In-Depth Archive

TAIPEI, Taiwan—In early May 2016, a police raid on a suspected money-laundering operation in the Taiwanese city of Taichung instead uncovered a large and wide-ranging telecommunications scam. Based in the Dominican Republic, the operation spanned the world, stretching from Taiwan to China and the United States. According to Capt. Lee Chi-shun, an investigator with the Criminal Investigation Bureau of Taiwan’s National Police Administration who was heavily involved in the case, the small shop raided by local police turned out to be a data center where money that had been fleeced from victims of telecom fraud was transferred onward to bank […]

Editor’s Note: WPR has agreed to publish this article anonymously due to the hostile environment in Egypt toward political dissent and independent reporting. Tracking down the Society of the Muslim Brothers, better known as the Muslim Brotherhood, is a difficult task. Ever since the group was outlawed in Egypt following the July 2013 military coup that brought Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to power, those Brotherhood members who have not been killed, executed or imprisoned have kept their heads down. Inside Egypt, they generally refuse to meet or cancel at the last minute for fear of being identified and apprehended […]

HELSINKI, Finland—Tucked away in an unassuming office building near Helsinki’s waterfront, a group of around 10 academics and government officials—most of them Finns—spend long days and nights tracking disinformation and influence operations emanating from neighboring Russia. They make up a newly formed research and strategy unit tasked with lifting the veil on a range of security threats that blend conventional and unconventional tactics. The European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, known as the Hybrid CoE, was founded last year in Helsinki by a dozen member states of the European Union and NATO. It defines hybrid threats as the […]

Editor’s Note: In July 2019, this story received an Honorable Mention by the National Press Club for the Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence, which recognizes excellence in reporting on diplomatic and foreign policy issues. It is also one of 30 that we’ve selected from our archives to celebrate World Politics Review’s 15th anniversary. You can find the full collection here. For 15 years, El Salvador’s zero-tolerance approach to gangs—known as mano dura, or iron fist—has resulted in devastating violence while failing to address the root causes of the crimes it’s supposed to eliminate. Yet this approach to dealing with gangs […]