Trouble in River City

Charles regales Hesse and Riley with tales of trickery in 18th Century London, straight from the pages of a tome entitled "The New Cheats of London Exposed, or, The Frauds and Tricks of the Town Laid Open to Both Sexes Being a Warning Piece Against the Iniquitous Practices of That Metropolis." This

Riley tells the tale of the fabulist British politician Jeffrey Archer and his fragrant wife. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Dan reflects on his time working in scammy call centers in Montreal. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Charles rounds up stories about scammers hitting the DNC, RNC, and political campaigns, plus a Nigerian prince who scammed the Nigerian government. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Jim Waterson returns to the show to discuss the time he confronted illegal ice cream vendors on Westminster Bridge by pulling up with his own "completely legal" ice cream van handing out desserts for free. Read London Centric. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Hesse tells Charles the story of Twenty-One, a quiz show that sullied the sterling reputation of television with a rigging scandal. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

This time in 17th Century Chinese swindles: a fox that steals your yang essence, swindling the salt commissioner while disguised as daoists, and the origin of the common phrase "shut up about him!" Remember, you can't snatch the pearl from under the dragon's neck unless you plumb the depths of the p

Charles tells the story of Turkish wunderkind Mehmet Aydın, who pivoted from rapping to Ponzi scheming via a Farmville knockoff. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

The gang opens a dot-com-era time capsule: the 2000 Ben Younger film Boiler Room. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Dan shares the story of Jefferson Randolph "Soapy" Smith II, the king of the frontier conmen. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Hesse concludes the story of how Magic Alex ensorcelled those inimitable lads famed for walking across London's Abbey Road Street. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Hesse tells the story of Magic Alex, a dubious engineer that ensorcelled a wily band of Liverpudlian moptop Scousers known only as The Beatles. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Riley tells the story of teen millionaire Barry Minkow, who made his fortune by running a carpet cleaning business and did not do any fraud of any kind. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Devin O'Shea joins Hesse and Dan for a freewheeling episode covering book-tour life, harassment by Veiled Prophet thugs, an AI scam afflicting a band and its fans, and Herman Melville's The Confidence Man. Buy Devin's book "The Veiled Prophet". Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our

Using the 17th Century Chinese text The Book of Swindles as our guide, we intend to inform listeners of strategies to avoid falling victim to common deceptions. This episode covers the following real-life situations: —Stealing silk with a decoy horse —Chen Quan scams his way into the arms of a famou

Riley unspools an elaborate telemarketing scam that begins in the Monégasque Community and ends in Dnipro. Plus an update on the BC ostrich farm. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Hesse forces Charles and Dan to watch the 2013 blockbuster film Now You See Me. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

John Semley discusses his Wired article about GLP-1 telehealth scams. Read John's article for WIRED. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Charles tells the story of a phony Chinese bank that went to great lengths to set up a believable brick-and-mortar location. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Riley tells the story of a hands-on salad oil swindle (and explains what salad oil is). Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Hesse chronicles the rise and fall of the Magic the Gathering / Bitcoin site Mt. Gox. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Nate Bethea joins us to explore the large-scale fraud and graft that took place during the American occupation of Afghanistan. Listen to Nate's album. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Riley explores the latest A.I.-powered™ scams targeting self-published authors. Buy "Alex Branson's The Money Wars". Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Hesse and Charles discuss the 1987 David Mamet film House of Games. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Hesse teaches the gang to run a short con. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our Discord server.

Charles tells the story of how Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Brett Favre defrauded the state of Mississippi out of eight million dollars intended for families in need. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our new Discord server.

Riley tells the story of Albert Grant, a 19th century Member of Parliament and a prolific scammer whose legacy is commemorated at Leicester Square to this day. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our new Discord server.

Devin O'Shea tells the story of Edward Gardner Lewis, the inventor of sarsaparilla blood medicine and Dr. Hot's Cold Crackers who went on to reshape St. Louis. Follow Devin on Twitter and pre-order his book. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our new Discord server.

