Original subtitles

[Dan narrating]

[dynamic music]

- What if I told you there was a so-called miracle cure

that took aim at your sensitive parts?

- Brinkley is taking the testicles from billy goats

and inserting them into the scrotums

of his human patients.

- Men line up by the thousands,

even given the fact

that it sounds pretty sketchy.

- Or that a zoo in China

tried to pull a fast one on tourists?

- Now, they have the round pompom ears,

they even have the black patches around their eyes.

- People are really starting [laughing]

to ask questions, like,

"Is there something real weird about these pandas?"

- How about enlisting an unconventional super agent

to fake out the Nazis?

- What they're gonna do is put false attack plans

on a corpse who will be dressed

as a fallen British officer.

- The thinking is that if they can just get the right person

to pick up this corpse,

that eventually it will get to Hitler.

- These are the cons so spectacular, so daring,

they can only be described as unbelievable.

[dramatic music]

You ever wonder why we call a slick con artist

a snake oil salesman?

Well, saddle up,

because this is the wild story

behind the original.

[light music] [birds singing]

- It's 1893,

the Wild Wild West.

Roping cattle, farming,

you're building railroads,

life is hard.

You've gotta work yourself to the bone

to get anything done.

The town doctor, if your town even has a doctor,

is probably spread pretty thin.

You need something pretty quick

to deal with all your aches and pains.

- At the time,

it's popular to have traveling medicine shows,

some smooth-talking salesman comes in

and tells you he's gonna take away all your aches and pains

'cause he's got a magical ointment or an elixir,

- [Dan] But one showman takes the spectacle

to a whole new level.

Clark Stanley draws a crowd

with a live sideshow

and a bold claim.

- He reaches down into a writhing sack

and he pulls out a rattlesnake

and holds it out for everyone to see.

- And he would claim that the oil of this rattlesnake

will cure everything from rheumatism

to partial paralysis.

- In the height of theatricality,

he pulls out a giant knife

and he slits the rattlesnake open

and he throws it in a pot of boiling water.

- The snake fat rises to the top,

and he scoops it out with a ladle

and starts putting it in liniment jars

with his own label attached,

reading, "Clark Stanley's snake oil treatment."

[dramatic music]

- And he'll sell it to you for 50 cents a bottle.

For $20 in today's money.

[dramatic music]

- The back of the label reads, "Good for man and beast,

the most remarkable curative discovery

ever made in any age or country."

I mean, who wouldn't buy that?

[dramatic music]

- [Dan] To close the deal,

he hits the crowd with a compelling backstory.

- He brings the audience in close

and he goes on to tell 'em that,

"Listen, I learned the secrets of snake oil

from a Hopi medicine man

deep in the deserts of Arizona.

A mysterious man,

he has all of these secrets for health and vitality

and strength and youth."

But in reality, there is no Hopi medicine man.

- He actually learns about the healing properties

of snake oil from Chinese laborers

who are building the Transcontinental Railroad,

but it's the oil from the Chinese watersnake,

not the American rattlesnake,

that they use on their muscles.

- [Dan] Since rattlesnakes are much more abundant,

Stanley improvises,

and his miracle cure becomes a showstopping success,

until the feds take a closer look.

[suspenseful music] [glass clinking]

- In 1917, a bunch of federal regulators

get their hands on a batch of Stanley's snake oil.

They decide to do a little bit of analysis on it.

And they realize that there's no snake anything in it.

It's cow fat,

mineral oil,

turpentine

and red pepper.

- Turpentine and red pepper flakes

can make the skin tingle,

so Stanley's customers

felt like something must be happening.

In fact, their pain-relieving tendencies

are negligible at best.

- For his fraud, Stanley's taken to court.

He's convicted and he's made to pay a fine of $20,

about $400 in today's money.

[dramatic music]

- [Dan] Not surprisingly,

that little slap on the wrist

doesn't stop the self-proclaimed Rattlesnake King.

- Stanley continues his traveling show

by going from town to town

and selling his miracle snake oil

to anybody that would be interested in buying from him.

And by the time these customers realize

that they've been had,

Stanley's already gotten the hell out of Dodge.

[smoke puffing] [rattlesnake rattling]

[dramatic music]

- It's one thing to scam people

into drinking a magic potion,

but it takes real cojones

to dupe people into going under the knife.

