Episode Three: The Vienna Connection

Under cover in the furthest corners of the Dark Web, U.S. Special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse.

From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the Darkest Web follows their shocking investigations, listen on BBC.com or wherever you get to a BBC podcast. Fraudatious is a mobile production for BBC Studios. It's the early 2000s, and the phone is ringing in Oliver Moorefield's Vienna Department. The home is the epitome of timeless elegance. An early 20th century block with high ceilings would pummeling and a raw time caged lift.

This is Oliver's account of what happened next. She picks up the phone, and on the end of the line is the reception desk at the five star hotel de Paris in Casino Square, Monaco. And he said, "I have a credit card here." And there is a lady who is using your credit card. I said, "What?" And he was silent. He said, "Mrs. Moorefield, we don't know. We have this credit card."

“And she's asking for more credit on it, and can we extend that?”

And I said, "Absolutely not. I did not know that this woman has my credit card." He said, "Oh my God." Oliver doesn't know how credit card is even missing until that moment. But she says she realizes immediately who has it, and she knows how she got hold of it. As Oliver puts down the phone, one thought runs through her head.

I wanted to divorce her husband. I'm Vicki Baker, and from novel in association with BBC Studios, this is Fraudaceous. Episode 3, "The Vienna Connection." I'm walking along the elegant ringstressor in Central Vienna. This historic boulevard is home to some of the city's most majestic buildings,

the state opera, Parliament, city hall. When a horse and cart pass is by, I recognise it's a gimmick for tourists, but it does add to the time warp feeling that this part of Vienna seems to embrace wholeheartedly. On a surface level, I imagine nothing has changed since Yacatrina Barrett lived here in the early 2000s, but looks a deceptive. A lot of time has passed. We're talking almost 20 years before Bridget gets in Tangled in a legal battle with her.

To Bridget going back in time feels crucial to understand who she's up against.

“What did Yacatrina do here that led to a police mugshot of her appearing in the newspaper?”

It's going to be a challenge to find people who remember her. I've landed in the city armed with some snippets of information about her life here. Apparently Yacatrina had a new British husband who was an artist, and they moved together in 2001, first into a hotel, and then onto a street called Goldschmitt Gasser. It's just off one of the central shopping avenues, Grabbin, and a stone throw away from many of the luxury stores. If I were to ask you if you

know the name Yacatrina Barrett if that brings any bells. To be honest, no. I make a few inquiries in nearby businesses where I know she had dealings, but people they'd tell me they

“went around at the time, or they can't remember, or they say they can't remember. I try the casino,”

another of her known haunts, a five-minute walk away. Hi, how are you? The dormant is very friendly, but he can't speak to me. He hasn't been in the job long enough anyway. Okay, it's worth a try, I'm away, but I'm free. All right, we can't. Yeah, you too. Thank you, bye-bye. This feels like my sign to call it a day walking the streets. I need to find another lead. I've read various Austrian newspaper articles that follow Yacatrina's arrest.

They say Yacatrina posed as an agent of oil companies in Vienna in order to fraudulently obtain loans from private individuals. This sounds very relevant to Bridget's case.

Bridget knows about this newspaper reports, but she's never seen the mugshot.

when she got arrested. Oh my god. Have you seen that before? No. I can't read this, can I?

“It's in Germany. Look at her. You wouldn't think it was her, would you?”

I mean, you do, I can tell. How old would she be then? I'm saying her 40s, I think. So she doesn't look that good, did she? You know, she doesn't look good at all. She doesn't look very glamorous. I mean, she looks pretty miserable. Very miserable. I need to find some people who know more about this arrest. Of the three journalists who wrote about Yacatrina's case in the Austrian press, one is dead.

One insists he can't remember any more than is in the article already, and the other one, he agrees to meet. I'm meeting the journalist in one of Vienna's traditional coffee houses, Café Schwarzenberg. It dates back to 1861 when Austria sat at the helm of a vast empire. Coffee here is served in elegant China cups placed on silver trays by waiters wearing bow ties. And unlike most Cafés in today's world, there are no customers on laptops.

