101 East

He has created new identities for many people. An expert at crafting fake passports, the man, known as "the Doctor", has helped drug dealers, criminals and terrorists move freely across borders. Thai police have called his forged passports the "best on the market". Now behind bars in a Thai prison, the Doctor is speaking out for the first time, revealing the secrets of his trade in this exclusive interview. "My job could fool the immigration and any agent in the airport and pass through, no problem," he boasts. For years, he operated in the shadows in Thailand. International security experts say the country is a hub for transnational crime, bringing the Doctor a steady flow of criminals who want new identities. "Even his customers didn't know who the Doctor was. He was able to hide in Thailand for 20 years," says Major-General Surajade Dhammadamrong. "Each person in his network didn't know each other, making sure they never met. Criminals operating like that are very hard to track down." But authorities eventually closed in on him as part of a crackdown on passport forgers. He may now be behind bars, but the Doctor is not yet ready to give up all his secrets - Thai authorities concede his true identity remains a mystery. 101 East traces the hunt for the master forger.

A notorious highway in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh is the site of a shocking trade. Girls as young as 10 are being forced to work as prostitutes – and it’s their own families selling them to passing trucks. The girls are from the Bachara tribe, a low-caste community known as Dalits. Most of the Bachara men say discrimination stops them from getting jobs, so generations of girls have supported their families through prostitution. Filming undercover, 101 East discovers girls as young as 10 are being offered to men. While India introduced tougher child rape laws in 2018, advocates say the laws are not properly enforced.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called it the "project of the century". The new Silk Road is China's ambitious plan to boost its worldwide reach through new train and shipping lines, roads and ports. Following the old Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) crisscrosses from Asia to Africa and Europe. China insists the massive development will benefit all countries along the route, but locals tell a different story. Along a railway that stretches from Djibouti to landlocked Ethiopia, local worker Mohamed says he feels frustrated. "The Chinese don't do anything! It's not right. They just hang around drinking water and eating ... All of the work is being done over there, and it's us, the Djiboutians, who are doing it," he says. 101 East travels to Pakistan, where China is investing $62bn over the next 15 years to transform the small fishing port of Gwadar. But local fisherman Ghani says he has not seen the benefits of this project. He lives with 36 relatives in a house that has no water or electricity. Since the deep-sea port was built, he says fishermen have been finding it increasingly difficult to find fish. "We no longer have access to certain areas at sea, where we always used to go fishing because there were lots of fish. The port has taken them over. Now we have to go much further out." 101 East examines the human cost of China's new Silk Road.

Every year, thousands of Japanese men and women vanish without a trace. They are known as the "johatsu", or evaporated people, and they engineer their own disappearances. Without warning, they leave behind loved ones who are left searching for answers.

101 East meets the first responders saving Australia’s wildlife from the country’s worst bushfires.

101 East examines why more people are withdrawing from society in Japan. Kenji Yamase spends his days in his bedroom. The 54-year-old has been a “hikikomori” all of his adult life. The term describes Japanese who rarely interact with society beyond their family.

Exclusive, secretly filmed video smuggled out of Myanmar appears to show continued persecution of Rohingya people. Myanmar’s government is on trial in the International Court of Justice, accused of orchestrating a campaign of destruction against the Rohingya people. 101 East has now obtained secretly filmed footage of killings that took place during a brutal army crackdown that led to hundreds of thousands of people fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh.

We investigate the housing crisis sweeping across New Zealand, leaving families struggling to cope.

Hidden away in the COVID-19 pandemic are Malaysia's migrant workers. For years, they have done the country's most dangerous, dirtiest jobs. Now, undocumented foreign workers are scared for their future. Out of work and forced to live in cramped conditions, some are starving and dependent on charities to survive. The government has successfully contained the initial spread of the virus. It has also put some of the poorest areas of Kuala Lumpur behind barbed wire - testing and fingerprinting migrants, and arresting anyone without valid documents. 101 East investigates why Malaysia's migrant workers are at risk in the time of COVID-19.

They have been found everywhere - in bathrooms, subways, hotels, even schools. Thousands of tiny cameras hidden across South Korea secretly record people’s most private moments, with the footage distributed online. Arrests for “molka”, the Korean word for hidden camera, have soared in the last decade, with perpetrators coming from all corners of society - from a television anchor and a K-pop star to doctors. Even teachers have confessed to hiding cameras in school bathrooms, filming children and colleagues. 101 East investigates how one of the most connected countries in the world is waging war against digital sex crimes.