staying in
by SARAH SHANNON
PODCAST
To Catch a Scorpion
Barzan Majeed – aka Scorpion – is a ruthless people trafficker with a reputation for violence. He’s the sort of person you’d want to avoid, but in a gripping BBC series, To Catch a Scorpion, reporter Sue Mitchell and ex-soldier turned aid worker Rob Lawrie try to track him down. Their dogged search reveals much about a ruthless trade in desperate people who will pay more than £10,000 to cross the Channel. They visit a car wash where young Majeed took his first UK job; they meet a middle-class Belgian woman who lets 40 migrants sleep in her bedrooms; and they hear the terrified testimony of a child who crossed one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes in a rubber dinghy.
Rob has impeccable contacts from his work in the Calais camps who send him tip-offs. These lead the pair from dark woods in northern France to a threatening Turkish café. More than once, Rob tells Sue, ‘It’s time to get out of here,’ but their terrier-like persistence brings the podcast to a gripping conclusion. One of the most exciting and insightful podcasts of recent times.