Uncover - S9 "Evil By Design" E2: Carte Blanche

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

Who is Peter Nygard? The son of Finnish immigrants to Canada, he rose to become boss of an eponymous fashion label that once boasted hundreds of stores around the world. Nygard’s success gave him the means to move to the Bahamas and build a fantastical resort estate, which he also named after himself. But it was Nygard’s limitless ambitions for this property that would eventually see him forced out of the country… setting the stage for the wave of allegations to come. This is Uncover: Evil By Design. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/evil-by-design-transcripts-listen-1.5886427

Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson, and I do the show, FrontBurner. It's a daily news program, five days a week, a deep look at one story you actually want to know more about. One of the coolest parts of this job is when people show me how often one of our episodes comes up in their group chats. It's a real range of topics, too. Rent gouging, Trump and Elon Musk, the Middle East. Even culture stuff that has real consequences, like Diddy, for example. So if you are one of those people sharing our stuff in your group chat, I just want to say thank you. And if you aren't yet, please find and follow FrontBurner wherever you get your podcasts,

and please get it in the chat. This is a CBC Podcast. The following episode contains difficult subject matter and references to sexual assault. Please take care. Now the man of the hour, please, ladies and gentlemen, welcome Peter J. Nygaard. Peter Nygaard walks onto a stage flanked by a troop of models. Blue and white dresses flow out behind them. Fireworks explode on a gigantic video screen. And blasts of smoke shoot up as Nygaard walks by.

The auditorium glows electric blue, his signature color. It's late summer 2018 and Peter Nygaard is celebrating the 50th anniversary of his international clothing empire. By this time he has hundreds of stores and distributors, a headquarters in New York's Times Square, more than 1500 employees and more than $200 million in annual sales. But his clothes, they were never high fashion. Nygaard stores were found mostly in suburban strip malls. Or you could buy his clothes at Dillard's, Costco, or Walmart. They were accessible, reasonably priced, comfortable.

You may never have heard of Nygaard or shopped there yourself, but chances are you know someone who has. I think his collections are very, very smart. They're the kind of clothes that women want to wear. One of the reasons why I like Peter Nygaard's clothing is that it's not gimmicky. His clothes are very different, and there's a lot of marketing also behind it. He's quite a showman.

And Nygaard was a salesman. Here he is in a 1993 interview. People don't buy clothes because they have to buy, and they buy for the excitement of it, for the interest of it. It's like movie industry, you know, it's exciting, it's glamorous, it's fantasy world, and you have to market that. Nygaard's success would make him a celebrated Canadian entrepreneur, a fixture on the list of the nation's richest.

In his hometown of Winnipeg, he'd become a household name. There would be his private plane, Enforce, along with operations in L.A., New York, Toronto, and Taipei. And eventually, Nygaard would build his dream home in the Bahamas. Six acres of Caribbean paradise, where so many lives would be damaged. For decades, it seemed nothing could stop him, until an unlikely group of Bahamian environmentalists decided they had to try. I'm Timothy Sawa, and this is Evil by Design, Episode 2, Carp Launch.

The town of Deloraine, Manitoba, is a few hours outside of Winnipeg, just across the border from North Dakota. At the north end of town sits a small park. For close to 20 years, it bore the name of one of Deloraine's favourite sons, Peter Nygaard. Though not anymore. In the early 50s, a 10-year-old Nygaard moved here from Finland with his family. Decades later, he celebrated his humble beginnings in promotional videos posted on his website, describing his first home in Deloraine as a converted coal bin.

We didn't have running water. We didn't have heat. We lit up a stove that was in the middle of the room. It heated the place, we cooked on it, we had a rusty barrel, we melted snow, we were 40 below zero, going out to a toilet somewhere, you know. We slept in one bed, we all sagged in the middle of it, you know, laundry and everything over the kitchen table. This would be Nygaard's origin story, the beginning of his so-called transformation from rags to riches. Peter Nygaard is a blatantly successful entrepreneur.

He's made a religion of winning in the marketplace. Nygaard attributes much to his Finnish parentage. The spirit of competition was instilled in him, he says, by his poor, hard-working parents who immigrated to Winnipeg when Nygaard was a child. much to his Finnish parentage. The spirit of competition was instilled in him, he said, by his poor, hardworking parents who immigrated to Winnipeg when Nygaard was a child. Nygaard's family soon left Deloraine for Winnipeg, where he grew up, before leaving to attend the University of North Dakota. After returning to Canada, Nygaard took a job at a struggling local clothing company.

