lading have been around for donkey's 00:04:02.500 --> 00:04:06.000 years, many, many, many decades. And they're 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:10.620 really used to capture data related to a particular 00:04:10.620 --> 00:04:15.030 shipment. So there'll be things like the name 00:04:15.030 --> 00:04:18.889 of the exporter, the name of the consignee or 00:04:18.889 --> 00:04:21.649 the importer. There'll be a description of the 00:04:21.649 --> 00:04:25.970 goods, the value of the goods, which country 00:04:25.970 --> 00:04:30.269 the goods are going into. These bills of lading 00:04:30.269 --> 00:04:33.670 are not necessarily standardized between countries, 00:04:33.709 --> 00:04:37.689 but they do tend to capture wherever it's going 00:04:37.689 --> 00:04:43.139 to. So I want to really explain to you like why 00:04:43.139 --> 00:04:45.699 why use it because I felt like a bit of an outlier 00:04:45.699 --> 00:04:48.060 at Bellingcat when I started using trade data 00:04:48.060 --> 00:04:51.980 because nobody else really used it and I thought 00:04:51.980 --> 00:04:55.620 okay well let's look at other examples of investigations 00:04:55.620 --> 00:05:00.639 where trade data has been used. This is one of 00:05:00.639 --> 00:05:03.920 my favorite stories and it really inspired me 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:05.839 and I would encourage you to go and look it up 00:05:05.839 --> 00:05:09.399 like the BBC. What they did was they had a tip 00:05:09.399 --> 00:05:12.879 -off that Indian pharma companies were sending 00:05:12.879 --> 00:05:16.680 a very dangerous opioid across to West Africa. 00:05:17.379 --> 00:05:21.180 And what they did was they looked at trade data, 00:05:21.439 --> 00:05:24.519 so publicly available export data, and they were 00:05:24.519 --> 00:05:27.180 able to find that a particular company, Avio 00:05:27.180 --> 00:05:29.519 Pharmaceuticals, there were other companies, 00:05:30.019 --> 00:05:33.180 but Avio was sending a lot of these drugs across, 00:05:33.480 --> 00:05:37.800 and they then sent an undercover journalist in 00:05:37.800 --> 00:05:41.939 to interview this charming man who explained 00:05:41.939 --> 00:05:45.839 his, let's say, lack of ethics around exporting 00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:49.199 dangerous opioids to West Africa. So the trade 00:05:49.199 --> 00:05:51.560 data here was really useful for them because 00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:55.220 they were able to see, well, who in India is 00:05:55.220 --> 00:05:58.199 exporting these drugs in bulk to West Africa? 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:01.540 And then they could use that information to deepen 00:06:01.540 --> 00:06:05.540 their investigation, to take the next step. Another 00:06:05.540 --> 00:06:09.579 example is the New York Times, and they used 00:06:09.579 --> 00:06:12.160 trade data along with other sets of data. They 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:17.220 had a tip off that Boeing parts were making their 00:06:17.220 --> 00:06:20.240 way to sanctioned Russian airlines, which they 00:06:20.240 --> 00:06:22.920 should not have been. And they were able to use 00:06:22.920 --> 00:06:25.759 trade data and this other data to then track 00:06:25.759 --> 00:06:27.819 where these goods were going, because they were 00:06:27.819 --> 00:06:30.699 obviously not going straight from the US to Russia. 00:06:30.740 --> 00:06:35.060 They were going from the US to the UAE to somewhere 00:06:35.060 --> 00:06:37.899 else. They were using corporate registries, a 00:06:37.899 --> 00:06:39.379 whole bunch of different data, but they were 00:06:39.379 --> 00:06:42.879 able to show that effectively sanctions were 00:06:42.879 --> 00:06:47.959 being bussed with Boeing parts, which is, you 00:06:47.959 --> 00:06:53.899 know, that's pretty big. The next one is using 00:06:53.899 --> 00:06:57.839 another set of data, which is Comtrade. That's 00:06:57.839 --> 00:07:02.149 a UN system that that countries all submit their 00:07:02.149 --> 00:07:05.790 own data to. So they submit their annual trade 00:07:05.790 --> 00:07:08.889 data to the UN, who then makes it available in 00:07:08.889 --> 00:07:12.110 a system called ComTrade. It's different from 00:07:12.110 --> 00:07:14.930 the kind of trade data that I'm talking about 00:07:14.930 --> 00:07:18.089 that I'll show you in a minute. This is more 00:07:18.089 --> 00:07:21.470 categorized data. If you want to be technical, 00:07:21.910 --> 00:07:27.550 it's HS code level data. So you won't be able 00:07:27.550 --> 00:07:30.490 to see specific shipments, but you'll be able 00:07:30.490 --> 00:07:33.970 to see that a whole bunch, in this case, it was 00:07:33.970 --> 00:07:38.050 really cigarettes going into Mali. And they would 00:07:38.050 --> 00:07:41.050 then compare that. They could see on Comtrade 00:07:41.050 --> 00:07:44.069 the volumes that were going into Mali, and they 00:07:44.069 --> 00:07:47.110 compared that to local demand for cigarettes 00:07:47.110 --> 00:07:49.970 and local production of cigarettes. And then 00:07:49.970 --> 00:07:53.649 they could see that a lot of cigarettes were 00:07:53.649 --> 00:07:56.649 being sent from Mali into the Sahel region, and 00:07:56.649 --> 00:08:00.509 this was not legal. But again, they used the 00:08:00.509 --> 00:08:04.629 trade data to help them kind of kick off their 00:08:04.629 --> 00:08:07.550 story and quantify things. But it wasn't the 00:08:07.550 --> 00:08:10.149 end point. And I'll keep saying this, that the 00:08:10.149 --> 00:08:14.149 data is not the story. The trade data helps you 00:08:14.149 --> 00:08:17.930 to get insights into a problem that you're investigating, 00:08:18.029 --> 00:08:20.990 but it's obviously not going to tell you everything. 00:08:22.060 --> 00:08:25.240 So what I'm going to move on to is to talk about 00:08:25.240 --> 00:08:29.420 an investigation that I've been busy with. And 00:08:29.420 --> 00:08:34.379 what happened was I started looking at health 00:08:34.379 --> 00:08:38.259 and Africa, which is obviously a very broad topic, 00:08:38.259 --> 00:08:41.139 but I'm from South Africa and I really wanted 00:08:41.139 --> 00:08:44.139 to find an Africa relevant story. And then I 00:08:44.139 --> 00:08:48.019 happened to read a UN report which was on drug 00:08:48.019 --> 00:08:51.220 trafficking and it mentioned a particular drug. 00:08:52.139 --> 00:08:55.039 that they said was taking over from other drugs 00:08:55.039 --> 00:08:57.600 that were now more heavily regulated by India. 00:08:58.159 --> 00:08:59.820 And I thought, oh, that's pretty interesting. 00:08:59.919 --> 00:09:03.860 They were saying, hmm, it looks like the exporters, 00:09:04.100 --> 00:09:06.539 the Indian companies might be shifting to a different 00:09:06.539 --> 00:09:10.679 drug. And I thought, okay, well, let me have 00:09:10.679 --> 00:09:14.570 a look. So I went and I used free trade data. 00:09:15.009 --> 00:09:17.870 So the providers that make this data available, 00:09:18.470 --> 00:09:21.990 like Import Genius, Export Genius, Volza, there's 00:09:21.990 --> 00:09:25.389 so many of them. Some of them make little bits 00:09:25.389 --> 00:09:29.789 of free data available online. And I was then 00:09:29.789 --> 00:09:32.870 able to, I mean, this was literally manual copy 00:09:32.870 --> 00:09:36.370 and pasting, but it was a way for me to learn 00:09:36.370 --> 00:09:40.149 and see, okay, is what the UN is saying. about 00:09:40.149 --> 00:09:45.269 this particular drug to pentadol. Is it actually 00:09:45.269 --> 00:09:48.389 being exported from India to West Africa? And 00:09:48.389 --> 00:09:50.370 I thought, okay, just use free traded. And then 00:09:50.370 --> 00:09:54.850 I could pick up some patterns. Like I could see 00:09:54.850 --> 00:09:58.090 supplier names and I could dig into them a bit. 00:09:58.210 --> 00:10:01.250 I could see buyer names. I then went and did 00:10:01.250 --> 00:10:02.870 some other research and I was like, oh, well, 00:10:02.870 --> 00:10:05.250 that's very interesting. This drug is not legal 00:10:05.250 --> 00:10:09.220 in Ghana. How can it be? that it's being exported 00:10:09.220 --> 00:10:14.360 from India to Ghana, yet it's not legal. So I 00:10:14.360 --> 00:10:18.659 started with free trade data and manual copy 00:10:18.659 --> 00:10:22.539 and paste. Now, as I mentioned, there are many 00:10:22.539 --> 00:10:26.659 providers. They have vastly different prices. 