Dark Money: True Crime Finance

She sold four billion dollars worth of a cryptocurrency that had no blockchain. No coin. Just a database her company controlled. Then in two thousand and seventeen she boarded a plane in Sofia and was never seen again. Ruja Ignatova is on the FBI most wanted list. She has not been found.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside OneCoin — the largest cryptocurrency fraud in history, how a multilevel marketing structure spread it to millions of victims across Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, and why some of those victims still believe in it today.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

The employees weren't stealing for themselves. They were opening fake accounts to hit sales targets set by a management system that punished failure and rewarded numbers — real or invented. Three point five million unauthorised accounts. Fees charged to customers who had no idea they existed. And a bank that called itself a community institution while mining its own customers for quota points.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the Wells Fargo scandal — how a corporate sales culture produced fraud at industrial scale without a single mastermind, what eight is great actually meant, and why three billion dollars in fines still didn't feel like enough.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

Eleven million vehicles. Software that detected when an emissions test was running and switched into compliance mode — then switched back the moment the test ended, pumping out up to forty times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide. The defeat device was not a rogue piece of code. It was a corporate decision.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the Volkswagen emissions scandal — how one of the world's largest automakers engineered a deliberate deception of regulators across multiple countries, what thirty billion dollars in fines and settlements looks like, and what the gap between the test and the real world costs the people breathing the air.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

It underpinned three hundred and fifty trillion dollars in financial contracts worldwide — mortgages, student loans, credit cards, corporate debt. And for years, traders at major banks were manipulating it over emails that talked about champagne, favours, and being a big boy. Done.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the LIBOR scandal — how the most important benchmark in global finance was rigged by traders requesting specific numbers as personal favours, what nine billion dollars in fines actually meant for the banks involved, and why the rate that everyone used could not be trusted.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

In private emails, Angelo Mozilo described some of his own mortgage products as toxic. As the most dangerous product in existence. He kept selling them anyway — to millions of American homeowners and to the investors who bought securities backed by those loans. Nobody told those investors what the CEO was writing in private.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Countrywide Financial — how America's largest mortgage lender built its business on products its own founder privately knew were dangerous, what the emails proved, and why nobody went to prison while millions of Americans lost their homes.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

Over one thousand banks failed. The bailout cost taxpayers one hundred and sixty-four billion dollars. More than a thousand industry insiders were convicted and sent to prison. It was the largest fraud wave in American financial history — and most people today cannot name a single person involved.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the savings and loan crisis — how deregulation and deposit insurance created a perfect incentive for looting, what Charles Keating did with Lincoln Savings, how five US senators got caught in the middle, and why the lessons were forgotten in time for two thousand and eight to be even worse.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.

For nearly twenty years, Russell Wasendorf Senior intercepted letters from his bank, altered the balance figures in Photoshop, and submitted the forged documents to regulators as genuine. Two hundred and fifteen million dollars in client funds was missing. When electronic verification finally bypassed his post office box, he drove to the company car park and wrote a confession.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Peregrine Financial Group — one of the most methodical one-man frauds in American regulatory history, the scanner and the Photoshop subscription that made it possible, and the note that ended it.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

John Rigas built Adelphia Communications over fifty years from a single cable franchise into one of America's largest companies. Then it emerged that he and his sons had been treating it as a personal bank account — two point three billion dollars borrowed, a golf course built, a town that had built its economy around a family now watching that family led away in handcuffs.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Adelphia — the family fraud that destroyed a cable empire, sent a seventy-eight year old founder to federal prison, and became one of the defining corporate scandals of the summer of two thousand and two.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

He was one of the most successful hedge fund managers in the world. He was also, according to federal prosecutors, the centre of the most extensive insider trading network in Wall Street history. And the FBI had it all on tape.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the Galleon Group investigation — how the FBI applied wiretap techniques from organised crime prosecutions to financial crime for the first time, what the recordings revealed, and how twenty-one people including a Goldman Sachs board member and a McKinsey partner were convicted alongside Raj Rajaratnam.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

