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00:02The whole story was so weird, it beggared Billy.
00:09Marianne told me she was a shaman.
00:12She had wit, she had charm, she had talent.
00:17But she was bad.
00:20It felt like I was confronting something that was really evil.
00:26She was the perfect bogeyman.
00:28A witch doctor in the middle of Hampstead, conning rich people out of a million pounds.
00:34I thought she might be the biggest female fraudster in UK history.
00:43The victims lost everything.
00:46It's just so sad.
00:49Julietta Couser was the most dangerous person I ever dealt with.
00:54The story isn't finished. The story isn't finished.
00:57What exactly happened to Isabel Cook?
01:02I've always known that there are parts of this story that should be investigated and haven't been.
01:18There isn't one victim of Juliette D'Souza who wasn't wrecked by her.
01:25You've got all these hurting people in London who lost between three and seven million pounds.
01:37No one had seen her since the end of 2006, some two years earlier.
01:42But she was believed to be in Suriname, where she claimed to have connections to shamans.
01:53As a journalist, I felt a responsibility because the authorities have failed.
01:58Nobody has tried to hold Juliette D'Souza to account.
02:05So, I went to Suriname seeking a sit-down interview to give her a chance to talk about the allegations
02:15against her that she was a fraudster.
02:20She's a false prophet who has presented to be a spiritual healer in Hampstead.
02:29I had to find her.
02:32The first thing you do on arrival is find a fixer.
02:38They know how things work.
02:41When I told the fixer why we were in Suriname and who we were going to see, the colour drained
02:48from his face.
02:52She was living with a man called Armand Chinaton.
02:56I'd been told that he was a senior police officer, also the head of immigration.
03:02And I understood at that moment that this assignment was going to be a problem.
03:07It seemed to be a little bit trickier, even than I had thought.
03:18If you're exposing someone as a fraudster who's taken advantage of vulnerable people to an unfathomable degree,
03:28you need to know what they look like, because someone somewhere might think,
03:34ah, but she's the woman that my aunt is involved with.
03:42And so we've got two objectives here.
03:45I need to get my interview, but John, my photographer, needs to get his photographs.
03:52And so I had the idea of renting an apartment and keeping the house under observation.
04:03With journalism, you spend quite a lot of time just waiting.
04:07In this case, waiting for a sight of D'Souza.
04:11You go to the window and watch.
04:16You chat.
04:18You go back to the window.
04:21Next day, the same.
04:24The day after, the same.
04:29On day five, we had a sight of her.
04:36It was the fixer's car when we did the pictures.
04:39I'd seen photographs of her in London when younger.
04:43There was no doubt in my mind that the woman who came out of the house was D'Souza.
04:49She had dyed blonde hair, tied back.
04:54She was just pottering.
04:56She was walking to her car.
05:01Now, this is a sweet moment because we have documentary evidence.
05:07She was in Suriname.
05:11I was taken by surprise when an anonymous-looking white car emerges from the side of the house
05:21and cruises past us slowly with the driver taking a good look at us.
05:28At that moment, it's clear this is Armand Chinaton, D'Souza's partner,
05:35the senior police officer, head of immigration.
05:38The man who made the fixer go pale.
05:43I said, I think we should go back to the hotel.
05:52But as I was driving, I realised that Mr Chinaton was following us.
05:59I could see him in the rear-view mirror.
06:02So, I slowed down.
06:07And down, and down.
06:10The white car following slowed down, and down, and down.
06:15There's no doubt at that moment you are being followed.
06:23It's a slow-motion pursuit.
06:29I can remember a feeling of relief of getting back to the hotel.
06:35And then, not relief.
06:38Slowly, one by one, people wearing dark blue shirts take up position in different bits of the hotel.
06:50And I knew I wasn't being followed in the hotel, but I was being watched.
06:57But it was obvious it was time to leave the country.
07:02I was hoping for a sit-down interview, and I didn't achieve that.
07:09The priority now is safety.
07:12My task was to get the photographs back to London.
07:15Magazines don't work without photographs.
07:19The photographs were put onto a hard drive.
07:22There was a sense of urgency to it, because you don't know if there's going to be a knock on
07:28the door in the night.
07:31The next day, in the airport, three men came up to me in the departure line and asked me to
07:38go with them.
07:42The man wanted to know why I was in Paramaribo.
07:46And I told him that I was there to write a travel feature for the Sunday Times.
07:54And during the interrogation, one of the other two men was going through my luggage with the hard drive, which
08:01had all the evidence about Julia D'Souza.
08:06And the man doing the search reaches the bottom of the rucksack and stops.
