On the surface, there was nothing remarkable about Larry Lavin. He lived in a quiet neighborhood with his wife and family, drove a Volvo, and practiced dentistry in Philadelphia. But, from 1978 to 1984, Dr. Lavin ran one of the largest cocaine enterprises on the entire eastern seaboard. Through the voices and perspectives of law enforcement, drug runners, friends, business associates and Larry Lavin himself, Wolves Among Us, Season One, The Larry Lavin Story, tells the story of Lavin’s dual life...
Sep 26, 2022•4 min
When Zoey Ellis lands a contract with a publisher to write a novel, she is thrilled. It's a dream come true. That is until she gets hit with accusations of plagiarism, and takedown notices are filed with all the e-book publishers. Her fantasy novel is set in the Omegaverse, a fan-created universe online populated by wolf-like creatures called Alphas, Betas and Omegas (A/B/O). The Omegaverse has its roots in erotic slash-fiction from fandoms for CW shows like Teen Wolf and Supernatural. Fantasy s...
Sep 20, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 69
Pigs on planes? Snakes in stores? Alpacas in pharmacies? Most are emotional support animals (ESAs). And the demand for ESAs has grown considerably over the last few years, giving rise to a certification factory—all you need is the internet and some cash, and you can get a letter from a therapist designating your pet as an ESA. How has the rise in ESA certifications complicated the landscape for the folks who need Service Animals (SAs)? How should psychologists approach the growing demand from th...
Sep 13, 2022•29 min•Season 1Ep. 68
Anyone growing up in the US in the 90s probably remembers hearing about how important it was to recycle. By the early 1990s, the US’s landfills were overcrowded with plastic waste, and local governments were talking about banning certain types altogether. That is, until we all started working together to reduce, reuse and recycle. A years-long ad campaign taught us how to recycle, what to recycle and that why we should all do our part by recycling. The only catch? It was a multi-million dollar i...
Sep 06, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 67
How far would you go to eat a food that reminds you of home? Would you be willing to smuggle it over the border from Canada? Drive four hours each way just to taste it? In this episode, we hear about a community of Pakistani Americans so obsessed with Pakistani mangos that they’ve developed their own supply chain--all to get a bite of a variety of mango you’ll never find in the grocery store. A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Enterta...
Aug 30, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Instagram influencer Hushpuppi earned millions of followers by posting a window into the life of the ultra-rich, with his runway-ready designer outfits, garages full of Rolls Royces, private planes, glimpses into the glamorous parties. He had “made it” from nothing and he loved to be a symbol to that his followers they could do it too. But there was just one question: where did he get all his money? It’d all come out in an FBI sting operation. And the source of Hushpuppi's wealth is much more co...
Aug 23, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 65
For 30 years, Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper served as the principal of St. James Elementary—a Catholic school in Torrance, California. She implemented a curriculum that emphasized piety and Christian values—and was loved by parents. But financially, the small school struggled. There never seemed to be enough money for updated textbooks, field trips, or even lunch tables. Sister Mary Margaret spent years raising funds to help the school. But, despite the raffles, festivals, and calls to donate, no...
Aug 16, 2022•28 min•Season 1Ep. 64
Cheat! returns with new episodes weekly. Hosted by award-winning journalist and comedian Alzo Slade, Cheat! dives into the epic stories behind the biggest cheats and scandals out there, looking for answers about who they are and why they skirt the rules. From the allure of get rich quick schemes to the motivations of an imposter, Cheat! brings you stories of huge heists, online scams, dirty nuns, and asks what would you do if you could get away with it? A Somethin’ Else & Sony Music Entertainmen...
Aug 11, 2022•2 min
New Cheat episodes weekly starting in August with a whole new season of Cheat! Greg Priore was thrilled to be named the head archivist and manager of the special collections room at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He’d been trained in archives management and had an appreciation for the rare books he was now expected to protect. 25 years after Priore’s appointment to the role, the library decided to do an inventory of their special collection. That’s when they discovered that ov...
Aug 09, 2022•39 min•Season 1Ep. 63
New Cheat! episodes weekly starting in August with a whole new season of Cheat! Here’s the final installment of fan favorites. In the mid-2000s a young guy from Indonesia single handedly changed the world of fine wine. He bought and sold hundred thousand dollar bottles without a second thought. He was a hero to a new generation of fine wine connoisseurs who had cash to flash in the boom years before the recession. But what a lot of those connoisseurs didn’t know was that this one guy, this guy t...
