0:00

Just a note that you can get all

0:02

four episodes of The Runway Princesses ad free

0:04

right now. At. New

0:06

yorker.com/dark. Hi.

0:09

It's Madeline Baron. As you may

0:11

know, the In the Dark team joined The New Yorker

0:13

and Candy Nast a few months ago. Since.

0:15

Then we've been hard at work on Season three

0:17

of In the Dark. It's a big one. And.

0:19

I can't wait for you to hear it! Season.

0:22

Three will be out later this year. And

0:24

we're also working with their new colleagues to

0:26

develop some of the New Yorkers most ambitious

0:29

reporting into podcast. I'm really excited

0:31

to bring you are first collaboration today. Here.

0:33

It is. Hello

0:37

My name. Is lit if I'm

0:39

have to. I was born on December

0:41

Five, nineteen eighty five of on. My

0:44

father is a Prime Minister of you

0:46

Eve and under the winner of Dubai,

0:48

Mohammed Bin Rashid. Say them up to.

0:52

In. February of twenty eighteen, a

0:54

princess from the royal family

0:56

in Dubai. Sneaked. Over to

0:58

a friend's apartment. And recorded a

1:00

video. I'm making this with you because

1:02

it could be the last with you.

1:05

I make. It

1:09

was part of a secret plan

1:11

the took her years to put

1:14

together to escape from Dubai. The

1:16

plan involved in inflatable dinghy and

1:18

jet skis and a yacht secretly

1:20

waiting out in the Indian Ocean.

1:23

Princess Latifah left her video with friends.

1:25

She told them to release it if

1:27

something went wrong and if if you

1:30

are watching this video is not such

1:32

a bad thing either I'm dead or

1:34

I'm gonna a very very bad situation.

1:41

And on and I'm hopping. On time I

1:43

heard gunshots and her nothing you

1:45

can print blind were all they

1:47

will be done to them. For

1:49

the dead were not that yeah

1:52

but video get to was what

1:54

the hell do we do Now

1:56

there is one suspect. her

1:59

father the show I'm

2:02

Madeline Barron and this is the Runaway Princesses

2:04

from In the Dark and the New Yorker.

2:07

It's a story from my colleague Heidi

2:09

Blake. She's an investigative reporter. I've

2:12

been investigating Dubai's royal family and

2:14

its powerful leader. And

2:16

trying to answer the question, why

2:18

do the women in Sheikh Mohammed's family

2:20

keep trying to run away? Heidi

2:24

got access to communications between Princess Latifah

2:26

and her friends, letters and

2:28

texts, and audio and video recordings

2:30

too. Things that no journalist had

2:32

ever reported before. We're

2:34

going to tell you the story of what

2:36

Heidi uncovered in four episodes. This

2:39

is episode one. Sisters.

2:42

So Heidi,

2:45

where do we start? Well it starts

2:47

back in 2017. Heidi,

2:49

hello, it's Colin Sutton. Colin, hey, how

2:51

are you doing? So I was talking to a

2:54

source of mine in the UK, a detective called

2:56

Colin Sutton. While we

2:58

were talking, Colin mentioned a case that he'd started to

3:00

investigate years before that he just couldn't get out of

3:02

his mind. There was this allegation

3:04

that had been made by a sex worker

3:06

who said that she'd been picked up in

3:09

London and then taken to an address in Surrey

3:13

where she'd been held for a number

3:15

of days and abused. So

3:17

this is a 20 year old woman who said that

3:19

she'd been picked up in London by a chauffeur and

3:21

then driven back to this extraordinary

3:23

opulent manor house at the centre

3:25

of a sweeping estate in Surrey.

