From the archive: One drug dealer, two corrupt cops and a risky FBI sting
We are raiding the Guardian Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.
This week, from 2017: Davon Mayer was a smalltime dealer in west Baltimore who made an illicit deal with local police. When they turned on him, he decided to get out – but escaping that life would not prove as easy as falling into it. By Yudhijit Bhattacharjee. Read by Lola Ogunyemi
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The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
Monday briefing: How the work of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira carries on, three years after their killing
Good morning. Last week marked the third anniversary of the disappearance of the longtime Guardian contributor Dom Phillips and the Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in the Amazon rainforest. They were found dead 10 days later, murdered as they tried to warn the world about the Amazon's destruction. In the time since, the environmental defenders and journalists who knew them have tried to secure their legacy, through projects to train a new generation of Indigenous activists to protect their home from organised crime and industrial deforestation – and through reporting. On Thursday, as part of that project, the first two episodes of a new Guardian podcast, Missing in the Amazon, were published; the third went up this morning. The series, an astonishingly evocative and diligent piece of work, is presented by Dom's friend and Guardian colleague, Tom Phillips. For today's newsletter, I spoke to Tom about the series – how it came about, the wrenching toll and deep consolations of putting it together, and the picture of the future of the rainforest that it presents. Here are the headlines. US politics | Tensions flared in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday as hundreds of US national guard troops were deployed by Donald Trump as thousands took to the streets to protest against an immigration crackdown. Teargas and 'less-lethal munitions' were used by police to disperse huge crowds, who surrounded civic buildings and blocked a freeway. California governor Gavin Newsome accused Trump of manufacturing a crisis. Israel-Gaza | The activists sending an aid ship into Gaza carrying climate activist Greta Thunberg accused Israel of forcibly intercepting the vessel and confiscating its cargo. Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, said the passengers would be shown video of the 7 October attacks. UK economy | Rachel Reeves has been locked in a standoff over the policing and council budgets just days before this week's spending review, which is set to give billions to the NHS, defence and technology. Culture | Ministers have asked the British Council to draw up spending plans which would force it to close in as many as 60 countries, sources have told the Guardian. Environment | Environmental groups have welcomed government proposals to ban the destructive fishing practice known as bottom trawling in half of England's protected seas. A few weeks after Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira went missing, Tom sat down in Rio de Janeiro with João Laet, a photographer with deep experience of the Amazon who had also known Dom, and talked about what to do next. 'We did what journalists do,' he said. 'We decided to just report, to carry on, to do even more of it. A couple of weeks later, we were back in a different part of the Amazon – and we've been doing it ever since.' The podcast has been one of the centrepieces of Tom's part of that work. Over the last three years, he has travelled thousands of miles through the jungle by helicopter, plane, boat and on foot in an effort to understand what happened, and to shed new light on the stories that the two men thought were so important. The series presents a painstaking, beautifully attentive portrait of Dom and Bruno, and the powerful investigative thread of the search for their killers; meanwhile, the story of the violence done to the Amazon by organised crime and industrial deforestation, and the Indigenous people fighting to protect it, plays out in vivid detail. 'We wanted to make sure their lives and legacies were properly remembered,' Tom said. 'I hope they'd be proud of it.' Where threats to the Amazon stand today When Dom and Bruno went missing, the far-right demagogue Jair Bolsonaro was president of Brazil, and widely viewed as having nurtured the climate in which their attackers could feel they had impunity. Bolsonaro's defeat to the leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva later that year was a genuine turning point for the Amazon, Tom said. 