The Abercrombie Guys: 9. The FBI is at my door
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Hello, it's Rhianna Croxford here, the host of season one of World of Secrets, The Abercrombie Guys. When we publish a season of World of Secrets, that's not the end of the story. As investigative journalists, we carry on. So that's what I'm doing in these two new episodes. If you haven't heard the series yet, I recommend you listen back from the start, as a lot has happened.

And before we begin, I want to let you know that this episode contains strong language and references to sex. It's now been more than three years since I started investigating. It's probably, like, the darkest experience I've ever dealt with. They had someone come and, like, shave me, like, my whole body, because that's how they, like... Hearing from former male models who say they felt exploited and abused. It's as if, like, we were...

Pretty, but not pretty enough to ever be in a catalog, but pretty enough to use. By a highly organized operation recruiting them for sex. I was in that room with a group of people who were there to facilitate this moving as quickly as possible. A well-oiled machine that they had carefully crafted over years. One that had stayed hidden for more than a decade. They pretty much just said, like, just don't speak about this or you will get sued for a million dollars.

A sophisticated network run for the benefit of one of the most powerful men in fashion, the modern-day founder of Abercrombie & Fitch. Mike Jeffries is a predator that was seeking out young men to destroy their hopes and dreams. Jeffries was the kingpin. I mean, if it wasn't for him, none of this would have existed.

I've travelled across the US, from the suburbs of Ohio to the Californian desert, trying to uncover the truth about what went on. I wouldn't want to throw somebody to the wolves just to get money out of it. I'm not going to say that it never crossed my mind, like, what the fuck are you doing? But do you know how much money I was getting paid, though? Unearthing documentary evidence about events hosted in major cities around the world. Oh, wow.

So I've been leaked this list. It shows me where their favourite hotels were. London to Miami to Paris, places in Italy, St. Bart's, Tokyo, Venice. Oh my god, there is so much here. And tracking down those who helped keep this running. Like the middleman, James Thor Jacobson, better known as Jim. The allegations that you have set against me are patently false.

There's no mystery here. There's no coercion. There was no bait and switch. Whoever told you that is bullshitting. Ever since we published this podcast, the fallout has kept growing. The men I spoke with bravely broke their silence. It's led to more men coming forward. But not everyone's happy. And one man wants to challenge what he's heard. When I saw the documentary that the BBC did,

I just thought that it was inaccurate and I think that out of 100% fairness and justice, someone should really come out and say what their experience was but from an entirely different point of view. Why did you think it was inaccurate? Because I do have first-hand knowledge. The way that the people describe what happened is just false in every respect.

This is a man I've been trying to speak with for nearly two years. At one point back in the spring of 2023, he agreed to meet. So producer Ruth and I headed to Miami. It's about nine in the morning.

I've got half an hour to go. I feel like it was the longest half hour ever. Everything was fixed. I'm actually starting to feel a bit nervous. You haven't even texted me this morning. We'd arranged to talk in downtown, near his office, a sky-high building on the waterfront overlooking the Miami River. I just, I don't know, I hope he hasn't got cold feet. I think he will. I think he'll show. I'm only here for 48 hours. I hope he hasn't changed his mind.

I waited and waited, leaving him messages and voicemails. But he never showed. He didn't turn up. Why didn't you turn up at the time? Well, I wasn't quite sure if this would be, you know, something that could affect me in a personal way. But, I mean, how, in what way? I haven't done a crime. I haven't done anything bad.

More than a decade ago, he knew the Abercrombie guys, Mike Jeffries, then CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, and his British partner, Matthew Smith. I always thought that a day like this would come. I didn't know when it would come, but I always had that fear. One day, someone's going to try to take advantage of them. This is the way life is. This is the way people are. And I think that they also kind of knew. Since I first contacted this man, the stakes have been getting higher.

Immediately after I published my investigation in October last year, another one opened.

