On dating apps, Derek Alldred seemed like the perfect match. A decorated veteran or sometimes surgeon with a heart of gold and a healthy bank account. But what his many victims didn’t realize is that he was a prolific con artist, tapping into their credit cards and retirement accounts to finance his lavish lifestyle. The scam lasted for years until a few persistent women brought him down.

Investigative journalist Max Marshall joins the show to discuss his new book, “Among the Bros,” which delves into the bust of five College of Charleston Kappa Alpha fraternity members and their friends who were part of a multi-million dollar narcotics network. And if that doesn’t sound dirty enough for you, the arrests came as the result of an investigation into the murder of a former student who was the son of a luxury real estate developer. It’s a story of greed, entitlement, and as Max...

You’ve heard of Alexander Hamilton—but how about his great grandson Ray? In this episode, we dive into the tawdry tale of how a descendent of one of the Founding Fathers was conned by a schmeing prostitute into marrying him using an infant purchased from a baby farm. Historian Bill Shaffer joins the show to talk about this mostly forgotten story, which was a tabloid sensation at the turn of the 19th Century.

On August 20, 1989, Jose and Kitty Menendez were brutally murdered in their Beverly Hills mansion. Their sons Erik and Lyle were accused of the murder in what seemed like an open-and-shut case — they wanted to collect their parents’ insurance. But a sensational trial revealed that there was something even more nefarious going on at their mansion on Elm Avenue. Nearly 25 years after the murders that shook the world, we revisit this notorious case.

On Thanksgiving Eve of 1971, a hijacker known as D.B. Cooper parachuted out of a commercial airplane with $200,000 in ransom money and was never seen again. It’s the only unsolved commercial airline hijacking in U.S. history, and the FBI officially closed the books on the investigation nearly a decade ago.  But while the Feds have thrown in the towel, citizen detective Eric Ulis is still fighting to learn the truth. For years, Ulis has been working on his own to keep the case alive and,...

Con man Christian Gerhartsreiter had many identities - but his most famous was "Clark Rockefeller,” a black sheep relative from the iconic American family. For over 20 years, he duped rich people from coast to coast to share in their privilege and their money. But in 2008, he finally got caught in his web of deceit. Investigators would soon realize that his dirty crimes not only included impersonations but were much darker than anyone ever imagined.

Journalist Charlie Webster joins the show to talk about season 2 of the podcast series, Surviving El Chapo, which tells the story of idenitical twins in Chicago who ran a $2 billion drug trafficking empire, only to switch sides and become government informants. The Flores twins grew their business to the biggest in North American then decided to risking everthing, turning on their boss Mexican drug lord El Chapo.

Stéphane Breitwieser is perhaps the most prolific art thief who ever lived. From 1994 to 2001, he and his girlfriend/accomplice Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus tore through Europe on a breathtaking crime spree, armed with only a Swiss Army knife. They did this every three weekends out of four, stealing priceless works of art from museums, galleries, and auction houses. Eventually, he amassed a collection that totaled more than 300 works of stolen worth about $2 billion. But here’s the weird...

Have you ever heard of something called SIM-swapping? It sounds like something that would happen late at night at a 1970s party in the suburbs, but it is much dirtier than that. On this week's episode, we examine the intricacies of what a SIM-swapping phone hack is and how the method was used to spearhead a $24 million dollar crypto heist. Based on an incredible story reported by Margi Murphy and Drake Bennett for Businessweek we tell the tale of Michael Terpin, who after literally...

Psychologist Christopher Chabris joins the show and describes the habits and behaviors that make the majority of us positive members of society — and also susceptible to attack from criminals. From phishing scams to Ponzi schemes, fraudulent science to crypto hucksters, Chabris, along with his co-author Daniel Simons (Nobody’s Fool) have studied the science of deception and provide practical tools you can use to spot schemes before it’s too late. It is easy to sit back and think “That would...

Jim and Pamela Fayed seemed to have it all—two beautiful daughters, a sprawling horse ranch in California, and a gold exchange business that raked in millions every year. But all that glitters is not gold. The Fayeds also harbored a deep secret that would destroy both their lives. This is the tragic story of a family business gone horribly wrong

Guest Jen McAdam, a Scottish coal miner's daughter, was one of the countless victims of the insidious OneCoin global cryptocurrency scam. She invested her entire inheritance only to watch it disappear. Jen was the first victim to fight back and successfully mustered thousands of victims from around the world to join her. She’s written a book on the experience called DEVIL’S COIN: My Battle to Take Down the Notorious OneCoin Cryptoqueen, and she works fulltime through her online Victims’...

