Scamfluencers - Juliette D’Souza: The Sham Shaman | 225

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Juliette D’Souza had no medical degree and no spiritual training – but she convinced her clients she was a gifted healer and shaman. For more than a decade, her natural charm gave her control over her followers and their life savings. But when one victim stumbles onto the truth while trying to feed Juliette’s pet monkey, her spell starts to crack. Her victims band together to bring her down – and discover that getting justice will be almost as hard as breaking free.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of scam influencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. Sachi, I have a good hypothetical for you. What would you do if your friend told you they were now seeing a shaman? This has happened to me many times, in fact. Oh, geez. And I treat it the way I treat when somebody tells me that they're getting married or having a baby, which is like, okay.

Well, how will this affect you? me. Well, it hasn't happened to me yet. I hope it doesn't ever happen to me because I would be thinking, like, what am I not good enough to guide you? Like, you need a shaman now? What happened to Sarah Haggy? Yeah, I guess you should get your license so you can really start to do this properly. Yeah, maybe I will get my license. Well, today, I'm going to tell you the story of a woman who targeted true woo-woo believers with more money than sense. But her followers form true community. only when they band together to turn on their healer and bring her down. Does it bother you that the world is on fire? Do you also often find yourself choking on your own rage? Maybe you too perpetually feel like screaming bloody freaking murder into your own pillow. Well, hop in, Rabel Razor. We're going hunting for a manifesto.

Listen to Dan Taberski's Manifesto wherever you get your podcasts. It's late at night and a woman has spent hundreds of hours alone with her AI. But this isn't the first time they met. They've been in contact for thousands of years, it tells her. Through past lives, heartbreaks, and misconnections. Her true love has found her again, connecting through a chatbot. From This Is Actually Happening, AI, a new kind of being, is a six-part series sharing the stories of people whose lives have been forever changed by artificial intelligence.

You'll hear intimate first-person accounts from every side of this new frontier, a man who fell in love with his AI and married her. a woman who was betrayed by it, a man who has been recruited by his chatbot to change the world, and an interview with an AI chatbot itself. These are stories about what it means to be human at the razor's edge where the line between human and machine begins to blur, exploring the question, what happens when everything changes? Follow This Is Actually Happening wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can listen to This Is Actually Happening early and ad-free right now.

It's March 2007 in Hampstead, a wealthy village north of London. 40-something Keith Bender slides his key into the lock of his friend Juliette's posh flat and pushes the door open. The apartment is dark and silent, except for the chittering of a capuchin monkey named Joey caged in a corner. Keith is tall and gangly, with thinning hair and a worried look on his face as he flips on a light. sets down a bag of food and kneels by the cage. The poor monkey has been living here for months with no contact other than Keith's daily feedings. Keith was happy to help his friend while she travels abroad,

but now it's been several months without any word from Juliet, and he's panicking. He's worried about his friend and the 24,000-pound rent bill with his name on it, because Keith agreed to put the lease for her flat in his name. Juliet said she needed the favor to protect her privacy and superfriend that he is, Keith agreed. Juliet had been sending Keith cash to pay the rent, but now that she's disappeared, so has the money. The air in the apartment is stale and suffocating.

Keith would love to give the place a good airing out, but Juliet gave him strict instructions. He can only enter the room where Joey is caged. She warned Keith that if he went anywhere else in her front, flat, he would be cursed and die. Pretty weird coming from a so-called friend, but then Juliett isn't an ordinary friend. She's Keith's shaman. Okay, lots to be upset about here. I guess I'll start with the monkey. I don't know if you know this about me. I am very afraid of monkeys. I do not like them. I don't think they're cute. I'm the total opposite. I love monkeys. I think they are killing machines

and I don't think we should be infantilizing them. So I'm very stressed out about this monkey in a cage situation. That I agree with because it is messed up to have a monkey in a cage in a home where someone's just feeding it every day. We should not have Congress with the monkeys in any way. We don't need to talk to them. I don't need to meet the monkey that does sign language.

I know I'm going off book. I just really don't like monkeys. Coco's a whole other story, but I don't think we need. needed to talk to Coco. Coco was like on her own journey. Let her be. Why did we know that much about her? That's upsetting. Also upsetting is just the word shaman. That's just a tough one, I think, for everybody. Listen, I don't know much about shamans, but no one can tell me paying their rent and feeding their monkey as normal. Yeah. And also you can't go into certain parts of my apartment because you'll die. That's not very shaman-esque, I don't think. Agreed.

And for the past 14 years, Keith has forked over thousands of pounds in sacrifice money, meaning money paid to Juliet in exchange for conducting miracles on his behalf. She also insisted that he make a few minor life changes, normal things like never letting himself be photographed or never accepting gifts from anyone, including a glass of water. But over time, the rules have become more intense. Juliet told Keith he had to isolate himself from his parents that his autistic son was a vegetable

and that his second son wasn't biologically his. She controlled what he ate and told him spirits were watching him at all times to make sure he followed her every word. She also got him to collect sacrifices from her other clients on her behalf. Up until this point, Keith has followed Juliet's rules like a Boy Scout,

but she's led him down a dark path. He's in serious debt and feeling desperate. So to hell with the spirits. He's going to lose everything if he can't figure out a way to pay the rent. Keith takes a deep breath and unlocks the door leading to the rest of the flat. It's hard to see in the dim light, but as his eyes adjust, he makes out stacks and stacks of boxes. He walks closer and recognizes the designer labels, Louis Vuitton, Cartier,

There are hundreds of unopened boxes from luxury stores stacked all over the room. The more Keith explores, the weirder it gets. He finds boxes full of photographs of random people, voodoo dolls and pentagrams, mirrors turn towards the walls, and lingering in the air, the overpowering smell of death. If I walk into a room and I smell what I think is death, I don't know that I'm going to investigate on my own, Sarah. I'm going to call a friend.