The FBI has launched an investigation after the BBC revealed allegations that the former chief executive of the fashion chain Abercrombie & Fitch sexually exploited men at events he hosted around the world. Mike Jeffries and his British partner also face a civil lawsuit which alleges they ran a sex trafficking operation. Mr Jeffries hasn't commented. The FBI began investigating after we released our podcast and TV documentary.

Mike Jeffries and Matthew Smith have still never spoken publicly, but their lawyers have issued statements saying they vehemently deny all the allegations. Now the FBI is involved, the atmosphere feels different. I'd known for a while that they were on the case. For months I've been hearing that special agents have been knocking on doors and interviewing potential witnesses. Some feel relieved this is being investigated.

if you are rattled, nervous about being dragged into it all. And one, well, seems to be taking it in his stride. I mean, how did you feel when the FBI knocked on your door? How did I feel? I felt like it was normal. This is the type of investigation the FBI does. And I'm an attorney, so I'm not scared of the FBI and I'm also not scared of a court. So I said, please come in. I don't know how normal it is for the FBI to turn up at your door.

I imagine agents tracked him down the same way I had more than a year ago. I found his name listed on an event itinerary sent by Jim Jacobson, the middleman for the Abercrombie guys. And the striking thing is, having once stood me up, he now wants to do an interview. He tells me he's even prepared to take the stand, if necessary, to defend Mike Jeffries.

I know you really tried hard. I commend you for your persistence. But out of fairness, out of justice, the BBC really must have both sides of the story. Now, which one's true? The audience will have to decide and justice will have to decide. From the BBC, this is World of Secrets. I'm Rhianna Croxford with new episodes of Season 1, The Abercrombie Guys, a BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Panorama investigation. Episode 9.

After a few weeks of texting and one heated phone call, the man I'd been trying to speak with for ages finally agrees to talk, saying he no longer feels tongue-tied and wants to set the record straight.

I didn't believe he'd show until he sent me a selfie, dapperly dressed in a beige suit with fluorescent blue sunglasses, giving me a thumbs up as he arrives at the BBC's studio in Miami. He tells me we only have 20 minutes before his next meeting. Are you happy for your real voice to be used and your real name to be used? Yes, I am. I'm an attorney and I'm a real estate broker.

And my name is Diego Guillen.

He's 42 now, but back in 2011, after leaving law school, he says he attended several sex events hosted by Mike Jeffries and Matthew Smith. The first time, it was very simple. It was a Saturday and I was picked up and I was taken to a beautiful house in the Hamptons where we had lunch and a delicious lunch. And on top of that, I got $2,500 for meeting them. You had lunch, but did you do anything else?

In part, Diego's recollection of these events differs to what I've heard from other men.

But as a journalist, it's not my job to make judgments. I have to gather facts, assess the evidence. And that means hearing different perspectives, just like his. Of course I enjoyed going to these events. They were fantastic. I'm a gay man. Who wouldn't enjoy to go to a place with other three beautiful boys and maybe having sex with them and enjoying and having a good time? Whoever tells you that they didn't have a good time is lying. I wouldn't lie to you. Of course I had a great time.

Diego describes the other event attendees as boys, but he's clear that everyone he met was an adult. And he tells me that the men who attended the events he was present at... They were under no obligation, under zero pressure. And when they did go to see Michael and Matthew, they were treated excellently in every respect possible.

He keeps repeating this throughout our interview, keen to challenge the portrayal of these events as a horrific, gloomy and dark experience. In my view, this is the truth. Michael and Matthew are high-profile gay men and they...

had an open relationship and liked having sex with young, handsome men. And being older, they knew that the real way to get this done, you know, was to be generous with the boys. And that's what they were. But with full consent and making sure that the boys wanted it and liked it. And that's it. I think that is the truth of the story.

Diego had an unusual entry point into all of this. Unlike other men we've heard from, who were initially referred by friends, he tells me he was scouted off the street. He says a man with a snakeskin patch on his nose, called Jim, approached him in the middle of Manhattan. Just on the street, what happened?

He came up to me and he said, hi, how are you? And he asked me where I was from, what I did. And then he asked me, I work for some gentlemen that are wealthy and they'd be very interested in potentially meeting with you if you'd be up to that. And he said, listen, this is nothing illegal. It's something that you can do or you cannot do. And they're also very generous.

