And we expose the corrupt deal to pay off a notorious dictator. I had to make it clear that, er, theyre going to expect a nice, thick envelope of notes, you know. In South Africas rural heartland, one company dominates tobacco production. 90 of the crop is bought by British American Tobacco. Tobacco yes, tobacco. Bat sold a staggering 638 Billion cigarettes last year. And South Africa is one of its most important markets. More tobacco the company has been operating here for more than 100 years. That is very powerful, that is tobacco, No Doubt about that. All the tobacco in the area. All. All goes to bat . Yes. Yeah, so they dominate the market . They dominate the market, yes, i can say that. British american tobacco is one of the uks ten biggest companies. It made almost £10 billion profit last year. Bat has strong foundations. And it claims to be an ethical company. And behaving ethically in all we do. It says its committed to the highest standards of Conduct And Transparency wherever it operates. Bat building a better tomorrow. But this isnt the first time weve investigated bat. Six years ago, we exposed how it used bribery to undermine anti Smoking Legislation in east africa. Sir, can i ask you a quick question . Im from panorama. Why did you not respond to our emails about bribery . Is that the nature of bat, sir, that you just put up with bribery . 0ur Revelations prompted a five Year Investigation by the uk serious Fraud Office. This january, the sfo concluded there wasnt enough evidence for a prosecution. But working with the bureau of investigativejournalism and the university of bath, weve found new Whistle Blowers. They say bat went to extraordinary lengths to sell cigarettes. These are the forests of maheking, in remote and rural South Africa. Pieter snyders lives here now. But he used to have a very different Life Spying and bribing. Breaking the law to help Bat Sabotage its rivals. They said that we must tap their telephones, do physical surveillance on them, on their trucks, where theyre going, where they offload, and follow them all over. You would pay bribes. Youd Use Tracking devices. You would effectively hire spies. Is that legal . No, not actually. Did you know it wasnt legal . Yeah, i knew it wasnt legal. But you did it anyway . Yeah. Did bat know you were doing that . They were giving us money to do that. When you paid bribes, did bat know you were paying bribes . They definitely knew it because i have to specify it in my invoice. You have to specify what you used the money for. Half a world away, another man is running from his past. Francois Van Der Westhuizen also used to do bat� s Dirty Work in South Africa. He too broke the law for British American Tobacco. You used Corruption And Bribery . Correct. Did bat know about that . Correct, they knew. How many people were you paying, then, you personally . Me personally . Probably every month. 15 people. Did anyone in bat say, hang on, this is illegal, we oughtn� t to be doing it . No. It was a system on the go, it was a system in progress, and i was just part of it. Bat� s Secret Operation In Southern Africa ran from 2000 to 2016. We have spoken to a dozen insiders. Many, like pieter and francois, had worked for South Africas apartheid police force. They say theirjob was to destroy the competition for bat. South africa is a huge tobacco market. And bat controls the majority of sales 70 of the market. Thats billions of cigarettes a year. There is a problem with Cigarette Smuggling and Tax Dodging in South Africa, which bat claimed some manufacturers were involved in. Bat said it was helping the government curb these illicit sales. But our evidence suggests bat went far beyond that. At the time, bat was pronouncing on Illicit Trade being a big problem in South Africa. So why would it help them, then, to say that they were fighting Illicit Trade . Whats the benefit to bat . It was much easier to say that you can only be low price because youre not paying tax. And therefore, they tell to the South African revenue service, we will partner you to get rid of this, ah, Illicit Trade problem. So to be clear, youre saying that bat portrayed themselves as doing the right thing and helping the State Fight Illicit Trade, and actually they were trying to undermine their rivals . Correct, actually all they were trying to do was to protect their market share. To undermine its rivals, bat turned to a private Security Company forensic security services, or fss. Its where our two Whistle Blowers worked. Were bat genuinely interested in tackling Illicit Trade or did you believe that it really was all about undermining rivals . I think it was undermining rivals. How many successful prosecutions were there from the work you did for fss for bat . I cant remember one. Youre there to sort of undermine this illegal system. I think most of us would imagine that that ends up in the courts and prosecutions, and you Cant Think of one case . No, i Cant Think of any case, no. The instruction that we got from management, Bat Management and Fss Management at the time was to close down the opposition. I reported everything back to them. I even got the instructions from bat personally, personal instructions were given to me to do these kind of things. Industrial espionage . Yes. Bat was under pressure from falling demand and cheaper competitors. It claimed some of its rivals were avoiding tax. Bat turned to fss to recruit an army of spies and informants. Weve obtained thousands of documents that show how they did it. Internal reports, emails and invoices. Fss registered its informants and gave them code names. They had almost 200 special informants, or sins, on their books. Some were paid the equivalent of hundreds of pounds a month. Fss would meet informants in Fast Food Restaurants like this one. Theyd dole out the cash to workers from rival factories. Theyd then sign the receipts