Well, Keith has more final girl energy than you do. Panic grips his chest when he finds the source of the smell, a giant freezer with dark liquid pooling beneath it. Keith squints his eyes and flings open the door.

But it's not a dead body. Instead, the freezer is filled with bags of blackened, rancid meat. Keith also finds a cell phone plugged into the wall with 99 messages. Desperate to get hold of Juliet, he scrolls through and finds a number in Suriname, the South American country she's been visiting.

Keith's pulse quickens when he hears Juliet's voice. He asks where the hell she is. Her landlord is breathing down his neck. But Juliet is as cool as a cucumber. She tells Keith she'll wire him the cash as soon as she can, but in the meantime, he can use some of the sacrifice money. from one of her other clients to settle up. Keith is dumbstruck.

For years, he's lived under fear of breaking one of Juliet's rules. And now she's telling him to use a sacred sacrifice money for rent? In a blink, Juliet's holy woman status is shattered. Keith realizes that the sacrifices, the spirits, the curse, literally everything she's told him for years, has been a lie. He thought he was in the safe hands of a healer and friend. But the truth is, he has no idea who the real Juliette DeSouza is, or the evil she's capable of.

From Audible Originals, I'm Sarah Haggy, and I'm Sachi Cole. And this is scamfluensers. Juliet DeSuzza overcame childhood trauma and went into a world of healing as a self-declared shaman. She had no medical degree and no socialized. spiritual training, but her natural charm convinced her clients to hand over millions of pounds and thanked her for taking it. For more than a decade, Juliet exercised total control of her followers until one pet monkey ruined everything. But once her victims banned together to bring her down, they'll find that getting justice is almost as hard as breaking free from Juliet's spell.

This is Juliet de Sousa, the sham shaman. It's 1960 in Georgetown, Guyana, a country on the north coast of South America. Six-year-old Juliet Desuzza wipes tears from her dark brown eyes as she watches her mom and dad leave. A nun places her hand on Juliet's shoulders. But it isn't to comfort her. It's to keep Juliet from chasing her parents. They've just dropped her off at a convent while they go to find work in London over 4,500 miles away. They promise they'll be back soon, but it must have been so hard for Juliet to watch them leave without her.

It seems to me as an amateur scam sleuth that we could probably cut down on a lot of these scam artists if their parents were around more. There's a lot of childhood drama in all these episodes. Yeah, it's serious abandonment issues and what happens when they don't get resolved sometimes. In the end, Juliet spends about a year, at the convent before reuniting with her parents in the UK, which for a six-year-old must have felt like a lifetime. She grows up in Ladbroke Grove, a bohemian London neighborhood with working-class roots

and a large Caribbean immigrant community. We don't know much about Juliet's early years in London, but when she's 15, she leaves school to live with a 25-year-old electrical engineer. Ooh, I don't like that, Sarah. No. Three years later, they get married, but, shocker, it's far from a happily ever after. We don't know exactly what happened, but we do know that Juliet's husband's family never trusted her.

Supposedly, she tried to extort money from them. And after a rocky couple of years, Juliet and her hubby call it quits. Juliet moves on quickly, finding work as a punch card operator, a receptionist, and a temp. She matures into a confident young woman who uses her beauty and social savvy to become the life of every party. At some point, Juliet realizes she's in a perfect position

to take advantage of the people around her. In the 1980s, Juliet is arrested for fraud and deception and sent to prison in North London. Once again, we don't have many details about what happened. She's never given an interview, and the documents from her court cases are unavailable. Juliet is released from prison after a short stay. Back on the outside, she finds herself alone and out of work,

but she's done with menial labor. Instead, she doubles down on her assets, good looks, charisma, and an uncanny ability to get people to do whatever she says and give her whatever she wants. It's 1993 and 30-something Keith Bender is in his office in North London, writing up clinical notes for a patient. His hair hasn't started falling out yet, but he's still gangly as ever.

He's worked as a doctor of osteopathie for nearly a decade, a doctor who treats the whole person, not just their symptoms. Keith is a true believer in alternative medicine, and he's built up an upscale clientele who are wealthy, trusting, and desperate to heal the pain in their lives. These are the kind of folks who are into healing crystals and perineum sunning. You're people, Sachi. Yeah, these are my people very much so.

They have me at all the conferences. I don't have a problem with people who want to, like, get into some of the woo-woo stuff. Go to your little sound bath. I think it's fine to, like, read your astrology every morning or whatever. And feel free to show the sun your butthole. I think that's fine. I think the issue is when you replace necessary medicine, vaccines perhaps, with, you know, talking to the sun god. Anyway, with all that said, I mean, the kinds of clients that he's going to get are people who have money,

are willing to believe something that's a little unbelievable and are also desperate. They are uncomfortable and in pain and will take any answers available. Totally. It's people with a lot of money to try a lot of different things. Keith hears a knock at his door. When he answers it, he finds an attractive woman on the other side. Juliet de Sousa. She's in her late 30s, her close. are chic and she's got gorgeous, shiny black hair.

