Episode 52: An Exploration of the Enron Case with Seena Ghaznavi and Justin Williams
On this week's episode of The Investigation Game Podcast we talk with Seena Ghaznavi and Justin Williams about their Podcast as well as their show's current focus, Enron. Their podcast, Fraudsters, covers all types of fraud on their show across several different industries. On this episode we discuss their deep dive into Enron.
Seena is a producer/non-practicing lawyer and Justin is a professor of history at CUNY. Both are comedians and podcast hosts of Fraudsters.
Listen to their show: https://open.spotify.com/show/7KI5zSFWSHoUEewwF40PtO
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Transcript:
Intro (00:01):
Welcome to the investigation game podcast brought to you by Workman forensics.
Leah (00:08):
Welcome to the investigation game podcast. I'm Leah Wietholter, CEO of Workman forensics in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Joining me today are Seena Ghaznavi and Justin Williams. They're both comedians and hosts of the podcast, fraudsters it's on Spotify and it's an hour long comedic true crime episode and mini series on all kinds of frauds, like Barry Minko and Kevin Trudeau. Seena is as a producer non-practicing lawyer and Justin as a professor of history at the city university of New York. Thank you for joining me today, Seena and Justin.
Seena (00:36):
Great to be here.
Justin (00:37):
Thank you for having us. This is awesome.
Leah (00:39):
Well, today we're going to discuss your most recent episodes about Enron, but before we get started, I'm really curious what inspired the two of you to create a podcast about frauds and fraudsters?
Seena (00:51):
Uh, Justin, do you want me to take that.
Justin (00:53):
Yeah you should take that one.
Seena (00:55):
Um, you know, I was actually reading a story in Bloomberg about the cannabis bubble that someone was saying this happening right now. And they said that it was an absurd thing. There's a lot of fraud. People are making things up almost like the nineties, when someone said that they cured aids and the company was called unit prime and the stock price jumped 1200%. And I saw that line and I said, what, what that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life? I, why is this not more well known? And I looked it up and I looked into it, and then it was all almost one of those things where once you see a blue car and all you see are blue cars. And all I saw was fraud after that.
Seena (01:37):
And finding out that someone had actually said they cured aids and had gotten far enough to get a publicly traded company to share that via a bunch of press releases. And then their stock price did jump 1200%. It only lasted a month and they did get dinged, but they didn't go to jail or anything like that. I mean, it was just, it's just a very, very nice letter from the sec. Um, but yeah, so we we're we're, uh, that's like, that was like the impetus of the show. And then our buddies are at the last podcast network. I was talking to them about it and they were like, why don't you just do the show with us? And so, uh, Justin and I have been, uh, kind of like partners in hosting on live radio for a long time now. And so it was like, you know, the easiest decision ever to tag team this thing again.
Leah (02:22):
Yeah. Awesome. And like really good timing too. I feel like because of all the gamestop stock stuff and wall street bets, and I just feel like more people are paying attention to these types of things, especially the types of frauds that you seem to be covering on your podcast. So really, really great timing. I think.
Seena (02:36):
Yeah. The thesis of the show is like, um, you know, have you taken advantage of vulnerable people financially? If so, then you're a fraudster that's going to end up on our show.
Leah (02:46):
Yeah. Nice. I like it. You know, one of my favorite cases that I got to work, uh, when I was working with FBI as a student, was on a pump and dump scheme. And I just still find that one, like so interesting, you know, that all of this fake marketing went out and it was just in those penny stocks, right. So all this fake marketing goes out and then all these people invest and then it was an attorney and accountant, a marketer and something else. And then now we're seeing it in like, um, conservation easements, like trying to sell like really wealthy people on, um, you know, Hey, you can have this conservation easement and have this tax shelter and all this stuff. So like really educated professionals and people that are supposed to have these professional ethics are now, you know, kind of running to me, it feels the same as a pump and dump that cause you've got all those same types of people. Um, and anyway, so that's sort of my fascinate, right?
