World Of Secrets - The Abercrombie Guys: 4. The Mysterious Mr Smith

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

Who is the other Abercrombie guy, Matthew Smith? “Witty, strict and secretive” says a former colleague. Papers reveal the influential role he had in the life of his partner, the former Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries. A former staffer reveals how he frequently requested large sums of cash, sealed in white envelopes – what was it for? Have you got a story to tell? Email [e-mail]. Let us know what you think of the season using the hashtag #WorldofSecretsThis podcast refers to sexual abuse and contains interviews that some listeners may find upsetting, as well as some occasional strong language. If you've been affected by any of the issues in this series, please contact support organisations in your own country. For a list of organisations in the UK that can provide support for survivors of sexual abuse, go to bbc.co.uk/actionline.World of Secrets: Season 1 - The Abercrombie Guys is presented and investigated by Rianna Croxford Series Producers: Ruth Evans and Alys Harte Senior Producer: Emma Close Development Producer: Hannah Livingston Investigation Editor: Ed Campbell Podcast Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith Executive Editor: Emma Rippon Studio Engineers: Neil Churchill, Andy Fell, Gareth Jones, and Ali Rezakhani Production Coordinators: Debbie Richford and Sophie Hill Commissioning Editor: Dylan Haskins Commissioning Executive: Louise Kattenhorn Assistant Commissioner: Natasha Johansson This podcast is made in collaboration with BBC Panorama. If you are in the UK, you can watch Panorama: The Abercrombie Guys: The Dark Side of Cool on BBC iPlayer now, or on BBC Select if you are in the in the US. World of Secrets: Season 1 - The Abercrombie Guys is a BBC Long Form Audio production for BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Sounds.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, thanks for listening to World of Secrets. I'm Rhianna Croxford and before we start, I wanted to let you know that this episode contained some strong language. It is Tuesday the 14th of March and we've just had a successful door knock. I feel like we got really lucky there, first time lucky. Opened the door, I was like, you look familiar. I know, I recognised them immediately.

I've been looking at photos of them on Facebook. So, yeah, the minute they opened the door, I was like, yup. And you said their name, and they were like, that's me. We're back in Ohio, where for days, producer Ruth and I have been knocking on doors, trying to find out more about Matthew Smith, the mysterious British partner of Mike Jeffries, the modern day founder of Abercrombie & Fitch. We've been told Matthew Smith played a central role at the events I'm investigating, yet so far I know very little about him.

So we're trying to speak to people who used to work for the couple in the hope of finding someone who does. This is the coldest weather that I've ever done a door knock in. I mean, I can still barely feel my toes. Dream scenario, someone will answer their door, welcome us with open arms and tell us everything they know. But the thing about door knocking is, you never know which way it's going to go. These two random people who turn up on your doorstep at dinner time

about a story that they can't really tell you much about yet. With each new approach, the risk goes up of alerting the Abercrombie guys to our investigation before we're ready to ask them about it. We don't want them to put the word out and warn people not to talk to us, especially when we've still got so many questions. And that's without the non-disclosure agreements, not just signed by the men who attended events, but by others who may have info to share.

People are terrified. There is just so much fear involved constantly. And the people that they're making allegations against are incredibly powerful and wealthy. It's starting to feel like a game of buckaroo. The more we pile on the donkey, the more likely it is that at some point it's going to flip. Oh, that felt like stepping on a lamb. Oh God, yeah, absolutely. And they were like, nope, I've signed a non-disclosure agreement.

I would never say anything about them. I don't know, I just thought to myself straight after, are they going to call up Mike Jeffries? We really hoped this wouldn't happen. We'd been told the woman we just spoke to used to work for Mike Jeffries and Matthew Smith, and that her experience wasn't entirely positive. But the mood quickly shifted, and it began to feel like an interrogation. I was supposed to be asking the questions, but it felt like she was. And I wondered if she was recording us.

It just makes me feel like we've got to be a lot more careful about our movements the next couple of days. Hey dad, somebody has created a new Instagram account of me claiming that my real account has been hacked, which isn't the case. Basically, if you get a follow request from another account pretending to be me, don't accept it, do not click it, it will try and hack you. The next day, I wake up to find my phone blowing up. Texts from friends back home asking me if my Instagram's been hacked.

I've just had a bit of a frantic half hour. Somebody has created a fake Instagram profile of me. Taken my photos, copied my bio and started following everyone I was following. Trying to drive all my contacts to this fake profile.

