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  • How Japan's Machines Silenced NATO: The Toshiba-Kongsberg Betrayal

    How Japan's Machines Silenced NATO: The Toshiba-Kongsberg Betrayal
    2026/07/26
    How Japan's Machines Silenced NATO: The Toshiba-Kongsberg Betrayal

    The quietest Cold War betrayal began not with a gunshot but with machines that halved the distance at which US sonar could detect Soviet submarines - a 50% cut in detectability, created by nine-axis milling tools and hidden paperwork. How did industrial giants in Japan and Norway bypass CoCom rules and put that silence into Soviet shipyards without anyone noticing for years?

    In this episode, we tell how mainstream companies and routine export paperwork concealed a transfer of precision machine tools and NC devices to the Soviet Union, and we follow the single whistleblower whose testimony exposed the operation - could ordinary commerce really rewrite naval balance silently?

    Person: Hitori Kumagai
    Company: Toshiba Machine Company
    Partner: Wako Trading (Itochu Corporation)
    Country: Norway
    Event: Shipments began December 1982

    - The Pentagon assessed that Soviet submarines’ detectability range was reduced by 50%.
    - Toshiba holding owned 51% of Toshiba Machine Company’s shares.
    - Exports to communist-bloc countries made up less than 20% of Toshiba Machine’s total sales.
    - Eight machine tools and accompanying NC devices were supplied over two years, starting December 1982.
    - Software modifications to the systems were completed by 1984.

    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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    21 分
  • The Night the Lorries Vanished: Turkey's Secret Arms Convoy Revealed

    The Night the Lorries Vanished: Turkey's Secret Arms Convoy Revealed
    2026/07/25
    The Night the Lorries Vanished: Turkey's Secret Arms Convoy Revealed

    Headlights off, trucks crossed a border with 1,000 mortar shells, 1,000 rifled artillery shells, 50,000 machine‑gun rounds and 30,000 rifle bullets hidden under crates marked as aid - and the soldiers who exposed it were prosecuted while those who sent it were not. What happened that January night that let an armed convoy vanish into Syria and left footage hidden for sixteen months?

    In this episode, we lay out the documented chain of events: the searches, the standoffs, the official explanations, and the prosecutions that followed. Listen to how a prosecutor’s inquiry, a colonel’s refusal, and footage of the cargo became the central evidence in a case that never convicted anyone for moving weapons.

    Person: Aziz Takçı
    Person: Özkan Çokay
    Date: 19 January 2014
    Location: Adana
    Event: Convoy searched and allowed to proceed

    - 1,000 mortar shells were documented inside the cargo holds.
    - 1,000 rifled artillery shells were documented inside the cargo holds.
    - 50,000 machine gun rounds were documented inside the cargo holds.
    - 30,000 rifle bullets were documented inside the cargo holds.
    - Footage of the cargo sat in an evidence file for sixteen months before publication.

    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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    21 分
  • Photocopier at Woking: How 780 Ferrari Pages Broke F1's Rules

    Photocopier at Woking: How 780 Ferrari Pages Broke F1's Rules
    2026/07/24
    Photocopier at Woking: How 780 Ferrari Pages Broke F1's Rules

    Fear and disbelief: 780 pages of Ferrari technical drawings arrived at a Woking copy shop in spring 2007, and a single phone call to Italy would trigger a record sports fine and wreck two championship campaigns - but did those pages actually change what happened on track? How did documents leave Maranello, who received them in Woking, and what followed?

    In this episode, we tell how confidential Ferrari technical data moved from a Maranello factory to a house in Woking and then to a commercial photocopier, the key people involved, and the sequence of events that led to the largest financial penalty in professional sport. What started as a routine errand became an international scandal - but did it matter in the race results?

    Person: Nigel Stepney
    Person: Mike Coughlan
    Person: Trudy Coughlan
    Date: July 3, 2007
    Event: 780 pages of Ferrari technical drawings discovered in Woking

    - 780 pages of Ferrari's confidential technical documentation were found at Mike Coughlan's house in Woking.
    - The photocopy order at a commercial print shop in spring 2007 triggered Ferrari learning its data had left Maranello.
    - Nigel Stepney had worked at Ferrari for 13 years before being moved to a non-race role in early 2007.
    - Ron Dennis learned of the documents the same way the public did: from Gazzetta dello Sport on July 3, 2007.
    - McLaren publicly stated on July 16, 2007, that only Mike Coughlan was implicated after an internal review.