And what did Jim tell you? Did he tell you what you would be meeting them for? Yes, he said, listen, you're going to meet them and speak with them. And if you want to do something further with them, it's completely up to you. Diego makes it sound like this is a totally normal scenario, telling me this sort of stuff happens all the time in the gay neighbourhoods of New York City. But it's still not entirely clear to me what Jim told him to expect.

Diego says he'd never done anything like this before. After all, he'd just left law school. He tells me he's a millionaire now, but at the time, he was looking for a job, heavily in debt and homeless. I was living at a friend's house, to be honest with you, and it really wasn't the house of a friend, it was his office. He was very kind to allow me to stay there and I would wake up very early and shower at the gym and...

But yeah, it was certainly a complicated moment in my life. Despite his circumstances, he tells me he didn't feel like he was being exploited. If anything, Diego says the kindness and generosity of Mike Jeffries and Matthew Smith helped him find his feet. Michael particularly was always asking, hey, how can I give you a hand? What were our dreams?

I remember that there were boys there that wanted to be actors in Hollywood. And he'd say, you know what, I have someone. I think I can introduce you to this person and such person. And Michael would be the kind of person that would make the call. Were there some guys there who wanted to be models? Well, they were models. They already were models. Most of the guys that they saw were model-looking, at least in my opinion. As Diego's talking, telling me about how helpful Mike Jeffries was...

It reminds me of something David Bradbury, the former Marine turned model, said about his experience at the Abercrombie Guys Hamptons mansion. He turned up, he said, expecting an opportunity to further his dream of modelling, only to be met with an entirely different scenario. After attending a few sex events, Diego says that Jim Jacobson gives him a unique job offer.

It's a simple proposal. Every Saturday, ahead of an event, he would have to phone the men attending to make sure they arrive. They were usually invited in groups of three. He says the Abercrombie guys knew he was struggling financially and thinks that's why he landed the role. And I would have to make sure that by eight o'clock, I think it was, they were awake. They were going to get picked up and be given breakfast and taken to the place where they would meet Matthew Cronin.

And Michael, it's very simple. He tells me there was a roster with men's names on it. More evidence of a highly organised operation. Other sources I've spoken with have told me about this list, suggesting it could have as many as 60 different names on it at any given time.

Diego says he manages these wake-up calls for around seven months. They would pay me like 500 bucks every single Saturday, so who would not do that to make three calls on a Saturday morning? That easily paid for rent. But was this his only involvement? I've been told that he also referred men to meet with Mike Jeffries and Matthew Smith. And did you recruit anybody yourself? No. My understanding is that you may have recruited some people. What would you say to that?

Well, I didn't go out to recruit. That wasn't any of my, any of my, what I did do, but I wouldn't call it recruit exactly, is I did have a friend that I thought, based on the type of guys that I knew that they liked to meet, that I thought that he could potentially be interested. And he was. I can't figure out his motivation for going public. Maybe it's because of the FBI that he's decided to speak out now.

He tells me that, after FBI agents approached him, he contacted Mike Jeffrey's legal team. "Especially after speaking to the FBI and speaking to Michael and Matthew's attorney, I said, 'Well, you know, maybe somebody coming out in the light and speaking truth, or at least my truth, my truth, may help them.'" "Are Michael and Matthew aware that you're doing this interview?" "No, they're not. They're not because I don't have…" "Are their lawyers aware?" "They're not either."

No, I decided to do this on my own. And my intention is to give them a hand because they gave so many of us a hand. Diego also says that after he contacted Mike Jeffrey's lawyer, they sent a private investigator to interview him in the hope of gathering information that will help build their legal defense. Because it's not just the FBI's investigation. Remember, the Abercrombie guys are also facing a civil lawsuit accusing them of sex trafficking.

Civil cases have a lower burden of proof than criminal cases. They don't lead to jail time if a defendant loses. But they can be hugely expensive if the court orders compensation to be paid out.

