- 5/18/2025
They tried to sound the alarm, but did anyone listen? Join us as we explore the brave individuals who exposed some of history's most notorious scams and frauds. From financial whistleblowers to skeptical investigators, these people risked their careers and reputations to reveal the truth behind massive deceptions.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Excuse me, sir. Dr. Wakefield, sir.
00:02Sir, could we talk to you about your products, sir?
00:05Dr. Wakefield, sir?
00:07Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're discussing people who raised the alarm
00:10about the biggest scammers and fraudsters and whether or not the world listened.
00:14I figured anybody who was stealing that large would do to extreme measures
00:17to protect the scheme, protect the organization.
00:21Richard Bowen warned us about Citigroup.
00:24I was relieved of most of my responsibility,
00:28and I no longer was physically with the organization.
00:37He tried to stop the 2008 housing market crash before it happened.
00:40In 2006, as a senior vice president at Citigroup,
00:43Richard Bowen discovered serious problems with an alarming 60% of the group's mortgages.
00:48However, his concerns were ignored as he watched the number of bad mortgages climb to 80%.
00:53Bowen's job was to make sure that these mortgages met Citigroup's own standards.
00:58No missing paperwork, no signs of fraud, no unqualified borrowers.
01:03But in 2006, he discovered that 60% of the mortgages he evaluated were defective.
01:10Bowen knew something drastic needed to be done.
01:12He alerted the board of directors only to be placed on an administrative leave
01:16and forced to sign a confidentiality agreement.
01:18Eventually, the nationwide mortgage fraud practiced by Citibank and other major banks came to light,
01:23triggering a devastating recession.
01:25While the banks at fault were bailed out by the government,
01:27countless individuals suffered greatly from the impact of the recession.
01:31This is not one of those that they neither admit nor deny.
01:35They admitted the fraud.
01:36They paid a $158 million fine.
01:40Scammer Payback, aka Pierogi, warned us about countless scams.
01:44I'm going to put the money back right now.
01:47I'm going to put all the money back.
01:48Am I getting confused?
01:50I don't...
01:51I'm starting to get confused about what's even happening.
01:54Known to fans by his nickname Pierogi,
01:56Scammer Payback is a YouTuber creating content to raise awareness about common scams
02:00that have a high chance of impacting us all.
02:02Known as scam baiting, Pierogi pretends to fall for the scammers' ruse over the phone
02:06while simultaneously hacking into the scammers' computer networks
02:09to expose their information and destroy their files.
02:11Sir, I told you don't put anything right now.
02:14Don't you understand?
02:16Are you a math person?
02:17Well, actually, yes, I am.
02:19The result is pure justice being served, and it's so satisfying.
02:22While Scammer Payback can't single-handedly take down every scammer out there,
02:26he is raising awareness in an effective way.
02:28His audience is educated on how to recognize and deal with common scams
02:31in order to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.
02:34They were essentially paying per computer every seat in a call center.
02:38They had given money to the police.
02:40So in case there was a raid, it was pretty much a fake raid.
02:43Clarence Barron warned Bostonians about Charles Ponzi.
02:47Even if you've never heard of Charles Ponzi,
02:48his name might clue you into what he was getting up to in the early 1920s.
02:52Ponzi, for whom the Ponzi scheme was named,
02:54promised unbelievable returns to investors in his money-making scheme.
02:58But there was no money to be made.
02:59Ponzi was paying earlier investors with the money coming in from new ones.
03:03The Boston press also began to take an interest in the man people were calling a financial genius.
03:09As the scam grew, the Boston Post grew suspicious and asked Clarence Barron to look into Ponzi's business.
03:15Barron was head of the Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal,
03:18and he found Ponzi's business to be completely fraudulent.
03:21Barron's report was instrumental in Ponzi's subsequent arrest,
03:24putting an end to his deception and fraud.
03:25And Barron wrote an article in which he said if Ponzi can make 300% profit for his investors,
03:34why is he putting his money in banks that are only paying 2% or 3%?
03:39Robert S. Lancaster warned us about Sylvia Brown.
03:43Lancaster was an active member of the skeptic community,
03:46focusing on exposing people claiming to have supernatural abilities such as psychic mediums.