In 1967, in his mid-twenties, after saving and borrowing, he became an investor. I gambled my whole life on this deal, going for this, without one ounce of training at all by myself. Within a decade, he owned the company, renaming it Tanjay. This was the beginning of Nygaard, the empire. When I got in the industry, the post-war baby boom was occurring, and everyone was telling me that half the population is under the age of 25. And, you know, I sort of cleverly figured out if half of them is under 25, the other half must be over 25. And if everybody's going after this, then maybe I should go over the 25.

We built that garment for the average 40-year-old who has the average problems of her figure, you know, who tends to get a little heavier on the hips and a little smaller on the top. There's a shape that we'd rather not admit it, but that is our shape. And we faced the reality of it. By the late 70s, Nygaard was becoming one of the biggest players in the Canadian garment industry. How would you like a limousine in Los Angeles which doubles as an office? And half a dozen excaliburs for your leisure driving.

A little real estate in the Bahamas, perhaps, and a thriving multi-million dollar business in Canada. Peter Nygaard has got these things by using a success formula. He drives himself day in and day out towards one whopper of a goal. If you want to be the best in the world, that's all you can pursue. You can't be all things to everybody. You can take one at a time, you know,

and you can really try to get good at it, but if you really want to be one of the top in the world, the tops in North America or something like that, you can't pursue much more than that. As his business fortunes grew, so did the stories about his personal life. In 1979, a documentary profile followed him while he jetted between the Bahamas, LA, and Winnipeg.

Look at this hair all over my face. In an early scene, Nygaard flirts with a tanned blonde woman, who helps him adjust his headband while he gets ready to go sailing. Look in your eyes so I can see. Look in your eyes. Now a 38-year-old bachelor, his single-minded drive is his entire lifestyle. We see Nygaard palling around with celebrities in Los Angeles.

Here he indulges his sizable ego by cultivating friends like TV star David Soul of Starsky and Hutch fame. A final scene is one of Nygaard running along the beach, bare-chested, his long blonde hair streaming out behind him. You're married to this obsession that you have, this goal that you have. You get a tremendous satisfaction out of training for whatever you train. Nygaard soon became known as a work-hard, play-hard, playboy entrepreneur. Profiles often mention the fact that he lived at the office, his Winnipeg headquarters housing a bedroom.

Reporters wrote of a sectional sofa that transformed into a bed at the flick of a switch, while other switches locked doors, dimmed lights, and piped in romantic music under a mirrored ceiling. Articles from the time outlined his taste in women, and Nygaard himself was described as having, quote, Viking Gatsby good looks. For decades, Nygaard has tried to capitalize on this image. It was an affordable women's clothing label, but the advertising often featured Nygaard himself, muscles bulging and shirt unbuttoned. I'm not from Winnipeg originally, so when I got here it was hard to miss the stores and what I considered those Soviet-era style posters of Nygaard with his arms folded,

his golden locks flowing and looking across the horizon. They were freakish, actually. It was very hard to avoid. Paul Mackay moved to Winnipeg in the 80s, becoming a journalist for the city's largest paper. Even his outward appearance was quite different than what you would think of the average business person. He was certainly more flamboyant and kind of had a pseudo-Fabio thing going on. Winnipeg can be a very small C conservative town, so he certainly stood out in that respect. Even as a newcomer to the city, Paul would soon learn about Peter Nygaard's exploits. You would hear stories, you know, gossip about his reputation. Just that he was a ladies' man, and that kind of has a 1960s Rat Pack ring to it.

That reputation stuck. As recently as 2015, Vanity Fair compared him to another man whose personal and professional brand was that of a playboy, calling Nygaard the Hugh Hefner of downmarket retail. Ever since Nygaard burst onto the public stage, his personal image has been carefully crafted. But as I would later learn, even the most insignificant details could be stretched. For example, the daughter of the Nygaard's landlord from the 1950s disputed his description of that converted coal bin. She told me the space was actually a heated back kitchen with a pump for running water, and it was never used

for coal. But the self-promotional tour didn't stop. Its final destination was Nygaard's most celebrated achievement, what he refers to as the eighth wonder of the world. This is Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, television's unchallenged authority on wealth, prestige and the good life. Our search for the very best never ends. And so we proudly present from the sun-drenched Bahamas, under construction, what will certainly be the world's most unique house, if not the world's largest. It was Nygaard's most lavish display of wealth and excess.

