Coal, Con Men and a Kidnapping Scheme

Summary

Summary of "Lawless Planet" Episode: "Coal, Con Men and a Kidnapping Scheme"

Released on July 28, 2025 by Wondery

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Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "Coal, Con Men and a Kidnapping Scheme," Lawless Planet delves into a complex narrative intertwining environmental degradation, corporate corruption, and personal tragedy within the coal mining industry. Host Zach Goldbaum guides listeners through the mysterious disappearance and subsequent reappearance of Larry "LJ" Price Jr., unraveling a web of deceit that exposes the dark underbelly of one of America's largest coal mines, Signal Peak.

The Disappearance of LJ Price

The episode opens on April 18, 2018, with Amy Price desperately calling 911 to report her husband, LJ Price, missing from their home in Bluefield, Virginia. LJ, a prominent figure in the coal mining sector, had been acting increasingly troubled, hinting at potential dangers months before his disappearance. Despite extensive search efforts, LJ reappears nearly 24 hours later under suspicious circumstances, setting off a chain of investigative events.

Zach Goldbaum notes at [00:31]: LJ's sudden vanishing act was just the beginning of uncovering deeper issues within the coal industry.

Signal Peak's Operations and Corruption

Signal Peak, the coal mine where LJ held a vice-presidential position, stands out amidst a declining U.S. coal industry. Despite overall reductions in coal consumption, Signal Peak remained operational, raising suspicions about its financial practices. The mine's promotional efforts mask a reality of financial instability and questionable activities.

John Teeling, a retired FBI agent, reflects at [04:25]: "Coal mining isn't coming back. It's time to get real about it."

Ellen Pfister's Activism

Ellen Pfister emerges as a pivotal character, representing grassroots resistance against Signal Peak's environmental violations. Her family's longstanding connection to the land and her mother's early activism against coal mining set the stage for Ellen's determined fight to protect their ranch in Montana's Bull Mountains. In 2015, Ellen discovers a massive subsidence crack on her property, directly implicating Signal Peak in environmental destruction.

At [24:24], Ellen states: "We had four springs. After they finished undermining, we only had one left."

FBI Investigation

Agent John Teeling's investigation into LJ Price's disappearance uncovers a vast embezzlement scheme involving over $20 million through wire fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes. His inquiries reveal that LJ Price was operating a Ponzi scheme, using funds to lavish gifts on miners and cover up workplace injuries to maintain the company's facade.

Agent Teeling shares at [31:16]: Price claimed, "Every person has a price."

Legal Proceedings and Fallout

In May 2018, LJ Price is indicted alongside several Signal Peak executives. The investigation exposes widespread corruption, including bribery of public officials and falsification of safety records. Despite these revelations, Signal Peak faces minimal penalties, highlighting the challenges of holding large corporations accountable.

Zach Goldbaum summarizes at [35:51]: "Signal Peak was charged with numerous violations but fined just $1 million."

Environmental Impact

The environmental toll of Signal Peak's operations is profound. Ellen Pfister details the irreversible damage to her ranch, including the destruction of natural springs and the destabilization of the land. The mine's continued operations pose significant threats to local ecosystems and contribute to broader environmental degradation.

Ellen Pfister emphasizes at [43:24]: "Coal has an outlaw heart. So where does that leave the battle of the Bulls?"

Current Status and Ongoing Struggles

Despite legal actions and public outcry, Signal Peak seeks to expand its operations, facing resistance from local communities and environmentalists. A federal judge's rejection of the expansion plans underscores the ongoing conflict between economic interests and environmental preservation. However, recent administrative changes have complicated efforts to curb Signal Peak's activities.

Zach Goldbaum reports at [43:52]: "A federal judge ordered a new environmental impact study, but the Trump administration intervened."

Conclusion

"Coal, Con Men and a Kidnapping Scheme" paints a vivid picture of the intersection between environmental activism and corporate malfeasance. Through the lens of LJ Price's downfall and Ellen Pfister's unwavering resistance, the episode underscores the profound impacts of unethical practices in the coal industry. As Signal Peak continues its contentious operations, the battle between economic interests and environmental stewardship remains unresolved, highlighting the ongoing struggle to protect our planet from similar threats.

Ellen Pfister concludes at [43:52]: "We've seen more droughts in the last 25 years than we saw in the previous 40 or 50 in this area."