03:50Lancaster particularly disagreed with the activities of self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Brown.
03:55Brown often used her psychic powers to make shockingly false assertions about missing persons,
04:00causing unnecessary grief and confusion for their families.
04:03Every time I go to my brother's home, my sister-in-law says,
04:07you're surrounded by angels.
04:09Is that true?
04:11Yes, absolutely.
04:13It's a shame she isn't.
04:15In 2006, Lancaster created a website fact-checking all of Brown's claims,
04:20exposing her fraudulent powers to the early internet.
04:22Lancaster was known for his patient and neutral breakdown of these false claims,
04:26to the extent that he's successfully converted many of Brown's diehard fans into skeptics.
04:31That's why with Montel, because I've been with Montel 20 years,
04:35the longer you're with a person, the closer you get to a person,
04:38the less effective you are, because you're emotionally involved.
04:41James Randi warned us about Ori Geller.
04:43The media, even some scientists, were taking the Geller phenomenon seriously.
04:47So I decided to show, for starters, that I could at least duplicate these effects using trigger.
04:53A pillar of the skeptic community,
04:55Randi was a magician and author who investigated and exposed supernatural and paranormal claims.
04:59Ori Geller was one individual with such claims,
05:02as he allegedly possessed supernatural powers, including telekinesis and telepathy.
05:06Randi claimed Geller's powers could be explained with simple magician's illusions,
05:09and challenged Geller to appear on The Tonight Show.
05:12Randi and Johnny Carson teamed up to ensure Geller couldn't pull any of his usual tricks,
05:17and Geller's demonstration was a spectacular failure.
05:20It does look like there's a slight bend there.
05:22No, it'll keep bending. It bends more.
05:24It usually bends more after it happens.
05:26And this is one of the thickest points of the sport.
05:30Despite this, Geller's career only grew following his appearance on Carson's show.
05:34Apparently, audiences believed true magic wouldn't work every time,
05:37and his failure only lent him more credibility.
05:39Right now, I'm feeling being pressed, and then I can't...
05:43Well, I'm not trying to press you. I'm really not.
05:45No, you're only telling me, well, will you try that or that?
05:48Brian Deer exposed Andrew Wakefield.
05:50Dr. Wakefield, I'm sorry to interrupt. Brian Deer, Channel 4 television.
05:53Could I talk to you about your research, sir, and your commercial ambitions?
05:58Disgraced former Dr. Andrew Wakefield has caused immeasurable damage in the medical community
06:02with his 1998 study that claimed the MMR vaccine caused autism in children.
06:07Brian Deer investigated both Wakefield and his claims, finding that the study was completely
06:12fraudulent.
06:12No one was able to reproduce the findings Wakefield claimed in his study, and Deer revealed that
06:17Wakefield had manipulated evidence to reach his conclusions.
06:20He won't give his children the triple dose because he believes it's the combination in
06:25the MMR that causes the problem.
06:27Furthermore, Deer discovered that Wakefield had discussed developing an alternative MMR
06:32vaccine and intended to sell test kits for autism that he predicted could earn him over
06:36$40 million a year.
06:38Deer's reporting might have ended Wakefield's medical career, but unfortunately his claims
06:42still live on amongst anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists.
06:45If you're confident about your work, sir, and the quality of your research, sir, and that
06:52your commercial ambitions will withstand public scrutiny, sir, you will stand your ground,
06:58sir.
06:59John Carreyrou exposed Elizabeth Holmes.
07:02And so by the time my first story about Theranos was published, I had been trying to
07:06interview Elizabeth for five and a half months.
07:08She rose to infamy for her fraudulent blood testing company Theranos.
07:11Before the public discovered Holmes' unbelievable technology really was too good to be true,
07:16she had already been named the youngest self-made female billionaire by Forbes.
07:20Journalist John Carreyrou began investigating Holmes in 2015 after receiving a tip from a
07:24skeptical medical expert.
07:26If, however, the sample is still viable, Theranos dilutes the blood and processes it on a modified
07:33Siemens machine.
07:35After several months, Carreyrou published an article in the Wall Street Journal that exposed
07:39Holmes and Theranos as completely fraudulent.