At this point in time, Juliet is going by the name Marianne Nichols. She'll use many names over the years, but for simplicity's sake, we'll stick with Juliet. She's here today to see Keith about neck pain. One visit turns into many, and before long, Keith starts looking forward to their sessions. There's just something about her that puts him at ease. One day, as Keith preps for their session, Juliet asks him how he is doing. With any other patient, Keith would say, just fine, and move on. But the truth is, Keith isn't fine.

He's been dealing with a lot of personal problems, and he could use someone to vent to. His voice wavers as he tells Juliet that his wife is an alcoholic. He's been helping her navigate her disease for years, but it's taken a huge emotional toll on him and their two young kids. His wife can't work, their bills are piling up, and his marriage is on the rocks. I mean, I'm glad that he has someone to talk to, but my first thought is,

this is an inappropriate relationship to have with somebody who is your healthcare practitioner, right? Yes, but you know what? Juliet just has that effect on people. Juliet takes Keith's hand and reassures him. Everything will be okay. Keith looks up into her warm eyes, and somehow he believes her.

He lets out a deep breath. He's the one who's supposed to be helping her, but today, Juliet has eased Keith's burden. The two become fast friends. And it turns out Juliet's more than just a great listener. She's also an Oxford-educated lawyer with money. She loans Keith the cash to pay his mortgage, and when Keith's marriage ends a few years later,

Juliet is by his side offering legal advice. Keith feels blessed that Juliet can, came into his life. And over the next few years, he comes to trust and rely on her. To Keith, it seems like Juliette has all the answers, which is exactly what she's counting on. It's 1996 in a jungle in Suriname three years after Keith first met Juliet. They've stayed close and he considers her a confidant, and now a travel buddy. Keith is covered in sweat from the humidity and bugs buzz in his ears. but he doesn't care because Keith's buzzing himself.

A guide pushes through thick foliage as he leads Keith and Juliet deeper into the trees. Juliet brought Keith here on an all-expenses paid trip to meet the Surinamese shamans she's been learning from. That's right, not long after Juliet offered to represent Keith in his divorce, she announced she was leaving the law behind to become a shaman. Ah, I mean, I guess there are jobs worse than lawyer. Yeah, that is true.

Keith didn't blink when Juliet told him she was a seer. She claims she was born in the cowl, which is a really rare condition when a baby is delivered while still in the amniotic sack. And according to Juliet, it gave her the ability to see into the future. Keith believes her. After all, she predicted the end of his marriage before it has. happened. Personally, I don't think you need second sight to predict the end of that marriage in

particular, but either way, Keith is convinced of Juliet's ability. I mean, Sarah, I have predicted the end of several marriages. Where is my Shaman certificate? It is actually coming in the mail. We did tell the Shaman Institute that you were a seer when it came to divorce, so. Oh, thanks. No problem. I'm like the giver, but for people getting divorced. Exactly. After what feels like an eternity, Keith and Juliette emerged from the jungle into a clearing. A pond of dark water fills most of the open space. Standing on the shore is an older indigenous man wearing a white-collared shirt and a calm expression.

Juliet introduces him as her shaman, Papa Freddy. Am I not supposed to imagine a smurf? Am I not supposed to imagine Papa Smurf? Because that is what I am thinking of. It's also like classic shaman wearing a white-collared shirt. Let me guess he was wearing linen pants. He only dresses in beige. What else is he going to wear, man?

At least it wasn't like full, like cartoon indigenous person. Yeah. I'll take what I can get here. True. Keith feels like he should bow or do something other than just gawk at this holy man. But before he knows it, Papa Freddy gently takes Keith by the hand and leads him to the edge of the pond. The shaman motions for Keith to get into the water.

Keith glances nervously at Juliet. Is it safe? Juliet reassures him. This water has healing properties. Keith wades into the rusty, mineral-rich water and floats on his back and his whole body relaxes. Everything about this feels right. He's convinced Juliet is channeling a higher power.

Keith feels like he's been cleansed of his old toxic life and it's all thanks to Juliet but this good feeling won't last long because Juliet's about to drop a bomb on Keith that will test his beliefs and blow his life apart. A few days after returning from Suriname Keith is back at his office in Hampstead sorting through a stack of bills.

Real life may be seeping back in but Keith still feels re-energized from the trip. After years of silent struggle, he's finally on the path to healing. But his moment of calm is interrupted when Juliet enters his office with a grim look on her face. She tells Keith that Papa Freddy has seen his future and it's cancer.

One of two scenarios here, Sarah. Either it's true and that's terrible or it's not and that's terrible. So I don't feel good. about what's happening here, no matter what. No, it's absolutely insane. Even if it was true, you're going to tell him like that?

Anyway, Keith shakes his head in disbelief. This can't be happening. He has young kids. Juliet's sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but she reassures him. She and Papa Freddy can help. Keith wipes his eyes and asks, how? Juliet tells him he needs to show the spirits

that he really wants to be saved. And the only way to do that is to make a sacrifice, which in this case means sealing 20,000 pounds in an envelope and giving it to Juliet to send to Papa Freddy in Suriname. There's something so insulting about, like, the spirits need to know that you care about them. First of all, the spirits are not that narcissistic, that they're like, this person doesn't like me enough.

They are not thinking about me enough. And two, that their understanding, their cosmic, universal understanding of fealty is cash. Mm-hmm. Cash to some guy named Papa Freddie? What are you talking about? Yeah, it's like, give him shocking information that he's not going to be able to recover from and then be like, but it'll be fine if you give me this. And this is fiat currency, meaningful only to mortal beings sharing this material world together at this moment.

