I write, shoot and edit pieces on international development, security, human/civil/privacy rights, trafficking... and arts & culture. Director of TePonui Media.
Rwanda Creates Nearly a Million Refugees Since Signing Asylum Deal with UK Government
FEATURE: In-depth investigation conducted in the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi, looking into links between the UK government's £240m payments to the Rwanda government and the sudden re-emergence of the Rwanda-backed M23 militia conducting mass rape and murder in the Eastern DRC.
Southeast Asia’s Brewing Refugee Crisis
FEATURE: The impending closure of giant online scamming factories in eastern Myanmar could leave thousands of trafficking victims stranded.
‘Just as scared’: Cyberscam victims in Cambodia find no freedom in rescue
When Cambodian police intercepted the bus transporting Carla Ramos Miembro and 26 other Filipinos, who had been sold from one cyber slavery operation to another, she thought her nightmare was finally over. Instead, it was the beginning of another terrifying ordeal.
Hun Sen’s Successor Must Keep Up His Chess Game
ANALYSIS: The son of Cambodia’s long-serving prime minister will face challenges to his leadership from powerful political families.
Life for Afghans got worse after the Taliban seized power. Now foreign aid is drying up
LONGREADS FEATURE: The Taliban are in dire need of foreign aid to fix their war-torn country, but their anti-female laws make them a pariah to the detriment of millions of Afghans. Reporting from across Kabul, Kandahar Province and southern Afghanistan.
Cambodia’s modern slavery nightmare: the human trafficking crisis overlooked by authorities
REPORT: Despite promises by government to eradicate trafficking rings, people are still being sold in Cambodia and forced to run online scams
Top regional ISIL leader killed in Philippines’ ruined Marawi
REPORT: We were the first journalists on the scene in Marawi, Mindanao, to cover the killing of two ISIL commanders hiding out in rented flats in a gunfight with the Philippines military.
How the Taliban’s ‘War on Drugs’ Could Backfire
FEATURE: The purported ban on opium and ephedra devastates poor farmers, enriches the Taliban, and has done nothing to curb addiction. Feature reported from Kandahar and Kabul, Afghanistan.
Laos’ criminal casino empire: Chinese gangsters suspected of running brothels and online scams, and trafficking humans, animal parts and drugs
PRINT MAGAZINE FEATURE: Laos’ Golden Triangle Economic Zone is home to the Kings Romans Casino, run by ex-triad boss Zhao Wei, and a number of prison-like call centres for online scams.
Branches of illegality: Cambodia’s illegal logging structures
GI-TOC REPORT: Co-author of this in-depth report for the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime on illegal logging and timber trafficking in Cambodia, and the role of the military in facilitating the trade. Based on several months of field research and original data collection.
‘Nothing But a Ruse’: The Cambodian Elections are Another Assault on Democracy
After a decade of systematically banning, exiling, imprisoning, and assassinating the opposition, Hun Sen’s Cambodia People’s Party swept the 2023 general election without public protest. It was a half-hearted charade, with the Prime Minister announcing before the first vote had been cast that his son, Hun Manet, commander of the armed forces, would take over as leader in the coming weeks by 22 August.
‘After the War, People are Still Very “Us Versus Them”’
REPORT: Coverage from Bosnia and Herzegovina on the recent General Election and how the country’s complicated past continues to shape present realities
The online scammer targeting you could be trapped in a South-East Asian fraud factory
Feature in Sunday Print Edition on the scale of online scams and the sinister modern slavery compounds in Southeast Asia where many trafficking victims are held and forced to scam.
Inside Southeast Asia’s Casino Scam Archipelago
In-depth Feature: Special Economic Zones and self-governing statelets across the Mekong region have become conduits for human trafficking on a massive scale.
Asian Roulette: Criminogenic casinos and illicit trade in environmental commodities in South East Asia
GI-TOC Report: Contributor to major academic report for the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime on criminogenic casinos and illicit trade in environmental commodities in South East Asia.