and someone from bat to witness the payments. Informants were paid to report what they saw at work, giving daily updates on production. This matters, because paying bribes in exchange for information like this appears to break uk law. And the emails confirm the payments were approved by local Bat Managers. Bat in South Africa, were they aware that you were doing all those things . They sat in most of the Management Meetings where these things were discussed, and the operational planning was discussed. Is there any way that they could have thought that that was just a legitimate practice, that they didnt understand. . No, no, not at all, not at all. So, they knew it was illegal . Correct. I think its appalling. Its easy to dismiss South Africa or africa as being countries that dont care about corruption because its been so rife, and its true that it is a significant challenge in the region. But its really unacceptable because of the large multinational status that some companies enjoy, and feeling like they can be immune from any kind of prosecution. Does that make you angry . It makes me furious. It wasntjust local Bat People who knew what was going on. 0ur Documents show staff from the companys London Hq paid and managed some of the informants. This one shows a source was recruited by a Bat Manager in london. So does this one. And this one. They also made corrupt payments directly from london to informants. Bat staff would load thousands of pounds onto the sort of Credit Card normally used by holiday makers. Anyone with the Pin Number could then withdraw the cash in South Africa. Its a Payment Method sometimes used by organised crime to evade detection. Its a preferred way of Money Laundering by both Cocaine Cartels and, er, Extremist Terrorist groupings. And its being used by bat . They use these systems to pay their operatives in otherjurisdictions in a manner so that you Cant Trace who paid the money or whos using the money. British american tobacco didnt answer our detailed questions. But said it wasnt unlawful to pay sources to gather information about criminal behaviour. We emphatically reject the mischaracterisation of our conduct. But our evidence strongly suggests it wasnt all about helping Law Enforcement. Bat wanted to know what its competitors were doing so it could disrupt their business. Factory workers at rival companies like Gold Leaf were paid to tell fss when trucks loaded with cigarettes were leaving. Fss gave its informants phones to pass on information. And to take pictures of the registration plates. Surveillance teams from fss followed the trucks. And called in tips about supposed smuggling, so Customs Officers and police would be waiting to detain the lorries. It could then take weeks to prove the cigarettes were legal and get them released. You see this device over here . This is a Tracking Unit which we found on one of the trucks. That was on one of the trucks . This was on one of the trucks. And they would pull the truck over, based on what this Tracking Device is feeding them, and then the stock gets detained. The police would make up allegations or suspicions to say the stock was stolen orfake, something to detain the stock. So this idea of Illicit Trade, youre saying, is an excuse for targeting your company. Absolutely. And any prosecutions . None whatsoever. Gold Leaf Tobacco is so clean, weve never had a fine, weve never had a prosecution, nothing of the sort. This was prepared by fss about your company. The documents show how bat bribed at least six workers at Gold Leaf. From Shop Floor to managers. Yeah, its. Its shocking. Do you mind if i ask you over what period was that . Were talking years. Were talking years that that went on. Bat people would come from london to recruit spies. 0oh. Richard, i mean this is. You know, youre gonna send me back to my office to start preparing a summons. Is that the correct response, do you think, from what youve heard . No, absolutely, i mean. I mean, you know, if thats true, that is blatantly unlawful. That is. Its anti competitive of the highest order. It was a lot more than just paying informers. It seems bat was prepared to go much further to damage its rivals. 0ur evidence strongly suggests Customs Officers were paid to do bat� s bidding. And that the police were bribed too. We would target a certain individual thats working at a unit within the police. We would approach him, offer him a much better salary, three times more or four times more than what he would earn in the police. Gather him there. He had a direct link to all the friends within the unit. There we would go. We would manipulate that unit. Disruption. Disruption, disruption. We would abuse the intelligence Law Enforcement agency to do precisely that. Bat got access to information from Police Files and the vehicle registration system. And police cameras were used to watch its competitors. Like this cigarette factory injohannesburg. This is the headquarters of carnilinx, and that is camera 5 on the police cctv network. And bat managed to secure a feed from that camera to watch this factory. These are the pictures from that camera at that time. They would often raid our factory and, whenever our trucks were moving they seemed to know when our trucks were moving. And, wherever our trucks were going they would turn up with the police, with the taxman. Theyd then either impound our stock or confiscate our trucks or, you know, just disrupt our business continuously. And every time we would win the. Wed never go to court, you know . We would show our documentation, we would be able to justify what we were doing, and everything was returned to us, but if youre a Small Business it hampers your Cash Flow dramatically. What was that like . It was terrible. To survive that was very, very difficult. Im supplying i or 2 of the market. Why do they go to this much trouble to try and keep us out of