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
As a lonely, grieving teenager in the early days of the internet, Celeste Mott is drawn into a secretive message board called "The Looking Glass": a place where self-proclaimed vampires demand total belief, reward devotion, and punish doubt. What begins as fantasy soon becomes something much more dangerous: a closed world built on manipulation, hierarchy, and psychological control. Years later, Celeste tells the story of how she wa...
Gay Talese thought he’d landed a once-in-a-lifetime story every journalist dreams about: a motel owner who built a hidden viewing platform so he could watch guests in their most private moments and kept meticulous “research” notes for decades. But when Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi starts pulling at the threads, the story begins to unravel into something messy. A source who can’t stop exaggerating, and journalist who may have...
The unsettling story of Leslie Wexner—the Midwestern retail billionaire who built Victoria’s Secret, then gave Jeffrey Epstein extraordinary access to his money and credibility. But how much did he know?
Listen to Vanessa and Justine’s podcast Fallen Angel
Read Gabriel Sherman’s Vanity Fair article on Epstein and Wexner.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @cha...
The rise and spectacular fall of Eddie Antar, the electronics mogul behind the Crazy Eddie brand. Who scammed his way from the streets of Brooklyn to Wall Street and then vanished without a trace.
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 about our collection and use of personal data for a...
Shortly after Christmas, Sharon gets a terrifying call. A stranger tells her the pelvic mesh inside her body has been recalled. It's a “ticking time bomb," and she needs emergency surgery to remove it. So Sharon flies to Florida. What she’s walking into is a scam embedded in America’s mass tort machine: stolen medical data, a call center, and huge profits powered by the pain of women like Sharon.
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For 563 days, Harry believed the love of his life was dying of stage-four cancer. Then Rachel’s husband called, and everything Harry thought he knew collapsed. A pattern emerges, revealing a woman he no longer recognizes and a trail of emotional wreckage stretching back decades.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
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In 2001, Harry meets Rachel in Houston. And so begins a complicated and uncertain kind of love story. An on-again, off-again connection that would stretch across two decades of tragedies, lucky breaks, and relentless second chances. Sometimes the hardest lies to see are the ones you want to believe the most...
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
Syed Arbab looked like the next financial prodigy—a frat house day trader who turned beer-soaked bravado into a successful hedge fund. Except that wasn't exactly the whole truth. When the SEC came knocking, Syed doubled down, lied, and kept going.
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 ...
She thought she'd met the real deal: a decorated Navy officer, stationed at the Pentagon, opening hospitals in war zones. But what begins as a whirlwind romance slowly unravels into a portrait of compulsive deception. In the aftermath, this seasoned journalist is determined to get to the bottom of not just how and why her partner lied, but why she believed him.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Michael was 16, lonely, and stuck in a small Southern town when he met someone called Dennis on a vampire-themed online message board. What began as a thrilling, romantic connection soon spiraled into something darker. We follow Michael’s journey as he tries to make sense of the many layers of deception two decades later.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
When an Arizona reporter starts looking into a flurry of closures at country music-themed restaurants, he thinks it’s just another boring business story. But he uncovers a collapsing franchise empire and millions in fraud, all linked to a mysterious character with mob connections living a double life.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
What's it like to have your image used as the bait in thousands of online romance scams? This is what happened to Janessa Brazil—whose image has been hijacked and used to con hundreds, maybe thousands, of lonely people out of hard-earned cash. This is a story of love, lies, and the faces behind a billion-dollar catfishing industry.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
...They were a hot new band and storming up the charts. But something seemed off about Velvet Sundown. Was this the work of AI? When someone behind the band came out denying it, this looked like mystery solved. But this was only the beginning of an internet hoax with many layers.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm....
When one tech founder tweets a warning about a seemingly prolific engineer named Soham Parekh, it sets off an avalanche. Turns out, Soham has been hired and paid by dozens of start-ups, sometimes working at several at once. He dazzled founders with coding tests, then vanished into a fog of excuses.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
When the book The Salt Path was published, readers were moved by the story of a couple who, after losing everything, rebuilt their lives through nothing more than determination, their love for one another, and a very long walk. A decade later, journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou begins to pull at a thread—and what unravels is a much darker and more complicated tale.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Brent Crane is being chased through a mall in the Philippines. He's on the trail of Page Turner, the company that has been accused of stealing $44 million from hopeful writers in one of the most brazen scams the book publishing world has ever seen.
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 ...
Michael Esposito hired 50 journalists, promised them a dream job, and disappeared without paying a dime. Years later, he resurfaced under various new names, taking tens of thousands from couples on their wedding day. But one of his early victims never let it go in their attempt to unmask the scammer who just wouldn’t stop.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
In 1985, a priceless painting vanished from a university museum in Arizona. The FBI had no leads. 32 years later, it turned up behind a bedroom door in a suburban New Mexico home. Turns out the retired couple living there may have pulled off one of the most audacious art heists of the 20th century.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
The story of a Syrian-American blogger whose posts during the Arab Spring captured hearts around the world—including a woman in Montreal who believed she was falling in love. But Amina Arraf, the author of Gay Girl in Damascus, wasn’t real. She was a hoax. So how did so many people, including news organizations and governments, fall for it? And at what cost?
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
In 2012, a Ukrainian man enrolled at a high school in Pennsylvania, pretending to be a teenage prodigy named Asher Potts. He made the honor roll and became a local hero. Until the day police showed up in class and arrested him. The immigrant who scammed his way into the American dream.
Chameleon is a production of Campside Media and Audiochuck.
Follow Chameleon on Instagram @chameleonpod
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