Bestselling author turned fugitive Barbara Stcherbatcheff’s double life on the lam in the Bahamas REVEALED

She is best known for her bestselling memoir about life as a sassy female investment banker in the cutthroat world of finance.

But the arrest of 43-year-old writer Barbara Stcherbatcheff in the Bahamas on international child kidnapping charges was a plot twist that none of her readers saw coming.

The author of Confessions of a City Girl sparked a global manhunt in February 2023 when she allegedly snatched her eight-year-old son Valentin from his father’s home in Switzerland and went on the run.

The Illinois resident was eventually traced to the Bahamian island of New Providence, where she was taken into custody last month and the little boy, now 10 years old, was found unharmed.

With Stcherbatcheff languishing in jail awaiting extradition, DailyMail.com can reveal the full, stranger-than-fiction story of the peroxide-blonde socialite’s nearly two-year stint as a fugitive in paradise.

Sources tell us the divorcee didn’t become a fixture in her sun-drenched hideaway, but quickly became a fixture in Nassau’s vibrant social scene after arriving on the island in the spring of 2023 with a dark backstory.

Stcherbatcheff presented herself as a chic, mysterious expat and set tongues wagging by having an alleged affair with a prominent married businessman 22 years her senior.

And she enjoyed a life of surprising extravagance for someone who worked as a housekeeper and rented a house in the exclusive Balmoral-gated community.

“Whenever anyone asked Barbara why she was in the Bahamas, the usual answer was, ‘I’m hiding from my husband, he was very rude,'” said a former acquaintance.

“She told our friends at dinner one night that her husband was a Mexican cartel man. She told another friend of ours that he was an Italian mafia boss.

‘It was never quite the same story. When you hear something crazy like that, you obviously don’t ask too many questions.’

There is no evidence that Valentin’s Swiss father, Daniel Rene Stankowski, was abusive or involved in organized crime.

In 2021, he was awarded custody of Valentin for undisclosed reasons.

Around the same time, Stcherbatcheff deleted her social media profiles, changed her email address and cut off contact with associates in the United States, a family member told DailyMail.com.

The author and newspaper columnist had grown up in Woodstock, Illinois, but moved to Britain to pursue a career in banking and financial journalism, eventually becoming a naturalized British citizen.

By the late 2000s, she had resettled in Switzerland, picking Valentin up from Stankowski’s home in Zurich on February 27, 2023 for a court visit.

When Stcherbatcheff failed to return Valentin, a missing persons alert, or ‘yellow notice’, was issued by the global police force Interpol, warning that the boy may have been smuggled abroad.

Authorities as far away as the US, Britain, Ireland, Croatia, Belize, Costa Rica and Mexico were put on high alert.

Within weeks, Stcherbatcheff and Valetin showed up in the Bahamas, traveling with what appeared to be valid Mexican passports, images of which were obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.

The author is listed in her paperwork as Barbara Vivian Murphy, taking her biological father’s surname rather than her maiden name, Davis, or that of a former husband, Stcherbatcheff.

Her son’s passport names him Valentin Sanchez Murphy, which appears to be fake. He is also registered as a Mexican citizen, despite being Swiss.

Nassau locals say they first came across the globetrotting couple in the spring of 2023, when Stcherbatcheff approached companies looking for marketing work.

Among those she approached were expats Ian and Karin Goodfellow, owners of a gastronomic company and farm goods restaurant.

Friends of the couple say Ian, 65, sympathized with Stcherbatcheff and hired her as his housekeeper, meaning she could apply for a work permit.

But the gesture took a darker turn in November 2023 when the Goodfellows began divorce proceedings after three decades of marriage.

It is claimed that Ian began openly dating the mysterious newcomer shortly afterwards.

“Ian was very proud that a 65-year-old man could have this beautiful younger woman on his arm,” said a friend.

‘She was looking for a man – and a passport – and she read him like a book.’

She lived in the Balmoral complex of luxury homes and mansions on 43 acres of manicured tropical grounds, with access to a clubhouse, restaurant, tennis courts, gym and spa.

The chic enclave is protected 24 hours a day by extra guards from the American embassy. Real estate typically costs between $650,000 and $1.5 million.

She enrolled Valentin in Windsor International School, where tuition costs up to $22,500 per year.

The friend added: “Say what you like about Barbara, but she was clearly a devoted mother.

‘She was very protective of Valentin. They were inseparable.’

Divorce documents are not public in the Bahamas, but a well-placed source told DailyMail.com that real estate agent Karen, 56, accused her husband of infidelity and named Stcherbatcheff in her paperwork as his alleged lover.

In an email exchange with DailyMail.com, father-of-two Ian was given multiple opportunities to dispute the allegations, but he did not do so.

“I have been asked not to speak publicly about her, the Bahamas does not like publicity about these types of matters,” he wrote.

Ian also declined to discuss whether he supported Stcherbatcheff following her arrest on December 10.

A well-placed source told DailyMail.com: ‘She has called him from prison but as far as I know he has nothing to do with her.

“She asked him for $80,000 as bail.”

Sources say Valetin was going to school when Bahamian officers found him. He has since been reunited with his father, who flew to the Caribbean to pick him up.

Bahamian authorities have not revealed how they found the youngster, but sources say Stcherbatcheff may have been traced through her online activities.

Another theory suggests she was flagged when Bahamian immigration authorities routinely conducted a background check through Interpol while issuing her work permit.

The author remains under lock and key in Nassau’s infamous Fox Hill Prison while a court considers whether to grant her extradition to Switzerland on charges of kidnapping and child theft.

In a further twist, she shares a cell with another infamous American, Lindsay Shiver, who is awaiting trial for allegedly plotting to have her husband murdered by an assassin.

Stcherbatcheff’s stunning fall from grace comes 15 years after she published her Sunday Times Bestseller, Confessions of a City Girl: The Devil Wears Pinstripes.

The Dartmouth alum had previously written an anonymous column for The London Paper, exposing the excesses of financial life.

She developed the theme to literary fame under the pseudonym Suzana S, providing a wild insider’s account of life as a female banker in the City of London.

“When city girl Barbara Stcherbatcheff first entered the Square Mile, she had no idea of ​​the struggle for survival she would face over the next five years,” reads the book’s promotional blurb.

“But despite lap dancing clubs and millions of dollars in losses; divorces in the city and the worst recession since the 1930s, City Girl was still standing.

“She had taken on the boys at their own game – and won.”