Seena (03:42):
You're a professional fraud examiner. Are you ever surprised by any of these things anymore?
Leah (03:47):
No
Justin (03:47):
What's the worst scam you've ever seen where like, even though, you know, you can see how like, where you're just like, oh man, I really can't believe anybody fell for this one.
Leah (03:55):
That's a good question. Um, you know, they're like the most simple, and I think this is what a lot of fraud examiners actually investigate are just embezzlements within small businesses or within the states and trust. I mean, it's just that element of trust that just blind somebody. Um, and then, you know, this person has been working with them for however many years. The ACFE says you're like the life of a occupational fraud scheme is like 18 months, usually no minor, like 4, 5, 10 years. Like, uh, you know, so you're in the light millions of dollars of losses to these small companies or even to like a states and trust. I mean, it just happens over a long time. So.
Seena (04:34):
That's the thing we've noticed in the show too, is how long some of these fraudsters, like, even like a Jim Baker, right? Uh, how long they've been able to put up the con for where it's, it's almost like it's happening for so long, that reality isn't reality anymore. It's their reality that they've created and to actually attack them and say that what they're doing is fraudulent is truly an attack. We are attacking who they are and everything, everything they stand for.
Leah (05:03):
Yeah. I have you guys, um, like looked at the ACFS fraud triangle or like they are the ones that talk about it the most, but I think that it's possible and I've never really talked about this with anybody, but the longer of fraud scheme goes on. I think the more like solid that rationalization piece becomes. So then it can like become part of this person's identity and you know, like, like, well, this is just who I am.
Seena (05:26):
Um, there's a funny, it reminds me of Barry Minko zzz best guy. And one of the things he would do when he was running, whatever variety of Ponzi scheme he was running, uh, is he would get cash out and he'd, he'd show a thick wad of cash and break people off like a few bills of a hundred dollar bills or whatever, and people would be happy and he would placate people all the time. So a stack of money is, uh, goes a long way, but it's not the nineties anymore. So I like show people a Venmo balance cause that's like real money.
Leah (06:00):
Right. So the style of your podcast, what is that style? Who is your audience and what are the types of frauds that you've covered? You've mentioned a couple.
Justin (06:09):
So I think where, uh, edutainment or infotainment, Seena has a lot of the information, like a lot of, uh, you know, legal cases, a lot of information. I mostly do jokes and bad impressions. That's what I add to the show.
Leah (06:25):
That's awesome. That is awesome.
Seena (06:27):
Yeah, our audience are mainly like that 18 to 30 year old, uh, group. Uh, it's a lot of people I actually, you know, oddly enough, that's like the general demographic, you know, it's like skews, male, like probably 60, 40 male female for our show, maybe like 65, 35, but what's really fun is like the number of what I personally love is the number of people like yourself or people that are in like a high intellectual positions, right. Either that are accounting students or they're students of fraud of some kind, or we just got a professor of government that emailed the other day with stuff and they're sending us, uh, tips and everything like that. So we're really happy that like people that are studying this stuff, um, you know, are listening to the show because it definitely is nice to hear, especially given the amount of research we do when someone that knows what they're talking about, uh, emails. And they say that like the show
Leah (07:20):
I heard at the end of, uh, one of the ones I was listening to the text number like that you can text tips to you or whatever. And I thought, oh, that's such a good idea. Do you get response that way? I mean, do people send you tips?
Seena (07:33):
So many? So I, you know, there's, every time you think you've got a good handle, the number of frauds that are out there, there's just hundreds and hundreds and thousands of more that are out there. And these are just the ones that people see in their news feed. We're not talking about like the small town ones that never really even make it past their local paper. So there's always that vertical as well here that we have.
Leah (07:57):
Yeah. So you mentioned your research. What is that research process when you decided to cover a front? Because for me, it's like my cases that I'm working. So I'm always curious how someone who's not working in this field. Like what's your process to get that. And you guys have some great clips that you, um, also include in your show. So.