Well, none accept me. I've brought mine so I can share some scans of the newspaper clippings. Yeah, yeah, that's the story of. This is Johannes Wolf, the man behind the buy line. I'm showing him the article he wrote more than 20 years ago. The headline is "Lones obtained through alleged oil deals." And somewhat my surprise, he does remember it. Easy, easy story. We get the information about this case, about Ekaterina from the police.

Johannes tells me the police contacted the news desk because they believe Ekaterina have left a trial of victims across the city. The police wanted to make an appeal for more information. That's why we also put a picture from her into the newspaper. This is a police photo, yeah. She is a police jail, yeah.

“Can we try to understand it? Yeah, that's what at the end. I think I wrote”

"Everybody who knows this person or had a problem called a police." In the article, the police says she claimed to be connected to an oil company, but said her commission payments were slow to arrive so she needed some help to get out of a tight financial spot. The police said she presented people with paperwork, including bank statements and confirmation of expected commissions. Their investigation showed

these were all forged. Her stories, the article says, were fairy tales, and she used her victims' money to fund her lavish lifestyle. This is ringing lots of bells. Ekaterina is referred to as a 48-year-old citizen of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan felt like an unexpected detail at first. I know she was born in Ukraine,

and she now has UK citizenship. But I've since been told by other sources that she often travels on an asary passport, and I'm not sure what her connections to Azerbaijan are.

“I can't remember that I wrote any other article about this case afterwards. It's mostly”

only story we made about Ekaterina. There must be a trial about this, but I don't know, nothing of that. I tell Johannes, I found there was another article that was written from the courtroom midway through the trial. It's from the Austrian press agency, the National News Service. It confirms the charges against Ekaterina, serious commercial fraud. She's described as an imposter. One of the alleged victims referenced in the Austrian

newspapers is a diplomat for a small Caribbean country. This is intriguing. And as for Ekaterina herself, she appears to have been defiant in court. I have business in Israel, in Dublin, I kept getting money she said. And then more casually, she also said, sometimes things go up pill, sometimes they go downhill. Ekaterina's life in Vienna does sound like a roller coaster, and the court report in notes that she seems to have reached the bottom by the time she was standing in the dock. So I guess

things weren't looking good for her in the trial. But was she ultimately convicted? We haven't been able to find any follow-up via the Austrian press archives. She put her been found not guilty. Maybe, yeah. We have to keep that in mind. Yeah. What we're trying to do is get the

Austrian authorities, but it's tricky. Yeah, yeah, that's always the same authorities. They say,

criminal records are not disclosed readily. And for good reason, if people never reoffend,

they deserve the right to rebuild their life without the press waking up their past for no reason. There is public interest in knowing when a laser repeated pattern. It didn't end.

“Yeah, that's what I know. I think it only is. Who really comes interesting when you start to”

piece it together? When you've got someone who is denying the facts, it's problematic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very proper thought. For us, for video people to get some inflation opponents, right? A fake oligarch, is that what we're dealing with here? Or an oligarch's broker? Is this a role she's been playing for some time? Long enough to garner her millions and buy the Mafer apartment? That would be quite some

ruse. She never offered Bridget a cut of any oil money, but other aspects of this story seem very

familiar, especially the idea of Yekaterina being a wealthy woman in need of a short-term bridging loan. For Bridget, this information is extremely helpful. It makes her believe she was specifically targeted by someone with experience and an agenda. But how did you catch Rina in search herself into tight-knit VNI's high society? I found someone who ran a gallery in the city in the early

“2000's. They told me they remember Yekaterina turning up in a long-linked jacket,”

wearing a big diamond ring, an often in the company of a famed local artist. Maybe he is the key. We're going behind scenes. Yeah, that's a very much behind. The scenes are officially- I'm heading into the basement of a villa that once belonged to the artist Ernst Fuchs. Fuchs died in 2015, but his former home in studio is now a museum in the far west of Vienna. L'Orian, the museum's art historian, is guiding me. Down a concrete spiral staircase

to see something that's not on public display. We make our way through a bare-bone storage area, past old chairs, tables, a bicycle. There we have it. Wow. It's a huge golden Rolls-Royce, fully gold, fully customised, and gleaming. It's absolutely immaculate. Everything shines. Everything is shining, yes. This was Fuchs' prize possession. It takes a certain type of character to order a gold Rolls-Royce.