08:14And so I sit there, trying to have no reaction, because I put the hard drive inside my dirty underwear
08:23at the bottom of the rucksack.
08:26But in this case, that was where the search ended. He went no further.
08:32Saved by a dirty underpants.
08:34Yes, yeah.
08:36Dirty underwear buys you ten seconds of hesitation.
08:42And they let me get on the plane.
08:53I didn't manage to achieve the interview that I'd gone to Suriname to get.
09:01And therefore, I was never likely to be able to answer the most intriguing question about her, which is, why?
09:10But there was enough evidence against her to convince me and to convince the newspaper's lawyers that a story could
09:24be published.
09:25So I wrote the article.
09:32As soon as this magazine came out, I bought four copies.
09:37I couldn't wait to get my hands on this, actually.
09:40Because, you know, after 12 years there, to finally actually have the truth finally revealed.
09:48My hope on publication was that this would achieve the justice for the group of victims.
09:55I thought that once it was in black and white, the police would do something.
10:03It was a fabulous thing.
10:05This woman's been exposed and that, you know, if she tries anything else, she'll be stopped on the tracks.
10:12You know, we hoped for results at the end of all of this.
10:15And I thought, you know, the truth really will set us all free.
10:23Unfortunately, there was no reaction on publication.
10:26There's silence.
10:27There was no police investigation.
10:29Juliette D'Souza was not held to account.
10:32It felt like a total failure, to be honest.
10:39If you've laid out in black and white the worst that you think a human being could do, and nothing
10:46happens,
10:48what message are they going to get?
10:51The freedom that they believe they have to carry on is only going to be reinforced.
11:03I really did feel that all hope had been lost, really.
11:09It took me a long time to kind of come back into the real world, actually.
11:13Because, you know, horribly, I've been quite clearly, obviously, living in a lie.
11:21And I was just scared of her being out there.
11:33My aunt was the kindest person you'd ever meet.
11:36And to think that she was taken advantage of in such a way just, well, it just breaks my heart.
11:45Sylvia had been giving to Sue some money to cure Margaret, my mother.
11:51She'd been in hospital for a long period of time.
11:56Allegedly, the money's going to Suriname.
11:59The shaman that's blessing it.
12:04She wanted to believe.
12:06She just didn't want her sister to be going through that.
12:10She put her trust into this woman.
12:14And then Juliette D'Souza disappeared for a while.
12:18And my mother passed away.
12:23Sylvia was absolutely devastated.
12:26It was her little sister and she missed her terribly.
12:32And she was battling with her dementia.
12:35She'd been conned out of a large sum of money.
12:40But none of us were aware that Juliette D'Souza just kept feeding and feeding and feeding off of her.
12:47It was her little sister.
13:01When Margaret died, what Sylvia said to me was she'd left her approximately 230,000 to 250,000.
13:10That was a heck of a lot of money.
13:15Sylvia had complained about the bathroom.
13:17And I said to her, I said,
13:19Well, Sylvia, look, you've got your money from Margaret.
13:22Why don't you get yourself a new bathroom?
13:26And then suddenly, out of the blue, she said to me,
13:30I don't know how I'm going to pay for this bathroom.
13:32I haven't got enough money.
13:35And the alarm bells rang.
13:37What's happened to your inheritance?
13:39Where has it gone?
13:43And I learned D'Souza had come and she had taken money from Sylvia in cash.
13:53When Margaret died, this is when D'Souza came back from Suriname, I started to feel absolutely sick.
14:04I got a call from a woman who introduced herself as Maria Feeney.
14:10She was piecing together what was happening between her friend Sylvia and D'Souza.
14:20She told me that Julia D'Souza was still defrauding Sylvia Eves.
14:29But it was of different fraud.
14:33One day, Sylvia gets a phone call from a Mrs. Brown, HM Revenue of Customs official at Heathrow Airport.
14:43And Mrs. Brown said,
14:45We're holding your half a million pounds, but we need a release fee of 57,000 pounds.
14:52In cash.
14:55Sylvia managed to raise the money to pay the release fee.
14:5957,000 pounds to get her sacrifice money back.
15:05But it was clear that Mrs. Brown didn't exist.
15:12Juliet D'Souza was Mrs. Brown.
15:17She was posing as a customs agent, saying, we've got your money at the airport and you need to pay
15:22this money to get it out.
15:24She was conning her right up to the very last minute.
15:28The total sum Sylvia lost was close to 600,000 pounds to give or take.
15:36When we had to let her know what was going on, she was completely devastated.
