campsite media
August 2017 Tina Yaohi Aynan was standing in a hotel lobby
in the Philippines. It's hot, humid,
the kind of weather that makes your shirt stick to your back.
Tina was probably thinking,
what am I doing here? She was just a Finnish-Kapraer instructor
who was in Dubai for its good standard of living. Then she taught Sheikha the Tifa
and now that princess needed her help.
She basically told me that there is a person
outside Dubai who is ready to
take care of the operation to help her leave here.
It was quite a strange moment
Ervee Jobert had been working in Dubai
making submarines. The business he worked for was a subsidiary
of a government-owned conglomerate called Dubai World.
But Jobert had problems with this company.
They would allege he embezzled and he would deny that
and so he escaped. Oh,
also, Jobert claims he was once
a French spy. In a book he wrote about his adventures
escaped from Dubai. He says for his own departure from the country
he was cunning. He dressed like an Emirati woman
in a long black robe called an Abaya which covered him from head to toe.
He pulled a thin black veil over his face.
Using these clothes to hide wasn't unheard of. I mean
Michael Jackson did it when he visited Dubai. Someone spotted him in the woman's
bathroom with a head scarf on and it was a whole thing.
I'm not sure if I'm going to go to Dubai
because I'm not going to go to Dubai.
A veil was the best way to go around Dubai without being questioned
or even addressed by another person. It was like being invisible
because if you're in a veil you're a woman
and in some of the Arab world that means no one cares
about what you have to say.
From campsite media and Sony music entertainment
this is infamous. I'm Vanessa Gugoriatus and I'm Natalie Ropemet.
This is Dubai's Missing Princesses episode two.
So last episode we heard all about Princess Latifah and her sister Shamsa
who had tried to run away years before Latifah. Right and that seems to have had
a really big impact on Latifah. I think the fallout from Shams's escape
was the catalyst for Latifah's own escape. Yeah it does seem that way
and now we're going to hear exactly how Latifah escaped
and it's mostly from Tina's perspective. We'll hear what happened
after she ran away. So it all began in February 2018
at a cafe in Dubai called La Serre. It's in downtown Dubai
spitting distance from the tallest building in the world.
Early one morning a royal driver drops Latifah and Tina off for breakfast.
I can picture the scene around them. Women with designer handbags,
sipping lattes, men in their traditional white robes,
dish dashes and Arabic. They're chatting over his pressos.
First Latifah strode to the bathroom. She took off her black
abaya, applied makeup, and put on sunglasses.
As they departed Latifah left her cell phone behind.
She and Tina headed to Muscat, the coastal capital of Oman.
It's about a four and a half hour drive. On the way they took some selfies.
Then they pulled into the beach. There was a dinghy there that had been waiting
for them and they climbed in. Tina's friend and a personal trainer,
he drove the dinghy. They went out about 15 miles into the turquoise sea.
Joe Bear was there. He was waiting with a pair of jutskis.
The sea was really rough at that time. So it's definitely a journey.
I'm not going to forget ever, you know, being in the middle of the sea.
The sun was starting to go down. Several miles later they reached a yacht
that Joe Bear was piloting. It was named the Nostromo.
That's Italian for shipmate and it's a very popular name for boats.
It's also the name of the spaceship in the movie Alien.
In 21-22 the USCSS Nostromo was on a routine transport run when it
picked up a signal of unknown origin in the Zeta reticuli system.
This Nostromo was a white yacht with a navy blue hull and two large masts.
Not quite the super yacht that Latifa's father owns.
Latifa climbed on board. She was determined to make it out this time.
She was not going to be like Shamsa. She was going to get to safety.
And her plan? She was going to the Grand City on a hill,
the place of freedom, the place where Natalie and I both live.
The United States.
So they set out across the Arabian Sea. They watched movies,
sent messages to friends. But were those messages secure?
By now, Latifa knew her father would have discovered she was gone
and she worried about what he might do. She got even more worried when they
lost touch with the guy who piloted the dinghy.
So Latifa sent a very important message. One that might save her life.
That's after the break.
We all have questions that keep us up at night. The self-help industry tells us
they have answers. As a journalist and a skeptic,
I'm not so sure. So I've set out to talk to people who have gone to radical
links to find answers. I'm Katherine Roland. From something else
and Sony Music Entertainment, this is Seeking.
On season one, we're diving deep into the portal of plant medicine and psychedelics.
Listen to Seeking, wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, I'm Jake Catleston, author of Tokyo Vice. I've been covering Japan's criminal
underworld for 30 years and I've seen more people disappear than I'd care to.
Including my old accountant, who as it turns out, was getting up to a lot more than taxes.
My co-host, Shoko Plambek and I are tracking him down and along the way,
we're exploring what's really happening with Japan's missing people.
We call them Joe Habsousha or The Evaporated.
From campsite media and Sony Music Entertainment, The Evaporated,
season one, Gone with the Gods is available now.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes or listen weekly wherever you get your podcast.
You're listening to Infamous from campsite media.