Mike Jeffries and Matthew Smith have been trying to get this civil case dismissed, saying the allegations are meritless, sensational and time-barred, arguing that they fall outside the statute of limitations, that too much time has passed since the alleged events took place. Lawyers for Matthew Smith also claim it doesn't detail any specific alleged sexual offences by him.

Ultimately, the civil lawsuit will end in one of three ways. It's dismissed, it settles, or it goes to trial. Would you really take the stand for Mike Jeffries? Yes, I would. I totally would. Why not? I mean, I have a truth. I'm not going to go and deny the story of all the people that are making the allegations because those are their allegations and I wasn't there. I don't know them, but I do know Michael and Matthew.

And I was there present on certain Saturdays. And so the knowledge that I have of those circumstances, at least, is a different one than the one portrayed by the so-called victims. But that doesn't mean that the victims are entirely wrong because I can't say that. But I can attest to what I know and what I know does not correspond with what they say. So, yeah, why not take the stand? Why do you feel such a strong sense of loyalty to them after all these years?

Well, I don't know that I would call it loyalty. But over the course of life, there's moments when people may have given you a hand for one thing or for another. And I am the type of person that believes that you should never forget that. Because someday, believe it or not, that person, as rich and powerful or whatever it is that they are, might just also need a hand from you.

I'm not involved with the FBI's investigation and I'm not privy to the work of the US Attorney's Office either. Both have declined my requests for comment. But I have been following my own new leads. So many people listening to this series have been reaching out week after week with information and I'm grateful for that.

I tried to follow up on everything that lands in my inbox because you never know where tips, big or small, may lead. It was all very civilised, very pleasant. And I remember the first time he got up, I couldn't believe how somebody could be so Botoxed. I'd never seen that before. And I said, I can't believe, what's he done with his face? This is Derek Henderson.

He contacted me last year after seeing our investigation into the Abercrombie guys. He's 73 and used to be the Ireland editor for the Press Association, one of the UK's biggest news agencies. I suppose once a hack, always a hack. Yeah, I'm trying to get away from all of that now. I'm an old fart and I'm trying to quietly exit. At first, what he has to tell me seems rather innocuous.

In the summer of 2013, he and his wife Claire boarded the Queen Mary II, a luxurious ocean liner that set sail from the south coast of England across the Atlantic to New York City. I looked out and we could see the dolphins cutting through the sea. It was just an amazing experience. It was Claire's 60th birthday and to mark the occasion they decided to embark on the week-long cruise.

The ship's humongous, with a red stripe across its hull, cutting through the waves. It is very palatial, it is very grand. I think there's been nearly 15 bars and restaurants, you know, theatres, four or five outdoor pools, shops, casino.

It was a lap of luxury. Derek tells me there were several high-profile people on board and one night, while he and his wife were having dinner, Derek says they also spot Mike Jeffries and another man. We were in this very exclusive restaurant and we saw these two gentlemen at the next table and then suddenly, one by one, the table filled up with maybe

Five or six young men, like Mike Jeffries, all in tuxedos, very smartly dressed, heavily tanned, and probably be in their late 20s, early 30s. Good-looking guys. And Claire, she speculated at the time. She says, you know, Derek, they're probably over here. They're over being interviewed for modelling assignments for Abercrombie & Fitch. I mean, given what's happened since then, and one can only imagine what that was all about,

When Derek first tells me about this, I admit I don't realise the potential significance of it. After all, the Abercrombie boss was often surrounded by his assistants, an entourage of young men. So I'm surprised when, a few days later, I receive an email from a man wanting to tell his story, who says he was there too. There were boys at every single port.

Every single city he went to, every single country, there were boys waiting for him. We'll be back after this.

After all, ads shouldn't be the scariest thing about true crime. To start listening, download the Amazon Music app for free or go to amazon.com slash adfree true crime. That's amazon.com slash adfree true crime to catch up on the latest episodes without the ads.

