14 Must-Listen Podcasts About Scams

Find eye-opening true-crime stories and tips for avoiding fraud

Nicholas DeRenzo,

AARP

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En español

Published October 27, 2022

/ Updated September 13, 2024

The Binge by Sony Podcasts/ Tortoise Media /Lionsgate Sounds/ Earwolf: A Stitcher Network

These days liars and con artists are popular fodder for documentaries, TV shows, blockbuster movies and best-selling books, but they’re a particularly ripe subject for podcasts, which allow for high-level investigative reporting and in-depth storytelling. Here we highlight 14 must-listen podcasts — including AARP’s The Perfect Scam — that feature shocking stories of truly reprehensible criminals, as well as valuable lessons on how you can lower your risk of becoming a fraud victim.

Sweet Bobby

In this gripping investigative series from Tortoise Media, reporter and host Alexi Mostrous uncovers the story of Kirat Assi, a London-based radio presenter who got wrapped up in a nearly decade-long case of catfishing. For years, she was deceived by a scammer who pretended to be a handsome cardiologist named Bobby and who invented up to 60 other characters to cement the ruse. The victim eventually started a friendship by phone and text, then it grew into love — but somehow Bobby was never able to meet with her in person. Get ready to be shocked when you find out who Bobby really was. Netflix is now working on a docuseries based on the podcast that will be called Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare.

The Perfect Scam

With 200 episodes and counting, AARP’s weekly podcast The Perfect Scam shines a light on the very real schemes that affect millions of Americans every year, host Bob Sullivan focuses on the everyday people who have been victimized, allowing listeners to get to know them as they tell their own stories. Among the most absorbing is a two-part story featuring journalist Benita Alexander, who was swept off her feet by a renowned surgeon and was in the midst of planning their lavish wedding when she discovered that he was a complete fraud (episodes 131 and 132).

Scamanda

Amanda Christine Riley was a twentysomething Christian mommy blogger when she announced that she’d been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and started a blog called “Lymphoma Can Suck It” to document her progress and raise more than $100,000 to pay for her treatments. The problem? She lied about the whole thing! In this eight-episode podcast from Lionsgate Sound, which ranked as the most-shared show on Apple Podcasts in 2023, journalist Charlie Webster breaks down the years of fraud that led a young mom to break bad. Soon you can also check out a four-part docuseries on the scam, premiering on October 9 on ABC, and streaming the next day on Hulu.

The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam

A coproduction of the BBC World Service and the CBC, this detailed nine-part series pulls back the curtain on one of the biggest gold-mining scams in history. In 1995, a Canadian mining company called Bre-X announced that it had discovered massive deposits of gold deep in the Indonesian jungle, and they quickly lined up investors. But when the company’s chief geologist died under suspicious circumstances after falling from a helicopter, the whole scheme came crashing down, and those investors lost their savings. In search of the truth, Suzanne Wilton traveled to Borneo, the Philippines and even a small town in Alberta, Canada, that got swept up in the excitement of the gold rush.

Believe in Magic

Is there anything worse than scamming kids? How about scamming seriously ill ones? In this new 7-episode BBC podcast series, Jamie Bartlett, host of The Missing Cryptoqueen (see below), tells the story of Megan Bhari, a 16-year-old girl who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor but creates an inspiring charity, Believe in Magic, that helps out other kids with cancer. It got so much attention that the boy band One Direction and Prime Minister David Cameron took notice. When amateur sleuths begin to suspect that Megan was not actually sick, they hired a private detective to do some digging and uncovered many shocking truths. The end result proves to be much darker, twistier and sadder than you might first imagine.

The Grift

If you like your podcasts more bite-size than long-format, you’ll enjoy this 2017 anthology series by New Yorker writer Maria Konnikova. In each self-contained episode, she introduces a new con artist or grifter, such as “Fast Jack” Farrell, a card shark who cheated John Wayne and Frank Sinatra; Cassie Chadwick, an infamous Gilded Age seductress who impersonated high-society royalty; and Ken Perenyi, a self-taught art forger. In under an hour, or sometimes less than 40 minutes, you’ll get a zippy account of a stunning crime.

Chameleon: Scam Likely

Have you ever received a phone call from an unknown number marked “Scam Likely” on your caller ID? In the Campside Media podcast Chameleon: Scam Likely, investigative journalist Yudhijit Bhattacharjee dives deep into the criminal underworld behind one of the biggest call center scams of all time, responsible for stealing more than $300 million from tens of thousands of victims. Follow along as a team of government investigators traces the multinational schemers from suburban Texas to India. If you’re as engrossed as we were, check out previous seasons, including Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen, about a criminal who stole money from entertainment industry gig workers who paid upfront fees for travel to film and television projects that didn’t exist.