- [Presenter] Ladies and gentlemen,

this is Dr. JR Brinkley.

- In the 1920s,

it's the dawn of radio,

just about every American family has one,

and they gather around it at night to listen.

- One of the most successful shows on the radio at the time

is hosted by a Kansas-based doctor

named John Romulus Brinkley.

Twice daily, he plays country music,

preaches the gospel,

but most importantly,

tells his audience how modern medicine

is failing them.

[Brinkley faintly speaking]

- Brinkley ends up making a fortune.

He's netting about $14,000 a week,

that's about a quarter of a million dollars today,

just from prescribing these tonics and elixirs

to these listeners

for all sorts of ailments.

- [Dan] But for all his so-called cures,

one bizarre treatment grabs national attention

and makes Brinkley a household name.

[dramatic music]

- Brinkley is taking the testicles

from six-week old billy goats

and inserting them into the scrotums of his human patients,

just under the skin.

[dramatic music] [goat bleating]

- Brinkley says he worked at a slaughterhouse

when he was a young man

and he noticed the goats were virile

and resistant to disease.

They seemed to have all this get up and go.

- And this inspires his claim

that transplanting goat gonads to human patients

can give tired old men

the energy and virility of a young goat.

- Men line up by the thousands

to get this un-validated treatment,

even given the fact that it sounds pretty sketchy.

- [Dan] This isn't just a medical hustle,

it's a national phenomenon,

led by a man with almost no real training.

[dramatic music]

- I think calling him a real medical doctor

is a stretch too far.

He claims he took these correspondence courses

with Eclectic University

but that's kinda like getting a medical degree

from watching YouTube videos.

- And although Brinkley claims to be doing a lot

during this procedure,

he's actually just making an incision in a scrotum

and he's stuffing this goat testicle in there.

And he's not connecting any blood vessels,

he's not connecting any sort of tubes

that could transport the different hormones

from the goat testicle.

[ominous music]

- [Dan] Brinkley performs this procedure

upwards of 5,000 times.

And unbelievably, a large portion of his patients

say they've never felt better.

[dramatic music]

- Let's be clear on this.

There is no biological basis for any of this.

Most experts agree that it's the placebo effect,

the power of suggestion.

- [Dan] By the late 1920s, skepticism starts to rise,

and one physician finally steps up

to challenge Brinkley head on.

[suspenseful music] [traffic faintly whizzing]

- In 1928, Brinkley actually gets called out

by a more mainstream doctor

named Morris Fishbein.

He calls Dr. Brinkley a charlatan of the rankest sort,

and publishes a paper that gets the attention

of the Kansas Medical Board.

- They revoke both his radio license

and his specious medical license

in the state of Kansas.

- [Dan] Incredibly, this doesn't stop Brinkley,

he moves to Texas where the laws are looser,

and he cooks up his next big idea.

- He calls it Formula 1020.

It's a distillation of goat glands,

and that can cure everything,

from impotence to insanity.

- [Dan] As Brinkley rakes in the dough

and continues pedaling his goat cures

all over the Southern US,

there's someone else who rivals his persistence.

[dramatic music]

- Dr. Fishbein, he decides to write

a new piece on Charlatanism,

and this time, he gets it published

in the prestigious

"Journal of the American Medical Association" in 1938.

- Brinkley is incensed

that he gets mentioned in this article,

so he decides to sue for libel.

- [Dan] But Dr. Brinkley shrivels on the stand.

- Under oath, Brinkley is forced to admit

that he knew the goat gland surgeries he was performing

could not possibly enhance

a human male's virility,

and he knew it all along.

[gavel banging]

- Brinkley ultimately loses

and is forced to declare bankruptcy,

leaving his family penniless

and the goats of America

just a little bit safer.

- When it comes to scams,

the bigger the lie, the bigger the payout.

This next hustle is so large,

it cost many their life savings

and bought us an iconic catchphrase

for the unbelievably gullible.

[machinery whirring] [dramatic music]

- It's the late 1800s

and New York City is bursting at the seams

with immigrants fresh off the boat.

They're ready to work hard

to create the American Dream

for themselves and their families.

- [Reporter] Men, women and children.

- They see America as a place of tremendous opportunity,

but it's also a place

where if you're willing to take a risk,

you could get rich and get rich fast.

- [Dan] Among those chasing the American Dream

is a man who promises to make others rich

by selling them a piece of it.

