Exiled Russian journalist Yevgeny Safranov is extremely stressed out. Inside his Paris apartment he paces up and down, furious that all his devices have been hacked. His phone, his government ID, his social media--everything. By who we don't know, as shortly after Safranov jumped out of his window onto the tarmac below. He died instantly. This is the official story, but there is of course something fishy going on... Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privac...
Jan 30, 2026•29 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Listeners of Season One will likely remember Lukoil, the Russian energy conglomerate with one foot in the regime and another in international commerce. There are half a dozen mysterious deaths linked to Lukoil, and now, another two... Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jan 21, 2026•31 min•Season 2Ep. 11
To understand what was truly going on at the heart of the embezzlement ring Igor Kotelnikov was part of, we must understand the conditions of the jail he was held in… Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jan 07, 2026•32 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Multimillionaire businessman Igor Kotelnikov is used to the high life: fancy cars, big houses, fine dining. He’s lived a life of luxury, which is why it’s hit him so hard to be sent to a pre-trial detention centre in Moscow. These are some of the worst jails in the whole country. Will Kotelnikov survive? What do you think… Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Dec 10, 2025•28 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Russian financier Georgy Chibisov is partying on a yacht on the Moscow River. At some point in the night he steps out for a breather. It’s the last one he’ll ever take. Georgy falls into the water and drowns. But did he really fall, or was he pushed? Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Nov 26, 2025•31 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Municipal lawmaker Vitaly Kapustin is found hanged in a tall tree using a cable attached to his car. The police rule it a suicide, that is until an eyewitness makes a statement saying Kapustin’s hands were tied behind his back… Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Nov 19, 2025•33 min•Season 2Ep. 7
We’re halfway through season 2, so this episode is an interlude of sorts. As you can probably imagine, the work that goes into this project is massive. We’re fighting an uphill battle against Kremlin state media. FSB interference, and a huge Russian wall of silence. We want to share with you some of the behind the scenes struggles of the Sad Oligarch extended universe... Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Nov 12, 2025•41 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Senior accountant Evgeny Postrigan hangs himself in the garage of his home in the closed city of Zheleznogorsk. This is a place shrouded in secrecy, where weapons grade plutonium and military satellites are produced. On the surface, Postrigan was just depressed. But we dug deeper and discovered a huge web of corruption and state embezzlement... Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Nov 05, 2025•35 min•Season 2Ep. 5
The dead body of Alexey Sinitsyn is laid out under a bridge in Russia’s European exclave, Kaliningrad. It is missing one very vital component—the head. This local CEO has somehow ended up decapitated. A nylon tow rope is laid out near the corpse. The head is further away. When the police arrive, their initial cause of death is “suicide”… How? Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Oct 29, 2025•35 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Russian rocket scientist Vitaly Melnikov has been picking wild mushrooms his whole life. Somehow though, at 77-years-old, he picks a bad one and eats it up. This kills him. His body shuts down and he's entered the eternal cosmos for real. Coincidentally, this happens just after the extremely important Kremlin Lunar 25 mission he worked on malfunctioned and crashed into the surface of the moon... Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Oct 22, 2025•34 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Russian oligarch Roman Starovoyt is having a very bad day. He’s the Minister of Transport, a prestigious position in Putin’s regime. Well, he was the Minister of Transport. Starovoyt has just been fired for allegedly stealing money from the state. After clearing out his office, he cleared out his head with a bullet. At a glance, it's an open-and-shut case. Under scrutiny, it's anything but... Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Oct 15, 2025•37 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Deep in the Siberian peninsula, a corrupt politician falls out of the window of his home and hits the ground hard. Eyewitnesses describe the scene, explaining how he plummeted to the concrete and died. By the time the news hits the government controlled media though, something has changed. The fall is now reported as a heart attack and the coroner declares no foul play before the body is even cold. Something doesn't add up... Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv See omnystudio.com/listener ...
Oct 08, 2025•32 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Since January 2022, dozens of Russia's wealthiest oligarchs and power brokers have died suddenly. One was poisoned with frog venom. Two killed their whole families. Several fell out of high windows. Most of the deaths are suspicious. Russia says they're coincidental suicides—that the deceased were simply depressed. We don't think so... Sad Oligarch is an investigative podcast series that looks into the strange deaths of the Russian elite, unravelling a dark tale of Kremlin corruption and Putin's...
Oct 01, 2025•3 min
Hi, Sad Oligarch fans! We want to share a new show, Away Days: Reporting from the Underbelly. Away Days Podcast is an episodic documentary series focused on unreported stories from the fringes of society. We’re compassionately documenting the underground without watering it down or editorially obscuring it. This is independent journalism with no filter. Real, raw, and ugly. Journalist Jake Hanrahan, the host and creator of Away Days has spent the last 10 years embedded in places he’s not meant t...