3:28

And she said that while she was

3:30

there, she'd been held captive for several

3:33

days and repeatedly raped by

3:35

a man who, she said, was a member

3:37

of Dubai's ruling family. He

3:39

said that this woman had finally got away from the house

3:41

and had gone straight to the police to report the

3:43

crime and he got a call from the dispatch room

3:45

telling him to go out and investigate. But when

3:48

he was on his way to start looking into

3:50

this, he got a call from another officer he

3:52

knew, a guy who worked in Special Branch, which

3:54

is the secretive unit of the British police that

3:56

deals with national security matters. can't

4:00

do anything about it. It

4:02

had come from on high, from the

4:04

home office even, that it will

4:06

all be sorted and payments will be made

4:08

and it will all be swept

4:11

away. He said that

4:13

it was all going to be worked out privately,

4:15

government to government, and that this woman would be

4:17

paid for her time. Well, when I asked Surrey

4:19

police about it, they told me the reason they had

4:22

to drop the case was it wasn't possible to identify

4:24

the perpetrator the woman had accused, but

4:26

Colin told me the guy from Special Branch had

4:28

told him that wasn't the real reason. The

4:31

real reason, he said, was that the estate where

4:33

this rape had allegedly happened is owned by one

4:35

of the richest and most powerful people in the

4:37

world. A man with connections

4:39

to world leaders not just in Britain but all

4:41

around the globe. His

4:43

name is Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid

4:45

Al Maktoum. And

4:49

what Colin told me was that the British

4:51

government didn't want to damage its valuable relationship

4:53

with him. And

4:56

things that involve national security or

4:58

things that involve great questions of state

5:00

and the whole country are deemed to

5:02

be pick of them on individuals crime

5:05

or one individual's victimisation. And we

5:08

might not like it, but I was really seeking

5:10

out to understand that that's the way the world works and

5:12

that's what's going to have to happen. That

5:16

is an incredibly rare thing to hear a

5:19

police officer admitting. He was

5:21

actually telling me I was told to drop a

5:23

case for political reasons. That's

5:25

almost unheard of. I

5:27

should note that a spokesperson for sorry police said

5:29

their enquiry was thorough and there was no evidence of

5:32

government meddling. But

5:34

when I dug more into the Sheikh who owned

5:36

the estate, he found that this was far from

5:38

being the only time that a woman had tried

5:41

to escape one of his properties after claiming that

5:43

she'd suffered appalling abuses. Nor

5:45

was it the only time that powerful foreign

5:47

governments had taken his side. as

6:00

the absolute ruler of Dubai and he's also the

6:02

Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. Dubai

6:05

is one of the seven emirates that make

6:07

up the UAE and it's a small but

6:09

incredibly wealthy country. Sheikh

6:11

Mohammed is in his own right one of

6:13

the world's richest people and he lives a

6:15

life of extraordinary glamour and opulence. There

6:17

was one summer when he and one of his wives

6:19

spent two million dollars on strawberries.

6:22

Two million dollars on strawberries. Yeah

6:24

on strawberries although when

6:27

I told my editor the story he said that that did

6:29

sound about right for organic. Editor

6:31

jokes. Okay

6:33

so he's incredibly wealthy obviously.

6:36

Where does all this money come from? Well

6:38

it started with oil but it's much more than that now.

6:40

He poured the country's

6:42

vast riches into this enormous global property

6:45

portfolio. I mean this is the

6:47

guy who basically created Dubai from scratch. Like

6:49

it was a tiny fishing village when he

6:51

was born and he's the

6:53

guy who's credited with almost single-handedly

6:56

crafting this vision for

6:58

this country to just spring almost

7:00

overnight from the desert with its

7:02

like incredibly famous skyline. Skyscrapers rise

7:05

in clusters, man-made islands rise from

7:07

the sea and it is

7:09

all the vision of one man Sheikh

7:11

Mohammed Ben Rashid Amatoum. This is where

7:13

we're standing now. Oh this is nothing.

7:16

This was desert. And look

7:18

now all the

7:20

fishing. Dubai's airport is now the

7:22

world's busiest international hub and Dubai

7:24

has the world's tallest building and its

7:26

most luxurious hotel and even an indoor

7:28

ski slope with live penguins. Live

7:31

penguins? Live penguins no less. Like everything

7:34

they do they do on this incredibly

7:36

extreme scale. They have these man-made islands

7:38

like there's one in the shape of

7:40

a palm tree and then there's another

7:43

archipelago which represents a map of the

7:45

entire world and there are even plans

7:47

to build a gigantic replica of the

7:49

moon. It's going to cost five

7:51

billion dollars and they're planning to perch it on

7:53

top of one of the city's tall buildings. It's

7:56

like this fantasy place where someone can come up

7:58

with like the wildest thing. and they're

8:00

just like, we have all the money, let's

8:02

just make it, and let's make it on

8:04

an extraordinary scale. Right. And

8:07

it's all at the direction of the ruler,

8:09

Sheikh Mohammed. And he's a really fascinating character.

8:12

So at home in Dubai, he cultivates the

8:14

image of a traditional Arab leader. He styles

8:16

himself as a family man and he writes

8:18

Nabati poetry, which he publishes on his Instagram

8:20

page and on YouTube and on his own

8:23

website. It's pretty

8:25

florid. Sheikh

8:28

Mohammed is also a champion

8:31

endurance horseman. He's the

8:33

world's biggest owner of thoroughbred race horses. Horses

8:36

have a really special place in Bedouin culture,

8:39

but his stature in international horse racing

8:41

also earned him a valuable relationship

8:43

with the late Queen of England, who herself had a passion

8:45

for the sport. Really? Yes, she

8:48

would actually often invite him to sit with her

8:50

in the royal box at Ascot. And

8:52

he's close to a lot of really

8:55

powerful people. He's a very important strategic

8:57

ally to Western governments, particularly after 9-11

8:59

when Dubai really cracked down on tariff

9:01

financing through its banks and

9:03

also became the US Navy's biggest foreign port

9:05

of call. And

9:07

he's also poured tens of billions of

9:09

dollars of UAE's money into the

9:11

economies of both the US and

9:13

Britain. And he's personally one

9:16

of Britain's biggest private landowners. And

9:18

it's his connection to Britain that got you really

9:20

interested in the story, right? Right.

9:22

He seemed to have so much power and

9:24

influence here. And

9:27

I wanted to understand more about

9:29

how he was using it. So

9:49

how do you get started investigating someone like

9:51

this, someone this wealthy, this powerful, this connected?