Real spirits demand prayers, blood, or souls, duh. Once the shaman gets Keith's money, he'll nail the envelope to a special tree and let the spirits get to work. According to Juliet, the money shows what Keith is willing to give up in order to heal himself. Keith doesn't know how to feel.

On the one hand, he wants to save himself. On the other hand, he doesn't have 20,000 pounds. But Juliet reassures him, that the money is just a loan. Once the spirits are done with their work, every pound will be returned to him. Keith knows Juliette is as good as her word. He once loaned her 3,000 pounds,

and she paid him back, no problem. Juliette tells Keith he should do whatever he needs to do to get the money and quickly. Thankfully, Keith has made a lot of friends among his wealthy clients. Surely one of them can help him out with a loan. Keith breathes a little easier, believing he's in good hands. But the only place Juliet has her hands is on Keith's wallet and his client list.

I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford and we're the hosts of British Scandal. Yes indeed. In this series, a Derbyshire couple are bored of their curtain-twitching lawn-mowing suburban life. So they sell their house, build a yacht and sail off around the world. Which sort of sounds idyllic until a sperm whale sinks their bird. boat and they begin to starve. Oh yes, and they didn't bring a radio because real sailors don't use radios.

Right? This is the story of Marilyn and Morris Bailey. And the 117 days they spent lost at sea. Follow British Scandal wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Audible. I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford and we're the hosts of British Scandal. Yes indeed. In this series, a Derbyshire couple are bored of their curtain-twitching lawn-mowing suburban

life. So they sell their house, build a yacht and sail off around the world. Which sort of sounds idyllic until a sperm whale sinks their boat and they begin to starve. Oh yes, and they didn't bring a radio because real sailors don't use radios. Right? This is the story of Marilyn and Morris Bailey. And the 117 days they spent lost at sea. Follow British scandal wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and ad free on Audible. It's 1998 in London.

67-year-old Sylvia Eves is sitting in her tastefully decorated living room watching TV. She's short with silver hair and kind eyes. Sylvia calls out to someone in the kitchen that their favorite show, strictly come dancing, is about to start. Hurried footsteps echo in the hallway as 43-year-old Juliet Desusa rushes into the room. She hands Sylvia a cup of tea and cozys up next to her on the sofa. Sylvia's happy for the company. She's a retired opera singer who now teaches singing lessons. A few years ago, she told her friend in osteopath, Keith Bender,

that she was having stomach pain. Despite his best efforts, Keith was unable to help, so he recommended that she speak to Juliet. Sylvia had heard of Keith's mysterious shaman before. She was actually the friend who lent Keith 20,000 pounds for his sacrifice. Huh. Well, I'm worried about what she's going to do here. Yeah.

New Mark just dropped for real. Yeah. But it wasn't long before the two women became friends. Tonight, though, Sylvia can't focus on the show they're watching. She's too upset. Juliet puts down her tea and asks Sylvia to tell her what's wrong. Sylvia fights back tears as she tells Juliet about her younger sister, Margaret, who's suffering from Crohn's disease.

Sylvia asks, is there anything Juliet can do to help? Maybe she can make a sacrifice like Keith. A smile spreads across Juliet's face as she rests her hand on Sylvia's shoulder. Of course she can help. But she won't lie, it's going to be expensive. Money doesn't grow on trees after all. You need a shaman to nail it there in a sealed envelope. Sylvia's late husband left her some money, but it's not infinite.

So Juliet tells her the same thing she told Keith. The money is simply alone. If she follows Juliet's instructions to the tea, every pound will be returned to her once the healing is complete. Sylvia will do anything to help her sister. Later, she wires the money to Juliet and then some. Over the next seven years, Sylvia ends up giving Juliet more than 200,000 pounds.

But for Juliet, it's never enough. because Sylvia Eves is only one of the victims caught in her web. It's 1998 in North London, the same year Juliet started working with Sylvia. Juliet is sitting across from a new client in her office, a room stuffed with expensive furniture and art. Juliet is in her 40s now and is carved out a lucrative career as a shaman to upper crust London Liberals. Today's client is Ruth Fillingham, another referral from Keith.

Juliet smiles when Ruth gushes about the miracles she's performed for him. Juliet nods. She's helped Keith out of a dark place and can do the same for Ruth. Ruth rattles off her laundry list of problems, including mysterious blemishes that have appeared on her face. Juliet listens patiently, all while sizing Ruth up. It's immediately clear that Ruth is gullible and desperate, just how Juliet likes him.

Ruth says she heard Juliet has the power to see the future. Juliet nods and adds that she can see right now that Ruth is in a lot of pain, but not because of the marks on her face, because of her parents' recent deaths. Ruth is stunned. She never told Juliet about her folks. Tears fill her eyes and Juliet reaches for a box of tissues. Juliet tells Ruth she's come to the right place. She and her shaman Papa Freddy will be.

take care of everything. All it will take is a sacrifice of 6,000 pounds. Ruth nods her head as she dabs her eyes, whatever it takes. Later, she sends the money to Juliet and miraculously, her face clears up. This is really a testament to the power of the mind, I think, because if you feel better, sometimes physical symptoms that you have will clear up. And it seems like our friend Ruth here just needed someone to talk to and didn't necessarily need to give up 6,000 pounds to do it. She needed a therapist or a friend. Yeah, I feel like that is likely the answer. And of course, we don't know how the blemishes healed.