00:10:27.500 --> 00:10:30.460 So some of the top end ones like Panjiva, I think 00:10:30.460 --> 00:10:35.529 are like $12 ,000 a year. will provide it free. 00:10:35.950 --> 00:10:41.090 Like Import Yeti, if you are doing US data, you 00:10:41.090 --> 00:10:46.470 can get free access to data if you're a researcher, 00:10:46.490 --> 00:10:49.870 like doing an open source journalist. Import 00:10:49.870 --> 00:10:53.529 Genius provides free data as well. We didn't 00:10:53.529 --> 00:10:56.690 know this at the time that I started needing 00:10:56.690 --> 00:11:01.210 data, so we bought for $1 ,000 a year access 00:11:01.210 --> 00:11:06.220 to 52 WMB. So I'm going to just quickly show 00:11:06.220 --> 00:11:09.940 you so that it looks a little bit more real what 00:11:09.940 --> 00:11:14.379 I'm talking about when I talk about using a trade 00:11:14.379 --> 00:11:16.960 data source. You can see this is a pretty standard 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:21.379 kind of UI where you choose your country, you 00:11:21.379 --> 00:11:23.360 choose that you want to export or import data, 00:11:23.679 --> 00:11:27.200 you choose your date period, and then here I 00:11:27.200 --> 00:11:31.019 happen to put the drug that I wanted. You can 00:11:31.019 --> 00:11:35.389 also Search by supplier name or buyer name depending 00:11:35.389 --> 00:11:38.009 on the country because as I said different countries 00:11:38.009 --> 00:11:41.590 provide They capture different data on the bills 00:11:41.590 --> 00:11:45.830 of lading so what I did was I then did searches 00:11:45.830 --> 00:11:52.549 within 52 WMB and I downloaded The data for Depend 00:11:52.549 --> 00:11:56.710 et al and it ended up looking something like 00:11:56.710 --> 00:12:04.080 this So this was where I consolidated to pentadol 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:08.740 exports from India to West African countries. 00:12:10.100 --> 00:12:13.279 And being a bit of a data monster, this made 00:12:13.279 --> 00:12:19.360 me really, really happy because it was, yeah, 00:12:19.360 --> 00:12:21.799 I'll show you my favorite picture. The cookie 00:12:21.799 --> 00:12:25.820 monster got her data. And finally, instead of 00:12:25.820 --> 00:12:28.299 manually copying and pasting into a sheet, which 00:12:28.299 --> 00:12:32.909 was never going to scale, I could actually see 00:12:32.909 --> 00:12:35.230 proper amounts of data and I could start to play 00:12:35.230 --> 00:12:41.570 with it. So as always, and I'm sure many of you 00:12:41.570 --> 00:12:43.970 know this, when you get access to data, it is 00:12:43.970 --> 00:12:46.950 not perfect. That is not the nature of data. 00:12:48.750 --> 00:12:51.889 So I had to do things like clean the data and 00:12:51.889 --> 00:12:56.129 it was quite basic things like standardizing 00:12:56.129 --> 00:12:59.940 names, for instance, company names. Because a 00:12:59.940 --> 00:13:03.220 lot of the data is captured actually manually, 00:13:03.580 --> 00:13:07.019 it's the bills of lading or paper, and then some 00:13:07.019 --> 00:13:10.360 poor clerk at a customs office at a port of exit 00:13:10.360 --> 00:13:13.440 will be capturing the data from this bill of 00:13:13.440 --> 00:13:16.919 lading. They can make mistakes or the bill of 00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:18.820 lading actually, the data could be just written 00:13:18.820 --> 00:13:21.820 wrong. The company name could have a little mistake 00:13:21.820 --> 00:13:25.700 in it. So I had to do things like that to standardize 00:13:25.700 --> 00:13:28.870 names. so that I could then do analysis on the 00:13:28.870 --> 00:13:32.409 data and I'll show you the analysis in a minute. 00:13:32.809 --> 00:13:36.210 I had to do things like, you know, tidying up 00:13:36.210 --> 00:13:40.549 column formats, which sometimes threw my numbers 00:13:40.549 --> 00:13:43.970 off, but it's okay. We all know how to do these 00:13:43.970 --> 00:13:47.029 things if you know anything about data. And what 00:13:47.029 --> 00:13:51.730 it enabled me to then do Was to make statistics 00:13:51.730 --> 00:13:54.610 and this is where the cookie monster gets really 00:13:54.610 --> 00:13:57.049 happy because this is when things get interesting 00:13:57.049 --> 00:14:02.070 Because to me data talks data tells you a story 00:14:02.070 --> 00:14:06.169 if you are able to go in and do some analysis 00:14:06.169 --> 00:14:12.450 and Have a look at what? the data says So I used 00:14:12.450 --> 00:14:15.289 what I think are pretty basic for me. You can 00:14:15.289 --> 00:14:18.700 probably see here. It's a simple sum if I did 00:14:18.700 --> 00:14:23.159 the odd sum ifs with multiple criteria. I used 00:14:23.159 --> 00:14:26.299 count unique, count unique ifs, that kind of 00:14:26.299 --> 00:14:29.720 thing. So really not rocket science. It might 00:14:29.720 --> 00:14:32.179 be that some kind of AI could have done this 00:14:32.179 --> 00:14:34.940 for me. I'm just kind of a little bit traditional 00:14:34.940 --> 00:14:37.539 with my data and I had to do it myself because 00:14:37.539 --> 00:14:40.659 I sometimes found as I applied my formula and 00:14:40.659 --> 00:14:42.460 thought about how I was going to do things that 00:14:42.460 --> 00:14:46.600 I would get other ideas and so on. One day, I 00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:50.059 will get my head around using AI for data analysis. 00:14:51.600 --> 00:14:54.559 So when I applied my formula to the data that 00:14:54.559 --> 00:14:57.539 I downloaded and consolidated, the story started 00:14:57.539 --> 00:15:01.000 to emerge. So for instance, you can see here 00:15:01.000 --> 00:15:04.960 that, okay, looking at the percentages, over 00:15:04.960 --> 00:15:09.600 80 % of the exports of this particular opioid 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:14.330 from India to West Africa, was going to Ghana 00:15:14.330 --> 00:15:17.210 and Sierra Leone. Those were noted down as the 00:15:17.210 --> 00:15:20.409 destination countries. So that's interesting. 00:15:21.029 --> 00:15:24.269 The data is then telling you, okay, you might 00:15:24.269 --> 00:15:27.090 really want to look at Ghana and Sierra Leone, 00:15:27.250 --> 00:15:29.730 because those are kind of two of the inadvertent 00:15:29.730 --> 00:15:36.309 commas, like problem countries. When I did sums 00:15:36.309 --> 00:15:40.269 for the top exporters, you can see here that 00:15:40.440 --> 00:15:44.279 Okay, there are some bigger exporters we decided 00:15:44.279 --> 00:15:48.940 to highlight the top three Because of you know, 00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:51.299 there were so many different exporters from India 00:15:51.299 --> 00:15:53.200 that I wasn't gonna go through and look at all 00:15:53.200 --> 00:15:55.279 of them So we said, okay, let's look at the top 00:15:55.279 --> 00:15:59.840 three and it was at least again The data tells 00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:05.799 you I feel where to go and look next I hope that 00:16:05.799 --> 00:16:10.690 makes sense So that's yeah, that's really What 00:16:10.690 --> 00:16:12.970 I did with the little cookie monster did with 00:16:12.970 --> 00:16:17.850 the data was downloaded, cleaned, and analyzed. 00:16:18.529 --> 00:16:22.549 And again, the data is not the story. The data 00:16:22.549 --> 00:16:26.049 is telling you where to go in your story. It's 00:16:26.049 --> 00:16:29.309 suggesting to you areas that you might want to 00:16:29.309 --> 00:16:33.909 investigate next, but it's not the whole story. 00:16:34.409 --> 00:16:37.190 I do just want to point out something else and 00:16:37.190 --> 00:16:39.789 this is where we start getting into the mess 00:16:39.789 --> 00:16:46.730 of trade data. Where I was using 52 WMB data 00:16:46.730 --> 00:16:50.830 and then we got access. We found out that in 00:16:50.830 --> 00:16:54.029 fact we could get free access from Import Genius. 00:16:54.750 --> 00:16:57.990 So Import Genius gave us access to another data 00:16:57.990 --> 00:17:01.429 set and you'll see that there are some pretty 00:17:01.429 --> 00:17:05.119 different numbers here. And I got pretty nervous. 00:17:05.460 --> 00:17:09.059 Like, you can see here, this column is my calculated 00:17:09.059 --> 00:17:13.480 differences between Import Genius's data and 00:17:13.480 --> 00:17:17.420 52WMB's data. And at that point, I got pretty 00:17:17.420 --> 00:17:20.119 scared. And our editor also got pretty scared 00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:22.059 because he was like, wait a second, you can't 00:17:22.059 --> 00:17:24.400 keep going with this story. This data is terrible. 