Scamfluencers
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Scamfluencers
You never really know someone…especially online. In today’s world, the power of influence can be the quickest path to money and fame, and it often ends in ruin. These are the stories of the world’s most insidious Scamfluencers. And we are their prey. On Wondery’s new weekly series, join co-hosts Sca...
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Natalie Cochran: The Pharmacist Femme Fatale Part 2 | 184
When her Ponzi scheme starts to crumble – and her husband dies under mysterious circumstances – Natalie Cochran plays the perfect victim: a widowed mo...
Natalie Cochran: The Pharmacist Femme Fatale Part 1 | 183
Natalie Cochran seems to have it all: a stable career as a pharmacist, a loving husband, and two kids. But when she ditches her job to become a “gover...
Mark Hofmann: The Mormon Murderer | 182
Mark Hofmann, a lifelong Mormon, skyrockets to local fame by uncovering “historical” documents that challenge core LDS Church narratives. He sells the...
Imelda Marcos: The First Lady of Excess Part 2 | 181
After declaring martial law in 1972, Ferdinand Marcos cemented his dictatorship over the Philippines – jailing opponents, silencing dissent, and amass...
Imelda Marcos: The First Lady of Excess Part 1 | 180
Imelda Marcos - the former beauty queen turned First Lady of the Philippines – was as famous for her 1,000 pairs of shoes and jawbreaker-sized diamond...
Wayne LaPierre: America’s Hired (and Fired) Gun | 179
Wayne LaPierre spent decades at the helm of the National Rifle Association, transforming it into one of the most powerful lobbying groups in America....
Andrew Caspersen: Rich People Problems | 178
Andrew Caspersen seemed to have it all: Ivy League credentials, athletic talent and a trust fund that fueled his reputation as a rising star in financ...
Brian Reader and the Diamond Wheezers: The Geriatric Jewel Thieves | 177
Brian Reader made his name as “The Guv’nor” in the 1960s and 70s by pulling off daring, Ocean’s Eleven-style heists that turned him into a tabloid sen...
Jan Lewan: From Polka Dreams to Ponzi Schemes | 176
When Jan Lewan escapes to the United States from Poland in the 1970s, he uses his musical talent to become a larger than life polka star and pursue th...
ENCORE: Three Weddings and a Funeral: Part 2 | 175
By the late 1980s, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter is now known as New York City bond trader Christopher Crowe. But even the Wall Street lifestyle is no...
ENCORE: Three Weddings and a Funeral: Part 1 | 174
We’ll be back in one week with all-new Scamfluencers episodes. In the meantime, we’re returning to one of our favorites.
In the late 1970s, Chr...
ENCORE: George Santos: Putting the "Con" in Congress | 173
We’ll be back in two weeks with all-new Scamfluencers episodes. In the meantime, we’re returning to one of our favorites.
It’s hard to know wha...
ENCORE: The Pop Star and the Power Broker: Part 2 | 172
As Erika Jayne’s pop star career blossoms, questions continue to mount about her husband Tom Girardi’s finances and his legal practice. His clients ha...
Business Wars Presents: The AOL-Time Warner Disaster
Think business is boring? What about when your streaming bill goes up, or your favorite restaurant files for bankruptcy? Do you ever wonder what’s goi...
ENCORE: The Pop Star and the Power Broker: Part 1 | 171
We’ll be back in four weeks with all-new Scamfluencers episodes. In the meantime, we’re returning to one of our favorites.
Tom Girardi dreams of...
Doris Payne: Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Grift | 170
Frustrated by the racist, sexist stereotypes keeping her down, Doris Payne started swiping precious jewels out of spite as a teen. For the next seven...
Listen Now: Lawless Planet
It’s not that hard to kill a planet. All it takes is a little drilling, some mining, a generous helping of pollution and voila! Earth over. When you t...
Guo Wengui: The Temu Trump | 169
Guo Wengui was a billionaire real estate mogul in China, but when the government cracks down on his empire, he flees to the U.S. From a Manhattan apar...
Pras Michel: The Fugee Felon | 168
Fugees founder Pras Michel is struggling to pivot to a new career when he meets Malaysian billionaire playboy and criminal mastermind Jho Low. He’s ha...
