Speaker 1: This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother, teacher
Speaker 1: friend missing for twenty six years.
Speaker 2: You know, no sign that she was going to vanish.
Speaker 3: That's for sure.
Speaker 1: The bizarre circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure if it was intentional or there's something
Speaker 4: more foul afoot.
Speaker 3: If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say
Speaker 3: little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was
Speaker 3: Marian Barter.
Speaker 5: What I say, whether you find Marian Barter dead or alive,
Speaker 5: I honestly believe somebody has that key piece of information.
Speaker 1: And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Speaker 6: Something had happened, Something has happened to make her leave.
Speaker 1: I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
Speaker 1: that somebody knows something. The lady vanishes, Episode fifty three.
Speaker 1: I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 2: And I'm Brian Seymour.
Speaker 5: Hello.
Speaker 1: Here I am with the man Liam Bartlet. We are
Speaker 1: here in the middle of town square in Brussels, which
Speaker 1: is just phenomenal. And Liam, you've been to so many
Speaker 1: places in your career. Can you can you tell me
Speaker 1: do you have an idea?
Speaker 6: The number? Yeah, the number. I'm not sure that can
Speaker 6: I just can I tell people that we've been talking
Speaker 6: about shopping, which is a serious subject. Right when you're
Speaker 6: on their own shopping and if you don't come home
Speaker 6: with the right presence, you're in a serious strike. Allison,
Speaker 6: you've impressed me with the shopping already. This is a
Speaker 6: lady who makes decisions. You can see why she us
Speaker 6: where she is. I don't know the number, that's the
Speaker 6: short answer. That's why I'm prevaricating.
Speaker 1: Here would be hundreds and all over the world, exotic locations,
Speaker 1: from Batan to Russia to Middle East, Middle East Africa, Africa.
Speaker 1: What's the most unusual.
Speaker 6: Like off the bridge of the Greed. Probably places that
Speaker 6: you can't automatically find a policeman or get help if
Speaker 6: you need it, or lawless places. Probably the Congo.
Speaker 1: Probably, oh my god, democratic republica commo.
Speaker 6: Yes, big country and out there, completely out there, and
Speaker 6: terrible shopping.
Speaker 1: So you didn't buy any presents.
Speaker 6: Nothing came back from the Congo.
Speaker 1: He has been very impressive with his presence for his family.
Speaker 1: I asked him whether or not he was wearing some
Speaker 1: factory's wife, and he's of course his wife said no,
Speaker 1: don't learn have been back, but he's no call.
Speaker 6: That's a COVID message from Whit's all over the world.
Speaker 6: When you go away, don't worry me means get me
Speaker 6: something big.
Speaker 1: And it's been a little bit sad because the fertility
Speaker 1: bars you've got three ten wasn't a win up.
Speaker 6: I can't understand why that wasn't at We'd already had
Speaker 6: three kids, so she didn't need a fraternity bars. Okay,
Speaker 6: but it's beautiful and it's still sitting in that laundry
Speaker 6: cupboard to day to this day.
Speaker 1: Thanks, but she didn't tell him. I love the fact
Speaker 1: she didn't tell him, but kind of gave it away
Speaker 1: with the laundry cupboard vacation. Very sad, but sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna bring this up. But my favorite, though, is the
Speaker 1: one you brought back through your daughter one time.
Speaker 6: Can you describe it from Japan? We were out in
Speaker 6: the prefectures of Japan. I have been really a regional
Speaker 6: Japanese present, not common for many A frog purse.
Speaker 5: Real frog.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it has been treated, but she was ten there
Speaker 6: at the time and a very ungrateful ten year old.
Speaker 1: I can't understand it, Like why you wouldn't want a
Speaker 1: dead frog that you could book stuff in.
Speaker 6: It was a beautiful change kids.
Speaker 1: Well for just a little bit on the st of
Speaker 1: your life as an international domestica of Jersey ships incredible
Speaker 1: and I'm really to be on this part.
Speaker 6: Thanks for making me sound so seriously.
Speaker 1: Liam Bartlett has been a journalist for more than thirty years.
Speaker 1: He started in radio, firstly in regional Western Australia, where
Speaker 1: as well as presenting, he had to sell commercials, before
Speaker 1: moving to Perth where he dominated the airwaves at six PR,
Speaker 1: followed by ABC. In two thousand and two, Liam was
Speaker 1: awarded a Churchill Fellowship to study investigative journalism and later
Speaker 1: became a reporter for sixty Minutes. He joined Channel seven
Speaker 1: Spotlight this year. For me, this is only the third
Speaker 1: time I've been overseas for work, but undoubtedly the most
Speaker 1: memorable in my career so far. Sadly, our time in Brussels, though,
Speaker 1: has come to an end for now and we embark
Speaker 1: upon a road trip to nearby Luxembourg.
Speaker 5: So the GPS is a little bit confusing.
Speaker 1: The route out of the Belgian capital is a tree
Speaker 1: lined avenue decorated with old fashioned terrace apartments either side.
Speaker 1: The next massive roundabout return right. We pass some more
Speaker 1: magnificent landmarks on the way out, including the City Museum,
Speaker 1: before the buildings become fewer and the trees more prominent.
Speaker 1: First things first, though, we need fuel, not for the
Speaker 1: car but for us. So here is the endless pursuits
Speaker 1: to find somewhere we can get coffee.
Speaker 5: Not so easy as we're leading Brussels.
Speaker 1: We find it at a little town called yeesious Ike,
Speaker 1: just outside Brussels.
Speaker 3: The restaurant that's shut.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's the bank holiday.
Speaker 1: Belgium and Luxembourg s to have a lot of bank holidays.
Speaker 1: It's not surprising, giving banking and finance drives both economies,
Speaker 1: especially Luxembourg, which is a major global tax haven. But
Speaker 1: they should be a cafe somewhere. They'll have a cafe.
Speaker 1: People stood in coffee.
Speaker 5: Honestly, Yeah, here.
Speaker 7: We go ya, Oh my gosh, thank goodness, thank goodness,
Speaker 7: we can come alive.
Speaker 5: Again, and we do.
Speaker 1: The staff there are so friendly and by the time
Speaker 1: we get back on the road we feel completely reinvigorated.
Speaker 1: It was another hour and a half before we stopped again,
Speaker 1: this time at a small village just off the highway
Speaker 1: over the Luxembourg border. Nothing is opened except for a
Speaker 1: petrol station opposite a small homestead with farm animals including geese, turkeys, chickens,
Speaker 1: and a rooster running free. I just love how the
Speaker 1: chickens are out and it's a pretty busy road.
Speaker 2: We just have some sort of road sense.
Speaker 5: Those pe massive They are very.
Speaker 1: That you know that you're getting too close back on
Speaker 1: the road. Giant wind farms crowded the picturesque horizon as
Speaker 1: we near the entry to the world's last Grand Duchy.
Speaker 1: Here we are downtown Luxembourg. Interesting as a train station. Yea,
Speaker 1: so four hours later since leaving Brussels, we are now.
Speaker 5: In the fill of Luxembourg.
Speaker 1: It doesn't take that long, but we did make a
Speaker 1: few stops. Light rain greets us As we reach the hotel.
Speaker 1: It's a five minute walk over the Adolphy Bridge to
Speaker 1: Old Town.
Speaker 5: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I knew it was going to be a fairy tale town,
Speaker 1: but I had no idea it was going to look
Speaker 1: like this. Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is breathtaking.
Speaker 1: What looks like the Disneyland Castle in the distance is
Speaker 1: actually the opulent State Savings Bank, built at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. Crowds gather at a fair the
Speaker 1: other side of the Sandstone Bridge. But I can see
Speaker 1: why it would be a fantasy place to live, and
Speaker 1: why hope that somebody might be tempted to move here
Speaker 1: and start a new life. In the center is the
Speaker 1: Monument of Remembrance or Gela Fra, which means Golden Lady.