Aug 02, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 62
New Cheat! episodes weekly starting in August. While we’re away working on the new season, we’re highlighting some of our fan favorites, including this one from July 2021. In the late noughties a woman appeared in New York. She was edgy and cool and she had a tattoo on her chest that read I Love Beards. But she was hiding a secret. A secret that – when it came out – would turn her from just an ordinary hipster into a con woman who helped define a generation. A Somethin' Else production. Exclusiv...
Jul 26, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Missing your Cheat! fix? We've got a brand new season on the way. In the meantime, we’re highlighting some of our fan favorites, including this this one from November 2021, where we talk to the cheater himself. At the beginning of spring 2003 a young journalist by the name of Jayson Blair seemingly had it all. In five years, he had gone from summer intern to staff reporter at one of the world's most respected news organisations, The New York Times. He had the keys to the kingdom. Until something...
Jul 19, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Missing your Cheat! fix? We've got a brand new season on the way, full of new stories of the people we love to hate - Cheats! New episodes weekly starting in August. In the meantime, we’re highlighting some of our fan favorites, starting with this one from October 2021 In 2010, the first of a series of international heists took place at a royal residence in Sweden. The thieves set fire to cars to distract the police, ignored the more valuable items on display, and stole a very specific set of Ch...
Jul 12, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 59
In 1995, FOX aired the one-hour special, Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction? Amid various expert testimonies and commentary, there was a piece of footage from a mysterious source that further ignited a debate that had been raging for a while. Were aliens real? And did the U.S. government have more information—and more access—to them than we knew? A Somethin’ Else Production. Exclusive! Grab the NordVPN deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/cheat Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Learn mo...
Jul 05, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 58
In the 1980s, well-heeled Manhattanites opened their homes to a young man they believed to be Sidney Poitier’s son. He’d promise them parts in movies, and charm them with anecdotes of being on set with his father, or his life at Harvard University. They’d give him food, a place to sleep, and even a little money. The only problem was, Sidney Poitier didn’t have a son. A Somethin' Else Production. Exclusive! Grab the NordVPN deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/cheat Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money...
Jun 28, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 57
Last year, Intuit—the company that owns the tax prep software TurboTax—reached a settlement with 50 state attorneys general, requiring the company to issue $141 million in refunds to users. The problem? For years, TurboTax has been advertising free filing services but only 2% of 70% eligible tax payers actually filed at no cost. And it turns out…that might have been Intuit’s plan the whole time. A Somethin’ Else Production. Exclusive! Grab the NordVPN deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/cheat Try it risk...
Jun 21, 2022•40 min•Season 1Ep. 56
At the end of this episode, last aired in August 2021, Alzo speaks to someone who knew the Heene family—behind the scenes. In 2009, a little town in Denver called Fort Collins made international headlines. The Heene family were doing an experiment with a huge homemade balloon in their back garden when the balloon escaped its tethers and flew off. But it’s what they told the police that caused a media frenzy. They reported that their 6 year old son had climbed inside the flyaway balloon. A Someth...
Jun 14, 2022•51 min•Season 1Ep. 55
For a long time, if you were in America and looking to gamble, you'd head to the racetrack to bet on horses. Maybe sip on some cocktails while you're there too. But that all changed in the mid-'90s--when gambling laws got lax. Suddenly there were more ways for folks to play it fast and loose with their hard-earned cash and racetracks had to find a way to stay afloat. The story of how one private industry managed to rope in billions of dollars in public subsidies. A Somethin' Else production. Exc...
Jun 07, 2022•32 min•Season 1Ep. 54
In the early 1990’s Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa. He began a process of shedding the sins of apartheid and show the rest of the world that his country wasn’t a rogue state. His foreign policy stretched from international aid missions to international sport. In this time, a new sporting hero came to fame: Hansie Cronje - the captain of South Africa’s cricket team. Over a six year period, Hansie won over the love of all South Africans. Little did they know, he was harbourin...
May 31, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 53
The day after Dr. Feng “Franklin” Tao returned from his trip to China in 2019, FBI agents were at the door of his home in Lawrence, Kansas. He was being arrested. Someone had called in a tip claiming that this University of Kansas chemistry professor might be involved in…espionage. An investigation began, under the mantle of a questionable national security program, which turned Dr. Tao’s life upside down. There was just one problem: was there ever actually any evidence to justify these suspicio...