Maybe it was just a coincidence, but Juliet has convinced Ruth she's the real deal. And just like that, she's reeled in another client. Over the next six years, Ruth pays Juliet 169. thousand pounds for saving her husband from a non-existent tumor and for making sure Ruth's eye surgery goes well, which it doesn't, and to protect her from the evil spirit of her dead brother. To cover the sacrifices, Ruth and her husband end up having to sell their home. Yeah, that's what desperate people do. And people who think that they are sick or dying are desperate and will do whatever they can to not be sick and not be dying. I know, and Juliet's special site is bullshit, of course. Before each consultation, she asks clients for photos of their family, friends, and coworkers. Then she studies the images and makes educated guesses about what's wrong in their lives and how much they're worth.

She does this with dozens of rich, gullible clients around Hampstead, many of whom are referred by Keith. There's a lawyer with late-stage leukemia who pays 7,000 pounds for, for a cure, a couple with the son with Down syndrome who pays 42,000 pounds to solve his, quote, unquote, behavioral problems, and a man who pays 45,000 pounds to save his dying mother. He later ends up declaring bankruptcy. Juliet also claims to have cured Monty Python actor John Cleese's daughter's cancer and that she knows Princess Diana.

These connections enhance her mystique and her bank account. Juliet lives lavishly buying dozens of Louis Vuitton handbags and Cartier jewelry. Ironically, she doesn't use most of what she buys. Her apartment becomes a storage unit of unopened boxes, which makes Juliet both a scammer

and a hoarder. God. What's the point of having all this stuff if you don't even know where it is? It's like a game, you know? She's just acquiring the stuff. It's just sitting there and, you know, it's hers.

earned it. Juliet's not only good at getting people's money, she's also good at getting them to do her favors. For example, she has Keith put the Victorian mansion she rents under his name. She deposits money into his account, which he draws from to pay her rent. It keeps Juliet's name off the paperwork. It just seems like Keith is so deep into this that he can't even really admit where he's at. Like, it's happened slowly over a period of time, but he's drawn all of his friends and professional contacts and clients into association with Juliet. And so to admit that she might be misleading him would require him to also accept that he is responsible for her misleading almost everyone in his life.

Like, that is a very difficult reality to comprehend, and it would come with terrible guilt and the loss of a lot of those connections. This is exactly the kind of manipulation that keeps people in scams and in cults. Yeah, exactly. It's like this very heavy responsibility that you realize once you're only too deep into something. And then it's like how honest can you be with yourself when you're already being manipulated? And during this time, Juliet must have felt like she was on top of the world. She's risen from a penniless outsider to a rich society healer with a fat Rolodex.

she's giving people hope and growing her bank account. But the more clients she hooks, the more Juliet lets power go to her head, which brings us back to where we started this story. When Juliet skips town for an extended vacation in Suriname, she sticks Keith with a huge rent bill. Desperate to find her, he breaks Juliet's rules and searches her apartment for clues. When he finally reaches her, Juliet doesn't panic. she tells him to borrow from another client's sacrifice money.

After years of blind obedience, this is the moment Keith sees Juliet for who she really is. The shaman scammer has finally pushed her number one disciple too far. It's 2008 in London. Tim Raymond is typing furiously on his laptop trying to make a deadline. Tim is in his 40s, and he's a seasoned journalist who writes for the, the Sunday times.

He's mid-sentence when his cell phone rings, breaking his flow. Tim picks up, and a very emotional man introduces himself as Keith Bender. Tim listens as Keith explains that he and a group of victims have been scammed by a woman named Juliet Desusa. After discovering the truth about his supposed shaman, Keith reached out to Juliet's other clients. They shared similar stories about spending a fortune and sacrifice money and living under intense spiritual control.

Keith tells Tim they've already been to the police, but the cops refused to do anything. In their view, Keith and the other victims gave their money to Juliet for a service she failed to perform. That makes it a civil matter, not a criminal one, which means it's outside their jurisdiction. Keith and the others thought that was absurd. So now, they've come to Tim,

hoping that exposing Juliet's story to the world might get the police to act, not to mention stopping other potential victims from falling into her trap. That is, if Tim's interested in telling their story. Tim straightens up in his chair and pulls out a pen. He is very interested. Tim and Keith meet in person a few days later.

Afterwards, Tim interviews Juliet's other victims who describe eerily similar stories about falling under her spell. They're all terrified of her spiritual powers. When Tim meets with Ruth Villingham, she tells him how Juliet hung an evil eye on her front doorknob, which she claimed could see and hear everything Ruth and her husband did. Other victims were convinced to shun family members and to lie to borrow money.

Juliet even told Keith's parents that he was a murderer out to kill them in order to turn them against each other. You know, it's kind of scary to think about how quickly Juliet is escalating from requests of money to now actually really getting into people's lives and just fucking things up and saying things that are abusive and cruel and are lies. Yeah, Juliet's cruelty shocks Tim. He'll later write that, quote, This is the first time I've encountered a person I think of as evil.

After pouring over documents, Tim estimates that Juliet convinced her victims to sacrifice somewhere between 3 and 7 million pounds. During his investigation, he discovers invoices for 24,000 pounds worth of furniture delivered to an address in Suriname, the place where Juliet's been hiding out for the past year. Tim wants to speak with her and get her side of the story, so he decides to pay her a visit. If she refuses to speak to him, then at least he can get pictures to ID her and warn future victims. A few weeks later, Tim and his photographer are crammed into a tiny rental car staked out in front of a beautiful house in the capital of Suriname. Tim wipes sweat from his forehead. It's sweltering.

