Getting "Invalid call" when using require with Typescript and Expo

I am trying to play some audio in a react-native app created with the expo-cli.

The code is written in typescript and the offending code looks like this, taken from the expo.io documentation:

import * as React from 'react'import { WorkoutComponent } from "./WorkoutExecutor";import { Audio } from 'expo';export default class AudioPlayer {    private async playAudio(fileName: string) {        console.log("Playing Audio: "+ fileName);        const soundFile = './assets/sounds/'+ fileName +'.mp3';        try {            const { sound: soundObject, status } = await Audio.Sound.createAsync(              require(soundFile),              { shouldPlay: true }            );            // Your sound is playing!          } catch (error) {              console.log(error);            // An error occurred!          }    }[...]}

When the app loads, it gives the following error, even before it gets to the screen with the sound

[...]\src\AudioPlayer.ts:Invalid call at line 13: require(soundFile)

I realize that the coe example is with javascript and not typescript, but what am I missing?

My tsconfig.json is the one from the expo typescript example and looks like this

{"compilerOptions": {"baseUrl": "./src","esModuleInterop": true,"experimentalDecorators": true,"forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true,"importHelpers": true,"jsx": "react-native","module": "es2015","moduleResolution": "node","noEmitHelpers": true,"noImplicitReturns": true,"noUnusedLocals": true,    // Using the type definitions in @types/expo becuase they are still better than the ones provided by expo. See SvgScreen.tsx and SystemFontsScreen.tsx."paths": {"expo": ["../node_modules/@types/expo","../node_modules/expo"      ],    },"skipLibCheck": true,"strict": true,"target": "es2017"  },"exclude": ["node_modules"  ]}