On a warm Saturday in August of 2024, Raphaël Maillochon was celebrating his son’s first birthday when he got a message from one of his sources. Maillochon, a 34-year-old crime reporter for the French broadcaster TF1, was used to contacts in law enforcement pinging him on the weekend. They liked Telegram, which they felt was more secure than other messaging apps. While Maillochon was strictly off work that day, at a country house two hours south of Paris, he couldn’t help but set down the bottle of champagne he’d been about to open and look at his phone.
The source had news about “un gros poisson”—a “big fish.” If confirmed,
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