15:44She would say, why did she do this to me, Maria?
15:46Why?
15:49With the onset of dementia, it took a long time for her to realize that this woman is a massive
15:58conwoman.
16:02This was Juliet D'Souza's most serious error because she crossed over into definitely a crime because she impersonated a public
16:13official.
16:16This is a letter that Sylvia sent to the police station.
16:22And it's very important.
16:26I have been the unfortunate victim or the confidence tricks of a hardened criminal.
16:31By using many ploys and guises and impersonation of a customs official.
16:37She managed to get everything I inherited from my mother, husband, sister and aunt.
16:42My resources are now completely gone and I've borrowed from friends money that I can never pay back.
16:47It's essentially a desperate plea for help.
16:52She's been scammed.
16:57I've never come across any cases with shamans and sacrifices before.
17:02I would say I'm a very open-minded person and this case was very difficult to investigate.
17:10Shamans don't ask for large amounts of money, according to the research I did.
17:17Most frauds have financial transactions.
17:23That's the evidence chain that you follow, that's what leads to a conviction.
17:28Here, the money was all paid in cash.
17:31There wasn't any bank accounts that I could explore.
17:35There wasn't really a lot to go on.
17:40I felt that the only way this would work would be to find as many victims as possible.
17:48Because I could not believe that Sylvia would have been the only person that this would have happened to.
18:00We needed to know more about who this woman was.
18:07I suddenly got a call from the police.
18:09I said, we'd like to talk to you.
18:13Obviously, it was fantastic.
18:15You know, I mean, finally, you know, after all this time, we'd finally, you know, getting some sort of activity
18:22here.
18:22I had to give a statement about what had happened.
18:29This was a broken man who felt a lot of shame and guilt at the involvement that he'd had.
18:38But once he realised that, did everything he could to help the victims and witnesses and help the police.
18:44Keith had a lock-up with lots of the items that had been collected at Willoughby Road, which he said
18:52was D'Souza's possessions.
18:54I have actually held on over these last couple of years several boxes of evidence.
19:07We found these extraordinary bills.
19:09I mean, you know, tens of thousands of pounds being spent all the time.
19:14You know, everything from Harrods to, you know, people like Cartier.
19:18There were lots of receipts for high value and designer goods.
19:25And there were multiple envelopes.
19:28Even more importantly, empty open envelopes with victims' names on them.
19:33I mean, I kept them actually hoping maybe somehow one day that maybe it might become useful.
19:42And I remember the first time I saw an envelope, I kind of thought, wow.
19:48It really has happened.
19:50The victims who had described writing their name, date of birth, on envelopes, filled with cash, as requested by D'Souza.
20:00And the money was supposed to go to Suriname, be put on this tree, to anything from help someone who
20:08was going to have an eye operation.
20:10To save someone's sister.
20:13It's all these extreme things.
20:15But to actually hold one of those envelopes in my hand.
20:20And it hadn't gone to Suriname.
20:23They'd been opened and the money had gone.
20:27There was nothing in there.
20:29So I needed to find as many victims as I could.
20:36So about three years after Bob's death, I was contacted directly by one of the two police women that were
20:46working on the case.
20:48I was actually hesitant.
20:50I really didn't want to be a witness.
20:53I suppose because I'm embarrassed by it.
20:56What changed your mind?
20:58I started hearing about the other cases.
21:02This was a massive fraud where people's lives had been ruined.
21:11The moment it struck me that she was a con artist and doing things that I was unaware of is
21:21when the police contacted me while I was in New Zealand.
21:26So the money she got off me unwittingly helped swindle people out of a ton of money.
21:36And the detective who got in contact with me that they were, I was seen not as an accomplice but
21:48very much as a victim of this woman's lies, deceit.
21:55I think for anyone who does end up on the receiving end of being scammed, that's probably the hardest part,
22:04is admitting to yourself and to others that you've messed up, you've made a mistake.
22:14It's so hard to get people to talk.
22:16There was naturally a sense of shame and guilt.
22:22The one victim who really broke my heart was a young woman who paid money to D'Souza for sacrifices so
22:36that she would get pregnant.
22:37And she did get pregnant.
22:43And D'Souza told her that there was something wrong with the child.
22:50To want so desperately to have a child and having someone tell you that you need to get rid of
22:58the child and help arrange for that abortion.
23:02And she did have an abortion.
23:04There's a victim who was never even born.
23:09And I find that so heartbreaking.
23:21These were really vulnerable victims.
23:24People who were dealing with really tough times in their lives.
23:29There was some kind of trauma going on somewhere.