Speaker 1: Standing twenty one meters tall, the gilded bronze statue represents Nike,
Speaker 1: Goddess of Victory, holding out a laurel wreath as if
Speaker 1: placing it upon the head of the nation. At its
Speaker 1: base are bronze figures of Luxembourgish soul, representing those who
Speaker 1: volunteered to serve for France in World War One. Local
Speaker 1: sculptor Klaus Sito created the monument, which was erected in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three. Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries
Speaker 1: in Europe and traditionally a military fortress because geographically it
Speaker 1: was a critical stronghold for whomever was ruling at the time.
Speaker 1: Over many centuries, they included Holy Roman emperors, the House
Speaker 1: of Burgundy, the Habsburgs, French and Spanish kings, and finally
Speaker 1: the Prussians. Before the Unification of Germany. Now it's a
Speaker 1: successful business center and popular tourist hub. As we discover
Speaker 1: at the main thoroughfare of Old Town. This is very busy,
Speaker 1: but people here are rugged up, their clothing more flamboyant
Speaker 1: and colorful than our attire in Australia. The temperature in
Speaker 1: the earth early teens. Luxembourg feels even colder than Belgium.
Speaker 1: We only have two days here, so there's little time
Speaker 1: to waste. After a day of traveling. We get an
Speaker 1: early night ahead of a full day of filming, starting
Speaker 1: with the Luxembourg Word newspaper in the local language, the
Speaker 1: Luxembourger Vite. Oh yeah, it's so good to be here
Speaker 1: in Luxembourg with you. Thank you so much. Welcome, I've
Speaker 1: always been so welcoming. Now four years ago Sally and
Speaker 1: Brian came to see you in the newsroom.
Speaker 3: This is not the new No, We've moved shocked twice
Speaker 3: since then. Long we ended up here and hopefully feel good.
Speaker 1: There's a much nice of business in this and the
Speaker 1: technology is amazing. I'm just looking around the newsroom. Is
Speaker 1: have you always had great technology?
Speaker 5: Is it just since you moved.
Speaker 3: It's got to do with the fact that we moved.
Speaker 3: It all came kind of together. The idea was always there,
Speaker 3: but this is basically everyone in one room and being
Speaker 3: transparent about data. So you know what y're how y'ard
Speaker 3: was performing of what's going on right now, so you
Speaker 3: just have a look at the warm. Basically that's the idea.
Speaker 1: Your last article was under plum in relation to it, Blum,
Speaker 1: how did that perform good enough?
Speaker 8: Let's say, yeah, usually these articles performed pretty well, and
Speaker 8: so this this one even though there wasn't like anymitate
Speaker 8: luxember conectional, but they did really want a Luxembourg fund
Speaker 8: as well. And it's a lot of international readers.
Speaker 3: So the topic in general. So ever since we wrote
Speaker 3: the first piece on the whole case and about like
Speaker 3: trying to explain all the possible connections and then the
Speaker 3: stories of Lord Charlotte and Guilen and Ante Flamm, they
Speaker 3: find they find their readers. Really they've performed quite well.
Speaker 1: Have you had any potential other leads?
Speaker 3: Not as such currently, So from a Luxembourg perspective, I'd
Speaker 3: also say the Belgian perspective is kind of I'm not finished,
Speaker 3: but that's that's what it is in Belgium for us
Speaker 3: from our perspective. So there's women in Belgium being robbed
Speaker 3: out of amounts of money, and we have three of
Speaker 3: them now and we haven't heard of the fourth yet.
Speaker 3: But we're still at the same time trying to find
Speaker 3: more Luxembourg connections, which is difficult. Though it's been a
Speaker 3: while since he was in Luxembourg, it's longer back in
Speaker 3: time than the Belgium cases. And it's also we might
Speaker 3: have had a different way of going about things back then.
Speaker 3: It might not have been the same modus operandi or
Speaker 3: tricks he pulled, so it's all a bit shadier in
Speaker 3: the Luxembourg era.
Speaker 8: So he might have reported people, but there's a civil
Speaker 8: on communication of like romantic scams.
Speaker 3: In what we can see, the romance scamming is in Belgium,
Speaker 3: and it is in Australia for sure, because we heard
Speaker 3: of those two other.
Speaker 6: Women in the hearing them.
Speaker 3: We don't know what happened with Marion Barter, but so
Speaker 3: far we don't see any of that in Luxembourg.
Speaker 1: Well, the inquest starts at the end of the month,
Speaker 1: so I guess we'd be interested in that, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: Where I think we'll cover it locally as well.
Speaker 8: We will probably following your legal family that you know,
Speaker 8: tied in with the stories that we did before that,
Speaker 8: and whether it'd be interesting to see how that of
Speaker 8: the thing.
Speaker 2: That would be quite an interesting turning point.
Speaker 8: And maybe at that point we can also try to
Speaker 8: re engage with several leads here Luxembourg or or Swamp
Speaker 8: with media and maybe try something out that that could
Speaker 8: give us more of an indication of for the dictions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or we'll be spending time on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Well can you question and some of the other lads
Speaker 1: where you have to thank you, You're welcome, thank you.
Speaker 2: Not long after Liam meets Tom for the first time.
Speaker 3: But I'm from Thailand originally, which is another province in Germany.
Speaker 3: I was never very far from the Luxembourg French border,
Speaker 3: so okay, other than like I lived in Canada for
Speaker 3: a year when I was studying, but I'm native from
Speaker 3: these grounds sort of stuff.
Speaker 6: I ice to work with the German guy a couple
Speaker 6: of years who was the American correspondent for Build I
Speaker 6: think very funny.
Speaker 3: Famous, yeah yeah, yeah, very funny, especially recently some dirty
Speaker 3: Lunger being washed.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. He used to say he was
Speaker 6: his life mission to let people know that some Germans
Speaker 6: were funny.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's true.
Speaker 2: After a bit of light banter, Lillam invites Tom to
Speaker 2: share his thoughts on Rick Bloom and the challenges he's
Speaker 2: faced investigating his many claims to sort out the fact
Speaker 2: from fiction.
Speaker 6: In Australia. We know him as Rick Bloom at the moment.
Speaker 6: What do you know him best as over here?
Speaker 3: Well, that's a tricky one to begin with. We don't
Speaker 3: know him at all, if you will or not under
Speaker 3: a certain name. I'm still totally puzzled about what his
Speaker 3: real name is. Some people we talked to say his
Speaker 3: birth name is Billy Walters. We heard copper Dollar, we
Speaker 3: heard the most. It seems to be the most common.
Speaker 3: Pseudonym or fake name is fred Rick the hitter Varry.
Speaker 3: Rick Blum seems to be the most recent. Then there's
Speaker 3: this pheno remarkaal anecdote with the driver's license and the
Speaker 3: real man from Luxembourg who got his identity stolen, et cetera,
Speaker 3: et cetera. So I couldn't tell by which we by
Speaker 3: which one we know him. We use Rick Bloom because
Speaker 3: we feel that the that's the official one that's currently valid.
Speaker 3: So to speak and we used the the ones he
Speaker 3: used in the cases we cover. So for us, he's
Speaker 3: Rick Glume, also known as Frederic the hittervary born as
Speaker 3: we voters. It's a bit it's not very practical. Let's
Speaker 3: say for him it.
Speaker 6: Was maybe for us it isn't It's a bit like
Speaker 6: holding a tig about the titles.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, yeah, and you need I mean you need
Speaker 3: to pinpoint it somehow and focus on some aspects. Right,
Speaker 3: Rick Blum is what we call him in our titles,
Speaker 3: for example, like we call him the serials camera Rick
Speaker 3: Bloom as in another Belgian widow claims she was robbed
Speaker 3: by serious camera Rick Blume. That's what he is for us.
Speaker 6: But the trial here for you is very muddy. Going
Speaker 6: back through the records and that sort of thing you
Speaker 6: keep coming across these different names. That's complicated, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Well, it's the complicated thing is the names. Indeed, I
Speaker 3: send a list, the whole list with names to the
Speaker 3: National Archives and say could you please check for us
Speaker 3: if you have anything under those names, and they say, well,
Speaker 3: we don't, for example. But then they also offered some
Speaker 3: explanation saying well names is maybe not enough. The way
Speaker 3: we are organized, we would need something like file numbers,
Speaker 3: or if there's this like we have on file in
Speaker 3: Australia that there's this arrest in Wills in Luxembourg in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy six, then the Luxembourg archives say do you
Speaker 3: know why he was arrested? That might help us. Do
Speaker 3: you know who arrested him, which police precinct, etc. And
Speaker 3: I say no, I can only assume. Right so far
Speaker 3: we have nothing, and that's because of the names, but
Speaker 3: it's also because it's been quite a while and the
Speaker 3: way things are organized right.