Listen Now: Flesh and Code
Travis never thought he’d meet someone like Lily Rose. She was kind, passionate, beautiful. The woman of his dreams. There was just one small detail:...
Lisette Lee: The Simple Life Of Crime | 167
Lisette Lee is a party girl heiress who uses money, mean-girl bullying, and her early 2000s glam to control everyone around her. But when daddy’s cash...
Phil Kitzer and the G Men | 166
Phil Kitzer was a globe-trotting scammer who spent more than a decade creating fake banks and insurance companies, ripping off customers to pay for hi...
Earl Washington: A Rip Off the Old Block | 165
Singer-actor Earl Washington turns out to be a triple threat when he takes up carving wood blocks to make ends meet while hustling to make a life as a...
Prince Michael Romanoff: The High Prince of Hollywood | 164
Polish immigrant Hershel Geguzin fled to the U.S. from the faltering Russian Empire at the turn of the 20th century. And like many scammers around thi...
Rocky Aoki: Hibachi’s a Bitch and Then You Die | 163
Rocky Aoki, the son of a vaudeville performer and a tango dancer, grows up in the wreckage of post-war Tokyo. With his natural flair for entertainment...
Multi-Level Marketing: Your Product is You | 162
Multi-level marketing businesses like Mary Kay, HerbaLife, and Amway are so ubiquitous, it's almost hard to imagine where they started or how deep the...
ENCORE: Do You Even Grift, Bro? | 161
We’ll be back next week with all-new episodes, but in the meantime, we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our grossest-ever Scamfluencer: Bria...
ENCORE: The Memory Maker Part 2 | 160
Teal Swan’s self-help empire is on the rise, and so is the backlash to some of her most controversial techniques. Teal fights back against her critics...
ENCORE: The Memory Maker Part 1 | 159
We’ll be back in two weeks with all-new Scamfluencers episodes. In the meantime, we’re returning to one of our favorites.
After surviving a dif...
Paul and Patricia Bragg: The Mother of All Wellness Scams | 158
Paul Bragg used showmanship and outrageous claims to grow his health food company into a wellness empire. But after he died in his 90s and passed the...
Michael Milken: When Junk Was King | 157
Michael Milken is known as the King of Junk Bonds. In the early 80s, he pioneered a novel way to finance companies that traditional investors normally...
Francois-Marie Banier: The French Connection Part 2 | 156
Francois-Marie Banier is facing an uphill battle in French courts when he learns he’s being sued by Liliane Bettencourt’s only daughter, Francoise. Wh...
Francois-Marie Banier: The French Connection Part 1 | 155
Francois-Marie Banier overcame indifferent parents to reach the heights of the Parisian art scene. His novels, plays, and photography gained him famou...
Conrad Black: The Fleet Street Fleece | 154
Conrad Black turned ownership of a single Canadian newspaper into a global media empire, and he used his wealth and status to cozy up to conservative...
Lee Israel: Scammer She Wrote | 153
After her latest biography flopped, Lee Israel was hard up for money to buy booze and cat food. So, she used her research skills to access celebrity l...
Giancarlo Parretti: The Italian Job | 152
When Thelma and Louise was being made in the early 1990s, production was in and out of financial trouble. Behind this shortage of cash was an Italian...
Billy Mitchell: Truth or Kong-sequences | 151
Billy Mitchell became the king of arcade games when he achieved a perfect Pac Man score, and held the highest score in Donkey Kong. But in the early 2...
ENCORE: The Quarter Horse Queen | 150
We’ll be back next week with all-new episodes but in the meantime we’re bringing back a very timely episode. In 2024, President Biden commuted the sen...
ENCORE: Gossip Girls | Part II | 149
The Matharoo sisters have gone from globe-trotting tastemakers to detained prisoners. Stuck in an airport hotel without their passports or phones, the...
ENCORE: Gossip Girls | Part 1 | 148
While we work on some brand-new episodes, we’re returning to one of our very first episodes about two jet-setting sisters from Canada, Kiran and Jyoti...