9:54

Well, one of the things I guess I've kind of learned over

9:56

the years, particularly reported on some of the

9:58

super rich and powerful oligarchs who

10:01

fell foul with the Kremlin, was

10:03

that these people are surrounded by

10:05

so many servants and

10:07

aides, in fact totems and kind

10:10

of helpers of so many kinds, that

10:12

they forget that these people are human

10:14

beings who kind of have

10:16

eyes and ears and consciences and sometimes

10:19

feel uncomfortable about things that they're seeing.

10:21

And people who maybe might one day

10:23

decide to talk to somebody like me.

10:26

And so I figured, well, let's go talk to some of those

10:28

guys. Hello. Oh, hello.

10:30

Is that Mr. Sinabad? Yes, speaking.

10:33

Hi. Hi, you're here at the New York. So while I

10:35

was rooting around looking at Sheikh Mohammed's former

10:37

employees, I saw that there was one man

10:39

who'd filed an unfair dismissal claim against him.

10:41

And this guy had worked for Sheikh Mohammed

10:43

as a chauffeur for 17 years before

10:46

he was let go. His name is

10:48

Jure Sinabad. I asked him what

10:50

it was like working for Sheikh Mohammed. Well,

10:56

is it will take a long time and

10:59

should he take a long time to

11:01

answer that question? And I said, well,

11:04

great, let's take a long time. So we ended up

11:06

talking for at least two hours on the phone that

11:08

day. And then we spoke a bunch more times. And

11:10

we met in person several times as well. What

11:13

did he tell you? So he told

11:15

me he'd worked with Sheikh Mohammed for 17

11:17

years. And during that time, he told me

11:19

and actually he told me this unprompted. I

11:21

didn't even ask him about this. He just

11:23

volunteered it that he had been asked to

11:26

bring limousines full of young women night after

11:28

night back to the estate where Sheikh

11:30

Mohammed was staying. He didn't know exactly what was going

11:32

on inside the house, but he just knew he got

11:34

a call when it was finished. And when he drove

11:36

them home, they'd be counting money in the back of

11:38

the car. The women

11:40

were obviously well compensated for what they

11:42

were doing. But he told me that some of

11:44

them really weren't happy. And he was haunted in

11:47

particular by the memory of one young woman. He

11:50

remembers picking up a group of them at the estate at

11:52

the end of one night and dropping them back in London.

11:54

They all came out, but she's staying in

11:57

the car, crying. and

12:01

blood on the feet. Blood

12:03

on the feet? Yes. It

12:07

was blood next to her where it was hitting on

12:09

the floor. Uh huh, on

12:11

the floor. It made me feel

12:13

sick now. She was shivering,

12:16

you know, like somebody

12:20

who cries but doesn't cry loud.

12:24

Like a dog. I

12:27

don't know if you understand what I mean. I know

12:30

what you mean, whimpering. Whimpering,

12:32

yes. Yes. Yeah. And

12:39

then he told me another really awful story as well.

12:41

He said there was another occasion when a woman

12:43

had tried to escape from the house

12:47

and had been chased into the bushes and beaten by

12:49

a member of Sheikh Mohammed's staff. He

12:52

said that she came out half clothed and he

12:54

was then tasked with driving her back to London.

12:56

And he noticed when she got into the car

12:59

that her body was covered in bruises. And

13:01

he told me that she cried all the way home. You

13:05

know, after speaking with him at

13:07

length, I tracked down a group

13:10

of other drivers who'd worked for Sheikh Mohammed over

13:12

the years as well as some of his former

13:14

bodyguards and other members of staff. And

13:16

several of them confirmed what Sinabat had told

13:18

me about the way that these

13:21

carloads of women were brought back to the

13:23

estate every night. We

13:26

should note that Sheikh Mohammed's attorneys deny that

13:28

he exploited sex workers. So

13:32

you were the first reporter to really figure out that

13:34

this was going on, and that would have been a

13:36

big story all by itself. But

13:38

you end up reporting that it's not just sex

13:41

workers who are trying to escape from the Sheikh's

13:43

palaces and getting no help from police. No.

13:47

Because the next thing I learned was that

13:49

several women in Sheikh Mohammed's own family had

13:52

also tried to run away from him, including

13:54

two of his own daughters.