Seena (08:16):
So basically we start off with, um, you know, I, I mapped out that we map out the season and we think about what episodes would flow well into the next and what kind of like arc we want to have for the season. How do we want to start? How do we want to like, just like we would do in a standup set, right? How do you open, how do you sustain and how do you close? And so that's why Enron is a four-part series that we're closing on because we feel like they were like the pinnacle of frauds for at least our season one. Right. Uh, and we, we feel like we were able to give a little bit of a different angle. So we, we kind of consume whatever media is out there already. So documentaries articles, books, and that kind of thing. And then we try to find like what haven't people looked at, what happened people talked about.
Seena (08:58):
And so we try to take that as like a through-line for our show. And then we go into like a pretty robust Lexus nexus legal search of like case law and stuff. I just got a legal intern. This is last year. So it helped me out a lot, not having to read the cases and stuff. Uh, brought me back to law school, which was not a good experience, uh, that, um, we also do like biographical research. So we want to know who they are. One of my favorite things to do is to basically go and Lexus and go down a rabbit hole of what companies, where they, the corporate officer of what companies do they, is that connected to. And where is that? If they have a real estate holding, how much has that real estate worth right now? And where is it? When did they buy that real estate? Was it at the peak of the fraud that they had? Or was it afterwards? You know, so there's all those little details that you can start pulling together. And then of course the YouTube clips are like, you know, they're gems cause people are these fraudsters, they just end up always saying the stupidest stuff.
Leah (09:55):
Yeah. That's awesome.
Justin (09:56):
And then I go through all of that research and all of that meticulous planning. And then I see what pop culture references or song parodies I can cram into it.
Leah (10:09):
Yeah. Wow. That's a lot. That is just a lot between both of you. I mean, to be able to plan that out, oh my goodness. Who do I want to have on the show this year? And then I just write some questions and interview them so intense planning.
Seena (10:22):
And then a lot of times we have to like explain a complex topic because the people that are listening to our show, I mean, some of them are people that study in the field and everything, but most, if not, the vast majority have never heard of some of these financial kind of instruments or some of the types of schemes and stuff. So you really have to break it down because we're all part of the same system and we're all potential future victims. Right? So knowing how these things work and being able to explain that in a digestible way, over a podcast while your co-host is trying to do a song, parody is a challenge at times.
Leah (10:59):
Oh my gosh. Okay. We're going to take a real quick break. We'll be right back
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Leah (12:42):
Welcome back to my discussion with Seena and Justin. So in the most recent episodes that I listened to you talk about Enron. And so like what about Enron? I mean, other than I, I think it's just massive. It's massive. But what about Enron, like stood out to you made you want to cover it, especially in the four episodes?
Justin (13:04):
Yeah, I mean, for me, I mean, it's the size of it. It's how notable it was. I didn't actually realize how far it went. I like, I didn't realize that blockbuster video had managed to get them tangled in all of this. Uh, that was my favorite part. It's like, oh, even blockbuster is in this. And they were claiming profits from blockbuster, which I think is like a huge warning sign that nobody really saw at the time.
Leah (13:27):
Yeah. Wild. I had not heard that before, how did you find that?
Seena (13:32):
It's all over the materials. It's just one of those little details that people kind of gloss over, but like if you're a millennial, I mean like blockbuster was your childhood and lucky for us, like not rewinding and not getting the videos back and then thinking that this company was ever going to be successful, that like, you know, the seventh largest company in America would, would get into business with them. And it's just too funny for us not to cover. I mean, we didn't intend on doing three parts, but the blockbuster thing was too funny. It's too insane that they re they, they claimed, I think it was $53 billion of profits from the company that charges you when you don't rewind, it makes zero sense, you know? Uh, so that, that for us, it was just too funny. And I think the other thing too is, and Ron's one of the, one of the reasons why we call the show fraudsters, uh, because I don't like it when we just talk about the company, we should be talking always about the people, because the company allows us to get a separation from the fraud and how pernicious it is because these are humans committing crimes, morally despicable crimes against other humans, like causing the blackouts in California by taking energy and selling it back at thousands of percent higher than what the normal rate of rate is, is like a sociological experiment and evil.