'Lula was accompanied at his inauguration by Raoni, one of Brazil's most revered Indigenous leaders. He appointed Marina Silva, a hugely respected environmentalist, as his environment minister. He gave Bruno's widow, Beatriz Matos, a top job in a new ministry for Indigenous peoples. He started putting resources into the environmental agency, so it could crack down on deforestation and crime. So all of that is very good news.' At the same time, he said, 'the fundamental fact is that lots of things haven't changed. Deforestation has come down massively – but there is still a great deal of destruction going on. You have a right-wing congress which is trying to undermine Indigenous rights and environmental protection. Organised crime has grown in the last few years.' And there is the prospect of a far-right successor to Bolsonaro prevailing in next year's presidential election. In the Javari valley, where Dom and Bruno were killed, Tom said 'all the activists I know still receive threats – every time I come home, I wonder if I'm going to see those people again.' He points to one bleak symbol in particular: a floating federal police base deployed to the valley, called New Era, which has subsequently been withdrawn. How Dom and Bruno's friends and allies responded to their deaths In a story published last week, and further explored later in the podcast series, Tom describes the extraordinary journey he and João Laet took deep into some of the most inaccessible territory in the Javari valley alongside members of the Indigenous patrol group that Bruno helped to found. The group, named Evu, works to train activists to protect the rainforest and rivers from poachers, fishers, miners and drug traffickers; against just a dozen members in 2021, there are 120 today, an expansion driven by the determination to secure Bruno's legacy. 'These are the same people without whom Dom and Bruno might never have been found,' Tom said. 'Three years ago, I was blown away by their skill, their dedication, their persistence. And now they're not just stepping up in the region, but exporting the model to other parts of the Amazon and Latin America.' The work is astonishingly gruelling: Tom describes joining the team as they carried two aluminium canoes on their shoulders on a hike of 100km in six days through dense rainforest. At the end of their journey, they provided the canoes – and training – to the last of their six mobile teams. Since coming back, 'I haven't been able to put a pair of shoes on for a week,' Tom said ruefully. 'My left knee isn't really bending properly. I fell in the river and lost my glasses. It's been slightly exhausting, but a privilege.' Meanwhile, a group of journalists led by Guardian global environment editor Jonathan Watts and Dom's widow Alessandra Sampaio has been at work on the project that Dom was engaged in when he died – the completion of a book called How to Save the Amazon, in which Bruno is an essential character. 'No reader should be in any doubt that these pages have been stained by blood,' Dom's co-authors write. 'The killers blasted a gaping wound in this book that is far too great for any infusion of solidarity to heal.' 'It's all part of the same project,' Tom said. 'I got my copy in Portuguese the other day. It was an incredibly uplifting thing to receive – this feeling that in some sense, Dom's mission had been accomplished.' Has the crime been solved? In July 2022, three men were charged with the murder of Dom and Bruno: Amarildo da Costa Oliveira and Jefferson da Silva Lima, who confessed to the killing but have argued that they acted in self-defence; and Oseney da Costa de Oliveira, who was accused of a lesser role, but who subsequently saw the charges dropped – though he is still under house arrest pending a possible new charge. But that left the question of why. In November last year, the alleged mastermind of the attack was charged with arming and funding those responsible. He was identified in Brazilian press reports as Ruben Dario da Silva Villar, a shadowy business person in the Javari Valley who has been accused of running an illegal poaching operation, money laundering, and drug smuggling, but never convicted. Others have been charged as accessories who helped to conceal the bodies. The fifth episode of the series will examine whether Dom and Bruno's deaths were the result of a wider conspiracy. Among Indigenous activists, 'There is a frustration that it has taken so long,' Tom said. 'There's a real worry that if the two fishers are convicted, it will just end there. People want to see proof of a real inclination from the authorities to dig into whether there were more powerful criminal figures behind the murders, and what they might reveal about the region's struggle with political and police corruption in a hugely important narco corridor for cocaine going from Peru to Europe.' What has it been like to tell Dom and Bruno's story? As he worked on the series, 'I thought a lot about the fact that Dom left his house one day for what he would not have seen as one of his most dangerous reporting trips, said goodbye, and never came back,' Tom said. 