George Parker is by trade a real estate agent,

and he begins claiming

that he holds the deed

to the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Brooklyn Bridge at its time

was considered a marvel of modern engineering.

- It's the world's first steel-wire suspension bridge.

It's almost 1,600 feet in span.

The two towers of the bridge

are the tallest manmade objects in North America.

- He tells them, once they own the bridge,

they own access to anyone wanting to cross the bridge,

and they can charge a toll for the privilege.

Then Parker hits them with the price tag.

- $75 for a piece of the bridge

or $50,000 for the whole enchilada.

But it'll pay for itself

because you have thousands of people

crossing the bridge every day.

[dramatic music]

- [Dan] After reaching an agreement,

Parker hands over an official-looking deed,

only for buyers to face a rude awakening

when they try to cash in.

- When they attempt to put up toll booths,

the police arrive and they shut it down.

In fact, some of them end up in jail

because what they're doing is illegal.

[dramatic music]

You see, Parker does not own the Brooklyn Bridge,

the city of New York owns it.

These folks paid in cash.

They're out all the money they gave to Parker.

- Ultimately Parker sells the Brooklyn Bridge

a [laughing] whopping 4,160 times.

- [Dan] 20 years, $1 million

and thousands of fake deeds later,

police finally shut Parker down,

but he's not done running his game just yet.

[inquisitive music] [film reel clacking]

- Parker abandons the bridge scam

and moves on to other New York City landmarks,

and manages to sell Madison Square Garden,

the Metropolitan Museum of Art

and the Statue of Liberty.

- He even sells the deed to Grant's Tomb,

posing as General Grant's grandson.

- [Dan] Parker lives the conman's dream for decades more,

but even he can't outrun justice forever.

- In 1928, "The New York Times"

reports that a man named William McCloundy,

also known as, I kid you not, "IOU O'Brien",

has been caught trying to sell 10 lots for $17,000.

- Over the years,

Parker ends up taking a whole myriad of aliases.

Mr. Taylor, Mr. Roberts,

Captain Kennedy,

selling fake properties

and passing bad checks.

- They find him in Asbury Park

measuring a backyard,

surprise, which he did not own.

- Parker is convicted and sentenced to serve in Sing Sing.

He dies in prison eight years later,

but at least it's said

by the prison guards and fellow inmates,

they never tired of his stories.

- Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me 4,160 times

and have I got a bridge to sell you?

But this brand of bold-faced scamming

is not just an American tradition.

[dramatic music]

- In 1925, sitting in a hotel room in Paris,

there's a very dapper gentleman

by the name of Victor Lustig.

And he's reading a paper

and he realizes that there's a big hubbub

about the Eiffel Tower.

- This tower, which was constructed in 1889

for the Paris World's Fair

was only supposed to be up for about 20 years,

but it's exceeded that time

by an additional 15 years,

and now it's started to fall into disrepair.

The metal beams that make up the tower,

because it's made out of iron,

are constantly rusting,

and in order to maintain upkeep,

it's costing the taxpayers in France beaucoup bucks.

- [Dan] Where others see challenges,

Victor Lustig sees dollar signs.

[dramatic music]

- Lustig knows there's a lot of money

to be made in scrap metal,

and there's a lot of scrap metal in the Eiffel Tower.

- So he gets this idea,

at 7,000 metric tons of iron,

he thinks, "What if I can sell the Eiffel Tower

to some scrap metal dealers in Paris?"

What a brilliant idea.

- Lustig hires a professional counterfeiter

to make very official-looking stationary

with the city of Paris's seal on it.

He also has business cards made up

calling himself a government official.

- [Dan] Then Lustig invites

the city's top scrap metal dealers

to bid on the tower.

[glasses clinking]

- He tells him that they are being given

a secret opportunity to capitalize on this,

but that their discretion

is of the utmost importance,

"The tower is going down,

but, shh, the public doesn't about it yet,

so that's why you gotta keep this on the hush-hush for now."

[dramatic music]

- While there are half dozen men vying for the gig,

Lustig has got his sights set on Andre Poisson,

who is an up-and-comer in the scrap metal industry

and wants to make a name for himself.

- Lustig takes Poisson aside in his confidence

and says he'll give the bid

to whomever makes it worth his while.

Hint, hint.