Seena (14:59):
And that, that to me is, is why we want to focus on the people. Because, you know, if you look at the financial collapse, right, it's just this abstract feeling of what happened. We know we have AIG, we have Lehman who are, well, I think, uh, Justin in the beginning of the season actually had a great joke of who are the Lehman bros. And I think that is like a really important concept is who is behind all of these crimes. And we need to know that these are people, Jeff scaling, Kenneth lay Andy Fastow, Richard Kazi. Like all of these people are guilty and they're all we don't care. We just say Enron and we keep them moving. I think that's, that's the part that, uh, motivates us.
Leah (15:41):
Yeah. I definitely noticed how you did go into a lot of the leaders, like you just listed like all of their backgrounds and just kind of strange stuff about them, um, like from college or whatever. Um, because yeah, you're right. And, and you mentioned the blackouts too. Uh, so my family's from Texas, I'm in Oklahoma, but originally from Texas. So my parents were without my parents and my grandma were without electricity, you know, during the ice storm or snow storm and everything, just what a couple months ago now, whatever a month ago, and I could not help, but think of the Enron case. So when all of that was happening now, I don't know that that was like actually happening, but it's just so weird and knowing about the blackouts and how they were doing that anyway. So my mom thinks I need to like go investigate for, you know, Texas or whatever.
Seena (16:31):
Yeah. And the funny thing is like, go ahead Justin sorry. .
Justin (16:33):
It's not the exact same case, but they do have one word that's actually at the heart of both of them it's deregulation.
Seena (16:39):
Exactly.
Leah (16:41):
Yeah, you're right.
Seena (16:41):
That point. It's like, listen, we're not ones to say, like governments not filled with idiots. I mean, the government is like filled with idiots. A lot of these things are not well-run, but at the same time, when you like throw the idiots, like chum in the water, the sharks are going to eat them all up. And so California should have gotten the opportunity to get there. Can we swear here? And they could have helped at it lives could've been saved if they just would've moved at a speed. That's a little bit faster than the snail's base that they were moving at or not allowed like these corrupt special interest groups to come in and sway them.
Leah (17:18):
What did you know about the case prior to your research? Did you know a lot?
Seena (17:21):
I only knew mark to market and I knew like this vague thing that like, okay, they said they had profits before, uh, or they overinflated profits. That's all I actually knew. I didn't really know the nuances if mark to market is nuanced, but his chest, which is just, if you have a 20 year deal, you can book all of the process profits for that deal. The day you sign, which is, I, you know, accountants did this, they thought this was a good idea. Do you know why it's a good, I don't know when it's a good idea to use it.
Leah (17:57):
I mean, you know, I like, I'm trying to think back because what was the timer? I think this was before I was in college just before I was in college, maybe. So a lot of things had changed by the time I was studying accounting. So going back and listening to podcasts or, you know, reading things about Enron, it's like, the words don't even make sense anymore, you know, because it's like, how is this ever a seeing? And that it was okay because we were just talking today about how the, the intention behind financial statements is that you're communicating, uh, your revenues and expenses in a timely fashion. So to, to take like profits, you haven't even earned yet and put it on your financial statements is just, and it just defeats the whole purpose of financial statements in my mind. But I, but I can't like go, I wasn't in the profession when this was going down to know how that would be considered.
Seena (18:50):
Justin. Sorry. I feel like we're on the show.