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Instacart, bringing the store to your door this Halloween. A cruise across the Atlantic on board the Queen Mary 2 was an annual fixture in Mike Jeffries' calendar. In September, usually after checking out Abercrombie's flagship store in London, he and his partner Matthew Smith would take the ocean liner back home to New York.

From Leach travel schedules, I know they'd stay in the most expensive suite, spread over two decks with a sweeping staircase, costing more than $25,000.

On board, they enjoyed an indulgent routine, including two massages a day, every day. And, according to this source, it was also routine that they'd have young men with them. I was the youngest one on that ship. Never been on a cruise ship in my life before either, so, you know, it was an experience for me, and the only reference I had was the Titanic, so it was like, I hope we don't sink.

This is Keith Mielke. He's an actor and model who's done campaigns for fashion houses like Versace. And back in 2013, he was invited to join Mike Jeffries and Matthew Smith on the Open Seas for what he says was a super exclusive gig. Yeah, the Queen Mary was excellent because they only did the Queen Mary once a year and it was an eight-day trip. So you're going to make, what, $30,000, you know? It's like...

$30,000 for eight days? $24,000 for eight days and then plus your allowance. And why do you think you were selected? Because I'm handsome. No, I'm kidding. Because I had already done these trips with them. I'd gone to Paris. I'd gone to Italy. But I was still new enough that I was fresh in their eyes. Still like, what, 21?

Between 2013 and 2014, Keith says he went on numerous trips with the Abercrombie guys. He shows me emails, flight tickets and event itineraries, as well as passport stamps to help corroborate what he's telling me. He also digs out some photos, including one of him posing in a white linen shirt on the top deck of the Queen Mary II, his back facing the deep blue water.

He says each night he's escorted to Mike Jeffery's suite by one of the housemen, the tight-knit group of personal assistants ever present at these events and dressed head to toe in Abercrombie and Fitch. Keith tells me the housemen make sure he's groomed, intimately shaved and give him an outfit to wear.

The reality is, like, after the first day, it's so cookie-cutter that the excitement factor's gone. So it's like, okay, here we are another day, sitting in our underwear on the couch, talking to Mike and Matthew, and we have nothing more to talk about, so it'd be...

talking to them about literature and shit like that, and when you have to sit and talk to them, it's like, oh, what do you think about John Steinbeck? Have you read this book? You know, just kind of keep the conversation afloat. But in these moments, you really did actually get a taste of them as normal, real people. Keith says before he got this job, he'd done some escorting, meeting with other wealthy clients. Sometimes it was sexual. Other times, he says, he was just someone's date to a wedding.

Either way, he says he feels pretty confident when he first meets with the Abercrombie guy's middleman for an audition. Yeah, I knew exactly what to expect. I knew I was going to... You do and you don't. But the point is, Jim's opened the door and you see this guy with no nose. You know, he's 60 years old.

And you're just like... If this was a test to see how I can hold up mentally and physically, it sure does test you. Keith says he performs oral sex on Jim, passing the test. He says the middleman then offers him $1,000 more than what Diego Gijan and others told me they were paid. But Keith feels confident enough to ask for even more.

And you actually felt able to negotiate with Jim?

I did, yeah. 100%. I told him. It's like you want Keith Milkey. Keith Milkey is 21. He's beautiful. He's gorgeous. You can't just find another one. So for me to say, give me $500 extra more, are they going to say, fuck you, no? No, they're going to say, all right, shit, let's try it out. But, you know, nothing Jim Jacobs can tell you can actually prepare you for what's going to happen in that room. Once you actually met Matthew and Mike, you realized, like...

where the insanity was stemming from. It's definitely top-down. Keith doesn't use labels these days. And while he says he mostly dates guys now, at the time, he identified as straight. This was the exploitation of straight men. They didn't want gays. Why do you think that they focus on straight men so much? Because the whole industry focused on straight men. The whole industry didn't want gay people.

It was the all-American jock. You know, that was the flavor of those decades. They didn't want a bunch of queens, you know, that wasn't sexually attracted. They wanted straight men that they could sort of coerce. You know, it makes it more fantastical. They are paying essentially to live out their sexual fantasies and they're paying you to be the fantasy that they always have dreamed about.

