This week I’ve been at the Web Summit in Lisbon, a conference so large that the herds of AI evangelists drifting towards giant luminous screens may outnumber the wildebeest migrating across the Serengeti every year.

Bet you didn’t expect that as an opening sentence, did you? 

Being there was a big deal because it gave me the opportunity to speak about the clever tech tricks our reporters use to crack open the knottiest investigations. I highlighted how they uncovered that China forces ethnic minorities to work in its biggest factories, or how scammers are targeting you via QR codes you might see in public.

People have also been buzzing about our latest piece on the Epstein-style AI chatbot – a story that led to some chatbots being deleted and children being banned from the platform. 

It’s a worrying illustration of the risks AI poses, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The global corporations at the heart of these large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini need to be transparent and robust. Case in point: how many people are already waking up in the morning and asking ChatGPT to tell them what’s happening across the world?

Don’t expect AI company bosses to just do the right thing, either. Sam Altman’s OpenAI received another $30bn from investment giant Softbank this week, and his priority will be winning the increasingly-competitive AI arms race. Making sure this stuff is developed safely is a battle we all need to be part of.

This week we also revealed how one man paid a horrible price for fighting to protect a reserve where endangered turtles come to hatch every year. 

Conservationist Kim Rebholz was in charge of Mangrove Marine Park in Democratic Republic of Congo, where manatees swim in the waters flowing from the 3,000-mile Congo River into the sea. The mangroves sprout up above the marshland, preventing erosion and drawing carbon out of the air. 

The area is protected by international and local authorities. “Any action likely to harm the natural development of fauna and flora” is banned, as Congolese law states.

Shortly after starting his role as the head of the park, Rebholz found out that an international oil company was flaring gas in the park. He discovered an illegal port where precious trees from the jungle were waiting to be shipped around the world. He also saw that a palm oil plantation (large enough to be seen from space) was planted firmly across one part of the park.

In short, this incredibly beautiful and vital defence against the worst of the climate crisis was being destroyed.

Rebholz was told the palm farm was run by a company owned by DRC’s former president Joseph Kabila. Kabila left office in 2019 after 18 years in power. His family’s business interests across the country are well-established, as are the lengths he’ll go to in order to defend them. I wrote about that myself almost ten years ago. 

(We asked Kabila’s company about the palm plantation, but got no response.)

Rebholz demanded a commission of inquiry be set up to investigate all the dodgy things going on in the park. That’s when his family came under attack.

This was not an easy investigation to do, and I’m delighted that our reporter Josephine Moulds and the team managed to pull it off. She worked together with the Platform for the Protection of Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF), an organisation we’ve worked with several times. It allows us to better support whistleblowers who face trauma and legal risks when sharing their stories.

This kind of work can only be done with the support of our loyal Insiders. If you can, sign up and help power journalism that exposes this kind of deep-seated wrongdoing.

Factchecked!

Each week we reveal a fascinating fact from our reporting…

Did you know?

A type of industrial antifreeze (toxic to humans) was found in alarmingly high quantities in children’s cough syrup made in India.

Find out more

Our analysis of data from India’s medicine regulators showed that at least 12 cases of substandard cough syrup have been flagged since 2018. The most recent was in May this year.

Over the past three years, the WHO has issued nine warnings about cough syrups contaminated with industrial chemicals. More than half of them were made by Indian manufacturers.

Read more here.

Council offered suppliers millions to staff illegal children’s homes

Cornwall Council has been forced into an embarrassing U-turn and had to abruptly end a £6m staffing plan for illegal children’s homes in the county.

The council was advertising for a chunky staffing contract for unregistered children’s homes – but had to pull out when the government and Ofsted got wind of it and intervened. In case it wasn’t obvious, operating an unregistered children’s home is a criminal offence.

It’s not exactly a niche problem, either. Last year, Ofsted identified almost 1,000 young people in England who were housed in illegal homes – and it thinks the real figure is even higher. (If you want to know why these homes are so bad, read this.)

The Children’s Homes Association flagged the Cornwall ads to Ofsted in the first place. Mark Kerr, its chief executive, told us: “It is both disappointing and shocking that a local authority would seek to normalise illegal placements for children. I’ve not seen anything like this before.”

What do you reckon Cornwall Council said when we asked them about it? Let’s just say I didn’t quite buy it…but see for yourself.

Why no one is organising seasonal workers

Who will stand up for the rights of migrant workers coming to the UK on seasonal visas, doing the farm work that keeps our supermarket shelves full? 

Normally, unions advocate on behalf of workers when they face exploitation. 

But Julia Quecaño Casimiro has found union support hard to come by. She’s a farm worker from Bolivia, who’s been speaking to us about her battle for fair employment for the past two years. Instead, she has had to team up with a group of others in the same position to fight for her rights. 

Worker rights are deeply entrenched in the UK; it’s actually one of the things that makes this country a little fairer. But it doesn’t seem right that people who give everything up to work here don’t benefit from those protections. Overseas workers live in the UK on a six-month seasonal visa, which leaves them vulnerable to exploitation.

Julia started at Haygrove, one of the UK’s biggest fruit producers, after a recruiter promised her £500 a week. In her first fortnight, however, Julia made just £150. The bad pay and poor working conditions (which Haygrove deny) drove her and 90 others to go on strike. Eighteen months later, she’s still fighting. So, why aren’t the unions helping? And should they?

The illegal gold rush tearing Ethiopia apart

At a military checkpoint in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, an area reckoning with the aftermath of one of the 21st century’s deadliest wars, heavily armed soldiers ordered TBIJ to pull over. After a brief interrogation, we were told in no uncertain terms to turn back. Only those with written permission from the military controlling the area could go any further.

This investigation reveals the dark secrets behind the production of gold, a precious resource trading close to a record high thanks to the instability happening across the world.

Our reporter Claire Wilmot travelled to Ethiopia and went all the way into treacherous militarised territory near the border to figure out who is really benefitting from the booming gold trade. It was a pretty stressful trip for Claire (small violin for me, please – I had to stress about her safety) and maybe she can tell you about all the crazy stuff that happened to her in a future edition of Uncovered.

This story shows that while the West and China are posturing out in public, when there’s money to be made they’re all too happy to work together behind the scenes. And Claire traces some of that money all the way to a big Western stock exchange.