- Now, the price tag that Lustig has set is steep,

a million to take down the tower

and to sell this 7,000 plus tons of scrap metal.

But Poisson decides that it's worth it.

- [Dan] After handing over the money,

Poisson reaches out to Lustig for the contract

and is met with radio silence.

- For days, Poisson tries to reach Lustig

with no success.

It's only when Poisson sees in the newspaper

that the tower is staying put,

that he realizes he's been duped.

- But who's he gonna tell?

He's too embarrassed to go public

and say, "I just got all this money

stolen from me in this ruse,"

'cause, again, he's trying to make a name for himself,

so he says nothing.

[suspenseful music]

- [Dan] As for Lustig, he gets greedy,

gives the con another go.

- But this time, when Lustig gathers up new scrap dealers

and sets his eyes on his main mark

and gives 'em the whole shtick,

the guy gets suspicious,

and instead of giving Lustig any cash,

just goes straight to the police.

- Lustig's a smart guy,

so he's already one step ahead.

He's on a cruise ship

headed for the United States.

[horn blowing]

- Lustig does not change his ways with a new venue,

taking more and more risks.

- Amazingly, this guy bounces in and out of trouble.

He's arrested 40 times,

and either escapes or doesn't get prosecuted,

until the FBI caught him for counterfeiting

and sentenced him to 20 years in prison in Alcatraz.

- While serving his time,

Lustig doesn't sit idle.

He writes "The 10 Commandments of Con Artistry."

Among his pearls of wisdom,

always listen, never boast,

and always look the part.

Timeless advice indeed.

- Today, we often hear about nepo babies,

children of celebrities

who navigate the world

with a little extra help from their famous parents.

But this trend is not exactly new.

In the late 1900s,

being the child of the well-known and wealthy

could open many a door

and quite a few wallets.

[film reel clacking] [upbeat music]

- 1897 in Cleveland, Ohio,

it is really the gilded age.

It is the time of the haves and the have-nots.

- One of the ultra haves

is railroad magnate Andrew Carnegie,

who, through his holdings in steel, oil, railroads,

has amassed a fortune

that makes him the richest man in the world.

- So when a demure but intense young woman

walks into a Cleveland bank

and hands the banker a promissory note

from none other than Andrew Carnegie,

he takes notice.

- [Dan] The young woman says her name is Cassie Chadwick,

and she claims to be

the great philanthropist's illegitimate daughter.

[dramatic music]

- Now, this kind of made sense at the time

because Andrew Carnegie didn't have a kid

until he was 61.

He married really late,

so it's entirely possible

that he could've fathered another child before that point.

And also, who's gonna fact-check Andrew Carnegie

on his illegitimate child?

I mean, if you're the wrong person to do that,

he could ruin you.

- Because she has this promissory note,

banks, shopkeepers,

wealthy and prominent individuals

open up checkbooks and their homes

and their shops to this person.

Basically the idea is that, "Her dad's gonna pay for it,

so yeah, let her have whatever she wants."

- [Dan] For years, Cassie juggles loans like a pro,

robbing Peter to pay Paul,

until she gets in a little too deep.

[dramatic music]

- It all comes to a head in late 1904

when Cassie is unable to repay

a very large loan,

$200,000.

- The loan was actually given to her by Herbie Newton,

a Boston banker,

and it actually came from his personal money,

not the bank.

So now he is really mad.

- He brings a suit against Cassie,

which is gonna bring her carefully constructed facade

crumbling down.

[dramatic music]

When the police go to Andrew Carnegie,

he says, "I've never heard of this person,

and I haven't written a promissory note in 30 years."

- [Dan] It turns out Cassie isn't who she says she is.

- Her real name is Elizabeth Betty Bigley.

She's a grifter from Canada,

and she has been conning people

since she was 13 years old.

[dramatic music]

- She, at one point, runs a brothel,

she later poses as a psychic to the rich.

She marries six times

to increasingly wealthy men.

One of these marriages lasts only 12 days.

Now, it's hard to know exactly how much money

she stole in her endeavors,

but most people think it's roughly $650,000,

which in today's money

is about $25 million.

- [Dan] Cassie's arrested in 1905

and convicted on seven counts of conspiracy

against the government.

Her trial becomes a national sensation.

Andrew Carnegie himself even attends in person.

- Once she's found guilty,

the sentiment was not of negativity.

