The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman

I watched this docu-series on con-man Robert Freegard not long after watching a similar exposé on the playboy fraudster Simon Leviev and of course there are both a factual and dramatic series on Anna Delvey also out there at present. It seems it's TV open-season on large-scale tricksters like these and I certainly find them fascinating. The sad thing about this one is that, as the title implies, the perpetrator here, after being caught and freed once hasn't yet been rediscovered, never mind caught again.

I'll call him Freegard although other pseudonyms are available and a nasty piece of work he seems to be. His M. O. seems to see him claim to be in MI5 and use this phony establishment status to coerce his victims into slavishly doing what he wants as well as extorting every last penny he can from them and their families along the way.

Although principally running two parallel story-lines, one present day, the other back in the early 90's, the narrative also draws in two other victims of this "puppet-master" to further bolster the story.

Story one concerns a young male student based in Ireland, who bumps into a young barman who tells him a fantastical tale about him being a British secret-service recruit against the then active I. R. A. So he convinces his prey, plus his then girlfriend and another young girl companion to go with him on a seemingly never-ending road-trip ostensibly to keep them safe from harm as the IRA apparently has a death-threat against the three of them. They return to England but stay on the run, stopping off at dingy "safe-houses" along the way. Astonishingly, this goes on for nine years with the three young people completely convinced of their imminent danger. But this protection comes at a price and soon he's forcing his hostages to go back to their families and get as much money out of them as they can ostensibly for his expenses, to be paid of course, straight back to Freegard.

The programme fast-forwards some fifteen years or so to a simpler but no less bizarrely compelling tale of a handsome stranger preying on a single mother, effectively cuckooing the woman's two children out of the family home and again making her accompany him on a non-stop tour of Europe. The show then shuttles between both stories showing the strenuous efforts of their respective families to rescue the brainwashed victims, as well as the debilitating psychological effect on them all.

We learn that Freegard (what an ironic name that is!) was once a successful car-salesman but even that seems insufficient to explain how he is so successful at controlling and using people. Two other victims are brought forward and with the police's help, a sting is carried out on Freegard which brings him finally to justice and given a life sentence only to see him get off on a technicality, leaving him free to go after his current victim, where, sad to relate, he apparently is working his black magic again preventing the poor woman from seeing her two distraught children.

The show uses actors to speak for some of the key players which I found a little distracting and I also found the time-switch presentation a bit frustrating at times. Nevertheless this was a remarkable, almost unbelievable story, powerfully told. Yes, we the viewer might wonder at the duplicity of the various victims here but I guess it's true what they say that the devil doesn't always appear with a cloven hoof and pointy tail.

The most amazing part of this whole thing is the master manipulations this one man is able to pull off with so many different people. The doc does a good job of interviewing relevant people and keeping multiple timelines going on at the same time. Unfortunately not all stories are resolved, but that's life.

How on Earth can one man have such an influence over people, and how can people allow themselves to be taken over by someone, this revealing three part series explores the concepts.

Perhaps a little guilty of being over long, but there is a fascinating, but very sad story here. Part one is a little drawn out, but stick with it, as the other two installments are very satisfying.

Yes it's focused on one man's crimes, but it's so much more than that, it's a real exploration of human nature, the good and bad sides.

One thing you'll come away with, is a certainty that monsters aren't just in fairy stories, they are real, and two of them are explored in this series.

Well produced, well made, it's definitely a crime that'll have you bemused at how he got away with it for so long. Heaven knows what is brewing next for some poor unfortunate. I'd love to know what it was that they saw in him.

It's sad, surprising, entertaining, well worth your time, 8/10.

The series does a great job of showing the damage a conman does by interviewing the relatives of the women he has taken away from them. It is heartbreaking to hear children talk about being abandoned by their mother, and to hear a dad say, "Then I knew it was about the money," (I would have given anything to have Peter Smith for my dad.)

That said, when the conman's preposterous lies are revealed, it's really hard to see how those women could have been that naive. Or, maybe, a better way to say this is that it's hard to understand how a conman knows how to find the women when they are both deeply vulnerable and have money. A conman is a psychopath. A conman who gets a Netflix series is a conman who is a psychopath with good hunting skills.

Always do a background check, and never lend money, folks.

The series isn't perfect, but it's short, always remembers the victims and won't waste your time,

I watched the original BBC documentary a while back. That was 1hr long and fit in a lot more crazy facts than this one.

No mention of his secret spy wristwatch, or his what seemed like genuine access to secret government information. Plenty more.

I'd have thought Netflix would use the broader canvas to cover all that and more. No.

This was, for me, like watching a film after finishing the book. The original really was fascinating stuff, this just sounds like another cheap con job.