Boris and Rey of the Empire Never Ended return to discuss the inimitable Robbie Coltrane lookalike Gazda Jezda. We discuss his three golden years of scamming the Balkans, his one golden day of scamming Bobby Fisher, and how he completely redeemed himself by creating a perpetual energy machine that i

Boris Mamlëz and Rey Katula from The Empire Never Ended tell the story of Dafina Milanovic's state-sanctioned Ponzi scheme in Serbia. Subscribe to The Empire Never Ended on Patreon. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our new Discord server.

Charles and Riley take a look at the internet's least successful scammers with Tom from Chapo FYM. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our new Discord server.

Charles explores the corruption machine that is Kalshi. Presented by our sponsor Polymarket! Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our new Discord server.

Hesse chronicles Logan Paul's various adventures in crypto, NFTs, and tokenizing Pokemon cards. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our new Discord server.

Riley shares the story of Giuseppe Morello, an early Italian-American mob boss whose counterfeiting business was a precursor to the Genovese family. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon. Join our new Discord server.

Will Menaker drops by to discuss the 1973 film The Sting. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon.

Hesse shares the story of Alan Conway, a man who decided he was Stanley Kubrick. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon.

We talk about Soulja Boy's love of NFTs, crypto, AI, knockoff game consoles, and subsequent trouble with the SEC. Is Soulja Boy the Forrest Gump of modern scams? Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon.

Today we tell one of the most 2010s tales ever told: the tale of a North Korean Hit Squad disguised as a Japanese film crew conning two beautiful young women into assassinating Kim Jong Nam. This episode has everything; hilarious pranks, The CIA, VX Nerve Agent, tragedy, sisterhood, and, of course,

Hesse tries to convince the rest of us that the 1962 musical film The Music Man is good, to mixed results. Subscribe to Trouble in River City on Patreon

London Centric's Jim Waterson shares the story of a Camorra-connected snail farmer's tax evasi… avoidance scheme that's fleeced London councils out of millions of pounds. The snail farmer of London, his mafia friends, and a £20m vendetta against the taxman Follow Jim on Bluesky Subscribe to Trouble

We continue our exploration of Universal Ostrich Farm with a look at ostrich-inspired securities fraud, shitcoins, GoFundMes, and AI generated stomp-clap anthems.

Dan tells the story of Universal Ostrich Farm, a get-rich-quick scheme funded by securities fraud that became a cause célèbre for the conspiracist right. Special guest Dr. Ostrich stops by to explain the benefits of nutraceuticals including Ejacumax, Psychotic Hellboy, and JujiMufu AHHHHHHH!

Welcome to Trouble in River City, a show about scams, flim flam, grifts, and graft with Dan Boeckner, Riley Quinn, Hesse Deni, and Charles Austin. In this special 0th episode, Riley talks about almost getting scammed, Hesse talks about her grandma getting scammed, and we try to bully Hesse into gett

Hey Bottleheads - we've been working away in the lab... we've got a couple episodes recorded, and we're going to start releasing new content from the first week of January. Thank you for your patience, and again: if you do not want to be charged for this month (and no quibbles from us on refunds if

Bottlemen is coming back - we're going to be recording the first couple episodes of the NEW BOTTLEMEN (which will have a different name, new focus, and which will feature Charles Austin and Hesse Deni, and will probably charge a membership fee in USD, but I promise you'll love) in the coming days. W

Hi Everybody - Riley here. Firstly, I wanted to thank everyone for the support they've given me and Dan over the last couple years. But you also may have noticed that we haven't been hitting anywhere near what we aim for in terms of posting frequency. We did Bottlemen with the last ounce of extra ti

Apologies for the late episode - both Dan and Riley have been on tour, but we've got this one for you (recorded a while back). Contained herein: ideas for new recipes, Nazi statue watch, and the Tory leader "uniting the country" with a very thin gruel of vibes alone.

It's a crossover episode with Fortune Kit! Riley's away and Dan will play... with Charles, Alex and Arlen. They're talking about the unsustainable nature of touring coming out of the pandemic. Ironically enough, Riley's away touring this week Australia with Trashfuture.

Chuka Ejeckam joins Dan and Riley to discuss "The Freeland Doctrine," friendshoring, and the mysterious professor of mealtimes.

Will "Movie Mindset" Menaker joins Dan and Riley to discuss the 1964 Cansploitation B-movie classic, "The Naked Flame."