Inside Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao’s Life After Prison
Changpeng Zhao, jailed in the United States for a financial crime and pardoned by President Trump, is now living a gilded life in the United Arab Emirates.
truecrime
Alta True Tales: Tunnel 13
Julian Smith revisits the deadly Tunnel 13 train robbery, the DeAutremont brothers, and the forensic science that cracked the case.
The Grate Cheese Robbery - Longreads
How organized crimes fell in love with cheese.
Real-life thriller: A mysterious hijacking, an unsolved murder, and $100 million in the balance.
A mysterious assault. An unsolved murder. And a ship that hasn’t given up all its secrets.
The Hunt for the Counterfeiter Trying to Make the Perfect Bill
On the trail of the world’s best counterfeit artists.
How a Gang of Thieves Pulled Off a Multimillion-Dollar Data Center Heist
The world’s most valuable assets are stored on rows of servers in giant, anonymous buildings. And they can be stolen.
America’s Last Bookie Goes Down
Tim Pughsley built a sports-betting website that moved billions, then the I.R.S. got involved. In the age of FanDuel and DraftKings, where is the line between legal and illegal gambling? Keith O’Brien writes.
You Can Run - The Atavist Magazine
The fugitive childhood of a cocaine smuggler's daughters.
‘The devil’s child’: the rise and fall of the only female yakuza
The long read: Mako Nishimura fought her way into the Japanese underworld, but drug addiction and the slow demise of organised crime gangs almost destroyed her
In Wine Country, Sales Are Down and Fraud Is Rampant
The industry’s murky supply chain has long attracted scammers and con artists. In the words of one expert, “Wine and fraud go hand in hand.”
Emerich Juettner: The One Dollar Counterfeiter
In fiction as well as in real life, counterfeiters have always been portrayed as master forgers and artists who reproduced banknotes with as...
The Macabre Case of the Man in the Mask
And the shadowy world of Andrew Crispo.
The Death of a Superman - Believer Magazine
The last night of Superman’s life came on a balmy Friday in Los Angeles, California. It should have been just like any other night for Christopher Dennis. Blue-eyed, standing six foot five, and bearing an uncanny resemblance to Christopher Reeve, for years Dennis had been a…
The Story of Harvey Prager, the Last Great Weed Smuggler
Before the cartels took over, Harvey Prager built a life on millions of dollars of drug money. A prosecutor called him “the last of the amateurs."
Vigilantes at Dawn - Longreads
A forgotten deportation, a family archive, and the cost of belonging.
The extraordinary story of a soccer coach, a kidnapping and a Saudi job that didn’t exist
Adrian Heath was duped into thinking he was on the verge of a new job – only to be held at knifepoint in Morocco. Turns out he's not alone
Unmasking “Rex Feral,” Author of the Infamous Hit Man Manual
A 1983 book inspired a triple murder and led to a major First Amendment case. Its until-now anonymous author is a 77-year-old great-grandmother wrestling with decades of guilt.
The Blue Book Burglar
The 'Social Register' was a who’s who of America’s rich and powerful—the heirs of robber barons, scions of political dynasties, and descendants of 'Mayflower' passengers. It was also the perfect hit list for the country’s hardest-working art thief.
The Pushkin job: unmasking the thieves behind an international rare books heist
The long read: Between 2022 and 2023, as many as 170 rare and valuable editions of Russian classics were stolen from libraries across Europe. Were the thieves merely low-level opportunists, or were bigger forces at work?
Conversations with a Hit Man
A former FBI agent traveled to Louisiana to ask a hired killer about a murder that haunted him. Then Larry Thompson started talking about a different case altogether.
Poison Pill
Is the killer behind the 1982 Tylenol poisonings still on the loose? Exclusive revelations by investigators yield the first authoritative account of what happened and who likely did it. James William Lewis, also known as Robert Richardson, left behind a trail of clues while…
A Death in the Winelands
Among the vineyards and fruit farms of South Africa’s Western Cape, the mysterious death of a farmworker reveals a violent history.
In search of the South Pacific fugitive who crowned himself king
Noah Musingku made a fortune with a Ponzi scheme and then retreated to a remote armed compound in the jungle, where he still commands the loyalty of his Bougainville subjects
The Hunt for Malaysia's Elusive Wildlife Trafficker - bellingcat
After a decade of elusive wildlife trafficking, we traced one anonymous dealer to a house in Malaysia, all thanks to a customer complaint.
Watch It Burn
Two scammers, a web of betrayal, and Europe’s fraud of the century.
Master of Make-Believe
Zach Horwitz came to Los Angeles hoping to make it in the movies. He ended up running a seven-hundred-million-dollar scam, defrauding a sprawling group of investors, starting with his best friends.