    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 分
  • The Informant Who Built an Insurrection: Enrique Tarrio's Secret Role

    The Informant Who Built an Insurrection: Enrique Tarrio's Secret Role
    2026/07/23
    The Informant Who Built an Insurrection: Enrique Tarrio's Secret Role

    He watched the Capitol fall on January 6, 2021, from a Baltimore hotel room 40 miles away, messaged an encrypted chat “Make no mistake. We did this,” and had never set foot on the Capitol grounds - yet he later received a 22-year sentence with a terrorism enhancement. How did the man once described in court records as a “prolific” FBI cooperator become the public face of organized insurrection, and what role did his earlier cooperation play in building the networks that stormed the Capitol?

    In this episode, we lay out the timeline and documents that trace Enrique Tarrio’s path from Little Havana to national chairman of the Proud Boys, including court records, trial exhibits, and internal communications, and we ask whether the skills that made him an effective cooperator also made him an effective organizer for violence.

    Person: Henry "Enrique" Tarrio
    Date: January 6, 2021
    Location: Baltimore hotel room (40 miles from the United States Capitol)
    Status: Convicted seditious conspirator; sentenced to 22 years with terrorism enhancement
    Event: Worked as a federal cooperator in cases from 2012-2014, assisting prosecutions of more than 12 individuals

    - Tarrio was banned from Washington by court order but watched the Capitol attack live on January 6, 2021, from 40 miles away.
    - He typed into an encrypted group chat on January 6: "Make no mistake. We did this."
    - Court records describe him as a "prolific" cooperator who assisted in prosecuting more than 12 individuals for crimes including steroid trafficking, illegal gambling, and human smuggling.
    - He was sentenced in 2013 to 30 months for rebranding and reselling stolen diabetic test strips and served 16 months, per court records.
    - He received a 22-year prison sentence for his role in the January 6 events, with a terrorism enhancement applied.

    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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    22 分
  • He Wore a Wire Into the Room That Wanted Him Dead

    He Wore a Wire Into the Room That Wanted Him Dead
    2026/07/22
    He Wore a Wire Into the Room That Wanted Him Dead

    He walked into rooms where men would have killed him on sight - for ten years he wore a wire while rubbing shoulders with Jimmy Hoffa, Meyer Lansky, and members of the Papalia and Commisso families. How did Marvin Elkind survive ordered stand-downs by police handlers and keep living long enough to run a final undercover mission at age seventy-five?

    In this episode, we tell the life story laid out in the files: his childhood in Toronto, the crimes and connections that carried him into the highest circles of North American organized crime, and the strange ending that reframes everything - what did those final assignments reveal about who he had become?

    Person: Marvin Elkind
    Date of death: January 21, 2024
    Age at death: 89
    Final undercover trip: Mexico City, 2009
    Prison sentence: 1 year (arrived December 18, 1969; released April 18, 1970)

    - He entered Bowmanville reform school on May 1945 and stayed five years, receiving approximately 175 floggings.
    - At 18 (circa 1952) he worked as a busboy at the Copacabana and was assigned by Anthony Salerno to drive Jimmy Hoffa for four years.
    - In 1954 in Miami Meyer Lansky paid him to lose a boxing match; Elkind accepted the payment.
    - Atlantic Acceptance Corporation collapsed on June 14, 1965, after defaulting on a $5,000,000 cheque; it was then the largest corporate bankruptcy in Canadian history.
    - In 2009, at age 75, he traveled to Mexico City for a documented undercover operation paid $2,000 and carried no wire.

    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 分
  • The Man Who Vanished: Sidney Reilly's Final Betrayal Revealed

    The Man Who Vanished: Sidney Reilly's Final Betrayal Revealed
    2026/07/21
    The Man Who Vanished: Sidney Reilly's Final Betrayal Revealed

    A man walked into a forest outside Moscow on 5 November 1925 and was shot once in the back, his true name buried for decades beneath fabricated identities and bribery. He sold weapons to both sides of the same war, stole naval defence plans, and bribed a regiment - so who was the man who reinvented himself as Sidney Reilly, and what betrayal finally ended him?