Fashion mogul Peter Nygaard, who also has designs on nature, chose exclusive life at key in the sparkling Bahama Islands to fashion his greatest creation ever. After increasingly spending time in the Bahamas through the 70s, Nygaard began building his palatial estate in 1984. With permission from the Bahamian government, he renamed his land Nygaard Key, just in time for an appearance in this 1992 episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

It had been known as Sims Point for the past 400 years. Like Christopher Columbus, whose first taste of the new world was exactly here 500 years ago, Peter discovered the very tip of this island paradise and called it his own. It started with a modest beach house in a 1,000 acre gated community called Leiford Quay. It's considered one of the wealthiest and most exclusive in the world. That original beach house would eventually become the security booth and staff office

to the sprawling estate Nygaard would go on to design and construct for more than 20 years. We've been living in Winnipeg, 40 below, and I've never been to a warm country in my life. And when I had a chance right early in my life, I ended up coming here. And I saw this beautiful place with beautiful water and these beautiful people here. And I said, that's for me.

So I always had this dream about building on an island, going from water to water. It was a little wee island when I was young. Then it got bigger and bigger. And I ended up with this biggest house in the world. Here, Nygaard and his usual entourage of young women could surround themselves with comfort and luxury. There were volleyball, basketball and tennis courts, a disco, a 24-seat movie theater, and what he declared was the world's largest sauna. There's a lot of celebrities that have been coming here. You know, almost every person who comes to the island wants to see this.

I mean, coming here, you know, almost every person who comes to the island wants to see this. You know, and a lot of, most, I guess, of the famous movie stars. And then we have the rap guys, you know, come over here, and the basketball players. And we have all the church leaders over here, you know, so it goes from everywhere. George H.W. Bush, Michael Jackson, Robert De Niro, and Duchess Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew have all spent time at Nygaard Quay, as well as countless prominent Bahamians. I traveled to the Bahamas, to Nygaard Quay,

to see this so-called eighth wonder in person. And I'd find out it was Nygaard's limitless ambitions for this property that would eventually see him forced out of the Bahamas, setting the stage for the wave of allegations to come. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell.

I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. One sunny afternoon in February 2020, a colleague and I drove west from the airport in Nassau. The sparkling jewel-like sea pops in and out of view through palm trees and coastal homes. Twenty minutes later, we pass through the outer gates of Lyford Quay, on our way to where Nygaard built his massive beachside estate. I've seen it several times over the years, from a plane, a drone, and by peeking through the gates.

The best view, however, comes by circling it in a boat. We cruise along stunning Old Fort Bay. As we head towards the point, Nygaard Cay comes into view. Gigantic stone lions guard Nygaard's private seawater-filled lagoon. Mayan-style temples tower behind it. Cabanas made from glass and rock sit in the treetops, jutting out over the sea. As we come around the point, we see the beaches. The bluest water laps up on several acres of the whitest sand you'll ever see.

If someone built a Disneyland for adults, this is what it would look like. My tour guide today is Joe Darville, a local conservationist who holds the impressive title Grand Bahama Coastal Waterkeeper. What drives that passion for you about Mother Earth, as you call it? Well, I think because when I grew up on the island, we survived from the land and we survived from the sea. I knew that a long time ago that the archipelagic nation of Bahamas was the most beautiful spot on planet Earth. So what more can I say? I mean, whatever I'm going to do and have to do to safeguard it for my people,

I will do it without fear or trepidation. Joe's determination to safeguard the environment would eventually see him at war with Nygaard. So when did you first hear the name Peter Nygaard? Well, Peter Nygaard was not known to me until I found out certain things that he was doing to deprive this beautiful area of what we have here today. While Nygaard made himself popular with some Bahamians, he alienated others with what they saw as a blatant disregard for the environment.

By dredging the seabed and redirecting the sand, Nygaard damaged ecosystems while swelling the size of those beautiful personal beaches. Environmentalists like Joe and Nygaard's neighbours on Leifert Quay were outraged. In the past, our authorities have allowed individuals who come from abroad and even in cahoots with some of our local people to cordon off all of these beautiful areas that were once open to all Bahamians to enjoy. We saw what Nygaard was doing over there on Sam's Point. Within a number of years, he was extending, accreting his land. And then when he saw how beautiful and magnificent it was and how many parties he could have on that beach, then he said, well, you know, I want more sand on my beach. And so in addition to more groins and gabions and so

on, out over the seabed, on top of coral reefs and grasses with turtles fed, he did everything possible. reefs and grasses, we had turtles fed. He did everything possible. Joe Darvill took up the legal fight to stop Nygaard's environmental abuses, and joining him was Reverend C.B. Moss. He's a local pastor, activist, and conservationist. We interviewed him sitting in the pews of his Nassau church. Mr. Nygaard felt that he could have his way in doing what he wanted to do, disregarding the fact that the land that he had accreted belonged to the Bahamian people, and he was not willing to discuss it. He just wanted to have his way.