23:33People are desperate.
23:34That's the thing, is that when you're in a dark place, there is a reason why people turn to beliefs,
23:42whatever they are, in dark places.
23:45Some people pray to make things better.
23:50And some people give sacrifices in different ways.
23:55I couldn't really take the investigation further until I'd spoken to Juliet.
23:59Juliet.
24:05But nobody knew where she was at that time.
24:09She'd used various names, various addresses.
24:13She was very elusive.
24:16She was circulated as wanted.
24:19There was an image of her in public.
24:24We used that photograph as an identification.
24:28Walking around Hampstead, asking people, do you know that woman?
24:33Well, she's got to be stopped.
24:36Then at the police station, I heard someone else mentioning one of her aliases with regards to a different incident.
24:48And I thought, wait a second, that might be her.
24:52By complete chance and overhearing that conversation, DC Colonel realised that could be D'Souza.
24:59That was an opportunity to actually locate this person.
25:07Juliet D'Souza was arrested in June 2012 in a care home, carrying five mobile phones and over £2,000 in
25:14cash.
25:15Her arrest was a huge moment.
25:23I went down to custody to do my interview with her.
25:30And I was taken aback by how calm she was.
25:34During the interview, it was as if we were out for dinner.
25:40D'Souza just denied everything.
25:43She said she didn't know anything about shamans, being a witch doctor, taking money from people.
25:50She didn't know anything about a tree in Suriname.
25:54I never had any discussions with any one of Keith Bender's patients regarding anything to do with the word sacrifice
26:00or threatening people or any kind of witch doctory.
26:04The only time that I've heard the word sacrifice is coming out of the Bible where Abraham or Jacob sacrifices
26:10his own son.
26:13I never believed her.
26:15It sounds really harsh and you have to be impartial as a police officer, but you're also a human being.
26:22She was trying to manipulate me.
26:24I mean, you could see straight away how manipulative she was.
26:29She was talking to me as if with her friends.
26:32So she kept saying,
26:33No, but Linda, I wouldn't do that.
26:37It probably helped that I just listened to everything she said.
26:41As a true friend would.
26:45As soon as I saw her and spoke to her, I understood how this could have happened.
26:55I showed all the receipts and I showed photos of bags that had been found.
27:00All sorts of things that she clearly spent a lot of money on.
27:04She couldn't come up with any explanation as to how she funded her luxury lifestyle.
27:11Yeah, she provided no other legitimate means of paying for any of that.
27:15And therefore, without that evidence,
27:18that only supported the victim's case that they'd given her cash
27:21and she'd been using that cash to fund the lifestyle in London.
27:44For a local reporter, a long criminal trial are coming up.
27:48Smack bang in the middle of your patch concerning a witch doctor is a gift.
27:57She got away with it for so long.
27:59It's hard to think of anything that touches this story for the depths of depravity.
28:07Everyone wants justice.
28:10The atmosphere, rather tense.
28:16I thought this would be a difficult case to secure a conviction on,
28:21even after I'd heard about the dreadful things she'd done.
28:26There was 11 victims who came to the trial,
28:32and several witnesses as well.
28:35The amount of money that D'Souza was accused of taking from these people
28:41was almost a million pounds.
28:47April 30th, when the trial started,
28:50that was the first time I saw Mary after so many years.
28:59This is the woman who'd messed my life up.
29:06I didn't actually really want to look at her,
29:09to be bluntly honest.
29:11Had enough of her.
29:16She was quite emotionless.
29:20When a client like Juliet Tudor comes to you,
29:24what were your initial thoughts?
29:26It was a very strange and unusual case.
29:29And the client wanted to defend it.
29:31The client denied the allegations against her.
29:33In other words, she was not involved in a fraud,
29:37and that she wasn't duping people.
29:40She had done nothing wrong.
29:44The quirks of the defence was that she had nothing to do with it.
29:47She never called herself a witch doctor.
29:48She never went to Suriname.
29:50But you could fill pages and pages with her denials.
29:55Keith was key to the investigation.
29:58He was key in the trial.
30:01It's quite a big deal to kind of go into a witness box.
30:05It's one of my profound fears.
30:12Mr. Fiddler put a question to me.
30:16Mr. Bender, are you not the master architect of this entire scan?
30:23I put it to you, Mr. Bender, that you organised all of this.
30:26And I said, that couldn't be further from the truth, Mr. Fiddler.
30:32The defence tried to blame Keith Bender for everything.
30:38That he had taken the cash.
30:41That he had used the cash.
30:43That everything was his idea.
30:47And it just, to me, went into a full-scale attack on Keith Bender.