Oh, no, she was really like the people's champ.

Someone started manufacturing Cassie Tonic,

which was supposed to boost your confidence.

- Oddly enough, Cassie is allowed

to bring some of her ill-gotten gains to prison with her.

Coats, jewelry, furniture.

She's seen as a kind of Robinhood figure.

- As a footnote to this story,

Carnegie actually pays the debts

of some of the people defrauded in Cleveland,

which has led people to speculate

that there may have been more of a connection

between Carnegie and Cassie

than we were led to believe.

- All that pretending has to be exhausting.

Luckily, our next con artist

is able to pull a fast one

barely breaking a sweat.

[dramatic music]

- Arguably, one of the most famous road races

in the entire United States

is the Boston Marathon.

And Bostonians love their marathon.

[starter gun firing] [audience cheering]

Now, while there's tons of civilian competitors,

it's usually pretty seasoned professional runners

who ultimately win these races.

- [Dan] Then in 1980,

one unexpected runner changes the game,

and suddenly a newcomer is making history.

[audience cheering] - Rosie Ruiz

from New York City

heading down Parapet Street

for what appears to be a new American record time.

A young Cuban woman stuns the world

when she becomes the first woman

to cross the finish line in that year's race.

Her time is the third-fastest recorded for a marathon

by a woman in human history.

[audience cheering and clapping]

And she's a complete unknown.

- Rosie is given the traditional wreath of laurels

and a gold medal, complete with a large diamond stud.

She calls it the best day of her life.

- [Dan] This appears to be one heck of a case

of beginner's luck,

or is it?

- People start getting suspicious almost immediately.

The marathon places spotters along the route

and none of them remember seeing her

at the checkpoints along the way.

We missed her at all our checkpoints.

- Then things get really suspicious

when commentator Kathrine Switzer,

who is an actual marathon hero,

starts asking Rosie questions about her finish.

- Is someone coaching you or advising you?

- No, I advise myself. [laughing]

[dramatic music]

- Rosie tells her that it's only the second marathon

she's ever run,

that the first was the New York Marathon

and that she finished that one

in two hours and 56 minutes.

- And Switzer is baffled.

She's like, "How did you manage

between New York and Boston

to shave 25 minutes off of your time?

That's an incredible feat, how'd you do that?"

And Ruiz says, "I just trained myself."

- [Kathrine] Have you been doing a lot of heavy intervals?

- Someone else asked me that.

I'm not sure what intervals are. [laughing]

What are they?

- Other things aren't adding up.

It's a hot day in Boston

and she's run 26.2 miles,

and even her hair isn't sweaty.

- [Dan] Still nobody can imagine Rosie

or really anyone cheating the marathon.

That is until witnesses begin to emerge,

including one woman

who starts putting two and two together.

- She saw Rosie during the marathon,

but not on the street.

- She saw her on the T,

which is the [laughing] subway system in Boston.

Rosie told her that she had hurt her ankle

at about the 10-mile mark

and she had dropped out of the race.

- Other people say they saw Rosie

reenter the race at the Kenmore Square stop,

which is about a mile away from the finish line.

- The testimony of all of these people

and all these eyewitnesses

confirmed that Rosie Ruiz was a con artist

and unbelievably lied

about winning the Boston Marathon.

- [Dan] Although her victory is officially taken away,

she holds on to something else.

- Rosie refuses to give up her medal

and claims she won it fair and square.

- I ran the whole race.

- And she has kind of cemented her legacy

as making her name synonymous with cheating.

- But I hope it's all cleared up very soon.

- Rosie Ruiz keeps her gold medal for another 39 years,

until the day she dies.

- Death is supposed to be the final chapter,

but for one con man,

it's the perfect cover story.

[birds singing] [dynamic music]

- In 2005, Michael Gordon,

who's on vacation in New Zealand,

hiking on Mount Maunganui.

Suddenly, he stops dead in his tracks

when he sees the couple

that are walking right in front of him.

[dramatic music]

The man looks like his brother, Harry,

who he hasn't seen in five years.

- The only difference is this man has blue eyes,

and the woman who he is with

is definitely not his wife.

And he asks him, "Harry, is that you?"

The man quickly responds, "Of course,

but look, it's not convenient to talk now."

- [Dan] As Michael watches this man and woman

walk away down the trail,

he still can't be certain if this is real,

because his brother, Harry, died five years ago.