'So yes, it's been traumatic. But it's been therapeutic, too, to have the time and space to try to do this story justice.' There has been a deep poignancy in spending so much time talking to people about his friend – and even the parts of his story that were very far from the Amazon. 'We nearly always talked about our affection for Brazil, and the work of reporting here,' Tom said. But as the second episode of the series sets out, Dom had a whole other life in London in the 1990s, where he was editor of Mixmag, and a passionate connoisseur of dance music. 'I was only a teenager, but that was part of my world back then too,' Tom said. 'I really wish now that we had talked more about those days.' Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion As he says on the podcast, a thread runs through all of Dom's life, whether going toe-to-toe with a superstar DJ in a row over a coverline in the queue for Ministry of Sound or reporting deep in the Javari valley: 'The backbone, the commitment to his ideas. When Dom decided he cared about something, or that it really mattered, he went all-in. And in the end, that was what set him on the path to the Amazon.' After being told for decades that there was no market for her work, Bernardine Evaristo is now one of the most in-demand authors. I loved this interview with her, where she talks about how she's handled being thrust into the spotlight. Aamna Mercury prize-nominated singer Gwenno sings in Cornish and Welsh. She recently visited a school in Cornwall and used music to encourage the children to see Cornish as a living language. Katy Vans, newsletters team Labour's housebuilding agenda must prioritise social housing, writes Guardian columnist John Harris, warning that failing to build more council homes will deepen social decay and fuel dangerous right-wing forces. Aamna This fascinating essay by Alice Bolin argues for challenging the 'great man' theory of history … before our obsession with tech bros goes too far. Katy Looting and trafficking of Syria's antiquities has surged to unprecedented levels since rebels overthrew the former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December, experts warn, putting the country's heritage further at risk. Aamna Tennis | Pulling off one of the greatest comebacks in the history of the sport, Carlos Alcaraz toppled the world No 1, Jannik Sinner, 4-6, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (10-2) after five hours and 29 minutes to defend his French Open title in Paris. Cycling | Teenage prodigy Cat Ferguson came within a hair's breadth of executing a memorable overall win in her debut Tour of Britain, but was outsprinted by her rival Ally Wollaston at the climax of the final stage in Glasgow. Football | Thomas Tuchel has said his England players must accept his straight-talking criticisms if they are to advance to World Cup glory. The manager did not hold back after the lacklustre performance in the 1-0 qualifying win against Andorra in Barcelona on Saturday, questioning their attitude and body language. The Guardian leads with events in the US: 'Trump deploys national guard on LA streets in dramatic escalation'. The Financial Times reports 'Business chiefs head for Capitol Hill to fight Trump's foreign investment tax'. Looking ahead to the spending review, the Times has 'Cash boost to fight crime', while the Telegraph says 'Policing is broken, officers warn Reeves'. The i reports 'PIP benefit cuts may be softened to quash dissent against Reeves'. The Mail leads with an investigation, under the headline 'Visa scam that makes mockery of PM's pledge on migration', while the Sun looks at the cost of migrant hotels with 'InnSane'. The Mirror leads with 'Donor blood red alert'. Australia's mushroom murder trial Justice and courts reporter Nino Bucci talks through the trial that has gripped Australia – of the woman accused of murdering three of her relatives with poisoned mushrooms over a family meal. Sign up for Inside Saturday to see more of Edith Pritchett's cartoons, the best Saturday magazine journalism and an exclusive look behind the scenes A bit of good news to remind you that the world's not all bad The Scout Association has introduced a Money Skills badge to help young people gain practical financial literacy skills. Guardian Money observed members of a group of explorer scouts in London. Designed by Georgie Howarth, the badge incorporates the realities of managing money, forcing the group to adjust expectations based on their financial constraints. Young explorer scouts, some of whom already have part-time jobs or allowances, found the programme valuable, particularly in preparing them for real-life financial decisions. One participant noted that school lessons often focus on topics like mortgages, which feel irrelevant to teenagers, whereas the Scout badge 'made me feel more prepared for the real world'. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday And finally, the Guardian's puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