Two Nobel Prize winners. A team of the most mathematically gifted traders in the world. A model that was supposed to be infallible. And leverage ratios so extreme that when Russia defaulted on its debt in 1998, the entire global financial system came within days of seizing up.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Long-Term Capital Management — how a hedge fund built on genius and certainty accumulated one hundred and twenty-five billion dollars in exposure, how the Federal Reserve organised a private sector bailout in a single weekend, and what happens when the smartest people in the room are wrong all at once.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

Goldman Sachs CEO. US Senator. Governor of New Jersey. Jon Corzine had one of the most impressive resumes in American finance and politics. Then he ran a commodities brokerage, made a catastrophic bet on European debt, and one point six billion dollars in customer funds went missing.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the collapse of MF Global — how customer accounts that were legally untouchable were used to meet margin calls, why farmers and small traders couldn't access their money for years, and how nobody went to prison.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

It survived the Civil War, two World Wars, and the Great Depression. It took a single accounting manoeuvre — used deliberately, repeatedly, and with full knowledge of senior management — to bring it down in a weekend. Repo 105 was not a rogue trade. It was a decision.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the collapse of Lehman Brothers — how fifty billion dollars was temporarily removed from the balance sheet each quarter to make the firm look healthier than it was, what the auditors signed off on, and why the failure of one bank cost the global economy twenty-two trillion dollars.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

He didn't wait to be caught. On January the seventh, two thousand and nine, the chairman of one of India's largest technology companies wrote a letter to his board admitting he had falsified accounts for years. No charges. No arrest. Just a letter. This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the Satyam scandal how one point four billion dollars in cash that didn't exist nearly destroyed India's technology sector, and why Ramalinga Raju decided to confess before anyone asked. Subscribe for new episodes daily

Every CFO he hired eventually went to prison. Richard Scrushy ran America's largest rehabilitation hospital company, hosted a Christian television programme, and presided over a two point seven billion dollar accounting fraud that required the active participation of his entire finance department. This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside HealthSouth the fraud, the acquittal that shocked prosecutors, and the conviction that finally followed. Subscribe for new episodes daily

It put milk in a billion homes across thirty countries. It sponsored Formula One. It was one of Italy's most beloved brands. And underneath the red and white carton was a fourteen billion euro accounting fraud held together, at the end, by a forged letter from a bank that confirmed it had sent no such letter. This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Parmalat Europe's Enron, and the fraud that wiped out the savings of thousands of ordinary Italian investors. Subscribe for new episodes daily

He was fifteen when he started it in his parents' garage. He was twenty when he rang the opening bell on Wall Street. Barry Minkow built ZZZZ Best into a two hundred and eighty million dollar public company with almost no real revenue, a completely fabricated business line, and an auditor he took on a tour of a building he didn't own. This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the most audacious teenage fraud in stock market history. Subscribe for new episodes every daily

A tiny Canadian penny stock. A remote jungle in Borneo. Two hundred million ounces of gold that would have been the largest deposit ever found. And a geologist who fell from a helicopter four days before the whole thing unravelled. This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Bre-X Minerals the greatest mining fraud in history, the salted core samples that fooled the world, and the death that has never been fully explained. Subscribe for new episodes every daily

Four hundred million dollars. A six thousand dollar shower curtain. A two million dollar birthday party with an ice sculpture that dispensed vodka. Dennis Kozlowski ran one of America's largest conglomerates and treated it as his personal bank account. This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Tyco International and the systematic corporate looting that turned a celebrated CEO into a convicted felon. Subscribe for new episodes daily

Germany's most celebrated fintech company. A DAX-listed giant worth twenty-four billion euros. Audited by Ernst and Young. And one point nine billion euros on its balance sheet that simply did not exist. This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Wirecard how journalists and short sellers spent years raising alarms while regulators investigated the people asking questions instead of the company, and how the COO disappeared and has not been found since. Subscribe for new episodes daily

He had a knighthood, a cricket tournament, and a Caribbean banking empire. Allen Stanford was one of the most celebrated financiers in the Americas until the SEC finally acted on warnings it had been receiving for over a decade, and the seven billion dollar fraud underneath it all was exposed. This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Stanford Financial Group —the offshore Ponzi scheme that targeted Latin American savers and the regulatory failure that let it run for years. Subscribe for new episodes daily