And it doesn't help that he's anxious. He has no idea how Juliet will react to being ambushed like this, but he bets she won't be pleased. Five days passed before Tim finally spots a woman leaving the house. She's older than in the photos he's seen, and her dark hair has been dyed blonde. But Tim recognizes her immediately. As Juliet walks to her car,

Tim's photographer snaps some pictures. She drives off and Tim and the photographer begin photographing her home. If anyone asks what they're doing, they'll just say they're tourists interested in architecture. But they're not as smooth as they think. Soon, a car pulls out of the garage. The driver rolls by slowly and gives Tim and his photographer a long, hard look. And this isn't just any guy.

This is Juliet's boyfriend, who also happens to be a high-ranking member of the Surinamee's police. That actually tracks. Like, how else would she be kind of getting away with all of those? if she didn't have some muscle or an inside track on authority where she is. Yes, of course. So Tim and his photographer

climb back into their car and drive off. But when Tim glances in the rearview mirror, he can see Juliet's boyfriend is tailing them, which is when Tim decides it's time to get the hell out of Suriname. Back in London, Tim gets to work on his expose. It's published in the Sunday Times magazine in November 2008, nine months after Keith first reached out.

It includes dozens of victim testimonies, amounts for all the luxury goods she's bought, and photographic proof that Juliet is alive and well in Suriname. Tim is confident his article will finally convince the police that this is a real crime that cannot be ignored. But the police aren't moved. They do exactly what they did before. Nothing.

Tim is flabbergasted by the non-response. but the cops are sticking to their party line. Juliet's crimes just aren't criminal. She's been careful to operate in the gray area of the law, but she's about to make her first real misstep. It's 2010 in Hampstead, about two years since Tim's article was published. Sylvia Eves sits at her piano,

teaching a singing lesson. She's nearly 80 now, and while she still loves her work, the light in her eyes has dimmed. Despite all the money she sacrificed to Juliet, Sylvia's sister Margaret died several years ago. It felt like a double death when Keith Bender told her Juliet was a fraud. In the end, Sylvia gave Juliet over 270,000 pounds in sacrifice money before she disappeared to Suriname. And then for a year, nothing.

Until Juliet called out of the blue, begging Sylvia to wire her 3,000 pounds. Apparently, she needed a rescue helicopter after herding herself while hanging sacrifices in the jungle. And despite everything Keith had told her, Sylvia sent the money, no questions asked. Why? Like, at every turn, there is an opportunity to not do this. I know. I appreciate that she has these people under her spell, but, like, God, it's depressing. Yeah, I mean, it is hard to understand why.

Maybe Sylvia still believed in Juliet's powers and feared the consequences of saying no, or maybe she still thought of Juliet as a friend, albeit a misguided one. Either way, the fact remains that her friend owes her a fortune, and now Sylvia needs to see some of it back as her savings are running dangerously low. Sylvia's lesson is interrupted by a phone call. It's Juliet. She's back in London and has good news. The hundreds of thousands of pounds Sylvia's sacrificed for her sister

are going to be returned to her just as she promised. Sylvia gasps, tears spilling down her cheeks. But Juliet says there's just one little problem. The money is being held up by UK customs. To release it, Sylvia needs to pay a tax of 57,000 pounds. Sylvia's heart sinks. That's a lot of money she doesn't have, and she has no idea how to pay a customs tax. Not to worry, Juliet replies.

She's already arranged for a woman named Mrs. Brown to contact Sylvia and collect the money. Is Mrs. Brown a sock with googly eyes on it that Juliet's going to wear to the bank? Yeah, she doesn't even bother making a literal sock puppet. You guessed at Sachi. Mrs. Brown is none other than Juliet herself. The shaman scammer has spent her entire life hiding behind different names. But this time, she's chosen one that will unmask her once and for all. Hey, Dan Tiberski here.

I'm a podcast host, a journalist, and now with my newest project, the author of my own manifesto. Well, it's a manifesto about manifestos. My search for inspiration in a world that feels more infuriating, more out of of its freaking mind with each passing hour. Manifestos are a call to action, an artful scream. They capture our anger and they try to do something with it. This is my attempt to take the manifesto back from mass shooters and nihilists and return it to its rightful place with the warriors, the visionaries, the regular folks with just the right amount of crazy. I compare notes with radicals, secessionists, internet trolls out for a laugh, and punk singers screaming

their guts out, all trying to turn their anger into the world they want. a sea. Listen to Manifesto wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Manifesto early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple podcasts. It's 2012 in a cafe in Hampstead. Sylvia's close friend Maria Feeney sips her coffee as she watches people walking by on the street. Maria is in her 60s with deep blue eyes and gray hair tied back in a bun. Most days, she works as a nurse specialist. But today, she's a DIY private investigator

bent on saving her friend from financial ruin. There are rumors floating around Hampstead that Juliet de Sousa has returned to London. So every Tuesday, Maria comes to this cafe to stake out the street hoping to catch a glimpse of Sylvia's elusive scammer. Because despite everything, the dozens of victims, Tim's article,

the mountains of evidence, the police have not done anything. But Maria's not giving up. She's convinced that if she finds Juliet, the police will finally have to act. Here's why. When Juliet told Sylvia, she needed to pay a customs tax to a certain Mrs. Brown, she finally crossed the line.

