Introducing Season 5 of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe

It’s the unlikeliest of criminal partnerships: a devout polygamist from an insular Utah sect joining forces with a shadowy Armenian tycoon from LA. The result - a billion dollar fraud conspiracy. In Kingdom of Fraud, investigative reporter Michele McPhee traces the origins of the extraordinary alliance between Jacob Kingston and Levon Termendzhyan. Together, the two men trigger the largest tax investigation in American history and weave around themselves a web of dirty cops, influential political relationships and transnational money laundering. All this is set against the backdrop of Jacob Kingston’s clan – The Order. A powerful and secretive polygamist organization in Salt Lake City. To whom Jacob is desperate to prove his worth. Kingdom of Fraud is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. Listen here and subscribe to Kingdom of Fraud on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Special Agent Mike discovers Dorie isn’t the only woman Derek Alldred’s been seeing in Texas. Will Tracie agree to help the girlfriends bring him down once and for all?  If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org. To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/    The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/.  You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dorie is at home in Texas scrolling through photos on her iPad, when she makes a shocking discovery about the guy she’s been dating.  When the truth comes out about who he really is, she resolves to do something about it.    If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org. To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/    The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/.  You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lisa finally touches down in Minnesota, and learns her friends know more than they’ve been letting on about the real identity of her unusual boyfriend.  If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org. To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/    The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/.  You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lisa, a hockey loving nurse from St Paul, Minnesota, has just begun dating a new guy who seems to have it all.  But her close-knit group of friends have begun to suspect something dodgy is going on.   If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org. To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/  The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/.    You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wendy is  a single mom with a busy job, looking for love on Maui, Hawaii. Then, she begins dating a con artist. By accident at first.  And then, before long - out of sheer curiosity and with the help of her protective older sister - on purpose.    If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org.  To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/  The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/.   You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When a group of women from all over the country realise they all dated the same prolific romance scammer they vow to bring him to justice.  In this brand new season of global number 1 hit podcast, The Girlfriends, Anna Sinfield meets a group of funny, feisty, determined women who all had the misfortune of dating a mysterious man named Derek Alldred.  Trust Me Babe is a story about the protective forces of gossip, gut instinct, and trusting your besties and the group of women who took matters into their own hands to take down a fraudster when no one else would listen.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2013, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s nine-year-old daughter, Ella, died from a catastrophic asthma attack. Her death transformed her mum into a formidable campaigner. First, she fought to find out what had killed Ella - why had her previously healthy little girl suddenly developed breathing problems so bad they would become fatal?  The answer lay very close to home - Ella, Rosamund and her siblings lived just off the busy South Circular Road, and the air pollution levels were dangerously high. Rosamund’s fight led to Ella becoming the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as a cause of death on her death certificate. Now Rosamund is one of the world’s leading campaigners to clean up dirty air globally. In this episode, she’s joined by a very special guest: Anna’s mum, Rachel Sinfield. Rachel’s son, Kit, also died from an unexpected asthma attack, and she’s inspired by Rosamund’s work.   The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel visit novel.audioSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christmas Day, 1992. Sarajevo, Bosnia. War is ranging - Serb forces surround the city. For nearly four years, its people have endured daily shelling and sniper attacks, cut off from the rest of the world in the longest siege of a capital city in modern warfare. More than 11,000 people were killed. 1600 of them were children.  And in the main hospital, a baby is born: Lejla Damon. Her mother didn’t want anything to do with her - if she held her, she said, she would strangle her. Lejla was born of sexual violence used as a weapon of war. Her birth mother had been raped, repeatedly, by Serb soldiers in a concentration camp. And Lejla was just too closely linked to her attackers for her to bear. Lejla was adopted by a British couple, and grew up in London. She felt alone in her earliest life experiences. But in adulthood, she’s found her Bosnian identity, and become an advocate for the countless other ‘invisible’ children around the world born of sexual violence used as a weapon of war. The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel visit novel.audioSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It’s the 1990s in San Francisco, and Antonia Crane is a dancer at the legendary peep show, the Lusty Lady. In the dressing room and the mirrored ‘Fishbowl’ where the dancers perform in six inch heels, a revolution is brewing.  The dancers are sick of putting up with workplace injustices, or customers filming them without their consent. And they’re about to take on the system and fight to become one of the first unionised strip clubs in the United States. Antonia Crane is an author, activist, sex worker and PhD candidate at USC. You can read more about her life in her memoir, ‘Spent’. The other books mentioned in this episode are ‘Unequal Desires: Race and Erotic Capital in the Stripping Industry,’ by Professor Siobhan Brooks, another Lusty Lady alum; and ‘The Ethical Stripper’ by Stacey Clare. Antonia also recommends 'Neon Girls: A Stripper's Education in Protest and Power' by Dr. Jennifer Worley.    The Girlfriends: Spotlight is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel visit Novel.AudioSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.