The Guardian
19 hours ago
- The Guardian
British photojournalist hit by non lethal rounds during Los Angeles protests
Nick Stern, a British news photographer based in Los Angeles, is set to undergo emergency surgery for a wound sustained during the standoff between police and anti-Ice protesters in Los Angeles on Saturday. Stern told the Guardian he had been covering the protest near a branch of Home Depot in Paramount, where immigrants workers are typically hired for day work, when he felt a sharp pain in his leg. 'I'm walking around taking photos and was untouched until around 9pm. I was walking across the road when I felt a mighty pain in my leg. I put my hand down and felt a lump kind of sticking out the back of my leg,' he said. Stern believes he was likely hit my a non-lethal round that deputies were using along with flash-bang stun grenades for crowd control. 'People came over to help and got me on the curb. A medic was called, who cut off my clothes. In my leg was what felt like a five centimeter hole with muscle hanging out of it and blood all down my leg. The medic put a tourniquet on it, and a journalist I was with took me to ER.' 'It hurt so much that I thought they might be firing live rounds,' he said. 'I've been with non lethal rounds before. They hurt like hell but generally don't break the skin. But the blood made me think it was a live round.' Stern is currently at the trauma center at Long Beach Memorial awaiting surgery. A doctor who looked at his X-rays said the dimensions of his wound indicated he had been struck by a non-lethal round. The LA county sheriff's department deployed more than 100 deputies in response to the protest. Sheriff Robert Luna estimated that the crowd grew to about 350 to 400 people and said it had become violent, with some of the protesters throwing objects at federal agents and law enforcement officers. During the protest police deployed teargas and other munitions. 'Anybody has the right to peacefully assemble, and exercise their first amendment rights, but when that crosses the line to where you are attacking other people, utilizing violence, or any destruction of property, that's where we as a department has to step in, warn people, and people may get arrested,' said Luna. 'Deputies will be defending themselves. I don't think anybody expects our deputy sheriffs to take rocks and bottles without defending themselves.' Stern said protesters appeared to be 'very angry' and chanting slogans including 'Ice out of LA!' 'There's a lot of large Hispanic population in Paramount,' Stern said. 'They gave the impression from what they were chanting that it was their town and they didn't want Ice there.'
The Independent
3 days ago
- The Independent
What the Trump administration doesn't get about the ‘fake news' media
It was the summer of 1997 – a few months after a notable marathon libel case in which our crime correspondent, Duncan Campbell, had successfully defended his exposé of suspected corruption at Stoke Newington police station. Around four in the morning, I was jolted awake by a burly policeman in the bedroom. We were living in Highbury, North London, and I soon worked out that the house was swarming with police officers, along with their dogs. It turned out that a burglar had smashed through our front door in the middle of the night. The police eventually left and, as the last one disappeared up the path, he said to me: 'You're the editor of the Guardian, aren't you? You might like to know we're all based at Stoke Newington nick.' My heart may have missed a beat. Duncan had, after all, just vanquished five of his colleagues in court. But I was wrong: as the copper tugged his dog into the van and drove off, he said: 'Tell your Mr Campbell to keep digging.' That was the thing some people struggled to understand about the way Duncan – who died recently – worked. You could expose bent cops and be in favour of the police. You could be dealing with the Met Commissioner as chair of the Crime Reporters' Association in the morning and have a drink with a bank robber in the evening. Of course, with Duncan, it went further, as anyone who attended one of his publishing parties would know. There would be chief constables, great train robbers, judges, barristers, old lags and old hacks. The art was to work out which was which. Everyone trusted Duncan – except Mr Justice French in the Stoke Newington trial. In the previous 33 months, the police