The Saga of Silk Road

Before Facebook and MySpace, before even Friendster, there was SixDegrees. Dive in today to learn about the first social media site, that was a few years too early.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

8 tracks were during vinyl, but preceded cassettes. Why? So people could listen to their music on the go. Check out this antiquated medium today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the most famous fictional character in the world, and for good reason. More than a hundred years on, Arthur Conan Doyle’s 60 Holmes stories are still in print and he is the most portrayed human literary character in history.See omnystudio.com/listener f ... Show More

From a young age, Marcus Hutchins had a preternatural talent for code. As his online renown grew, he found himself at a series of ethical crossroads— and always on the right side of the law. Yet everything changed in 2017, when a US-created weapon went public: he was the only one ... Show More

With Ross Ulbricht now a free man thanks to his recent presidential pardon we thought it would a good idea to look back at who he is, what he did, and what he represented as "The Dread Pirate Roberts". So enjoy our episode from all the way back in March 2023 for some all importan ... Show More

China's Belt and Road Initiative stretches physically with infrastructure projects across the globe, but there is one initiative that is the most ambitious yet - The Space Silk Road. The space race is heating up with new entrants like India and private companies like SpaceX, but ... Show More

History's largest credit card merger looms on the horizon. Commentary on not-quite-space and a celebrity named Katy Perry. Ben takes the crew around the globe to learn more about wildlife piracy, the horrors of Kenyan cults, and the fascinating web of fentanyl, casinos, China and ... Show More

Modern-day Myanmar remains home to a unique cultural heritage and stunning natural beauty -- yet today it's also home to a wide range of deeply disturbing conspiracies and crimes. In part two of this special two-part series, Ben and Matt explore the booming criminal industries of ... Show More

Pablo Escobar is a household name, known for his reign of terror in Colombia’s cocaine wars. But it wasn’t always that way. The leader of one of the world’s most infamous drug cartels fought his way to the top throughout the 1970s and 80s. Escobar’s Medellin cartel was determined ... Show More

In this episode, we delve into the bizarre world of William Banks to unravel how he blurred the lines between performance and reality, tricked the internet into thinking he was in prison, and the ethics of lying for a good cause. 

President Donald Trump pardoned Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht and launched his own memecoin, signaling a new attitude toward cryptocurrency in his second term.This episode was produced by Amanda Lewellyn and Peter Balonon-Rosen, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bu ... Show More

The ultimate cringey crypto couple has fessed up to their crimes and are now testifying against other con artists. We’re looking back on how Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather “Razzlekahn” Morgan hacked a major cryptocurrency exchange in the summer of 2016 and ran off with billions of ... Show More