May 24, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 52
Greg Priore was thrilled to be named the head archivist and manager of the special collections room at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He’d been trained in archives management and had an appreciation for the rare books he was now expected to protect. 25 years after Priore’s appointment to the role, the library decided to do an inventory of their special collection. That’s when they discovered that over three hundred rare and valuable items were missing. And there had only been ...
May 17, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Since we aired this episode in November 2021, the story has progressed, and Alzo will provide an update on the options injured Black players now have to get fair compensation from the NFL. The NFL’s 2013 class-action settlement with retired players over claims that the League concealed a connection between game-related hits to the head and long-term cognitive damage was the first of its kind in sports history. Players experiencing head trauma would finally have some recourse and support. However...
May 10, 2022•43 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Boxing. It's one of the most popular sports in the world, watched by millions of people both at ringside and on television. But have you ever stopped to wonder who is putting together the fights in the first place. This week on Cheat, we’re going to the '70s, to the golden age of boxing—where historical fights like Rumble in the Jungle and Thrilla in Manilla are being fought. At the centre of it all is a boxing promoter by the name of Don King. On the surface he seems like boxing’s boy wonder, b...
May 03, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 49
H.G. “Hache” Carrillo was unlike any professor that Paula Mejía had experienced in college. An acclaimed author who taught creative writing, Professor Carrillo was charismatic, exacting, and generous. He engaged with questions of belonging and identity in his work—often examining his Afro-Cuban heritage. When he passed away in the spring of 2020, his loss was mourned greatly. Especially by his former students. But their grieving was complicated by a shocking discovery about the life of the profe...
Apr 26, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 48
Layton Davies and George Powell take a drive to Herefordshire in the UK one June day in 2015. They’re going to walk around a field…with their metal detectors. They’re detectorists and they plan to spend the day searching the ground for any goods. To their surprise, they strike on literal gold. They found treasure. And now they’ve got to figure out what they’re going to do with it because, as the saying goes: finders keepers. But that’s not what the law says. A Somethin’ Else production. Learn mo...
Apr 19, 2022•42 min•Season 1Ep. 47
We’ve all watched reality tv shows like Survivor and thought…”I could do that”. But have you ever wondered how the sausage is made? Who these people are coming up with these crazy ideas in the first place? And how they find the people willing to put themselves in these ridiculous situations? In the early 2000s one student had an idea for the next big reality show. He promised his contestants a life of fame and fortune…little did they know, there was dark truth hiding behind the scenes. A Somethi...
Apr 12, 2022•39 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Nick had been modding, or modifying, games like Halo since he was 8 years old. By the time he was in his early 20s, he could turn his hacking skills to pretty much anything. When the latest FIFA game came out, Nick teamed up with four guys he met online and together they took millions from EA Sports. They thought they wouldn’t get in trouble with the law because they tried to do everything by the book, but then someone snitched. A Somethin' Else production. Learn more about your ad choices. Visi...
Apr 05, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 45
For families seeking to adopt, Tara Lee’s Always Hope Pregnancy and Education Center was an ideal option. Not only did Tara organize matches between prospective families and birth mothers quickly, but she also prioritized providing emotional and financial support for the birth moms. Sure, Tara was a bit disorganized. And hard to track down. But she was busy organizing adoptions and tending to her own family. Or so everyone thought. That would change when a number of Tara's clients connected onli...
Mar 29, 2022•47 min•Season 1Ep. 44
For families seeking to adopt, Tara Lee’s Always Hope Pregnancy and Education Center was an ideal option. Not only did Tara organize matches between prospective families and birth mothers quickly, but she also prioritized providing emotional and financial support for the birth moms. Sure, Tara was a bit disorganized. And hard to track down. But she was busy organizing adoptions and tending to her own family. Or so everyone thought. That would change when a number of Tara's clients connected onli...
Mar 22, 2022•46 min•Season 1Ep. 43
We wanted to share a show which we think you’ll want to listen to. Power: Don King. In a sport famed for money and excess, what does it take to get to the top...and stay there? Rising from a life of hardship and crime, Don King became the most successful boxing promoter the sport has ever seen—and the first Black man to do so. He is his own American Dream. His flamboyant appearance and commanding personality made him a star in and out of the ring, as did his promotion of greats like Muhammad Ali...
Mar 16, 2022•11 min
