This is a story about having a hunch and following it, following it as far as it takes you,

from scary taxi rides to frozen fields of broccoli. And it begins here.

My name is Io Alcoyer.

I'm a freelance investigator journalist.

Iyo is a freelancer, which means she's worked at a variety of news outlets.

It also means she's always keeping an eye out for inspiration.

Back in 2018, she was doing a short internship at the Financial Times, jumping from one reporting job to another.

It was a really short internship. It was like two weeks. That being said, I learned a lot about networking, which was actually more important. And I was doing a lot of editing, sub-editing. So that was a really good experience for me.

And it was there that a report came across her desk, with the vaguest hint of something in it.

I'm Moe McClendigan. This is the tip-off.

One day, while interning at the Financial Times,

IEO came across a document that detailed how supply chains across Europe

were far from transparent, with many missing vital details about where goods were coming from.

And in modern times, that mattered.

But it was essentially mostly to do with

problems that European countries are going to face due to the issues of migration. And actually

it said that these certain countries are more prone to instances of slave labor or labor exploitation

because of all these inherent weaknesses in the system that

they're not combating.

I already read through the reports and got on with her work.

There wasn't time to do much else.

But something in those pages stayed with her, mingling in her mind with an investigation

...