00:17:27.170 --> 00:17:29.849 I really then had to look into, well, how can 00:17:29.849 --> 00:17:32.869 this be? I mean, part of me instinctually knows 00:17:32.869 --> 00:17:36.529 that when you're dealing with databases with 00:17:36.529 --> 00:17:39.269 millions, if not billions of records, if you 00:17:39.269 --> 00:17:42.289 think of all of the shipments globally over, 00:17:42.289 --> 00:17:45.910 I don't know how many years, that's a lot of 00:17:45.910 --> 00:17:50.990 data. Things are going to get chaotic because 00:17:50.990 --> 00:17:53.450 data is never perfect. I think that's the nature 00:17:53.450 --> 00:17:56.000 of data. But also, I had to really look into, 00:17:56.279 --> 00:17:58.660 well, how can it be that I've got two different 00:17:58.660 --> 00:18:03.279 sources with different numbers? And then luckily, 00:18:03.500 --> 00:18:06.680 I made contact with William, who is the head 00:18:06.680 --> 00:18:10.720 of research at ImportGenius. And he was explaining 00:18:10.720 --> 00:18:13.079 to me that, look, the nature of this data is 00:18:13.079 --> 00:18:16.220 that it's imperfect. And what you need to do 00:18:16.220 --> 00:18:19.160 is you need to make sure that the data is basically 00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:22.390 going in the same direction. So if, for instance, 00:18:22.609 --> 00:18:25.490 52WMB had been showing me all these numbers, 00:18:25.690 --> 00:18:30.210 yet import genius had nothing or very, very little, 00:18:30.490 --> 00:18:33.829 then there's likely to be a problem and I need 00:18:33.829 --> 00:18:37.970 to look into it further. So these pieces of data 00:18:37.970 --> 00:18:42.150 were different enough, but they weren't such 00:18:42.150 --> 00:18:44.990 that one needed to say, okay, this has to stop. 00:18:45.650 --> 00:18:48.289 So to be honest, I'm still a little bit uncomfortable 00:18:48.289 --> 00:18:53.150 with this, but Looking into it further, it became 00:18:53.150 --> 00:18:56.970 clear that this is just the nature of the data. 00:18:57.250 --> 00:18:59.650 And what I'm going to do now is actually take 00:18:59.650 --> 00:19:03.250 a step back and say, well, where does this data 00:19:03.250 --> 00:19:06.430 come from? So I've shown you a picture of a bill 00:19:06.430 --> 00:19:10.470 of lading, and basically the government bodies, 00:19:10.930 --> 00:19:14.690 like customs offices, they capture the data in 00:19:14.690 --> 00:19:19.089 the bills of lading into some kind of IT system. 00:19:19.309 --> 00:19:22.069 And in a lot of countries in the world, that 00:19:22.069 --> 00:19:25.170 data is still, the bills of lading are still 00:19:25.170 --> 00:19:28.150 paper. They're not digital. India has actually 00:19:28.150 --> 00:19:30.869 gone quite a long way to digitizing. I think 00:19:30.869 --> 00:19:34.430 Singapore has completely digitized. The US is 00:19:34.430 --> 00:19:37.490 starting to digitize at various, and I think 00:19:37.490 --> 00:19:41.069 it's at various ports. There are other countries, 00:19:41.130 --> 00:19:44.890 the US has a, sorry, the EU has a system. I don't 00:19:44.890 --> 00:19:49.880 know how well it's been implemented. The UN also 00:19:49.880 --> 00:19:53.480 has a system that they make available to various 00:19:53.480 --> 00:19:56.000 countries where it has been implemented. But 00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:59.619 basically what I'm saying is that the data is 00:19:59.619 --> 00:20:02.599 in kind of different formats, different databases 00:20:02.599 --> 00:20:07.779 for different places. Then what happens is that 00:20:07.779 --> 00:20:11.140 online trade data providers buy it as well as 00:20:11.140 --> 00:20:13.960 brokers. So the online data trade data providers 00:20:13.960 --> 00:20:18.329 are like Import genius or volsor or you know, 00:20:18.529 --> 00:20:21.369 any of those other providers penjiva, etc but 00:20:21.369 --> 00:20:26.150 then there are also these brokers and those brokers 00:20:26.150 --> 00:20:28.650 and providers they combine the sources where 00:20:28.650 --> 00:20:30.950 they get all the data they clean and present 00:20:30.950 --> 00:20:35.589 it online and this is where I used AI was to 00:20:35.589 --> 00:20:39.089 Try and present some of what I was perceiving 00:20:39.089 --> 00:20:42.519 to be the chaos around trade data So you can 00:20:42.519 --> 00:20:44.299 see at the top here that there are different 00:20:44.299 --> 00:20:46.819 data sources, and those data sources will be 00:20:46.819 --> 00:20:49.900 like a particular port office, or a particular 00:20:49.900 --> 00:20:53.660 country, or a particular province, their trade 00:20:53.660 --> 00:20:58.000 data. They will then sell this to data brokers. 00:20:58.140 --> 00:21:00.640 These are often regional data brokers, like you 00:21:00.640 --> 00:21:04.240 get Asian data brokers, American data brokers, 00:21:04.420 --> 00:21:08.119 et cetera. And then you get the online data providers 00:21:08.119 --> 00:21:12.420 like Penjiva, Import Genius, et cetera. who either 00:21:12.420 --> 00:21:15.680 get the data from data brokers or sometimes they 00:21:15.680 --> 00:21:19.640 buy it from the original sources as well. Now 00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:23.559 at each of these stages, the data gets cleaned 00:21:23.559 --> 00:21:27.400 and it gets put into databases. And to me that 00:21:27.400 --> 00:21:29.859 partially explains why there are differences 00:21:29.859 --> 00:21:32.500 and I could see it. And when I say differences, 00:21:32.680 --> 00:21:35.980 I mean differences between sources. I could see 00:21:36.220 --> 00:21:39.279 that sometimes like one provider or one source 00:21:39.279 --> 00:21:42.000 would round numbers and another wouldn't run 00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:45.480 numbers. Or they use different exchange rates, 00:21:45.500 --> 00:21:48.759 for instance, when they convert data into US 00:21:48.759 --> 00:21:51.599 dollars. So there's a whole bunch of things going 00:21:51.599 --> 00:21:54.119 on with the data, which I think explains well 00:21:54.119 --> 00:21:58.680 enough that there's going to be differences between 00:21:58.680 --> 00:22:03.259 your sources. But I will say that I wouldn't 00:22:03.660 --> 00:22:08.920 We've been quite hesitant to quote specific numbers. 00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:13.220 And William of Import Genius did say to me that, 00:22:13.380 --> 00:22:15.660 look, if you are going to write a story based 00:22:15.660 --> 00:22:19.019 on one trade that you can see in the shipping 00:22:19.019 --> 00:22:22.140 data, he really recommends that you go and you 00:22:22.140 --> 00:22:26.160 try and corroborate that one trade somehow through 00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:29.480 interviews, through other means. I'm not sure 00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:33.920 what. To make sure that that trade did happen 00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:37.220 You know when you aggregate that problem isn't 00:22:37.220 --> 00:22:39.559 as it's not as much of a problem But when you're 00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:41.339 looking at a single trade you're gonna really 00:22:41.339 --> 00:22:44.220 need to be much more careful because of the kind 00:22:44.220 --> 00:22:47.220 of what I'm showing here the sort of chaotic 00:22:47.220 --> 00:22:52.759 nature of things So in the summary I went just 00:22:52.759 --> 00:22:55.619 by the way on my story We're still busy writing 00:22:55.619 --> 00:22:58.759 it and I think it'll come out probably in early 00:22:58.759 --> 00:23:03.210 January But in my story, the trade data was really 00:23:03.210 --> 00:23:06.190 key because it told us where to look. We could 00:23:06.190 --> 00:23:09.490 see that the trade was happening, that huge quantities 00:23:09.490 --> 00:23:12.589 of this opioid that is not legal in West African 00:23:12.589 --> 00:23:18.410 countries are being exported from India. And 00:23:18.410 --> 00:23:21.650 we could see that it was a whole range of countries 00:23:21.650 --> 00:23:24.970 that were receiving it. It was actually great. 00:23:25.009 --> 00:23:28.950 I had a conversation with the journalist who 00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:32.420 was one of the lead researchers on that fantastic 00:23:32.420 --> 00:23:35.940 story that I showed you from the BBC. And she 00:23:35.940 --> 00:23:37.960 told me that when she was writing her story, 00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:40.079 she was looking at the trade data and she was 00:23:40.079 --> 00:23:43.160 researching and she thought, I'm going crazy. 00:23:43.500 --> 00:23:46.299 I must be going crazy. This can't be happening. 