Escaping NXIVM

What happens when a human becomes intimately enmeshed with a chatbot? From people who’ve married their bots or who grieve their loved ones with the help of AI, host Victoria Hetherington (author of The Friend Machine) dives into the stories of the people who have invited these digital avatars into their hearts, minds, and even beds. And asks what do we gain and what do we stand to lose? Our intimacy, our resilience, even our grasp on reality? This latest season of Understood looks at who made the decisions that allowed chatbots to move way beyond digital assistants and into the most intimate parts of our lives.Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet.More episodes of Understood are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/AIxEN

Someone Knows Something is the investigative true crime series by award-winning documentarian David Ridgen. In Season 10 of Someone Knows Something, host David Ridgen investigates the sudden 2021 disappearance of Jaclyn Ferland-Smith, a Canadian expat living in Playas del Coco, a paradise veiled in rumour and fear on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.More episodes of Someone Knows Something are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/SKS10xNXIVM

Deepfake porn is a billion-click industry built on stolen faces, while the people making it hide theirs behind screens. Hosted by journalist Sam Cole, Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire traces the decades-long rise of synthetic porn, the targets who are fighting back, and the global investigation that led to its Canadian kingpin.Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet — we explore the stories that define our digital age with hosts and characters embedded in the heart of the action. More episodes of Deepfake Porn Empire are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/DPExEN

In the 1980s and 90s, Satan and his followers were accused of brainwashing children, sacrificing babies, and infiltrating North American society on a massive scale — yet these thousands of alleged Satanists were nowhere to be found. Even so, the narrative became embedded in our cultural memory, warping everything it touched — including the lives of innocent people… And it never quite died out.In a new 8-part series, Sarah Marshall (You’re Wrong About) explores the tangled web of the Satanic Panic, in a journey that will take you everywhere from Victoria, B.C. to rural Kentucky to San Antonio, Texas. This is a show about the people who experienced the Satanic Panic in real-time — the believers, the skeptics, the bystanders, and the wrongfully-convicted. What was it like to be a psychologist told to look for Satanists in every case; a mother slowly recovering memories of supposed Satanic abuse; a teenager accused of conspiracy to murder? The stories of these eyewitnesses point us toward the real underlying problems — individual and societal — that the Panic was a response to. The fault, as ever, was not with Satanists, but in ourselves.You can find more episodes of The Devil You Know wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/TDYKxNXIVM

From Rococo Punch and iHeartPodcasts comes The Turning: River Road — a jaw-dropping true story about faith, control, and the power to break free.At just 13, Lindsay Tornambe was chosen by the leader of her family’s cult for a “special role,” becoming one of the youngest Maidens of the River Road Fellowship in rural Minnesota. After a ritual that bound her and other girls to the cult’s leader, Lindsay spent more than a decade trapped in isolation and abuse — hidden from the world.But one day, she and a friend made a daring escape that sparked an international manhunt and brought the entire cult crashing down.The Turning: River Road is a powerful story of survival, courage, and reclaiming freedom.To listen to the more episodes of The Turning: River Road — click here > https://link.podtrac.com/cwp1iqgk

The Outlaw Ocean is an anthology podcast that plunges you into the vast and often lawless world of the open seas. Today we're featuring an investigation from S2 called The Shrimp Factory Whistleblower. In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ian Urbina joins Josh Farenello. What started off as a dream job, slowly revealed itself to be a nightmare. Josh moved to southern India to oversee a shrimp-processing plant, but it soon dawned on him that he’d been really been hired as an American face to “whitewash” a forced-labour factory. The largely female employees were effectively trapped on the compound, routinely underpaid, and forced to live in inhumane, unsanitary conditions. Over several months, Josh meticulously gathered evidence that he brought to the Outlaw Ocean team for this exclusive exposé. More episodes of The Outlaw Ocean are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/oo-nxivm

FBI undercover agent Scott Payne’s job was to infiltrate the most dangerous gangs of our times: outlaw bikers, drug cartels and the international neo-Nazi networks hellbent on inciting a race war. He was taking down these groups from within. And Scott was good at it — people confided in him their most audacious plans for mass violence and domestic terrorism.In the second season of White Hot Hate, host Michelle Shephard gives you an unvarnished view of a life undercover. Because after a 28-year-long career pretending to be somebody else, Agent Payne is ready to tell his side of the story. This series was produced alongside a book co-written by Scott Payne and Michelle Shephard titled Code Name: Pale Horse: How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis.More episodes of White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/NZJbj1

