Episode Two: High Rolling

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.”

For Adacious is a Marvel production for BBC Studios. Just next to London's Ritz Hotel, they used to be a separate entrance that took you down to a grand private casino. The Ritz Club was very, very opulent. This is Terry, one of its former managers. Massive, big chandeliers, all beautifully decorated, classical.

You know, very, very classical. There was no expense bed. I mean, I've worked in a few casinos in my fair, but everyone that went in there said art that is, that's as good as it gets. It was also very exclusive. Not anyone can just walk you off the street, it's a private casino, so it's a member's only club.

“So you can only come in if you're a member or a guest of a member.”

And you did come across the customer towards your catcher in a barrett. Unfortunately, yes, I did. I'm not on the trail of your catcher in a barrett along. Before I realised that she's upset more people than just Bridget Hutchcroft. By the time I get on to this story, your catcher Reno is left London, but she appears to have left behind quite the reputation. At my time in the casino, she has got to be one of the worst people that I've probably ever dealt with.

I'm Vicky Baker, and from novel in association with BBC Studios, this is Fraudaceous. [Music] Episode two, high rolling. [Music] Everyone bends if it was if they can, but if it's a good reason, I have no issues.

But when you're doing something wrong, I'm like, uh, being a Hindu, I'm a karma person. I can't deal with, as I say, bad stuff. I'm back in Pandora dress agency. Bridget Shop for secondhand designer clothes in Night's Bridge. This time I'm here to talk more with Sona, the shop manager, and the first person to sound the alarm about Bridget lending money to a mysterious client. Your catcher Reno Barrett.

Bridget's taking legal action because she says your catcher Reno owes her more than a million pounds.

But your catcher Reno's got a different version of events. She is saying, actually, Bridget owes her more than a million pounds. She says this is to cover the cost of all the designer clothes she's entrusted to Bridget. It's quite the flex, but is it true? It feels like a battle of she said she said at the moment, and I haven't yet got to grips with the details.

Anyway, Sona and I haven't got on to all that yet. We're talking about bad karma, and the thieves who used to target her dad's old corner shop in East London in the '80s and '90s. Counting town, Bridget Lane, quite a roughish area. Sona's wearing gold rim AVA to sunglasses indoors. It's because she's been under the weather, but they make her look pretty badass to be honest.

When we were younger, someone took the tail. "Wow, just how does that?" Oh, it's just weird. He just came and said to my mum, "I want that." And I'm said, "What? Anyone that?" And he took the tail and ran out. And she got older. She started to confront the thieves. Once someone wanted to do a risky bottle, and then he decided to say, "It's not going to pay in bulk out."

I just looked at him and said, "What the f-are you doing?"

“And took out of his hand. I think he was more sure that I did that because he's six feet in our shop.”

So you're quite an assertive person. If I have to be. If I have to be. If it's fight or flight, I would say depend on the situation, I'm afraid."

Sona never had much time for a Katrina.

She remembers a day when she took a phone call from her. Back in 2018. Once she phoned, and this is after she's befriended Bridget, she phoned the shop and said something. And I said, "You don't talk to me like that," and put the burner. And that's when she asked Bridget to fire me. Sona believes this was a tactical move by a Katrina to keep Bridget under her control.

so she could access more and more money without interference.

“She would say Roger doesn't care about you, where you listen to things like that.”

It's now seven years since that phone call, and Sona's still here, very much not fired.

Sona's working the front desk today, just as she was when your Katrina sent her first written response to Bridget's legal case in 2020,

the one where your Katrina claimed Bridget actually owed her money. Sona remembers it clearly. So, she sent a whole lot of pictures of bags, mink, jackets, coats, watches, everything. These were the high-value designer items that your Katrina claimed were in Bridget's possession. So, basically, she said, "I do not owe Bridget any money back, because she has all these goods of mine."

Your Katrina said Bridget had used the friendship and taken advantage of her good nature to gain possession of hundreds of valuable items. So, she was trying to get out of paying on. This is when Sona was called into help. Before Sona worked at Pandora, she spent eleven years working in a civilian role for the city of London police, where, among other things, she helped analyse CCTV to catch speeding drivers.

So, when this list landed, she went through it closely, cross-referencing every item with the shops accounts. Luckily, we had taken some pictures of some items for the website, and I could match them up. It's a quick explanation of how Pandora dress agency works. Client's bring in their second hand designer gear for the shop to sell. Pandora takes a commission if they're sold, and if not, the goods are returned.