It's a nightmare because Insta is one way I've tried to contact people for this investigation. They are like at speed adding all of my followers. Um, God, this is not helpful, is it? The timing's unnerving. I don't know if this attempt to impersonate me is connected with my investigation,

but it doesn't feel like a coincidence. I get in touch with the BBC's information security team back in London, who say they'll look into who might be behind it and what their game is. I've been so careful not to follow any sources on social media, but I'm worried about what this could mean for them. And one's already let me know he's stressed out. Yeah, because what has he said? He just said this is all very strange now, I'm in fear, please don't contact me again, I have nothing to say. I just want to get out of Columbus as soon as possible.

Like, I just want to get back home ASAP. From the BBC, this is World of Secrets. Season one, the Abercrombie guys, with me, Rhianna Croxford. A BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Panorama investigation. Episode 4, The Mysterious Mr Smith. There isn't a lot of information in the public domain about the other Abercrombie guy, Matthew Smith. But I've been looking into him because Barrett Paul, David Bradbury and other men I've spoken to have told me they think he was central to the events they attended. So what was his role? Where does he fit into all of this? I can take you back to the

beginning, but not much more than that. I have Matthew Smith's birth certificate and can tell you he's now 60 years old and was born in Hampshire in England. I've learned he doesn't have a background in fashion. He studied agriculture and food marketing. Then in 1989, when he's still in his 20s, he meets Mike Jeffries and moves to the US where he studies for an MBA. And that's kind of it. That's all I could find. Other than he used to run hair salons in the Midwest. I was wondering, do you mind if I record this? That's fine.

OK, brilliant. Recording in progress. And obviously I will not use... We're on a call with Jedediah Ayers. Today he works as a sleep tech. That's someone who wires you up to monitor your sleep patterns. But back in 1997, when he was 21 years old and working in a bookstore in St. Louis, Missouri, a man called Matthew Smith walked in, asking for some help.

I helped him find several books, and then at the end of our transaction, as I was ringing up the sales, he just said, hey, I own a business. I think maybe you'd be a good fit. Would you be interested in coming for an interview? And I said, well, what kind of business is this? And he said, I'm not going to tell you. But he said, I will tell you I pay,

I think it was $10 an hour, which was at the time, 1997, that was definitely more than I was making at the bookstore. Jedediah says he didn't have much going on at the time, so he thought, why not give it a shot? But admits the whole thing felt bizarre from the get-go. I'm very tall. I'm about six foot four. And he was very, he was much smaller than me

and I didn't feel physically threatened, but I definitely thought, am I, you know, what am I walking into? Is this a real shady deal? Whatever. Turns out it wasn't that mysterious. Matthew Smith wanted him to work the front desk of one of his salons. But before he could start. I just thought it was hilarious. I went in and had an interview with him during which he gave me an IQ test. Really? interview with him during which he gave me an IQ test. Really? Yeah he had me had me do an IQ test and I couldn't stop giggling and kind of laughing and you know he he kept asking why you know why

are you what's going on why are you laughing. An IQ test to work at a salon. Jedediah thought it was a bit odd too but says because he grew up in rural Arkansas, he wasn't really sure what was normal and what wasn't. Still, Matthew Smith gives him the job working the front desk, and he says his new boss seems to have a very particular vision for the business. He only hired women to cut hair, and he only hired men to be managers. He only hired women to cut hair and he only hired men to be managers. And I thought, well, that's, that's a little odd. That was another thing he made everyone. There was a uniform and it was Abercrombie and Fitch.

Yes. You had to wear Abercrombie and Fitch. And he took me to Abercrombie and Fitch to buy the clothes, which I'd grown up wearing hand-me-downs. And I was at that point, probably all my hand-me-downs were getting pretty threadbare. So it was a new experience for me buying clothes off the rack at a store. I've already heard how Mike Jeffries is meticulous about the way he runs Abercrombie & Fitch, the dress code, the eye for detail. It's curious to me that Matthew Smith seems to be just the same. But Jedediah says he was a pretty good boss and would regularly take the staff out for meals.

He would come to town, he would borrow my car. And my car was a piece of junk, and he would come back having filled up the gas tank and gotten the car washed, which was ridiculous. I never, ever washed my car, and I don't know if he was embarrassed for me or of driving around, or just thought it was a nice, polite thing to do, but as far as I knew, he seemed like a pretty nice guy.