the market . Its crazy. Bat says the surveillance was all about stopping the sale of illegal cigarettes. But neither carnilinx or Gold Leaf were ever prosecuted as a result. I think theres an arrogance and i think its quite infuriating when you think about the way in which theyve been able to manipulate both public officials and intrude into the rights of individuals and the public, and in a really concerning and unacceptable mannen they had no qualms bribing people, using sophisticated Spy Equipment to illegally invade on the privacy of people, or listen to their conversations or access their communications. Bat is the eighth biggest british company, and its an established blue chip, Stock Market registered, everybody� s pensions company. What do you think about a company like bat, through fss, doing the sort of things that youve just described . No, i think its utterly disgusting. I think its. Its shocking. But theyre doing it because theyre getting away with it. British american tobacco says the allegations are not new and have been investigated. And it rejects the allegation that any steps were taken with the aim of impacting the lawful activities of legitimate competitors or for commercial advantage. Weve found it wasnt just South Africa where bat was prepared to break the law. Its illegal operation crossed over the border to zimbabwe too. And weve discovered how far bat was prepared to go to get what it wanted. Documents suggest a bribe was paid to the former zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe. Bat was paying fss to conduct a secret operation against its rivals there. The plan was to reduce the Production Capacity at factories in zimbabwe ultimately resulting in the closure of three of them. Robert mugabes regime didnt want fss in the country. So fss relied on a localfirm to do the Dirty Work. But the zimbabwean company got caught spying. And three of its directors were charged with illegal surveillance. These documents show a plan was hatched to get the directors off the hook and protect bat� s name. Bat was told it had to make a large donation to Robert Mugabes party to get the men freed. This man was sent in to negotiate the deal for bat. He doesnt want to be identified. He says he bribed zimbabwean Government Officials to set up a meeting with them. I had to make it clear that, er, theyre going to expect a nice, thick envelope of notes, you know. I would be given a Lump Sum of money as an operational budget and out of that i would always give a handshake and a nice wodge of cash to the principals, just to warm them to the idea. 0ur Documents suggest bat paid for those bribes. Cash was given to the man who set it up special Informant Number 106. The reference is sos zimbabwe. And this is one payment of 90,000 rand, or 6,000. The zimbabwean officials said that with the upcoming president ial elections a donation to Mugabes Party Zanu Pf would pave the way for negotiations to continue. With this donation, they could then go back to the president to get this problem sorted out. They wanted a payment of between 300,000 and 500,000 us dollars effectively a bribe to Robert Mugabe. We cant prove the money was handed over. But documents and three insiders have confirmed that bat was aware of the terms of the deal. They would have to pay to get what they want, including these three men out of prison . Thats exactly the deal that was brokered. Is there a chance that because that meeting happened, friendships were formed and they got what they wanted without paying any money . Absolutely not, thats fantasy land. You get what you want by paying the money . And only by paying the money. Is there any possibility that Bat Wouldnt have known about this . Its, er. Thats laughable. The reality is, who has 500,000 lying around . It has to come from an organisation that does. Within days of the deal being offered, all three directors were free. And fss later went back to work in zimbabwe for bat. How serious an issue would it be if bat were found to have paid a bribe of hundreds of thousands of dollars to a man like Robert Mugabe a dictator . If this is established i think the level of impunity that were seeing is completely alarming. This idea that a company can do as it pleases, can go into countries outside of its own and seek to obviate the rules of those countries is really something that shows a disregard for both the law as well as the people of the country. British american tobacco didnt answer our questions about the zimbabwe payments. But it didnt deny bribing a dictator. The company cut ties with fss in 2016. It said. And resulted in no action. While the serious Fraud Office is aware of some of the allegations, it hasnt seen all our evidence. And it hasnt spoken to our Whistle Blowers. We think bat still has a case to answer. I hope that the serious Fraud Office make contact with me. I hope they make contact with each and every individual that worked for fss, and being paid by bat to do this illegitimate stuff. My Bank Accounts are there, go look. I received that money. I handed it out in cash. If you were approached by, for example, the british authorities, would you tell them what youve told me . Yes, i would. Why . Ive got nothing to hide, and i think, er, thats the right thing to do. Panorama has already revealed how British American Tobacco used corruption to undermine health reforms. Now weve exposed how, for 16 years, it used bribery to damage its rivals. Bat the company that stopped at nothing to sell cigarettes. This is bbc news. Im david eades. Our top stories haitis bitter Power Struggle intensifies as the Prime Minister sacks the chief prosecutor, who wants him to face charges over the assassination of president jovenel moise. Scared and in hiding the afghan women Left In The Dark over their future employment under a taliban government. 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