00:23:46.839 --> 00:23:50.240 How can it be that an opioid that is not legal 00:23:50.240 --> 00:23:54.279 in West Africa is being exported from India to 00:23:54.279 --> 00:23:57.160 West Africa and yet it's being shown in the trade 00:23:57.160 --> 00:24:00.279 data? And it was really good to hear that from 00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:03.859 another researcher from the BBC, because I've 00:24:03.859 --> 00:24:06.920 also been feeling like I must be nuts. How can 00:24:06.920 --> 00:24:10.059 this be happening? But it is being shown in the 00:24:10.059 --> 00:24:16.279 data. So in summary, as I said, trade data, records 00:24:16.279 --> 00:24:19.279 and imports and exports, it's messy, but you 00:24:19.279 --> 00:24:24.039 can find things in there. There are some free 00:24:24.039 --> 00:24:29.460 sources. Import Genius will give you, if you 00:24:29.460 --> 00:24:32.380 are like an open source or you're a journalist, 00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:35.200 they will give you access. They won't just give 00:24:35.200 --> 00:24:37.299 you access to the whole database. They tend to 00:24:37.299 --> 00:24:39.240 want to narrow it down a bit, which I understand, 00:24:39.319 --> 00:24:42.079 but it's great and they're very helpful. It can 00:24:42.079 --> 00:24:45.380 be the start of a story and it can inform your 00:24:45.380 --> 00:24:47.380 story, but you're going to have to clean, you're 00:24:47.380 --> 00:24:51.200 going to have to analyze, but that can be really, 00:24:51.200 --> 00:24:55.809 really useful in investigations. If you want 00:24:55.809 --> 00:24:59.470 to talk some more, please contact me. As I said 00:24:59.470 --> 00:25:02.009 at the beginning of the talk, I'm learning. I'm 00:25:02.009 --> 00:25:06.289 not an expert. I'm learning about this. I found 00:25:06.289 --> 00:25:09.670 it really useful in my investigation, but I know 00:25:09.670 --> 00:25:12.210 that there are people out there who probably 00:25:12.210 --> 00:25:17.690 know a lot more than me. So yeah, there's my 00:25:17.690 --> 00:25:20.789 email, Katherine at consultant .pellingcat .com. 00:25:21.289 --> 00:25:25.789 And please get hold of me if you'd like. Thank 00:25:25.789 --> 00:25:29.470 you, Catherine. And done. That was amazing. Thank 00:25:29.470 --> 00:25:33.069 you. One, thank you so much for taking us through 00:25:33.069 --> 00:25:36.170 the mess that is trade data. And two, thank you 00:25:36.170 --> 00:25:40.210 for using a live example as well to really demonstrate 00:25:40.210 --> 00:25:42.710 the point. We've got a few questions already 00:25:42.710 --> 00:25:45.609 in. I wanted to first ask you, because you started 00:25:45.609 --> 00:25:48.009 to clarify it a little bit. People were asking, 00:25:48.269 --> 00:25:50.309 well, how do we know that this data is real, 00:25:50.549 --> 00:25:53.029 like the platform? which is providing it, is 00:25:53.029 --> 00:25:55.089 how to trust it. You started to explain that 00:25:55.089 --> 00:25:58.430 and how you came to the same kind of realization. 00:25:59.009 --> 00:26:01.130 But how do you first come across those platforms? 00:26:01.210 --> 00:26:04.089 How do you know that what you're on, for example, 00:26:04.230 --> 00:26:08.430 52 WMB, is a legitimate trade platform and not 00:26:08.430 --> 00:26:10.710 something where there's just a bunch of numbers? 00:26:11.930 --> 00:26:14.990 How did you initially come across those platforms 00:26:14.990 --> 00:26:19.640 first? Yeah, it's a good question. You know, 00:26:19.660 --> 00:26:24.559 we wanted to use somebody fancy like Pangeva 00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:30.240 or Lloyd's S &P, but we just, we could not afford 00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:35.980 it. So we had to go kind of in inverted commas 00:26:35.980 --> 00:26:38.380 the cheap route. We just, we didn't have a choice. 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:43.819 And then when we got access to the import genius 00:26:43.819 --> 00:26:46.900 data, that showed us that even though the numbers 00:26:46.900 --> 00:26:49.039 weren't exactly the same, and sometimes they 00:26:49.039 --> 00:26:53.400 differ quite a bit, that the data was essentially 00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:56.980 saying the same thing. So I think that if at 00:26:56.980 --> 00:27:00.619 all possible, you try and get two sources. And 00:27:00.619 --> 00:27:04.960 I don't think it's in anybody's interests to 00:27:04.960 --> 00:27:08.039 just make up a whole bunch of trade data and 00:27:08.039 --> 00:27:11.180 sell it. Because somebody is going to figure 00:27:11.180 --> 00:27:14.519 out that you're just selling rubbish Like there's 00:27:14.519 --> 00:27:17.240 there's too many fields in there and there's 00:27:17.240 --> 00:27:20.579 too much data. I I can't see how anybody would 00:27:20.579 --> 00:27:23.960 just make it up Even though it's it's imperfect 00:27:23.960 --> 00:27:27.240 But as I said two sources I think is a is a really 00:27:27.240 --> 00:27:29.259 good idea and it could be that for the second 00:27:29.259 --> 00:27:33.039 source You use those free the free data like 00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.140 I was showing you which was where I started you 00:27:35.140 --> 00:27:38.710 might have to do that Yeah, I think for many 00:27:38.710 --> 00:27:42.369 people listening who tend to be freelancers or 00:27:42.369 --> 00:27:45.650 people who are working in research as side jobs, 00:27:45.789 --> 00:27:47.990 that's something that probably will be the step 00:27:47.990 --> 00:27:53.589 to take. Tied to that, along the same lines, 00:27:53.890 --> 00:27:56.109 somebody asked about the bill of lading and whether 00:27:56.109 --> 00:27:58.450 it was scanned. You mentioned that in some countries 00:27:58.450 --> 00:28:01.829 it's digital and some countries it's not. Within 00:28:01.829 --> 00:28:04.230 the trade databases, do you have access to the 00:28:04.230 --> 00:28:07.349 bill of lading or is it just something that uh, 00:28:07.630 --> 00:28:10.869 you have to, uh, accept exists in the background 00:28:10.869 --> 00:28:15.710 and you don't actually see it. You have to, you 00:28:15.710 --> 00:28:17.849 kind of have to accept that it exists. Can I 00:28:17.849 --> 00:28:23.450 share my screen again quickly? Okay. So let me 00:28:23.450 --> 00:28:27.589 do that. So I'm just going to show you in 52WMB, 00:28:27.650 --> 00:28:31.630 you don't get to see the original bill of lading. 00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:35.539 But for instance here, when I'm clicking on one 00:28:35.539 --> 00:28:41.920 particular shipment, it's showing me the different 00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:44.880 fields that I'll see in the bill of lading. But 00:28:44.880 --> 00:28:50.019 this is basically what you'll see when you download 00:28:50.019 --> 00:28:53.259 the data. So you'll see this same data in sheet 00:28:53.259 --> 00:28:57.599 form, which is what I got when I consolidated 00:28:57.599 --> 00:29:00.440 everything into this sheet. You'll basically 00:29:00.440 --> 00:29:03.980 see that when you download, but you'll see it 00:29:03.980 --> 00:29:08.819 all consolidated in a CSV or an XLS. You'll see 00:29:08.819 --> 00:29:13.000 bill of lading IDs, although I found some providers 00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:16.380 give you that, some don't, but I don't know of 00:29:16.380 --> 00:29:20.119 any place where you can go and double check bill 00:29:20.119 --> 00:29:25.859 of lading IDs against some sort of central place 00:29:25.859 --> 00:29:28.500 where you can check the bill of lading IDs. I 00:29:28.500 --> 00:29:31.779 saw one mention, and I honestly can't remember 00:29:31.779 --> 00:29:35.519 which provider it was. I saw one that said that 00:29:35.519 --> 00:29:40.420 they provide the original bill of lading. Yeah, 00:29:40.619 --> 00:29:43.079 one of them said that. I know that Import Genius 00:29:43.079 --> 00:29:50.079 said to me that in the US, where you had to digitize, 00:29:50.559 --> 00:29:52.720 that they were actually sending where the data 00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:54.799 wasn't digitized yet, where still everything 00:29:54.799 --> 00:29:58.000 was in paper. that they were actually sending 00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:02.220 their staff to the port with a scanner to scan 00:30:02.220 --> 00:30:04.640 bills of lading, which sounds like the worst 00:30:04.640 --> 00:30:26.390 job in the world, but somebody's doing it. After 00:30:26.390 --> 00:30:29.410 the fact, you can probably find an example of 00:30:29.410 --> 00:30:33.069 a bill of lading online or I'll attach an image 00:30:33.069 --> 00:30:39.109 example to the podcast description. Regarding 00:30:39.109 --> 00:30:40.769 the bill of lading, that's a legal document, 00:30:41.069 --> 00:30:43.690 right? Do you often find, you mentioned that 00:30:43.690 --> 00:30:47.529 sometimes the bill ID isn't there. Is that just 00:30:47.529 --> 00:30:49.869 based on the database's preferences or do you 00:30:49.869 --> 00:30:52.509 often find that sometimes the bill of lading 00:30:52.509 --> 00:30:55.640 isn't filled out? completely and there's data 00:30:55.640 --> 00:31:00.539 gaps there. No, I mean, look, I'm not an expert 00:31:00.539 --> 00:31:04.079 to say whether bills of lading ever don't have 00:31:04.079 --> 00:31:06.980 IDs. I'm