This necessitates good record keeping. That said, look, she's been paid for this. Look, she's been paid for this.

We've never had this. Look, she's been paid for this.

And what also instantly catches Sona's eye is a chinchilla fur jacket. Is it? Oh, this is interesting. This is that jacket. Sona says it was an item that Yacatrina had bought in for Pandora to sell, but then she issued a complaint because it got lost. This happened about a year before Bridget and Yacatrina started spending time together.

But Bridget, as the shop owner, was the one who issued a compensation payment. I think around 5,000? 5,000 pounds.

“It seems like a generous payout, but also reasonable, isn't it?”

For Yacatrina to ask for compensation for a lost item? The problem, according to Sona, is that sometime afterwards, the coat was found in a box in the store room. And Sona says that when Yacatrina was told about this, she flatly denied the jacket was hers.

I was like, "Oh, that's a bit odd. Why would she do that?" I mean, even if she said, "I'm sorry, I'm not going to give you the money back. I would have been fine with that." And that's when I didn't want to trust her. And here was that same troublesome jacket again.

Yacatrina is now saying it is hers, and she's listed it in her counterclam. I've seen photos of this jacket. It's a distinctive cut. Striped gray, white, and black. And Yacatrina is now also saying, "It was worth much more.

25,000 pounds." I suggest that Yacatrina does have a lot of clothes, and it could have been a genuine mistake. But Sona was not buying that. Me, me, go. Sorry, dodgy.

And besides, she says, "She's unpicked too much other force information on the list. Sona made a note of her findings." I just put it on the spreadsheets, and after the lawyers. I can tell Sona is still infuriated,

about it all. I ask her why. I just thought it's wrong for Richard to be robbed. The way she's been robbed. He felt like she was robbed.

Yeah. Indirectly she was. Not at gunpoint, but it's still robbery. Taking the money not paying any back. It's still a daylight robbery.

One thing is for sure. This is playing out just as Bridget's lawyer predicted. He had warned Bridget. When you start a case like this,

you never know how the other side will retaliate.

“And you have to be prepared for any other counter narrative.”

I'm still quite new to this story when I meet Sona. I can see why she's so indignant along with Bridget and Roger. But I also notes my job to counterbalance their anger. To keep allowing your catcherina the benefit of the doubt, to try to imagine what her side of the story might be.

When I get back to my desk, I read your catcherina's counter claim in full. It certainly turns what I've heard so far on its head. In the case of Bridget Hutchcroft versus your catcherina Barrett,

"Regretably, since around mid-2019,

“the once-friendly relationship between Miss Barrett”

and Miss Hutchcroft did he re-rated. Miss Hutchcroft began from time to time to make erratic demands that Miss Barrett paid to her substantial sums of money. Sometimes dressing up these demands

as requests for repayment of non-existent loans, coupled with lucid, personal allegations against Miss Barrett." Certain details from Bridget's side of the story are not disputed.

That Bridget dog sat for your catcherina, that your catcherina was going through a tough time amid a divorce, and that your catcherina and Bridget travelled overseas together on numerous occasions.

And on comparing both women's version of events and their legal statements, it is agreed that these trips weren't all expenses paid invites from your catcherina. But your catcherina also refers to a host of false allegations

and Vexatius attempts to undermine her credibility. She denies boasting about her wealth.

“She claims she only ever said she owned one apartment in Mayfare.”

She denies sending Bridget to view multimillion pound flats for her in grove-ness square. She says Bridget went to her own volition. As I look through some of Yecatrina's claims in more detail, some are extraordinary.

She accuses Bridget of having hundreds of her possessions, but she only lists 39, and the prices for those 39 items appear to be enormously inflated to reach the grand total of 1.7 million pounds.

Yecatrina says Bridget never loaned her any money at all.

The more I hear about Yecatrina, the less I understand her. She's baffling and incredibly unpredictable. I want to know more about her. And I want to hear Bridget's account

of how the requests for money escalated, so quickly and so exorbitantly. The allegation from Bridget's legal team is that Yecatrina put Bridget under dress. How?

And how am I going to disentangle this web

“of accusation and counter accusation to find the truth?”

I need to hear more from Bridget herself. We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about that's got the dark web. 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.

Bridget lives in a small, one-bed flat, near her business, Pandora dress agency, in Night's Bridge. The apartment is modest and homely on the inside, with bulging bookshelves, and a big comfy armchair in the corner.

Oh, and there's also an oversized cushion of a hunky man taking up half her sofa, which I feel I need to know the story behind before we go on. She tells me he's an old flame from her 20s.