So Lativa and Tina were on this boat on their way to America, but sailing towards India.
But they weren't alone.
There was some sort of small plane circling around us. We had been followed by a small boat
for three days. The atmosphere in the boat was obviously quite tense.
It turned out that Shikmo's office had reportedly gotten in touch with an FBI agent at the US
consulate in Dubai. According to USA Today, he asked for their help in locating Lativa.
He told them the princess had been kidnapped and she needed urgent assistance.
So this FBI agent pulled data from the boat's internet provider and they gave it to Dubai officials.
At this time, the UAE government was also believed to be a client of the NSO group,
a cyberintelligence technology firm and creators of a spyware tool called Pegasus,
which can secretly hack and extract data from people's phones.
At this point, Lativa and Tina were off the coast of Goa. That's a resort town in India
that's very popular with young people, full of dance clubs. This whole life that Lativa wanted
was almost there to touch. But for now, Tina and Lativa were still below deck in their room.
Then they heard a noise. We heard what sounded like gunshots from the upper deck.
The cabin began filling with smoke and they could barely see anything. They struggled up the stairs
to the deck. They were staggering from coughing so hard. Finally, so was there Indian commandos
dressed in black gear, honestly. I had multiple laser sides pointing at me. It was unreal.
I sort of switched off. It's almost like I wasn't there anymore. It was beyond understanding what
was happening. We were so close to India and all of a sudden, that the boat is filled with these
very aggressive men who are threatening to shoot my brain out. They are obviously looking for Latifa.
These men were from the Indian Special Forces. One of them boarded the boat,
tied Tina's hands behind her back and dragged her to the deck. The men kept shouting, asking who Lativa
was and Lativa just kept repeating over and over. I am seeking political asylum. I am seeking political
asylum. But the men just dragged her away, kicking and screaming. Tina heard her say something.
She was telling them to rather shoot her there then take her back to the bay.
Tina watched on in fear as Latifa was carried away by the man. Guards looted the boat,
taking electronics and even Tina's makeup. I was told that I could jump off the boat as well.
If I wanted to end my life in an easier way. Tina was left on the Nostromo with the crew
and the guy who had coordinated this entire escape, her véjour béjour.
Chour béjour, by the way, responded to some questions from us but declined to be interviewed
for this series. At some point, Tina says she noticed there were UAE soldiers on the boat.
It seemed to her that India was allowing them to be here, just turning a blind eye.
An Indian news outlet even reported that Sheikh Mo had called Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
about the situation. The two countries had a relationship. I mean, India had many, many
citizens working in Dubai, building all those huge skyscrapers. Tina says that the UAE soldiers
had access to two large helicopters and now Latifa was getting puzzled away. The helicopters
disappeared into the air. The Nostromo began to move. Once the boat reached the UAE,
Tina says she and the rest of the crew were blindfolded,
cuffed and transported to the middle of the desert. There was a secret prison there.
The interrogation began immediately. I was asked why did I step the ruler of Dubai in the back,
by aiding his daughter to escape Dubai. I was basically threatened with death penalty or life
sentence. As the men pressed Tina, she had the sense that these men thought it was all a plot.
She was somehow involved in kidnapping Latifa to extort money from Sheikh Mohammed.
They were trying to find out what was the bigger plan who was behind it all.
So whenever I said, all I wanted to do is to help my friend to lead an independent life
outside Dubai. They were just laughing and they said, you are lying and because of your lies,
we are going to kill you or you're never going to see your family again.
The interrogators questioned Tina for hours that night and then again for days. She was being
treated like an accomplice. I was thinking I should have told my family, I should have told
some of my friends. At one point I thought I'm never going to get out from here.
And she might not have if it wasn't for a very clever trick by Latifa. Before she'd escaped,
Latifa had recorded a video of herself. She was in Tina's apartment telling her entire story to
the camera. So the audio you've been hearing from Latifa, that's where we got it. But the world
hadn't seen this video yet. He's the most evil person I've ever met in my life. While she was on
the boat, Latifa got the video into the hands of a group that aimed to help people who had been
wrongly imprisoned. I'm sure all your listeners have got emails from Major General, whatever it may
be in Nigeria who's got 60 million pounds in a bank account somewhere and need your bank account
details. David Higg is a businessman turned Human Rights Advocate. It was similar to that. It was
I am the daughter of the ruler of Dubai and I've escaped and I need your help. And I remember
talking to a colleague at the time when this email came through and saying, this is a hoax, this can't
be real. And now this video was on YouTube. It was visible to the entire world and the world
noticed. My name is Louise Callahan and I'm the Middle East correspondent for the Sunday Times of
London. Louise was in a cafe in Beirut when she clipped on the video. If you are watching this video,
it's not such a good thing. I remember I was watching it on my phone and at first I just thought it was
a hoax. All my father cares about his reputation. He will kill people, especially if you're a female.