Speaker 6: Hell, how would you describe the criminal history of Rick
Speaker 6: Bloom through Impressive, through Luxembourg and Belgium and France.
Speaker 3: You would get the impression that he's a master criminal,
Speaker 3: or that's the way he might have seen himself at times,
Speaker 3: because he tried to obscure everything with the fake names,
Speaker 3: and he had a way of forging documents and using
Speaker 3: systems to his advantage. But then again you look at
Speaker 3: the at his rap sheet and at the time he
Speaker 3: spent in jail, maybe that's not quite master criminal at all.
Speaker 3: If you get caught a lot in between, it's hard
Speaker 3: to tell, and it's impressive in that it is. I
Speaker 3: sometimes think it's enough for two lifetimes. Right, It's like,
Speaker 3: when did he do all this stuff? And also the
Speaker 3: ones we covered recently about the Belgian women, Like we
Speaker 3: have three Belgian women coming forward claiming and I mean
Speaker 3: it's pretty safe to say it happened that way to
Speaker 3: have lost significant sums of money to this guy. I
Speaker 3: mean that's impressive in a way that it seemed so
Speaker 3: easy for him, right, Like I'm not blaming those women
Speaker 3: of anything like being naive or anything. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: not for me to say, but it makes you wonder
Speaker 3: how he did it. Right, He walks into their lives
Speaker 3: and within two or three weeks he walks out again
Speaker 3: with bags of money, like literally bags of money. It's crazy.
Speaker 6: And we are talking hundreds of thousands of euros.
Speaker 3: In some cases, yeah, one hundred and fifty thousand or
Speaker 3: two like two bag, two plastic bags with fifty thousand
Speaker 3: euros each in cash.
Speaker 6: So in a very short space of time, he manages
Speaker 6: to not only inculcate himself into their lives, but get
Speaker 6: them to trust him to that extent.
Speaker 3: And he uses he uses like he has some capital,
Speaker 3: so to speak, some trust, some trust in the banks already,
Speaker 3: like it's either that he approaches them on the on
Speaker 3: this romantic scam level, like answering personal ads and being
Speaker 3: all romantic with them. Let's call it, or it's family.
Speaker 3: In one case it was he was family of the
Speaker 3: late husband of the person he robbed, right, so they
Speaker 3: knew him already by name and by anecdotes, but they
Speaker 3: only met him briefly a few years before. And in
Speaker 3: the most recent case that we covered on IFLAM, it
Speaker 3: was it was friendship with the son in law of
Speaker 3: the victims. So basically, you have several levels or several ways,
Speaker 3: several whatever kind of relationship you have with him, he
Speaker 3: will use it against you. That's the image we have.
Speaker 6: So he manages to find the emotional weeksman.
Speaker 3: Weeks, but the back door, the whatever you call it, right,
Speaker 3: and it's some it's always it's those stories. They differ
Speaker 3: in details, of course, but they have always the same
Speaker 3: way they are going, like what could I have done?
Speaker 3: He was a friend of my father's or well he
Speaker 3: was family, wasn't he? Or he wrote me such a
Speaker 3: nice letter. In fact, she did say that the one
Speaker 3: he wrote the letter to she said he never disagreed
Speaker 3: with me. Whenever I didn't want to do something, or
Speaker 3: whenever I refused to do something, he said, yeah, you're
Speaker 3: totally right, let's find another way. So basically, whatever you
Speaker 3: say to him, he can use it. It's pretty manipulative
Speaker 3: and quite impressive.
Speaker 6: Here on that note, I mean, do you have any
Speaker 6: sense of the scale of this? Do you have any
Speaker 6: idea of perhaps how many women he may have scammed
Speaker 6: in this part of the world.
Speaker 3: It's hard to say, but I mean it's almost like
Speaker 3: my hypothesis on what I'm working on, what we are
Speaker 3: working on. Yannick and I pretty much every overseas strip
Speaker 3: from Australia, which is all pretty well documented. Whenever he
Speaker 3: comes back to Australia and declaring more than ten thousand
Speaker 3: dollars in cash, there might have been a woman behind
Speaker 3: that being scammed.
Speaker 6: Right, so far, well, there's dozens and dozens of THOUSETRAI yeah.
Speaker 3: So far we have free There might be more in Luxembourg.
Speaker 3: He's to us. It seems he's a bit like a
Speaker 3: phantom's it's hard to pinpoint what he or his tracks
Speaker 3: in Luxembourg are hard to discover for the archive situation,
Speaker 3: for because it's been in the eighties, Like, it's not
Speaker 3: those Belgian cases, there are more recent How.
Speaker 6: Long do you think he has been operating in this fashion.
Speaker 3: That's also something that we're not sure or we cannot
Speaker 3: be sure of, depends on what fashion you mean. I mean,
Speaker 3: he's if you look at this at his rap sheet,
Speaker 3: he's been forging stuff all along. He's been there's checks
Speaker 3: without cover, there's identity theft, there's borrowing things from people
Speaker 3: not giving them back. Basically apparently there's promises to sell.
Speaker 3: You have an important or a significant or valuable collection
Speaker 3: of something, he offers to evaluate it and sell it
Speaker 3: for you, and then he takes it and never comes back.
Speaker 3: Apparently those things have happened all along. What's relatively recent
Speaker 3: seems to be this Roman scam thing that I've just described,
Speaker 3: the three Belgian cases we had, And what we cannot
Speaker 3: say at the moment is what happened exactly in Luxembourg.
Speaker 3: That's still a mystery to us. Like we know about
Speaker 3: this furniture store which has been operating for something like
Speaker 3: three years. There has been a physical location where the
Speaker 3: store was located. We don't know what happened there. There's
Speaker 3: people saying it doesn't have much to do with furniture.
Speaker 3: There's theories about money laundering or anything going on behind
Speaker 3: those false fronts. Then there's stories about another furniture warehouse
Speaker 3: in the Belgian Luxembourg Order area with some sinister things
Speaker 3: going on there, but we don't know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so we think that furniture shop business, yes, may
Speaker 6: have some hass why I've been a front, yes, for
Speaker 6: him to move money through.
Speaker 3: That's what we think for whatever money laundering would be
Speaker 3: what you think of first maybe right. Then again, we
Speaker 3: have talked to people in the village where he has
Speaker 3: the furniture store, and that was also in our very
Speaker 3: first article, a very early conversation in the process with
Speaker 3: a man who said, yeah, I remember him. He had
Speaker 3: something like thirty names. That was the first thing this
Speaker 3: guy says to us on the phone. We say who
Speaker 3: we are, We say we are writing about this guy
Speaker 3: in Australia, and it's nothing about you, it's about him,
Speaker 3: et cetera. And then he says, oh, yeah, I remember him.
Speaker 3: He was he was mister David in that case, Freddie
Speaker 3: David or David. I remember that guy. He had thirty
Speaker 3: different names. And that's basically the first thing you hear
Speaker 3: on the phone and I say, well, how do you
Speaker 3: know that? And the guy says, yeah, there was talk,
Speaker 3: you know, and I've saw it. I've seen a police
Speaker 3: file once when there was he was in trouble with
Speaker 3: the police and I was there as a witness and
Speaker 3: it was a bit shady really, But he's he was
Speaker 3: known to some people as the man with the many
Speaker 3: names back in the ages. And why do you have
Speaker 3: thirty different names when you have a furniture store and
Speaker 3: trying to sell furniture?
Speaker 6: Right, great question. Some of these local towns are quite small, yes,
Speaker 6: and a lot of people know a lot of other people.
Speaker 3: That's what you would think.
Speaker 6: So what about the local police, Well, why hasn't he
Speaker 6: been on their ridar?