Once we engaged the battle with him, we saw an effort to generate goodwill. He would sponsor sporting activities, cultural activities, and he acted benevolently, and he assisted those who were in need. And people are now realizing that this benevolence was really toward a purpose, a selfish purpose. This public kindness perhaps was a plan to secure the goodwill and support of the community that he would be able to do what he wanted to do. For Reverend Moss and the others, the legal battle against Nygaard was long and grueling. We have a good system in law legalities in the courts in the Bahamas.

And so we were able to win every single battle against him. And that raged on for like six years almost, with about 25 judicial reviews. Because every time we would win, they would come up with some other concoction in order for us to spend more time, more money to bring action against him. Another disturbing thing was because he had been given sort of tacit, under-the-table permissions to do what he was doing, we had to fight against not just him, but we had to fight against the government. We had to fight against the former PLP government

who gave him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted to do. Nygaard wasn't your average ultra-rich foreigner in the Bahamas. There are many of those. He gave millions to the Progressive Liberal Party, or PLP, who were in power on and off for a total of 15 years during Nygaard's time in the Bahamas. As a permanent resident

since 1986, who invested heavily in local politicians, he seemed to expect something in return. Over time, those expectations got bigger and bigger. There was a whole bunch of them. Because even at one particular point in time, those expectations got bigger and bigger. Because even at one particular point in time, Nygaard had the gall to write to our prime minister and say, you know, I've donated this amount of money.

I would say that that's a good amount, wouldn't you? And like one hand should shake the other hand. I mean, you don't do that to government officials, particularly prime ministers in the country. We don't do that to government officials, particularly prime ministers in the country. What Joe's talking about is a now notorious letter Nygaard sent to Perry Christie, who was a cabinet minister in 1992. In the early 90s, Nygaard pledged $45,000 to the PLP, Christie's party.

In the letter sent a couple of years later, he referenced his, quote, significant pledge and asked for help in officially renaming his expanded property Nygaard Quay. He wrote, quote, obviously this whole world is based on one hand helping the other. And you know that I am prepared to do whatever is in my capacity to help out the Bahamas and the PLP party and, of course yourself, in any way I can. I'm 78 years old, and I've enjoyed every iota of it. I don't know how long I'm going to be around, but I want to do everything I can to make sure that these beautiful islands, aqualagic nation of the Bahamas, is preserved for Bahamians inviting people from abroad to enjoy it along with us, but not to come here with deep pockets and think you can buy out our politicians.

That has to stop. Perry Christie would later be elected prime minister, twice. In 2011, Christie traveled all the way to Winnipeg to attend the wedding of one of Nygaard's daughters. Let me first congratulate the bride and groom. In a speech wedding of one of Nygaard's daughters. Let me first congratulate the bride and groom. In a speech, he says of Nygaard, He is a significant personality in the Bahamas, known for his philanthropy, a contributor to those who are in need.

Nygaard says he later contributed at least $5 million to Christie. There are no campaign financing limits in the Bahamas. Through his representatives, Nygaard denies all accusations of political corruption. When I called Christie for his response, he said there was nothing untoward about his relationship with Nygaard. guard. I've spent 43 years in public life. There's no equivocation about my commitment to integrity. And so I just won't be able to say it clearly or as strongly as I possibly can to you. I have no fear of any investigation into my conduct in my public life. They were giving him a get out of-of-jail-free card. I mean, the PLP to this day will say that we never succumbed to Nygaard's corruption offers to us.

Fred Smith is a prominent Bahamian human rights lawyer, an outspoken critic of government corruption, among other things. I'm quite an activist in the Bahamas on the rule of law, human rights, environmental issues. So I was seduced into this environmental organization. As the environmentalists fighting Nygaard took their dispute to the courts, Fred was called in to help. Their organization is called Save the Bays, where Fred still serves as legal director. It takes less than an hour to fly from Nassau to Miami.