[rewind whirring]

[dramatic music]

- It's the year 2000,

Harry Gordon is a 51-year-old millionaire businessman

who runs an engineering firm.

He's married to his lifelong sweetheart, Sheila,

but then he gets involved

in a get-rich-quick scheme

with the Ukrainian mafia,

and it goes south.

[dramatic music]

- [Dan] Drowning in debt,

Harry decides the best course of action

is to fake his own death.

[boat engine roaring]

- One night, Harry takes out his speedboat

on the Carua River estuary.

He scuttles it on the beach.

[boat crashing]

- He leaves his wallet, his cellphone,

and there's two empty bottles of champagne.

Then he smashes one of the windows.

And he hops in a van,

which has in it $100,000 of cash.

- The police find his wallet, his ID,

his cellphone, the empty bottles of champagne,

and the busted window.

Investigators conclude that he likely had a collision

with a navigation marker and drowned.

- [Dan] With investigators convinced he's gone for good,

Harry makes his next move.

[dramatic music]

- Harry spends 25 grand

to get a new passport

and changes his name to Rob Motzel.

He also buys a pair of blue contact lenses.

- He then spends the next many months

hopping from Spain to England,

before finally settling in Auckland, New Zealand.

For the next five years,

he lives under his false identity

working in construction.

- He eventually marries in 2005,

as Rob Motzel,

telling her nothing about his real identity.

- [Dan] Life as Rob Motzel seems to be working out,

until a chance encounter

threatens to unravel it all.

- After Harry's brother, Michael,

spots him on that New Zealand trail,

the first thing Michael does

is call Harry's real wife, Sheila,

and rats him out.

[phone ringing]

- Sheila calls the authorities

and lets 'em know her husband's alive

and living in New Zealand.

[dramatic music] [sirens blaring]

- [Dan] An international manhunt ensues

and Harry decides to return to Sydney to face the music.

Police immediately nab him,

and soon realize he's not the only Gordon

with a knack for deception.

- Investigators determine

that there was a lucrative life insurance policy

that his wife, Sheila, attempted to cash in on

only a short time after his death.

The insurance claim is for $3.5 million.

- After this discovery,

police raid Sheila's home,

and they uncover paperwork

calculating the compound interest

on 3 1/2 million dollars.

- There's just one catch,

they wouldn't pay out the full cash value without a body,

and all she got was 25 grand.

- And they also find a card in Harry's handwriting

written to his wife that says,

"Our goals this year,

stay out of jail

and get the money."

[gavel banging]

- [Dan] Sheila serves five months of house arrest,

while Harry is sent to actual prison for 15 months,

charged with false representation.

- Apparently it's kind of illegal to fake your death

and disappear for five years.

Who knew?

- If faking your own death sounds like a bold move,

wait until you see the lengths one woman goes to

just for a signature.

- In April of 2024, a young woman, Erica Nunez,

shows up at a bank in Bangu, Brazil.

And she is wheeling a man

into the bank in a wheelchair.

- Erica claims that the man in the wheelchair

is her Uncle Paolo,

who is there to co-sign a loan for her.

- She's looking to get about 17,000 reals,

which is about $3,400.

And she takes out his ID.

But to put it mildly, from the beginning,

this man is obviously not well.

[dramatic music]

- As he's there in the chair,

Uncle Paolo's head keeps rocking back

and going in all different directions.

She tries to put a pen in his hand

and clearly he can't get a grip on it,

so she pretty much grabs his hand

in an attempt to sign for him.

- [Dan] The teller gets suspicious

and starts questioning Erica.

- Erica assures the teller

that he's always like this.

He doesn't speak very much.

She even asks him, "Do you wanna go back to the hospital?"

He doesn't answer.

- [Dan] That's because Uncle Paolo is dead.

- The concerned bank staff

immediately call the authorities,

who of course come to the bank

and arrest Erica.

- Erica's defense is that Uncle Paolo

was alive when they entered the bank,

but no one is buying that.

- When the body gets to the coroner,

he determines that Uncle Paolo

had actually died hours before, earlier that day.

- In Brazil, it turns out the "Weekend at Bernie's" defense

does not hold water.

- It may not have worked for Erica,

but sometimes the right corpse in the right hands

can change history.

- Deception is typically the tool of swindlers and schemers,

used to line pockets and cover tracks.