13:57

These women were willing to risk everything to get

13:59

out of the car. free of his control, even

14:02

their own lives. Tell

14:13

me what life is like for the women in Sheikh

14:15

Mohammed's family. Well, the first thing

14:17

is, it's a big family. Sheikh

14:19

Mohammed has married at least six women, and

14:21

there are dozens of children. And

14:24

the royal women are kind of paraded as

14:26

emblems of female advancement. One

14:28

of Sheikh Mohammed's daughters was recently featured on

14:30

the cover of Vogue Arabia, and another of

14:32

them is a taekwondo athlete, and represented UAE

14:35

on the Olympic polo team. And

14:37

this is all part of an image that Sheikh

14:39

Mohammed has carefully curated. He's built

14:41

a reputation as a champion of women's rights

14:43

in the region, in his efforts to build

14:45

relationships with Western governments in particular. Recently

14:48

his government passed a law guaranteeing women equal

14:50

pay for equal work, for example, and

14:53

he's elevated nine female leaders to cabinet

14:55

positions. And many of those

14:57

women's rights initiatives are actually spearheaded by another of

14:59

his daughters. So it

15:01

sounds like in public that it's this life

15:03

of glamour and glitz and independence, but it sounds

15:05

like from what you're saying that that's not really

15:07

what's happening behind the scenes. No,

15:09

well, exactly. So as I

15:11

reported out this story about Sheikh

15:14

Mohammed, I obtained a real trove

15:16

of letters and audio recordings and

15:18

videos from another of his daughters,

15:21

Latifah. And

15:24

it provided just an extraordinary insight into what life is really like

15:26

behind those palace

15:39

walls for women in Dubai's royal family.

15:45

Latifah was very careful to leave a

15:47

record of her experience. She

15:49

specifically said that she refused to allow

15:51

the kind of misery and

15:53

dehumanisation she felt that she'd suffered at

15:55

her father's hands. She didn't want that

15:57

to be erased from the record. that

16:00

an account of her experience survived. She

16:04

knew that her life looked glamorous from the

16:06

outside, but in her letters and in some

16:09

of the videos she made, she recalls what

16:11

sounds like a really awful childhood.

16:14

When I was six months old, my father's

16:16

sister wanted me, so

16:18

she took me away from my mum. Sushay

16:21

Mohammed had actually taken Latifah and her

16:23

younger brother away from their mother and

16:26

given them as gifts to his childless sister.

16:29

And his sister seemed to kind of collect stray

16:31

children. Latifah later wrote that there were

16:33

dozens of them kept in her palace. So

16:35

I lived for the first ten years of my life

16:37

in the palace, believing that my aunt was in fact my

16:40

mother. I have one of

16:42

Latifah's letters here. She

16:44

writes, We were stuck upstairs in our

16:47

rooms being minded by nannies. We

16:49

never went out or had any fun. Life

16:51

consisted of school and my room. It

16:54

was horribly suffocating. Latifah

16:57

recalled these bizarre occasions when her aunt

16:59

would bring in teams of photographers. She

17:02

wrote, They would dress me up

17:04

like a doll, in jewels, dresses and makeup.

17:06

And sometimes they would bring in puppies or

17:08

different animals to use as props. And

17:11

as soon as the photo sessions were over, it would

17:13

all be taken away. I

17:16

found out that she used to send those pictures

17:18

to my mother to show her how happy and

17:20

spoiled I was when the reality

17:22

was completely different. I

17:24

remember as a kid always being at the

17:26

window, watching people outside

17:29

and wishing I was free. And

17:33

she said that her aunt, who she thought at the time

17:35

was her mother, was also abusive. She

17:38

described one really awful incident where her aunt apparently

17:41

burst into the room where she was with some

17:43

of the other kids and beat them till their

17:45

bodies were covered with welts. She

17:49

never had no idea that she had sisters. Occasionally

17:52

she was sent to visit her biological mother

17:54

and the two sisters who still lived with her.

17:57

But she thought that her mother was her aunt and that her

17:59

sisters were her sisters. Open. One

18:01

of these calls made a particular impression.

18:04

Some the was four years older than her. And

18:07

the teaser rates were friend that she seemed full

18:09

of life and adventure. She was

18:11

a real thrill seeker. The also a

18:13

compassionate person. And then when

18:15

the t for was around ten she learned. The.

18:17

trees, Her aunt turned out

18:19

to be her mother. And samhsa

18:22

with her sister. Say. It

18:24

For the first ten years of my life I was living

18:26

a lie that I discovered to I was and as fight

18:28

it could have that level since it was waiting. To.

18:32

Do with a. She. Somehow Samhsa

18:34

this fourteen year old kid managed to

18:36

persuade the family to reality for and

18:38

her brother to be bought and live

18:41

with her real mother. And

18:43

with samhsa. I saw her almost

18:45

as a mother figure. Does. She really

18:47

cared about me. I would spitzer every single

18:49

day. I always saw some says this person

18:51

who rescued me. Finally

18:54

that he for was reunited with her

18:56

family. but I see life and her

18:58

mother's house is far from ideal. The

19:00

girls weren't allowed to be higher education

19:02

and that was something that caused a

19:04

lot of conflicts between Senza unchecked Mohammad

19:06

Be how did in an earlier been

19:08

quite affectionate with his daughters in a

19:10

he apparently like took part in custom

19:12

unreservedly and was quite a doting father

19:14

of his little girls. But as they

19:16

greeted with maturity the relationship became more

19:18

strained. On that he for recounted

19:20

one occasion when Shaikh Mohammed had punched Samhsa

19:23

repeatedly in the head for interrupting him. I

19:26

should say that said Mohammed denies mistreating his

19:28

daughters in any way but then one day

19:30

some the total it he said that she

19:32

was planning to run away and she also

19:35

the let people wanted. To come to

19:37

that that he for just fourteen and

19:39

she was afraid. Same.

