RedHanded - Filthy Ritual: A Brand New Podcast by Suruthi & Hannah

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

Welcome to Filthy Ritual - our brand new 6-part series on the Hoax Healer of Hampstead 💸🐒There's voodoo, shamanism, black magic, a tree of life in the Surinamese jungle, and so much more...Episode 1 is out now wherever you get your podcasts, but if you can't wait all episodes are available for free on Global Player today!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hi, hello there, it's me, Saruti, one of the hosts of your favourite podcast, Red Handed. And also, incidentally, one of the hosts of your soon-to-be new favourite podcast, Filthy Ritual. Yes, it's true, Hannah and I found time somewhere in our lives, in our schedules, to make a new podcast. It is a six-part, brand new, limited series called Filthy Ritual, and it follows the story of Juliet de Souza, the hoax healer of Hampstead. And believe me, it is a story like one you have never heard. Firstly, it's a brand new thing for us at Red Handed

because it is investigative. For the first time ever, Hannah and I went into people's living rooms, went to storage lockers. We went all over the place to talk to victims, police officers, journalists who covered this story. A story that goes all the way from North London to the jungles of Suriname.

And yes, it includes our very favourite things, fraud, filth and black magic. So if all those things sound good to you, you really, really, really should check us out on Filthy Ritual. It's just me and Hannah and a bunch of people that we talk to who are involved in this case. It is incredible. We are obsessed with it. You are going to love it. So where can you listen? Well, you can listen to the clip, which is coming up immediately after I stop talking. And then if you want to binge the entire thing, the entire six episodes, you can do that right now, immediately for free on Global Player. But if you're happy to listen week by week and do it that way, you know, holding off on instant gratification, you can listen to Filthy

Ritual anywhere you listen to your podcasts. We're so excited. We've got a strange story to tell you. It's about a scam. A strange, nearly unbelievable story of one of the most prolific fraudsters in British history. She had a sort of twinkle in the eye, I suppose, and a sort of certain vivacity about her. At the centre of this multi-million-pound scam sits one charming, mysterious, enchanting woman,

Juliet de Souza, who claimed to have a special connection to an ancient source of power and wisdom deep in the Amazonian jungle. I said, really? So you might be slightly sighted then. You know, shaman type of people have this sort of gift of sight that they can tell you something that's going to happen. Well, I was stunned. He went to Suriname with her. What did his wife think about that? It's all very odd. This story, it has a bit of everything.

Ritual bathing in dark, rusty lakes. A tree of life, sacrificial cash jammed into envelopes. There's magic, luxury and there's filth. All the mirrors were turned to the wall. Pentagram in one room. Candles that had burnt out. There were about eight refrigerators full of meat. The place stank.

This complicated web of deception made Juliette de Souza filthy rich of the broken dreams of her wealthy, well-heeled London neighbours. She'd go to extraordinary lengths to charm and manipulate. If you didn't do what she wanted, she could make mincemeat out of you. Extraordinary empathy and no compassion whatsoever. Until a ragtag team of bohemian hamster journalists and victims decided to stand in her way. We were going to try to find her. I didn't think it was going to be too crazy, but I did think, like, it could be an adventure. She stopped. I stopped. I looked at her.

She looked at me. And I knew that I was looking at Juliet D'Souza. If you made an enchanting, loyal, glamorous new friend and she said she could solve even your most intractable problems for a price, would you consider it? I couldn't say how much money I would spend if my child was sick or if my husband was in chronic pain. Even if I didn't believe in shamanism, would I give it a go? How much might you pay?

Can I afford not to? I can't afford to say no. Do you see the position I'm in? This story, it even made us rethink everything. Just in case, I've got nothing to lose. This is the whole point, isn't it? Who knows, you know? I'm scared. It's all right. You don't have to be. I'm Hannah Maguire.

I'm Saruti Bala. From global and novel, welcome to Filthy Ritual. A podcast about the hoax healer of Hampstead. You can listen to the whole series right now for free on Global Player. Download it from the App Store or search for Filthy Ritual at globalplayer.com

Isn't that extraordinary? It's a great story, isn't it? Should be a film.