00:00It's autumn, it's raining and cold. We're on Lake Como. The repeaters in the area are recording...
00:15Something's wrong. There's a signal jumping from one cell to another, as if it's gone crazy.
00:22And whoever holds it seems to be taking flight. What's really happening?
00:28to that cell phone and its owner? That day is November 21, 2013 and it is
00:38the day of the disappearance of Jeff Page Burton, the wealthy Australian businessman who owned
00:45of IMX, a shipping company located in the Milan area that does business with all
00:52the world. That cell phone that seems to be going crazy is his. What is Jeff doing? He's up there.
01:00on a plane? Or those anomalies? That strange activity recorded on his cell phone is signaling
01:07something else?
01:09No one will ever convince me that Jeff has decided to leave and is fine as they say.
01:16on an island drinking a Cuba Libre. I'll never believe it, and no one will ever convince me.
01:25Leila is Jeff's girlfriend. He, as we told you, is a wealthy businessman who came
01:30from Australia. She, on the other hand, is a girl from a simple family, born in Africa, in Angola.
01:36When she meets Jeff, Leila is working as a waitress in a fancy restaurant. One evening he asks her
01:43to go out and she says yes. Let's just say we were a pretty unlikely couple.
01:52Thus begins a story that has the feel of a fairy tale. She and Jeff go to live on the lake.
01:57in Como, where actors, industrialists, and footballers buy and sell villas like they were sweets.
02:04These are exclusive environments and Jeff and Leila frequent them. Until that November 21st.
02:10of 2013, when Jeff suddenly disappears. This is where Jeff lives, in Rovenna, a small
02:19village on the hills overlooking the lake. That morning, the morning of Jeff's disappearance,
02:27He doesn't look like a man who is about to leave, who is about to flee, on the contrary.
02:32He asks me to please take to the laundry some shirts that he would have had
02:37need during the week. Jeff makes sure his shirts are clean and well ironed and
02:43He thinks about paying the gardener's bill. But he doesn't have any cash at home and goes to the ATM.
02:50As soon as he gets home, Jeff leaves the money with the ATM card on the table and Leila,
02:56at that moment in the shower, he says he has to run to catch the bus, the one for
03:0010.40am. I didn't see him, that very morning no one else saw him. Usually.
03:06He takes it at that time, but he wasn't there that morning. That's all.
03:12You're not sure about this?
03:13Yes, yes, I haven't seen it.
03:17So Jeff never got on the bus and that means he disappeared in these 250 meters,
03:23those that separate his house from the town square.
03:26It's practically disappeared, no one knows where the bus will get from here, but a car can
03:32having also taken it in the square, this first little square, the car, it also arrives here
03:36car if you want.
03:38But let's get back to Jeff's cell phone. We told you that that day his cell phone signal was down.
03:44He jumps from one cell to another, almost as if he were crazy, as if he were flying. And in Como there is
03:51a landing pad. Did Jeff just disappear?
03:54When we resort to the helicopter hypothesis it often means that we haven't yet understood
03:58well the data, what do they represent.
04:02Professor Roberto Cusani, lecturer in telecommunications at Sapienza University of Rome, explains to us
04:08that the seaplanes and helicopters don't hear anything. Jeff's cell phone is telling us
04:13something else. But what?
04:17Professor, we know that on that day Jeff's cell phone had a heavy data exchange with the network
04:22and that the signal passes rapidly from one cell to another. What does this mean?
04:29It means that the phone is definitely moving and then two possible explanations.
04:34The first is that it is carrying out an intense exchange of data with the network, that is, with the Internet.
04:38In particular, it could download images, videos or even maps of the area if necessary
04:43he is looking for a position he is not familiar with.
04:47The alternative is that he is making unconventional phone calls, those
04:51who use the internet.
04:53What's the point of making a phone call using an alternative system?
04:59One reason may be that with these alternative type of calls you do not
05:04there is absolutely no recording of the calling number and the called number, therefore
05:08in fact, no trace of the phone call being made is left.
05:12Jeff is a private person and that day, the day of his disappearance, he does everything to
05:16remain more private than usual. He wants nothing to be traceable, nothing to be identified.
05:22At the same time, immediately after the disappearance, Jeff's cell phone is more active than usual.
05:28He's experiencing abnormal internet traffic. What's going on? Is Jeff perhaps planning something?
05:35his escape? This is Jeff's passport. In the months leading up to that November 21st
05:42He's been to England, Uruguay, and the United States. But the day he disappears, Jeff
05:48He leaves it at home and carries only this card with him. The name Jeffrey is on the front.
05:55Page, then the surname Barton and the function he holds is indicated. Jeff is part of the staff
06:02administrative officer of the Permanent Mission of Nicaragua to the UN in Geneva. But why?
06:09Does Jeff have this badge? Is he a diplomat? Or is he undercover? Does he have a dual role? A
06:16official and confidential? Jeff is a man of a thousand resources and a thousand connections.
06:22He moves in the high society and can reach anyone without arousing suspicion. Jeff was
06:28chosen by some intelligence? Is he going on some secret mission? In those days,
06:34During those hours, many strange things happen. Starting with a dark car that an employee
06:40note near the company 48 hours before the disappearance.