Justin (18:55):
I knew, uh, Ron was in Texas cause I, uh, I used to live in Texas and I lived in Texas when, uh, George W. Bush was governor and I remembered that he had extremely close ties to Enron. Remember, that's, that's what I remember. And I'll ask, I have, uh, friends that work in the oil and gas industry. Uh, and so that's how I heard of it.
Leah (19:19):
I didn't, I mean, other than like going to school and you hear about it in accounting or whatever, a little after it happened, I didn't really know a whole lot till honestly more recently when I started studying it too. Um, what are some of those other things that you maybe found in your research that you hadn't heard anywhere else?
Seena (19:36):
Uh, for Enron or for others?
Leah (19:39):
Yeah Enron or like any of the players?
Seena (19:42):
The blockbuster thing was, was, uh, you know, probably the most joyful saddest discovery. And you know, what's funny about the blockbuster thing too, is that blockbuster was the risk of verse one. In this situation, they were the ones that were hesitant, uh, of the deal going forward with blockbuster. At that time, I think must've started seeing the writing on the wall that like things were not going well for the terrible business model. Um, and that, you know, uh, that they just wanted to get, they got paid basically to do the deal with anyone. And Ken lay was the one who was going to say, I'll deal with the studios, don't worry about it, which is beautiful. Um, I think the other parts of Enron, um, that we discovered was how many Ivy league educated geniuses, uh, not only supported the, you know, ratings of, of like investor rating, investor, grade ratings of Enron, but how everyone was, was in on it.
Seena (20:44):
Right. And they didn't see that there culture that was there, uh, the rank and yank, we actually didn't talk too much about this, but every quarter, I think five to the bottom 5% performers, um, were fired immediately. And there was a committee that, that basically rated you. And if you were in that bottom five, no matter what. And so the whole culture was what have you done for anyone recently? And when you do that, you're not going to get honest people, people aren't going to care about being honest, people got to eat, they got to keep the jobs. So it's like, I don't even, you know, you can blame the people that were doing some of these things to a certain degree, but how much can you blame when someone's got a kid at home or do they got like a sick family member? They got to take care of sure.
Seena (21:28):
You want me to take energy out of one state and put it back into them and sell it so I can keep my job. Yeah. I don't, of course they're going to do these things. And that's like the, kind of like the victimization that, that we can start looking at and almost like a different lens and like the Jeff scalings of a world, or to callus to see that what they were doing was wrong. Even today. Jeff skilling doesn't think he really did anything wrong. He's just like, he's okay with it. You know what I mean?
Justin (21:53):
I, um, when I left Texas, I went to, um, I moved to Missouri and I went to a school in Columbia, Missouri, where the university of Missouri is. So I was happy to find out about Kenneth delays, uh, links, uh, to Missouri in particular, why it was so controversial that they named the chair of economics after him. Um, and, and then there was a huge controversy about that as in Ron was on trial and like 2008 it's like, are they still going to keep the Kenneth delay chair in economics?
Leah (22:22):
Right. Right. Yeah. Wow. So since you've covered so many fraud schemes in this first season, um, are there any similarities that stand out to you amongst the players purchase perpetrating these Fred's,
Seena (22:37):
Uh, reality distortion field, for sure. Yeah. That is just, it's unreal. Just, uh, just a distorted reality. And I think we've seen that, and this is before the internet, like this is before social media, you know, we, we, we find it easy to be in our own realities now with like, you know, small little meadow verses that we can all live in and forever nothing. But this is like the nineties, the eighties, the seventies, this is, this is part of, this is the human condition that has a problem. Right. Um, so that, that to me, I think is almost universally. Cause it goes back to that rationalization point, or that is all I see as part of the fraud triangle. That is the craziest part, you know, and really all you need is like, uh, a sassy aunt or a good friend to shake you out of something like that and tell you that you're crazy,
Leah (23:28):
Right? Oh my gosh.
Justin (23:29):
The use of they, I mean, that's part of the reality distortion. It's always, they they're always like, they don't want you to know or that they're a part of them or, you know, and every single one of them does that, no matter what the con is, is convincing you, that there's a thing out to get the group that they're kind of like, you know, grooming you to be a part of it.