Eccentric, but seemed like a pretty nice guy, eccentric, but seemed like a nice guy. Life is good. Jedediah has a steady job, a steady income, until one day he turns up for work at the salon and it's gone. There was nothing there. In fact, I was so cheap, I'd been doing my laundry at the store. And, you know, the washer and dryer were gone. And there was the only thing in the building really was a pile of my clothes on the floor in the back. Jedediah is pretty sure, thinking back, that he and the other staff got some sort of severance pay. But he says they weren't given any warning and they never heard from their former boss again.

A few days after speaking, Jedediah gets back in touch and suggests some names of other people we could talk to. We start digging and soon track down someone who used to work in the Columbus branch of the Matthew Smith Salon and they still live there. Producer Ruth makes a call. soon tracked down someone who used to work in the Columbus branch of the Matthew Smith Salon. And they still live there. Producer Ruth makes a call. Hi, Bernie. Thank you so much for getting back to me.

And sorry for this slightly random message. I work for the BBC and I am doing some research as part of a story on Abercrombie and Faye. We get through to Bernadette Howard, Bernie for short. According to her website, she trained at Matthew Smith Salon back in 1995. She is still an in-demand hairstylist today. So if we're going to get some time to talk with her, we're going to have to get creative. If it's super busy for you, I actually need a haircut. So I was like, maybe I could like book in to come and have my haircut from Bernie. I won't look like such a mess. And then I could at least be using your time.

We'll hold up in our hotel room and I can't help listening in on producer Ruth's conversation. She gives me a thumbs up. So what did she say? She said she had loads of stories and she has photos we've been trying for how long like over a year to find a photo of Matthew Smith we found one grainy one that maybe that um. Of him literally in Mike Jeffries shadow coming out of a car. Yeah in Mike Jeffries shadow but oh But, oh, this is huge. I've been told Matthew Smith is involved in the events I'm investigating.

I'm keen to put a face to a name. The mysterious Mr Smith is slowly coming into focus. We'll be back after this. How many people who have been on the FBI's most wanted list have ever sat down for a podcast with the BBC? For over a decade, a pair of mugshots have lived side by side on the FBI's website. These individuals are considered as terrorists. In 2005, they were called the number

one domestic terror threat in America. Estimates are a quarter billion dollars in damages. The cause of their alleged terrorist actions? The environment. Our purpose was direct action to disrupt environmental destruction. How far is too far to go to stop the planet burning? If it's not me, then it's who? And if it's not now, then it's when? Burn wild. Find us now on BBC Sounds.

Fortunes are all being discussed on Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast exploring the minds, motives and the money of some of the world's wealthiest individuals. I'm Zing Zing and each week my co-presenter Simon Jack and I take a closer look at the world's mega rich and we try to decide whether they're good, bad or just another billionaire. From celebs and CEOs to spot stars and tech titans, find out how billionaires made their money and how they use it. Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service.

All episodes of season one and two are available now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. And click follow or subscribe so you never miss a new episode. The Brush and Iron Salon in upmarket Grandview Heights, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, is the kind of place I could imagine the real housewives getting their hair done. As we turn up for producer Ruth's appointment, we're warmly welcomed by owner Bernadette Howard.

She's immaculately dressed with long blonde hair and black framed glasses. Bernie introduces us to her colleague Amy, who, as luck would have it, also used to work in the Matthew Smith salon in Columbus. Here's Amy. Matthew was witty, strict and secretive. I mean, that's how I would describe him. It was a love-hate relationship, I think, with all of us. He was fun, very cut and dry, very to the point with what he wanted. I appreciated that.

A.B. was his favorite. Yes, he was. And he would tease you so you go on what like you did yeah again it was a love hate like we hated some of the practices that the business part of it we loved him personally yes matthew was looking for somebody to fit the image of his salon and I was 24 I was cute and I could fit in the clothes I was a size four this is Bernie by the way is that what he was looking for people who basically yeah I mean I'd like to think it was for my talent but it wasn't like it was really more I fit the brand that he wanted and what was the what was the image that you thought he was looking for? He wanted young, he wanted hip, he wanted good looking.

He wanted his clientele to be late 20s, early 30s, successful. At this point, Amy disappears into the back room and comes back with several photos, including one of a staff night out when the Matthew Smith salon team went bowling back in the late 90s. That's him there. That's him there. He's wearing a light grey oversized polo net.

