Norway’s disappearing petrol stations, a Georgian call centre scam and Shein’s controversial move into a historic Paris department store
DISPATCH №54
Hello and welcome. Each week, Translator’s Dispatch brings you summaries of three compelling stories from media beyond the Anglosphere. It’s our way of helping us all read the world a little differently, to get out of our mono-lingual media bubbles. Feel free to share.
We begin in Norway, where the country’s leading newspaper reflects on the disappearance of petrol stations.
From Georgia, a new exposé traces a $35 million fraud operation that targeted victims across the globe.
And in Paris, a French investigation examines the controversial alliance between fast-fashion giant Shein and BHV owner Frédéric Merlin.
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Norway is running out of gas (stations)
With the rise of electric vehicles, Norwegians are ever less dependent on petrol stations. The country’s main newspaper takes a trip down memory highway.
There was a time when Norway’s petrol stations were more than just places to fill up the tank: they were landmarks where travelers could grab a bite or stop to chat on long stretches of road. But that era is coming to a close. According to Norway’s biggest selling newspaper Aftenposten, hundreds of the country’s staffed petrol stations have closed in recent decades — a shift that reflects changes in travel and technology.
The newspaper feature opens with a strange anecdote about a man called Finn Ståle Myhre, who in the 1990s bought an old petrol station and café in Hølen, just off what used to be the main Oslo-to-Sweden route. Myhre transformed the building into a furniture shop and hamburger bar, but often slept on the premises to protect it from thieves who targeted the area. One night in 1994, a gang broke in by driving a car through his window. Myhre, who had been sleeping naked, pursued them wielding a baseball bat.
That story doesn’t have much to do with travel habits, admittedly, but it’s a striking opening to the piece and it shows how areas by highways were once a place of action — even if farcical and illegal — in contrast to today. In Norway many staffed stations have shut down entirely or been replaced by larger, more centralised outlets that fewer people visit. The report cites statistics that show a dramatic decline in petrol station employment — from just over 12,000 jobs in 2013 to under 8,300 in 2023, a drop of around 32%. Young people in rural areas are especially affected, with more than half of service-industry jobs historically held by those under 25.
Aftenposten gives three main reasons for this decline: Cars today, even petrol-powered, are more fuel-efficient and can travel longer distances between stops. Stations themselves have meanwhile grown larger, consolidating pumps and customer facilities into fewer locations that are more efficient for operators. And, crucially, petrol and diesel consumption is decreasing as electric vehicles become more common. (Most EV charging already happens at home rather than at roadside stations.)
The newspaper visited a handful of defunct petrol stations. One site is now a tyre and car sales lot. A former BP station houses a grocery store selling fruit, veg and imported goods — the owner of which fears for the business’s future. Yet another has been transformed into a garage and vehicle rental business. Still more sites stand empty, awaiting their next incarnation. Myhre, who converted a petrol station into a furniture shop in the 1990s, has been forced to adapt again after a rerouting of the nearby highway drastically cut traffic passing his premises. Myhre’s furniture business now exists mostly online, and the physical building is open only a few hours a week, although he still runs a nearby campsite.
With just a touch of nostalgia for a more diesel-scented time, the feature concludes: “Only the foundations of the gas pumps are visible in the asphalt today”.
The original article by Øyvind Nordli and with photos by Paal Audestad ‘Tyvene kjørte gjennom Finn Ståle Myhres vindu. Så konfronterte han dem – kliss naken,’ was first published in Norwegian on December 14, 2025.
It available here.
Aftenposten has been based in Oslo since 1860 and is Norway’s main printed newspaper by circulation.
Summary by TM
Inside a Georgian call centre scam
An exposé of the $35 million scam operation that left a global trail of broken lives
In this EU Journalism award-winning investigation, journalists exposed a sophisticated fraudulent call centre operation nestled in the heart of Tbilisi, Georgia. Targeting primarily elderly and vulnerable individuals across Europe and the Americas, the centre robbed thousands of their life savings. Part of an international collaboration, the investigative film was produced by Tbilisi-based Studio Monitor.
