The harm done by one catfisher exposed in NZ Herald true crime podcast - Chasing Ghosts: The Puppeteer

Chasing Ghosts: The Puppeteer explores the damage caused by one catfisher - and the difficulty stopping her. Photo / NZME

The NZ Herald’s original true crime podcast, Chasing Ghosts, is back with a new season, this time detailing the harm caused by the decades-long catfishing conducted by one New Zealand woman.

In April 2011, a woman was found to have tricked dozens of teenage boys and young men across Christchurch, by using images of other people to create fake online profiles to start romantic relationships.

NZ Herald journalist David Fisher was able to trace the fake profiles back to Natalia Burgess, a then 27-year-old woman who had a history of creating false personas online.

At the time, Fisher found that her victims were spread across the country, and he interviewed young women who had had their pictures stolen by Burgess, and the men and boys who had been fooled by them.

The crimes were so unusual at the time, there was not yet a name for them, with Burgess’ false personas beginning before the documentary Catfish had premiered in American cinemas in 2010.

Over a series of articles across several months, Fisher detailed the actions of the “Facebook Predator”, and eventually met with Burgess on several occasions. She referred to herself as ‘The Puppeteer’ in an interview with 60 Minutes the same year.

When Burgess went to jail for two years and two months in 2013, Fisher assumed that would be the end of the story.

Then, years later, an email out of the blue alerted him to a new victim who has had her personal and professional life upended by Burgess, and revealed that Burgess’ catfishing resumed shortly after she left prison.

In Chasing Ghosts: The Puppeteer, a new five-part podcast, Fisher revisits his original investigation from 2011, speaking to the victims from the time, and encounters those who have been impacted over the past nine years by Burgess’ catfishing.

The series will explore the difficulties with policing the internet, the role social media giants should be playing in stopping these crimes, and the impact these types of crimes have on victims. And it’ll follow Fisher as he tries to understand Burgess, and try to get her side of the story 13 years after they last spoke.

Listen to Chasing Ghosts - The Puppeteer for more on the case of Natalia Burgess - and how the ‘death’ of one of her personas is still haunting people over a decade later.

Follow Chasing Ghosts on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Episode 2 is out Friday, and subsequent episodes will follow Tuesdays throughout October.

David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.

The podcast is produced by Ethan Sills, winner of Best Podcast Producer at the Radio and Podcast Awards 2024.