He looks very happy. And this is the moment I finally get to see what Matthew Smith looks like. The man who's been a ghost to us for so long. So what can I tell you? To be honest, he's pretty ordinary looking. In another photo, he's wearing an oatmeal sweater over a green plaid shirt and has short brown hair and a squarish jaw. He maybe looks a little bit like Jason Bateman, but not really. These are such amazing 90s pictures. And we were there in our Abercrombie uniforms where everything was Abercrombie. Really?

Yeah. We did not get a discount. Hang on, what? Correct. So we had required uniforms. They were Abercrombie clothing and we had to buy our own full price. That's wild. I know. Bernie says Matthew Smith also made her do an IQ test and while she aced it, she says she thinks it was some kind of power play. I felt like it was how much he can manipulate me. I don't know, that's... I mean, that's... I don't know, why else would you do?

Bernie gets to work on Ruth's hair. They're like curtain bangs. Yeah. Right? Yeah, like a 14-year-old boy in the 90s. Oh my gosh. But I can't help noticing the similarities between what I've heard about the way Mike Jeffries ran Abercrombie & Fitch

and the way Matthew Smith ran his hair salons. What did the salon look like? So it was definitely modelled after an Abercrombie store. We had the same mirrors, just the same aesthetic as Abercrombie, but with lights. But definitely the feel. And why was that? Because the salon owner was partners with the president of Abercrombie & Fitch. Nobody ever said that they were a couple,

but I think it was just understood that they were. Mike Jeffries was actually the CEO of Abercrombie, a position he took up back in 1992. Bernie and Amy tell me that Matthew Smith kept things very corporate, even at his salons. They say staff were asked to sign non-compete agreements, which meant if they left their job at the salon, they couldn't work at any other salon in Columbus for at least two years. Amy says back then, as far as she's concerned, this was unusual for hairstylists. They also tell me that when clients came in for a cut they were asked to choose a style from the Matthew Smith lookbook. And so you were supposed to hand

this to your client this one book of five women's hairstyles and one male and say which Matthew Which Matthew Smith haircut would you like to have? That's quite North Korean. Oh, it is. And he did not like it that there was older that came in. But of course, they're the ones who could afford it. The music was super loud. Like you could not hear your clients talk already. But if somebody older came in, he would go in the back and crank it up. This is kind of similar to what you'd find in any Abercrombie & Fitch store. Loud music, always blaring. A surefire way to keep the boomers out. Bernie tells me one day Matthew Smith

even put a sign up in the back office that said, No fucking old people. Which kind of makes me laugh, especially now that I'm that old person. Bernie thinks he was half joking, but it's something that's definitely stuck in her mind. For the customers he did want in their salon, Bernie says her boss was super attentive, with an eye for theatre. He was really good at the customer experience. Yeah. He'd also come and take a piece of hair that you cut and go put it under a microscope that he was diagnosing your hair.

And so he would write out a prescription of products that you would need by looking under the microscope. Amy says even though they knew Matthew Smith and Mike Jeffries were a couple, it wasn't something they were really open about. Why do you think he was so secretive? It was a different time. It wasn't as accepted. I think status has something to do with it. Just the way you appear in the public eye.

Yeah, I mean, everything was very much about appearances. And when you say it was a different time and things weren't acceptable, what do you mean? To be openly gay? Yeah. It seems to me that Mike Jeffries and Matthew Smith are two peas in a pod, men with a shared exacting vision for their businesses, a penchant for perfection. The way Matthew Smith made his salon staff wear A&F uniforms

first made me think that he was in some way trying to emulate what Mike Jeffries had done at Abercrombie & Fitch. But I'm learning that Matthew Smith might have had more influence on Mike Jeffries than I initially realised. And this is where journalist Sapna Maheshwari comes in. She now works for the New York Times. But back in 2012, she broke a story for Bloomberg about a former pilot who claimed he'd been sacked from his job flying the Abercrombie corporate jet because he was too old. She discovered that as part of the lawsuit, a whole series of documents had been made public.