Kaitlyn Braun, a pregnant young woman in crisis, takes dozens of birth workers through an escalating series of disasters – rape, baby loss, and even a coma. One by one, the doulas struggle to support her and grieve with her, and even save her life as they’re led down a distressing path. And then the truth comes out.In this six-part true crime series, Sarah Treleaven untangles a complex web of lies and deception to ask who Kaitlyn really is and why she did the things that she did. Cases like these puzzle legal experts and raise intricate moral and ethical questions. This is not your average con. Kaitlyn is not your usual scammer.Kaitlyn's Baby is Season 2 of The Con — a podcast exposing the art of deception — from CBC and the BBC World Service. Season 1 - the critically acclaimed catfishing quest, Love, Janessa, launched in January 2023.Content warning: The latest season of The Con contains references to medical emergencies, including baby loss. We also deal with sexual assault and there is some strong language.More episodes are available at: https://link.mgln.ai/3jxP1F

From the BBC World Service and CBC Podcasts comes Hollywood Exiles. Host Oona Chaplin tells the story of the decades-long campaign to root out communism in Hollywood. It’s a campaign that eventually drove her grandfather, Charlie Chaplin, and many others out of tinseltown. Hollywood Exiles is a tale of glamour, duplicity and political intrigue that reverberates to this day. It’s the story of how Tinseltown became an ideological battleground. The toll of the fight was enormous – reputations, careers and families were torn apart by the campaign to drive communists from the movie business. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/VauXT5K7

Of all the young revolutionaries in Syria during the Arab Spring, Amina is different. An out lesbian in a country where homosexuality is illegal, she bravely documents her life on the blog Gay Girl in Damascus. Her candid posts attract readers from around the world, and soon she has a wide, ardent following. But then a post appears saying Amina has been abducted. Her fans mobilize, desperate to track down and save their fearless heroine. What they find shocks them. Journalist Samira Mohyeddin investigates what actually happened to the infamous Gay Girl in Damascus in this 6-part series. The result is a twisted yarn that spans the globe and challenges our thinking on love, politics and identity in cyberspace. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/46twCbug

Fraud. Abduction. Murder. Every week, Crime Story host and investigative journalist Kathleen Goldhar goes deep into a tale of true crime with the storyteller who knows it best. From the reporter who exposed Bill Cosby, to the writer who solved one of Australia’s most chilling cold cases — Crime Story guests include: Gilbert King (Bone Valley), Eric Benson (Project Unabomb),Carole Fisher (The Girlfriends), and many more. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/wMdag-z1

News of the mysterious deaths of billionaire Canadian pharma giant Barry Sherman and his philanthropist wife Honey in December 2017 reverberated around the world. Five years later, with no arrests and little news from the police, their deaths remain shrouded in mystery and conspiracy theories, with too many lingering questions. Not just who killed them, but what kind of life do you have to live that when you’re found dead, there are multiple theories, including some involving your own family? That’s the question journalist Kathleen Goldhar set out to discover, in The No Good, Terribly Kind, Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman, as she explores who the Shermans really were and why too much money might have been what killed them in the end. More episodes are available at: https://link.chtbl.com/h-CgTaZp

Sarah Edmondson and Anthony "Nippy" Ames are cult escapees and whistleblowers featured in Escaping NXIVM. In this clip from the Sickboy podcast, Sarah and Nippy sit down with the Sickboy hosts to dive deep into their experience with escaping a cult and how it affected their mental health. The full interview and more episodes are available at smarturl.it/sickboycbc

From David Ridgen, the creator of Someone Knows Something, comes the new investigative podcast The Next Call. Tackling unsolved cases through strategic phone calls. In the case of Nadia Atwi, on December 8, 2017, Salwa Atwi arrived at her daughter Nadia’s home in Edmonton as part of their regular carpooling. But Nadia didn’t come outside, and the 32-year-old kindergarten teacher was never seen again. Edmonton’s Muslim and Lebanese communities pulled together to search in the days following. Initial searches seem promising, as Nadia’s car is found in a park with her phone inside, but four years later there is still no sign of her. More episodes are available at: smarturl.it/thenextcall

Why are lonely, young men a growing threat to our safety? In 2018, a Toronto man drove a van down a busy sidewalk, killing 11 people and injuring many more. He was linked to the "incel" movement, a dark online world fueled by violent misogyny, extreme isolation and perceived rejection. In the wake of the attack, Evan Mead discovers a disturbing connection to the perpetrator. They were former high school classmates; both outcasts, existing together on the fringes of social acceptance. How did two young men who started in similar circumstances, end up on such drastically different paths? More episodes are available at: smarturl.it/boyslikeme

From David Ridgen, the creator of Someone Knows Something, comes the new investigative podcast The Next Call. Tackling unsolved cases through strategic phone calls. In the case of Terrie Dauphinais, a 24-year-old Metis woman is found dead in her Calgary home in the spring of 2002. New investigative efforts have held out promise, but the case still remains cold almost two decades later. More episodes are available at: smarturl.it/thenextcall

When the young CEO of Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is reported to have died while honeymooning in India, it sets off a cataclysmic chain of events that would leave about 76,000 people out of a quarter of a billion dollars and a trail of conspiracy theories around whether Gerald Cotten is dead or alive. A Death in Cryptoland is an original podcast series about a crypto-tycoon, his secret past, his sudden demise, and an online sleuth’s obsession to unravel the truth behind QuadrigaCX. More episodes are available at smarturl.it/cryptoland

Transgender women, and trans sex workers in particular, know what it means to be marginalized, overpoliced, and underprotected. In season two of The Village, host Justin Ling investigates the stories of two women, Alloura Wells and Cassandra Do, whose deaths remain unexplained, and whose cases expose the systems that failed them. More episodes are available at: smarturl.it/thevillagecbc

From David Ridgen, the creator of Someone Knows Something, comes the new investigative podcast The Next Call. Tackling unsolved cases through strategic phone calls. From the victim's family members to potential suspects, the investigation unfolds with The Next Call. More episodes are available at: smarturl.it/thenextcall

Life Jolt - prison slang for a life sentence - examines the lives of women navigating Canada’s correctional system. The team gained unprecedented access to the Grand Valley Institution prison, the federal pen for women in Ontario, for a full year. They followed women going into prison for the first time, spoke with lifers who have been there for years, and parolees as they left. Hosted by Rosemary Green, a former inmate herself, Life Jolt focuses on individual women’s stories and the realities of prison life, and explores a wide range of issues including parenting behind bars, segregation, the over-representation of Indigenous women, addiction, trauma and the many obstacles of reintegration. More episodes are available at: smarturl.it/lifejolt

More than 80 women from around the world have accused the fast-fashion mogul Peter Nygard of rape, sexual assault, and human trafficking in incidents across four decades and at least four countries. He denies it all, and claims his accusers are lying as part of a vast conspiracy. Nygard had built a sprawling international retail empire over the past 50 years — but now, his professional achievements are being overshadowed by a sinister personal life, earning him the moniker, ‘Canada’s Jeffrey Epstein’. Evil by Design is a new podcast that asks the key questions: Who are the women and men who have stepped forward? Which systems failed them? And how did Nygard get away with it for so long? More episodes are available at: smarturl.it/evilbydesign

In a U.S. federal courtroom Tuesday, Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years—having been convicted of a slew of crimes related to his alleged sex cult NXIVM. During the trial and sentencing, victims told of how the self-professed empowerment "vanguard" had turned some of his followers into sex slaves and branded them with his initials. Front Burner's Jayme Poisson discusses with Uncover: NXIVM host Josh Bloch.

Over the past few months, CBC documentarian Josh Bloch has been investigating NXIVM, a self-help group led by Keith Raniere. In this season of Uncover, we take you into NXIVM, and reveal how Raniere won the endorsement of actors, politicians and even a visit from the Dalai Lama. Originally launched September 5, 2018.

Sarah Edmondson is a high-level member of a self-help group called NXIVM, but an invitation to join a secret women's group called DOS leads her to do something she later regrets.

Sarah takes us inside her journey with NXIVM, from signing up for a personal growth workshop to becoming a star recruiter for the group she now calls a cult.

Those who knew Keith Raniere intimately reveal his early life, how he started NXIVM and ended up being accused by the FBI of running a criminal enterprise.

What happens when you leave NXIVM? Those who have left or spoken out reveal the price they paid.

Sarah and her husband try to escape NXIVM and take it down while warning others who are still inside.

Josh speaks to one of Keith Raniere's lawyers, Marc Agnifilo, and hears a different point of view on NXIVM and DOS.

Sarah faces criticism about her role in NXIVM and tries to come to terms with the 12 years she spent as a high-level member of the group.

Jennifer Kobelt — Sarah Edmondson's former assistant in NXIVM — tells her story of joining NXIVM at a moment of crisis in her life and being involved in the group’s so-called "fright study.”

The team behind season one of Uncover: Escaping NXIVM takes us inside the trial of NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere and speaks with former member of the group Sarah Edmondson about her thoughts on the trial.