That's where we caught up with Fred. He was living at a hotel on the edge of a golf course, recovering from a recent paragliding accident that almost killed him. He broke both of his feet and his back in two places, but nothing, it seems, would slow him down. For all three men, it would be a long and ugly fight with people who were loyal to Peter Nygaard. It got nasty enough for Mr. Nygaard, according to our allegations, to hire very dangerous men to kill us. And, you know, we eventually launched a case in the Bahamas. In that lawsuit, two men swore that Nygaard had hired them as hitmen. Those claims have

not been tested in court. In a separate incident, Fred also says nine men accosted him just across the bay from Nygaard Cay. The attack was so violent, they broke through the windshield of Fred's car. Fred Smith wasn't the only Bahamian who felt targeted. Reverend Moss again. We were threatened. Our office was broken into. our car was firebombed

my vehicle was parked in front of my home it was about two o'clock in the morning and um my daughter was up for some reason and she saw a vehicle slowly driving by and she became suspicious and she kept an eye on it and the vehicle came back and two individuals got out and threw an incendiary device on the car and the car went up in flames and they drove off. extinguish it because my daughter was actually on the scene. And it was frightening, but it didn't deter us because we believed that we just had to go through with what we were going through because it was of such great importance to the Bamean people. And in addition to that, we were not going to be intimidated. Nygaard denies any involvement in or knowledge of those kinds of attacks.

But no matter who was behind them, the onslaught against the conservationists was two-pronged. Physical intimidation and public smear campaigns. I mean, the abuse was virulent on the radio, on the TV, in the press, in social media. You know, in the Bahamas, when you go against the government, you become public enemy number one, basically, especially if the opposition isn't that strong or powerful. And it was quite weak at the time. They had these huge rallies up and down Bay Street,

sometimes 2,000 or 3,000, 4,000 people with banners about Fred Smith and Reverend Moss and Joe Darville. You see, the Bahamas being such a small place, it can get very frightening as well when you whip up crowds who have no idea who Fred Smith or Joe Darvill are, but you just whip up this energy against them, and then it has the effect of ostracizing them from a lot of society. ostracizing them from a lot of society. Through it all, Fred says one man was crucial in their fight against Nygaard.

Louis Bacon. An American billionaire and former hedge fund manager, Bacon is a director of that environmental group, Save the Bays. He has properties in New York's Upper East Side, the Scottish Moors, Panama, and a home in Lyford Quay, right next door to Nygaard. Nygaard and Bacon's respective properties could not feel any more opposite in how they look and feel. You've already heard about Nygaard Quay. In contrast, Bacon's property is subdued and simple. His pride and joy appears to be a perfectly manicured croquet pitch,

where you can imagine guests playing a quiet game on a Sunday afternoon. Like Nygaard, however, Bacon is litigious. What began as a feud over a shared driveway and Nygaard's raucous parties has turned into at least 10 years of litigation, involving dozens of legal actions all around the world. Since arriving in the key in 1994, Bacon has been a major contributor to local conservation efforts.

He has financially, along with others, but to a great extent financed Save the Bays in their environmental work in Abaco, in other places, in Grand Bahama, in Nassau, on other environmental issues other than Peter Nygaard. He puts his money where his mouth is on environmental issues. And had it not been for a person with such deep pockets and such moral and ethical commitment to the rule of law, I dare say Nygaard would still be there today in full battle gear with the PLP.

Bacon's continued bankrolling of the environmentalists kept their court battles against Nygaard alive. And in the end, the environmentalist determination paid off. In 2013, a Bahamian Supreme Court judge ordered Nygaard to stop the dredging. Four years later, the same judge slapped him with a five-figure fine for violating that order and threatened him with jail time if he didn't pay. Then came a major blow in 2019. A judge sentenced Peter Nygaard to 90 days in jail and fined him $150,000 for breaching another court order.

Nygaard never saw the inside of a Bahamian jail, mainly because he hasn't been back to the Bahamas since 2018. In a final analysis, I don't think he could set foot on this island again or he's going to end up in jail because there is warrants out for his arrest, because he's refused to show up for sentencing.

