10 Best White-Collar Crime Podcasts
From Ponzi schemes to billion-dollar fraud — the podcast episodes that expose financial crime at its most brazen
Quick facts
White-collar crime is among the most destructive — and underreported — categories of criminal behaviour. Unlike violent crime, it rarely makes front-page news despite ruining millions of lives. The truecrime.news editorial team selected these ten podcast episodes based on their investigative rigour, the magnitude of the crimes covered, and their ability to make complex financial wrongdoing gripping for a general audience.
1. Swindled exposes Bernie Madoff's record Ponzi scheme
Podcast: Swindled
Bernie Madoff ran the largest Ponzi scheme in recorded history — defrauding investors of an estimated $65 billion over decades. This episode of Swindled strips the scandal down to its essential absurdity: how did regulators, banks, and clients miss it for so long? With its signature dry wit and meticulous research, the episode is both infuriating and essential listening for anyone who wants to understand how financial fraud operates at the highest levels of Wall Street.
2. Mørkeland: the Wirecard scandal and its €1.9bn hole
Podcast: Mørkeland
Wirecard was once Germany's most celebrated fintech company — until it collapsed in 2020 after auditors discovered that €1.9 billion simply did not exist. This Mørkeland episode traces the years of deception, the whistleblowers who were ignored, and the executive who vanished. It is a masterclass in how corporate fraud can hide in plain sight when regulators are too dazzled by a company's growth story to ask the right questions.
3. GameStop shook Wall Street on Patrick Boyle's podcast
Podcast: Patrick Boyle on Finance
The GameStop short squeeze of 2021 exposed the fragility — and the manipulation — lurking beneath the surface of modern financial markets. Patrick Boyle's episode dissects how retail traders on Reddit temporarily brought hedge funds to their knees, the regulatory grey zones that made it possible, and what the saga revealed about structural inequalities in how markets are policed. Technically sharp yet surprisingly accessible, this is essential white-collar crime listening.
4. When advisers looted a 104-year-old heiress of $40m
Podcast: (Investigative true crime episode)
Elder financial abuse is one of the fastest-growing categories of white-collar crime, and this episode documents an almost unbelievably brazen case: trusted advisers systematically draining a 104-year-old heiress of $40 million. The episode examines how legal and financial guardianship systems — designed to protect the vulnerable — can be weaponised against them, and asks why so few perpetrators of elder fraud ever face serious consequences.
5. Podcast exposes Ekaterina Barrett's global fraud network
Podcast: (Investigative true crime episode)
Ekaterina Barrett built a global network of deception spanning multiple continents, defrauding victims through elaborate confidence schemes. This podcast episode methodically reconstructs how she operated, how she evaded detection for so long, and how investigators finally unravelled her web. It is a sobering study in the psychology of the con artist and the systemic failures — in banking, law enforcement, and victim support — that allow international fraudsters to thrive.
6. Fraudacious digs deeper into Ekaterina Barrett's schemes
Podcast: Fraudacious
Fraudacious takes a second, complementary look at the Ekaterina Barrett case, drilling deeper into the financial mechanics of her schemes and the trail of documents that investigators painstakingly followed. Where the previous episode focuses on victims, this one focuses on the architecture of the fraud itself — shell companies, false identities, and cross-border money movement. Together they form an unmatched two-part study of a modern white-collar criminal at work.
7. Catch Me If You Ken: a million-dollar crypto fraud exposed
Podcast: Catch Me If You Ken
Ken Chew Wen Long's crypto fraud operation promised extraordinary returns and delivered devastating losses. This debut episode of Catch Me If You Ken introduces a charismatic fraudster who targeted his own community, exploiting trust and cultural ties to extract millions. The episode is notable for the intimacy of its reporting — interviewing victims who still struggle to reconcile the man they knew with the criminal he turned out to be.
8. Ken Chew Wen Long defrauded his own cleaner
Podcast: Catch Me If You Ken
The second instalment of Catch Me If You Ken zooms in on one of the most morally repugnant details of the case: Ken Chew Wen Long defrauded his own domestic cleaner — a person of modest means who trusted him completely. This episode explores the human cost of financial crime beyond headline figures, and raises urgent questions about how crypto investment fraud is prosecuted when victims are poor, immigrant, or otherwise marginalised by the justice system.
9. UK True Crime Podcast profiles Britain's prolific identity thief
Podcast: UK True Crime Podcast
Identity theft sits at the intersection of white-collar crime and personal violation. This episode profiles one of Britain's most prolific identity thieves — a fraudster who assumed dozens of identities and left a trail of ruined credit scores, stolen savings, and shattered lives. The episode is a timely reminder that white-collar crime has real human victims, and that the digital infrastructure we rely on daily remains dangerously easy to exploit.
10. Wanna Marchi: Italy's most brazen TV fraudster
Podcast: (True crime episode)
Wanna Marchi turned Italian television into a vehicle for one of the most audacious fraud operations in European broadcasting history — selling fake lucky charms and psychic services to vulnerable viewers for millions. This episode traces her rise, the extraordinary brazenness of her on-air con, and her eventual prosecution. It is a vivid reminder that white-collar crime does not always wear a suit — sometimes it wears sequins and stares down a camera.
All episodes selected by the truecrime.news editorial team based on investigative quality, relevance to financial and white-collar crime, and listener accessibility.