He wasn't a government official. He had no formal role, but Jho Low controlled everything and used a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund to throw celebrity birthday parties, buy superyachts, and fund Hollywood films while four and a half billion dollars meant for the Malaysian public disappeared. This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance follows the 1MDB scandal from Kuala Lumpur to the Bahamas, through Goldman Sachs, and all the way to a Mediterranean superyacht. We examine how grand corruption operates at a national scale and who helps it happen. Subscribe for new episodes daily

The movie made almost five hundred million dollars. The victims received about twenty-five cents for every dollar stolen from them. Jordan Belfort is still on the speaking circuit.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the real Stratton Oakmont — the Long Island boiler room that defrauded fifteen hundred ordinary Americans of over two hundred million dollars through pump and dump penny stock schemes. We follow the FBI investigation, the cooperation deal, the sentence, and the second career built on the back of the crime. And we ask the question the movie never did — what happened to the people he stole from?Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new 

He arrived in America with two dollars and fifty cents. He invented a financial crime so perfectly replicable that over a century later it still carries his name. And he died in a charity hospital in Brazil with seventy-five dollars to his name.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes back to the original — Charles Ponzi, the international reply coupon scheme, and the summer of nineteen twenty when a line of investors stretched around the block in Boston to hand over their savings. We examine why his scheme still works in identical form a hundred years later and what it says about the oldest weakness in human financial behaviour.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes daily

It was the largest accounting fraud in American history. And it was uncovered not by the SEC, not by Wall Street analysts, not by the auditors — but by a vice president of internal audit working alone at night after hours because she couldn't look the other way.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside WorldCom — how CEO Bernie Ebbers and CFO Scott Sullivan hid eleven billion dollars in fraudulent expenses, how seventeen thousand employees lost their jobs and their retirement savings, and how Cynthia Cooper's decision to keep digging changed American corporate law forever.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.

It had survived the Napoleonic Wars, two World Wars, and the Great Depression. It took one twenty-eight year old trader with a secret account and a bad bet on the Kobe earthquake to bring it down in a single weekend.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the collapse of Barings Bank and the story of Nick Leeson — how account eighty-eight-eight-eight hid losses for nearly three years, how the Kobe earthquake triggered the final spiral, and why Britain's oldest merchant bank was sold for a single pound. We examine the catastrophic oversight failures that made the whole thing possible.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.

He testified before Congress. He donated hundreds of millions to charity. He was on the cover of Forbes. And he stole eight billion dollars from the customers who trusted him with their money.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the collapse of FTX and the rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried — how the world's second-largest crypto exchange evaporated in seventy-two hours, why customer funds were being used to fund a competing trading firm, and what effective altruism has to do with one of the largest financial frauds in American history.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.

She dropped out of Stanford at nineteen. She raised nine billion dollars. She put her blood testing machines into Walgreens stores across America. And the machines didn't work.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes — Silicon Valley's most audacious fraud. We follow the story from the founding myth to the fake Edison machine to the Wall Street Journal investigation that unravelled everything, and examine the patients who made real medical decisions based on test results that were never accurate.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.

Fortune Magazine named Enron America's most innovative company six years in a row. Its CEO was on the covers of business magazines. Its stock hit ninety dollars a share. And almost none of it was real.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside Enron — the Houston energy giant that used mark-to-market accounting and hundreds of fake offshore entities to inflate profits by eleven billion dollars. We follow the money from Jeffrey Skilling's arrival to Andy Fastow's shadow empire to the morning twenty thousand employees showed up for work and found out their retirement savings were gone.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.

He was a former chairman of NASDAQ. Senators had dinner with him. Charities trusted him with their entire endowments. For forty years, Bernie Madoff ran the largest investment fraud in human history — and nobody who could stop it did anything about it.This episode of Dark Money: True Crime Finance goes inside the Madoff Ponzi scheme from the ground up. How sixty-five billion dollars vanished, how one analyst spent nine years filing warnings with the SEC and was ignored every time, and how a single week in 2008 brought the whole thing down. We follow the money, name the victims, and examine the psychology of the most audacious fraudster who ever lived.Subscribe to Dark Money: True Crime Finance for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday. If you're fascinated by financial crime, corporate fraud, and the psychology of greed — this is your show.