I mean, these kinds of documents, you don't come across these often as a business journalist. I mean, these kinds of documents, you don't come across these often as a business journalist. Companies are really rigorous in their efforts to keep things like this under lock and key. And you might expect a company to settle a lawsuit before documents like this come to light, certainly before the romantic partner of an executive needs to be deposed. What's happened means there is Matthew Smith gave a deposition, a sworn legal testimony. The documents that emerged from this discrimination case included a 40-plus page manual. It set out the kind of service expected by the couple aboard the Abercrombie plane. Guidelines signed off by Matthew Smith. What's unique about Matthew is that he was very much a part of this document in how to

treat Mike on the corporate jet. There were specific instructions for how Matthew preferred his tea service. There was even a seating chart for the two men's dogs, depending on who was traveling. And he was really ever-present around Mike Jeffries. He was very much a known quantity around the Abercrombie corporate office. The airplane lawsuit brought his role much more to light. The manual also said that cabin crews should be models and had to dress in Abercrombie clothing,

even specifying the type of underwear they should wear. A&F, of course. But I think my favourite detail is that staff were required to play Take Me Home by Phil Collins over the jet's PA system as it took off on homeward-bound flights. over the jet's PA system as it took off on homeward-bound flights. Remember in an earlier episode, we revealed how ANF had an agreement with Mike Jeffries' private company, an agreement that allowed him to use the Abercrombie corporate jet outside of work. Well, that's why Matthew Smith was roped into this case, because he was ahead head of that private

company, the Jeffreys family office. I've got hold of a transcript of his deposition, and reading it, it appears that he managed much of Mike Jeffreys life, from negotiating his pay with Abercrombie, right down to drawing up the rules for his bedtime routine aboard the corporate jet, including a request that molten brown sleep spray be used on all the bedding. And that wasn't the only thing. You could tell from the airplane manual that he was receiving confidential reports on store performance, for example. But in the case of Matthew Smith, he was never disclosed as having any official rule or any payment from the company,

which was really puzzling and at times troubling for people who worked at Abercrombie. The case eventually settled out of court, but Sapna was still curious about the role of Matthew Smith. She spoke to several high-level Abercrombie insiders, who said they were concerned about the amount of influence he had in the company, even though he'd never been an Abercrombie employee. And some of the interesting things that emerged were that Matthew was really involved in the real estate expansion of Abercrombie. If you remember at that time,

Abercrombie was really rolling out its international expansion. And as you can see from what they did on Savile Row, they were going for really expensive, splashy places in really big cities. And there was a whole formula to these openings. They would bus in the shirtless men. They would create this huge store. There would be a long line of teenagers waiting to get in. And it was expensive. It often worked. And what was interesting was that Matthew Smith

seemed to be a linchpin of the real estate strategy. You would have some top executives talk about running to their Matthew meetings and he would go to these meetings and he wouldn't even be accompanied by Mike Jeffries, according to my reporting. Many I've spoken to for this investigation seem to see the two men as a single entity, the Abercrombie guys, when really Mike Jeffries was the only one who had an official role there. It seems he gave Matthew Smith power beyond the family office, bringing him into the Abercrombie fold as some kind of unofficial executive,

even though his partner wasn't on the payroll. And I remember that there were two executives at the time who told me that they considered Matthew, quote-unquote, dangerous for this reason because of the lack of accountability. It was really something that you don't see in a lot of companies, and it started to be troubling to people, especially as Abercrombie started to show some cracks. They were really frustrated that the CEO's partner was weighing in and sometimes overriding the way they thought the company should be run.

From the sounds of it, as well as being influential at work, Matthew Smith ran practically every part of Mike Jeffries' home life and it's his role at the events I've been investigating that I want to know more about. The events that took place in the Hamptons, Manhattan and hotels around the world. We'd come to Columbus hoping to speak to people who used to work with him at the Jeffriesys family office. So far, all that's led to is a few slam doors and one seriously awkward conversation. But then, something really intriguing lands in my inbox. Oh, wow.

Wow. Wow. This... So I've been leaked this list with tons of names of staffers, dozens and dozens of leads, but also it shows me where their favourite hotels were, from where they used to stay, London, Claridge's, to Miami, to Paris, to Philadelphia,

places in Italy, St Bart's, Tokyo, Venice. Wow. Oh my God, there, Venice. Wow. Oh my God, there is so much here. The documents are from 2011, the exact period I've been looking into. And while there's no explicit mention of the events I've been investigating, what they do show is household and travel schedules

from the Jeffreys' family office. Every moment in the lives of the Abercrombie guys is accounted for. Everything from the aircraft they flew on, how they got there, where they stayed, what time they had meetings, what time they had dinner. There's a list of specific venues, some of which I recognise from the travel itineraries the men have given me as places where the couple hosted events. Because it tells me that they were claridges in London. The room rate was £4,200 a night.

