Intrigue

A journalist and an ex-soldier search for the identity of a people smuggler believed to be responsible for thousands of illegal crossings to the UK by small boats and lorries. They start with a false name: Kardo Ranya. A man who has evaded arrest for several years by keeping his real identity a closely guarded secret. It makes it near impossible for law enforcement agencies to issue and international arrest warrant.Sue and Rob know what he looks like from social media posts advertising his crossings and lifestyle. Their search takes them across Europe and...

A journalist and an ex-soldier search for the identity of a people smuggler believed to be responsible for thousands of illegal crossings to the UK by small boats and lorries.They start with a false name: Kardo Ranya. A man who has evaded arrest for several years by keeping his real identity a closely guarded secret. It makes it near impossible for law enforcement agencies to issue and international arrest warrant.Sue and Rob know what he looks like from social media posts advertising his crossings and lifestyle. Their search takes them across Europe and...

A journalist and an ex-soldier search for the identity of a people smuggler believed to be responsible for thousands of illegal crossings to the UK by small boats and lorries. They start with a false name: Kardo Ranya. A man who has evaded arrest for several years by keeping his real identity a closely guarded secret. It makes it near impossible for law enforcement agencies to issue and international arrest warrant.Sue and Rob know what he looks like from social media posts advertising his crossings and lifestyle. Their search takes them across Europe and...

A new people smuggling boss is running routes into the UK. Who is he, and can his true identity be revealed? To Catch a Scorpion duo Sue Mitchell and Rob Lawrie investigate.

Crossing the road between interviews, Jenny receives the opportunity she has been waiting for. A chance to meet Julius Kivimäki and finally seek answers from him.She heads to Turku prison in Western Finland, where Kivimäki is serving his sentence.Written and presented by Jenny Kleeman. Producer: Sam Peach. Executive Producer: Georgia Catt. Sound Design: Sam Peach Original music composed, performed and produced by Echo Collective: Neil Leiter, Margaret Hermant and Fabien Leseure. A BBC Studios Production Commissioning Executive is Tracy Williams Commissioner: Dan Clarke

Within a month of the Vastaamo data breach, Tomi Haustola, a Finnish stand up comedian, is on stage making jokes about it.But Tomi himself is one of the thousands of victims. He tells Jenny how he went to Vastaamo because he was burnt-out and anxious and couldn’t tell anyone - except his therapist.When he discovers a hacker had stolen his therapy notes, Tomi decides to share his story with the audience. Many of them are victims themselves.But he doesn’t expect a letter to arrive for him, years after the...

Authorities think Julius Kivimäki could be responsible for the Vastaamo data breach and the leaking of patient records.They want to bring him in for questioning, but he’s disappeared. Kivimäki is known to brag about his international lifestyle. He could be anywhere.Jenny meets Pasi Vainio, the prosecutor who places Kivimäki on Europol’s Most Wanted List. Pasi takes Jenny through the evidence that he and his colleagues have painstakingly gathered, trying to figure out who is ransom_man.What they find is shocking and surprising, and takes Jenny closer...

ransom_man’s final post contained clues to his identity. In those clues, former cybercrime detective Antti Kurittu recognises similarities to of the biggest hacker he ever investigated, a Finnish teenager called Julius Kivimäki.So who is Julius Kivimäki, and could he be the person who held a nation’s darkest secrets to ransom?Jenny’s search for answers leads her away from Finland, to meet a man in Illinois named Blair. Blair grew up in the hacking scene, and his time in the same circles as Kivimäki would shape his life forever.<...

After a shocking data breach at the Finnish psychotherapy service Vastaamo, a nation’s secrets are being held to ransom by a faceless hacker. Jenny Kleeman traces the story.After negotiations with Vastaamo fail, ransom_man begins publishing 100 patient records a day on the dark web. He posts a link to the records on popular sites like Reddit and Ylilauta, Finland’s version of 4chan.He ends the post with one word. “Enjoy!” .Finland is a nation in panic.One victim, Meri-Tuuli, heads to the dark web to find out if her note...

A shocking data breach at a Finnish psychotherapy service. Jenny Kleeman traces the story of a nation’s secrets held to ransom by a faceless hacker. We all have some thoughts we’d never write down. Now, just imagine that someone had got hold of those thoughts, and was threatening to publish them for all the world to see - if you didn’t pay to stop them.This is what happened to Tiina, a Headteacher living near Helsinki. When decades of stress and anxiety overwhelmed her, she sought support through a therapy service called Vastaamo.Vast...

What would you do if your deepest secrets were held to ransom? Jenny Kleeman investigates one of the world's most audacious hacks. When a shocking data breach takes place at a Finnish psychotherapy service, the nation's darkest secrets are held to ransom by a faceless hacker. He calls himself ransom_man. Award-winning journalist Jenny Kleeman (BBC Radio 4's The Gift) traces the story from the first extortion email to the hunt to find the hacker and bring him to justice.We all have some thoughts we'd never write down. Now, just imagine that a criminal...