Speaker 3: We really don't know. Like also, if you look at
Speaker 3: I mean, this is all from the hearings, right, this
Speaker 3: is head. It has been discussed in the In the hearings,
Speaker 3: his wife Diane says they lived in Idsis right. It
Speaker 3: is a not too big community close to the capitol,
Speaker 3: and he was at one point in the hearing. He
Speaker 3: also describes how he goes from It'sich to Nossange to
Speaker 3: the furniture store every day. Et cetera, and that it
Speaker 3: takes him so on so long. Other unless there's snow
Speaker 3: on the road, then it takes him longer. Blah blah.
Speaker 3: And Monique Cornelius also lived in Itsish at the time,
Speaker 3: and basically this would mean that you would have had
Speaker 3: this affair we've been hearing about, and he would have
Speaker 3: his family right two streets apart from each other. And
Speaker 3: also the locals wouldn't know or wouldn't remember, Like we
Speaker 3: are putting out in our articles, we say, do you
Speaker 3: remember this guy under thisn't that name? He had this
Speaker 3: furniture store he lived in Idsish. We don't get any
Speaker 3: feedback of people. They don't remember him, and that's kind
Speaker 3: of interesting too.
Speaker 6: No, wonder you call him a phantom?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's the right
Speaker 3: thing to call him, but for us, he is a
Speaker 3: bit of the Luxembourg chapter is very yeah, foggy.
Speaker 6: But we also know he has spent time in regional
Speaker 6: giles over the last four or five decades. Yeah. So,
Speaker 6: so where are the police on this? I mean, don't
Speaker 6: the Belgian police and the Luxembourg police talk to each other.
Speaker 3: I mean we would assume, Yeah, I mean the police
Speaker 3: must know something in Belgium because we know about those
Speaker 3: from these Belgian women that they were in like the
Speaker 3: police was in contact with both of them. In two
Speaker 3: thousand and six, Ilen is being scammed out of money
Speaker 3: and in twenty twelve she's being asked to come back
Speaker 3: to the police to talk some more because in the
Speaker 3: meantime there has been this other case Charlotte. So there
Speaker 3: must have been some paper trail, right, And I'm also
Speaker 3: pretty sure that there's some paper trail in Luxbourg. We
Speaker 3: haven't seen it yet because it's difficult.
Speaker 6: I'm very surprised that there aren't what they doesn't exist
Speaker 6: more police files with his.
Speaker 3: Name or some of his names are Yeah, as I said,
Speaker 3: we sent them the whole list, and I said, they
Speaker 3: drew a blank across the page. And that's really what
Speaker 3: makes me think maybe there's more names. Maybe there's more
Speaker 3: Luxembourg names that we don't know, and what are the
Speaker 3: chances of they're being more widows. Yeah, that's also something.
Speaker 3: But then again we were thinking maybe back then in Luxembourg,
Speaker 3: his his way was a different one. Maybe he hadn't
Speaker 3: started romance scamming widows back then because he also was
Speaker 3: a bit younger, right, Maybe it was more to do
Speaker 3: with the I don't know, stolen goods. That's also something
Speaker 3: this neighbor from that song said. The original quote was
Speaker 3: he sold couches that weren't his, for example. So there's
Speaker 3: something going on with this furniture store, and it's not
Speaker 3: just selling couches that you produce and sell to a customer.
Speaker 6: When you look at this story in its entirety, when
Speaker 6: you look at the whole picture, have you seen many
Speaker 6: cases like this? Not at all.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is quite extraordinary.
Speaker 6: Tell me the case of Monique Cornelius. Describe what happened
Speaker 6: to her for me, if you would. What we know
Speaker 6: is what we've heard in the hearings. Apparently she met
Speaker 6: him in the I don't know, early eighties, nineteen eighty,
Speaker 6: late seventies maybe, And she said in this interview in
Speaker 6: the podcast, if I'm not mistaken, or in the hearing anyway,
Speaker 6: somewhere she said it they met at the Caffe de Palil,
Speaker 6: just three minutes from here actually, and he said, no,
Speaker 6: we we met somewhere else at book sale, I think,
Speaker 6: he said. And Monny Cornelius together with her by then
Speaker 6: already ex Husbandhano Remachael. They had a bookstore in ash
Speaker 6: Azette in the south of the country, and apparently she
Speaker 6: had an affair with him. That's what we heard in
Speaker 6: the hearings too, like there were these love letters from
Speaker 6: Rick Glum being read out to her. He was Rick also,
Speaker 6: and that's pretty much all I know, so we cannot
Speaker 6: she wouldn't talk to us. And then sometime later he
Speaker 6: turns up in Australia, Yes, with a driver's last Yes,
Speaker 6: under the name of Fernand Remaco. Yah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where it all gets connected to Luxembourg on
Speaker 3: the biggest scale, so to speak. That's where we came
Speaker 3: into it. It must have been at one point that
Speaker 3: Rick Glum or whether Hiavari or Rick or whatever met
Speaker 3: the real fanor Remachel, although the real Funnel Remarkle says no,
Speaker 3: I've never met this man in my life.
Speaker 6: He's never met him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what he says.
Speaker 6: And yeah, and yet Rick Blum ends up with a
Speaker 6: Queensland driver's license. See he's nice, yes, exactly, and Fernand remarkable.
Speaker 6: Yeah it's not exactly. I mean it's a bit like
Speaker 6: Rumple still skin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's unusual. Name is Remarkael is not a too
Speaker 3: unusual name in Luxembourg, but in other parts of the
Speaker 3: world most probably Yeah, to put them together. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: of course. I mean there's not many funeral Remarkles in
Speaker 3: the world, if at all. And he says he's never
Speaker 3: met him. Nevertheless, apparently, and that's also what Bloom said
Speaker 3: in the hearings. He had a driver's license from Remarkael
Speaker 3: and he went to the Automobile Club in Luxembourg to
Speaker 3: make it an international driver's license. So what that means
Speaker 3: merely is it gets translated and it gets a stamped
Speaker 3: that the translation is correct, and then you have an
Speaker 3: international driver's license. And Bloom makes it sound like it
Speaker 3: was easy back in the day to go to the
Speaker 3: ACL and just say I need this copy to.
Speaker 5: That, right.
Speaker 3: He is a bit vague about how he did it,
Speaker 3: whether he send it by mail with a different picture
Speaker 3: or no details, And in the end he ends up
Speaker 3: going with this international driver's license to Queensland saying I
Speaker 3: have an international driver's license from Luxembourg and I want
Speaker 3: to copy it, so to speak, into an Australian driver's license,
Speaker 3: which would make it totally legit. In the end question
Speaker 3: would be what else do you need? To provide in
Speaker 3: terms of documentation to say that you're entitled to this
Speaker 3: friver's license. That's what I don't know. For example, in Australia,
Speaker 3: I don't know how it works.
Speaker 6: Now he's very good at forgery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the next thought. Then whatever it needs to
Speaker 3: be provided, he would have it somewhere, even if he
Speaker 3: makes it himself. Right. And that's the thing. We don't
Speaker 3: know why he would pick this particular name. Maybe it's
Speaker 3: just the occasion that he has this, like he meets
Speaker 3: the ex husband of his affair and he steals the
Speaker 3: drivers license and then he does his thing, or whether
Speaker 3: he has some other motivation behind it, we don't know.
Speaker 3: But that's eventually what brings the case back into Luxembourg
Speaker 3: because of the personal ad under the name M. F
Speaker 3: Remuckel and where it gets all even more confusing in
Speaker 3: a way.
Speaker 6: It is confusing, isn't it, because there's liar upon liar.
Speaker 3: Yes, And that's apparently that's how he does it. He
Speaker 3: uses those layers, just as he uses borders between countries,
Speaker 3: like even before he came to Australia, he used this
Speaker 3: border situation in this part of the world, like as
Speaker 3: Germany France, Belgium, Luxembourg. He seemed to be border hopping
Speaker 3: whenever it suited him, and coming to Australia it seemed
Speaker 3: like it was free game after that, because Australia is
Speaker 3: so far from here. Over here is so far from Australia,
Speaker 3: you could do whatever you like. And that you can
Speaker 3: tell with what he tells those women, like in women
Speaker 3: he tells about Bali and about living in Australia. And
Speaker 3: if we assume that he did the same thing with
Speaker 3: Marion Barter, he told maybe he told Marion Barter about
Speaker 3: living in Luxembourg, because that's the fantastic happy place in
Speaker 3: old Europe, you know, and apparently there's England in the
Speaker 3: equation with the Janet Oldenburg and also Marion Barter. So
Speaker 3: basically he uses these fantasies about this happy place far
Speaker 3: far away, and it's a two way road. It's not
Speaker 3: just Australia to Europe, but it's also the other way around.