It's you so good looking. How come he's on a cushion? Oh, because I like looking at it. Did you make the cushion? No, no, no, no, I went to one of those four-tore shops,

you know, and then they made it. But I like looking at it. Sadly, I'm not here to talk about 1980s' love affairs. I wish I was. I want to know more about the nature of Bridget's friendship

with Deca Trena Barrett in the early stages before everything went so badly wrong. In my experience, stories that involve losing money to an apparent multimillionaire often start the same.

With the person being wind and dying to the max to pull them in, Bridget has already told me

that the relationship never felt like that.

She doesn't go anywhere, she doesn't walk. She's like really boring, you'd be glad to go out and get a coffee or something. I can't help wondering if the relationship really was as joyless as Bridget suggests,

or if the passage of time and all that followed has turned everything into a bad memory. It feels a bit contradictory to say she didn't go anywhere. When we know there were lots of overseas trips,

but I think what Bridget means is there wasn't an action-packed itinerary of fancy restaurants and social events. Bridget says if they did go to a bar together, such as Harry's bar and maker,

it's not as though they left as soon as they arrived. So she goes there to be seen. She's sitting there with a mincoats and say, "Ballan, Luke who I am, she moves away, give it like a butterfly, she flitters,

and then she's always got to go somewhere

and then you find out all she's done is gone back to her apartment and maker." When she's taking you to a bar for that brief amount of time, what's going through your head because you're thinking normally when I come out

for a drink with my friends, we sit down and we get into stuff.

Bridget says that I'm one of their trips to Monaco. She accompanied Yika Trena to the bank. The officers of private Swiss Bank, EFG International,

“in a place you'll old building in the heart of Monte Carlo.”

Bridget remembers sitting in the back room with one of the greyhounds waiting when Yika Trena comes storming out. She was shouting all the day, "Hey, don't like this.

You've done this and you've done that." And the guy said, "I'm not dealing with you anymore. Come and then she walks out of the room and I walk out and then I forgot the dog. I had to run back and say, "I've got the dog."

You know, I hope we got. What then they're all about five minutes and she said, "We're we're here." She said, "Yeah, you'll ring me in a minute." And he did.

He invited a back. Bridget feels that this, whatever it was, was a move, an act. Our was actually feeling a bit uncomfortable. I wish I didn't have her around, you know?

That's what I was thinking. So what was it that made Bridget stick around? She's told me before that a big part of it was curiosity, but it sounds like your Katrina had some sort of hold over her, too. I mean, if you say, "No, do you regret what you did?"

Yes, 100% are regret. And if that sort of question was something, "Well, what only did you do it?" I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. What power she had?

“And I don't know how she made me do what I did, you know?”

What she did? I weren't Bridget to talk me through exactly what happened when the requests were money were gathering pace. What did your Katrina say to her? According to Bridget, your Katrina used to moan

and plead when they spoke on the phone. Please, Bridget, can you come down and come and see me? And Bridget says she genuinely felt like your Katrina was in a difficult situation. And a short-term loan wasn't a big deal.

But over time, the requests became relentless. She'd ring your ring, your ring, your ring. Bridget said she was made to feel like only she could help.

I tried to block your time, but she'd just be always like,

"Oh, you're in my last chance, you'd actually be lonely at care." Crawling up your almost, you know, "I want this I need money." And if she knew you answered them, I would say she would squeeze it out of you. By this point, Bridget had been spending time with your Katrina for several months. She said the pressure started to feel overwhelming.

I was at the time not under full medication, and for dealing with my bipolar. So I was going a bit out of control. People experience bipolar disorder differently, but it can be linked to impossivity

and poor financial judgment during manic episodes, which is what Bridget said she was experiencing in this timeframe. And I said, "No, I'd just leave me alone and I'm not well. Just leave me alone." And you were open with her that you weren't in a good place.

Yeah, I'd already said to her, "I said I'd take medication." So by Paula. I know your Katrina disputes this. She has said via her lawyers that she was aware Bridget was depressed, but not that she was bipolar.

Bridget has since got on different medication, and she says she's in a much better place. But at the time, she said she felt trapped, like she couldn't say no. So she kept handing over her money.

I never even thought she might not give me a better idea.

I thought, "Well, I don't care, just get out of my hair." You know, get out of my hair, you know? And Bridget said she wasn't keeping full track. The thing about binding accounts and credit cards, you're not aware of the sin.

If she said, "I won't cash 100,000 pounds in cash." As she counting it, you're thinking, "No, this is a lot of money." But when it just goes from one bank to another.