My grandmother would have hated her. Because she was more on the side of the old money, kind of mindset, but he had this very opulent one, and that was also part of his appearance. Ernst Fuchs was a huge figure in the Austrian art world. One of the founders of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, and a good friend of Salvador Darling. I've seen pictures of him, wearing his trademark hat, made a folded paper and shaped a bit like a fairs. He was flamboyant,

eccentric, and absolutely obsessed with nobility. There was his kind of admiration for Russia and the old Russia especially, and I can imagine that for him, she was coming from this

“world, and I think for him it might have been this kind of destination also.”

I can see how your catcherena might have captured his attention. If she was, as the newspaper suggests, pretending to be in with the oligarchs. We head back upstairs to the museum. The building is a work of art in itself, built in the late 1800s by the renowned Art Nouveau architect, Otto Wagner. Think Corinthian columns enormous stained glass windows and gold leaf on the walls. I've asked Lauren to show me one painting in particular, one of the

most famous. Adam Mysticos. It means Adam in paradise. It shows a bear-like figure of Adam, arms extending like a tree, holding up a naked woman. It's bright colors pop electrically. I've been told by multiple world-play sources that you catch reen a commissioned version of this

prized painting for herself. A much bigger version, but she never paid for it.

Fuchs, who was apparently very disappointed, never handed it over. Lauren tells me he hasn't heard of your catcherena before now, so he can't speak about her relationship with Fuchs or any deal that might have been done over a painting, but he knows this

because that wasn't his style. I asked Lauren, what would have been the benefit of knowing Ernst Fuchs in this period? He was a established member of Polite society. He was everywhere. He knew

“all members of the important society in Vienna, so he was the perfect heater open the stores I suppose.”

I've been told by other people that one of the doors that opened was that of the home of the Honorary Council of Barbados. This sounds like the person mentioned in Johannes' newspaper article. I find out his name, Dr. Kurt Mark. It turns out he still lives nearby with his wife, Olive.

She's a former opera singer and film star. First time I speak to her, it's on the phone.

She's in her mid-90s and heart of hearing. I end up shouting as polite as I can, trying to explain why I'm in Vienna and why I want to meet. I'm struggling to make myself understood. But one word gets through. You're Katrina.

“We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about. It's called the Dark Web.”

Undercover in the furthest corners of the Dark Web. US Special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets,

the Darkest Web follows their shocking investigations. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get to a BBC podcast.

Am outside a huge front door. In case in Rawtion, it's about 20 feet high. There's an embossed sign next to the doorbell. Dr. Kurt Mark, dermatologist and a crest. Conceal at General Barbados. I'm definitely in the right place. So far I've heard allegations about how your Katrina manages to avoid paying debts to people who are low-paid or vulnerable. But Kurt Mark is a doctor, a diplomat, another member of High Society.

If you get Katrina really did manage to get money out of this man, I really need to know how. Before long, his wife Olive appears at the window above. I made my way through the Grand Entrance Hall, up a sweeping staircase. Olive greets me warmly, dressed in a casual loose fitting pink jumper and matching pink head scarf. Whatever image you have in your head of an old Vietnamese opera singer, scratch it.