The voices of the scammers are scripted to sound like your best friend, your financial savior, or a sophisticated global broker. They call themselves Esteban Fernandez, Lana Lehmans, or Antony Adams. They promise the moon: Bitcoin windfalls, quadrupled investments, and a life of luxury backed by deep-fake endorsements from Elon Musk and Justin Trudeau.
But behind the professional veneer and the friendly voices lies a brutal reality. They aren’t brokers in London or Toronto. Rather, they are part of AK Group, a network of fraudulent call centres operating in Tbilisi, Georgia – often just a stone’s throw away from government security buildings.
For Marcel Deschamps, a 60-year-old factory worker from Ontario, the nightmare began with a Facebook ad. Within five minutes of clicking, he was sucked into a vortex of psychological manipulation.
The film shows how the scammers used AnyDesk, a remote desktop app, to invade his computer under the guise of technical help. They watched his bank accounts in real-time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. When Deschamps’s life savings were gone, a “recovery specialist” named Mary Roberts appeared to help him get his money back.
Mary Roberts was actually Mariam Charchiani, a professional scammer earning upwards of $20,000 a month. When Deschamps finally confronted her, the mask slipped. “Just go ahead and kill yourself,” she told him over the phone, laughing: “You will never find my real passport. You’re f..ing dumb.”
The queen and her hive
In a collaborative effort, journalists in Georgia, Sweden and Canada obtained and analysed hundreds of thousands of documents that stripped these fraudsters of their anonymity:
At the helm of the operation is the “queen,” 36-year-old Marry Shotadze. Agents refer to her as “queen”; she uses a “crown” symbol on social media. Demanding a $30,000 daily quota from her “Top Agents,” Shotadze flaunts $18,000 Rolexes and a life of luxury.
The shadow boss is Akaki Kevkhishvili, a 33-year-old with a penchant for Range Rovers. Records show him withdrawing hundreds of thousands in cash while urging agents to have no mercy for their clients. Personally, or through his family members, Kevkhishvili owns apartments, a private house and luxury vehicles.
The agents are mostly young people fluent in foreign languages [they should have worked for Translator instead]. Among them is 26-year-old Lana Vakhtangidze (alias Lana Lemans). According to the investigation, she sometimes earned more than $35,000 a month through fraud. In early 2025, Vakhtangidze threw a lavish wedding at a luxury resort, where she arrived at the ceremony by helicopter.
Security for the operation is provided by Levan Gogia, a former official with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, now providing security for people robbing pensioners across the globe.
A global trail of ruin
The scale of the devastation is staggering. Between 2022 and 2025, AK Group fleeced over 6,100 victims out of $35.3 million, according to the investigation.
The victims are diverse, but united by their vulnerability: Oksana, a Ukrainian refugee in Germany mourning a brother killed in the war; Annika Gustafson, a 68-year-old Swedish journalist who needed money for dental work.
While their victims were often left choosing between groceries and rent, the employees of AK Group lived in a parallel reality of unchecked excess. Internal records and social media posts reveal a culture where successful theft was celebrated with the fervor of a high-stakes victory.
Top agents flaunted a lifestyle of designer labels and luxury jewelry. The company’s 2024 New Year’s Eve gala (there’s a montage of photos from the event in the film) epitomized this decadence: held in a lavish venue with professional cabaret dancers and famous presenters, the scammers toasted to their $35 million haul. Best-performing agents were awarded BMWs and iPhones.
When journalists tracked down the shadow boss Kevkhishvili, he fled behind his private security. The centre’s office has since gone dark, and social media accounts have been scrubbed.
As part of the project, the journalists facilitated a confrontation between the victims and the fraudsters. Mariam Charchiani, reached by Deschamps on her real phone number, could only stammer denials before hanging up. Gustafson wrote a letter to the person who robbed her. But for victims like Deschamps and Gustafson, the scars remain. They haven’t just lost their life savings; they are mourning the loss of their trust in humanity.
Editor’s Note: Weeks after the investigation was published, police seized properties of AK Group, Rekhviashvili, Charchiani, Vakhtangidze and their family members. Pending investigation, police have refused to disclose further details
The investigative film was originally released online by Georgia’s Studio Monitor on March 15, 2025.