“In business, you must have said no to people.”

No other time. Yeah? Yeah, it's just really weird. And she creates this havoc around you. So in the end, I don't know why.

I just said, "Okay, I'll help you." One thing I've learnt from Sona, and also from Roger, is that Bridget has an uncommonly generous personality. I don't just mean picking up a tab for drinks or sponsoring a friend's run. I hear she does things like spontaneously give 25,000 pounds

to a local horse sanctuary while on holiday. Or inviting homeless people to stay on her sofa. Sona tells me that sometimes Bridget has learnt money and not got it back. But there was more about who can deal with it.

What's the small amount? A couple of thousands? Yeah. I mean, it's not like what she did this time. But from what Sona says,

some decisions have left her friends concerned, and she's also helped a few bad apples along the way. Sometimes they do Bridget's that you help people you shouldn't help,

but people you should help, you don't always help.

She can't.

She can't even answer it.

“I'm beginning to recognize certain characteristics in Bridget.”

She has an unorthodox and unconventional edge. We already heard about the young Bridget who let animals out of the abattoir. It sounds like your Katarina may have tapped into Bridget's generous side, but at a time in Bridget's life when she was less in control than usual, so it all escalated.

A perfect storm. When she looks back today, Bridget believes she was being expertly manipulated by a Katarina. And when Bridget expressed out, your Katarina pushed back. She even said to me, "What do you want to see?

I've shown you my apartments, my mother's met you." Yes, she's like, yeah, everything's going to be okay. Bridget says that after the loans started spiraling, and once she started to ask for her money back, that's when your Katarina suggested she became a trustee.

In that huge private wealth fund that she claimed she had,

the one based in Lichtenstein, which was temporarily inaccessible. Bridget and her believes the offer was another tactic to make the arrangement feel more secure. But Bridget says your Katarina then asked her for more money to seal the deal, and that's when Bridget said no. I just want my money back.

That's what I said. I'm not interested in making money. Certainly didn't want to be part of a trustee. As I walk back onto the streets of Night's Bridge, I add that to my mental to do list.

Find out more about this trust. Was this a real thing?

“From which your Katarina had an endless supply of wealth?”

Or was it all a lie? Is she really rich at all? No. Back in Pandora, I asked Sona. As Bridget's right-hand woman,

did she hear about it at the time when Bridget was trying to get her money back? Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's talking about it. She mentioned everything she's about to trust. Sona also remembers the point where Bridget says she was asked for more money to do the paperwork.

And I'm at her? And I don't become a trustee. That's just trying to extort more money for her. It feels like it's being dang old as a bit of a carrot in front of Bridget, that there is a reason for staying in contact

that is your personality. Get your money back. Is it getting money back? Or is it beyond that you're becoming this trustee

“to actually a woman who's potentially a billionaire or multimillionaire?”

Yeah. And then she goes, oh, don't worry. I leave everything to your grandchild as well. Do you think there was some sort of motivation emotionally with Bridget that she thought

this relationship will be beneficial to me financially? No. Bridget's not like that. Bridget is not like that at all. She's a helper.

She's not a taker. And you've seen that in-- Yeah, I've seen it in Bridget. She's quirky, but she's not-- No, she's not greedy.

So it was just the motivation was just trying to get her money back. Yeah. Going on Bridget's account, it seems like your category was stringing her along, convincing her that things would come good.

Does that make her a fakeer? Someone just pretending to be rich. And what about this Malfa lifestyle? And the fancy apartment that Bridget visited multiple times. Wish you renting it?

Why had she got mates' rates from Yona, maybe? The UK Land Registry holds official property records. It might lead to some clues. The Malfa apartment is listed.

The price paid on the second of June, 2014,

was 4.2 million pounds. The legal owner is Yafatirina, Elizabeth Rolfner, Barrett. We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about that's called the Dark Web.

Undiscovered 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. No, look at the first time you met her. I'll come forget, really. Steve is the Consciage, a Catarina's May Fair apartment. He's a jovial sort of the earth type.

He's been working at this block for 10 years and he loves it. It's a pleasure to come and work with. Not many people can say that, can I? Your Catarina, he says, was less of a pleasure. It was like looking after 10 people, not just one, you know?

But when she did, he said he got used to her yelling down the phone, wanting everything down immediately. And before anyone else. She'll be around. Where's my delivery?

I can't wait to know.

“As if it's my fault that delivery I can't come.”