30:55And, you know, it was a relatively good argument given that he was actually responsible for shepherding quite a few
31:01people to D'Souza.
31:02And he was also responsible for taking a ton of money from people.
31:07In fact, the numbers going through Keith Bender's account looked incredibly criminal and indicting.
31:12We have to put the case, we have to put the case to him.
31:14That he was the one taking the money and he was the one trying to extort.
31:18He was leading the people astray.
31:22I said, what are they talking about?
31:24How can he say such things?
31:26I'm just a courier, I'm just a go-between.
31:30Marianne was actually using my bank account because she didn't have one to actually cash these vast cheques.
31:38But that's as far as it ever went.
31:41I was actually feeling an overwhelming sense of compassion for him.
31:49Keith had been groomed, he'd been abused, she'd sucked him in.
31:54And no, she was dumping everything onto him.
31:58There were moments when I had to pause.
32:02I had to, because otherwise I think I was going to, you know, just break down.
32:10It must have been horrible for Keith, because Keith knew that he'd facilitated her criminal behaviour.
32:17But it was always very transparent with everything.
32:22Keith voluntarily allowed the police to look through his bank accounts and we saw no evidence that he had financially
32:32profited from this.
32:36Anything he'd done for her was because he was worried what would happen if he didn't.
32:42Keith was controlled by her.
32:48I was just looking forward to seeing her absolutely torn to pieces by the prosecuting chap.
32:55We were really waiting with bated breath to see what she was going to say.
33:01My real interest in her would be to know what was driving her.
33:06Why did it go from fraud for money to deliberately hurting people?
33:13Because that's the bit about her I don't understand, I don't understand the motives.
33:18She spoke with me, she was aware of the risks of not giving evidence, because there's an inference to be
33:23drawn, and how the case could have been made worse if she would have given evidence.
33:32She never went to the witness spots.
33:37I can understand why she didn't give evidence, because she would just be talking non-stop.
33:43I mean, she wouldn't do herself any favours being in the stand.
33:47I had no idea whether the case was going against D'Souza.
33:53It had to be proved beyond reasonable doubt that she'd done what she was accused of.
34:02There were a lot of victims at the trial.
34:04There was an opera singer called Sylvia, who was one of the most tragic.
34:10It was very traumatic for her having to relive all that experience in the trial.
34:14But she still wanted to see the woman brought to justice.
34:19The case is about the money, the charges are about the money.
34:22But the reason she's so dangerous for me is, it's the other things she managed to make people do.
34:33It was really when the victim took the stand, who had an abortion, and described how she aborted the longed
34:40-for baby.
34:42It was heartbreaking.
34:44Such was the incredible control that D'Souza had over this otherwise rational woman,
34:50that I realised we were really in a whole other level of what we would now call coercive control.
34:56It was definitely a turning point for me in the case.
35:01We eagerly awaited the final verdict.
35:08The jury came back after an hour.
35:15No-one anticipated that they were going to come back within an hour.
35:18It's not normal, especially for a five-week trial.
35:24The final verdict was guilty.
35:28She was convicted of 23 counts of fraud and obtaining property by deception.
35:35This victim could finally get it confirmed that this had happened, that they were right.
35:43It was just one of those perfect moments, you know, you think, yes.
35:52And as the jury were walking out, one of them turned to me and mouthed, thank you.
36:01And I've never forgotten that because, I guess, just the relief that they'd seen what we'd seen and they'd not
36:11judged the victims.
36:15She's a convincing and manipulative liar who preyed on the vulnerability of her victims and completely betrayed their trust.
36:22She may end up going to prison.
36:24Do you think she should?
36:26Well, I think it would protect other people from her.
36:32I suppose she should.
36:35If it's the only thing that's going to stop her doing it, yes.
36:41When I heard that she got a 10-year sentence, I thought, well, there is justice.
36:47Juliet de Cesar was the most dangerous person I ever dealt with.
36:53And the judge said in his sentencing remarks that it was the worst case of confidence fraud he'd ever seen.
37:03The judge revealed that her criminal history went far beyond the faith frauds.
37:12So I've got a list here.
37:14So in July 1982, three offences involving deception.
37:18June 1983, two offences of obtaining by deception.
37:23October 1983, two offences of obtaining by deception.
37:27November 1983, three offences of theft as an employee and an offence of obtaining by deception.
37:33November 1987, seven offences of obtaining by deception.
37:37Six offences of using a false instrument.
37:40Two offences of deception with intent to default permanently on liability.
37:44An offence of theft and three offences of forgery.