Speaker 3: And that's interesting too.
Speaker 6: Through through this journey, have you once covered any evidence
Speaker 6: of Marion Barter being here in Luxembourg?
Speaker 3: And I think it's rather unlikely, or let's say it's
Speaker 3: not more unlikely than other stuff we uncovered. But for example,
Speaker 3: there has been this theory, why is she riding divorced
Speaker 3: on her outgoing passenger card when she goes to and
Speaker 3: and saying she was gonna in Luxembourg, but she writes
Speaker 3: being married or being a housewife married in Luxembourg when
Speaker 3: she comes back to Australia a few weeks months later.
Speaker 3: And there's been this theory did they get married in
Speaker 3: Luxembourg under the name of Fenor Remarkael and Flora Bella, etc.
Speaker 3: To which we think it's highly unlikely that in Luxembourg,
Speaker 3: a very tight knit place, even more so back in
Speaker 3: the eighties, you have this identity of Fenor Remarchael, who
Speaker 3: was well, he wasn't a football star, but he was
Speaker 3: well known in certain places and certain communities for being
Speaker 3: a football player. For example, you don't just walk into
Speaker 3: the next mayor's office saying, I'm the real Fenor Remarkael
Speaker 3: and I want to marry this woman right, Let alone
Speaker 3: the fact that you would need to have residence in
Speaker 3: Luxembourg to be able.
Speaker 9: To do that.
Speaker 3: But if they got married, I don't think it was
Speaker 3: in Luxembourg, and I don't quite think that Marion actually
Speaker 3: ended up being in Luxembourg because whatever happened happened before,
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 6: So that's that's that's getting stranger, isn't it. So why
Speaker 6: would Marion Barter write on her incoming passenger card into
Speaker 6: Australia when she went back that she was a housewife,
Speaker 6: that she'd been married, she was married here in Luxembourg.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's what we don't know. That's it might be
Speaker 3: part of the bigger picture scam that he needed her
Speaker 3: to be named Remarchael with the same initials, and he
Speaker 3: needed a cover story for them to be whatever it
Speaker 3: was that they was supposed to be for the scam.
Speaker 3: Right then again, yeah, we don't know when you look.
Speaker 6: At all these stories of the way he has operated through,
Speaker 6: not just the sort of the romance scam, so I
Speaker 6: can put it that way, but all the rest of
Speaker 6: the crimes. And when you put everything into one bucket,
Speaker 6: what what for you? Are the biggest questions still left unanswered?
Speaker 3: So the biggest question that we should stay focused on
Speaker 3: is what happened to Marian Barter, because that's also something
Speaker 3: the other victims say. We talked to the ladies in Belgium,
Speaker 3: they said, well, I know I lost a lot of money,
Speaker 3: but at least I'm alive. Right, So they say they're
Speaker 3: quite clear on that they were lucky, and as far
Speaker 3: as we can tell, Marion Barter wasn't lucky in the end,
Speaker 3: but we don't know. So that's what I would say
Speaker 3: is the biggest question. We need to know what happened
Speaker 3: to Marion, right, I mean, we approach them saying, here's
Speaker 3: the deal, here's the backstory, here's the Marian Butter story,
Speaker 3: here's what we've done so far, and then they either
Speaker 3: have heard about that already or they read up on it,
Speaker 3: up on it, and at least one of them said, well,
Speaker 3: I'm at least I'm still alive, and apparently this Australian
Speaker 3: lady is not. So yeah, it's in their minds for sure.
Speaker 3: And the other big questions, I mean, yeah, what else
Speaker 3: is there that we haven't seen yet? I mean there's
Speaker 3: I wouldn't stop at Romans scamming. I wouldn't stop at
Speaker 3: the forgery thing. I'm not sure that he's like the
Speaker 3: whole what we talked of, what's also being talked about,
Speaker 3: his fascination with poison and the livers, cans, etc. I'm
Speaker 3: not quite sure what to make of that one. To
Speaker 3: be honest, I talked to doctors who said, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's livers Can. It's of no use to him. Really,
Speaker 3: why would he do that? Like I talked to one
Speaker 3: doctor who's a friend of mine who said, yeah, the
Speaker 3: livers can. I don't quite see where he's going at it.
Speaker 3: Are you sure that he's in his right mind? Like,
Speaker 3: are you sure that he's not maybe a bit not
Speaker 3: as intelligent as he makes himself seem, because the doctor
Speaker 3: from a medical standpoint, he said, well livers can, who cares?
Speaker 6: Right? Strange thing to do is that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. On the other hand, yeah, it might be that way.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say he's a killer from what I read.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's always just assuming, right. But we
Speaker 3: have heard at least in one occasion from someone who said, well,
Speaker 3: he wouldn't be surprised if he's connected to an armed
Speaker 3: robbery in Tournay that was pretty spectacular in the eighties,
Speaker 3: so that he might have been like something like a
Speaker 3: loose member of one of or several of Belgian Luxembourgish
Speaker 3: criminal gangs. So we were looking into this one. The
Speaker 3: only thing we can tell for sure is that in
Speaker 3: the seventies and eighties. There's been a lot of armed
Speaker 3: robbery going on in these parts. So you find a
Speaker 3: lot of newspaper articles in the archives about something being
Speaker 3: taken by force back in the day. Apparently it was
Speaker 3: still very common to do.
Speaker 6: Do you think it's safe to say that there are
Speaker 6: still crimes that he might have committed that have yet
Speaker 6: to be uncovered?
Speaker 3: Well, that, yeah, that's the assumption, right. I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's safe to say, but everything looks towards that direction.
Speaker 6: If you had a chance to sit down and interview him, Tom, Yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm sure you've thought about this many times while you
Speaker 6: were tapping away. Yeah, composing many of the stories that
Speaker 6: you've been running. What would be front of mine for you?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't. You wouldn't talk to
Speaker 3: him in the first place.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm just a hypothetical, hypothetically, because I'm not
Speaker 6: sure even if he talked to any of us that
Speaker 6: he'd tell the truth.
Speaker 3: Here I are.
Speaker 2: Mister Bloom has not given any interviews since we introduced
Speaker 2: him to our stunned audience early last year, despite many
Speaker 2: approaches from other media following our story. Many of the
Speaker 2: questions we have for mister Bloom go to what he
Speaker 2: has done, to whom, when and where. Fortunately, we have
Speaker 2: heard many of those questions put to him on the
Speaker 2: witness stand at the coronial inquest. We've also had the
Speaker 2: opportunity to observe this mercurial character, to try to piece
Speaker 2: together a profile of his psyche and assess what he
Speaker 2: might be capable of by peering through the multiple versions
Speaker 2: of himself he has presented to the world.
Speaker 6: He has other decades conducted what is clearly a sort
Speaker 6: of methodological approach to covering his tracks.
Speaker 3: Yes, and he's been added since he's sixteen or something
Speaker 3: exactly at the first Belgian exactly articles.
Speaker 6: And it's the old story, isn't it. I mean, in
Speaker 6: human nature, you graduate from one thing to another, for.
Speaker 3: Sure, definitely. And also the whole paper trail with the
Speaker 3: Australian immigration I mean, I'm sure you read the file
Speaker 3: about where they keep writing each other note saying should
Speaker 3: we intervene, should we tell the minister about it?
Speaker 1: No? You do it?
Speaker 3: No you do it, No you do it. And in
Speaker 3: the end somebody writes, well what is this? What have
Speaker 3: you done here over the last five years? But still
Speaker 3: nobody's doing anything about it. It's really weird. It's embarrassing
Speaker 3: in a way for us, and it's also coming from
Speaker 3: our on my European Luxembourg is German whatever point of view.