sure they must have to have an ID, but 00:31:06.980 --> 00:31:11.579 I found that different providers would provide 00:31:11.579 --> 00:31:15.460 the bill of lading ID or not. And like 52WMB, 00:31:15.519 --> 00:31:18.180 when you download the data, in fact, the bill 00:31:18.180 --> 00:31:20.480 of lading ID isn't there, but the declaration 00:31:20.480 --> 00:31:23.480 number is there. I don't know why. I don't know 00:31:23.480 --> 00:31:28.420 what the declaration number is. But yeah, there 00:31:28.420 --> 00:31:30.759 are weird things going on that I don't really 00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:35.140 understand. William from Import Genius did at 00:31:35.140 --> 00:31:37.539 one point say to me, well, you know, to analyze 00:31:37.539 --> 00:31:40.220 trade data, it really helps if you've got like 00:31:40.220 --> 00:31:42.940 the level of knowledge of a customs officer, 00:31:42.940 --> 00:31:46.539 which Quite obviously I don't have, but I've 00:31:46.539 --> 00:31:50.279 literally gone and read the user manual of the 00:31:50.279 --> 00:31:53.000 EDI system, which is the system that they use 00:31:53.000 --> 00:31:55.420 in India because they've gone quite far into 00:31:55.420 --> 00:31:58.319 digitizing. So that system is used at some customs 00:31:58.319 --> 00:32:00.640 houses and I've read that user manual because 00:32:00.640 --> 00:32:03.880 I was just trying to understand the data that 00:32:03.880 --> 00:32:08.339 I'm using that the Indian port authorities then 00:32:08.339 --> 00:32:12.019 sell on to brokers, on to data providers. Where 00:32:12.019 --> 00:32:14.339 is it being captured? What does the system look 00:32:14.339 --> 00:32:16.660 like where this data is being captured? Just 00:32:16.660 --> 00:32:19.759 to try and make myself feel a little bit more 00:32:19.759 --> 00:32:22.359 reassured about what it was that I was looking 00:32:22.359 --> 00:32:27.400 at. Yeah, I had a similar issue when I looked 00:32:27.400 --> 00:32:30.200 into tobacco companies and was investigating 00:32:30.200 --> 00:32:33.455 that. A lot of their reports used kind of... 00:32:34.570 --> 00:32:38.210 uh, lexicon and, um, words that weren't familiar 00:32:38.210 --> 00:32:40.710 to me from outside of the industry. So I ended 00:32:40.710 --> 00:32:43.349 up reading through their entire catalog of company 00:32:43.349 --> 00:32:47.650 reports and company training, so that I could 00:32:47.650 --> 00:32:50.670 understand the vague references in their data, 00:32:50.670 --> 00:32:56.009 um, which, you know, sometimes you have to do, 00:32:56.009 --> 00:33:01.529 um, and just commit to it. Um, G Clairf asks, 00:33:01.589 --> 00:33:05.759 and this Fabian, sorry, go ahead. Oh no, I just 00:33:05.759 --> 00:33:08.039 wanted to mention that for any of the other data 00:33:08.039 --> 00:33:11.599 heads out there, I dreamt of finding a data provider 00:33:11.599 --> 00:33:15.160 that had a data dictionary for their data, which 00:33:15.160 --> 00:33:17.759 then showed you, you know, what are the definitions 00:33:17.759 --> 00:33:20.000 for each field? What's the field format? And 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.000 I couldn't find that anywhere. And that really 00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:26.720 frustrates me because I feel like as a data provider, 00:33:26.759 --> 00:33:30.619 they should do basic things like, you know, at 00:33:30.619 --> 00:33:33.779 least explain. what I should expect to find in 00:33:33.779 --> 00:33:36.980 the data. But anyway, that's my dream. I didn't 00:33:36.980 --> 00:33:42.240 find it. If anyone's listening, maybe that's 00:33:42.240 --> 00:33:45.500 a task to do. Just for Catherine's sanity, at 00:33:45.500 --> 00:33:51.420 least. Gclef asked, does the shipping data show 00:33:51.420 --> 00:33:53.880 the ship carrying the goods? I'd be curious to 00:33:53.880 --> 00:33:55.940 see if the ship actually went to where it claimed 00:33:55.940 --> 00:33:58.200 or ended up somewhere else. Is that kind of data 00:33:58.200 --> 00:34:04.029 available? I didn't see that. Sorry, I'm interrupting. 00:34:04.289 --> 00:34:06.769 I didn't see that anywhere. It would have been 00:34:06.769 --> 00:34:10.250 lovely. Didn't see that. That's a shame, because 00:34:10.250 --> 00:34:13.789 our ship tracking friends in the server would 00:34:13.789 --> 00:34:19.489 have loved that. Yeah, I just want to add a little 00:34:19.489 --> 00:34:22.010 story there and it's kind of tangentially related. 00:34:22.250 --> 00:34:25.210 I was talking with a Ghanaian pharmacist and 00:34:25.210 --> 00:34:27.690 I was telling him about the data and he was saying 00:34:27.690 --> 00:34:30.010 to me, well, what are the shipping dates? Give 00:34:30.010 --> 00:34:33.010 me the most recent dates that you're seeing because 00:34:33.010 --> 00:34:37.489 he knew how long shipments took from India to 00:34:37.489 --> 00:34:40.920 Ghana. And then I told him some of the most recent 00:34:40.920 --> 00:34:43.719 shipments of Tabentadol, and he was like, okay, 00:34:43.960 --> 00:34:46.500 great, that's good. Okay, I'm going to tell the 00:34:46.500 --> 00:34:48.739 authorities that they need to look out for that 00:34:48.739 --> 00:34:51.239 shipment. And that didn't include the shipper 00:34:51.239 --> 00:34:53.880 name, but he could at least tell them that goods 00:34:53.880 --> 00:34:56.619 had left, a certain quantity of goods had left 00:34:56.619 --> 00:34:59.960 India on a particular day and that they needed 00:34:59.960 --> 00:35:02.019 to look out for these drugs. And I can't tell 00:35:02.019 --> 00:35:04.559 you if anything ever came of that, but I found 00:35:04.559 --> 00:35:07.239 it quite an interesting use case for the data. 00:35:08.889 --> 00:35:12.309 Yeah. Yeah, that is interesting. Quite a few 00:35:12.309 --> 00:35:17.010 people in the chat have been asking, quite surprised, 00:35:17.250 --> 00:35:20.610 that the trade data implicitly identifies a drug 00:35:20.610 --> 00:35:22.590 that's being shipped to a location where it is 00:35:22.590 --> 00:35:26.269 illegal to do so. That is 100 % as the case, 00:35:26.389 --> 00:35:31.070 so my mind. totally blew my mind, it made no 00:35:31.070 --> 00:35:33.289 sense, but that's exactly what the BBC journalist 00:35:33.289 --> 00:35:36.010 was saying. She said she thought she was going 00:35:36.010 --> 00:35:39.329 nuts, that there must be something that she's 00:35:39.329 --> 00:35:44.090 missing. With the drug that I've been looking 00:35:44.090 --> 00:35:47.469 into to pentadol, as I said, it is legal in some 00:35:47.469 --> 00:35:50.590 places, and it's legal in India, for instance, 00:35:50.670 --> 00:35:53.690 but it's legal up to, in its instant release 00:35:53.690 --> 00:35:58.469 dose, it's legal up to 100 milligrams. But in 00:35:58.469 --> 00:36:02.010 the trade data, the dosages being sent over were 00:36:02.010 --> 00:36:05.889 like 200, 250, 300 milligrams. So those were 00:36:05.889 --> 00:36:09.010 even dosages that weren't allowed in India. And 00:36:09.010 --> 00:36:12.889 it says that in the product description. So I 00:36:12.889 --> 00:36:16.710 can't explain to you why this is all being disclosed 00:36:16.710 --> 00:36:22.469 in the trade data, but it's there. And it's with 00:36:22.469 --> 00:36:27.469 the BBC story. In fact, that combination of Tepentadol 00:36:27.469 --> 00:36:31.550 and Caesopridol, it wasn't legal anywhere in 00:36:31.550 --> 00:36:35.010 the world. Yet, if you looked at the trade data, 00:36:35.550 --> 00:36:39.489 all of that was in the data. Someone's asked 00:36:39.489 --> 00:36:42.269 for a link to the BBC story. I'll pop it in the 00:36:42.269 --> 00:36:45.469 chat in a second. How did no one else sound the 00:36:45.469 --> 00:36:47.650 alarm bells on this if it's so blatantly visible 00:36:47.650 --> 00:36:50.150 that it's illegal? Some of the comments coming 00:36:50.150 --> 00:36:53.889 through. Yeah, it's a surprising story. Hopefully 00:36:53.889 --> 00:36:56.789 Catherine gets the opportunity to write it up. 00:36:59.190 --> 00:37:03.269 Yeah, I don't know. I've really had to delve 00:37:03.269 --> 00:37:07.510 deep into the Indian regulatory environment because 00:37:07.510 --> 00:37:11.170 there could be some little regulatory glitch 00:37:11.170 --> 00:37:13.750 that is allowing this to happen. It should not 00:37:13.750 --> 00:37:16.710 happen. Drugs should not be sent to countries 00:37:16.710 --> 00:37:19.909 where they're not registered. But there could 00:37:19.909 --> 00:37:22.670 be some kind of glitch in the system where we're 00:37:22.670 --> 00:37:26.690 not sure. I wanted to ask, because you mentioned 00:37:26.690 --> 00:37:29.329 that obviously it's legal in some countries and 00:37:29.329 --> 00:37:31.510 others and the trade databases, let's just go 00:37:31.510 --> 00:37:34.909 back to away from the story itself a little bit. 00:37:36.969 --> 00:37:40.730 Does that cover all global trade or are there 00:37:40.730 --> 00:37:43.510 some restrictions and are countries comparable 00:37:43.510 --> 00:37:45.489 as well? As you mentioned, lots of different 00:37:45.489 --> 00:37:48.670 countries have different ways of filing things, 00:37:49.510 --> 00:37:52.909 are the country trade information also comparable? 