0:00

The history of HIV and AIDS is the history of

0:02

people who refuse to stay out of sight. Join

0:14

us for the series Blind Spot, The Plague in

0:16

the Shadows, from the History Channel and WNYC Studios.

0:19

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Hi,

0:25

it's Tyler Foggett, host of The Political

0:27

Scene. You might recall that

0:29

the team that makes the award-winning podcast In the

0:31

Dark recently joined us here at The New Yorker.

0:34

Season 3 of In the Dark is

0:36

coming soon, but in the meantime, they've paired

0:39

up with The New Yorker's Heidi Blake and

0:41

produce an extraordinary miniseries based on Heidi's investigative

0:43

reporting into Dubai's powerful royal family. It's

0:46

called The Runaway Princesses. Keep

0:48

listening for an excerpt of the first episode,

0:50

which is available now wherever you get your

0:52

podcasts. Hello. My

0:56

name is Latif Al Maktoum. I was born

0:58

on December 5, 1985. My

1:03

father is the Prime Minister of UAE

1:05

and the ruler of Dubai, Mohammad bin

1:07

Rashid Saeed Al Maktoum. In

1:10

February of 2018, a

1:12

princess from the royal family in

1:14

Dubai sneaked over to a

1:16

friend's apartment and recorded a video.

1:19

I'm making this video because it

1:22

could be the last video I make. It

1:28

was part of a secret plan that took her

1:30

years to put together, to escape

1:32

from Dubai. The plan

1:34

involved an inflatable dinghy and jet

1:36

skis and a yacht secretly

1:38

waiting out in the Indian Ocean. Princess

1:42

Latifah left her video with friends. She

1:44

told them to release it if something went wrong. And

1:47

if you are watching this video, it's

1:49

not such a good thing. Either I'm

1:51

dead or I'm in a very, very, very

1:54

bad situation. I

2:00

was having a lot of fun, I heard

2:02

gunshots, men, and then we just heard nothing.

2:04

It was just complete blank. Where are

2:06

they? What have they done to them? Are

2:09

they dead? Are they not dead? Yeah, after this

2:11

video gets to us, what the hell do we

2:13

do now? There is one

2:15

suspect. Her father, the

2:17

Sheikh. I'm

2:20

Madeline Barron, and this is The Runaway

2:22

Princesses from In the Dark and The New

2:24

Yorker. It's a story from my colleague Heidi

2:27

Blake. She's an investigative reporter.

2:30

I've been investigating Dubai's royal family

2:32

and its powerful loser. And

2:34

trying to answer the question, why

2:37

do the women in Sheikh Mohammed's family

2:39

keep trying to run away? Heidi

2:42

got access to communications between Princess Latifah

2:44

and her friends, letters and

2:46

texts, and audio and video recordings

2:48

too, things that no journalist had

2:50

ever reported before. We're going

2:53

to tell you the story of what Heidi

2:55

uncovered in four episodes. This

2:57

is episode one. Sisters.

3:03

So Heidi, where do we start? Well,

3:05

it starts back in 2017. Heidi,

3:08

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

3:10

are you doing? So I was talking to a

3:12

source of mine in the UK, a detective called

3:14

Colin Sutton. While we

3:16

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

3:18

to investigate years before, that he just couldn't get out

3:20

of his mind. There was this

3:22

allegation that had been made by a

3:24

sex worker who said that she'd been picked up

3:26

in London and then taken to

3:29

an address in Surrey, where

3:31

she'd been held for a number of days and abused.