When Antony Easton's enigmatic father passes away, he begins sorting through a suitcase filled with cryptic family clues. Neatly stacked German money, a family tree stretching back generations, and books filled with sprawling notes. He also finds his father's birth certificate, but bearing a different name. Confronting his dad's double identity, Antony begins a ten-year quest to uncover the truth. Piece-by-piece he comes to understand his family's dark history. Large numbers of his relatives were murdered by the Nazis and a vast fortune was stolen from his grandparents - factories, property and art - which now lie scattered across...

From The History Podcast, this is Invisible Hands. This is the story of a hidden force that changed Britain forever — free market capitalism — and the invisible hands that shaped it.David Dimbleby traces the history of an idea that charts his lifespan. It started in a fighter plane in the Battle of Britain, gained traction in shadowy post-war London backrooms and rose to heights of excess in the new champagne bars of the City. Now it's 2025 and it has come to define every aspect of life in Britain. An idea that transformed the economy, politics and...

A dark, cold morning in February 2025. Hundreds are filing into the Museum of the Bible - evangelical leaders, gospel singers, and over 30 members of Congress including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. They've gathered just three blocks from the US Capitol for an annual event of fervent prayer about what they see as America's most pressing problems. Meanwhile, journalist Ben Lewis explores how an institution that once dreamed of becoming a centre for biblical scholarship has transformed after losing some 17,000 artefacts - nearly 40% of its entire collection. Through revealing interviews with museum officials and its...

In April 2019, Dr Roberta Mazza receives an email from an academic in charge of Research at the Museum of the Bible which leads to the exposure of one of the most extraordinary breaches of trust in biblical scholarship. Through exclusive interviews, Ben Lewis reveals how the Museum of the Bible discovered that precious gospel fragments they had purchased for hundreds of thousands of dollars may have been stolen from a collection at Oxford University.The episode follows the museum's quest to verify their collection's legitimacy, leading to a devastating discovery that a renowned Oxford professor had allegedly...

Federal investigators uncover a shadowy scheme to smuggle ancient clay tablets into America.When customs officers in Memphis inspect a package labelled "tile samples" in January 2011, they discover something far more precious - delicate clay tablets covered in cuneiform, one of humanity's earliest forms of writing. Through exclusive interviews with former US prosecutor Karin Orenstein and special agent Brenton Easter, Lewis reveals how this discovery led to one of the largest antiquities investigations in recent history.The episode reconstructs how Hobby Lobby President Steve Green attended a meeting in an apartment in the United Arab...

A biblical scholar's dramatic last-minute announcement at a packed debate hints at a fragment that could rewrite history.On a winter's night in 2012, an extraordinary claim electrifies a university auditorium in North Carolina - the discovery of what could be the earliest known Christian text, written within decades of Jesus's life. Through exclusive interviews, investigative journalist Ben Lewis reveals how this announcement connects to a meeting one night in an Oxford professor's chambers, where precious gospel fragments were laid out on a pool table.He uncovers how the Green family's fervent quest for...

A threatening message leads a papyrologist into the shadowy world of online antiquities trading.On a September morning in 2017, Dr Roberta Mazza opens her WhatsApp to find menacing messages and warnings to "watch her back". How did a respected academic specialising in ancient texts find herself at the crossroads of biblical scholarship and antiquities looting?Through exclusive interviews, investigative journalist Ben Lewis reveals how Dr Mazza's chance discovery at a Vatican exhibition three years earlier set her on a collision course with one of the world's most ambitious collecting projects. When she spots a rare...

In July 2017, Dr Jeff Kloha is preparing to start his dream job as Director of Collections at Washington DC's new Museum of the Bible when he discovers his new employer’s biggest donor has been caught up in a government investigation.The donor, Hobby Lobby, has been ordered to return 3,500 artefacts and pay a $3 million settlement.Through exclusive interviews with museum officials and evangelical scholars, investigative journalist Ben Lewis pieces together the extraordinary story of how the Green family - owners of the Hobby Lobby craft store empire - embarked on an unprecedented collecting spree of...

A billionaire family's mission to amass ancient biblical treasures leads to them getting caught up in an international web of looted artefacts, forgeries and criminal networks.Art sleuth Ben Lewis uncovers how the Green family - owners of America's Hobby Lobby craft stores - spent millions racing to gather biblical manuscripts and artefacts. Their unprecedented collecting spree - 40,000 items in just three years - triggers a government investigation and alarms biblical scholars worldwide.When papyrologist Roberta Mazza begins questioning the collection's origins, she finds herself drawn into an investigation stretching from the Vatican City through...