Olive more filled is a black woman from Pittsburgh. She came to Vienna in the 1950s to study opera, and went on to become a star. It is a big house. Oh my gosh, you've got a beautiful grand piano. Look, wait. Everything in here, all of these paintings, that's all folks. I explained to Olive how I found them. That I know about their close friend Ernst Fuchs,

“and I know that Kurt was somehow involved in Yekaterina's court case. And that's what I want to”

talk about today. Olive leads me into a small galley kitchen, apologising that this is the only refuge from some ongoing renovation works. Sitting at the kitchen table, tucked into a slide in bench, is Kurt. He's not from Barbados. He's a white Austrian man, and he has a white Goal's bandage wrapped around his head. How is the head Kurt? How is it feel okay? He's filled. Yeah. The floor and they have a big room. Kurt is 97 now. Olive is 95. They met backstage in the theatre

more than 60 years ago when someone sent for a doctor during a production. We met in 1962, we married in 1965, and we have a relatively very good marriage, and we still together and we consider ourselves lucky. But it's not long before Olive admits that one of the biggest hurdles their marriage has faced is Yekaterina Barrett. You know how to pick 'em, Kurt? I must say. I get the sense that there's going to be plenty to unpack here. Olive in particular is keen to talk.

She remembers exactly when she met Yekaterina for the first time when she was in her 70s

and Yekaterina was in her 40s. I was having a luncheon in the hotel in Peria,

And Fuchs told Olive, he'd met someone who needed help with contacts in the city.

“She remembers him singing Yekaterina's praises. I said, "Look, I'm having a lunch in this afternoon,”

a lady's luncheon. So just send her and we'll talk to her and see what she's like if we can help her." She came to lunch. She was very warm, very sweet. But Olive remembers something didn't feel right. She can pinpoint that feeling to an exact moment. She took her back, put it under table, this is Hermes Yekaterina announced according to Olive. Hermes, the high-end French designer. And we all look at each other and we change the subject,

and the bag began to collapse. And I've whispered to my girlfriend, her messes bags do not collapse. Olive suspected the bag was fake, but that was not the issue. She breedable guarantee. It was just something not right. It was the performance that Olive decided, the attempt to boast. Occasionally someone walks in and you say, "Wow, what a beautiful Chanel!" or whatever,

but to put it on the luncheon table, which was us like, "Who is this woman?" Maybe if it was down to Olive, that would have been the end of the story. The end of their dealings with Yekaterina. But Olive and Kurt both say that Yekaterina then insisted she needed a visa for Barbados. And Kurt, of course, was the only man in town who could help.

“I gave her a visa. There's no big deal, but you have to come here to get it.”

Yeah, there's a tourist. Why did she need that?

She was shaky, she faint, she wanted to end. Yes, and she never used it.

What she wanted, really, was in here in this home. According to Olive, Yekaterina was in constant contact with them from this point. She was always here. You couldn't get rid of her, and she would do things like, "Oh, Olive, can I come? And I'm bringing the dinner with." I said, "Oh, that's lovely, okay?" So she bought the dinner with the waiter, he served the food, and so on. So why did you keep having dinner or keep meeting with her if you

didn't like her? Olive points to her husband, raising her eyebrow. You have to tell this, huh? No, no, she borrowed money from you. Yeah. It was something like, was it 73,000 or 80,000 euros or something? Yeah. According to the Austria Pres agency, the prosecution in the trial put the figure at 122,000 euros. Cardinals say he bought Yekaterina a computer, a copy machine, and he later gave her Olive's credit card.

How did she get that much of an inn? I really want Kurt to transport me back to that time, and to tell me exactly what he remembers Yekaterina saying to him. But he isn't on top form after his fall, and he's not speaking his first language. I ask him if Yekaterina mentioned working

“for an oil firm. He can't remember that. But he says she did present him with a check suggesting”

she had access to a massive fortune. Olive also recalls this.

About the 18 million, remember? She gave you from the bank of, was it the bank of Scotland?