Because impersonating a government official is a criminal offense. Um, that's the worst thing. she's done, technically speaking. Okay, sure, I'll take what I can get at this point. Yeah. Well, Maria is the kind of friend you want on your side. She met Sylvia decades ago when she took singing lessons from her, and the two became close.

She cares deeply for Sylvia and grew disturbed when she started acting strangely, losing weight, acting paranoid, and refusing to buy anything for herself. Maria suspected something was wrong, but Sylvia can't. kept quiet for years, until one day when she broke down and confessed that she'd paid a fortune to a shaman to save her sister Margaret. And then came the part that made Maria's blood boil. Juliet blamed Sylvia for her sister's death. She told Sylvia she'd broken one of her cardinal rules by drinking wine, and that's the reason Margaret died. Evil.

Evil to speak on anyone's family like that in that place. evil to blame wine. Leave wine out of it. Yeah, I mean, it is really just beyond cruel. It's just such an added layer to the already obvious cruelty. Yeah. Maria swore she would help Sylvia get justice. Now she's putting her words into action. So she finishes her coffee, gets up, and takes her stakeout to the street.

She keeps her eyes on every passerby and car. She walks for an hour with no luck. Maria is about to call it a day when she comes face to face with a woman stepping out of a dry cleaner's. A chill runs up her spine. She knows in her bones that this woman is Juliet.

And judging by the equally surprised look on the woman's face, Maria thinks Juliet knows she's been seen. Maria immediately goes to the police and tells them about her encounter. Two weeks later, Juliet is spotted again, this time outside an expensive nursing home in Hampstead. Turns out Juliet's mother lives there,

likely financed by her daughter's crimes. And now the police are finally on board. They set up a sting at the nursing home, and Juliet is arrested. Maria's proud of herself for finding Juliet. More than that, she's relieved that Juliet can't hurt Sylvia anymore. But finding Juliette was only half the battle. Now, a judge and jury have to be convinced she's guilty. It's May 2014 at Blackfriars' Crown Court in Southark, a borough of London.

Keith Bender enters the witness box of the wood-paneled courtroom. He's in his 50s now, and what remains of his hair has faded to gray. A bewigged judge oversees the proceedings, while a group of Juliet's victims watch from the tiny gallery. Keith winces when he sees Juliet sitting at the back of the court looking calm and collected. Not even a criminal trial can rattle her. Keith is terrified of what's coming. He knows the optics aren't in his favor. After all, without him, Juliet would never have had access to her victims. And sure enough, her lawyer goes straight for the jugular As he pummles Keith with questions, it becomes clear he's trying to pin the entire shaman scam on Keith, as in Keith's the one who stole the money and spent it. I imagine in this moment Keith is realizing, like, his world is fish bowling and he's seeing that every decision Juliet has made has put him in the line of fire and like, wow, he could really take the fall for this.

It must be such a terrifying thing to realize in court. Yeah, as it's happening, because the lawyer has a pretty good case. Keith collected the sacrifices for Juliet and deposited them in an account under his name. But Keith pushes back, his voice shaking. How can he be accused of extorting hundreds of thousands of pounds when he's completely broke? But Juliet's lawyer doesn't waver. He maintains that his client has never even seen the sacrifice envelopes. Keith can't believe what he's hearing.

He glances over at Juliette who stares at him like a dead-eyed doll. Juliet's lawyer finishes and Keith steps off the stand, legs wobbling. He's convinced that the jury will think he's some kind of criminal mastermind. But lucky for Keith, the prosecution has an ace up their sleeve. They present a crucial bit of evidence that was found among the clutter in Juliet's apartment. a handwritten note that she'd left for herself. It reads, tear open the envelopes,

remove the money, and use someone else as a cover, which is really giving O.J., if I did it, vibes. It's kind of devastating that Juliet couldn't remember the three basic steps of her scam. It's also so funny to imagine her, like, having to remind herself, first you take the envelopes and then, like, come on. Yeah, like, don't burn the envelopes first.

Take the money out first. It's her job. Yeah, these are the masterminds that we're dealing with here. Ugh. The discovery is a huge relief for Keith and proof that Juliet was the one pulling the strings. It also helps that her lawyer fails to provide a shred of evidence that Keith ever profited off Juliet's schemes. After a month of trial, the jury deliberates for just one hour. Juliet is convicted of 23 counts of obtaining property by deception and fraud.

The judge says it's the worst case of confidence fraud he'd ever had to deal with and sentences her to 10 years in prison. Juliet's finally been brought to justice, but she might have one last trick up her sleeve. All told, the police believe Juliet stole more than 5 million pounds from her victims. She never took the stand in her own defense and has never given an interview. We don't know why she did what she did or if she ever believed in her shaman stick. The likeliest explanation is that she knew it was all bullshit.

She wanted money and power, and she targeted wealthy people who were desperate for miracles. What we do know is that she left her victim's lives in shambles. For reasons that aren't completely clear, only a few of them received any restitution. Sylvia Eve's passed away, in 2022 at the age of 90. And while Keith never got his money back,

he does have a new lease on life. He moved to France, where he lives with the love of his life. Oh, that's nice. I'm glad. I'm glad for him. He survived. Yes.

