film

The Borneo Case

Bertha Journalism

Liminal Fund

Directors

DYLAN WILLIAMS / ERIK PAUSER

 

Production support

Impact campaign support

Went to Good Pitch

 

The Borneo Case is a modern day thriller building upon unique material filmed over 25 years, that tells the epic tale of how the Rainforest was transformed from the home of the last nomads into a land stripped of its natural resources. A story that reveals how billions of dollars of illegal profits solicited by the Chief Minister of Sarawak, the Malaysian part of Borneo, were money laundered with the assistance of the largest global banks into offshore accounts and property portfolios all over the world.

Gordon Brown, in the independent called what has happened in Borneo The largest Environmental crime of the century.

Long Synopsis:

The Borneo Case is a modern day thriller building upon unique material filmed over 25 years, that tells the epic tale of how the Rainforest was transformed from the home of the last nomads into a land stripped of its natural resources. A story that reveals how billions of dollars of illegal profits solicited by the Chief Minister of Sarawak, the Malaysian part of Borneo, were money laundered with the assistance of the largest global banks into offshore accounts and property portfolios all over the world.

The film begins when a small group of activists get their hands upon leaked secret documents from a well-placed insider that offer concrete proof of the workings of the money trail.

As their investigation gathers pace, the group, made up of a Borneo tribesman now living in exile in Canada, a pirate DJ on the run in Borneo, Clare Rewcastle Brown an English investigative journalist and Lukas Straumann a Swiss historian, activist and writer soon find themselves on a collision course with some of the most powerful timber mafia organizations in the world. A journey filled with intimidation, death threats and murder before finally ending up at the heart of the financial centre of the world.

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called the deforestation of Sarawak, a sliver of rain forest on the island of Borneo, in Malaysia, "probably the biggest environmental crime of our times." In his newly released book Money Logging: On the Trail of the Asian Timber Mafia, Lukas Straumann investigates that crime.

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