内容摘要：Writing about Palestinians in this blunt, uncompromising way invites all sorts of replies from all sorts of quarters.

Writing about Palestinians in this blunt, uncompromising way invites all sorts of replies from all sorts of quarters.

Pattni’s biggest competitor, a gold smuggler named Ewan Macmillan, also offered to help launder money for Al Jazeera’s reporters. Like Pattni, Macmillan, uses a group of couriers to transport hundreds of kilos of gold per week from Zimbabwe to Dubai, where it is then laundered through a web of companies and false invoices. Central to Macmillan’s operations is his business partner Alistair Mathias, who advises clients on how to cleanse their dirty cash.Finally, Al Jazeera obtained details of how Simon Rudland, one of Zimbabwe’s richest men, launders money through both Zimbabwean and South African companies. Rudland is the owner of Gold Leaf Tobacco, one of southern Africa’s biggest cigarette brands, especially on South Africa’s black market.

These smuggling gangs have official licenses from Zimbabwe’s central bank that allow them to sell the country’s gold in Dubai, documents accessed by Al Jazeera show. They are expected to return the proceeds from those sales back to the central bank.Instead, Pattni, Macmillan and Matthias have a well-oiled money laundering mechanism in place. They told Al Jazeera’s undercover reporters to set up shell companies in Dubai that would serve as a front for gold trade. The legitimate money earned from the sale of Zimbabwean gold in the emirate would be transferred to the bank accounts of these shell firms. And the smugglers would instead carry the dirty cash back with them to Harare, where they would deposit it with the central bank.“So, it’s very clean that way,” said Mathias, Macmillan’s partner.

When asked about the findings of Al Jazeera’s investigations, Pattni said no allegation of criminal wrongdoing had been upheld against him in Kenya. He denied involvement in any kind of money laundering, as well as employing anyone to smuggle cash or offering to deal with funds he knew originated from illegal sources. He said that when he met with our undercover team, he thought he was meeting with an investor who wanted to sell a stake in hotel businesses and “to divest of a portfolio in China into gold buying and mining in Zimbabwe”.Alistair Mathias denied that he designed mechanisms to launder money and said that he had never laundered money or traded illegal gold. He told us he had never had any working relationship with Ewan Macmillan.

Rudland told Al Jazeera that all allegations against him were false and formed part of a smear campaign by an unidentified third party. He described himself as “a strong businessman … competing against the greedy and the envious”. He denied any involvement in the sale of illicit cigarettes, in gold or other smuggling and in sanctions busting.

Gold Leaf Tobacco, Rudland’s company, said that it emphatically denied any involvement, past or present, in money laundering, the trade in illegal gold or related matters.The giveaway, according to The Wall Street Journal, came when the messages asked about items Wiles should know or did not sound like her in other ways. For example, the newspaper reported that some messages were either too formal or had poor grammar.

The phone number used was also not Wiles’s normal number. Still, some of the sources who spoke to The Journal said they interacted with the impostor before realising it was not, in fact, Wiles herself.On Friday, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Kash Patel, issued a statement denouncing any impersonation campaigns.

“Safeguarding our administration officials’ ability to securely communicate to accomplish the president’s mission is a top priority,” said Patel.Earlier this month, the bureau had acknowledged that “malicious actors” appeared to be mimicking government officials through a “text and voice messaging campaign”.