A Reporter's Notebook: The Two-Year Hunt for a $1.5 Billion Scam Empire That Started with a Single Private Jet

This is a reporter's notebook—a behind-the-scenes look at an investigation that has shaken global elites. For the past several weeks, Whale Hunting has been at the center of a developing global crisis. Much like the notorious 1MDB scandal, we have faced direct threats from world leaders and powerful corporations entangled in a vast criminal network. We’ve published cease-and-desist letters from high-powered lawyers and documented demands for our arrest from Thailand’s deputy prime minister.

Why are they so desperate to silence us?

We have uncovered a multi-billion-dollar criminal enterprise that links powerful politicians and financiers with a major cryptocurrency exchange and Chinese mafia syndicates. The victims of this scheme are ordinary people from around the world—primarily Americans, but also Europeans and Asians—who have been conned into investing their life savings into fake crypto schemes, only to watch it all vanish.

We've published 16 stories so far. So here, all in one place, is our comprehensive coverage – and how we went about breaking this story.

-- Tom