3:35

So this was a 20-year-old woman who said that she'd

3:37

been picked up in London by a chauffeur

3:39

and then driven back to this

3:41

extraordinary, opulent manor house at the

3:43

centre of a sweeping estate in

3:45

Surrey. And she said that

3:48

while she was there, she'd been held

3:50

captive for several days and repeatedly raped

3:53

by a man who, she said, was a member

3:55

of Dubai's ruling family. He

3:57

said that this woman had finally got away from the house and had

3:59

gone... straight to the police to report the crime

4:01

and he got a call from the dispatch room telling

4:04

him to go out and investigate. But when

4:06

he was on his way to start looking into this

4:08

he got a call from another officer he knew, a guy

4:11

who worked in Special Branch which is the

4:13

secretive unit of the British police that deals

4:15

with national security matters. He was

4:17

adamant that we can't do anything about it. It

4:20

had come from on high from you know

4:22

the home office even that it will all

4:24

be shorted and payments

4:26

will be made and it will all be swept

4:29

away. He said that it

4:31

was all going to be worked out privately, government to

4:33

government, and that this woman would be paid for her

4:36

time. Well when I asked Surrey police

4:38

about it they told me the reason they had to

4:40

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

4:42

perpetrator the woman had accused but Colin

4:44

told me the guy from Special Branch had told

4:46

him that wasn't the real reason. The

4:49

real reason he said was that the estate where

4:51

this rape had allegedly happened is owned by one

4:53

of the richest and most powerful people in the

4:55

world. A man with

4:57

connections to world leaders not just in Britain but

4:59

all around the globe. His

5:02

name is Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid

5:04

Al Maktoum and

5:07

what Colin told me was that the British

5:09

government didn't want to damage its valuable relationship

5:11

with him. Sometimes

5:13

things that involve national security or

5:15

things that involve great questions of

5:17

state and the whole country are

5:20

deemed to be bigger than one

5:22

individual's crime or one individual's victimisation

5:24

and we might

5:26

not like it but I was realistic enough to understand

5:28

that that's the way the world works and that's what's

5:30

going to have to happen. That

5:34

is an incredibly rare thing to hear a

5:37

police officer admitting. He

5:39

was actually telling me I was told to

5:41

drop a case for political reasons. That's

5:43

almost unheard of. I

5:45

should note that a spokesperson for Surrey police said

5:47

their inquiry was thorough and there was no evidence of

5:50

government meddling. But

5:52

when I dug more into the Sheikh who owned

5:54

the estate I found that this was far from

5:56

being the only time that a woman had tried to escape

5:59

one of his properties. after claiming that

6:01

she'd suffered appalling abuses. Nor

6:03

was it the only time that powerful foreign

6:05

governments had taken his side. So

6:14

tell me a little bit more about this Sheikh. So

6:17

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid is the absolute ruler of

6:19

Dubai, and he's also the Prime Minister of

6:21

the United Arab Emirates. Dubai is

6:23

one of the seven Emirates that make up the UAE, and

6:26

it's a small but incredibly wealthy country.

6:29

Sheikh Mohammed is in his own right one

6:31

of the world's richest people, and he lives

6:33

a life of extraordinary clamour and opulence. There

6:35

was one summer when he and one of his wives spent $2

6:38

million on strawberries. $2 million

6:40

on strawberries. Yeah, on

6:43

strawberries. Although when I told my

6:45

editor this story, he said that that did sound

6:48

about right for organic. Mmm, editor jokes. Okay,

6:51

so he's incredibly wealthy, obviously.

6:54

Where does all this money come from? Well,

6:56

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

6:59

He poured the country's vast riches

7:01

into this enormous global property portfolio.

7:04

I mean, this is the guy who

7:06

basically created Dubai from scratch. Like, it

7:08

was a tiny fishing village when he

7:10

was born, and he's the guy who's

7:12

credited with almost single-handedly crafting this vision

7:16

for this country to just spring

7:18

almost overnight from the desert with

7:20

its, like, incredibly famous skyline. The

7:22

skyscrapers rise in clusters, man-made islands

7:25

rise from the sea, and it

7:27

is all the vision of one man,

7:29

Sheikh Mohammed Ben Rashid Amatoum. This is

7:31

where we're standing now. Oh, this is

7:33

nothing. This was desert. And

7:36

look now, all the business. Dubai's

7:39

airport is now the world's busiest international

7:41

hub, and Dubai has the world's tallest

7:44

building and its most luxurious hotel, and

7:46

even an indoor ski slope with

7:48

live penguins. Live penguins!

7:50

Live penguins, no less. Like, everything they

7:52

do, they do on this incredibly extreme

7:54

scale. They have these

7:56

man-made islands, like there's one in the shape of

7:58

a palm tree, and they're all the same. and then there's

8:01

another archipelago which represents a map

8:03

of the entire world. And there

8:05

are even plans to build a gigantic replica

8:07

of the moon. It's going to

8:09

cost $5 billion, and they're planning to perch it

8:11

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

8:14

It's like this fantasy place where someone can come

8:16

up with the wildest thing and they're just

8:18

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

8:21

make it, and let's make it on an

8:23

extraordinary scale. Right. And

8:25

it's all at the direction of the

8:27

ruler, Sheikh Mohammed. And he's a really

8:29

fascinating character. So at home in

8:31

Dubai, he cultivates the image of a traditional

8:33

Arab leader. He styles himself as a family man,

8:36

and he writes Nibati poetry, which he publishes

8:38

on his Instagram page and on YouTube and

8:40

on his own website. It's

8:43

pretty fluid. Sheikh

8:47

Mohammed is also a champion endurance

8:49

horseman. He's the world's biggest

8:51

owner of thoroughbred race horses. Horses

8:54

have a really special place in Bedouin culture,

8:57

but his stature in international horse racing also

8:59

earned him a valuable relationship with the

9:01

late Queen of England, who herself had

9:03

a passion for the sport. Really? Yes,

9:06

she would actually often invite him to sit with her

9:08

in the royal box at Ascot. And

9:10

he's close to a lot of really powerful people.

9:13

He's a very important strategic ally to

9:15

Western governments, particularly after 9-11 when Dubai

9:17

really cracked down on terror financing through

9:20

its banks and also became

9:22

the US Navy's biggest foreign port of call.

