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  • Honey, No Hives: The Small-Town Scam That Ate $603,000

    Honey, No Hives: The Small-Town Scam That Ate $603,000
    2026/09/10
    Honey, No Hives: The Small-Town Scam That Ate $603,000

    Fear of betrayal in a place where a handshake still carries weight: jars of real honey sat on fresh concrete and a locked freezer, while sixty-four bee colonies that investors paid for had vanished months earlier - and the total loss would reach $603,000. How did real honey, dated 2016, end up on empty land and in storage units while neighbors handed over life savings to a trusted organizer?

    In this episode, we tell the story of how a community cooperative offered fractional harvest titles in a sixty-four-colony apiary and how those investments unfolded into missing hives, sealed mason jars, and forensic accounting that traced money and documents - could the jars people tasted have been the very proof of a lie?

    Person: Christine Russo
    Person: Denise Bishop
    Person: Jason Weaver
    Date: September 2019
    Case: Calloway Harvest Cooperative

    - 64 colonies were supposed to be on the Calloway County property but none were present when inspected.
    - $11,000 was the amount Jason Weaver invested via cashier's check.
    - $8,000 was Kayla Odom’s savings plus a $2,000 loan from her mother to meet the investment minimum.
    - Honey frames found on the freezer were stamped with a date iron reading 2016.
    - The total loss from the scheme reached $603,000.

    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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    19 分
  • They Bought a Scoreboard That Never Existed - $164,000 Missing

    They Bought a Scoreboard That Never Existed - $164,000 Missing
    2026/09/09
    They Bought a Scoreboard That Never Existed - $164,000 Missing

    Fear that your community's goodwill can be weaponized: a professional plaque, a superintendent's real signature block, and $214,300 pledged to a scoreboard that was never ordered, never permitted, and never built-yet only $11.40 was recovered. Who convinced 31 donors to pay, and where did $164,000 disappear to?

    In this episode, we walk through the chronology of how a fictitious nonprofit, fake vendor, and a single $47 rendering convinced community members to donate, and how the fraud unraveled when a retired birdwatcher found a plaque on a padlocked shed. What decisions allowed the scheme to run for months without being stopped?

    Person: Jason Zimmerman
    Date: 2015 (Zimmerman arrived in Calhoun County), March 2019 (McCarthy donation)
    Location: Calhoun County, Dellwood-Calhoun athletic complex
    Event: Laminated donor plaques bolted to an unused padlocked equipment shed between May and July 2019
    Status: Final audit recovered $11.40 in restitution

    - Total pledges solicited: $214,300 across 31 donors
    - Individual major donation: $12,000 from Marilyn McCarthy in March 2019
    - Cost of the single printed rendering used in pitches: $47 at a copy shop on Hartwell Avenue
    - Nonprofit bank account opened: Hartwell Community Bank under "Dellwood Athletic Excellence Fund"
    - Forensic auditor Amanda Underwood noted: "vendor is a pocket" about Tri-State Display Solutions

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    © 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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    16 分
  • Wet Envelope, Missing Escrow: How a Paper Route Exposed $21K

    Wet Envelope, Missing Escrow: How a Paper Route Exposed $21K
    2026/09/08
    Wet Envelope, Missing Escrow: How a Paper Route Exposed $21K

    A teenage paperboy found a white envelope in wet gravel that revealed a bank statement showing an escrow balance far lower than required - $3,000 when regulators expected more than $20,000. Fifteen residents had contributed real money to a “community investment account” pitched by the park owner, and one handwritten notebook became the pivot of the unfolding fraud; how did inspections miss a discrepancy that endured for years?

    In this episode, we tell how a routine paper route and a soaked bank statement led to two concurrent frauds inside a small Ohio mobile home park, and why a simple ledger and a billing coordinator’s receipts were enough to start a criminal case - could a single account and a single name explain where the missing funds went?