But every now and then,

a con is pulled not for profit,

but for the greater good.

[cannon firing] [dramatic music]

[explosion booming]

[missiles whooshing]

- It's the spring of 1943,

World War II is raging.

[gun firing]

The Germans are gaining momentum,

and the Allies realize that they need a foothold

in southern Europe.

- The Allies are planning to invade Sicily,

but they're gonna need the element of surprise

to pull this off.

- [Dan] British intelligence come up with an idea

to create the greatest military con

since the Trojan Horse.

[dramatic music]

- The plan is to leak false information to the Nazis

that the Allies plan to invade Greece and Sardinia.

So while Hitler diverts military resources

towards Greece and Sardinia,

the Allies will attack through Sicily.

- It's a pretty brilliant fake out,

because the Nazis will assume

that the real invasion

is just the decoy.

- [Dan] Just how are the British going to get news

of this bogus attack

into the hands of the Third Reich?

With a little help

from a 35-year-old Navy intelligence officer,

you may have heard of.

- Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming,

who will later write the great "James Bond" novels,

he comes up with an idea

from a spy novel that he's just read

called "The Milliner's Hat" by Basil Thomson.

- There's a plot device in that book

where misinformation is planted on a corpse.

So Fleming thinks, "Hey, we could borrow this idea."

- What they're gonna do is put false attack plans

on a corpse

who will be dressed as a fallen British officer.

- British intelligence are going to float the corpse

off the coast of Spain

so that Nazi sympathizers will pick it up

and find the information.

- Spain at this point is fascist,

and the thinking is that,

if they can just get the right person

to pick up this corpse,

that eventually it will get to Hitler.

- They decide to call this mission of deception

Operation Mincemeat.

- [Dan] First things first,

get ahold of arguably the most important part of the plan.

- From a morgue,

they secure a body of a Welsh transient,

who apparently has no next of kin.

They give him a good shave

and a good military haircut,

and then they put a uniform on him

that has wear and tear

as if he was flying and got ejected into the water.

- Every detail matters,

so they need to make him of a sufficient rank

that he would have access

to these kinds of secret plans.

Because he's fictitious, he needs a common-enough name

that it will be almost impossible

for the Germans to trace him.

- So they name him Major William Martin

of the Royal Marines.

- To really bring this all home,

they flesh out this entire fictitious backstory,

and they even plant on him the photograph

of a really lovely young woman

who is his imaginary fiance.

- They are so thorough with this.

They plant love letters.

[pages rustling]

He has receipts for their wedding rings.

They also try to take pictures for his ID badge,

but they can't take a picture of the corpse

because he's, you know, dead.

- So they find another officer

who looks similar enough

and take photographs of him

and use that to make the ID.

- The last thing that they do

is they plant the plan for the invasion in a briefcase,

which is then handcuffed to the corpse's wrist,

because if you handcuff a briefcase to someone's wrist,

you know [laughing] there is something important

in that briefcase.

[handcuffs clacking]

[boat engines roaring]

- [Dan] With every little detail of the charade in place,

on April 30th, it's time to send Major Martin

behind enemy lines.

[suspenseful music]

- And the body is now floating in the ocean

just off the coast of Spain,

with the hopes that it will be discovered

and the plan will be set in motion.

[water flowing]

- He is in the water,

so there are a lot of potential problems that could arise.

What if the plans that are in the briefcase

get obliterated by the water

and the ink all smears?

What if the body just gets eaten by some sea creature?

[pensive music] [waves crashing]

- The Spanish authorities end up picking up the body

from the water

and the secret documents

that are attached to it as well.

- The documents are opened up covertly, photographed,

and sent off to the Germans in Spain.

This intel makes it all the way up the chain of command,

ultimately to the Third Reich.

[dramatic music]

- The Germans gobble up Operation Mincemeat

like it's dinner.

Hitler buys it and he starts diverting his troops

to Greece and Sardinia.

He actually doubles the number of troops in Sardinia,

and this leaves Sicily wide open.

- The Allied forces bombard the Nazis,

completely win the day,

take over Sicily,

and finally have that firm stronghold in Southern Europe

as they had planned to have the entire time.

- Operation Mincemeat is considered

one of the greatest and most successful deceptions

of World War II.

It turns the tides in the Allies' favor

and delivers a humiliating blow to Hitler.