May 27, 2025•28 min
Hi, Sad Oligarch fans! We want to share a new show, Away Days: Reporting from the Underbelly. Away Days Podcast is an episodic documentary series focused on unreported stories from the fringes of society. We’re compassionately documenting the underground without watering it down or editorially obscuring it. This is independent journalism with no filter. Real, raw, and ugly. Journalist Jake Hanrahan, the host and creator of Away Days has spent the last 10 years embedded in places he’s not meant t...
May 27, 2025•27 min
In the finale of Sad Oligarch we look into the final weeks of Prigozhin's life and explain how his violent death casts the mysterious deaths we've looked into in a new light. We also take a more direct approach in explaining what we think is going on... See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sep 13, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 13
In what will be a two-part final episode of Sad Oligarch, we take a deep dive into the violent life and violent death of Yevgeny Prigozhin—an oligarch, a war criminal, and the head of Kremlin backed private military contractor firm "PMC Wagner". This was a man with many enemies, but who shot him out of the sky? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sep 06, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 12
In the penultimate episode of the series, Jake and Sergiy discuss the many mysterious Russian billionaire and millionaire deaths that have occurred since Sad Oligarch launched just three months ago. Several dark patterns emerge. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aug 30, 2023•35 min•Season 1Ep. 11
In the conclusion to the Dan Rapoport subplot, we discover how a Russian gossip blogger managed to break the story of his death and why a DC Freemason lodge is affiliated with his alter-ego. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aug 23, 2023•20 min•Season 1Ep. 10
In part two of our look into the bizarre circumstances surrounding the death of Latvian born Russian-American businessman Dan Rapoport, we expose his alter-ego. The fake Pentagon analyst Rapoport pretended to be caused so much trouble the Kremlin itself reported on it. Is this linked to Rapoprt’s death? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aug 16, 2023•26 min•Season 1Ep. 9
What does a Latvian-born nightclub owner have to do with you Russian oil and gas, Mitt Romney, and Donald Trump? More than you’d expect… Sadly we can’t ask him directly, as the man in question fell out the window of his luxury apartment in Washington, DC last year. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aug 09, 2023•29 min•Season 1Ep. 8
A checkup at the hospital seems an unlikely place for a suicide, but when a multil-million dollar Russian oil magnate had to get his heart checked, that's exactly what happened. A man worth half a billion dollars, with awards from Putin himself, decided to jump from a sixth storey window without leaving a note. Russian state media said he was depressed. His family say he wasn't. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jul 26, 2023•35 min•Season 1Ep. 7
In September 2022 the former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute fell down some stairs at work and died instantly. Why is this suspicious? To clarify that we have to ask two questions… How does the head of a scientific research institute amass great wealth on a normal salary? What was his role within the Ukraine war? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jul 19, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 6
As Gazprom linked businessman Yury Voronov took a break at his cottage mansion, a gunman snuck through the trees and broke into his home. Voronov was shot at several times before a bullet struck him in the head. He was found floating in his swimming pool. So why was this death presented as a possible suicide in the Russian media? And how was Voronov killed with a gun that doesn’t fire live rounds? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Jul 12, 2023•30 min•Season 1Ep. 5
On April 19th 2022, a Russian tycoon was found hanging from a railing inside his Spanish holiday villa. His wife and daughter were also found dead. They’d been hacked to death with an axe. The Spanish police ruled the incident a murder-suicide, but the businessman's adult son, who wasn't there, thinks otherwise. He believes someone else murdered his whole family. He might be right. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jul 05, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 4
In May 2022 a Russian billionaire engaged in a shamanic ritual in a bid to help cure his hangover and spiralling alcoholism. During the ritual, frog venom was injected into his blood stream. He soon died of a heart attack. Was this a case of misadventure, or did his Kremlin linked oil company have something to do with his demise? You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple P...
Jun 28, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 3
One day after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a Russian Gazprom executive hanged himself in the garage of his villa in the affluent village of Leninskoye. As police started to investigate the scene, security from Gazprom arrived and pushed them out. This was the second Gazprom executive suicide in as many months in the same village. Was work at Gazprom really that stressful, or did someone punish these wealthy higher-ups? You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free thr...
Jun 21, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 2
On March 23rd 2022, affluent Russian businessman Vasily Melnikov was found dead alongside his family in their upscale Moscow apartment. They’d all been stabbed to death: Vasily, his wife, and their two sons aged 4 and 10 years old. The killings were brutal and tragic. In the crime scene photos one of the murder weapons can be seen. It's a Russian Special Forces combat knife... In this episode we investigate the Melnikov family annihilation. Did Vasily kill his whole family as the Russian police ...
Jun 14, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 1