union, the Police Federation, had fought and won no fewer than 95 libel cases in a row. They were called 'garage actions' because coppers would use the guaranteed settlement money for home extensions. If Mr Justice French had had his way, the score would have been 96-0. But Duncan went into the witness box to give evidence. The jury, like everyone else, trusted Duncan. It cost him a huge amount in sleepless nights and anxiety, but the stand he took did his colleagues in the British press a considerable favour. It was now much safer to write about police corruption; it was a game-changer. Duncan died within a week of another reporter, Andrew Norfolk, whose reporting on child-grooming gangs for The Times was similarly widely lauded for its courage and integrity. At a time when trust in the media is underwater, it's heartening to be able to celebrate the best among us. Duncan wrote about the world of crime like no other reporter could even dream of. How he did it, no one could quite explain. Nick Reynolds, son of the great train robber Bruce, told me: 'You know, most villains hate journalists. I mean, the whole point of it is to try and do something and get away with it and be discreet. But somehow, through his integrity, approach, sense of humour, diligence, and demeanour, he managed to get the Golden Pass to the underworld, and they all respected him. ' Freddie Foreman, who killed people for the Krays, loved him. Mad Frankie Fraser, who extracted the teeth of his victims with pliers, adored him. But so did lawyers and police officers who cared about the truth. He was very proud of the website he created, Justice on Trial, which ran until 2017 and covered numerous miscarriages of justice. He took an interest in so many. The Miami Five, the Craigavon Two, the Shrewsbury 24, the Birmingham Six, the Cardiff Three. The Torso murders, George Davis, and Gary McKinnon. Kiranjit Ahluwalia, who had been sentenced to life for killing her abusive husband. They and many, many more had reason to thank Duncan for swimming against the tide and taking the time and trouble to investigate their cases. But most of the time, when people think about journalists, they don't think of the Campbells and Norfolks. They don't think of the risks that reporters take in covering events in the Middle East, or Ukraine, or even, as a new Amnesty International report highlights, in Northern Ireland, where there have been 71 attacks or threats against journalists since 2019. When journalists are not being attacked physically, they are under attack verbally. It is now routine White House policy to denigrate, mock, discredit and delegitimise the so-called legacy media. The objective seems plain: if Donald Trump can persuade you that the New York Times is fake news, you might not believe them the next time they investigate his affairs. The White House press secretary is 27-year-old Karoline Leavitt, who believes that Donald Trump won in 2020 and who used her very first briefing to (falsely) claim that $50m a year of US taxpayers' money was going to fund condoms in Gaza. It's unclear whether she has any journalistic experience, although she did once apply for an internship at Fox News. This week, she took it upon herself to lecture the BBC on editorial standards, tearing into a report about deaths in Gaza and claiming the BBC had been forced to retract its claims. This was fantasy stuff, as the BBC's Ros Atkins demonstrated in a devastating three-minute film the following day. But, as the old cliche goes, Truth often takes some time to get its boots on. GB News presenters, for example, chortled with glee at the 'humiliation' of the BBC seemingly without lifting a finger to interrogate whether any of Leavitt's claims were actually, you know, true. Atkins works for BBC Verify, which GB News owner, Paul Marshall, incidentally wants closed down. Truth, lies – who cares? So journalism is struggling today. Which is why it's worth pausing to remember and celebrate the best rather than dwell on the worst. We said farewell to Duncan on Tuesday. He himself was a veteran of reporting on the funerals of the villains he'd known, including gangland figures such as Charlie Richardson and Ronnie Kray, as well as the Great Train Robbers, Buster Edwards and Ronnie Biggs. Though with one, Peter Scott, a noted jewel thief who died bankrupt and penniless in 2013, it was Duncan himself who ended up organising his funeral at Islington cemetery. He arranged it at 10.15 in the morning: 'There was a discount for the early hour,' he recalled. The undertaker demanded the deceased's occupation. 'Cat burglar,' said Duncan, who also chose the music for the ceremony. The coffin disappeared to the old gospel song, Steal Away. It helps to have a sense of humour if your life is spent covering crime. Not to mention today's White House.