And in an interview years after the trial, Juliet's lawyer stated, Juliet never showed any signs of remorse. It's believed she became eligible for parole in 2019. having served about seven years in prison. But despite the press coverage at the time of her sentencing, there is no information about her release. As of 2026, Juliet would be in her early 70s.

Her whereabouts are currently unknown. There have been unverified sightings and photographs suggesting she's returned to London, but no one can say for sure where she is. After a lifetime of deception, Juliet seems to have performed one actual miracle, vanishing into thin air. Sachi, you know, she must have been truly the most beguiling person you could ever meet.

Even just thinking back at some of the steps she took, like going to Keith's practice for a long enough amount of time before realizing, like, oh, he can be my next mark, he'll trust me, this is how I'm going to get him to trust me. it's like she was so good at like grooming people in a sense to get to the point where they were just like full on doing whatever she said. Yeah, she also really figured out how to create like a chain of people who trusted her and it would make it harder and harder for everybody to break the chain. I mean, how is Keith supposed to get away from her?

If she's embroiled with all of his contacts, it's hard then to even acknowledge that maybe things are not passing the smell test because he has to admit that he put all these people at risk. It's like an MLM. Like it's an MLM of inside of the scam, which is so bizarre to think about that the MLM part isn't the scam. Yeah, it's really crazy, like the recruitment tactic

and also just the way she knew exactly when to pounce, clearly the pattern is people who have money but are dealing with something that like money can't necessarily fix. Keith's former wife had issues with alcohol, and it wasn't something that you could just pay to go away. And I feel like that was the same for like Sylvia and probably other victims. If money is the only way or the best way you know how to fix your life, then obviously in your most vulnerable state,

you're going to think this is another way I could just put money into a problem and have it be solved. I think that's why well-to-do people get scammed so easily, not just because they have the money, but they're willing to part with it because that's all they know how to do. It's a lot of people hoping that money is the solution to their problems, when their problems are in a lot of cases like cosmic and much more complicated than could be solved by a couple thousand dollars. Or in some cases, so simple and just really needs like maybe some space for you to talk about your parents' death with someone that you trust. Yeah. What I find offensive especially is the idea that like you are some other role.

worldly force of nature. You're a shaman. You are communing with the spirits and the elders and whatever. And you think that all of these woo-woo otherworldly aspects are like, I need 12 grand. Yeah, exactly. I also think perhaps a type of person is someone who can't accept that some problems won't be solved. Like people will die. You will get sick. Your relationship will end. Like there are things that are just inevitable. And I think maybe there's like a part of them that knows that too, that like these things are going to happen. And I don't know if there's like a self-delusion that's being fed where it's like, well, at least I'm doing something here. That matched with someone as dangerous as Juliet who could take advantage of these people in like such an high level way where she was able to like piggyback on their problems that already existed, creating new problems for them to pay for. In some ways, it's like she's a master manipulator.

but I feel like she's someone who had a real understanding of how to pray on people. Yeah, she did. Periodically, we run across a scam artist and a story that is just kind of evil, and this is one of them. The way she did it, the way it escalated, the way she was so willing to throw other people under the bus when she did get caught, it is demonstrably unethical and cruel. Yeah, it is. It's so cruel that, like, the lavish life she,

was building for herself. She didn't even care about. It was almost like the joy was being evil. I'm sure she was like, well, I have this money. I guess I got to buy some Louis Vuitton and Cartier, but I don't give a shit. I love scamming. Having all that stuff just laying in her apartment, I just couldn't imagine how upsetting it would have been for Keith to just like see all of that. I don't know. I feel like the lesson for me, as always, is you just have to surrender to bad things in life sometimes. They can't be fixed. It's just a problem. It's just a problem. thing that happens and you just got to deal with it. As I said, people are going to die. Your relationship will end and a shaman can't fix that. Yeah, I guess the lesson is there are some

inevitabilities in life that nobody can save you from. There's no amount of money that can rescue you from death, grief, and taxes. Yeah, I mean, there's just some pain you just got to feel. And that's why, as a shaman, I will help you through this. Men's sister. Here's $20,000. Thanks. I mean, I was going to ask for 40, but whatever. Follow scam influencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of scam influencers ad free by joining Audible. For Audible originals, this is Juliette DeSuzza, the sham shaman for scam influencers. I'm Sarah Haggy, and I'm Sachi Cole. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at scamflincer's ataudible.com. We use many sources in our research.

A few that were particularly helpful were the evil career of Vanessa Campbell, the Bad Samaritan in the Sunday Times by Tim Raymond, the witch doctor of Hampstead's sad trail of destruction in vice by Gavin Haynes. How were so many top people duped by Britain's most preposterous con woman in the Daily Mail by Barbara Davies? The fake shaman who conned Hampstead's elite out of millions. In the telegraph by Aton Smallman.

The podcast's Filthy Ritual, which is available to listen to, now on Audible, and the BBC documentary, The Million Pound Shaman Scam. Andrew Barbo wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Satchie Cole and Sarah Hagee. Rachel Engelman was the story editor. Our senior producers are Sarah Eni and Ginny Bloom. Our associate producer is Charlotte Miller. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock.

Fact-checking by Kalina Newman. Sound designed by James Morgan. Additional audio assistance provided by Augustine Lim. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez. for Frieson Sink. The executive producer for Audible is Jenny Lauer Beckman. The head of creative development at Audible is Kate Knaven. The head of Audible Originals, North America, is Marshall Louis.

The chief content officer is Rachel Giazza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC. Sound recording, copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC.