Hey, In The Dark listeners, it's Madeline Baron. We're hard at work reporting season three of In The Dark. But while you wait, we're bringing you an amazing story we made with our colleague at The New Yorker, Heidi Blake. So Heidi, where do we start? Well, it starts with the story of a princess who decided to run away. My name is Littifal Maktum. My father is a Prime Minister of UAE and the winner of Dubai. Princess Latifal's father is one of the world's richest people. His
wives and children live in unbelievable luxury. But the family's rules for women can be suffocating and defying them can mean brutal punishment. Princess Latifal wanted to escape. In February of 2018, she sneaked over to a friend's apartment and recorded this video. So I need to make this video in case I don't make it. Her escape plan involved an inflatable dinghy and jet skis and a yacht secretly waiting out in the Indian Ocean. She left the video with friends. She told them to release it
if anything went wrong. And if you are watching this video, it's not such a good thing. Either I'm dead or I'm in a very, very bad situation. Where are they? What have they done to them? Are they dead? Are they not dead? Yeah. How did this video get to us? What the hell do we do now? She said, I don't know what's happening outside. I hear gunshots and then we just heard nothing. It was just complete blank. There is one suspect. Her father, the
shaker. The shaker, Mohammed bin Rashid al-Mukhtoum. He transformed Dubai from a little fishing village into a world power. Skyscrapers rise in clusters, man-made islands rise from the sea and entire neighborhoods. With all this money comes tremendous power. Power that extends far beyond this one incredibly wealthy city. Because you have a rich and powerful person, you can effectively break any more you want in our country and get away with it.
While she was reporting this story, Heidi got access to things no journalist had reported before. Letters, audio recordings, and videos made in secret by the shaker's daughter Latifa. She interviewed people who had never talked to reporters. And now I've been working with the In The Dog team to make a new podcast, The Runaway Princesses. It's the story of a powerful shake and a daughter determined to be free. It's a story of police being told to stand down when they get too close to the shaker's
family secrets. It's a look behind the palace walls to answer the question, why do the women in Shaker, Mohammed's family keep trying to run away? The Runaway Princesses will be available soon in The In The Dog Feed. Subscribe to In The Dog Now to get all four episodes. Hey, it's Madeline. If you're a fan of In The Dog, I'm here to tell you you need to
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