Lie, Cheat, & Steal

Kath tells Pat about a man who's rise as a South American drug kingpin was stunted by - but possibly also originated from - his childhood dream of being a soccer star.

series exploring the industries that sell men on masculine identity. This first episode covers the phenomenon of oversized trucks that have ballooned in size over the decades…to the detriment of roads, pedestrians, and the environment. For two more episodes every month, join our patreon at patreon.com/liecheatandsteal!

Kath tells Pat about a Boston area woman who pulled a real life version of Billy Madison - posing as a high school student at public schools while living a double life. A lot of the stuff in this episode comes from reporting in the Boston Globe by Patricia Wen. Read her first article about Hewitt here. To hear this full episode and get access to all of our 100+ bonus episodes, visit patreon.com/li...

Kath tells Pat about Vlad Artamonov, the Harvard Business School graduate who used his prestigious alumni network to scam other high powered finance guys out of millions of dollars.

Since Rita Crundwell is back in the news after being pardoned by Joe Biden, we thought we'd rerelease this episode from way back in 2017 when we first covered the story of the woman who stole millions from a small town government to fund her ambitions as a horse breeder.

Since it's topical, we decided to drop this episode a day early. Pat dives into the sordid history of United Healthcare, which helps explain why the shooting of Brian Thompson had about 100 million suspects.  For the full episode, subscribe at patreon.com/liecheatandsteal!

Our pal Jack Frazee comes by to offer a legal perspective on some of Texas History's wildest bribery scandals, and how they've shaped the state's modern laws.

Kath tells Pat about an unlikely duo who pulled off a scam raking in hunreds of millions of dollars: a polygamist Mormon and an Armenian gangster team up to scam the heavily subsidized renewable energy market. Much of the info in this episode was taken from a 2021 Wired Article called "The Lion, The Polygamist, ad the Biofuel Scam" by Vince Beiser. You can read it here: https://www.wired.com/story...

Pat's laptop got stolen so we're wheeling the VCR into the classroom for another roundup of recent tales of liars, frauds, thieves, and bullshitters.

Pat tells Kath about the Besa Mafia, an organization purporting to offer kill-for-hire services on the dark web, who were discovered by tech journalist Carl Miller of "The Kill List" podcast. check out The Kill List for more in depth reporting on this story.

Kath tells Pat about Dave Pelzer, author of a Child Called It, and his potentially dubious history. This episode is unusual because we're not quite sure what Pelzer has lied about, but we know at least a few things seem off.

Kath tells Pat about a miracle gadget that piqued the interest of crowdfunding investors on kickstarter and indiegogo, despite no evidence that a single prototype was ever produced.

Pat tells Kath about one of the messiest people we've ever discussed - Robert Konashewych, a Toronto cop who resorted to drastic measures to get out of debt while trying to hide an affair.

Kath tells Pat about Albert Rosenberg, a man who had many of Toronto's elite fooled into believing he was a fellow power broker in the city's wealthiest neighborhood. Be sure to check out the documentary, The Talented Mr Rosenberg, produced by Courtney Shea, who wrote the Toronto Life article from which much of this story comes.

Kath tells Pat about coaching, an industry undergoing a surge of popularity, and the pyramid scheme-like ways that opportunistic "coaches" take advantage of it. Listen to the full episode at patreon.com/liecheatandsteal!

Pat tells Kath about a crematory operator in the rural south who offered deep discounts to funeral homes to burn their bodies - how'd he do it so cheaply? he never burned them at all.

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.