9:25

And he's also poured tens of billions of

9:28

dollars of UAE's money into the

9:30

economies of both the US and

9:32

Britain. And he's personally one

9:34

of Britain's biggest private landowners. And

9:36

it's his connection to Britain that got you really

9:38

interested in the story, right? Right.

9:40

He seemed to have so much power and

9:42

influence here. And

9:45

I wanted to understand more about

9:47

how he was using it. Thank

9:55

you. So

10:07

how do you get started investigating someone like

10:09

this? Someone this wealthy, this powerful, this connected?

10:11

Well, one of the things I

10:13

guess I've kind of learned over the years,

10:15

particularly reported on some of the super

10:17

rich and powerful oligarchs who fell far

10:20

with the Kremlin, was that

10:22

these people are surrounded by

10:24

so many servants and aides

10:26

and factotums and kind

10:28

of helpers of so many kinds, that

10:30

they forget that these people are human

10:33

beings who kind of have eyes and

10:35

ears and consciences and sometimes feel uncomfortable

10:37

about things that they're seeing, and people

10:39

who maybe might one day decide to

10:41

talk to somebody like me. And

10:44

so I figured, well, let's go talk to some of those guys. Hello.

10:48

Oh, hello. Is that Mr. Cinnabarz? Yes,

10:50

speaking. Hi. Hi, you're here at

10:52

the New Year. So while I was rooting around looking at

10:54

Sheikh Mohammed's former employees, I saw that there

10:56

was one man who'd filed an unfair dismissal

10:59

claim against him, and this guy had worked

11:01

for Sheikh Mohammed as a chauffeur for 17

11:03

years before he was let go. His

11:06

name is Jure Sinabad. I asked him

11:08

what it was like working for Sheikh Mohammed. Well,

11:10

it'll take a

11:12

long time and

11:14

then she did call her... He

11:17

said it would take a long time to

11:20

answer that question. And I said,

11:22

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

11:24

up talking for at least two hours on the phone

11:26

that day, and then we spoke a bunch more times,

11:28

and we met in person several times as well. What

11:31

did he tell you? So he told me he'd

11:33

worked with Sheikh Mohammed for 17 years. And

11:36

during that time, he told me... And actually, he told

11:38

me this unprompted. I didn't even ask him about

11:40

this. He just volunteered it. He

11:42

had been asked to bring limousines full

11:44

of young women night after night back

11:47

to the estate where Sheikh Mohammed was staying. He didn't

11:49

know exactly what was going on inside the house, but

11:51

he just knew he got a call when it was

11:53

finished. And when he drove them home, they'd be counting

11:55

money in the back of the car. The

11:58

women were obviously well compensated... for what they were

12:00

doing, but he told me that some of them

12:02

really weren't happy, and he was

12:04

haunted in particular by the memory of one

12:06

young woman. He remembers picking up

12:08

a group of them at the estate at the end of

12:10

one night and dropping them back in London. They

12:13

all came out, but she's taking the

12:15

car, crying. Oh. And

12:19

the blood at the seats. Blood

12:21

on the seats? Yes. It

12:25

was blood next to her where it was hitting on

12:27

the floor. It

12:30

made me feel sick now. She

12:33

was, you

12:35

know, like somebody

12:38

who cries but doesn't cry loud. Like

12:43

a dog. I

12:46

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

12:48

you mean. Whimpering. Whimpering,

12:50

yes. Yeah. Yeah. And

12:57

then he told me another really awful story as well.

12:59

He said there was another occasion when a woman

13:02

had tried to escape from the

13:04

house and had been

13:06

chased into the bushes and beaten by a member

13:08

of Sheikh Mohammed's staff. He

13:10

said that she came out half clothed, and he

13:12

was enticed with driving her back to London. And

13:15

he noticed when she got into the car that

13:17

her body was covered in bruises. And

13:19

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

13:23

know, after speaking with him at length,

13:26

I tracked down a group

13:28

of other drivers who'd worked for Sheikh Mohammed over

13:30

the years, as well as some of his former

13:32

bodyguards and other members of staff. And

13:35

several of them confirmed what Sinabat had told

13:37

me about the way that these

13:39

carloads of women were brought back to their

13:41

state every night. We

13:44

should note that Sheikh Mohammed's attorneys deny that

13:46

he exploited sex workers. So

13:50

you were the first reporter to really figure out that

13:52

this was going on, and that would have been a

13:54

big story all by itself. But

13:57

you end up reporting that it's not just

13:59

sex workers to escape from the Sheikh's

14:01

palaces and getting no help from police? No.

14:05

Because the next thing I learned was that

14:07

several women in Sheikh Mohammed's own family

14:10

had also tried to run away from

14:12

him, including two of his own daughters.

14:15

These women were willing to risk everything to

14:17

get free of his control, even

14:20

their own lives. To

14:27

hear the rest of the episode, follow In The Dark

14:30

wherever you get your podcasts.