    Person: James Long
    Date: July 9, 2004
    Location: Sycamore Ridge Mobile Home Community, Calloway County, Ohio
    Person: Frances Fleming
    Amount: $3,000 actual escrow balance

    - James Long, age 15, found a white envelope with a bank statement on July 9, 2004 at 5:50 a.m.
    - Sycamore Ridge had 81 lots occupied in summer 2004 and was required to hold $20,000-$28,000 in escrow by rough calculations.
    - The escrow account labeled "SYCAMORE RIDGE ESCROW - TENANT DEPOSITS" showed a balance of $3,000 on July 14, 2004.
    - Fifteen residents signed on to the community investment account that Frances Fleming announced in spring 2002.
    - Denise Thorpe deposited $1,100 into the investment program between 2002 and 2004 and recorded interest payments, including a $212 entry on a grocery receipt.

    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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    19 分
  • The County Clerk Who Uncovered $412,000 Salt Scam

    The County Clerk Who Uncovered $412,000 Salt Scam
    2026/09/07
    The County Clerk Who Uncovered $412,000 Salt Scam

    Fear and outrage collide: a routine bookkeeping task revealed an $11.40 per ton discrepancy that, when compounded over five years, became a $412,000 theft from twelve municipalities-how did a single misfiled receipt topple a trusted county system?

    In this episode, you’ll hear how ordinary county paperwork and a routine walk-through uncovered missing salt, duplicate signatures, and diverted funds; can one clerk’s attention to a loose delivery slip and one operator’s inventory check expose a long-running scheme?

    Person: Paul Bennett
    Person: Gail Hayes
    Person: Monica Myers
    Event: discovery of missing road salt
    Amount: $412,000

    - On June 14, 2019 at 6:45 a.m., Gail Hayes counted 41 pallets of salt in the dome while the manifest listed 118.
    - Vantage Mineral Products’ actual price was $31.40 per ton on a February 2018 delivery receipt.
    - The Cooperative billed municipalities between $42 and $51 per ton while Vantage charged $31-$38 per ton.
    - Monica Myers found the misfiled Vantage delivery receipt on June 4, 2019, showing an $11.40 per ton gap.
    - Investigators traced approximately $48,000 from Cooperative funds to a landscaping company 50% owned by Terry Foss.

    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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    19 分
  • The Paddle on the Pole: How a $4,200 Clue Unraveled a Scam

    The Paddle on the Pole: How a $4,200 Clue Unraveled a Scam
    2026/09/06
    The Paddle on the Pole: How a $4,200 Clue Unraveled a Scam

    A laminated bid paddle dated eight days before its auction, stuck twelve feet up a utility pole with "$4,200" written on it, should never have existed - yet that impossible detail started a chain that exposed a four-year fraud across six storage facilities. Who manufactured a fake auction, pre-filled paddles, and a numeric pattern that only a coordinated scheme could produce?

    In this episode, we follow how a misplaced paddle and a spreadsheet led auditors from a utility pole in Harwick to accounting anomalies spanning multiple counties, and ask how routine trust between neighbors was turned into a tool for theft. What exactly did the numbers hide, and who benefited from those identical auction returns?

    Person: Kent Norris
    Person: Frank Cooper
    Person: Melissa Barnes
    Location: Harwick, Ohio
    Date: 2019

    - The laminated bid paddle was found twelve feet up a utility pole on a dead-end service road on Route 9.
    - The paddle was dated eight days before the auction it purported to be from and had "$4,200" written in permanent marker.
    - Kent Norris was fifty-one years old in the spring of 2019 and had founded Norris Auction Services by 2014.
    - Frank Cooper recorded seven auctions over fourteen months with nearly identical price-per-cubic-foot returns.
    - Ridgeline Storage’s auction log showed eleven registered bidders in October 2017, but investigators found multiple disconnected numbers, three addresses that did not exist in Ohio, and an eleventh bidder who had lived in Arizona since 2016.

    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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    17 分
  • He Took $218,000 - And the Fund Held Eleven Dollars

    He Took $218,000 - And the Fund Held Eleven Dollars
    2026/09/05
    He Took $218,000 - And the Fund Held Eleven Dollars

    Fear that a trusted treasurer quietly erased $218,000 while a bronze plaque celebrated donors - and the account behind that plaque had exactly eleven dollars when noticed. How did handwritten notes, routing numbers traced by a paralegal student, and a one-letter alias hide a trail of forty-seven transfers totaling hundreds of thousands?

