Reportercast

A podcast episode recorded in Kyiv on October 17 on the sidelines of a conference on the human rights abuses in Ukraine and Syria, organised by SUN (The Syria Ukraine Network), an NGO based in the US.Andrii Mikheiev is an international law expert with the International Center for Ukrainian Victory, a Kyiv-based NGO. He tells host Matei Rosca about the struggle Ukraine is facing in recovering its material losses from Russia, the inadequacies of international law and the UN system in dealing with a war of aggression and with claims for reparations and war crimes prosecutions, and he paints a picture of the way forward which could be taken as campaigners and Western politicians work together to find solutions.

Steve Middleton is a financial adviser specialised in regulation and he has taken up the cause of Northern Irish business owners who accuse Ulster Bank (a subsidiary of NatWest group) of fraud, which the bank denies.

Ex-BBC reporter and ex-Ukrainian finance ministry official Valeriya Melnichuk, who currently advises the Ukrainian government on a campaign to exclude Russia from the global financial sector, talks to host Matei Rosca about her work, past projects, and plans.

In this special one-year anniversary edition of our website and podcast, we dive deep into terrorism financing with field expert Yair Samban, who is currently a specialist consultant at Pegasystems, an IT company, and a former officer with Israeli military intelligence, tasked with analysing money flows to detect potential terrorists. Samban also wrote a book on the subject with co-authors Alex Mintz and Tyson Chatagnier, available from all major stores. In the recording, he gives us his life story, including a tragic event which set him on the path of hunting terrorists, and explains what authorities and the industry could do better to detect money used by these organisations.

Investigative academics Philip Newall and Maira Andrade tell host Matei Rosca all about the intricacies of crypto gambling, a new type of gambling which has been found to pose risks both for consumers and the integrity of the financial system. They also discuss more broadly the latest regulations proposed by the UK government for gambling (not including crypto gambling) as well as their own background and plans for the future.

A great honour to have Dan Neidle, tax expert and founder of the Tax Policy Associates think tank (https://www.taxpolicy.org.uk/), discussing the scandal around top Tory figure Nadhim Zahawi's tax affairs, which he made a major contribution to uncovering, as well as lawyerly shenanigans, libel threats and general views on how the UK should go about taxes. This was the last episode of the first season as Reportercast goes on a break to prepare for the future.

The researcher behind the Hunter Biden allegations sits down on Zoom with host Matei Rosca to discuss the entire saga, the censorship allegations as well as the controversies surrounding his own side's political objectives and biases.

Valeria Hontareva, the former central bank governor of Ukraine (2014-2017), and now a world-famous expert on finance reforms, banking governance and monetary policy, discusses her biography, why she decided to give up a comfortable life as one of Ukraine’s top investment bankers, why she decided to refuse to yield under pressure to do less reform, what lessons can Western policymakers learn, how to carry out a successful financing of Ukraine’s reconstruction, and how to stay resilient in the face of what increasingly appears to be an imminent global financial and economic crisis. She also gives details of her life under constant threat from crooked bankers as she closed or nationalised Ukraine's dirty banks, including PrivatBank, the country's largest at the time.