2024-12-30
40 分钟This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
You know you've got a big story because you hit publish and then you almost throw up.
I was thinking, am I being followed?
I would do things like check the bushes outside my house for cameras.
At night, I would stand on the tube and then wait until the beeps just before the doors closed, and only then would sort of hop out onto the platform, look around, has anybody followed me off?
It was that level of paranoia that you're genuinely thinking, I think these guys are out to get me.
Dan McCrum really wasn't ready for this, for this world of spies and stings.
His was the much more sedate world of writing about businesses for the London newspaper, the Financial Times, the ft.
But then this firm that he was reporting on wasn't an ordinary business and he was left fighting for his career and fearing for his safety.
I'm Jo Fidgeon from the BBC World Service.
This is Lives Less Ordinary.
So this starts in 2014.
Dan was looking around for a new story and chatting with one of his contacts who was the manager of a hedge fund.
And he just says to me, would you be interested in some German gangsters?
And it turns out he's talking about this funny little German company.
It has something to do with payments.
Calls itself the European PayPal.
And as soon as I take a look, something about it just seems too good to be true.
It's growing really, really quickly, but it's also making loads of money doing it.
It's really profitable and that's very unusual.