Speaker 3: I also or have trouble understanding the whole name changed thing.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what a deep poll is until Brian
Speaker 3: told me about it. I didn't know it was so
Speaker 3: easy to be somebody else in the Anglo Saxon law system,
Speaker 3: let's call it.
Speaker 6: I didn't know.
Speaker 3: You just need I don't know, an electricity bill to
Speaker 3: be somebody else. Apparently, maybe that's also something that needs
Speaker 3: to be put into consideration, that that's maybe a bit
Speaker 3: too easy for people like grip Plume.
Speaker 6: Right, it's extraordinary, isn't it. Yeah, And he's clearly taken
Speaker 6: advantage of all those sorts of things.
Speaker 3: For sure, definitely. And it wouldn't have been so easy
Speaker 3: in Belgium back in the day, especially like back in
Speaker 3: the day, in Belgium, he would have needed to forge
Speaker 3: those documents, he would have forged a physical copy of
Speaker 3: somebody else's passport, idea, whatever, Whereas in Australia apparently he
Speaker 3: can just send a letter to some official position saying
Speaker 3: I want to be called somebody else in the future.
Speaker 3: That's something that puzzled me in the beginning, but now
Speaker 3: I get it that I try to understand it that
Speaker 3: it's to be. But that's something where I thought, well,
Speaker 3: that's kind of.
Speaker 6: Weird you did, right, But you've given us that flavor
Speaker 6: that we wanted, you know, from Europe and a bit
Speaker 6: of a bad.
Speaker 3: I wish I could tell you more about uh. I
Speaker 3: wish we had more from the archives on, better feedback
Speaker 3: from our readers. But maybe we're just at the beginning.
Speaker 6: We don't know. There will be more about.
Speaker 3: This when the hearing resumes and when it's I don't know.
Speaker 6: I think that's a really good point and we've we've
Speaker 6: talked about that too off camera. When we go to
Speaker 6: air with this, for example, this will be on YouTube
Speaker 6: internationally and that in itself will then spur and perhaps
Speaker 6: within Australia, other people to come forward, other people to
Speaker 6: be confident, you know, to say something that's the thing,
Speaker 6: to put their hand up and now you know it's
Speaker 6: you know what it's like in journalism, that's general rural right,
Speaker 6: like success begets success yeah, yeah, ye, exposure keeps keeps
Speaker 6: the momentum going.
Speaker 3: And it's a trust thing, of course, Like exactly when
Speaker 3: let's say there's another Belgian vido being having been scammed
Speaker 3: out of whatever it is, the stamp collection of her
Speaker 3: late husband, and she sees that there's other women speaking
Speaker 3: out before her, and they've been treated seriously on fair
Speaker 3: in the reports, then that might give them the courage
Speaker 3: and the trust to do it, to come forward, which
Speaker 3: is what happened to Glaine, or what happened with Glaine
Speaker 3: in the first place. They read the French version of
Speaker 3: of our first article on Marion Barter and then the
Speaker 3: daughter in law just two days after. So we get
Speaker 3: an email by the daughter and was saying, we just
Speaker 3: read this. It's the same thing, the same thing that
Speaker 3: happened to my mother in law. Thank god she's still alive,
Speaker 3: but you need to hear the story. And then we
Speaker 3: got her on the phone. Then we met her in Brussels,
Speaker 3: and one came to the other right, And that's it,
Speaker 3: Like it's like a house of cards, you need to
Speaker 3: pull out the right one.
Speaker 1: Well, all this is going on, I'm arriving at the
Speaker 1: home of the theatric and charismatic Manique Cornelius. Many of
Speaker 1: you will remember her as the recipient of a letter
Speaker 1: from Rick Blum, then Frederick to Heaveri and his singing testicles.
Speaker 1: Although Minique has spoken to me on the phone before
Speaker 1: convincing her to go on camera, is a much bigger
Speaker 1: mountain to climb. When I get out of the taxi,
Speaker 1: she rushes over the front door, locking behind her, greeting
Speaker 1: me warmly in her sing song voice before inviting me in.
Speaker 1: The seventy four year old retired teacher proudly introduces me
Speaker 1: to one of her neighbors. Monique is petite, with straight
Speaker 1: blonde hair framing her well weathered face, glasses and a
Speaker 1: broad smile.
Speaker 5: Her home is.
Speaker 1: Beautifully decorated with artworks and furniture, and she has two
Speaker 1: well fed British blue cats that she dotes on. We
Speaker 1: have coffee and I show her some of the clip
Speaker 1: of our interview with Gilaine that lying soon, Manique takes
Speaker 1: out a large envelope with all the articles about Rick
Speaker 1: Blum or Frederick to Heavari as she knew him, I have.
Speaker 1: This time, she opens up about some of the crimes
Speaker 1: she claims she witnessed him commit. Monique's English is sometimes
Speaker 1: hard to follow, but as she tells it. He was
Speaker 1: allegedly stealing furniture from overseas and reconstructing it before selling
Speaker 1: it out of the business he operated in Luxembourg in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 5: In England, there are old castles and they are full
Speaker 5: of very beauty furniture, and she is stealing that out old,
Speaker 5: very old furniture, and tab brought to bet. He made
Speaker 5: it in a big car, in a big fan, and
Speaker 5: then with the ship. I had no idea.
Speaker 1: Ever, when the police awasted him. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: that story again?
Speaker 5: I was going back to it. He had rented the
Speaker 5: apartment from me there and I had my apartment. My
Speaker 5: own apartment in Luxembourg is ten minutes from there from
Speaker 5: our law ten minutes not more. The police erasities. I
Speaker 5: was sure that he was not the man he pretended
Speaker 5: to be. This was at the end of your relationship again. Yeah,
Speaker 5: he has in Belgium. There are also many people made
Speaker 5: you big money with furniture. I know where they are,
Speaker 5: and he wanted to have me in there, so but
Speaker 5: I told I wrote a letter of the commandy, let
Speaker 5: you commande I retire from this night. And the police
Speaker 5: came to catch me.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Ah, he told me that and so but I retired.
Speaker 5: He had to let me go, so I knew we
Speaker 5: got your arrested. Yeah yeah, and that I have the
Speaker 5: police of Police Sjudice Year.
Speaker 7: You know what it is.
Speaker 5: This is the best police we have here. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: And I did not I did not speak to them,
Speaker 5: but I called them, please have an eye on me,
Speaker 5: have an eye on me, and I have someone just
Speaker 5: for Frederick in our police Judice Year. Yeah, that is
Speaker 5: very good. I am afraid or something. Police. Next morning,
Speaker 5: come to the police station. We have some questions. You
Speaker 5: a member there in this circle? Oh? I said, no, yes,
Speaker 5: you're we have it here. And look the next the
Speaker 5: next post you have got he was it was a policeman.
Speaker 3: Not in uniform.
Speaker 5: It's just like he like him. Well he was away
Speaker 5: quote or noah, it's true.
Speaker 9: You can go.
Speaker 5: He has vanished, vanished like I couldn't see him nowhere.
Speaker 5: So I went back to ours and yes, I did
Speaker 5: not see seeing him back one time when you told
Speaker 5: me come to Australia with me. So that is interesting.
Speaker 1: Well again I just want to thank you if you
Speaker 1: tell me, I thank you.
Speaker 5: We're going to Tourna tomorrow so we'll go to the tourney.
Speaker 1: Is that this way is yeah, So we'll go there
Speaker 1: tomorrow and see.
Speaker 5: Tourna is wonderful. Tourna is wonderful, because wonderful sure with rembrants,
Speaker 5: real real rambants inside. Oh, or you must look if
Speaker 5: it's still there. It's forty years and forty years I.
Speaker 1: Will check it out.
Speaker 5: He lived at Intunia, and that's a house. But he
Speaker 5: went to see his associates, and in the night or
Speaker 5: the other day he came back with furniture. It was
Speaker 5: a house about a sort of bungalow, and he was
Speaker 5: never there. He was always visits associates, and came back
Speaker 5: with a blue bad foot full of flick. And then
Speaker 5: after two two hours he had effequated with averything. One
Speaker 5: day we were eating outside. I have never had in
Speaker 5: a restaurant such atmosphere. The only man but not educated classes.