00:37:53.050 --> 00:37:54.949 You mentioned different currencies, for example, 00:37:54.969 --> 00:37:58.789 and things like that to be aware of. Yeah, look, 00:37:59.150 --> 00:38:02.929 I will start by saying that I've focused very 00:38:02.929 --> 00:38:09.190 heavily on India, so I know India the best. What 00:38:09.190 --> 00:38:11.050 I have found though, looking at the different 00:38:11.050 --> 00:38:13.650 data providers, is that their coverage of countries 00:38:13.650 --> 00:38:20.590 is very different. And a lot of them provide 00:38:20.590 --> 00:38:24.030 what's called mirror data. So mirror data is 00:38:24.030 --> 00:38:27.429 where they can't buy the actual, from the source, 00:38:27.630 --> 00:38:30.289 the trade data. So then what they do is they 00:38:30.289 --> 00:38:33.309 say, okay, we can't get the trade, you know, 00:38:33.389 --> 00:38:35.510 we can't get the trade data for Western Sahara. 00:38:35.909 --> 00:38:37.289 But what we're going to do is we're going to 00:38:37.289 --> 00:38:39.530 look at all the other countries for which we 00:38:39.530 --> 00:38:42.670 have data and look at where they've exported 00:38:42.670 --> 00:38:45.849 to Western Sahara. or where they've received 00:38:45.849 --> 00:38:49.210 goods from Western Sahara. And then they kind 00:38:49.210 --> 00:38:53.429 of build up the data that way. But you won't 00:38:53.429 --> 00:38:57.889 find any provider that can give you every country's 00:38:57.889 --> 00:39:00.489 data. It just doesn't happen. And in fact, not 00:39:00.489 --> 00:39:03.929 all of them disclose it. I saw an article the 00:39:03.929 --> 00:39:06.010 other day, actually by one of the trade data 00:39:06.010 --> 00:39:09.210 providers, who said that 200 countries make their 00:39:09.210 --> 00:39:12.780 trade data available. But I have not. found a 00:39:12.780 --> 00:39:15.079 provider that provides all of that data. And 00:39:15.079 --> 00:39:17.360 certainly, Import Genius says that they make 00:39:17.360 --> 00:39:21.260 available all of the data that actually can be 00:39:21.260 --> 00:39:24.219 put online that they could get their hands on. 00:39:24.659 --> 00:39:29.000 So to be honest, I don't know which countries 00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:32.239 make available and which data is good enough 00:39:32.239 --> 00:39:34.699 quality to be made available. But all you can 00:39:34.699 --> 00:39:36.659 do is look at the different providers and see 00:39:36.659 --> 00:39:41.679 which countries they cover. We've got somebody 00:39:41.679 --> 00:39:46.219 in the chat said, our team traced the dark fleet 00:39:46.219 --> 00:39:49.139 of oil and built an AI for compliance for this 00:39:49.139 --> 00:39:51.239 to support Ukraine. The architecture of how the 00:39:51.239 --> 00:39:53.820 routes were set up in the crypto systems connecting 00:39:53.820 --> 00:39:57.260 to port authority was fascinating. And then someone 00:39:57.260 --> 00:39:59.539 else has put, I work in international trade and 00:39:59.539 --> 00:40:02.280 from my experience, the custom officers do not 00:40:02.280 --> 00:40:04.340 necessarily check whether something is legal 00:40:04.340 --> 00:40:06.920 to import. But they rather focus on the accuracy 00:40:06.920 --> 00:40:08.940 of the documents, like whether the actual weight 00:40:08.940 --> 00:40:11.820 matches the documents and whether all items are 00:40:11.820 --> 00:40:14.320 declared properly. However, this is limited to 00:40:14.320 --> 00:40:16.099 Eastern Europe. This is something that we found 00:40:16.099 --> 00:40:20.639 when looking at the sanctions on Russian ships 00:40:20.639 --> 00:40:23.480 out of occupied Crimea when we were covering 00:40:23.480 --> 00:40:26.400 the grain shipping. We also found this where 00:40:26.400 --> 00:40:28.380 checks, they'd gone through checkpoints, but 00:40:28.380 --> 00:40:31.659 what actually was in the ship wasn't necessarily 00:40:31.659 --> 00:40:34.199 checked as thoroughly as it should have been. 00:40:36.429 --> 00:40:39.210 Thanks for those personal stories. Please keep 00:40:39.210 --> 00:40:41.630 them coming in and if you have any tips for Katherine 00:40:41.630 --> 00:40:44.070 as well as she mentioned, because she's diving 00:40:44.070 --> 00:40:47.389 into this newly as well, please do pop them in 00:40:47.389 --> 00:40:49.190 the chat if you've worked with them previously 00:40:49.190 --> 00:40:51.590 and thank you to the person who shared the BBC 00:40:51.590 --> 00:40:55.469 article in the chat as well. Somebody's asked, 00:40:55.550 --> 00:40:57.909 have you found that the choice of HS codes makes 00:40:57.909 --> 00:41:00.869 a difference to the accuracy of data? When a 00:41:00.869 --> 00:41:02.929 new product is created or when products enters 00:41:02.929 --> 00:41:05.409 a new market, At the exporter, there's usually 00:41:05.409 --> 00:41:08.389 a process of figuring out exactly which HS code 00:41:08.389 --> 00:41:10.670 is appropriate. There is some leeway in choosing 00:41:10.670 --> 00:41:13.610 which HS code applies so things can be mis -categorized. 00:41:13.929 --> 00:41:16.369 Have you found that the choice of HS codes makes 00:41:16.369 --> 00:41:21.369 a difference? No, you know, because I don't know 00:41:21.369 --> 00:41:25.309 if you remember when I showed you the 52WMB UI 00:41:25.309 --> 00:41:30.090 where I did my searches. I didn't have to use 00:41:30.090 --> 00:41:34.429 HS code. I could search by the opioid's name. 00:41:35.750 --> 00:41:38.710 So in fact, it didn't matter what HS code it 00:41:38.710 --> 00:41:44.610 had been allocated to. When I looked through 00:41:44.610 --> 00:41:47.769 the data, I found that it was very consistent. 00:41:47.889 --> 00:41:50.130 It happened to be that the HS code that it was 00:41:50.130 --> 00:41:54.309 allocated to was always the same one, but the 00:41:54.309 --> 00:42:00.300 HS code did not affect my investigation. When 00:42:00.300 --> 00:42:05.500 I showed you that Mali, the cigarettes one that 00:42:05.500 --> 00:42:08.980 was using com trade data, and there you have 00:42:08.980 --> 00:42:12.179 to do it at HS code level because that data is 00:42:12.179 --> 00:42:16.559 aggregated to HS code. But there I think cigarettes 00:42:16.559 --> 00:42:19.960 must fit under one HS code quite neatly. With 00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:22.719 my story, if I'd been doing it, if I could only 00:42:22.719 --> 00:42:25.960 get access to HS code data, I actually wouldn't 00:42:25.960 --> 00:42:28.099 have been able to do it because there's so many 00:42:28.099 --> 00:42:31.369 different drugs. and medications, you know, that 00:42:31.369 --> 00:42:33.190 are put under one HS code that it wouldn't have 00:42:33.190 --> 00:42:39.530 been viable. Thanks for that. We've got a few 00:42:39.530 --> 00:42:43.130 more minutes for questions. So if you want to 00:42:43.130 --> 00:42:46.289 pop some in the chat, please do. I wanted to 00:42:46.289 --> 00:42:49.750 ask specifically about project management because 00:42:49.750 --> 00:42:51.889 as soon as you showed that spreadsheet and went 00:42:51.889 --> 00:42:54.630 through all of the data, I know you said that 00:42:54.630 --> 00:42:57.190 you love it and that it's so much fun, but actually 00:42:57.190 --> 00:42:59.460 I put in the chat that It gives me a headache 00:42:59.460 --> 00:43:02.659 and makes me want to cry. For anyone who gets 00:43:02.659 --> 00:43:07.559 a little bit overwhelmed by large data sets, 00:43:07.780 --> 00:43:09.880 have you got any tips or tricks just to get in 00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:12.719 the right mindset to kind of deal with that amount 00:43:12.719 --> 00:43:15.800 of data when you're trying to sift for a needle 00:43:15.800 --> 00:43:21.880 in a haystack, for example? Oh, if you're asking 00:43:21.880 --> 00:43:25.920 me that question, I... I mean, literally that 00:43:25.920 --> 00:43:28.300 blue Cookie Monster that I showed you, I've had 00:43:28.300 --> 00:43:30.480 a t -shirt made with that Cookie Monster and 00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:33.659 it says, me wants the data. That's how much I 00:43:33.659 --> 00:43:38.480 love data. So I feel like I don't necessarily 00:43:38.480 --> 00:43:41.539 have tips because I'm a bit of a crazy person. 00:43:41.539 --> 00:43:43.719 So I'm probably not like other people. I think 00:43:43.719 --> 00:43:48.199 just don't be scared of data. It's basically 00:43:48.199 --> 00:43:51.960 bits of text and numbers and rows and columns. 