Persona: The French Deception · Audible | Pineapple Street Studios

Madame G

June 6, 2022·36 min·3 clips

He told one banker that armed agents were watching him with poison arrows — why arrows was never explained.

1. Persona season one, "The French Deception," opens with "Madame G," host Evan Ratliff's account of French-Israeli con man Gilbert Shikli. 2. Ratliff narrates the story himself, drawing on 17 years of research plus interviews with Shikli's former partner David Atyash, his attorney Laura Baraby, and Israeli police attache Anat Granit. 3. The episode's core question is how one man's 2005 scam against a single bank manager evolved into a global fraud technique that has cost companies billions. 4. It centers on "Madame G," a 45-year-old director of a Paris La Poste branch who received a call in July 2005 from a man impersonating La Poste's real head, Jean-Paul Bailly. 5. A second caller, "Paul," claimed to be a secret agent investigating a terrorist-financed account at her branch and swore her to total secrecy. 6. Over 42 calls in three days, Paul directed her to withdraw 358,000 euros from the bank's largest accounts and pack it in a bag. 7. She delivered the cash to a stranger in a restaurant bathroom in exchange for a spoken password, "Réveille," then waited at a second cafe for an agent who never arrived. 8. French police initially suspected Madame G. was an accomplice before her lawyer, Sylvie Nowakowicz, helped convince them she was a victim. 9. Investigators traced a burner phone to Israel and identified Gilbert Shikli, a man already known to police, as the architect of the scheme. 10. Ratliff and producer Chris Knapp later interviewed Shikli's Israel-based partner David Atyash, who supplied offshore shell companies and technical infrastructure for the scam. 11. Atyash's book about the partnership, "La Débâcle," describes Shikli as a charismatic former "advertising" phone-scammer who could convince strangers of nearly anything. 12. Shikli's mistress, Shirley, and his brother Simon carried out logistics in Paris, including collecting the cash from Madame G. 13. Over 18 months the gang expanded the con to at least 20 companies, netting more than 38 million euros, including 11.6 million euros from French media conglomerate Thomson S.A. 14. Later callers posed as bank presidents, CEOs, or intelligence agents from Interpol or the DGSE, a method that came to be known as "L'Arnaque au Président." 15. The episode connects this same CEO-fraud template to modern losses, citing a $47 million theft from a California tech firm, $44 million from a German cable company, and $3 million from toy maker Mattel. 16. Wiretapped calls captured Shikli and Shirley threatening each other, and Shirley's 2005 arrest and confession helped police link the crimes to Shikli. 17. Shikli sometimes taunted victims and police directly, once telling a scammed bank manager to Google his name, and another time promising to fly back to France for immunity and never showing up. 18. The episode is a narrated true-crime documentary blending Ratliff's reporting with translated interview audio and dramatized reconstruction. 19. Listeners drawn to true-crime, con-artist psychology, or corporate-fraud investigations would enjoy this episode. 20. Listeners seeking lighthearted or fast-paced content might find the slow-building, interview-heavy format less appealing.

As heard by us

A tense account of money, fear, and contested stories around Madame G's beginnings.

Madame G turns early to a relationship that sits close to the story's origins. Six months before Madame G received her first phone call, Shikley met David Atyash in Israel, a figure presented as unusually skilled at moving and hiding large sums of money.

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Why you'd press play

You get the wary origin thread behind Madame G, starting with a meeting in Israel six months before her first phone call and a former business partner who no longer wants contact.

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