06:44I stamp at the moon, I go out to go home to eat and while going out, basically, while
06:52I'm driving home and I come across this black BMW, dark windows, a suspicious car
07:00let's say.
07:02Who's in that dark car? Is Jeff there? Is he alone? Or is there someone with him? Someone?
07:08Is he giving him instructions, orders? Who is Jeff? Or rather, who is Jeffrey Page really?
07:16Barton. Look at this photo. We're in Australia, in the mid-1970s. The man you see with
07:24Hat in hand, aboard the Rolls Royce, is Gordon Barton, Jeff's dad. He was a
07:30simple courier and went on to found a company capable of competing with
07:35post offices around the world. Jeff's dad, in essence, made a fortune. When the
07:41July 21, 1976 this photo is published, his son Jeff is still a child
07:47and like his father he has a passion for cats.
07:51Twenty years later, here they are, father and son. They are in Italy, in Gernobbio, on the shore.
07:58on Lake Como, posing for a photoshoot. They recently opened a new store in Italy.
08:03a company that ships and therefore does business all over the world. That company is precisely
08:08IMX and their style does not go unnoticed.
08:12When I was returning home in the evening I passed in front of this window of his house, where they took
08:18even some boys who played an instrument, the violin, it could be another, to keep them
08:24company during dinner. This is something I can't quite remember.
08:29of this person here.
08:32It's shocking to think that now, at the gates of IMX, there are padlocks and that the employees
08:39are out of work and that Jeff, above all, is missing.
08:44It started with me being his support for many many years and then there was the
08:52change that he has become my support.
09:00Sindy is Jeff's sister. She doesn't speak Italian well, but what she wants to tell us is clear.
09:04He makes it clear anyway. The two, brother and sister, have always helped each other. Both
09:10They were little when they lost their mother and grew up traveling the world with
09:14Dad. Sindy knows she can always count on Jeff and Jeff knows she can always count on
09:20Sindy. When we go to Spain to meet Sindy, she tells us something important.
09:26Jeff asked her for 450,000 euros. Jeff told her that he needed the money to pay off his debt.
09:33a debt with the Spanish post office. He told me it was a debt with the Spanish post office.
09:43So you lend me 450,000 euros. I don't have a loan, but... Gifts? Gifts, yes.
09:50In reality, Jeff needs that money for a financial transaction. He buys all the shares of a
09:56English company that is part of IMX and thus becomes its sole director. But why Jeff
10:03does he do this operation? And above all, why doesn't he tell Sindy the truth? Why doesn't Jeff tell you?
10:09Are you lying about this? I don't know. It's very strange. But there's something else strange.
10:17A day before, Leila did not say that someone called Jeffrey or Jeffrey called
10:24to someone. Leila said Jeff was texting on his cell phone saying he ruined me.
10:35life. If you don't pay me now, IMX is going to hell.
10:41Jeff lent 600,000 euros to a German entrepreneur who has a company in Frankfurt.
10:47Now this entrepreneur no longer wants to give him back that money. And he, perhaps for the first time...
10:54in his life, he loses his mind.
10:56At that moment I was upstairs in the room, putting away some clothes. And
11:01Jeffrey was downstairs in the living room talking to someone on the phone. I go downstairs and
11:08I hear Jeffrey speaking in English to this person, his voice quite high.
11:13so something unusual for Jeffrey.
11:17What are the words that you can understand?
11:20I feel something like, so when are you going to be able to give me this money? Or do you think
11:28that you will be able to do it?
11:30What does Jeff tell you after the phone call?
11:35When the call ends, Jeffrey is quite nervous. He tells me he was talking on the phone.
11:42with a person who had informed him that he had to declare bankruptcy and that therefore
11:47then found itself unable to make ADMX payments.
11:53Is this why Jeff disappeared? Is he in despair? Is he worried about the
11:58What would happen to his company? And most importantly, to his employees? And what would Jeff have done?
12:05Did he run away? Those who know him well know that he's a man who doesn't give up. Jeff, on the other hand,
12:12He would have fought, he would have sought the money. Above all, he would not have abandoned his employees to their fate.
12:17destiny. So what happened to Jeff? In the days before his disappearance, he performed strange operations.
12:26financial, tells a big lie to Cindy and perhaps moves on board a dark car
12:32never identified. When she disappears she doesn't take her passport with her, but instead pockets a card.
12:39diplomatic link that leads back to the small Central American state of Nicaragua. Why? But the thing
12:46The strangest thing is that it happens immediately after the disappearance. His cell phone has a lot of traffic.
12:52intense and abnormal internet and this means that Jeff makes a lot of phone calls, but he does them with
12:58alternative systems. So can we talk about encrypted phone calls? In a certain sense, yes.
13:04in a general sense yes, in the sense that in fact no one will ever be able to investigate the content
13:11of the calls and whether they actually took place.
13:17What is happening to Jeff that morning? Is a high-risk operation underway?
13:22Is he in danger? Is he threatened? Is that the mysterious voice he's talking to that morning? He tells him
13:28Maybe he has to disappear? Disappear forever and leave Leila, Cindy, and all his employees behind?
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