You know, sort of. And another 20 minutes ago, where's my delivery? Where's my delivery? I wasn't sure if Steve would speak to me when I contacted him. He's agreed on condition that I make it clear,

he would never normally speak publicly about residents

or even ex-residents. Your Catarina is the sole exception. And as we talk, he tells me why. He could handle her attitude, he says. But what he couldn't handle was how she treated people who worked for her.

He says the day that really sticks in his mind, is when a young girl came to the front desk, her body heaving as she sobbed uncontrollably. She was on heat. She was on heat.

We had 20 years. Young girl. She said she's not paying me. She was a cleaner, from Russia or Ukraine he thinks. And she'd just spent hours cleaning your Catarina's apartment.

I said, why don't you pay me? I don't know. I've done all the work.

He says you're not paying me.

Steve says he confronted you, Catarina. Why aren't you not done all the work? Why don't you do it? Why don't you pay me? And that's what she's like. Steve, mind your own business.

That's sort of a net, you know. He says this happened on multiple occasions. Although this particular young woman's face sticks with him and she was the most upset. He also tells me that your Catarina used to book drivers

to take her to the airport. And they'd agree a price. But then she'd pay them less on a rival. He says he repeatedly witnessed disputes over money. I don't know who.

This is if someone gets like her sort of thing to get a buzzer have it. That's how it's aimed. Steve keeps shaking his head and disbelief. And these allegations are odd.

“Why does she seem so reluctant to pay people like cleaners and drivers?”

The classic high society scam is when a poor person pretends to be rich and that could be the case here. But the more time I spend on this story, the more I start to wonder if there's a flip side and we could be dealing with a rich person pretending to be poor.

The pieces of the puzzle aren't quite adding up. I'm wondering is accumulating money the goal or is it more about control? Does she get a thrill from not paying money she owes? I'm getting a sense she was quite notorious here in my business.

So this would be the worst, yeah. Sorry, it's, yeah. Everyone knew her. But for the wrong reason, bad reasons. Not so name is mentioned, everyone saw her there like grimaces.

On their face. I tell Steve, my goal is to find out who you're capturing the real years and where her money comes from. They do good suffering, I think. Let's get them away.

Steve suggests I talked to the dormant at the Casino nearby. He says they all know her. May Feccasinos are a far cry from Vegas. You can walk past many of them without realizing they're there. Many of them are within elegant townhouses.

With discreet branding, perhaps a door canopy or a gold-lettered flag. They are highly unlikely to be marked because Cino outside. Let's face it. This is where the ultra-wealthy come to throw their money around behind closed doors. There aren't going to be any attention seeking flashing lights.

So I know I'm trying my luck when I start asking Taylor Dorman for insight.

“Excuse me, um, sorry, Dean, do you know when I'm recording your catcher in a barrette?”

The Dorman pulls a look of disgust as he nods. It's that grimest Steve told me to expect. Herendus, he says, but I don't get much more. This is a tight-lipped world. The Dorman won't speak into the microphone.

But I do have a meeting with a man who will. So I jump on the tube to the other side of London. I'm heading to the far south west, Wimbledon, and I know Frill's local pub. She used to come in once a month, once every couple of months. She used to play Blackjack, sort of a 10 to 20,000 pound player.

Terry is retired, but he spent years managing the Ritz Club Casino before it closed in 2020. In a night, 10 to 12,000 pound. It sounds like a lot of money, but we wouldn't even pay my attention to that. It's not big money. The big deal players gamble millions, he says.

Sometimes even a million in one night.

Terry says he's seen that on many occasions.

to the one we've seen so far. Instead of holding money back, she's spending it like water. Terry is talking about a time a few years before your Catarina and Bridget Met. Roughly between 2008 and 2014. I'm not sure if your Catarina was still gambling when Bridget was learning her money in 2017.

The cash flow problems may have been real by then, but if so, that's an interesting trajectory. From splashing out to urgently borrowing.

“And where was the cash coming from when she was gambling?”

10 to 20,000 pounds a night may not sound like much to the Ritz Club, but it seems like high rolling to me. Was she a good player? I thought, remember, there'd be a good or a bad plan, I thought she was a bad player, but I couldn't even tell you whether she was a winner or loser overall.

So what is it that makes your Catarina stand out so clearly in his memory? She was so rude to everybody. You serve a lot of Eastern European dealers that spoke Russian. And she used to say things that they're in Russian. And she was awful.

Oh, she used to say, you're fat, you're ugly, you're a slut. Anything vile that she could say, she would say it to them. And the thing is you used to say, "Take me off the table, take me off the table." Obviously, you get some people to get very upset and I don't blame them. Because she was very, very rude.