19:42

Time The went without her. And

19:44

two thousand my sisters and.

19:48

Eighteen years old and and

19:50

he while she and holidays

19:52

incident she. Ran away, Every

19:56

summer when Dubai got to hop

19:58

shaikh. Mohammed would bring a solid. of

20:00

his wives and children to the UK

20:03

and they would stay at the Long Cross estate in Surrey,

20:05

which is the same house that that sex

20:07

worker had escaped from, actually around the same

20:10

time as Shamsa made her escape. The

20:12

estate is really heavily guarded, it's

20:15

surrounded by high fences and patrolled

20:17

by border guards and the members

20:19

of the family are constantly guarded by

20:22

bodyguards. But one night

20:24

when everybody else was asleep, Shamsa

20:26

somehow managed to slip out into the

20:28

street and find a Range

20:31

Rover that had been left unattended outside. She'd

20:34

never been allowed to learn to drive, which was

20:36

one of the things that she'd really railed against, but

20:38

she managed to start the engine and veer off into

20:41

the night, eventually reaching the

20:43

border wall where she ditched the

20:45

vehicle and slipped out through a

20:47

gate. Wow,

20:53

yeah, it was a really audacious scheme for

20:55

this 18 year old to pull off. Then

20:59

what happened? So the

21:01

fact that she disappeared wasn't discovered till the following morning

21:03

when her bed was found empty and then the

21:05

abandoned vehicle was found near the border wall and

21:08

Sheikh Mohammed helicopted in from his equestrian

21:11

base in Newmarket to lead a search

21:13

for her. Staff was sent fanning out

21:16

on horseback and in cars to scour

21:18

the area for her and no one

21:20

could find any clue as to her

21:22

whereabouts apart from her phone, which

21:24

she dropped on the green outside

21:26

the gate. Back in

21:28

Dubai, Latifah heard from her sister.

21:31

Shamsa had somehow got hold of a new

21:33

phone and she made contact. So

21:36

yeah, she ran away and the

21:38

whole time she was communicating with me. So I was

21:40

happy for her, but at the same time I was

21:42

worried about her. What

21:44

was Shamsa doing when she ran away? Where'd

21:46

she go? So for a long time, almost

21:49

nothing was known about what Shamsa did in

21:51

those weeks after she escaped. For

21:53

example, we have no idea what she was doing for money.

21:56

I know from Latifah's records that the girls were given

21:58

a certain amount of cash pocket pennies. So Shanda

22:00

probably had some funds on her, but they must

22:02

have been tight. Because one thing I do

22:04

know is that she initially moved into a

22:06

hostel in a pretty gritty part of Southeast

22:09

London. And then eventually she moved

22:11

in with a friend who she just met randomly on

22:13

the run. It seems

22:15

like to some extent she kind

22:17

of just lived, as you might imagine a teenager

22:19

would, having her first taste of freedom in a

22:21

major city. Like we know she dabbled

22:24

with alcohol, kind of made new friends,

22:27

but she also did something pretty smart. She

22:29

contacted a lawyer. She found a lawyer.

22:32

Yes. So she found this guy through the

22:34

yellow pages, a lawyer called Paul

22:37

Simon. And she just walked into

22:39

his office off the street and told him she was

22:41

a runaway princess, a member of the Dubai

22:43

Royal Family, and that she wanted to claim asylum

22:45

in the UK. This is quite

22:47

the walk-in visit I've got to say. This

22:49

is just some random lawyer and he gets

22:51

an actual visit from a runaway princess. I

22:54

know, can you imagine? And this guy, he was just

22:56

a small time immigration lawyer. He

22:58

dealt with like work visas and

23:01

citizenship applications. And suddenly there's like

23:03

a real live princess on his

23:05

doorstep saying, help me, you know,

23:07

I've escaped. And he just didn't know what to

23:09

do with it. So Paul

23:11

Simon wouldn't talk to me for this story.

23:13

He cited attorney client privilege, but he noted

23:15

in records at the time that he told

23:17

Chanza her case was very unlikely to succeed,

23:20

given the frenzy relations between the UK and

23:22

the UAE. And he'd also

23:24

told her it would be almost impossible to help her

23:26

without her passport. And she didn't have it.

23:28

It was back with her family at Long Cross. So

23:31

she doesn't have a passport. She's called

23:33

up this random lawyer. She's maybe

23:36

running out of money. What

23:38

is she gonna do? Right, yeah, she

23:40

was really running out of options and it

23:42

seems like she was getting desperate. And then

23:44

she did something pretty rash. So

23:46

she called one of her father's security

23:48

guards. One of her father's

23:50

security guards. Like the same people that

23:53

were trying to find her. Right, I know.

23:55

And I found it really hard to get my head around this

23:57

when I was piecing all of this together. But one of the

23:59

things I found... Out with that some they

24:01

had a real soft spot for this guy.

24:03

He was a security guard could Grant Osborne

24:05

and one of her friends said that she

24:07

really tried to get close to him that

24:10

summer, but he rebuffed her. And

24:12

I think you just have to think like

24:14

she's. Absolutely out that.

