Persona: The French Deception: Recent Episodes
Wondery | Pineapple Street Studios
What does it feel like to pick up the phone and scam someone out of $50 million? This is the story of Gilbert Chikli, one of the greatest con artists of all time. Host and award-winning journalist Evan Ratliff investigates how Chikli duped some of the world’s most powerful people into handing over their fortunes. He explores how Chikli evaded the law for years and became a Robin Hood-like hero. More than just a tale of criminal genius, this is a show about the moment we’re living in right now — the golden age of scammers — and the power of seduction. But what happens when the fantasy we’ve been lured into finally crumbles away?
Follow Persona: The French Deception wherever you get your podcasts, or you can listen early on Amazon Music or early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.
Suspect is an investigative series about mislaid justice and the kinds of weighty decisions that detectives, lawyers, and jurors make every day - decisions that, once made, are almost impossible to reverse.
Season 3: Five Shots in the Dark follows Leon Benson, who spent 24 years in an Indiana state prison for the 1998 murder of a young man named Kasey Schoen. His conviction hinged on the testimony of two eyewitnesses – but what if their memories turned out to be wrong? And what if the people who knew what really happened had never been allowed to speak? Suspect Season 3: Five Shots in the Dark is the story of two victims: one murdered, one sentenced to life. Follow host Matt Shaer and attorney Lara Bazelon as they investigate how the justice system failed both Leon and Kasey, and who the real killer might be. Join this unprecedented look inside the attempt to overturn a wrongful conviction and find out if justice will finally be served.
Follow Suspect wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Suspect: Five Shots in the Dark early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Listen to Suspect: Wondery.fm/Suspect_S3
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Introducing Classy with Jonathan Menjivar, a new podcast from Pineapple Street Studios. People like to pretend class doesn’t exist. But really, most of the time, we’re just ignoring it because it’s uncomfortable. Classy is a show about what happens when the class tension is so blatant you just can’t keep quiet about it anymore. It’s a collection of surprising stories, juicy and uncomfortable interviews, and engaging segments that explore the ways that class infiltrates our day-to-day lives. In the host seat is veteran podcast producer Jonathan Menjivar – a working-class Latino kid who joined the media elite and became someone who likes oysters, wears cashmere socks, and is very conflicted about all of it. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
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For more than three and a half decades, the disappearance of 12-year-old Jonelle Matthews was a mystery – a riddle neither authorities nor her family members could solve. Jonelle’s face had been on milk cartons nationwide. Even the President of the United States had appealed to the public for help. Still, every lead had fizzled. Every person of interest had turned out to be a dead end.
Then, in 2019, Jonelle’s remains were unearthed near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. With the discovery came a troubling new question: Had the truth been hiding in plain sight the entire time? From Campside Media and Wondery comes season two of SUSPECT. The team digs into one of the most mind-bending cold cases in modern history, in an attempt to separate fact and fiction, compulsion from guilt, and true-crime fandom from a motive for murder.
Hey Prime Members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast, SUSPECT: Vanished in the Snow, in the Amazon Music App. Download the app today: www.amazon.com/SUS_us_hfd_wiaa_110122
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Sheree Warren left her job in Salt Lake City on a mild October evening in 1985. She told a coworker she was headed to meet her estranged husband, Charles Warren, at a car dealership. But she never made it, Sheree vanished.
When a young mother disappears under unexplained circumstances, police always turn suspicious eyes towards the husband. And although there was distrust around Charles Warren, he wasn’t the only suspect when Sheree went missing. She also had a boyfriend, a former cop named Cary Hartmann, who lived a sinister double life.
Season three follows two suspects– men who both raised suspicion for investigators. But with two strong persons of interest with competing facts and evidence, it muddied the murder investigation. This season, host Dave Cawley, digs into the lives of these two men, the details of the case and examines the intersections between domestic abuse and sexual violence. The COLD team seeks to answer the question: what really happened to Sheree Warren?
Listen to Cold—exclusively on Amazon Music—included with Prime. Download the Amazon Music app now: www.amazon.com/COLD_us_hfd_wiaa_110122.
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The Vanished is a true crime podcast that explores the stories of those who have gone missing. The Vanished goes beyond conventional news reports to take a deep dive into the story of a different missing person each week.
Host Marissa Jones brings you exclusive interviews with family members, friends, law enforcement and experts on mainstream cases, as well as little known ones.
Listen in, to hear what The Vanished will uncover next: wondery.fm/P_TheVanished
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When Emily Gellis hears rumors of people suffering horrible side effects from a trendy diet she springs into action. Armed with over a hundred thousand Instagram followers, Emily launches a social media crusade to expose F-Factor and its founder, Tanya Zuckerbrot. It’s the start of a feud that will attract trolls, lawyers, and, eventually, national media all because of fiber. From Wondery, this is a story about wealth, wellness, and influence narrated by Casey Wilson.
Listen to Fed Up: wondery.fm/Persona_FedUp
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What if you were trafficked into a cult, or were shot nine times, or were the only survivor of a car crash, or went into a minor surgery and woke up one week later, paralyzed -- what would you do? This is Actually Happening brings you extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Their newest season digs into everything from a young man that dies on the way to meeting his mistress, to a women who witnesses her father murder her mother. These stories will have you on the edge of your seat waiting to hear what happens next.
