January 2016, Colombo in Sri Lanka. Things haven't been going well for Shalika

Perera, but her life is about to change. Shalika is a businesswoman in her late

30s. She's got big dreams including becoming a politician one day. She set up

companies in construction, car parts publishing catering, none of its worked out.

The losses from a publishing firm were apparently so bad she was forced to sell

all the computers. So she's changed, tacked and decided to go down the philanthropic

route. She set up a charity in her own name, the Shalika Foundation, which she says will

help build houses for the poor and provide other social services. And it sounds like her

strategy is going to pay off. This could be the one because her charity is about to get

a massive windfall. She's been meeting potential donors from Japan. One of their

middlemen is now confirming an imminent transfer from a big Japanese investment fund. It's

$20 million. The middleman even gives a letter to prove it. It's on-headed note paper

and everything. But if you look a bit closer, there are some tell-tale signs the letter

isn't quite on the level. For a start, there are some spelling errors. It also features

a sort of grainy mocked up graphic showing a stack of banknotes tied up with a yellow

ribbon. Not exactly the kind of thing a multi-million pound investor is known for.

Still, as far as Shalika is concerned, things are looking up.

This is Shalika speaking in 2016 and she's explaining how important the $20 million donation

is to her foundation. She's talking to Shihar Aniz. He's a Sri Lankan investigative

journalist working for Reuters. She was telling a lot of stories about housing, rural electrification,

improving the economy of the rural poor. That'll take money, so this $20 million donation

is a big deal for Shalika. It could turn some for dreams into reality. But then, the

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