Why Do We Let Ourselves Get Scammed?

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 writes, the consequences of living a life without any consequences.

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, thanks to a recent discovery, says he is on the verge of a breakthrough in revealing Cooper’s true identity. All he needs is a little cooperation with the FBI, which he is suing the agency to get. In this episode, we speak with Ulis to get the amazing story of this daring and dangerous heist and delve into the modern detective tactics he is using to put some heat on this cold case. Ulis has made some incredible discoveries that could, at last, reveal the identity of the hijacker — all he needs now is for the Feds to give him access to a clip-on tie, one of the few pieces of evidence Cooper left behind when he jumped out of that plane. Whether you’re fascinated by historical crimes or fascinated by modern detective work, we can guarantee this: you will be fascinated by this episode! Thanks as always for listening. Please rate and review us, and if you want to learn even more about D.B. Cooper, be sure to check out Kevin Ulis’s CooperCon events.

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 part: He never stole all this art to make a profit. He kept all of his stolen treasures in a pair of secret rooms where he could admire them. And if it weren’t for one stupid slip-up, he’d probably still be stealing art today. Our guest, Michael Finkel, has written a book about Breitwieser called The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession, which he wrote after conducting a series of interviews with the sticky-fingered Frenchman. Listen in to learn how he pulled off these scams in broad daylight without raising a ruckus, or even his voice.

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 watching his crypto millions disappear before his eyes, launched a tireless campaign to find and punish the criminals who did it. The twists and turns of this story will leave your head spinning, and make you think about ditching your smartphone for a flip phone. Or better yet, a landline. And a word to the wise? Never get in business with someone nicknamed "Baby Al Capone." Also, if you are in a crypto crime syndicate called Community? Your fellow criminals might be your worst enemies.

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 never happen to me,” but as Chabris explains, these fraudsters are experts at finding weaknesses and exploiting them. He provides a checklist of red flags to help you decipher phony financial opportunities from real ones. This is an episode you do not want to miss!