logo
episode-header-image
Jun 2024
54m 6s

The Enron Scandal Pt. 1

SPOTIFY STUDIOS
About this episode
Whether you know the full story or not, you’ve probably heard the name Enron before. In the summer of 2000, the energy company, renowned for their innovation, was on top of the world with a market value of almost $70 billion. But a year later, they filed for what was, at the time, the largest bankruptcy in American history. What happened? And why? Conspiracy ... Show More
Up next
Apr 15
The Secret Twin Study: Files Sealed Until 2065
Does nature or nurture shape who we are? Does our personality come from our genes, or the environment we live in? Countless scientific studies on the subject have been published. But one such study – a collaboration between a psychoanalyst and a New York adoption agency – was ins ... Show More
50m 59s
Apr 8
James Angleton: The Man Who Broke the CIA From the Inside
James Angleton ran counterintelligence for the CIA for 20 years. His job was to find Soviet spies hiding inside Western intelligence. He was brilliant, obsessive, and almost certainly right that the threat of a mole was real. But the hunt he launched tore the CIA apart from the i ... Show More
51m 17s
Apr 1
False Flags: The Lusitania's Sinking
In 1915, a German U-boat torpedoed the Lusitania, sinking it off the Irish coast, and killing over 1000 people. The attack devastated the American public, and justified America’s entry into World War I. But rumors of a top-secret British navy operation, the ship’s hidden second m ... Show More
51m 47s
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2024
The Enron Illusion
Enron—the seventh-largest company in the U.S.—filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 2nd December, 2001, marking the dramatic end of a business empire once hailed as unstoppable.  What once looked like a financial juggernaut turned out to be a house of cards built on illusory profit ... Show More
13m 3s
Nov 2025
America's Worst Con Man - The Barry Minkow Story
Barry Minkow was a teenage entrepreneur who founded the carpet-cleaning company ZZZZ Best in the 1980s and became a Wall Street sensation- until it was revealed to be one of the biggest Ponzi schemes of its time. Minkow fabricated fake restoration projects and used forged documen ... Show More
9m 3s
Oct 2025
How a billionaire pub baron wound up with just $3
Investors who poured millions into the Public Hospitality Group are unlikely to recoup their cash after founder Jon Adgemis declared bankruptcy. Today: how this former billionaire built - and lost - an empire. You can read more about this story, plus see photos, videos and additi ... Show More
10m 59s
Aug 2025
How it Felt Running a $700 Million Bank Fraud
In 2003, a Wall Street trader named John Rusnak was convicted of bank fraud and sentenced to more than seven years in prison. In this episode, John explains how a series of bad bets snowballed into one of the biggest white-collar crimes in US history and why he kept doubling down ... Show More
1h 3m
Aug 2024
The Greatest Scam Ever Written | 2. Psychic to the Stars
Who was Maria Duval? Her son says she had a gift, an ability to see people’s futures. She helped locate missing people and worked with the French elite, befriending Jacques Chirac and Brigitte Bardot. In the late 80s, when two businessmen approached Maria Duval with a life-changi ... Show More
38m 33s
Feb 2025
The rise and fall of Long Term Capital Management
There's this cautionary tale, in the finance world, that nearly any trader can tell you. It's about placing too much confidence in math and models. It's the story of Long Term Capital Management.The story begins back in the 90s. A group of math nerds figured out how to use a math ... Show More
27m 36s
Apr 2022
This Is What Happened to the Meme Stock Mania
Spring of 2021 was peak meme mania. GameStop was going nuts. AMC was going nuts. And in general, the big cohort of traders that entered the market in early 2020 was riding high. Since then, though, things have turned south. Volumes have dipped significantly. The memes came back t ... Show More
54m 26s