Lie, Cheat, & Steal

A lot has been going on in the scam world lately so we are back with another roundup! Listen to the full episode at patreon.com/liecheatandsteal.

Kath tells Pat about a recent story involving a community of disability advocates working in video games, several of whom may not exist.

Kath tells Pat about how a small school dedicated to training artists for the ad industry metastasized into one of San Francisco's largest landowners and bilked aspiring artists out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Pat and Kath talk upcoming vacations, near death experiences, and a roundup of recent stories from the world of liars, frauds, thieves and bullshitters.

Kath tells Pat about a Canadian woman who scammed dozens of doulas with a fake pregnancy sob story. Hear the full episode on our patreon at patreon.com/liecheatandsteal!

Kath tells Pat about the Mirai Botnet, supercharged form malware that caused such disastrous denial of service attacks that it managed to bring down internet service for the entire US eastern seaboard in 2016. Was this the work of a foreign actor, hoping to influence a crucial US election? The truth is even weirder.

Kath tells Pat about airbnb scams, and we explore a former real estate broker's illegal airbnb empire in New York City that netted tens of millions of dollars before getting busted.

Pat tells Kath about Carl Rinsch, a rookie director hired by netflix during the peak of the streaming wars to make a sci fi blockbuster series. What happened next is a wild ride involving cryptocurrency, vyvanse, Keanu Reeves, and 60 million dollars down the drain.

We're back! Pat brings us the rise and fall of a proposed libertarian, bitcoin-run, agrarian utopia in Chile called Galt's Gulch.

Kath tells Pat the strange tale of Arlan Galbraith, a Canadian farmer and pigeon racer who enlisted the Amish and Mennonite communities in a pigeon breeding ponzi scheme that resulted not just in exorbitant sums of money, but also in tens of thousands of pigeons.

Kath tells Pat about Bill Benter, the man who used math to successfully bet on a game that was previously considered to be impossible to statistically predict: horse racing. Listen to the full episode at patreon.com/liecheatandsteal!

Pat tells Kath the frustrating saga of Red Lobster, the universally beloved seafood franchise restaurant that fell prey to venture capital and is suffering the consequences.

Pat tells Kath about the world of counterfeit currency, and brings us a historical counterfeiting case that ensnared Sir Isaac Newton. Listen to the full episode at patreon.com/liecheatandsteal!

Pat and Kath discuss The Cut's recent article about Matthew Bergwall, a Miami college student who briefly became an incredibly prolific refund scammer - a brand new form of scamming enabled by internet retailers' lax return policies.

Kath tells Pat about the rise and fall of moviepass - a company that began with modest aims made an investment deal with the devil that eventually led to disaster - but not before we all got some free movie tickets out of it. To hear the rest of this episode as well as ad-free versions of our free episodes, check out our patreon at patreon.com/liecheatandsteal!

Pat tells Kath about the history of Boeing's shady practices that led to the grounding of their 737 Max planes and the Alaska airlines incident earlier this year.

Kath tells Pat about a recent case of identity theft that spanned over 30 years, and in which law enforcement prosecuted the victim as the perpetrator. Listen to the full version of this episode, as well as 100+ other bonus episodes and ad free versions of our show on our patreon! www.patreon.com/liecheatandsteal

Our special guest, professional freak and carnival performer Erik Sprague (aka The Lizardman), tells Pat and Kath all about the scams and tricks the carnival uses to take our money and keep us entertained, from an insider's point of view.

While researching cash heists, Pat stumbles across the long legacy of lying, fraud, thievery and bullshit at GardaWorld, a company to which many American banks have outsourced their securities storage. Listen to the full version of this episode, as well as 100+ other bonus episodes and ad free versions of our show on our patreon! www.patreon.com/liecheatandsteal

Kath tells Pat about the various scandals of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including its connections to art thieves and traffickers, and its history of displaying counterfeit artifacts.

Kath tells Pat about social media self help superstar Jay Shetty, who's amazing life story took him from an ashram to the white house.... maybe.

Kath tells Pat about Brian Molony, on whom the Philip Seymour Hoffman movie Owning Mahowny is based. Brian is a Canadian gambling addict who lost so much money he managed to get the biggest casino in Atlantic City shut down for a day.

Pat tells Kath about how an auto mechanic with a checkered past capitalized on environmental tax incentives to perpetrate one of the biggest ponzi schemes in American history.

Pat brings us another scam roundup, including updates on Chiefsaholic, George Santos, the Kia Boys, and a number of new up and coming scammers. 

Kath tells Pat about Jalisco New Generation, a Mexican drug cartel with a new line of revenue: scamming timeshare owners over the phone. For the full episode, check out our patreon at patreon.com/liecheatandsteal!