It was fake, it was all she made. Olive says she wasn't aware of what was going on at the time, but she does remember Kurt calling her and telling her to go buy something nice as if he'd just come into money. And so I went to my favorite crystal shop, and bought a service for toil. That's how far she had bought him. It made him believe that he had 18 million. I feel I have to ask them if this was Kurt's incentive for helping her in the first place.

Did you think that there was going to be a financial benefit for yourselves in the future from this connection, from lending her money? I mean if her being honest was that hard to them?

it was also given the Austrian gold medal for that. So it certainly was not the money,

because we had more than enough money. We weren't billionaires, millionaires, but we had a very comfortable life. So it certainly was not motivated by the fact that he needed money. Was it? No. Why did you do it? Why do you think you did it? He smashed me. He smashed me. I don't know anymore. He says it's hard for any of us in this room to comprehend. It reminds me of what Bridget told me about finding it hard to understand her own actions.

A scam, if it is indeed a scam, is often confusing. After it's when you have a fuller picture,

“you can't think why you fell for it. And while part of the success is often down to the”

scam as charm, the circumstances are also critical. What was it that she plugged into that made you

want to help her or work with her? Yeah, it does use professional folks. Yeah, yeah, of first professor folks, who was his closest friend and who would not harm any of us. But all of also has another theory about the circumstances. As a doctor, Kurt was used to dealing with life and death situations. It could be very intense, and people often repeat his work with kindness. Perhaps that's why he wasn't as unguarded. They expected people to be kinder.

They were used to being treated well. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that's a psychology of it. By Oliver's account, you're Katrina tried hard to win her over too. But perhaps because in that bad first impression, she continually failed. For Oliver, the red flags were mounting thick and vast. She says she was visited by a restaurant worker, who yet Katrina had booked to

make them a private dinner. He said he hadn't been paid. I was always pushing, pushing, because she

was such an liar. And psychologically, it made you feel especially as a black woman. It made you feel like they're dumb and she doesn't know you need better. Brigitte Roger and Sona have all talked about your Katrina's controlling behavior and her intensity, which can come in between people. He said at the beginning of the conversation that your Katrina coming into your lives was the biggest problem you'd have ever had in your marriage. Yeah, yeah, because there was all this

stuff happening. There's this person in our lives. It wasn't there before that we didn't know. She's lying all the time. And my husband was on her side. He didn't really believe that I was saying to him. She's a funny, she's fake. She's cheating

“you and you should stop. My husband was telling me the whole time, you're jealous of her and I was”

excuse me, but I was really a very attractive woman. And I kept thinking why would you think I would be jealous of a woman like that? Did you fight about it? I don't think so. I was hurt. And when I'm hurt, I walk away. And I walked away. But my relationship to my husband changed. These kind of people do that to people. They're very, very destructive. I feel like Kurt has been through it too. He says he feels stupid for believing

your Katrina. And again, all these things ring bells for me after speaking to Bridget. People who encounter your Katrina can lose more than their money. They can feel like they're losing their minds. Or their relationships. There is so much impact beyond the financial. Oliver tells me she got over the upset by embracing a German concept that she finds beautiful. It's called "be glad you're in success." It means that you are accompanying each other through life.

“Oliver says that's what marriage is. When you see that, feel that. I am here not to own”

him and he has to do what I say or I have to do it. But as a process of moving with him through life,

So I think a lot of it has to do with that as well. My accepting a lot.

“Have you forgiven Kurt now for that mistake? Well, that was 20 years ago. Well, yes, of course.”

A lot of beauty has happened in between. I'm amazed Oliver's been so frank. I wonder if it comes with age. By your 90s, some people just tell it like it is. But back to the nitty gritty, I want to know more about what happened in the criminal case itself. Was your Katrina found guilty? Kurt tells me he was a witness during the trial. He says he was not there for the verdict, but he recalls your Katrina being sent to prison afterwards. That's the women's prison,

just outside of Vienna. Kurt says the sentence did not stem from money she took from him, but from other acts of fraud. She had my bouquet on her way with her chin, then for cost, on her chin. She bought furniture on credit without money and she resorted without paying the bill.