But Keith says those fantasies can sometimes take an unexpected turn, one he's not prepared for. Like on his first trip to Paris, when he says that the Abercrombie guys instruct him to have sex with another male model.

Now I'm in a situation where it's like I am uncomfortable and I'm trying to willingly go through with it, but it was so out of nowhere. It was so painful. It's not something I do. It's not something I was expecting. I didn't really want or enjoy that, but you can't really say no to somebody like Mike Jeffries without being fired, you know, so nobody wants to say no to him.

And Keith says he knows because of the one time he does say no to the Abercrombie boss while on board the Queen Mary 2. He says Mike Jeffries had been having a wild night in the casino, heavily drinking and trying to shove his hands down Keith's pants. What Keith says happens next might be difficult to hear.

Once we actually got back into the room, Mike's drunk off his ass, and he has this bleeding finger, and he's trying to shove it up my ass, and I keep saying, I'm like, no, no, we're not going to do that. Sorry, no, no, let's take care of this. Finally, after like three trips, I finally said no to something, and everything shut down. The energy was completely ruined. The whole party was done. Mike sort of recoiled, sort of looked at me, and was like,

You know, I'll never see you again. You're worthless. You know, you shouldn't be here. How dare you? I would never do that. Basically, he was insulted that I was insinuating that he might infect me with something. He's telling me to get out. I hate you. You'll never work again. You know, I was in the bed putting on a fake smile, crying on the inside, just like,

Here I am in the middle of the fucking ocean, having this person four times my age. To have somebody in that position of power and influence belittle me to death and literally call me worthless and everything else simply because I said no to something. So, you know, that's the flip side. It's like, you're allowed to say no, but it ain't gonna be pretty when you do.

Keith says Mike Jeffries calls him to a suite the next morning, now sober, and apologises. He thinks Matthew Smith makes him do it to avoid a scandal. I'm so sorry, Keith. I would never disrespect you like that. I think you're a wonderful human being, you know. Saying all the right things, you know. It's like, I think he gave me a hug. You know, he's the kind of person that stares straight into your eyes, you know, looks into your soul, so it's like...

Okay, yeah, I get it. You're sorry. All right. When the Queen Mary 2 finally docks in New York, Keith tells me that he has to drop by Jim Jacobson's apartment to get paid, where he says he receives around $24,000 in cash. Looking back, Keith says he isn't sure how to feel about it all because of the amount of money involved.

You know, I don't feel any sort of way like a victim coming into this. I don't feel upset by my decisions. And for the most part, I feel like I was aware. You know, while I say that I don't feel like a victim, there was a lot of bullshit and a lot of wrongdoing and a lot of, you know, darkness involved in these situations. Is it fair to say you felt a bit conflicted, I guess, when sort of talking about this situation?

Well, I felt very conflicted for many reasons, you know, and you go back and forth a lot between being completely angry and feeling like you've been wronged, but then on the other side justifying it all and saying, well, I've made my decisions and it's just I need to get over it. You know, there's a certain aspect of like, God, am I defending the devil that, you know, even I hate? And I don't know.

I guess, looking back now, what impact, if any, did these events have on your life? They impacted my whole life, yeah. I mean, yeah. I think you carry these experiences with you in many ways, probably for the rest of your life. Keith goes back and forth a lot.

He tells me he doesn't know the right words to use, but all he knows is that he doesn't feel good about any of it. At times he says he felt unsafe, like it was hard to say no to the Abercrombie boss without consequences. But he's not sure how to process it all, because he also feels like he was a victim of the entire fashion industry, having gone through even worse experiences with others.

He first met the Abercrombie guys when he was 20. He's now 31 and thinks that after doing this interview, he'll never work in modelling again. But he says that speaking with me feels cathartic. These days, he's building a new career as a singing teacher and has starred in several operas. HE SINGS

It's a long way from his time as a young model, but she says was riddled with exploitation, reeling off names of agents and moguls other than Mike Jeffries, many of whom I've heard about during this investigation. You're in a position where you need money and all the photographers and people know where to go looking first. It's like, here's this magical model house with all these good-looking guys. It's like...