37:48What's the question?
37:49Well, that's quite, is she a career fraudster, would you say?
37:56Doesn't it speak for itself?
37:57Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:12Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:13Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:14Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:15Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:16Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:17Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:18Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:18Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:18Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:19Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:20Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:20Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:21Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:21Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:23Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:25Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:26Do you think it's a career fraud?
38:27that ignited my interest in this case.
38:31She was prosecuted for the Hampstead Faith scam,
38:34but it feels like that's just the tip of the iceberg.
38:38In fact, on the final day of sentencing back in 2014,
38:43D'Souza was accused of committing an entirely different fraud crime.
38:48The day of the final sentence was finally passed.
38:53We came out of the courtroom and there must have been,
38:57I don't know, 20 or 30 Philippine women there.
39:00And one of them actually came up to me and she said to me,
39:04Marianne, she owed me £75,000.
39:07I said, £75,000 for what? She promised passport to me.
39:13You've got 11 people, however many it is, giving evidence in court.
39:18That's one scam based in Hampstead.
39:21Outside the court, you've got this group of Filipinos working overseas
39:25who had given D'Souza money
39:28because she could help with their ability to stay in Britain.
39:34What she had said to them was that she was second in command
39:37in the Home Office.
39:40This was the first time I realised that she'd actually been pulling another scam.
39:45I didn't know about this passport scam.
39:48You know, it's the leopard that never changes its spots.
39:51I mean, she's never going to change its spots.
39:54Julia D'Souza never faced trial for her alleged role in the Filipino passport scam.
40:01There's so much about her criminal career we don't know.
40:04Are the various frauds we do know about connected?
40:08And where did they begin?
40:13So that's part of the unfinished business for me.
40:17She's definitely out of prison.
40:19Where is she now?
40:21What is she doing?
40:27This is a woman who's had lots of names.
40:31She's an expert in being hard to find.
40:34And so I am going to see someone who is an expert in finding the hard to find.
40:43Is she in Suriname?
40:46Might she have returned there?
40:49Hello.
40:50How's things?
40:52Yeah, no, I've got a new coffee machine, so we can give that a try.
40:55Do you want black or white, Tim?
40:57Well, that depends on how good the coffee is.
41:00I'm keen to get the update.
41:02Yes.
41:03Hell of a mystery.
41:05It's as stories go, isn't it?
41:06Well, so...
41:06It's multi-layered.
41:08I'll follow you.
41:09OK.
41:09Well, in fact, you don't know where you're going, do you?
41:10So let me...
41:11I think I'll follow you.
41:14I mean, I'm used to wading through the murky underworld,
41:18but this is something quite new.
41:20The witch doctor kind of fraud that she was operating,
41:24and also the Filipino visa scam.
41:28These people are all desperate.
41:30And so she's sniffing out the weak points in various elements of society.
41:34She's almost like a huntress where she's hunting for the next con.
41:39I went to my contacts.
41:40I said, look, I'm trying to get into finding someone in Suriname.
41:43He said, well, look, what's her name?
41:45And that's why we laughed a bit, because I gave him, I think, nine or ten aliases.
41:49And he started saying, Glenn, this is going to take me a while to run this.
41:53From everything that's come back, I found she didn't go into that country after 2008.
42:01So she disappears. She's like a ghost after that date.
42:07It's weird, because I went into this, Tim, and it was harder than I thought it was going to be,
42:14finding the people who knew D'Souza and her network.
42:19Some people got scared.
42:21I mean, I had two or three good conversations.
42:23Every time I rang them back, boom, they turned the phone off.
42:27And that happened more and more, which kind of got me going, well, hang on,
42:31they don't even want to talk about this woman.
42:34People were scared of her.
42:37Search goes on, I suppose.
42:41I think D'Souza might still be in the UK.
42:46There's been some sightings in North London,
42:50although none since two years ago.
42:55For someone with this history of prolific fraud,
43:00there must be so many victims.
43:05There'll be people who didn't talk to the police.
43:09There's other networks that we don't even know about.
43:13And there's one victim I never met, I never interviewed,
43:18but I never forgot.
43:21Keith told me about her right at the beginning, in 2008.
43:27And Isabelle Cook had been a patient of mine back in the 90s,
43:30and I'd actually put Isabelle on to her because Isabelle had terrible problems.
43:33So that's kind of how she comes into it.
43:37And we can't talk to her, she's dead.
43:42Which is awful, terribly sad.
43:45Did you say Isabelle?
43:47Isabelle Cook.
43:48So really, in a way, ought to be investigated further,
43:52because I think everybody has their own story to tell.
