Secrets We Keep podcast | Listen online for free

111 episodes

The Children in the Pictures | Ep 1 | Down the Rabbit Hole
30/03/2026 | 26 mins.
With the crisis of child exploitation gripping Australia, for the next few weeks, Secrets we Keep feed brings you the LiSTNR award-winning series, Children in the Pictures, an investigative podcast about the global fight against online child exploitation, following Australian investigators as they track offenders hiding in plain sight across the internet.
The series exposes the scale of abuse, the emotional toll on those working to stop it, and the disturbing ways technology is being used to harm children worldwide.
In Episode One, Australian documentary-maker and father of two Akhim Dev takes an unexpected tour of the dark web and discovers an epidemic hidden in plain sight: online child exploitation material.
Content Warning: This series delves with sexual abuse against children. Listener discretion is advised.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Uncovered | Unmasking the alleged torturer turned Bondi nanny | Part 2
25/03/2026 | 27 mins.
A CIA-backed coup. A hidden Australian connection. And a suburban nanny with a secret past.
In Part Two of Unmasking the Alleged Torturer Turned Bondi Nanny, Uruguayan-Australian journalist Florencia Melgar takes us inside her extraordinary interview with Adriana Rivas — a former member of Augusto Pinochet’s secret police, accused of some of the dictatorship’s most brutal crimes.
While living in Sydney’s Bondi, working as a nanny, Rivas was wanted in Chile for crimes against humanity. In a rare and revealing conversation, she describes how she fled Chile while on bail — paying smugglers to escape through the Andes before returning to Australia, where she had lived since the late 1970s.
In this episode, we hear how Rivas justifies torture, glorifies a brutal regime, and reflects on the power she once held.
More on this story:
The Other 9/11
ABC Foreign Correspondent, Facing the Past
More on Australia’s involvement in Chile: 'Last thing he wanted was to embarrass the CIA': Inside Whitlam's 'agonising' decision to shut Australian spy operation in Chile
Got any tips? Email us at [email protected].
Credits:
Host: Joey Watson
Supervising Producer: Claudianna Blanco
Sound Design: Matt Nikolic
Head of Factual: Clair Weaver
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Uncovered | Unmasking the alleged torturer turned Bondi nanny | Part 1
23/03/2026 | 21 mins.
A CIA-backed coup. A hidden Australian connection. And a suburban nanny with a secret past.
In Part 1 of Unmasking the alleged torturer turned Bondi nanny, Uruguayan-Australian journalist Florencia Melgar takes us inside her groundbreaking investigation, The Other 9/11, and how she uncovered the secret role Australian spies played in the Pinochet coup in Chile in 1973.
What began as a deep dive into Cold War espionage led somewhere unexpected: to Bondi, and to a woman accused of being part of Chile’s machinery of torture.
More on this story:
The Other 9/11
ABC Foreign Correspondent, Facing the Past
More on Australia’s involvement in Chile: 'Last thing he wanted was to embarrass the CIA': Inside Whitlam's 'agonising' decision to shut Australian spy operation in Chile
Got any tips? Email us at [email protected].
Credits:
Host: Joey Watson
Supervising Producer: Claudianna Blanco
Sound Design: Matt Nikolic
Head of Factual: Clair Weaver
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Uncovered | Smuggling out proof of the secret war on Australia's doorstep
16/03/2026 | 25 mins.
In this episode of Secrets We Keep: Uncovered, filmmaker Kristo Langker takes us inside the long-running conflict between Indonesia and West Papuans.
Embedded with fighters from the West Papua Liberation Army, a small armed independence movement that has been battling Indonesian security forces for decades, Kristo travelled to a remote mountain village where the Indonesian military was allegedly bombing indigenous communities with high-tech explosives and drones.
He gathered evidence of these extreme measures right on Australia’s doorstep and smuggled it back to confront a multi-billion-dollar weapons manufacturer about its role in the bloodshed.
Got any tips? Email us at [email protected].
Credits:
Reporter/Host: Joey Watson
Supervising Producer: Claudianna Blanco
Sound Design: Matt Curry and Matt Nikolic
Fact check: Madeline Larsen
Head of Factual: Clair Weaver
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Uncovered | Discovering your boyfriend was a cop spying on you | Part 2
11/03/2026 | 22 mins.
For years, flatmates Wendy and Ellie trusted James. He joined Wendy’s animal rights advocacy group, quickly becoming one of her closest friends — and Ellie’s boyfriend.
But James wasn’t who they thought. He was an undercover cop, deployed to spy on them.
Part of a secretive UK operation now known as Spy Cops, James was one of many officers who infiltrated activist and protest groups, forming intimate and sexual relationships with their targets -sometimes for years- leaving a trail of betrayal and heartbreak behind.
In this two-part tell-all interview, Wendy and Ellie take us through a 17-year-long deception so cruel that it's almost impossible to comprehend.
Got any tips? Email us at [email protected].
If this episode raises issues for you, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1322 46 36.
Credits:
Host: Joey Watson
Supervising Producer: Claudianna Blanco
Sound Design: Matt Curry
Head of Factual: Clair Weaver
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

About Secrets We Keep

Each season, Secrets We Keep investigates a different Australian secret. Secrets We Keep: Uncovered (Season 9): takes you inside some of the most important investigations of our time, with our expanding network of journalists and sources from around Australia and beyond. Every week, Uncovered pulls back the curtain on the stories powerful people hoped would stay buried, by speaking directly to those who lived and breathed them. Jailbreak (Season 8): Journalist Tim Elliott details the extraordinary story of Darko Desic, a fugitive who lived for 30 years on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. Lone Actor (Season 7): Joey Watson traces the radicalisation trajectory of the Christchurch terrorist, asking the question - did he really act alone? By Any Means (Season 6): An investigation into the modern fertility landscape, confronting complex questions about consent, identity and human rights. Should I Spit? (Season 5): The origin story of the multibillion dollar consumer DNA industry. From police hoping to solve cold murder cases, to one of the most powerful churches in the world, everyone seems to want a piece of what makes you, you. Pray Harder (Season 4): investigative journalist Richard Baker uncovers the unbelievable and compelling true story of Australia’s oldest and most hard line Pentecostal Church, the Geelong Revival Centre. Baghdad Nights (Season 3): Richard Baker takes you inside Australia's biggest corruption scandal, finding out how Australia funded a dictator in the lead up to the Iraq War. Nest of Traitors (Season 2): Joey Watson is pulled into the world of espionage, attempting to track down an Australian spy who turned to work for the enemy during the Cold War. Shame Lies & Family (Season 1): A mystery photo of Amelia Oberhardt’s mum exposes the practice of shotgun marriages, forced adoption, and quiet abortions carried out in Australia until the 1980s.

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