Scam Goddess

Perhaps the most lighthearted entry on this list, the Webby Award–winning podcast Scam Goddess is hosted by actress and comedian Laci Mosley, who’s best known as a cast member on HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show. Each episode is dedicated to a historic or contemporary scammer, and Mosley is joined by such hilarious guests as Nailed It! host Nicole Byer, The Bear breakout star Ayo Edebiri and Conan O’Brien (the show is produced by his podcast company). If you listen, you can even call yourself a member of the “Con-gregation” — the official name of the show’s followers. (Hey, whatever it takes to make more people aware of scams.)

The Missing Cryptoqueen

Think the concept of cryptocurrency is a bit confusing? So do we! In 2014, Bulgarian-German fraudster Ruja Ignatova banked on that inscrutability when she founded OneCoin, which she pitched as a bigger, better Bitcoin. Within two years, more than 3 million people had joined as part of a cultish recruitment program, before Ignatova disappeared without a trace. OneCoin ended up being a pyramid scheme, and the founder was later placed on the FBI’s most wanted list. BBC Sounds host Jamie Bartlett kicked off a hunt for the still-missing criminal, described in his podcast, and turned his reporting into a book of the same name that came out in 2022.

Scamfluencers

Since debuting Scamfluencers in 2022, hosts Scaachi Koul and Sarah Hagi have explored the intersection between social media and the wild tales of infamous scammers from the worlds of fashion, finance, health, wellness and beyond. Subjects have included the fake Saudi prince, Anthony Gignac; Tom Brady’s “body coach” Alex Guerrero; and even Jen Shah, a member of the cast of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, who was arrested for federal crimes, including conspiracy to commit money laundering. “I think people like injecting themselves into those stories,” Hagi has said. “It could really happen to anyone, and I think there’s something very captivating about that.”

The Shrink Next Door

The true-crime podcast The Shrink Next Door from Wondery and Bloomberg follows the exploits of unscrupulous psychiatrist Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf, whom host and veteran journalist Joe Nocera met shortly after buying a home in the Hamptons. Following a party at what he thought was Herschkopf’s house next door, he began scratching beneath the surface and found that the therapist had a startling amount of control over Nocera’s real neighbor, his patient Marty Markowitz. Soon, Nocera was unraveling a sordid tale of emotional manipulation and financial exploitation. Apple TV turned the story into a black comedy starring Paul Rudd and Will Ferrell as Herschkopf and Markowitz.

The Dropout

Arguably the most infamous scammer of the past decade, Elizabeth Holmes promised to revolutionize the medical industry with her company Theranos, which claimed to be able to diagnose a myriad of diseases with a drop of blood. The company was valued at $9 billion, and Forbes called her the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. The only problem? The technology didn’t work. Produced by ABC News and hosted by Rebecca Jarvis, The Dropout includes interviews with investors and former employees, plus snippets of deposition tapes. And it kicked off a frenzy of Holmes content including a TV drama starring Amanda Seyfried, who won an Emmy for the titular role.

Fraudsters

Hosts Seena Ghaznavi and Justin Williams describe Fraudsters, another lighthearted take on the theme, as “an all-you-can-eat buffet of liars, cheaters and scammers.” They’ve covered everyone from Rick Singer, the mastermind behind the college admissions scandal, to Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who infamously pretended to be Black, to the big man himself, Charles Ponzi. And you’re in very good hands with this hosting duo: Ghaznavi is a comedian, director and nonpracticing lawyer, and Williams does stand-up comedy while also teaching history at the City College of New York.

Queen of the Con

This iHeartMedia podcast was born when Hollywood producer Johnathan Walton befriended his neighbor, Marianne “Mair” Smyth, who told him she was an Irish heiress and needed money to get out of a dramatic inheritance battle. After Walton gave her nearly $70,000, he began looking into her background and found that Smyth had similarly stolen from dozens of other victims. (Smyth, an American in her 50s, served prison time in the U.S., and was recently extradited to Northern Ireland to face charges there.) For the upcoming sixth season, Walton focuses on a Southern California criminal mastermind named Michelle Mack, who sends out a team of 12 women (a.ka “The California Girls”) to steal merchandise which she then resells on Amazon for millions of dollars. All the while, she lived in a mansion so lavish that she rented it out for weddings — until authorities caught on to her fraud.

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Nicholas DeRenzo is a contributing writer who covers entertainment and travel. Previously he was executive editor of United Airlines’ Hemispheres magazine and his work has appeared in the New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel & Leisure, Sunset and New York magazine.