43:57Isabelle Cook was obviously part of that network of people.
44:03She was young, but she had health problems.
44:06And D'Souza offered shamanic help with those.
44:13She should be enjoying the freedom of being in her thirties in London.
44:17And instead, she's living secretively under a name that isn't her own.
44:24She died at 35 of natural causes.
44:27But there are a lot of unanswered questions about her relationship with Sousa.
44:35She had a relationship with Sylvia that was rather like mother and daughter.
44:43So, I'm going to meet Maria Feeney.
44:50Hello, Tim.
44:51Maria.
44:53Lovely to see you.
44:56Come on in.
44:57I've come to ask you about Isabelle Cook.
45:01Yes.
45:02I know that Sylvia was fond of her.
45:05I wonder if you could share with me what you know.
45:10Isabelle was a frequent visitor to Sylvia's flat.
45:16She was an alternative sort of therapist, a muster,
45:20who mixed her own oils.
45:22I found her very endearing.
45:24And I could see why Sylvia liked her.
45:29It was a very close relationship.
45:32Now, I do know that she lost her mother early enough.
45:35She was troubled.
45:36There's no doubt about it.
45:38But it was quite sad in that way.
45:40It did worry Sylvia.
45:41And then, of course, you had the health issues.
45:44How did you find out that she was dead?
45:48The police came and they just dropped the bombshell that
45:52she was dead.
45:54Isabel was dead.
45:57She had problems.
45:58She had big problems.
45:59There's no doubt about it.
46:03But she was somebody's daughter.
46:06Hmm.
46:09I found this article from the Camden Gazette,
46:12which I'd like to share with you.
46:14The very distressing circumstances in which Isabel was found.
46:20The partially naked body of a woman who died in mysterious circumstances
46:24was discovered next to £2,500 cash and a passport that showed
46:31she'd been living under a false identity.
46:34Oh, dear.
46:35The police launched an investigation after Miss Cook, who had been living under the name of Catherine Radford, was found
46:44dead.
46:45Did you know Isabel was living under a false identity?
46:50Oh, it's definitely new to me.
46:52They were able to say that she died of thyroid disease.
46:55Mm.
46:58The police decided there were no suspicious circumstances.
47:03Yeah.
47:04Am I right in thinking that among D'Souza's papers that Keith found in Willoughby Road was Isabel Cook's birth certificate?
47:15Yes.
47:17Now, I still don't know why Juliette D'Souza would have Isabel's birth certificate, but it was there.
47:27I was shocked.
47:29It was very disconcerting.
47:31The circumstances of Isabel's death were very unusual.
47:36She was found with £2,500 in cash and a passport not in her own name.
47:46Keith found her birth certificate among D'Souza's papers.
47:52There are so many unanswered questions.
47:58There is another lead.
48:00This is the computer of George Hines, who was a journalist I met in 2014.
48:08Now, George has died and we've obtained it from his widow.
48:15He was just a dogged, energetic, public interest journalist who chased things down.
48:26George had been looking into Juliette D'Souza, the death of Isabel Cook and the Filipino passport scam.
48:33On the hard drive is research.
48:36A very interesting folder here.
48:39These are notes from an interview George carried out with a young woman who was helping D'Souza with her travel
48:46arrangements in Suriname.
48:49She was also a victim of fraud by D'Souza, but this was different.
48:55She says,
48:57I met her in 1998, but she started ripping me in 2005 till end of 2006.
49:07D'Souza persuaded this woman that she was in trouble and her name was on an international wanted list.
49:14The woman handed over very large sums of money to have her name removed from these wanted lists.
49:23She says, she told me she was a big shot lawyer in London with a lot of clients with big
49:31influence and that she would arrange everything.
49:34I gave Juliette about 92,500 US dollars, but I think by then I was already under her spell.
49:48And for fuck's sake, once again, she's at the center of psychological violence and it's upsetting to read.
50:04According to D'Souza, this woman should leave Suriname and start a new life under a new identity as police are
50:12investigating her.
50:14And she said I should give her 5,000 euros so she could arrange a British passport for me with
50:22the new name of Isabel Cook.
50:25She told me that name was easy because that person already died.
50:31This is astonishing.
50:35You know, it's a serious offence to offer someone the identity of a young woman found dead in London.
50:47I need to speak to this victim because I'd like to confirm some things she told George.
50:54Hello.
50:57My name is Tim Raymond and I wrote an article a long time ago about a woman called Juliette D'Souza.
51:11You know who she is, yes.
51:13And do you remember talking to a journalist called George Hines?
