Finansia CEO Calls Investigation 'Baseless Rumors.' Here Are the Facts.
by Bradley Hope
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A year-end edition: looking back at 2025's biggest investigations, and the best things we read, watched, and listened to along the way.
Another year of Whale Hunting draws to a close.
2025 was the year the Mauerberger investigation consumed us – a $1.5 billion money laundering network that connected a South African financier to Thailand's most powerful political dynasty, and eventually led to a $300 million asset seizure. It was the year we received legal threats from KuCoin, traced Iran's shadow fleet, and documented how state capture actually works when you follow the money far enough.
It was also exhausting. The weight of these stories – human trafficking networks, sanctions evasion, the machinery of impunity – doesn't get lighter with time. But neither does the conviction that this work matters.
So as we close out the year, we wanted to do something a little different: a Weekender that's also a year in review. Not a dry retrospective, but a look at what we learned, what we're still chasing, and what kept us sane along the way.
Thank you for being here. For reading, for sharing, for the tips that led to stories we couldn't have found otherwise. The community of Whale Hunters that's grown around this newsletter is the reason we can keep doing this work.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for caring about our journalism when it would be so much easier not to.
Look out for a soecial two-part magazine piece in Whale Hunting next week, a preview of our new long form publication called The Foundry (debuting next year).
— Bradley and Tom
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Before we get to the recommendations, a quick look back at the investigations that defined our year.
What started as a tip about a South African financier named Benjamin Mauerberger became our biggest investigation yet. The trail led from New York to Bangkok, from shell companies in Singapore to real estate in London, ultimately exposing a network that targets Americans with fake crypto and romance scams.
These "pig butchering" scams, run by workers held against their will in Cambodia, are generating billions of dollars in profit. Mauerberger was able to bribe Thailand's entire governing class, from Prime Ministers to bureaucrats and police. In December, Thai authorities announced a $300 million asset seizure connected to our reporting – a rare moment of accountability in a story that's far from over.
We traced KuCoin's sanctions evasion infrastructure (and received legal threats for our trouble). We documented Iran's shadow fleet of oil tankers. We mapped the networks that let sanctioned regimes move billions while the rest of us follow the rules.
Jho Low in Shanghai. Khamenei's hidden empire. Thaksin Shinawatra's protection of Mauerberger. The fixers and facilitators who make it all possible. We kept tracking the world's most wanted financial fugitives – and the systems that protect them.
50+ investigations published.
15+ countries covered.
3 legal threats received.
$300M+ in assets seized connected to our reporting.
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