Speaker 5: You saw already in their behavior. So she, like.
Speaker 1: Maria, of course, of course like that. I was.
Speaker 5: I was the only woman between those and she who
Speaker 5: is she? She belongs to be because she.
Speaker 4: Belongs to be.
Speaker 2: It is difficult in parts to understand Monique precisely, but
Speaker 2: she's outlining a general impression of mister Bloom working with
Speaker 2: gangsters as part of a dodgy furniture dealing operation in
Speaker 2: which he tried to involve her before police stepped in.
Speaker 2: After just one hour talking to Monique, she agrees to
Speaker 2: an interview with the Spotlight crew on the basis that
Speaker 2: her face is not shown. Luxembourg is a tiny community,
Speaker 2: it is hard to remain anonymous. Given her previously stated
Speaker 2: fear and trepidation in relation to Rick Bloom, it's understandable
Speaker 2: why she's reluctant, and an impressive show of inner strength
Speaker 2: that she agrees to it in the hopes of helping others.
Speaker 2: While the Spotlight team is preparing for the interview with Monique,
Speaker 2: Allison has another issue to attend to.
Speaker 4: I've just spoken my shoe over at Monique's house. My
Speaker 4: heel came off my boot and so i can't walk properly,
Speaker 4: so I've got.
Speaker 5: To try and find a shop his shoes.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, it will be really expensive.
Speaker 5: For the other problem I have is my.
Speaker 1: Feet so big head to Europeans, so they probably won't
Speaker 1: have my size, so I might just have to hobble
Speaker 1: around the whole time Monique's end there. She took a
Speaker 1: lot of convincing to want to speak Beau so not
Speaker 1: it's really hard for her, but being anonymous as in
Speaker 1: not showing.
Speaker 4: Her face will be will really be really helpful.
Speaker 9: So I'm so grateful to her, as for all the
Speaker 9: other women out here who have been so generous, these grave,
Speaker 9: wonderful women who keep telling their stories knowing that it's
Speaker 9: for the greater good and to help other women who
Speaker 9: are being through the same nightmare.
Speaker 1: And Evelyn and beneath me getting on really really well,
Speaker 1: which is lovely, the having a great time catching up.
Speaker 1: It's really hard obviously to hear Evelyn's.
Speaker 4: Story for anyone, but it's you know, it's been really
Speaker 4: good of them coming together. I think it's therapeutic for
Speaker 4: them all.
Speaker 10: So I'm just looking around here, I know I am now,
Speaker 10: so I've got my bearings and hopefully I'll make it
Speaker 10: back very very soon without getting lost anyway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Luxembourg is very enjoyable place and where it's having
Speaker 4: a wonderful time here and doing hopefully what we believe.
Speaker 5: Is some good.
Speaker 2: Fortunately, of finding some replacement shoes that were only one
Speaker 2: size too small, Allison did make it back after only
Speaker 2: a few wrong turns.
Speaker 6: Monique Thank you very much for doing this. It's very
Speaker 6: important for people to hear your story because your story
Speaker 6: is just one tiny story that this man has created
Speaker 6: in Europe and in Australia. So he obviously was going
Speaker 6: under a long list of names, but in this story
Speaker 6: we'll call him by his current name, which is Rick
Speaker 6: Bloom in Australia, Rick Bloom. So who was Rick Bloom
Speaker 6: to you?
Speaker 5: In the beginning, it was I was just divorcing, I
Speaker 5: was alone, I lived alone, and he was welcome. He
Speaker 5: was an interesting friend. He spoke man, some languages, he
Speaker 5: knew how to tell stories about his family in the
Speaker 5: Second World War. He was a Jew, he was adopted
Speaker 5: in Australia. For me, he was interesting, interesting man.
Speaker 6: Did he come across intelligently intellectually?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But sometimes he told me a
Speaker 5: film that I have seen, also how the Jewish people
Speaker 5: were transported in the concentration places. He told also films
Speaker 5: to me. And when I saw that the distance got
Speaker 5: greater and that he had here, ETCETERA pin of a
Speaker 5: war he participated Australia against I don't know what Australia
Speaker 5: was in the war, and he passiptated in that.
Speaker 6: Was that the Vietnam War. So he told you he
Speaker 6: was an Australian soldier.
Speaker 5: Yes, of course, of course. And he showed me his
Speaker 5: acid rippings that were so really bless you don't so
Speaker 5: here here here, here up there. And he showed me
Speaker 5: his legs and told me that there machine gun in
Speaker 5: the war machine gun. And I thought, I thought that
Speaker 5: the lack was so he was for me practically also
Speaker 5: a hero.
Speaker 6: So he was pretending he had wounds from the war,
Speaker 6: from the war, from the Vietnam War, Vietnam War. From
Speaker 6: the moment he met you, what did he promise you?
Speaker 5: He wanted to marry marry me? No, no, never in
Speaker 5: my life, I don't. I am just devo. Don't speak
Speaker 5: me of marriage. And so I think that there I
Speaker 5: was someone who didn't fit in his representation marriage. He
Speaker 5: can take his marriage and go somewhere else. No, not yet,
Speaker 5: I throw him away. When I knew in phoned in
Speaker 5: Australia and I could hear this is what he's speaking.
Speaker 5: And then I knew that he was married, and I
Speaker 5: did not believe him anymore. It was practically by hearing
Speaker 5: a phone call that he was spoking. Yeah, I said,
Speaker 5: you spoke to him, and I think, yeah, that's my wife.
Speaker 5: He betrayed me. It was never question of a wife.
Speaker 5: Never now. But I am not too too idiots. But
Speaker 5: even I I was proud of him. I was proud
Speaker 5: to be with him. He could be, he could.
Speaker 6: He was very educated with me, and by the sounds
Speaker 6: of it, very smooth.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And of war, of hero, of
Speaker 5: his family burned in Auschwitz.
Speaker 6: Lots of stories, very very very convincing.
Speaker 5: And directly changing. I think I am a little bit educated,
Speaker 5: but I think he is not educated, not at all.
Speaker 5: He has never seen university or something.
Speaker 6: Manique, did you love him? Yeah, in the beginning, did
Speaker 6: he tell you that he loved you?
Speaker 5: Oh yes, oh yes, yeah, oh yes.
Speaker 6: Did you ever give him any money?
Speaker 5: Never?
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 5: I am Luxembourger, I'm a farmer. I know if money.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 5: When I knew him, I told me that he worked
Speaker 5: in the English embassy as special ancient. I believed it,
Speaker 5: susim right.
Speaker 6: So he made it as if he was James Bond.
Speaker 5: Something like that. That is really yeah. And if you
Speaker 5: know at a certain state stadium of relationship.
Speaker 4: You do not know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Ia, that is true, and so on is and
Speaker 5: I wrote a letter to the English Empathy because it
Speaker 5: was something in me told me I want verification. I
Speaker 5: never got none. So then he told me that they
Speaker 5: never given out. And I believe that. Yeah, I believed it,
Speaker 5: and that is true. But if you uh to Frederic
Speaker 5: Devari working at the English Embassy letter, I got never
Speaker 5: an answer, but a position began in my brain. It
Speaker 5: beguns easy begun in my and the other things. Yeah,
Speaker 5: you can love someone not people also love vanishes.
Speaker 6: But you are a teacher. You were a teacher, a
Speaker 6: very smart woman. How did he manage to pull the
Speaker 6: wool over your eyes so many times?
Speaker 5: He was good? He was extremely good. And I can't
Speaker 5: understand each woman that give him millions when she has
Speaker 5: it so persuasive persus Yeah, and if he laughed all
Speaker 5: the time, he said, it's like that chuck chuck, chuck.
Speaker 5: We luxembocause are not like that. So serious man. And
Speaker 5: you you know me little, you know me a little
Speaker 5: bit now.
Speaker 6: So he was a lot of fun to be around.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and new things and thinking I didn't know that,
Speaker 5: thinking standing above above everything. He laughed.
Speaker 6: Monique are describing a very good.
Speaker 5: Liar, a very good, absolutely absolutely good liar.