Your life is so disposable. I don't care. Royal families, particularly in the Arab world,
are not interested in having people poke about in their personal affairs. The idea of someone in the
family coming out and saying something like this, it was just unimaginable. Completely, we would
never heard anything like that before. In her video, Latifa warned that her father would try to
discredit her. She made it clear that she is actually just one of three of the shakespeare daughters who
are named Latifa and that the royal family might point to one of her other sisters and say,
see, Latifa is fine. And I think, to be honest, to me, that really speaks to how some of the women
and the family are seen. They could be kind of interchangeable. Louise watched glued to her screen.
The impression that I got is that she just sounds desperate to be believed.
That she really sounds like she's been gassed lit for just an incredibly long time and is trying to
forestall the claims that her family is going to make about her when she escapes or when the
video comes out. Before turning off the recording, Latifa had a final message for her father.
I think it's time that he faces the consequences of all the things that he's done in his life.
He will definitely face the consequences, no matter what he does to me.
Look, when Shamsa escaped, it was so long ago, a turn of the 21st century.
Cell phones with cameras weren't readily available. The internet was in its infancy.
There was no Twitter or Facebook. Not that many people even heard what happened with Shamsa.
But this time would be different. More after the break.
The legend of Dr. Ronald Dante spans decades, movie stars, fugitive yachts, continents,
if you believe his version of events. He is Ronald Pilla, a legendary combat.
No one but Ron could pull that off. From campside media and Sony music entertainment,
Chameleon season 5, Dr. Dante, is available now. Subscribe on Apple podcasts to binge all episodes
or listen weekly, wherever you get your podcasts.
It's giving fashion.
Y'all need to tune in every week to listen to me, your girl Shae Kool-A and my bestie Tiger Lily
dissect all things fashion. What's popping off right now?
And what needs to be left behind, Bo? From something else and Sony music entertainment,
this is It's Giving Fashion. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.
This is Infamous from campside media.
So that video that Latifa made, it went viral. It means news across the world.
More details started coming out. Then I think the reaction was just one of absolute shock.
The idea that he could have done this, that Shek Mohammed ordered a bunch of Emirati
commandos and Indian commandos to go and pluck her right off it and then just bought her home.
Soon a UN committee demanded something. They wanted Dubai to prove that Latifa was alive.
And some of Latifa's skydiving friends even flew a banner over the 2018 Kentucky Derby.
It said Dubai, where is Princess Latifa?
Now Tina and the rest of the crew members were released from jail, but Latifa hadn't been heard
from. The whole situation was really confusing. Many in the Arab world couldn't believe that
the Shek would treat his own daughter with such apparent cruelty. And it didn't help that rumors
started circulating about the captain of the yacht, Herve Jobert.
He did not have a proper plan. You know, there was a boat following us. There was all those
planes above us. So by the time we were just off the coast of Goa, India, we had also ran out of fuel.
In May 2018, the Daily Beast ran an article that claimed that Latifa's escape was a highly
orchestrated extortion plot between Latifa and Jobert. The story is only on the record source,
Herve's ex-wife. The whole plan was for Herve to help her escape. And once he got her out,
the daughter was going to get to the dad and say, I want $3 million or else I'll tell all to the
media. It was a con. It was a corrupt scheme gone haywire. By the way, this has never been proven,
and Jobert denied all the allegations in the article. And to us, this is what he said.
Why would you give credit to a former bitter ex-wife who knew nothing about this operation?
This ransom demand has been refuted in high court already, and it does not make sense.
Latifa did not want to go back. So ransom, for what? For her to be returned? Nonsense.
He was assuring us that he was capable of getting her into safety, but none of that obviously happened.
Louise remembers there were so many different stories swirling.
There's been this constant battle of narratives going on between
between Herve and other people around her teeth. But Shacomo, through the whole ordeal,
was silent. And remember, he didn't respond to our questions either.
The initial response was nothing from the royal family. First, they just didn't say anything at
all. But Shacomo wouldn't stay silent forever, or, at least, an emissary of his, would speak out.
And then, this story would take an even stranger turn. Next week, on Infamous.
She's troubled. She made a video that she now regrets.
If I thought for a single second that any shredded this was true, I wouldn't put up with it or sound
for it. It was all a setup. They tricked me.
Infamous is created and executive produced by Gabriel Sherman and me, Vanessa Rigorriatus.
This episode was co-hosted by Natalie Robomad, who wrote it with Heather Shrewing.
Producing by Heather Shrewing, Natalia Winkelman, Lily Houston Smith, and Grace Hereman,
Princess Lativa, and Sheikh Mohammed did not comment for this series.
Shoshish Malvets is our managing producer and editor, sound designed by David Devereaux,
recording by Ewan Lai Tramulan, and Fact-Tucking by Matt Giles.
Voices by Rajiv Gola and Lily Houston Smith, campside media's executive producers are Josh Dean,
Adam Hoth, Matt Cher, and myself.
Campside Media's operations team is Doug Slay-Winn, Ashley Warren, and Destiny Dingle.
If you're enjoying Infamous, please rate and review the show. It helps us more than you know.
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