24:16

On. Heroin, you know, in a totally

24:18

strain Sissy, She's never been out alone

24:20

before, let alone spending weeks on the

24:23

runs in hostels running out of class,

24:25

you know. And she's got this lawyer

24:27

he found in the yellow pages. You

24:29

can't help her. She's just. Really,

24:31

it's really vulnerable and naive

24:34

and. I guess this guy was one

24:36

auto in her life. He. She thought she

24:38

could trust like someone she had some

24:41

affection for and she turned to him.

24:44

So. What Happened? Sucrose,

24:46

Been agreed to meet her and he arranged to take.

24:48

Has a Cambridge. He booked a room for

24:50

a couple nights at the University Arms which

24:52

is the city's oldest and grandest. her tell

24:54

when I tracked him down by the way

24:56

grottoes been refused to talk to me but

24:58

he did say that is a can contend

25:00

incorrect and false information although he wouldn't point

25:02

to specifics. So. They meet up

25:04

and what what ends up happening? Then. Well.

25:08

Right was the end of August. Summer and

25:10

Osborne were captured on cctv, leaving the

25:12

has held together. She was visibly

25:14

drunk and they climbed into a cough p

25:17

but in the driver's seat and he drove

25:19

us were nearby bridge and then suddenly he

25:21

pulled over and jumped out. And it

25:23

turned out to be an ambitious. For.

25:27

An earthy men jumped into the car. Some

25:30

the later recalled that they were armed. They

25:32

drove her back to her father's estate at

25:34

Newmarket and she spent a miserable night and

25:36

the manor house. Then at

25:38

first like the next day. She was sold

25:40

out of the country. Sigma

25:42

hum. It's attorneys deny that Sounds Of

25:45

was taken from England against her will,

25:47

but before she business some that had

25:49

managed to make one last desperate phone

25:51

call. To. Say that she'd been

25:53

abducted and was being sold. To

25:56

pay. So

26:10

who did Shamsa call? Well we

26:12

don't know quite who she meant to call, but she ended

26:14

up leaving a message on the answering machine

26:16

of a woman in Surrey called Jane Marie

26:18

Allen, who was actually away at the time

26:20

on holiday. So Jane Marie Allen

26:22

came home about 10 days later and she found

26:25

this message on her answering machine from a woman

26:27

she didn't know. The caller

26:29

said she'd been returned to Dubai against

26:31

her will and she asked that her

26:33

lawyer, Paul Simon, be alerted. Jane

26:36

Marie Allen called the police. She

26:38

told them that she had no idea who this person

26:40

was. She'd noted down

26:42

her name as Shamsa,

26:45

S-H-A-N-S-A. But whoever she was,

26:47

she was clearly in trouble. So

26:49

this is a lucky break that the person who

26:52

Shamsa apparently randomly calls takes this

26:54

strange voicemail seriously and calls the police.

26:56

Right, yeah, it seems like this

26:58

is just a wrong number, but this

27:00

woman kind of had the gumption

27:02

to think, huh, this person

27:05

sounds like they're in dire straits. I will call

27:07

this in. And the police did actually make contact

27:09

with Paul Simon and he told them about the

27:11

meetings that he'd had with Shamsa and who she

27:13

was. And then the case was referred to

27:15

Special Branch, which is this secretive division of

27:17

the British police here at that time handled

27:19

all matters of national security. Special

27:22

Branch got in touch with the Dubai Royal Family

27:25

and the police log, which I have here,

27:27

says that representatives of the family told them

27:29

that they, quote, had no knowledge of the name

27:31

given or any such incident. And

27:33

so just like that, the case was dropped.

27:36

So Shamsa is saying, I'm being held against my

27:38

will. They call the people who

27:40

are allegedly holding her against her will. They

27:43

say, it's all fine. And they say, okay,

27:45

bye. Thanks. We'll end it.

27:48

That's the end of that. And this is

27:50

like one of the first of many incredibly

27:52

frustrating moments where Shamsa and

27:54

other women like Have

27:56

the guts and the resourcefulness to get

27:58

the work done. It out that they're

28:01

trying to escape, that they need help and

28:03

authorities. Just look away every time. It's

28:05

and what was the reasoning that they gave for dropping it?

28:08

Was. A in the police log it says that they'd

28:10

agreed with Simon that if someone had a phone

28:12

then shortly she could just call the police herself.

28:14

She didn't need his help. But. They were

28:16

wrong about bought some that clearly had access.

28:18

To a phone for a while during. The kidnapping. but

28:20

by then she. Was being held completely

28:23

incommunicado in prison. For

28:25

six months later she had to devise and

28:27

even trickier way to get yet another message.

28:29

To her lawyer. This time she

28:31

persuaded one of the prison attendance to smuggle

28:34

out and night which was hidden in her

28:36

hair. In. Her hair so.

