Kirat is a successful marketer and radio presenter. Online, she’s contacted by a man she vaguely knows called Bobby, and they start chatting. Slowly, they become close… and she’s reeled in to a scam of epic proportions. Listen to the full six-part series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists, download the free Tortoise audio app. For early and ad-free access to all our investigative series and daily and weekly shows, subscribe to Tortoise+ on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to further support slow journalism and help us build a different kind of newsroom, do consider donating to Tortoise at tortoisemedia.com/support-us. Your contributions allow us to investigate, campaign and explore, and to build a newsroom that is responsible and sustainable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Hello, it's Bassa Cummings here.
I'm an editor at Tortoise, which is the home of Sweet Bobby hoaxed and many more award winning investigative podcasts.
I'm here to tell you about tortoise investigates, where we curate the best of our chart topping investigations in one place.
Everything from extraordinary tales of deception to a suspicious killing to one mother's decades long fight with the police.
Just search for tortoise investigates wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, it's Basha here.
Sweet Bobby is the first series in our tortoise investigates feed.
It was reported by my colleague Alexei Mostras, and it was his first big investigation here at Tortoise, and it shot to number one in the charts, both here in the UK and in the US.
And there's a reason for that.
I worked on this series with Alexei, so I know the story well, but even now I find it truly fascinating and totally compelling.
It's a wild journey into one of the most sophisticated catfishing operations that we've ever come across, with a very human story at the heart of it.
This statement is as best as I can remember, given that all the communication was constant and bombarding this story, the.
One that you're about to hear, it's a love story.
I meant it from the bottom of my heart.
It's a screwed up, crazy kind of love story filled with death, lies and witness protection programs.
But still, it's a love story.
Until it isn't.
This is killing me.
When all conversations are aligned by date, you can also see how consuming the bombardment was.
Matters were somehow always urgent, sensitive, or too serious.