Episodi

  • The Email That Promised Cover—and Triggered a Billion‑Dollar Collapse

    The Email That Promised Cover—and Triggered a Billion‑Dollar Collapse
    Sep 7 2026
    The Email That Promised Cover—and Triggered a Billion‑Dollar Collapse

    On a Sunday morning in March 2008, an email lands describing a $116 million hole in a single client's account, and the reply that comes back contains four words prosecutors will later read aloud in a criminal court: "one for all for one." Behind that exchange sits a paper architecture built share by share, account by account, inside a stockbroking firm that looked like a functioning business until the morning it wasn't. Who inside Opes Prime Group understood exactly what they were building, and when?

    In this episode, we trace the five-year construction of Opes Prime Group's collapse, from a single 2006 share transfer through the boardroom warnings that went unheeded to the courtroom verdicts that followed, asking how three men who understood securities lending better than almost anyone let a system of their own design compound until it broke.

    Person: Julian Smith, Laurie Emini, Anthony Blumberg
    Location: Melbourne, Australia
    Date: March 27, 2008
    Case: the receivership of Opes Prime Group Limited
    Status: liquidated, with creditors receiving 37 cents per dollar owed

    - On June 27, 2006, Laurie Emini used $17.4 million worth of Norm Seckold's pledged shares to support the margin position of Riqueza Holdings, a Singapore-domiciled entity tied to the firm's three directors
    - By early March 2008, $95 million of Seckold's holding in Coeur d'Alene Mines had passed through Riqueza and sat with ANZ Bank as collateral
    - Opes Prime entered receivership on March 27, 2008, with secured debt exceeding $1 billion Australian dollars, including $650 million owed to ANZ Bank
    - Justice David Beach sentenced Emini to two years' jail and Blumberg to one year on July 27, 2011, after both pleaded guilty; Julian Smith was found not guilty on September 6, 2013
    - Liquidators, aided by Blumberg's cooperation, recovered $226 million from ANZ Bank and Merrill Lynch, and the court approved a scheme of arrangement on August 4, 2009, paying creditors 37 cents per dollar

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    25 min
  • The men who pinned hundred‑dollar bills to their lapels drew crowds that paid to join

    The men who pinned hundred‑dollar bills to their lapels drew crowds that paid to join
    Sep 7 2026
    The men who pinned hundred‑dollar bills to their lapels drew crowds that paid to join

    A man walks onstage with a hundred-dollar bill pinned to his lapel, sometimes a thousand-dollar bill, and the crowd watching him reaches for their checkbooks. Five thousand dollars buys the right to stand on that same stage someday and do the same thing. What happens when everyone in the room is selling and no one is left to buy?

    In this episode, we trace Glenn Wesley's rise from a South Carolina tobacco farm to a three-hundred-million-dollar motivational empire, asking how a rags-to-riches biography became the product itself — and what happened when the recruiting pool ran dry.

    Person: Glenn Wesley Wesley
    Location: Lake Maitland and Bear Gulley Lake, near Orlando, Florida
    Date: August 1967 (founding of Koscot Interplanetary, Inc.)
    Case: the multi-level distributorship scheme built through Koscot Interplanetary and Dare to Be Great
    Status: collapsed under lawsuits and federal charges; Wesley later imprisoned; the unfinished castle still stands on Bear Gulley Lake

    - Koscot Interplanetary, Inc. was founded in August 1967; Dare to Be Great followed in 1969
    - At its peak the network employed an estimated 60,000 people across 40 states and Canada, with around 500,000 participants
    - Distributorships cost $5,000, supervisorships $2,000, and directorships $5,400
    - In 1971 the FTC sued Koscot for restraint of trade; in 1972 Wesley faced 86 counts of selling unregistered securities
    - F. Lee Bailey was indicted alongside Wesley in 1973 in a Pittsburgh mail fraud case that ended in a hung jury
    - More than 1,000 lawsuits were consolidated into a class action seeking over $900 million
    - After bankruptcy, accountants found Koscot had generated $169 million in revenue while owing $33 million to creditors
    - The FTC's ruling in the Koscot matter became a lasting legal standard still cited to distinguish legal multi-level marketing from illegal pyramid schemes

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    23 min