28:39

Sam's. Is taking a huge risk, but

28:41

it also sounds like this woman who

28:43

works for the royal family is also

28:45

taking a huge risks helping her smuggle

28:47

out this secret note right? And that

28:49

this story contains so many extraordinary. Feats

28:51

of bearing by people who were willing

28:53

to take huge risks to help these

28:55

princesses who were in trouble at the

28:57

same time, as you have these incredibly

28:59

frustrating examples of official incompetence or worse

29:02

on the path of people who actually

29:04

did have the power to help and

29:06

chose not to. So. What is a

29:08

note to her Lawyer said. Such. A half

29:10

the night right? here. He

29:12

says I don't have time to write in

29:14

detail and been watched all. The time. So

29:16

I'll get straight to the point. that is

29:19

cool. Where my father. He sent for

29:21

our men to tempt me they were carrying

29:23

guns and threatening me. They drove me to

29:25

my father's place in Newmarket where they gave

29:27

me to injections and a handful of tablets.

29:30

The very next morning helicopter came and see

29:32

me to the plane which took me to

29:34

deploy. In existence of

29:36

to day. I haven't seen anyone

29:38

know, even the man you call my father. I

29:41

told you this, but. I

29:43

know these people. They have all the

29:45

money, they have all the power. They think they

29:47

can do anything. He. Said that if he

29:49

kidnapped me, you. Would contact the home office and involve

29:52

them. Now. I'm not only asking

29:54

you to report this immediately, I'm asking

29:56

you help and too impulsive. authorities. And.

29:58

both everyone Wow,

30:04

this is a remarkable note, I've got

30:07

to say. Isn't it? Yeah,

30:09

like she couldn't be clearer. She's like

30:11

leaving him under no illusion here.

30:13

I want your help. Raise

30:15

the alarm, involve everyone, call the authorities, get

30:17

me out of here. So

30:20

what then what happens? Simon

30:22

does call the police again and

30:24

this new report trickles slowly through

30:26

the system over several months back through

30:29

the secretive echelons of Special Branch. And

30:32

then one morning it lands on the

30:34

desk of another police detective in Cambridge

30:36

named David Beck. My initial

30:38

reaction was this is a strange thing

30:41

to lend on a DCI's desk. So

30:44

Beck was a DCI, a detective chief and

30:46

spectre in Cambridgeshire. He's now retired. He told

30:48

me that the day he heard about Shambas

30:50

abduction he was in his office in the

30:52

police station in Cambridge and he actually had

30:54

a view from that office of the very

30:56

hotel, the University Arms, where Shamsa had been

30:59

staying before she was abducted. The

31:01

University Arms hotel is literally under the arms of a...

31:04

Oh wow, so she had been snapped

31:06

from... Yes. ...right under your nose.

31:08

Yes. Amazing, my goodness. So

31:11

he didn't actually see it happen. He didn't see it,

31:13

but he ordered up a copy of the

31:15

CCTV from the hotel and that's when he

31:17

saw Shamsa getting into the car with Osborne.

31:20

And it didn't look to him like she was

31:22

struggling. That was probably

31:24

inconsistencies, if you like, with the

31:27

initial investigation, which is why I thought, well

31:30

hang on, aren't we just talking about a

31:32

stupid teenager? Because my daughters were the

31:34

same ages as Shamsa at the time and

31:37

it's a difficult time. So are you

31:39

just trying to make trouble for your

31:41

father or are you serious about

31:43

this? So it sounds

31:45

like he's trying to weigh whether to do

31:48

anything. Yes, again, Shamsa's fate is kind of

31:50

in balance here, based on what

31:52

this guy decides and how seriously he decides to

31:54

take her. But David

31:56

back called Simon and then Paul Simon gave

31:58

him a big break. So, Shamsa had

32:00

been totally incommunicado, completely out of reach

32:02

up until this point. But Simon told

32:05

Beck that by now she'd got hold

32:07

of another phone. How'd she

32:09

get another phone, do we now? So it was actually the

32:11

Tifa who'd managed to smuggle it to her. She'd hidden it

32:13

in a bundle of clothes that she had delivered to Shamsa.

32:16

And then Simon gave Beck the number and

32:18

Beck called it. And Shamsa answered. She

32:20

seemed anxious to tell me as much as

32:23

she possibly could as quickly as possible. So

32:25

Beck noted down what Shamsa had told him in

32:27

a memo at the time. And I got a hold of it.

32:30

It says that Shamsa gave him the names of the four

32:32

men who she said had ambushed her on the bridge. And

32:35

that she told him that they drove her back to Dalam

32:37

Hall, where she said she was forcibly sedated, and

32:39

then flown to France by helicopter before she

32:41

was taken by private jet to Dubai. So

32:44

this happened the way that Shamsa's describing it. This

32:46

is a crime, right? Right, exactly. She'd been

32:49

abducted. Shamsa

32:51

wasn't a child at the time. She was

32:54

18 and therefore in the UK. All was

32:56

perfectly fine to make her own life decisions.

