[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.