It is available on YouTube here. You can watch the video with automatically translated English subtitles.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, iFact, GMC, Swedish Public Broadcaster and Canadian Public Broadcaster and other organizations contributed to the investigation.
Summary GL
Shein in Paris
A French investigation dissects the controversial alliance between Shein and BHV owner Frédéric Merlin
In Mediapart, journalist Mathias Thépot reports on the explosive arrival of the Chinese ultra-fast-fashion giant Shein inside Paris’s historic Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville shop, better known as BHV. The opening of Shein’s first physical store, unveiled on 5 November in the heart of the capital, was meant to signal reinvention. Instead, it has triggered political backlash, regulatory scrutiny, and renewed questions about the survival strategy of BHV’s embattled owner, Frédéric Merlin.
Shein’s presence on Rue de Rivoli immediately drew protest from local residents and left-wing elected officials, including Socialist Emmanuel Grégoire, Green politician David Belliard and Communist senator Ian Brossat. Shein, which generated €2.3 billion in French e-commerce revenue in 2024, has come to symbolise the worst excesses of globalised production: disposable clothing, environmental degradation, obscure supply chains and exploitative labour conditions.
Thépot covers the controversies engulfing the company. In late October 2025, the consumer magazine 60 Millions de Consommateurs revealed that Shein had listed sex dolls of a paedopornographic nature on its platform, prompting intervention by France’s consumer protection authority and referral to the public prosecutor, the article notes. A few days later, reports surfaced that category A weapons, including firearms, were being sold online. The French government announced it would initiate a suspension procedure against Shein’s website until compliance with national regulations could be demonstrated.
These scandals add to an already extensive record. In July 2025, Shein was fined €40 million in France for misleading commercial practices. The European Commission has opened proceedings over unfair competition. The company has also faced sustained criticism over environmental harm, unsafe materials and punishing factory conditions in its supply chain. For Thépot, Shein does not represent an alternative to exploitative capitalism but rather its acceleration, intensifying the extraction of labour and fossil fuels to deliver rock-bottom prices and incessant overconsumption.
Central to Shein’s defence is its populist slogan: fashion is a right, not a privilege. Influencers and executives frame the brand as democratising style for consumers priced out of traditional retail. Frédéric Merlin has echoed this logic, insisting that BHV does not categorise its customers and must adapt to new economic realities. Yet Thépot dismantles this claim, arguing that the rhetoric of accessibility disguises the same value-extraction model that dominates the industry. Cheap clothing, he suggests, is not emancipation but a symptom of a system built on disposability.
If Shein embodies one side of the story analysed in the article, BHV’s financial fragility is the other. Merlin acquired the iconic department store from Galeries Lafayette with ambitions of revival. Instead, Thépot describes mounting instability. Payment delays to suppliers reportedly reached nearly €30 million by spring 2025. Brands, frustrated by unpaid invoices, have withdrawn from the store, leaving shelves increasingly bare. Turnover dropped by 30 percent in July and August 2025 compared with the previous year, itself already weakened.
Merlin disputes the scale of the crisis, claiming that suppliers are owed only modest sums equivalent to days of sales. But several brands have reportedly initiated legal proceedings, including bailiff actions and potential insolvency filings. The Shein partnership, far from reassuring partners, appears to have intensified their concerns. Some retailers departed permanently following the announcement. Even Banque des Territoires, a subsidiary of the state Caisse des Dépôts that had backed Merlin’s acquisition of the BHV building, withdrew support, citing misalignment with its institutional values.
The investigation ultimately frames the partnership as emblematic of a broader decay in the business world. A legacy Parisian institution, struggling under financial strain, turns to a company repeatedly sanctioned for legal and ethical breaches. The result is not renewal but convergence of two models of aggressive capitalism reinforcing one another.
The original article by Mathias Thépot ‘Shein et Frédéric Merlin: l’alliance de ce qui se fait de pire dans le capitalisme’ was published in French on November 5, 2025 in Mediapart.
It is available here.
Mediapart is a French independent online news organisation celebrated for its investigative journalism and subscriber-funded model.
Summary by ZN
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