00:43:53.480 --> 00:43:55.860 Particularly if you're using Google Sheets, if 00:43:55.860 --> 00:43:58.599 you're using the filters, the filters that you 00:43:58.599 --> 00:44:01.440 can apply in that top row, even just getting 00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:03.800 to know the data through the filters and you 00:44:03.800 --> 00:44:06.300 get to understand the data and what's there, 00:44:06.599 --> 00:44:10.559 that can be a good place to start. Thank you. 00:44:10.679 --> 00:44:13.679 I appreciate that. Someone has put in the chat, 00:44:13.820 --> 00:44:17.760 the answer is give it to someone else. And maybe 00:44:17.760 --> 00:44:20.019 the answer is give it to Catherine at this point. 00:44:20.639 --> 00:44:22.760 It's interesting that you love data that much. 00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:26.780 I can see the value in the numbers, I swear. 00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:30.760 Someone asked earlier in the chat when you were 00:44:30.760 --> 00:44:35.760 talking through your Excel spreadsheets about 00:44:35.760 --> 00:44:38.400 whether you've used coding, whether you've used 00:44:38.400 --> 00:44:41.960 Python to sort through data before. Because obviously 00:44:41.960 --> 00:44:44.179 you mentioned AI, there might be an AI tool out 00:44:44.179 --> 00:44:46.239 there, but you like to do things manually. Have 00:44:46.239 --> 00:44:48.820 you ever experimented with using code to also 00:44:48.820 --> 00:44:51.699 kind of shift through data, large pieces of data? 00:44:52.159 --> 00:44:58.500 No. I tried to learn to program R and I started 00:44:58.500 --> 00:45:02.500 a course twice and I was just so rubbish. It 00:45:02.500 --> 00:45:06.800 was embarrassing. And I think I feel really comfortable 00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:09.659 in Sheets because I've been using them for years. 00:45:10.179 --> 00:45:12.719 At some point I'm going to spend the time to 00:45:12.719 --> 00:45:17.739 learn OpenRefine. to do data cleaning. I didn't 00:45:17.739 --> 00:45:20.199 need to use OpenRefine or I felt that I didn't 00:45:20.199 --> 00:45:22.760 need to use OpenRefine to clean this data because 00:45:22.760 --> 00:45:27.119 it was not actually, it wasn't that bad. And 00:45:27.119 --> 00:45:30.239 I could use basically search and replaces to 00:45:30.239 --> 00:45:32.679 clean my data. But at some point, especially 00:45:32.679 --> 00:45:35.820 with a bigger data set, with a much messier and 00:45:35.820 --> 00:45:38.019 bigger data set, I would need to learn something 00:45:38.019 --> 00:45:41.690 like OpenRefine to clean my data. But we also 00:45:41.690 --> 00:45:45.690 like, we have coders in Bellingcat who dream 00:45:45.690 --> 00:45:48.750 in Python, whereas I don't. I probably have nightmares 00:45:48.750 --> 00:45:52.190 in Python. So I know I could always just rely 00:45:52.190 --> 00:45:56.429 on them to do that for me. We've got a few people 00:45:56.429 --> 00:45:58.670 in the comments saying just that I've written 00:45:58.670 --> 00:46:01.769 Python scripts that can do the cleansing super 00:46:01.769 --> 00:46:05.019 fast as well as deduplicating. and somebody else 00:46:05.019 --> 00:46:08.780 put LibreOffice or LibreOffice and Microsoft 00:46:08.780 --> 00:46:12.980 Excel now support automating commands through 00:46:12.980 --> 00:46:15.539 Python that functionality can come in very handy 00:46:15.539 --> 00:46:18.400 for this task. So there you go. Maybe you should 00:46:18.400 --> 00:46:21.159 dive away from Google Sheets for a second and 00:46:21.159 --> 00:46:23.699 explore Microsoft Excel. I think Owen, I need 00:46:23.699 --> 00:46:29.780 to grow up. As we're shifting towards the final 00:46:29.780 --> 00:46:32.380 parts of the stage talk, I wanted to ask you, 00:46:32.699 --> 00:46:35.800 because we've mentioned that repeatedly, that 00:46:35.800 --> 00:46:38.460 data is in the story, right? The data is a starting 00:46:38.460 --> 00:46:44.480 point. It's a place to realise the story maybe. 00:46:45.320 --> 00:46:49.380 What would be your next steps if you find, as 00:46:49.380 --> 00:46:53.590 you said, you find this data that is a little 00:46:53.590 --> 00:46:57.170 confusing in terms of consistency, but tells 00:46:57.170 --> 00:47:01.369 a coherent narrative. Where do you go from there? 00:47:01.590 --> 00:47:04.409 Are you now looking at doing those interviews 00:47:04.409 --> 00:47:07.570 that you mentioned to corroborate it? Do you 00:47:07.570 --> 00:47:10.110 have to step away from the OSINT angle or are 00:47:10.110 --> 00:47:12.369 there OSINT methods that you can take it further 00:47:12.369 --> 00:47:17.190 with? You know, for me, I did more. I wouldn't 00:47:17.190 --> 00:47:20.110 even say it was... I don't know if it's necessarily 00:47:20.110 --> 00:47:24.010 OSINT. I basically just researched. Like I've 00:47:24.010 --> 00:47:26.210 got quite a background in healthcare, so it made 00:47:26.210 --> 00:47:29.789 sense to me to, when I'm seeing an opioid that's 00:47:29.789 --> 00:47:32.630 being exported from one country to another, it 00:47:32.630 --> 00:47:35.070 made sense to me to go and look at the regulatory 00:47:35.070 --> 00:47:37.710 environment in the importing countries and try 00:47:37.710 --> 00:47:40.949 and understand, okay, is it, are they, is this 00:47:40.949 --> 00:47:44.010 actually legal to export there? And so it was 00:47:44.010 --> 00:47:49.119 really more, there wasn't, other OSINT research 00:47:49.119 --> 00:47:51.679 really to do. There was just kind of basic desktop 00:47:51.679 --> 00:47:54.760 research to try and make sense of what looked 00:47:54.760 --> 00:47:58.420 like something that's impossible, to try and 00:47:58.420 --> 00:48:00.880 make sense of it. Because we could see, like 00:48:00.880 --> 00:48:05.940 if you look, for instance, in Ghana, to pentadol, 00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:08.639 and then it's had different opioid forms. There 00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:10.840 have been other opioids that have been used before. 00:48:11.059 --> 00:48:13.760 They're called, in the street, the drug is called 00:48:13.760 --> 00:48:16.579 Red. And then I could see on social media that 00:48:16.579 --> 00:48:18.860 there were posts about it. There they call it 00:48:18.860 --> 00:48:21.860 War Name Red. And there was a song, War Name 00:48:21.860 --> 00:48:26.420 Red. And I could see videos like on TikTok and 00:48:26.420 --> 00:48:30.780 on YouTube or on Facebook of users and the packs 00:48:30.780 --> 00:48:33.500 of the pills. And then I could see other local 00:48:33.500 --> 00:48:38.019 journalists' investigations of War Name Red and 00:48:38.019 --> 00:48:40.800 them talking about the problem of the addictions 00:48:40.800 --> 00:48:43.969 in their country. I would say that's... I guess 00:48:43.969 --> 00:48:46.130 that's OSINT research, it's using social media, 00:48:46.190 --> 00:48:48.670 but it was really to try and understand what 00:48:48.670 --> 00:48:51.269 I would call the demand side of the problem. 00:48:51.590 --> 00:48:53.449 So the countries in which the drugs are being 00:48:53.449 --> 00:48:57.510 used and social media was very useful for that. 00:48:58.050 --> 00:49:01.070 Yeah, you're looking at the impact of that trade 00:49:01.070 --> 00:49:04.750 and why it matters that you're even reporting 00:49:04.750 --> 00:49:10.269 on these numbers as well. Cybers put in the comments, 00:49:10.329 --> 00:49:12.210 that's a good point, linking social media content 00:49:12.210 --> 00:49:14.630 along with the trade info. You could also, right, 00:49:14.750 --> 00:49:18.909 dig into the suppliers that you found and check 00:49:18.909 --> 00:49:23.050 whether they also supply legitimate things as 00:49:23.050 --> 00:49:24.829 well. I'm guessing they do. I'm guessing that 00:49:24.829 --> 00:49:29.230 large suppliers in India at the minute. Yeah, 00:49:29.329 --> 00:49:32.969 in fact, we did do that. We're just not sure 00:49:32.969 --> 00:49:37.849 whether we can publish it or not. There we did 00:49:37.849 --> 00:49:42.789 use actually some more traditional OSINT kind 00:49:42.789 --> 00:49:45.829 of digital footprint tracing to try and figure 00:49:45.829 --> 00:49:48.550 out some of the suppliers and turned up all kinds 00:49:48.550 --> 00:49:50.309 of interesting stuff that I can't really talk 00:49:50.309 --> 00:49:53.010 about now because I don't know, you know, whether 00:49:53.010 --> 00:49:56.150 we can publish on it or not. But it was very 00:49:56.150 --> 00:49:58.170 interesting looking at the suppliers, a whole 00:49:58.170 --> 00:50:01.590 range of them. And yes, some of them do supply 00:50:01.590 --> 00:50:07.019 actually perfectly normal drugs to countries, 00:50:07.179 --> 