Speaker 6: What else in his personality? What sort of person do
Speaker 6: you think?
Speaker 5: He is a very poor guy, a very poor guy,
Speaker 5: and he showses women. His partners were always women, and
Speaker 5: that there he has a big advantage. He was not
Speaker 5: an ugly man. He could many things very good. So
Speaker 5: you understand me and and always well never, oh yes,
Speaker 5: let's do here, let's do say he left. He did
Speaker 5: leave me completely free. I was if he had tried
Speaker 5: me marriage or something to never, I was free and
Speaker 5: he was disciplinable.
Speaker 6: Do you think he is capable of violence?
Speaker 5: Oh yes, oh yes, in the biggest dimension, in the
Speaker 5: highest dimension. He made me once sign a paper where
Speaker 5: there was nothing written, nothing on it, nothing at all.
Speaker 5: But I saw you have to sign sign it now signing,
Speaker 5: and so in his aggression that is serious money. I
Speaker 5: saw him capable, must have just before I saw him
Speaker 5: out of the country. If you come back once, I
Speaker 5: will immediately go to the signed that and I signed it.
Speaker 5: But at night I made a retraction with a letter
Speaker 5: RECOMMANDI you know what it is electa eletter RECOMMANDI.
Speaker 6: Yes, like it's a Swan statement.
Speaker 5: It must be it is. It must be delivered. And
Speaker 5: if they not deliver, you can go to to justice,
Speaker 5: to the police of Arlon. Arlon was in Belgium.
Speaker 2: Monique lives in the city of Arlon. It has a
Speaker 2: population of just over twenty eight thousand, making it the
Speaker 2: smallest provincial capital in Belgium.
Speaker 5: And I retracted May and then he had disappeared, Chuck,
Speaker 5: I was good, good, well, the school began in three weeks.
Speaker 6: I he was vanished and that was the last time
Speaker 6: you saw him.
Speaker 5: No, after a year, I was I was very ill.
Speaker 5: I got the depression because if I understand not what
Speaker 5: happens to me, that can be very destructive for someone
Speaker 5: who wants to understand and has questions like why what happened? Why?
Speaker 5: Why are you right? Are you to throw him away
Speaker 5: of country like that? He could very good play the
Speaker 5: role of a victim. That he could best the role
Speaker 5: of victim. His family all burned or everybody burned in
Speaker 5: Auschwitz or somewhere, and he alone on the streets of Berlin,
Speaker 5: in the stones, nothing to eat. Nothing. The English came
Speaker 5: and got him to Australia, where a family has adopted it. Nothing.
Speaker 5: Nothing is true of that. But he could tell itself
Speaker 5: that you would a woman in any case, it will
Speaker 5: also axt on women's emotionality. I am not too emotional.
Speaker 5: I can't think. Also that he was a master in
Speaker 5: an English master.
Speaker 6: Do you believe he has had anything to do with
Speaker 6: the disappearance of Marion Barley?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 5: He always told me, Monique, let's make a world voyage
Speaker 5: with I buy a ship with a veil, you know,
Speaker 5: uh siege if that would be fine? But then here, Monique,
Speaker 5: what are you doing on the ship with a man
Speaker 5: like him. I have no possibility to get away. I
Speaker 5: don't come with you. I have seen weapons, I see
Speaker 5: the gun.
Speaker 6: So Monik, all of this, all of this experience for you,
Speaker 6: all of this, however you want to whatever you want
Speaker 6: to call it, experience, adventure, saga. Let me go backwards.
Speaker 6: When you met Rick Bloom, Who did he say he was?
Speaker 5: What was his name, Frederic Deva? Then WILLI bou bou
Speaker 5: be or muti? And that is a badge?
Speaker 6: Then what reason did he give you for changing his name?
Speaker 5: I am at the English Embassy. I'm a special agent,
Speaker 5: and I must have those different identities. I must here.
Speaker 6: Ah, that's the reason he gave you for changing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, one day I saw him pulling up from the
Speaker 5: soil an identity card. So what do you do with that?
Speaker 5: It's not your identity, Monique. He opened and showed me
Speaker 5: at least ten identity cards different. Are you crazy? What
Speaker 5: do you do with the identity? Cut Monique? That's my profession.
Speaker 5: I believed it, but then I know I didn't believe
Speaker 5: in everything anymore.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's when you write a letter.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's why I live still over Yeah.
Speaker 6: So when you look at this in total, how has
Speaker 6: this affected your life?
Speaker 5: In nothing, I have become strong much. I have nobody.
Speaker 5: I have only myself and I look in the eyes
Speaker 5: of Frederick. Or what do you say, piece of fear,
Speaker 5: piece of fear? If you show up one time, I
Speaker 5: will go to squeeze. He never showed one time. He
Speaker 5: showed up. Money, come back, come back. We have discovered
Speaker 5: in Australia in the passage of Cook Cook passage an
Speaker 5: old Spanish ship and it's full of silver. Come we
Speaker 5: will get that. He was finished. I said no. I
Speaker 5: just said no.
Speaker 6: And what do you think then, of the way he's
Speaker 6: treated all the other ladies widows here in Belgium.
Speaker 5: I understand the ladies. A woman who wants to live,
Speaker 5: she wants still to have emotions. She wants it to
Speaker 5: have a life she has never had. I understand that.
Speaker 5: Very good, very good. I would never do it because
Speaker 5: I have herd that experience.
Speaker 6: Do you feel sympathy for them?
Speaker 5: Oh? Yes, so a bit, very bad, very big sympathy.
Speaker 6: Well, why do you think that the police in all
Speaker 6: these different countries have never been able to to really
Speaker 6: get to the bottom of.
Speaker 5: The truth because women don't give up their emotions so easy.
Speaker 5: Must be very strong and say that was answer? Not
Speaker 5: not as men? Perhaps I will have my satisfaction. You will,
Speaker 5: you will die, my dear, No, I will begin, I begin.
Speaker 7: You are.
Speaker 5: Nothing for me, less than nothing you are.
Speaker 6: Do you think he's managed to escape a lot of
Speaker 6: his problems because the victims have been embarrassed.
Speaker 5: They have been through through really because at a certain age,
Speaker 5: many women are alone and the family is a family.
Speaker 4: It is what it is.
Speaker 5: You have to go alone to that. And then he
Speaker 5: must be a little bit. I was younger.
Speaker 9: That was my fault.
Speaker 5: I will do it without you your blood fast.
Speaker 6: So what did you think of him taking your former
Speaker 6: husband's identity?
Speaker 3: Bloody?
Speaker 6: So he took advantage of you by taking your husband's identity. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and then down the track Marion Bart Yeah became.
Speaker 5: Missus woman Florabella Missus the remarkaal.
Speaker 2: Yes, coming up, we traveled to where it all began.
Speaker 6: We've heard so many stories from so many different women
Speaker 6: that are essentially the same story in their connection with
Speaker 6: Rick Bloom, Willie Wooters, Frederick Bird a very whatever he
Speaker 6: calls himself at a particular point in time, a lot
Speaker 6: of his approaches to these lonely women have been the same,
Speaker 6: and they've ended up in the same tragedy. Well, one
Speaker 6: sort of person, what sort of man is capable of
Speaker 6: doing that to somebody else?
Speaker 2: If you knew Marian or have any information about her
Speaker 2: or her where about, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Our website is sevennews dot com dot au, slash news
Speaker 2: slash the Lady Vanishers, and you can also message us here.
Speaker 2: You can also send us an anonymous tip at the
Speaker 2: Lady Vanishes dot org. If you like what you're hearing,
Speaker 2: don't forget to subscribe. Please rate and review our series.
Speaker 2: It helps new listeners find us. Presenter and executive producer
Speaker 2: Alison Sandy, investigative journalist Brian Seymour, producer and writer Sally Eels,
Speaker 2: Sound design, Mark Wright Graphics, Jason Blandford transcripts and translation
Speaker 2: Estelle Sanchez, the theme and much of the music by
Speaker 2: Nicholas Gasparini at the Darkpiano dot Com. Thanks again to
Speaker 2: the Allians Francis. This is a seven News production.