    In this episode, we trace the documented record of the life given in OGPU and British intelligence files, from Odessa origins to London fronts and a marriage that changed everything, asking how a man of multiple names and shifting allegiances operated inside and outside official agencies.

    Person: Zigmund Markovich Rozenblum
    Date: 5 November 1925
    Location: forest outside Moscow
    Event: shot once in the back
    Country: Russia / United Kingdom

    - OGPU file lists birth as 24 March 1874 in Odessa.
    - Arrested in 1892 by the Okhrana as a courier for the Friends of Enlightenment and escaped.
    - In December 1895, linked to a Paris train attack where an Italian anarchist, Constant Della Cassa, later died; Rozenblum was 19 and never charged.
    - By 1896 he lived at Albert Mansions in London and ran the Ozone Preparations Company, recorded as a front.
    - Married Margaret Thomas on 22 August 1898, five months after her husband Hugh Thomas died; Margaret inherited approximately £800,000.

    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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    25 分
  • The Man Who Became Three: How a Spy Dismantled Revolutionaries

    The Man Who Became Three: How a Spy Dismantled Revolutionaries
    2026/07/20
    The Man Who Became Three: How a Spy Dismantled Revolutionaries

    A spy who was born Aharon Hackelman in 1861 and later took the names Landesen and Arkadiy Harting built a foreign intelligence network that helped destroy a revolutionary conspiracy - and a French court kept a five-year sentence against him for nineteen years. How did one man move through student cells, betray comrades, and reinvent himself so completely that the sentence could never catch up?

    In this episode, we tell the episode's narrative thread from the subject's origins to the Paris operation and its aftermath, outlining his recruitment, the role he played in the 1890 conspiracy, and the transformations that followed - and we ask how memory and friendship finally unraveled the life he had buried.

    Person: Aharon Hackelman / Landesen / Arkadiy Harting
    Date of birth: October 29, 1861
    Location of birth: Pinsk, Russian Empire
    Organization: Okhrana (Paris foreign branch)
    Event: 1890 fabricated assassination conspiracy tipped to French Sûreté

    - Born October 29, 1861 in Pinsk, then part of the Russian Empire.
    - Arrived in Saint Petersburg in 1879 at age 17 and joined Narodnaya Volya.
    - Recruited by the Okhrana and formally by Peter Rachkovsky in 1885.
    - Helped organize and finance an assassination conspiracy in 1890 that was dismantled by the French Sûreté.
    - Sentenced in absentia by a French court in 1890 to five years in prison; the sentence remained on record for nineteen years.

    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 分
  • The Man Who Killed for Both Sides: Inside Yevno Azef

    The Man Who Killed for Both Sides: Inside Yevno Azef
    2026/07/20
    The Man Who Killed for Both Sides: Inside Yevno Azef

    A man who organized assassinations and sent comrades to Siberia also filed reports for the Tsar's secret police-Yevno Azef ran the SR Combat Organization while informing the Okhrana for years. How did a single man manage to plan the murder of the Interior Minister and keep being paid by the same police force that should have stopped him?

    In this episode, we lay out the documented timeline of Azef's life from his birth in 1869 to his leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Party's Combat Organization, presenting the names, dates, betrayals and archival confirmations - and asking the central unresolved question: what exactly was Azef?

    Person: Yevno Fishelevich Azef
    Date: born 1869
    Location: Lyskava (now Brest Region, Belarus) and Saint Petersburg
    Event: assassination of Interior Minister Vyacheslav Plehve, July 1904
    Organization: Okhrana (Tsarist secret police) and Socialist Revolutionary Party (Combat Organization)

    - Azef wrote to the Okhrana offering to inform in April 1893 at age 23.
    - He took 800 rubles that did not belong to him and left Russia in 1892.
    - Azef became a founding member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party by 1902.
    - He assumed full command of the SR Combat Organization in spring 1903 after Gershuni's arrest.
    - On a July morning in 1904 a Combat Organization operative killed Vyacheslav Plehve by bombing his carriage.

    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 分