Chameleon
We are living in a golden age of deception. It feels like everyone has an angle and that, everywhere you turn, someone’s trying to scam you. Chameleon is a new weekly show from veteran journalist Josh Dean (co-creator and host of The Clearing, Hooked, White Devil, and the original Chameleon season, Hollywood Con Queen) that takes you inside an incredible, stranger-than-fiction story about someone—or some people—pretending to be something they aren’t. Are you obsessed with cons, frauds, and impostors? Then this is the podcast for you. Get your new weekly true crime obsession every Thursday from Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Episodes
Romana Didulo emerged from the chaos of the pandemic as a QAnon conspiracy influencer, building a devoted following with promises of a new vision for Canada where taxes, mortgages and government no longer existed. She declared herself Queen of the country and in 2023, with her followers, moved into an abandoned school in a tiny Saskatchewan town and refused to leave.
Read Rachel Browne’s article How the Queen of Canada and Con...
Robert Peters was almost none of the things he claimed to be. For decades, Peters moved all over the world, talking his way into universities, teaching jobs and churches with forged references and invented qualifications. He married at least eight women, and even after being exposed he would simply disappear and start again somewhere else. This is the story of a historian who became obsessed with Peters, told by another historian w...
In 2018, Michael Avenatti seemed to appear out of nowhere. A brash, flashy lawyer riding shotgun with the porn star Stormy Daniels as her allegations against Donald Trump exploded into a national scandal. Avenatti was everywhere and was even — briefly — considered to be a presidential contender. Then the mask slipped to reveal a man clinging to his own myth.
Read Matthew Shear’s 2018 New York Times profile of Avena...
When Esther was a teenager, her parents supported her in joining a group that promised to help her with her drug problem. She found a world of secret rituals, forced confessions, endless meetings — and a community that for a while at least, seemed to be exactly what she felt she had been missing her whole life.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and...
Steffen Baldwin was a tattooed dog whisperer with an apparent gift for rehabilitating dangerous animals. He was a beloved local celebrity with a reputation for saving the most difficult dogs from being put down. But after one pit bull named Remy vanished, a determined owner, a vet and a local detective began to piece together a pattern of deception that revealed a far more sinister character than anyone ever suspected.
Chamele...
Jacob Kingston wanted money, status and the approval of his family. Then he met a charismatic Armenian oil tycoon called The Lion. What began with a deal over a shipment of stranded biofuel turned into a sprawling billion dollar scam where religious extremism, organized crime and green-energy policy collide.
Listen to Michele’s podcast Kingdom of Fraud
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
When Mike Shannon was nine years old, he was told that his father had died fighting the Germans at the Battle of El Alamein. Michael’s father hadn’t died at all. He’d been a successful novelist and, quite possibly, a spy. We follow one journalist down a rabbit hole into the astonishing hidden lives of Alexander Wilson.
Read Tim Crook's book The Secret Lives Of A Secret Agent
Chameleon is a production of Campside Med...
A British band called The Zombies had a smash hit single in America with ‘Time of the Season’ in the late 60s. Shortly afterwards, four handsome Texans hit the road pretending to be the Zombies. This is the unbelievable true story of rock’s most brazen imposters… two of whom went on to form ZZ Top.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
The views from New York's luxury high-rise apartments can be spectacular. And the higher up you go, the more exclusive, and expensive the properties become. An artist became obsessed with those views, and the hidden world hiding behind them. She just needed to find a way in.
Discover more about the Andi Schmied and her book “Private Views A High-Rise Panorama of Manhattan”
Chameleon is a production of Campsid...
As a teenager in Milwaukee, Art Rapkin became a hustler, karate champion and a fake Bob Dylan. Then he started smuggling cocaine, before ending up in a Mexican prison, where he was tortured, before working with he FBI and DEA.
Read Poison for Rats by Arthur Rapkin and Alec Banks
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
Frank Abagnale Jr. became America's most famous con artist. He said he stole millions of dollars, posed as a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, before working for the FBI. His story became a bestselling book, a Hollywood blockbuster and a Broadway musical. But what if the greatest con Frank Abagnale pulled was convincing the world that any of it was true?
Listen to Javier Leiva’s podcast The Real Frank Abagnale
Chameleon ...
In the summer of 1991, a young woman walks into a police station in Ogden, Utah. She claims that just blocks away, amongst the manicured suburban sprawl, a self-proclaimed prophet has spent years building a secret religious empire — fuelled by fear, manipulation, and systematic abuse.
Listen to Mike King’s podcast Gardens of Evil: Inside the Zion Society Cult
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audi...
The mayor of an idyllic seaside town in France had seemingly fallen under the spell of a glamorous mystic who claimed she could speak to the dead. Their relationship soon pulled the whole town into a mind-blowing scandal that blurred the line between personal loyalty and political corruption.
Listen to Leo’s podcast The Mystic and the Mayor
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
A promising high school basketball star seemed to appear out of nowhere—a talented homeless kid trying to rebuild his life after Hurricane Harvey. But Rashun Richardson was no ordinary freshman. In fact… He wasn’t even a teenager.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information...
In the late 1990s, a group of art students from Leeds, England, announce a week in Spain as their latest “conceptual artwork” — and Britain’s tabloids lose their collective mind. But as the headlines pile up, it becomes clear the “holiday” is only the surface story. And the Art is aimed straight at the culture machine that’s reporting it.
Sarah Thornton's artist website
Re...
His friends, family and a string of partners all believed a version of the same thing. That Randy was a former marine who now flew commercial airliners. But as the people around him started to look more closely, their ideas about who this charming man was began to wobble. And if Randy has been taking such great liberties with the truth then what else isn’t true?
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
A network of animal shelters in Uganda started posting heartbreaking videos of starving, mutilated dogs on social media, begging for donations from animal lovers. But as a group of women around the world began comparing notes, they uncovered something much darker: a sprawling scam operation where animals were being tortured for clicks, sympathy and cash. And they started fighting back.
Follow Nicola’s instagram account WeWont...
In 2009, Vincent Richardson walked into a Chicago police station and reported for duty. No one noticed he wasn’t actually a cop. No one noticed he was 14 years old. This is the story of the teenager who fooled the system time after time. Was it a prank? A cry for help? Or something else entirely?
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck. Launching November 13th wherever you get your podcasts.
When Heidi Cloud was twelve years old, she became the first child in America to be sent to jail for refusing a court-ordered visit with her father. As she grew up, Heidi came to understand that the real danger had been much closer to home. Her mother spent decades pulling everyone around her into a relentless world of conspiracy. Then she disappeared.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Heidi Cloud's childhood never stood a chance of being normal. A mother with a warped way of seeing the world keeps the family on the run and embroiled in an impossible custody battle with a historic and horrific conclusion. How does Heidi begin to untangle the truth when her own mother is as manipulative as she is convincing.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
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