Adam Worth was the Victorian Era’s most infamous thief. He was so sneaky, so devious and so damn good at his job that he became Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s inspiration for Dr. Moriarity, arch-nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. Worth’s exploits earned him the nickname “The Napoleon of Crime,” a nod to his ceaseless drive to steal anything that wasn’t nailed to the floor. (And even if it was, he’d steal it anyway.) Worth and an array of ne’er-do-wells were as innovative as they were crooked, tunneling...

Between October 2008 and August of 2009, thieves broke into the homes a number of young Hollywood stars, such as Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, and Orlando Bloom, and stole more than $3 million in cash, jewelry, and high-end designer goods. But these weren’t your typical robbers. They were teenagers from the Valley. One was even the star of a reality show. This is the bizarre story of the Bling Ring and their dirty deeds.

Take a whimsical journey with us back in time to the late 1800s and meet Elizabeth "Betty" Bigley, a con woman who stole millions of dollars from people, banks and anyone else she could sink her teeth into. As you will hear, she was tireless in her thievery and her brazen attempt to bilk money from her "dad" Andrew Carnegie is truly one for the record books. (Spoiler alert: He was not her dad and it did not work.) And speaking of books, on this episode we're joined by true crime writer Railey...

 In the early 1900s, a “doctor” named John Romulus Brinkley became rich and famous by offering a unique cure to men suffering from ED and an array of other maladies: he implanted goat testicles in them. You might guess that not too many guys would be willing to go under the knife for that, but you’d be wrong. For decades Brinkley was backing up the money truck to his clinics that operated all around the country. Eventually, however, scrutiny from the medical community and a mountain of...

Remember Martin Shrkeli? He was the so-called “Pharma Bro” who raised the price of an anti-viral drug for AIDS patients from $13.50 to $750 a pill. His arrogance and lack of empathy came to embody all that was wrong with the unregulated drug market. But not much is known about Skreli beyond the media hype. Where did he come from, what were his motives, what happend to him, and where is he now? We take a deep dive into the man once dubbed “the most hated man in America.”

In the 1980s, Chicago’s trading floor was packed with loud-mouth tough guys, mountains of cocaine and a whole lot of money. Those ingredients added up to one of the biggest — and most expensive — undercover FBI investigations in history. On this episode of ‘Dirty Money’ hosts Dan Bova and Jon Small welcome guest Anjay Nagpal, who investigated the federal investigation on his hit true-crime podcast 'Brokers, Bagmen & Moles.' During the talk, Nagpal shares insights into how the Chicago...

On December 11, 1978, six armed robbers broke into JFK Airport's Lufthansa Airlines cargo terminal at 3 o'clock in the morning. A little over an hour later, they walked out with $5 million in untraceable bills (worth $22.4 million today ) and $800,000 in jewels (worth $3.6 million today.) At the time, it was the largest heist in U.S. history. And here's the really crazy part: Not a shot was fired and nobody was killed or seriously hurt (during the heist, at least.) If this sounds...

We’ve all heard of Ponzi schemes, but who was the guy they were named after? This is the amazing story of the original swindler Charles Ponzi, a dapper, five-foot-two Italian immigrant who in 1920 raked in an estimated $15 million (now $225 million) in less that year. Ponzi lured over 20,000 Bostonians to invest in his securities with promises of 50 percent profits in 45 days. Back in the day, he was a hero of people—until a newspaper brought him and his now infamous scheme crashing down.

If you’re looking for the poster boy of corporate greed, look no further than Dennis Kozlowski, the former CEO of Tyco who took excess to a whole new level. In 2005, he was arrested and served six and a half years in prison for looting nearly $100 million from his company. Records revealed that he secretly loaned tens of millions of dollars of corporate funds to executives, and forgave those loans to win their loyalty. Without board approval, he doled out millions in bonuses and used company...

The true story of Anna Delvey, the real-life swindler from Netflix's 'Inventing Anna.'

This is the story of Rose Marks, a fortuneteller who devised an elaborate scheme to steal millions from her desperate clients. Guest Tori Tefler chronicled Marks’ crimes and other dastardly deeds of female criminals in her book Confident Women. Dan and Jon take a deep dive into this story of psychic swindling and find out why female grifters can be so persuasive.

Retail Gangster' author Gary Weiss closes the circuit on a crooked discount electronics empire.