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 difficult childhood, Teal Swan starts a family and reinvents herself as a spiritual leader for the Internet age. She gains a huge following by talking openly about a wide-range of topics, including taboo mental health issues. In her videos, she’s warm, candid, and relatable. But her unconventional approach may have some dark consequences.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-8255. The U.S. National Alliance on Mental Illness is available at 1-800-950-6264. If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline in the US by calling 1-800-656-4673. That's 1-800-656-4673.
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Scamfluencers
Mark Hofmann, a lifelong Mormon, skyrockets to local fame by uncovering “historical” documents that challenge core LDS Church narratives. He sells the documents to the church, claiming he’s protecting...
After declaring martial law in 1972, Ferdinand Marcos cemented his dictatorship over the Philippines – jailing opponents, silencing dissent, and amassing untold wealth with his wife, Imelda. But as th...
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 diamonds as she was infamous for the fortune that she and...
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 finance. But behind his polished image was a spiral of d...
Wayne LaPierre spent decades at the helm of the National Rifle Association, transforming it into one of the most powerful lobbying groups in America. But behind his carefully crafted image as a gun-to...
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 sensation. By the 2010s, his glory days were long gon...
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 the American dream. Fueled by his charm and charisma...
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 not quite glamorous enough for him. So he decides to...
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, Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter leaves his small Bavarian vill...
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 what to believe about George Santos’ wild origin story. Sinc...
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 have been waiting in limbo to receive the settlement...
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 being a do-gooder lawyer like his childhood hero on the...
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 decades, she executed heists across nine countries...
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 apartment and a luxury superyacht, Guo publicly decrie...
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 handsomely rewarded for helping Jho make political c...
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 isn’t enough to sustain her lifestyle, she manipu...
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 his lavish lifestyle. By the late 70s, Phil’s scam i...
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 an entertainer in Los Angeles. But just like any ot...
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 this time, he adopts a fabulous new identity: as Prin...
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, he opens his first Benihana restaurant in Manhat...
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 their influence goes. In this special episode of Scam...
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: Brian Johnson, aka The Liver King. Brian grows up a sc...
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, releasing long rebuttals and detailed explainers...
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 difficult childhood, Teal Swan starts a family and reinvents...
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 company to his daughter, Patricia, people started...
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 wouldn’t touch. His high-risk, high-reward invest...
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. When the French media learn of the accusations of fi...
Francois-Marie Banier overcame indifferent parents to reach the heights of the Parisian art scene. His novels, plays, and photography gained him famous friends like Salvadore Dali, Princess Caroline o...
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 superstars like Magaret Thatcher and Henry Kissing...
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 letters in prominent archives, stealing them and ad...