Terry also remembers witnessing her shouting and screaming at an assistant manager. Her voice carrying across the casino floor. And in most industries, it would be totally unacceptable. But they've just put up with it. You know, the money, a lot of the time she wasn't saying it in English.

So she could deny that she said it. Do you know what, casinos? Years ago, you could virtually go in and do and say anything. Seriously, money talks. And over the years in casinos, money has spoken.

And people have been awful. So despite her apparent outbursts,

“Did you catch Rina end up settling her bills at the casino?”

Terry's not aware of any non-payments, although he does recall her making things difficult.

She always used to use a check to buy-in.

That's the amount of money you initially put down to start playing. And there was always problems with her not wanting us to bank the check. And she was always trying, "Oh, can you bank it on a different day?" You know, it was always something that she was trying to do. But I don't remember of doing anything illegal or anything fraudulent.

That's vital to note, not illegal. But not straightforward. Terry knows about Bridget's case. It turns out they had a mutual friend, Kevin, who he played golf with. Probably about four or five years ago.

He was telling me about Bridget and how she'd lent a lot of money to a woman. I just said, "What's her name?" Not expecting him to say anyone that I know. And he said, "Equer train a barra." I said, "You're joking."

What Bridget has lent her ex amount of money, like Million Pat.

He said, "Yeah." He said, "Do you know her?" I said, "Course I know her." She's the most awful woman. "Why would she do that?"

He said, "Oh, well, she was too fluid to Monica. She took her here. She took." I said, "I cannot believe." I said, "If you don't believe me, ring up mutual friend of ours.

That was also a manager of the casino." I said, " Ring him up and just ask what he thinks of us." And Kevin rang up, and this person said, "Oh, no. You would not trust her at all."

“But it was just a sort of person that you just would not want to be involved with, you know?”

It's still baffling that a woman with such a bad reputation could have got around someone like Bridget. But Terry says he catarina is complex. She had that personality where she could be absolutely dreadful. But if she wanted something, she could be very friendly. But the nasty was 90% and the nice was 10%.

I leave the pub with plenty to think about. Through word of mouth, internet searches and roaming around Mayfare, I find multiple people who work for your catarina, all run an informal basis, and the same patterns start to emerge.

Constant phone calls that feel like harassment, a feeling of giving in to demands against better judgment.

People who say they weren't paid for work and ultimately gave up chasing their money.

And people who found themselves on the receiving end of explosive outbursts that left them feeling frightened. I feel like I need to roll back on some of my preconceptions about the Bridget and your catarina dynamic.

The friendship equivalent of love bombing.

There may have been some of that.

“Bridget's friend Roger feels that that could have been the first step to get what she wanted.”

I know for a fact that she can be this charming, charming person. She knew exactly which patterns to push as well. That was the other awful thing, but she had so much control over Bridget. It seems like intimidation tactics could also have been a big factor here. In the future, an urgency.

These are also techniques that con artists can use.

They prevent victims from thinking critically. But is your catarina actually a con artist? Bridget sure she is. But can she prove it? She's determined too.

“After your catarina responds to Bridget's legal challenge by claiming she's the one who's actually owed money.”

Bridget fights back.

She's preparing to go to trial if it comes to it.

If no settlement can be agreed. I think she's hoping to outrun me. The more she outruns the more money I'm putting in. I'm not the type of person just to think, "Oh, you know, lie down and die." I think no, I'll fight her.

I mean, I just remembered some of the last words she said to me, "Where you know, whoever asks for this money again.

“If you take 100 years, we'll let's take 100 years then."”

If the case does come to trial, Bridget wants to be sure she knows everything about the women who she's up against. Via her legal team, Bridget's hired a private investigator. And now they've got to lead. It's an old newspaper article from Vienna in 2004. And at its centre is a police mugshot.

The black and white photograph shows a woman frowning intently at the camera. Her eyes are downturned. Her expression could not be more glam. It's unmistakably. Eccatarina Barrett. 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, Fiky Baker. The assistant producer is Belaria Rocker. The editor is Philippa Goodrich. Our fact-checker is Danya Suleman, production management from Shiree Houston,

Charlotte Wolf and Joe Savage. Sound design mixing and scoring by Daniel Kempson. Narration recorded by Nick Fikyerachron, development by Sonny Mar, Jess Brown Swinburn and a felon and Willard Foxton. Additional production by Leona Hamid, Sasha Baker and Ziana Usef.

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.