32:59

Detective Beck found a ton of evidence that

33:01

supported what Shamsa had told him about the

33:04

way she was abducted. And then

33:06

word of his investigation leaked. The

33:09

Guardian newspaper in the UK ran a

33:11

story which mentioned that Shamsa had talked

33:13

to detectives by phone. And

33:15

all of a sudden, after that, Shamsa lost

33:17

all contact with the outside world again. So

33:21

the phone is probably gone, right? Latifah

33:24

said that she had no way of getting in touch with

33:26

her sister. Shamsa

33:28

had worked so hard to establish that

33:31

line of communication with the outside world. And

33:33

then again and again to get the word out

33:35

to the authorities that she wanted their help, that she

33:37

didn't want to be held in Dubai, that she wanted

33:39

her freedom. And now she's just

33:42

in the dark, completely on her own, out of

33:44

contact. And David Beck is

33:46

her only hope. And

33:50

so what he did next was he tried to get

33:52

permission to travel to Dubai to take a

33:55

statement from her. And the

33:57

way that works in the UK is that

33:59

those requests are filed through the court. prosecution

34:01

service. On this occasion, Beck

34:03

was told that this was going to have to be routed

34:05

through the Foreign Office, which was the first unusual thing. And

34:08

then the next thing he heard was that permission had

34:10

been refused. Why did they refuse it? Well,

34:13

Beck said that they didn't give him a

34:15

reason, and actually he didn't even ask. It

34:17

was kind of what he'd been expecting to

34:19

happen. It was annoying,

34:23

really, because yet again, you

34:26

know, this diplomatic community thing and because

34:28

you're a rich and powerful person, you

34:30

can effectively break any law you want in our country

34:32

and get away with it.

34:36

That's always stuck in my crawl. But

34:40

it's, you know, those sort of decisions are

34:42

taken way above

34:45

my pay grade and you just got to go

34:47

with it. The fact

34:49

that it's happened and moved

34:53

on, I suppose. So

34:56

he dropped the case. Yeah,

34:58

once again, the cops dropped the

35:00

case and just totally abandoned

35:03

Chansa to her fate. What

35:05

he called it was an undetected crime. It's what you

35:07

and I might think of as an unsolved crime. As

35:11

things stand, there is an undetected knife

35:14

kidnap on Cambridge, Constantly's files, which

35:16

there is one suspect, her

35:20

father, The Shake. So

35:23

essentially, it sounds like he dropped it because

35:26

of this interference from the government that was

35:28

getting in the way of him being able to investigate.

35:31

Well, it certainly looked that way. And so

35:33

this was kind of an extraordinary thing, because

35:36

like I said before, it's an incredibly

35:38

difficult thing to get any police officer to

35:40

talk about a moment where their work was

35:42

stymied for official reasons. Like these are just

35:45

not things that the cops open up about.

35:47

And yet here we have a

35:49

second police detective saying that his

35:51

investigation was blocked for political reasons.

35:54

And both of these cases

35:56

relate to the same man to Shake Muhammad. to

36:00

keep happening around him. The

36:02

Foreign Office declined to respond to my

36:04

detailed questions about Shamsa's case and

36:07

the government has always denied that it

36:09

interferes in law enforcement in any way. But whenever

36:12

the government has been asked to disclose

36:14

their files relating to the investigation of Shamsa's

36:16

case, they've consistently refused to

36:18

do so for a reason that I

36:21

find revealing. They've said that releasing

36:23

those files would quote reduce the

36:25

UK government's ability to protect and

36:27

promote UK interests. That's

36:30

interesting. So they're saying that letting

36:32

the public see whatever is in

36:34

the Foreign Office's files about Shamsa's

36:36

abduction, that that would somehow be

36:38

bad for the UK's interests. Exactly.

36:40

And doesn't that just kind

36:43

of say it all? So

36:48

Shamsa tried to escape. That escape

36:50

had failed. She's back in Dubai.

36:53

Meanwhile, her sister Latifa is

36:55

watching all this. And

36:57

we know from Latifa's records that this was

36:59

excruciating for her. She wrote

37:02

that her sister was kept drugged to keep

37:04

her docile and she was watched all around

37:06

the clock. And gradually

37:09

it became obvious to Latifa that no one

37:11

from the outside world was coming to help

37:13

them. She felt like Shamsa

37:15

was the one who'd rescued her from her aunt's

37:17

palace all those years before. And

37:19

now it's her turn to save Shamsa.

37:22

She was still only a teenager,

37:24

but she decided the only way to

37:27

help Shamsa was to find a

37:29

way to escape herself. The

38:18

Runaway Princesses was written and produced by

38:20

Katherine Winter and Heidi Blake. It

38:23

was edited by Samara Fremark, Willing

38:25

Davidson, and me, Madeline Barron. Sound

38:28

design by Chris Julin and Samara Fremark,

38:30

with original music by Chris Julin. Our

38:33

art is by Malika Favre. Additional

38:36

editing and production by Natalie Jablonsky. Back

38:38

checking by Elen Warner and Teresa Matthew.

38:42

Art direction by Aviva Mikhalov. Legal

38:44

review by Fabio Bertone and Kamisha Laurie.

38:47

Our managing editor is Julia Rothchild.

38:50

The head of global audio for Condé Nast is

38:52

Chris Bannon. The editor of The New

38:55

Yorker is David Remnick. The

38:59

second episode of The Runaway Princesses will be released

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