Leah (23:49):
So they is like that exterior group?
Justin (23:51):
Yeah. It's a way you get people to, you know, like the way Colts and other things work to, you know, stop listening to like their friends and family and experts because they're all part of the conspiracy, right? They're they, they don't want you to have this good thing that the fraudster is offering
Leah (24:06):
You're right. There was a, I think it was in the wall street journal and one of our local fraud examiners covered it on the show about, um, like kind of a robocall scam. And so, you know, this person likely not even in the states, you know, but controlling this lady so much, um, and like getting all this, just extorting her for all this money. And she had completely like withdrawn from her family. I mean that's so that same thing kind of like just grooming to, uh, remove anyone who would say, you know, this doesn't sound quite right. So yeah. That's interesting. That's a great point. Um, I think one of the interesting things to me about the Enron case too, was that not only was there this huge fraud going on, but fast out and like him skimming off the top, like in addition to everything else,
Seena (24:55):
Right. We could eat. I use, I kept seeing that stuff and I was like, wait a minute. How is he? He's just taking the money. It's not even like a thing. We didn't actually talk too much about that. I wish we did. Cause Andy FASTA. I mean, I think I got lost in the corporate structures and trying to explain Raptors and special purpose entities and stuff like that. You can really get in the weeds, but really it's just, you know, one shell game after another and he got his wife involved and they were just skimming money. They were already making millions of dollars, millions of dollars. And I just, I,
Justin (25:29):
Oh, you, you, you, uh, you lagged a little bit. I stopped talking immediately.
Seena (25:33):
Oh, sorry. Go for it.
Justin (25:35):
Oh, I was just going to say, um, yeah, that's another thing they have in common. They can't stop. They can't like, it's like, it's only staffed on top of theft or like that that's getting bigger and bolder and more outrageous when they're, they're never content to just like steal, just like a lot of money.
Leah (25:50):
Has anyone told you guys about Nathan Mueller? I don't run across his story. I think my listeners are going to be like, that's not how much money you stole, but I think it's around $30 million from ING. Maybe don't quote me on that. Cause I'm doing this off the cuff. I don't have notes. Okay. But, uh, he stole 30 million, but originally he was just going to steal. He kind of found a loophole in, he was like a CPA and part of their accounting and whatever. And so he found this like loophole where he could siphon off some money to like pay some bills that he had. But then he saw how easy it was. And so he kept stealing and then he needed a reason to like justify why he had all this extra money. So then he started gambling, but like, he wasn't actually a gambler. So then he got addicted to gambling and then it just like the snowball effect. Anyway, it's fascinating. He shares this story a lot.
Justin (26:41):
It's all the thrill. It's the thrill stealing the thrill of gambling.
Seena (26:45):
And I love playing craps, but at the same time, I don't know if I can spend more than a few hundred bucks. I mean, that's like terrifying. Listen to them much cash. I got student loans. I can't.
Leah (26:58):
Right, right.
Justin (26:59):
Tony soprano had a bad gambling habit.
Seena (27:02):
Yeah. We all know what happened to him.
Justin (27:04):
We don't know.
Seena (27:05):
We don't. Justin did spoil Sopranos on the show actually. And we got a listener that was in the middle of watching it in the pandemic with his wife and he emailed So angry with us. He was like, I really love your show, but I cannot believe you just ruined this entire series.
Justin (27:34):
I waited 20 years.
Leah (27:38):
The odds of that, man.
Justin (27:41):
Somebody got mad at me for spoiling Titanic.
Leah (27:43):
Yeah. Really?
Justin (27:46):
No not really.
Leah (27:46):
Oh, sorry. Oh my gosh. Um, well, okay. So before we wrap up, I'd like to ask each of you, um, if there's a fraud that you've covered, that's just a story you'll never forget. And maybe it's like a piece of it since you guys dive into so much of these, but like a piece of a story or a story, a piece of a case that you've covered that you'll never forget.