Wow. The documents also include the names of more than 40 people who worked for the family office, from housemen to housekeepers, gardeners to accountants. This is a goldmine. On the one hand, this really helps because it independently corroborates what I already understand about some of their movements and travel plans and how they live their life. But, you know, the biggest thing from this is there are new people to contact, there

are new leads, possibly new information to learn, and I have no idea where it's going to go from here. But if any one of these people talk, that could be a huge, huge breakthrough. I start running through the list and get on the phone to another former staffer who gives me some information that, on the face of it, sounds pretty significant and could help corroborate something Barrett and David told me. Matthew was the brains of the private office. A lot of people didn't even know who he was, but he kept everything very organised.

He was a good man. They've asked not to be identified, so this is an actor speaking their words. They tell me that ahead of every trip on the corporate jet, Matthew Smith would often request several thousand dollars in cash. Do you know where the money was coming from? It was coming from Matthew. Michael had a private account. It came from their private office. He says some of this cash was labelled as tips for hotel staff. But other bundles were set aside for what he called daily spending, which raised questions in the office.

It could be anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500 per day just in cash envelopes. And it was never specified what that was for. And that would be every day that they were travelling. I'd never worked for anybody else who travelled with envelopes of cash before. The tips made sense, but the pocket money? When, you know, they have credit cards? Other sources I've spoken to back this up. But they say sometimes it was even bigger sums.

Several white envelopes per trip, each containing $2,000 to $3,000 in cash. They say the money was taken by Matthew Smith onto the corporate jet and the envelopes would be handed to the housemen travelling with them. And this detail really stands out to me because both Barrett and David told me that when they were paid at these events hosted by the Abercrombie guys they were paid in cash and the money they received was in a white envelope. So was the money I've been told Matthew Smith took out

the same money being used to pay the men attending their events? Is the same money being used to pay the men attending their events? I've just heard back from the BBC information security team about the attempt to impersonate my Instagram account. And although they can't be 100% sure, they're pretty sure they think it was a targeted attack, but can't say who might be behind it. I now feel I'm starting to join the dots to understand how this whole thing works

and how the people behind it may operate. As I leave Columbus, I get another tip-off. It's a man who says he knows a lot. I think he might be involved in organising these events. This feels like it could be one of my most significant meetings yet. But can I really trust them? Or am I being set up? Oh yeah, Abercrombie & Fitch?

I know all about that. That's some highly organised shit. But you know, I signed an NDA. I could get sued for a million dollars. I can't believe that people are starting to snitch after all this time. That's next time on the Abercrombie Guys. Thanks for listening to the World of Secrets podcast, an investigation from BBC Radio 5 Live and Panorama.

If you've enjoyed this episode, then please tell a friend, spread the word, and even better, write a review. And let us know what you think of the series using the hashtag World of Secrets. You can write to me and the team at Rianna, that's R-I-A-N-N-A at bbc.com. The Abercrombie Guys is presented and investigated by me, Rhianna Croxford. The podcast producers are Ruth Evans, Ailis Hart and Emma Close. The BBC News investigation editor is Ed Campbell and the podcast editor is Richard Fenton-Smith.

Sound design and mix by Andy Fell and Neil Churchill. Production support by Debbie Richford, Sophie Hill, Jackie Johnson and Kirsten Oliver. And technical support by Jonathan Glover and Jack Willis. The World of Secrets theme music is by Jeremy Wormsley. This podcast is made in collaboration with BBC Panorama. The editor is Karen Whiteman, executive producer is Tom Stone and the producer is Kate Brown. The Abercrombie Guys is a BBC News long-form audio production for BBC Sounds. The head of long-form audio is Emma Rippon, and the deputy head of BBC Current Affairs is Jim Gray.

The commissioning editor at BBC Sounds is Dylan Haskins, and commissioning executive is Louise Catton-Horne. The assistant commissioner is Natasha Johansson. Thank you. The Lazarus Heist is back for a brand new season. We're following the latest twists and turns in the incredible story of the Lazarus Group hackers. The Lazarus Heist, season two from the BBC World Service. Listen first on BBC Sounds. For just as long as Hollywood has been Tinseltown, there have been suspicions about what lurks behind the glitz and glamour. Concerns about radical propaganda in the motion pictures.

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