New episodes come out every Tuesday for free, with ad-free episodes and exclusive past episodes available for Wondery+ subscribers. Listen here: wondery.fm/Persona_TIAHS12
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When the Unabomber was arrested in 1996, the world got it’s first glimpse of the serial bomber who had terrorized the nation for 18 years and murdered three people. Bearded and disheveled, he was the perfect depiction of a mad bomber. But what actually happened during those 18 years? What drove Ted Kaczynski to his dystopian vision of people overrun by technology and why does it feel so familiar? And why did it take nearly two decades to catch him? Based on new original reporting, host Eric Benson tells the story of a nation reckoning with an increasingly deadly bombing campaign, and a family coming to grips with just what was happening inside a tiny cabin in the Montana woods. Project Unabom is an Apple Original podcast, produced by Pineapple Street Studios.
Listen here: https://apple.co/Project_Unabom
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Reporter Evan Ratliff joins the hosts of Wondery’s ongoing series Scamfluencers, Scaachi Koul and Sarah Hagi, to discuss how he pieced his investigation on Gilbert Chikli together and shares his insights into the culture of scams.
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You never really know someone…especially online. In today’s world, the power of influence can be the quickest path to money and fame, and it often ends in ruin. These are the stories of the world’s most insidious Scamfluencers. And we are their prey. On Wondery’s new weekly series, join co-hosts Scaachi Koul and Sarah Hagi as they unpack epic stories of deception from the worlds of social media, fashion, finance, health, and wellness. These influencers claim to be everything from charismatic healers to trusted financial insiders to experts in dating. They cast spells over millions. Why do we believe them, and how does our culture allow them to thrive? From Black Swan Murder to a fake social media influencer to an audacious Hollywood Ponzi schemer, each season will take the listener along the twists and turns, the impact on victims, and what’s left when the facade falls away.
Listen here: wondery.fm/WTLTN_Scamfluencers
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In the season finale, a confounding clue in Gilbert Chikli’s case sends Evan back to the dossier to see if someone else might have orchestrated the Le Drian affair. The search takes him from the world of high-stakes professional poker, to the office of a lawyer with a curious role in the case, to an apartment building full of unmarked doors. Finally, we return to the very start of Chikli’s mythology, and the Persona team receives a mysterious phone call of our own.
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Gilbert Chikli finally appears in court. The evidence appears stacked against him, including forensic comparisons of his voice to recordings of the scam. The prosecution lays out their story, while Chikli turns the trial into one final media frenzy. When Evan looks closely at the science, it appears less convincing. But will the court see the flaws in the case built around Chikli's scamming legend? When it’s all over, Evan comes across a new detail that calls everything into question.
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The French police are on the trail of a leader of the Le Drian affair, but all they have to go on is a nickname, “the Fat One.” Meanwhile the scammers have hooked their biggest target yet: a Turkish billionaire ready to hand over tens of millions of dollars. A new set of secretly recorded tapes brings Evan closer than ever to the center of the con. But revelations about the offshore money movements of the scam’s largest marks cast the villains and victims in a new light.
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As a new scam emerges in the south of France, investigators stumble upon a tantalizing new clue. Meanwhile, reports begin to circulate that some victims haven’t just talked on the phone to the Le Drian impersonator – they’ve spoken to him on video. Evan journeys to a medieval town in the heart of French wine country for new leads from a man who came face-to-face with the fake Minister.
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A series of mysterious phone calls to French embassies around the world prompt the authorities to start a new investigation. Someone is impersonating the French Minister of Defense, targeting foreign governments and wealthy French speakers. As the scammer fleeces an influential billionaire for $20 million, the police believe there’s only one man audacious enough to have pulled it off. Years later, Evan gains access to the case file and begins to retrace the investigators’ steps.
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When a young graphic designer is detained crossing the Bulgarian border, he finds himself inside a nightmare that lasts for years. The scam is wreaking havoc, and not always on who you’d expect. Gilbert Chikli’s invention has gone global, raking in billions of dollars a year from multinational corporations, tempting the most unlikely of co-conspirators, and cementing Chikli’s legend around the world.
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Gilbert Chikli was known to friends and family in Israel as a flamboyant local celebrity, a Robin Hood figure, and an innovator who by necessity ended up on the wrong side of the law. But as Chikli galivants around town with new yachts and suitcases of money, the French authorities begin closing in. The situation may call for a daring escape.
Persona: The French Deception is the story of Gilbert Chikli, one of the greatest con artists of all time. More than just a tale of criminal genius, this is a show about the moment we’re living in right now — the golden age of scammers — and the power of seduction. But what happens when the fantasy we’ve been lured into finally crumbles away?
Please support us by supporting our sponsors!
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In Paris, a banker receives a bizarre call from her boss. He says she'll soon be contacted by a secret agent about a confidential government operation. The instructions provided by the agent are simple: wait in a bathroom stall, listen for the password and then hand over a bag stuffed with hundreds of thousands in cash to a stranger through the stall door. Meanwhile, nearly 3,000 miles away in Israel, a musician is drawn into his new friend’s underground network. Thus begins the scam of the century.
Persona: The French Deception is the story of Gilbert Chikli, one of the greatest con artists of all time. More than just a tale of criminal genius, this is a show about the moment we’re living in right now — the golden age of scammers — and the power of seduction. But what happens when the fantasy we’ve been lured into finally crumbles away?
Please support us by supporting our sponsors!
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What does it feel like to pick up the phone and scam someone out of $50 million? This is the story of Gilbert Chikli, one of the greatest con artists of all time. Host and award-winning journalist, Evan Ratliff, investigates how Chikli successfully duped some of the world’s most powerful people into handing over their fortunes. He explores how Chikli evaded the law for years and became a Robin Hood-like hero. More than just a tale of criminal genius, this is a show about the moment we’re living in right now — the golden age of scammers — and the power of seduction. But what happens when the fantasy we’ve been lured into finally crumbles away?
Follow Persona: The French Deception wherever you get your podcasts, or you can listen early on Amazon Music or early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.