Justin (28:08):
It'd be Barry Minko. Uh, the fact that he took a fake carpet cleaning stock scam, um, and then it goes to jail and pretends that he's a born again, Christian in order to become a head of a church steals from that church in order to fund a film where he plays himself, uh, in a, in like an autobiographical film. And he's paying people with all stolen money on the set and he manages to get James Caan, mark Hamill, uh, Talia Shire I think is in it. Uh, he managed to get all these people and the, but he plays himself for the second half. And it's absolutely awful, but it's all, I mean, I think it's the greatest con ever. It's a con that pays for part of the con that also advances the con I think it's the, I think it's the greatest thing and it actually had James Kahn.
Leah (29:03):
Yeah. Wow. Okay. I didn't know that. So obviously I haven't listened to that episode yet.
Justin (29:10):
Watch the movie con man. It's, it's horrible.
Seena (29:13):
I don't know. we Play a couple of clips. Like we played, I think what you need to hear from that moment. I mean, knowing how the movie was produced based on, uh, doing the, the episodes and then watching that movie is on rail. I mean the, these, I mean, Hollywood's its own fraud and it's in and of itself, but the, I mean, they are like saints compared to Barry Minko, uh, I guess the, uh, the one that I, uh, that jumps out to me, um, is the, the Hitler diaries, someone created fake diaries and said they were Hitlers. And then they had, they wanted to sell them. No one, they couldn't sell, they couldn't verify them or they kind of verify them. But, um, the, um, and they couldn't sell them. And when they wanted to bring them to America, uh, the person that ended up buying them to distribute them was Rupert Murdoch. And he was the one that closed the file deal to bring in fake. And then after they released them and everything, you know, they found out that they were fake and he was like, nah, it's okay. And it's like, clearly we have seen the literal Nazi red flag. They went up at that time that this was going to be a problem with this man. But, you know, do you just own, it's a free country.
Leah (30:42):
Wow. Uh, that actually reminds me of the show, the con that's on ABC right now. And they had one guy that was, um, I think he was like, kind of in Hollywood, like selling, uh, like all of this really old expensive wine, but it was just that he was like making copy, like making his own wine and just reusing the expensive bottles and stuff. Yeah. And, um, it was a Coke, um, bill Coke. Is that the,
Seena (31:13):
Oh the, yeah. Yeah. One of the Coke brothers, he got, one of the
Leah (31:16):
Brothers is the one that like, decided I'm gonna like take this guy down. Cause he had tons of bottles that had been like created recreated by this guy.
Seena (31:25):
He spent like, I think like $150,000 or more on just the fake bottles. He was just pouring wine and making blends or whatever. And people were like, this is amazing. And he just knew how to talk and sell it, which is, you know, you're still getting drunk.
Leah (31:40):
So speaking of those, uh, you know how these guys like to create these videos and stuff, he like had this film crew with him, the, the con artists did. And so like, as I'm watching the documentary with my husband the other night, I'm like, oh, he said that, like, he actually said what his con was like on this video, but everybody just thought he was being funny. But he actually, I mean, he said it was just, he
Justin (32:05):
Looked at the camera. He's like, it's not like I'm just putting Boone's farm interventions for its models.
Leah (32:12):
Yeah. Anyway, well, Sienna, Justin, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me today. And if any of our listeners would like to connect with you or learn more about your podcast, what's the best way
Speaker 3 (32:22):
You can follow us on fraudsters, LPN on, on some, on social media, you can find us on Spotify only right now for the show. Uh, we're at fraudsters. And of course you could send us tips at our tip line 4 1 2 2 8 5 12 55.
Leah (32:36):
Awesome. Thank you both so much.
Seena (32:38):
Thank you. This was so fun.
Justin (32:39):
Thank you, Leah.