And so we can rejoice today, really, really rejoice. He was always behaving in a manner that was bigger than life. But the fact that he is virtually now banned from the Bahamas, people are saying good riddance. But the fact that he is virtually now banned from the Bahamas, people are saying, go to riddance. The conservationist fight against Nygaard undermined whatever pull he had in the Bahamas. Then the government he backed lost power. And once Nygaard could no longer expect to be protected

by his money and influence, everything began to unravel. Far more disturbing information would emerge about Peter Nygaard. Fred Smith. So the public and people around Nygaard started to see that, you know, the law could actually work. The judicial system functioned in the Bahamas. That is one branch of government that has remained independent of corruption and politics. And so more and more people just started talking about, we can give you information about Nygaard building without permits, or here are pictures of him dredging without a permit. And then

filtering in where these pamper parties aren't what they seem, that there's a lot that happens behind the scenes. And it wasn't until 2016 that a few people started to share information about women being abused at Nygaard Key sexually. Fred and the others had to tread very carefully. Mr. Nygaard has, in the past, tended to set up sting operations

or try to create situations where he would entrap a lawyer or an investigator or someone with false information. And if they went to use it to then show, ah, this is further evidence of the conspiracy against me. And so we were very careful initially in speaking with any of these informants about what they were sharing with us. And it became very important to actually hear it from, you know, the victims themselves about what was happening. Fred and other Bahamian lawyers started collecting the stories of a growing number of young women who said they'd been raped by Nygaard. So many came forward that Fred, with Louis Bacon's help, decided to create an organization to support them.

Many of these women joined the class action lawsuit filed in early 2020, suing Nygaard for rape and human trafficking. And dozens more signed on. Among the Jane Does are several so-called girlfriends. The lawsuit alleges these were women who were paid for sex, companionship, and servitude out of the Nygaard company's payroll, and that Nygaard coerced some of them into having sex with politicians, police officers, and business associates for his own gain. But because some plaintiffs got support from Fred and Louis Bacon, Nygaard and his representatives had a counterclaim to all of the allegations. That all of the women are lying, and this is all a vast conspiracy funded and organized by Louis Bacon

to destroy Nygaard's reputation. This is Jay Prober, Nygaard's lawyer. The allegations are completely false. They'll be vigorously defended. They are part of a vicious and malicious conspiracy which has been going on for about 10 years against Nygaard by his enemies. The survivors we've spoken to who are part of the lawsuit deny this and are looking forward to their day in court.

Although Fred Smith and others may have won their battle over the environment, the allegations of rape and sex trafficking point to an even bigger problem. The Bahamas is my home. I hate to speak ill of my home, but I have been doing so for 43 years now in the field of human rights and environmental rights. It's a piratical, opportunistic society going back to the years of the pirates and then the rum running and then the drugs and then notwithstanding, you know, the beautiful hotels and everything. The Bahamas is a very poor country

and corruption is endemic, it is ubiquitous and it is rife in the Bahamas. Worse still, the whole social acceptance that sex tourism is okay, that sex with young girls is okay. We're fighting human trafficking and we're fighting sex tourism. And this would be a really good opportunity for the Bahamas to purge itself of a lot of these horrific embedded social mores.

As this was all playing out, someone was watching intently. Someone closer to Nygaard than most. If women and girls had been raped at his home in the Bahamas, she would be the key to unlocking those secrets. Her story is complex, challenging, but ultimately instrumental to the fall of Peter Nygaard. And soon, she would be free to tell that story

to the world. Coming up. He himself, when he got on my massage table, would start to share his innermost darkest secrets. When I did what I did for Mr. Nygaard, I did it because I didn't really have a choice. Mr. Nygaard had us order two kits of fish.

And he had me and two notorious gangsters here in Nassau stuff the fish with about $150,000 in cash. If Niagara asks you to jump, you ask him how high, where to land and in what position. You don't tell Niagara no. If anything you've heard in this episode has left you looking for someone to talk to, please visit cbc.ca slash uncover. We have a number of resources there for those in need of help and support.

Evil by Design is a co-production between CBC Podcasts and The Fifth Estate. You can find The Fifth Estate's latest documentary, Peter Nygaard, The Secret Videos, on YouTube. This podcast is written by producer Ashley Mack, associate producer Alina Ghosh, and me, Timothy Sawa, with assistance from Annette Fortune at The Fifth Estate. Mixing and sound design by Evan Kelly,

with technical assistance from Laura Antonelli. For this episode, special thanks goes to Bob McEwen and Corvel Pyfram. Fact-checking by Emily Mathieu, and legal advice from Sean Moorman. Emily Connell is our digital producer. Original music by Olivia Pasquarelli. Our senior producer at CBC Podcasts is Chris Oak.

And our executive producer is Arif Noorani. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.