“And that's what took her actually into jail. I didn't notice that just wound up.”

I asked Kurt if he got his money back. He says no. After the trial he said he thought about bringing a civil claim, but this did not go ahead. The problem for Kurt is that as much as he may regret it and feel cond, ultimately he gave you Katrina Oliver's credit card. And unlike in Bridget's case, it seems the other payments he meant to you Katrina weren't recorded anywhere as loans.

It's tricky territory legally. I tell Oliver Kurt about Bridget's case. It's amazing for me.

It's she can do this for 20 years, 25 years. She's doing it on her own and she's getting away with it. For us it is over. We walk away from it and we don't care about that. We just don't care about her. And I don't care what happens to her. But I care about it's what she's doing. So that's the reason why you're willing to talk to let's see one to try to stop her. Try to stop her. Is she stopable?

You need a lot of help. She's heavy. Oliver gets it. She's 95 and I've just landed at her doorstep with a story from years ago and yet she nails the issue at the heart of the story. She says it should be easy to stop your Katrina, but it's not going to be. You know, she's that kind of brilliant evil. Evil is a strong word, but it certainly seems to be

how people who consider themselves victims of your Katrina feel.

“I leave Oliver in Kurt's apartment feeling like I've heard an important account.”

One that seems less about money and more about the profound emotional impact. I'm also left wondering about a house guest they say they had during this period when everything was hitting the fan. Oliver told me she liked him. It was warm and sweet and kind and very well behaved. It feels like he'd be the last person they would take into live with them at this point.

But Oliver felt that he didn't have anywhere else to go and he remains grateful to this day. Kurt and Oliver, you know, especially Oliver, like really took me in and

basically just wanted to help me.

I mean, Oliver, she's a very, very understanding woman. The man they took in was Mitch Barrett, the Katrina's ex-husband. I've tracked him down living in the Brighton area. I want to speak to him because everyone keeps mentioning him. They tell me he was an ex-model and a talented artist who was studying under Ernst Fuchs.

Which I realised must account for how your Katrina entered this Viennese social circle. I've got so many questions and I can't help wondering if he was also in on it. Some sort of a complist to your Katrina. She kept me out of everything to do with business. It was like clothes of doors on me.

But I'm not going to go into that. Mitch tells me he can't do a full interview as he fears

legal repercussions from your Katrina. But he says he does feel he needs to clear his own name. So what do he know about her deals? Very, very little as far as she was concerned, I was, you know, getting on my stuff and she was getting on with her stuff. His stuff was his art. He said he'd thrown himself into her after experiencing a serious brain injury

in can in the year 2000. Just a month after they were married. He says after that he escaped into his own world avoiding as much stress and confusion as he could.

It's like a need to know basis. So she thought if I didn't need to know, she didn't have to tell me.

Questioning, kind of got a bit frustrating because you didn't really get direct answers from her.

“But what about her arrest? Didn't that ring alarm bells?”

I actually felt sorry for her. I just convinced that, I don't know what it was, but it was almost like feeling that that maybe she didn't deserve that. Maybe she had been wrongly arrested. So I don't know. It was just, I didn't feel at that point that she deserved to be arrested. I think I was more convinced by her and believing her, I think it wasn't until like later years when it became, you know, a lot more situations that I started to really think this is not.

Not all right. Your catarina and Mitch were married for 19 years, but they spent long periods of heart living separate lives towards the end. I did want to try and get away from good treatment, you know, there's so many signs I wanted to get away from. And I found it very

very difficult because she was always able to pour me back. A lot of time is because I was very

reliant upon her. This, he says is down to the brain injury, which left him vulnerable and dependent. That's as much as he feels he's able to say. It is a quiet life now with his new partner, still working as an artist. But I do get the chance to ask him about Bridget's case. Which he knows about. Bridget, yeah, I really feel, you know, I really feel empathy for that.