    In this episode, you’ll hear the sequence of events that led from donations to disappearance, the roles of the treasurer, donors, and the bank records, and the moment the plaque went up while the fund was nearly empty - what connected those visible facts into one case?

    Person: Howard Murphy
    Person: Ed Kowalski
    Date: April 9, 2014
    Amount: $218,000
    Account balance: $11

    - 47 transfers of $1,500 to $4,000 occurred over 22 months from the fund to a personal account.
    - By August 2012 the account held $41,000; by November 2012 it had fallen to $9,000.
    - Six donors received letters referencing a non-existent certificate of deposit.
    - A handwritten note in August 2013 said: "short - need April deposits to cover."
    - The bronze plaques cost $2,900 and were installed March 20, 2014 while the fund held roughly $400.

    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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    18 分
  • The Tractor with Four Owners: How One Serial Number Exposed $1.8M Fraud

    The Tractor with Four Owners: How One Serial Number Exposed $1.8M Fraud
    2026/09/04
    The Tractor with Four Owners: How One Serial Number Exposed $1.8M Fraud

    A single seven-digit serial number photographed twice and later recognized by a meter reader unraveled nearly $1.8 million in agricultural loans and sent a 51-year-old woman to federal prison for seven years. How did one tractor become collateral on four separate loan agreements across Lincoln, Beaumont, Omaha and Grand Island without any lender knowing the others existed?

    In this episode, we follow the sequence of events from a small-town handshake economy in Beaumont, Nebraska to the moment a meter reader named Norman Adams stopped on a gravel road and recognized the tractor’s serial number; we trace Beverly Powell’s career and the steps she took after a 2015 depreciation loss that led to duplicative pledging of the same John Deere 8R, and we ask how routine paperwork and local trust concealed a complex fraud.

    Person: Beverly Powell
    Person: Norman Adams
    Location: Beaumont, Nebraska
    Event: Tractor used as collateral on four separate loan agreements
    Amount: nearly $1.8 million

    - Date: March 11, 2019 - Norman Adams recognized the same tractor six miles from where he had photographed it in February.
    - Age: Beverly Powell was 51 years old when the case begins.
    - Machine: John Deere 8R with the same seven-digit serial number photographed at Steve Collier's Quonset hut.
    - Timeline: Lincoln loan closed January 2016; Beaumont bank loan in April 2016; Omaha investor agreement in August 2016; Grand Island loan in September 2016.
    - Business: Powell opened Keller Ag Leasing Partners in Beaumont in 2014 and previously operated an equipment-rental business that dissolved in 2008.

    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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    20 分
  • She Collected "Holding Fees" - How a Fair Vendor Stole $43,000

    She Collected "Holding Fees" - How a Fair Vendor Stole $43,000
    2026/09/03
    She Collected "Holding Fees" - How a Fair Vendor Stole $43,000

    Greed hid in plain sight: eighty-two vendors paid a $175 "administrative holding fee" that was never authorized, and the account held only $412 when investigators opened it-total losses roughly $43,000. How did a seasonal volunteer turn a refundable deposit process into a three-year cash stream with fake receipts, a Braden City bank account, and regular cash withdrawals?

    In this episode, we follow the timeline from the first stolen checks found in the back of a Dodge Caravan to the records in a retired bookkeeper’s filing cabinet that cracked the case open, asking how trust and routine made the fraud possible. What exactly did the Vendor Management Fund look like on paper, and who noticed the mismatched numbers first?

    Person: Sharon Vaughn
    Date: February 2019
    Location: Kellerton / Doyle County
    Amount: $43,000 (approximate total collected)
    Account balance when opened by investigators: $412

    - 82 people paid a $175 "administrative holding fee" between 2016 and 2019.
    - The legitimate refundable deposit was $350, paid to the Doyle County Agricultural Society.
    - Vaughn contracted as Vendor Management Coordinator in 2016 for $4,000 per season.
    - Vaughn began regular cash withdrawals from the Vendor Management Fund in fall 2017 of $800-$1,200 every 10-14 days.
    - The Harvest Fair runs 31 booth spaces; 32 vendors paid the fee in the first cycle mentioned.

    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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    17 分