07:42The article destroyed Theranos, and the company quickly began spiraling towards its final end
07:47in 2018.
07:48Holmes was later found guilty of defrauding investors and was sentenced to 11 years in
07:52federal prison and a $452 million fine.
07:55When it comes down to it, it was putting people's lives at risk.
07:58Absolutely.
07:59I mean, you can fault the regulators to some extent, but the regulators were also being lied
08:03to.
08:04Bethany McClain warned us about Enron.
08:06I don't, it gets into a definition of what courage is, right?
08:10And I'm not sure I was so much brave as I saw something and started down a path.
08:15A massive 2001 scandal revealed widespread fraud within America's dominant energy company,
08:20Enron.
08:20The company had been overvaluing itself and using shady strategies to conceal an overwhelming
08:25amount of debt.
08:26The scandal was uncovered in large part by journalist Bethany McClain, who drew attention to Enron's
08:30unbelievably high stock price in her Fortune article, Is Enron Overpriced?
08:34They tried every trick in the bag to try to create the illusion of a business where there
08:39was none, and the people who were working there were getting increasingly desperate.
08:43Though McClain did not suggest Enron's practices were fraudulent, her article raised suspicions
08:47that caused Enron executives to panic.
08:49Enron began to fall apart from the inside.
08:52A famous memo to the CEO from VP of Corporate Development, Sharon Watkins, read,
08:56I am incredibly nervous that we will implode in a wave of accounting scandals.
09:00By the end of the year, Enron was forced to file for bankruptcy.
09:03This is being webcast.
09:04I know I'm going to regret this.
09:06At least when the Titanic went down, the lights were on.
09:10Harry Markopoulos warned us about Bernie Madoff.
09:13If your security wasn't good enough, and if Madoff found out about us, I would have had
09:18a decision to make, and my decision was pretty clear.
09:20I'd go down and take out Madoff before he took me out.
09:22You remember Madoff.
09:23He managed to run the largest Ponzi scheme in history, completely unchecked for decades,
09:27resulting in an estimated fraud of $65 billion.
09:30The scam was shut down in 2008, but financial fraud investigator Harry Markopoulos had been
09:35calling out Madoff's sketchy practices since 1999.
09:38Markopoulos recognized within minutes of analyzing Madoff's revenue stream that his business
09:42was fraudulent, and spent years trying to expose his scam.
09:45Harry said there were only two plausible explanations.
09:48Either Madoff was using insider information to rack up huge profits,
09:52or he was running a giant Ponzi scheme.
09:55Markopoulos reported Madoff to the SEC three times in 2000, 2001, and 2005, and was ignored
10:01each time.
10:02It took Madoff's sons reporting their father to the FBI to finally put an end to the scam,
10:07proving to the world what Markopoulos had asserted for years.
10:10That's equivalent to a Major League Baseball player hitting 960 a year.
10:14You saw that in Major League Baseball.
10:16Would you suspect cheating just maybe, given what we know about Major League Baseball?
10:19Of course you would!
10:20Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified
10:24about our latest videos.
10:26You have the option to be notified for occasional videos, or all of them.
10:30If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
10:36Mark Felt, aka Deep Throat, exposed Watergate and Creep.
10:40For years, the most famous whistleblower in American history was known only by his alias,
10:44Deep Throat.
10:45Revealed in 2005, Deputy Director of the FBI Mark Felt had been the one meeting with
10:50Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in secret as they conducted
10:54an investigation into the Watergate break-in.
10:56Forget the myths that the media has created about the White House.
11:01The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.
11:06Felt gave the two journalists key information about the involvement of President Nixon's committee
11:10to re-elect the president, aptly named Creep.
11:13Felt information in combination with Woodward and Bernstein's investigative journalism led
11:17to the uncovering of one of the largest and most influential political scandals in American history.
11:22Nobody stole anything.
11:24The whole point about this, nobody has made any money, and I haven't seen one of our little
11:28boys make that point.
11:30What's the most shocking scam you've ever heard about?
11:32Let us know in the comments.
11:34I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow.
11:37Vice President Ford will be sworn in as president at that hour in this office.
Recommended
0:58
|
Up next
14:06
0:45