“I can understand. And I think a lot of people can't understand. They think well, how can”

anybody be that stupid or not? No, or suspect. But again, it's like, you know, it's just, you don't want to believe that you're on the back of somebody. I know your Catarina has in the past denied being arrested in Austria. Back in the UK, I contact the Austrian courts and the justice department to try to confirm the jail sentence. No one can tell me because they say they're not permitted to provide information on individual criminal cases. But I have seen a sentencing document

that clearly indicates that your Catarina barrage was convicted of fraud there. And one useful thing the Austria does keep is a careful register of residents' addresses. Via a source, we were able to obtain your Catarina's details. From December 2004 to June 2005, her primary address is registered at the Women's Prison, Schwarzzer. So that's post trial, which indicates a sentence was handed down.

I ask an Austrian investigator how conclusive this is. He says, unless she's got a job working as a prison guard and had an apartment there paid for her, she was an inmate. We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about, it's called the dark web, undercover in the furthest corners of the dark web. US Special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets,

the darkest web follows their shocking investigations. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get to a BBC podcast. So your Catarina is a convicted fraudster. I feel like I've been through a similar journey to Bridget's and trying to pick through your Catarina's time in Vienna. I'm just a few years behind.

“How did you feel about learning about her criminal past in Vienna?”

Not surprised, but like, wow, you know, she's in for the top. She's not in for anything

very high cost to mediate between the two of them. If they're unable to find a solution,

“they're heading for a showdown in a courtroom. A trial would be enormously expensive.”

I was willing to do it because you can shout literally from the mountains when you're telling the truth, because you don't have to fool anybody. The stakes were wrong using what I could have lived with myself if I'd lost all my money because I was in the right. And you wanted that to play out in a courtroom? Yeah, yeah, yes in a courtroom, yeah. In the theatre even, anyway.

And a podcast. Yeah, podcast. But before it comes to trial, there's a breakthrough.

The legal team's managed to reach a compromise. It's an out-of-court settlement. You Catarina agrees to pay Bridget one million pounds plus costs. For Bridget, it's a moment of mixed feelings. I don't think it was anything. Neuotic should have been. It's much less than the 1.4 million she said she loaned,

“but it feels like progress. The big question now is, will you Catarina actually pay up?”

In the back of Bridget's mind is the warning her lawyer gave her at the start. The any agreement

they managed to win is ultimately just a piece of paper. It doesn't guarantee you'll get your money back.

It's now down to your Catarina to honour this deal. Not long after, Bridget receives one instalment. 100,000 pounds. Did that give her some hope? No, not really. It's such a drop in the ocean. But then you've got to wonder where did she get that from? So you didn't think, okay, first instalment, the next one's coming. No, I want to believe I've got what I've got when I've actually got it.

Bridget's skepticism is well placed. After the 100,000 pounds drops, tumble weed. Bridget hears nothing more from her. Your Catarina leaves London. There are no further payments. Bridget wants not just her money. She wants answers. If you Catarina isn't going to transfer any cash, Bridget will need to force her to sell some of the things she owns. There should be rich pickings

“from her luxury properties around the world. But is the while you Catarina lives in real? Or is it fantasy?”

[Music] For audacious is produced by novel and association with BBC Studios. For more from novel, visit novel.ordio. The show is written and produced by me, Vicki Baker. The Assistant producer is Belaire Orocker. The editor is Philippa Goodrich. Our fact checker is Daniel Suleiman, production management, from Sheree Houston, Charlotte Wolf and Joe Savage. Sound design mixing

and scoring by Daniel Kempson, narration recorded by Nick Thackeray Cron. Development by Sonny Mar, Jess Brown Swinburn and a felon and Willard Foxton. Additional production by Leona Hamid, Sasha Baker and Ziana Yusuf. The series artwork is designed by Christina Lemko, our executive producer, is Max O'Brien. Fraudacious is a novel production for BBC Studios. The BBC's commercial subsidiary.