The predators really did come to feed there. Keith didn't always want to do fashion campaigns. He was more of a fitness guy, into wrestling. But when an agent approaches him at the age of 19, interested in his tall and broad physique and mop of wavy brown hair, he finds the opportunity hard to turn down. Keith says this agent ran a model house near New York City and offered him a chance to stay and build his portfolio.

Keith says he was living with nine other aspiring models, all sharing bedrooms.

He says some are struggling to make ends meet, working as waiters on the side, while others were buying new laptops, leasing new cars, seemingly without any effort. One night, he says a housemate tells him he's been making money escorting and introduces Keith to a man he describes as a pimp.

who start sending him to different clients. He says this guy was in the business of supplying escorts to rich gay men and was in direct competition with Jim Jacobson, who seems to have been notorious at the time, working exclusively for the Abercrombie guys.

Something that made Keith's pimp a... Very awful person. Very jealous of what Jim Jacobs was accomplishing. You know, being able to sit on his ass and simply have boys sent to him all day long. And he always said he would expose me, never work with me again, ruin me if I did go see the Abercrombies. You know, because he knew you would lose people to the Abercrombies. Like, if you went on multiple trips a year just with them...

You could easily stand to make $100,000, $50,000 to $100,000. Hearing Keith recount his start in modelling, I'm starting to understand why he may be so conflicted about the Abercrombie guys. In the world he describes, the world he lived in, it can be easier to be exploited than it is to be on a billboard. And so to him, every experience is connected, leading him down a course he says he didn't sign up to.

One that eventually leads him straight to Jim Jacobs' store. Keith feels strongly about this.

Just like Diego Gijan, it's his view that everyone who attended these events knew that some form of sex was on the cards. And the men we heard from earlier in the series, Alex, Barrett Paul and David Bradbury, while they felt coerced and misled, acknowledged that there were warning signs, red flags they missed. But I've been contacted by a man who says he had no idea what he was getting into.

that he never even met Jim. Looking back on it, I'm sure they just saw how naive and simple I was. And, you know, they knew they could take advantage of someone like me. Was sex ever mentioned? No, definitely not. And it's something that I would not have been OK with. And another man who says the whole experience was so dangerous and traumatic, he felt he was going to die.

They didn't even bother to call a doctor or an ambulance or 911. No, no, no. That didn't cross anyone's mind. I don't know what they would have done if I passed away. It's like they use people like napkins, you know, like a tissue. Use you a couple of times, throw it away. That's next time on World of Secrets.

Thank you for listening. Please do keep sharing your thoughts, information and tips. You can contact me at rihanna.croxford at bbc.co.uk. The Abercrombie Guys is presented and investigated by me, Rihanna Croxford. The series producer is Ruth Evans. The BBC News investigations editor is Ed Campbell and the podcast editor is Richard Fenton-Smith.

Sound design and mix by Stephen Thompson, Neva Masirian and Sarah Hockley. Technical support from Jonathan Glover, James Beard and the BBC Miami Bureau. Production support by Sophie Hill and Katie Morrison. The Abercrombie Guys is a BBC News long-form audio production for BBC Sounds. This podcast is made in collaboration with BBC Panorama. The editor is Karen Whiteman.

You can also watch the TV documentary on BBC iPlayer or BBC Select if you're in the US. Across Europe, you can now view it on BBC Nordic Plus and it'll be available in Germany later this year. The world of secret steam music is by Jeremy Wormsley. The commissioners at BBC Sounds are Dylan Haskins and Louise Catterhorn.

Hi, I'm Raj Punjabi from HuffPost. And I'm Noah Michelson, also from HuffPost. And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong? A new podcast that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right. Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right.

And we're talking like legit, credible experts. Doctors, PhDs, all around superheroes. From HuffPost and Acast Studios, check out Am I Doing It Wrong? Wherever you get your podcasts.

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