51:19He told me that you were offered a passport by Juliette D'Souza and it was in the name of Isabel
51:30Cook.
51:30Do you recall that at all?
51:33Yeah.
51:35You remember.
51:36You remember.
51:37So she offered you the passport.
51:39You didn't see the passport but you did pay for the passport.
51:44You paid for the passport, yeah.
51:47I can hear that it's upsetting even now to remember how it was.
51:52I don't want you to worry about anything.
51:56Thank you very much.
51:58Thank you for answering the phone and thank you for helping me.
52:02The story isn't finished, exactly.
52:04The story isn't finished.
52:06Bye-bye.
52:12She's confirmed that Juliette D'Souza offered Isabel's passport to her on a flight to Suriname.
52:23She paid 5,000 euros for it but she never received it.
52:29The connection between Isabel Cook and this new victim exposes a whole new level of exploitation and criminal enterprise.
52:39Both were already victims but then she uses the identity of one to further defraud the other.
52:46It's layer upon layer of fraud.
52:49But D'Souza's international web of lies eventually caught her out and it was all thanks to this vulnerable lady in
52:57Suriname who confronted her tormentor.
53:00I found these articles from a Suriname.
53:05They shed more light on what happened between this victim and D'Souza.
53:11The reporting confirms in 2008 Juliette D'Souza was convicted of a fraud in Suriname.
53:20It looks like D'Souza's passport was confiscated while the case was going to court which must have made it difficult
53:28for her to leave the country.
53:35If this woman hadn't taken D'Souza to court she would have been free to return to the UK.
53:41Keith would never have investigated her flat and discovered she was a con artist.
53:46I want to let him know all this.
53:50Hey Tim!
53:52How are you?
53:53I'm okay.
53:55Oh you've got something rather hot off the press there have you?
53:58I think I know why Juliette was absent for all that time.
54:05The sequence of events that led to the unravelling.
54:09So between 2006 and 2008.
54:12Yes.
54:13Do you know she was in legal difficulties in Suriname?
54:18No, I had no idea about it.
54:21No.
54:21She persuaded a woman that she was in terrible trouble, scamming her of a lot of money.
54:29So it's thanks to this victim D'Souza ends up in a criminal case in Suriname.
54:35The dates of the court case are in line with the time Juliette disappeared to Suriname and everything unravelled in
54:43Hampstead.
54:43And that's why she couldn't come back to London.
54:49I can tell you that *** paid a very heavy price.
54:52Yeah.
54:53The extreme isolation.
54:55Yes.
54:56Just like you.
54:57So here are you in London.
55:00Yeah.
55:00And here is a woman in another part of the world.
55:04And you're going through, you're going through a parallel experience.
55:08Yeah.
55:09Super familiar.
55:11This is actually the most extraordinary part.
55:15Having put this woman in fear, she offered the woman a passport for the change of identity in the name
55:24of Isabel Cook.
55:27Oh, shit.
55:29And my heart's beating harder.
55:32Oh.
55:33Oh.
55:34My lord.
55:34Extraordinary.
55:36Jeez.
55:37I can't believe it really.
55:39Surely there's a right piece of work, this lady.
55:44We'll never know the full extent of her crimes and why she did them.
55:50She remains an enigma.
55:52But the scale and complexity of her lies, the number of lies that she had going on simultaneously is unparalleled.
56:03And given her track record, I don't think it's the last we'll hear of her.
56:10But what I've learned is being human means that when times are tough, we need something or someone to believe
56:21in.
56:23And that's what she exploited and that's why it's so outrageous.
56:29And this is a story that teaches you quite a lot about human resilience and the power of friendship.
56:39These things are more powerful and I'm grateful for that.
56:46That's right.
56:46That's what I've learned about loving my life one and by the end.
56:50As long as our lives, I can find a friend and I am alone.
56:56That's what I've learned.
56:58You can find a friend and I do.
57:06Okay.
57:06OK.
57:08He's getting better.
57:10He's forgiving himself a bit more.
57:20Juliet Souza robbed me of 10 years of my life.
57:25Now, my life is great.
57:28I think, Deb, she can bring me down to earth.
57:30And I love that.
57:33Because you've got to move on.
57:40Her ashes are now with her sisters in Holland Park.
57:43You'd have some last moments with her.
57:45What would you say to her?
57:49I just remind her how much we loved her.
57:55Sylvia was grateful for the friends that she had.
57:59He said, Juliet Souza may have relieved me of my money,
58:04but she could not take my friends away.
58:14you so excited.
58:35You and I are the pastor.
58:38You and I are the pilgrims,
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