Lie, Cheat, & Steal

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!

This episode was originally recorded in summer of 2020 for our patreon feed (patreon.com/liecheatandsteal), but we thought we should repost it publicly since Shaun King is up to his old tricks again, this time in the name of Palestine rather than in the name of Black Lives Matter. This episode isn't updated with all of his recent antics, and the sound quality isn't as good as our usual epi...

Kath and Pat talk about sobriety (don't worry, we won't try to convert you) and then about Charlie Morse, a man who leveraged his Maine upbringing into a monopoly on a precious commodity in a pre-refrigeration world: ice.

This is a preview of our patreon only episode this week, about a country that went from being one of the richest on earth per capita to one of the poorest. To access the rest of this episode as well as an advertising free feed, sign up at patreon.com/liecheatandsteal.

After some gambling talk, Pat tells Kath about an enterprising pickleball player who scammed his fellow enthusaists (don't worry, he also explains what pickleball is). Check out our patreon for two more episodes a month! www.patreon.com/liecheatandsteal

At an episode recorded in person (!) in Austin, Kath tells Pat about Lord Gordon Gordon, a would-be Scottish noble who nearly caused an international incident between the US and Canada in the 1870s.

Pat and Zac conclude our series on Texas gamblers with the tale of Benny Binion. Check out our youtube page to watch the dice game! Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@liecheatstealpodcast

Kath tells Pat about the extremely profitable world of animal smuggling. The judicial penalties are low, but don't try this at home - the criminal organizations involved in this industry might come after you for muscling in on their territory.

Our pal Zac Brooks is back to tell us about the life and times of another legendary Texas outlaw gambler, Amarillo Slim.

Pat and Kath discuss how to win on "baited hook" scratch tickets, using an algorithmic disovery made in 2003 by Canadian statistician Mohan Srivastava, and possibly many others around North America. Much of the information in this episode comes from the 2011 Wired Article by Jonah Lehrer about Srivastava's discovery: https://www.wired.com/2011/01/cracking-the-scratch-lottery-code/