Background Briefing

Reporter Tracey Shelton spent years as a correspondent giving a voice to people in war zones who'd experienced trauma.

When she returned to Australia, she was surprised to find people here suffering similar symptoms, so she set out to investigate the cause.

These people were supposed to be near the front of the queue for Covid vaccines.

But in Yarrabah, an Aboriginal community near Cairns, local doctors are still scrambling to get the vaccination rate above 50%

With only six weeks until the Queensland borders open, reporter Mayeta Clark went to find out why.

He was sentenced for a crime that shocked Australia: the terrorist plot to attack Sydney's Holsworthy barracks.

But Nayef el Sayed's family are still confused about why he's doing so much jail time, and they're not the only ones with questions about the law used to convict him.

Mahmood Fazal investigates.

As government investigators close in, Asiaciti realises it hasn't been keeping a close watch on some of its risky clients.

In this series finale, Mario Christodoulou traverses from Swiss mountaintop chateaux to a Nigerian coup d'etat, to find out exactly what money was secretly flowing through Asiaciti's products.

Then, he takes everything he's found to the man who built up the Asiaciti empire from nothing: Graeme Briggs.

The ABC reached out to every person named in this story, we received no response from Du Shuanghua.

A rock concert ticket scalper and a controversial entrepreneur turn to Asiaciti for assistance.

Using products from Graeme Briggs' company, they lock away their riches on a small Pacific island nation, out of the reach of authorities.

But soon, Asiaciti learns it's got its own crisis to deal with: a global media scandal that threatens the company's very existence.

Mario Christodoulou reports.

Graeme Briggs enjoys rugby, collecting Japanese fountain pens, and looking after other people's money.

The problem for Graeme and his company Asiaciti is that among the many legitimate clients, some of them turn out to be corrupt politicians, fraudsters, and criminals.

If that isn't bad enough, nearly two million files from his company's server have been leaked to journalists.

So what's Graeme Briggs going to do now? Mario Christodoulou investigates.

There's a landmark project underway in Melbourne to find out whether psilocybin - the hallucinogenic compound in magic mushrooms - can be used to improve end-of-life experiences.

But many Australians have already turned to the underground because they're convinced psychedelics improve their mental health.

Geoff Thompson investigates whether it's worth all the risks.

This is a repeat of a program that aired in February 2021.

Geoff Thompson follows the dangerous journeys of three Afghan journalists as they attempt to flee the Taliban. Two of them succeed with the help of an Australian man who engineers an escape route for them from his house in Sydney.

An awkward Christmas lunch conversation sends reporter Sam Carmody on a search for answers about his family history. The stories he finds out about are so disturbing, they have implications not just for his family but for the entire region, where his ancestors have a statue in their honour, a highway and even a town named after them.

Since the September 11 attacks, Australia has enacted a staggering number of laws to counter the threat of terrorism. Over one hundred people have been charged with terror-related offences here, but very few have spoken to the media.

One Australian man who was charged with offences that can carry up to 25 years in jail, shares his story with Mahmood Fazal for the first time.

Editor's note September 9 2026: An earlier version of this story included details claiming Australian Federal Police had conducted raids on properties in Queensland in November 2016, including in the suburb of Mermaid Waters, as part of a joint counter terrorism taskforce. This was incorrect. Queensland police have confirmed one raid was conducted by police connected to an anti-organised crime taskforce.