There Are Places You Cannot Go
A friendship born out of the ruins of a nation, a dangerous journey home, and a 40-year search for the truth.
Why Leopold and Loeb Committed Cold-Blooded Murder in the 'Crime of the Century'
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A century ago, two Chicago teenagers killed an acquaintance named Bobby Franks for the thrill of it. The case captivated the nation and continues to fascinate the public today
Poison Pill
Is the killer behind the 1982 Tylenol poisonings still on the loose? Exclusive revelations by investigators yield the first authoritative account of what happened and who likely did it.
‘Stay Away From Him. He’s Dangerous.’
"For years, a mysterious figure preyed on gay men in Atlanta. People on the streets called him the Handcuff Man—but the police knew his real name."
Empty Frames and Other Oddities From the Unsolved Gardner Museum Heist
After 34 years, not one of the 13 works stolen during the largest art theft in history has surfaced but the puzzling peculiarities of the case still draw interest.
In Ancient Bones, a Reminder that Northern Ireland’s Ghosts Are Never Far
When skeletal remains surfaced in Northern Ireland last year, the discovery was shaded with a discomforting question: Was this an archaeological site, or a crime scene?
How a Nuclear Weapons Lab Helped Crack a Serial-Killer Case
Lawrence Livermore's Forensic Science Center played a crucial role in helping to solve a notorious 1990s murder case.
The Expert Who Convinced a Jury That Jeffrey Dahmer Was Sane
From 1994: Forensic medicine allowed Park Dietz to become a doctor while pursuing his true calling: “to study and spend my time on the strangest of crimes.”
A Teen’s Fatal Plunge Into the London Underworld
After Zac Brettler mysteriously plummeted into the Thames, his grieving parents discovered that he’d been posing as an oligarch’s son. Would the police help them solve the puzzle of his death?
Kyle Deschanel, the Rothschild Who Wasn’t
Kyle de Rothschild Deschanel was an instant New York sensation who seemed to live on a 24/7 carousel of mega-dollar deals and raucous parties. Then his best friend found an ID marked “Aryeh Dodelson.”
12 Gripping True-Crime Reads
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For some of us, dark times call for dark reads.
Notes From the Inner Lives of Con Artists
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Venture inside the minds of some of the greatest scammers.
When ClearFiber came to town
The company promised customers fast, affordable internet. Now it’s bankrupt and faces allegations of overcharging customers, property damage and unpaid bills.
$100 Million Gone in 27 Minutes
After possibly the most expensive jewelry heist in U.S. history, Brink’s went after the victims.
The Last Gamble of Tokyo Joe
Ken Eto rose through the ranks of the Chicago mob, and then it tried to kill him. The underworld would never be the same.
How a Team of Ambitious Crooks in 1960s Montreal Planned the Biggest Bank Heist Anyone Had Ever Seen
In the spring of 1961, Georges Lemay, a dapper thirty-six-year-old French Canadian, spent his days holed up in his cottage on a private island on a river in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montre…
Crime of the Centuries
Tomb raiders, crooked art dealers, and museum curators fed billionaire Michael Steinhardt’s addiction to antiquities. Many also happened to be stolen.
11 of the Greatest Scams of All Time, Curated by ‘Scam Goddess’ Laci Mosley
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The comedian and podcast host—and bonafide scam expert—shares her favorite capers, along with what makes them so irresistible.
How the Biggest Fraud in German History Unravelled
The tech company Wirecard was embraced by the German élite. But a reporter discovered that behind the façade of innovation were lies and links to Russian intelligence.
The Dystopian Underworld of South Africa’s Illegal Gold Mines
When the country’s mining industry collapsed, a criminal economy grew in its place, with thousands of men climbing into some of the deepest shafts in the world, searching for leftover gold.
Avenging Billy: How amateur sleuths took on a gay porn actor’s haunting Hollywood murder
Local sleuths help find a suspect in gay porn actor Bill Newton's murder. His dismembered head and feet were found in a Hollywood dumpster in 1990.
The husband-and-wife forgers who fooled the art market — and made millions | CNN
Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi’s forgeries infiltrated museums, auction houses and private collections. A decade after their conviction, psychoanalyst Jeannette Fischer asks: Why did they do it?
The Spectacular Case of Lørenskog: Norway's Ongoing Search for a Murderer
Anne-Elisabeth Hagen, 68, was married to one of the wealthiest men in Norway. But four years ago, she disappeared, and police still have no solid leads. The entire country has been obsessed by the case ever since.
The $65 Million Art Heist That Put ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ to Shame
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A billionaire playboy’s alleged murder is at the center of the world’s most confounding heist job.