- Trickery and scams aren't exclusive to mankind,

the animal kingdom is rife with creatures

that just can't be trusted.

[upbeat music]

- Becoming a butterfly is dangerous business.

They begin life as vulnerable caterpillars.

And they're even more fragile

when they're inside their chrysalids.

They liquefy their tissues

and reform them into the shape of an adult butterfly.

- There's nothing it can do to protect itself.

So it's very important

that this caterpillar chooses

just the correct spot

to perform this transition.

- [Dan] To most red ants,

caterpillars are lunch.

But not the blue butterfly caterpillar.

This one flips the script.

- After a few days of feeding on leaves,

this caterpillar drops from its host plant to the ground,

hoping that a red ant will stroll by.

- [Dan] Then the caterpillar pulls off

one heck of a costume change.

- First off, she takes in a bunch of air

and she inflates herself,

so she then resembles the queen red ant.

And she can create a sound

that resembles a distress call,

so all the ants are attracted

to come to her defense.

- [Dan] Ever the rescuers,

the worker ants pick up the fake queen

and bring her into the colony.

- The caterpillar continues to chirp out

the queen's distress call,

hoping that the rest of the colony

will be drawn to her

and accept her as the queen.

This is a pretty nervy thing to do

because these red ants could just kill and eat her.

- So long as the caterpillar

continues emitting the right sounds,

it has free reign to wreak havoc.

[ominous music]

- Most caterpillars are herbivores,

but this one is a carnivore.

So she begins eating the ant larvae

and whatever ants get in her way.

- By the time she's pretty much eaten the entire colony,

within about six months,

she will reach a hundred times her original size.

At this point, she begins to pupate

and becomes a chrysalis.

- And now she's safe,

because pretty much anything that could've eaten her,

she's already eaten them.

- [Dan] Nearly a year later, in the springtime,

the caterpillar performs her final act.

- All she has to do now

is find her way out of the ant nest,

spread her wings and take to the skies.

[dramatic music]

- Next up,

a bait and switch that proves even zoos

have a few tricks up their sleeves.

[upbeat music]

- Of all the animals you would see at the zoo,

giant pandas are the number-one attraction.

They're extremely rare.

The Chinese government is very restrictive

of what zoos around the world

can actually have a panda on exhibit.

So to see one in captivity

is really a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

- [Dan] That's why a zoo in China

does the unbelievable

in an attempt to give the public what they want.

- It's May, 2024,

and the very proud folks at Taizhou Zoo in Jiangsu Province

announce that they have the great good fortune

of having two new baby panda pups.

- [Dan] Hordes of panda fans

crowd around the enclosure

for a glimpse at the zoo's star attractions.

- From a distance, they look, well, like pandas.

They're playful, they're chunky,

they're adorable.

- Now, they have the round pompom ears,

they even have the black patches around their eyes,

but if you really look,

something is off.

- People are really [laughing] starting to ask questions,

like, "Is there something real weird about these pandas?"

[dramatic music]

- [Dan] That's when the zoo fesses up.

Real pandas are expensive,

and come with a mountain of red tape,

so they get a little creative.

- They got these Chow Chow dogs.

Now, this is a breed from Northern China

that has puffy fur,

they have this kind of lion-like mane,

this pushed-in face.

- They give 'em a little haircut

and they [laughing] do a little dye job,

and voila, they come out looking like pandas.

- The public is up in arms.

I mean, it's consumer fraud.

- And there are questions from animal rights groups

about whether or not this is animal abuse.

- So the zoo defended itself by saying,

"Listen, dogs are groomed all the time.

It's safe dye.

So everyone just calm down."

- In fact, instead of shrinking from the deception,

the zoo doubles down.

They embrace the lie.

- [Dan] Local officials rule

that as long as the zoo

posts a clear sign stating these aren't pandas,

they're not guilty of false advertising.

[bright music]

- A number of those attending the zoo

say they appreciate the hustle,

saying the zoo saw a need and got creative.

[dogs barking]

- Representatives from the zoo

actually said that they got this whole idea

to dye these puppies from the internet.

And everybody's pretty interested

and a whole lot of people have looked at those puppies.

So mission accomplished.

[dramatic music]

- From snake oil to massive bridges for sale,

enlisting the dead or faking your dead,

these are the cons so spectacular

they can only be called unbelievable.