00:50:09.000 you know, because India is, they call themselves 00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:11.360 the pharmacy of the world. And it's not like 00:50:11.360 --> 00:50:14.099 the whole of the Indian pharma industry is bad. 00:50:14.300 --> 00:50:18.719 It's just certain companies are wantonly exporting 00:50:18.719 --> 00:50:24.539 drugs that are ruining lives in Africa. And you 00:50:24.539 --> 00:50:28.000 said you focused on Africa because you wanted 00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:32.699 to cover the impact. um, local to you, but have 00:50:32.699 --> 00:50:34.639 you also found that these shipments are going 00:50:34.639 --> 00:50:38.440 to Europe or to the US? Like is, is there ways 00:50:38.440 --> 00:50:42.239 to track on these databases if the same shipments 00:50:42.239 --> 00:50:44.960 are going to other locations as well, or are 00:50:44.960 --> 00:50:48.320 you stuck searching one or two regions at a time? 00:50:50.099 --> 00:50:53.079 No, well here I was looking at India export data. 00:50:53.340 --> 00:50:56.199 So everywhere that India was exported in this 00:50:56.199 --> 00:51:00.179 particular opioid to I could see, and there is 00:51:00.179 --> 00:51:05.940 more to be done. Yeah, there are other countries 00:51:05.940 --> 00:51:09.800 that I would love to look into. It can be quite 00:51:09.800 --> 00:51:12.000 difficult with some of the other countries, though, 00:51:12.079 --> 00:51:15.619 depending on how much information they make available 00:51:15.619 --> 00:51:22.019 online. Although, in fact, it was possible with 00:51:22.019 --> 00:51:23.980 West Africa. Most of the countries are quite 00:51:23.980 --> 00:51:26.679 good about disclosing, for instance, which drugs 00:51:26.679 --> 00:51:29.119 are legal in their country. Other countries do 00:51:29.119 --> 00:51:32.199 not. So I haven't yet looked through the data 00:51:32.199 --> 00:51:34.739 to look at whether I can do further investigations, 00:51:34.840 --> 00:51:38.860 but I can see that strong dosages of this particular 00:51:38.860 --> 00:51:41.300 opioid are being shipped all over the place. 00:51:42.239 --> 00:51:45.420 Some people call to pentadol like tramadol, which 00:51:45.420 --> 00:51:48.340 was one of the opioids before. It's like it's 00:51:48.340 --> 00:51:53.059 the fentanyl of West Africa. It does need that 00:51:53.059 --> 00:51:55.119 level of attention. So I'm sure there are other 00:51:55.119 --> 00:51:57.219 countries. There were a bunch that I could see 00:51:57.219 --> 00:51:59.400 that I would love to dive into at some point. 00:52:00.639 --> 00:52:03.980 Wow. That's a big statement as well. The fentanyl 00:52:03.980 --> 00:52:06.699 of West Africa. Amazing that you're spending 00:52:06.699 --> 00:52:09.639 some time diving into this. We're coming to the 00:52:09.639 --> 00:52:13.599 end now. So I wanted to ask lastly, unless anybody 00:52:13.599 --> 00:52:15.760 else has any comments that they quick questions 00:52:15.760 --> 00:52:19.269 that they want to quickly squeeze in. is if you 00:52:19.269 --> 00:52:21.909 have any advice, you've gone through lots of 00:52:21.909 --> 00:52:25.409 advice today in the talk, but if you have any 00:52:25.409 --> 00:52:30.070 lasting tips for anyone who perhaps is completely 00:52:30.070 --> 00:52:33.110 new to financial investigations and now, because 00:52:33.110 --> 00:52:35.809 of this talk, maybe wants to delve into drug 00:52:35.809 --> 00:52:41.530 data or tobacco data or any suspicious goods. 00:52:42.860 --> 00:52:45.340 What would be your main tips for people who are 00:52:45.340 --> 00:52:49.219 first starting out? Is there any resources, any 00:52:49.219 --> 00:52:51.739 guides that you would shout out for people to 00:52:51.739 --> 00:52:55.960 read, any people that they should speak to who 00:52:55.960 --> 00:52:58.820 are a little bit wiser on this subject, perhaps 00:52:58.820 --> 00:53:02.519 that you found useful speaking to? Yeah, basic 00:53:02.519 --> 00:53:05.300 tips for people who are beginning their journey 00:53:05.300 --> 00:53:11.909 in this space. You know, sadly, I kept on thinking 00:53:11.909 --> 00:53:15.309 I would do a lovely Google search and I would 00:53:15.309 --> 00:53:18.550 find the guide to trade data and how to use it 00:53:18.550 --> 00:53:21.489 and I didn't find it. It's actually something 00:53:21.489 --> 00:53:25.829 that I'd like to write myself. And I was meeting 00:53:25.829 --> 00:53:30.309 with a researcher from another NGO in Europe 00:53:30.309 --> 00:53:35.070 and she was She had talked to a bunch of investigators 00:53:35.070 --> 00:53:37.849 from other organizations and there was a similar 00:53:37.849 --> 00:53:41.190 cry of people saying, we know there's trade data 00:53:41.190 --> 00:53:44.409 out there. We can see how useful it is. It's 00:53:44.409 --> 00:53:48.889 tricky and we need to learn how to use it. How 00:53:48.889 --> 00:53:54.510 can we do that? So one of my ambitions for 2026 00:53:54.510 --> 00:53:58.510 is to at least start the guide. to write it and 00:53:58.510 --> 00:54:02.130 to have people add to it, disagree, agree, whatever 00:54:02.130 --> 00:54:04.510 they want to do, but at least get something down 00:54:04.510 --> 00:54:07.929 so that we as open source researchers can start 00:54:07.929 --> 00:54:10.570 to kind of share our knowledge so that we can 00:54:10.570 --> 00:54:14.090 all make better use of this data. Because I was 00:54:14.090 --> 00:54:17.349 literally flailing around blind. I'd never used 00:54:17.349 --> 00:54:19.849 this data before. And I've just kind of had to 00:54:19.849 --> 00:54:24.789 learn as I went along. And I ended up interviewing 00:54:25.840 --> 00:54:28.559 I got in touch with one of the, the guy who was 00:54:28.559 --> 00:54:32.119 the head of the training Institute in India for 00:54:32.119 --> 00:54:36.420 customs officials. I don't know how, why he decided 00:54:36.420 --> 00:54:39.300 to speak to me, but he did. And, but I had to 00:54:39.300 --> 00:54:41.980 go to that level to try and understand the trade 00:54:41.980 --> 00:54:46.039 data because I couldn't find guides online. So 00:54:46.039 --> 00:54:47.860 I wish I could say to you, it was there, but 00:54:47.860 --> 00:54:52.139 I would love to write it. Watch this space is 00:54:52.139 --> 00:54:56.619 what Catherine's saying basically. There will 00:54:56.619 --> 00:54:59.719 be a guide soon, I'm sure. Thank you so much, 00:54:59.860 --> 00:55:02.599 Catherine, for your time today. It has been so 00:55:02.599 --> 00:55:06.800 fascinating to find out what you found out over 00:55:06.800 --> 00:55:11.440 the last few months and really dig into the data. 00:55:12.280 --> 00:55:14.880 Thank you for taking us through it. Do you want 00:55:14.880 --> 00:55:17.539 to remind people of how they can reach out to 00:55:17.539 --> 00:55:23.309 you again? Just quickly before we end. Oh yeah, 00:55:23.710 --> 00:55:27.269 you're welcome to email me. It's Katherine with 00:55:27.269 --> 00:55:31.889 a K, K -A -T -H -E -R -I -N -E at consultant 00:55:31.889 --> 00:55:38.690 .bellingcat .com. All right. Pop Katherine a 00:55:38.690 --> 00:55:41.730 message if you have any tips for her, but also 00:55:41.730 --> 00:55:46.150 if you feel like you want to chat a little bit 00:55:46.150 --> 00:55:50.190 further. Within this space, we do have spaces 00:55:50.190 --> 00:55:53.329 to chat about financial investigations. Hashtag 00:55:53.329 --> 00:55:57.630 money is the place to go to for that. You can 00:55:57.630 --> 00:56:01.530 talk about trade data to your heart's content 00:56:01.530 --> 00:56:04.409 in that particular channel. So please feel free 00:56:04.409 --> 00:56:07.769 to go in there. Obviously respecting any rules 00:56:07.769 --> 00:56:11.070 of the server as you're chit chatting. I can 00:56:11.070 --> 00:56:14.389 see a subtle knife is currently typing, which 00:56:14.389 --> 00:56:18.369 is probably reminding you all of that. But anyway, 00:56:18.809 --> 00:56:21.650 wrapping up, thank you so much, Catherine, again 00:56:21.650 --> 00:56:26.409 for today. And yeah, we will be back not in two 00:56:26.409 --> 00:56:29.690 weeks time, but in the new year with a very special 00:56:29.690 --> 00:56:33.489 stage talk from Elliot Higgins. But for now, 00:56:33.889 --> 00:56:36.510 thank you for listening, and we'll be back in 00:56:36.510 --> 00:56:40.139 January. Thank you all. Thank you for listening 00:56:40.139 --> 00:56:43.260 to the stage talk. If you'd like to catch a stage 00:56:43.260 --> 00:56:46.400 talk live where you can ask the guest questions, 00:56:46.820 --> 00:56:49.739 join the Bellingcat Discord server by visiting 00:56:49.739 --> 00:56:55.800 www .discord .gg slash Bellingcat. The music 00:56:55.800 --> 00:56:59.280 you've heard is titled Dawn by Newer Self and 00:56:59.280 --> 00:57:00.940 is courtesy of Artlist.