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This comprehensive exploration by Lawless Planet not only uncovers the layers of corruption within the coal mining industry but also celebrates the resilience of individuals committed to safeguarding the environment against powerful adversaries.

Transcript

[Zach Goldbaum]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[Amy Price]

911, where's your emergency? Yeah, I was just calling. I'm trying to figure out my husband. He's been missing for a while. I can't figure out where he is.

[Zach Goldbaum]

It's just before 2am on April 18, 2018. Amy Price is in her home in Bluefield, Virginia, an Appalachian coal mining town on the border of West Virginia. Amy last spoke to her husband around 8pm he said there were a few things he needed to take care of at a coal mine he does business with. But Amy hasn't heard from him since and. And now she's scared.

[Amy Price]

But he's been kind of depressed lately and I know there's a lot of things going on with him. I'm just real concerned. Okay, what's his Name?

[Zach Goldbaum]

Larry Price Jr. Larry Price Jr. Or LJ as he's known to friends, is 38 years old, 5 10, muscular build, with a tattoo of a panther on his bicep and another of Jesus with the cross on his chest. LJ has spent his life in coal mines, and he's risen to become a bit of a power player in the industry, involved in mines from Virginia all the way to Montana. But lately, Amy could tell things at work were not going well. A week earlier, LJ told Amy, if something happens to me, be thankful for the years we've had together. Also, liquidate all the stuff and stay in one location. On this night in Virginia, police officers, helicopters, and canines fan out across the county looking for lj. Detectives contact the last person who Amy believes has seen him. It's his pastor, who tells police that he and LJ had prayed together over a business decision. Amy Price doesn't sleep that night. And as the sun begins to rise the following day, she starts to fear the worst. Then, nearly 24 hours after LJ went missing, another call comes in to 91 1, this time from a driver who spotted a man walking along the side of the road about 20 miles away from Amy's home. The man is wearing boots, jeans, and a flannel jacket. And beneath the neckline of a blue T shirt is a tattoo of Jesus with the cross. LJ Price is alive, but his troubles are just beginning. LJ's sudden disappearance and reappearance will set off a chain of events that will expose not only LJ Price, but the dirty underbelly of one of the country's Largest coal mines from Wondry. I'm Zach Goldbaum and this is Lawless Planet. From coast to coast, people are fleeing flames, wind and we need hell out of here.

[John Teeling]

We are stuck. We have caught on firearms. Nature is telling us. I can't take this anymore.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our town.

[Ellen Pfister]

We call things accidents.

[Zach Goldbaum]

There is no accident.

[Ellen Pfister]

This was 100% preventable.

[John Teeling]

I could tell I was floating in.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Oil and I remember looking under the rig and seeing the water on fire.

[John Teeling]

And I thought, what have you done?

[Zach Goldbaum]

Over the years, I've reported on environmental activists chaining themselves to pipelines in the swamps of Louisiana, butterfly conservationists in Mexico who were killed for standing up to cartels. I've met Brazilian street gangs doing illegal gold mining in the Amazon. And I've come to realize that these are the stories about our changing planet, that we need to tell stories about people and the things we're doing to either protect the earth or destroy it. In other words, the true crimes fueling the climate cris Today, a case from the heart of coal country.

[John Teeling]

Coal mining isn't coming back. It's time to get real about it. Some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back. I honestly think mining's done.

[Zach Goldbaum]

As of a couple years ago, coal consumption in the US had dropped by more than 60% from its peak in 2007, thanks to fracking and renewables. The domestic coal industry seemed to be on death's door. But recently, coal got a lifeline.

[John Teeling]

We're bringing back an industry that was abandoned.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In April of this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to save coal mining in America. But if we're gonna raise something from the dead, shouldn't we know exactly what it is we're bringing back? The answer may be lurking in the details surrounding the disposal disappearance of LJ Price and everything that happened next.

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[Zach Goldbaum]

When John Teeling was a kid growing up in the 1960s, he was obsessed with one TV show, the FBI.

[John Teeling]

We had a little black and white TV and I'd lay on the carpet and I used to watch a program called the FBI with Ephraim Zimbalist Jr. And at the end of the show, he'd often get in a shootout and tackle people. And I thought it was like really cool. So I just always wanted to be a FBI agent.

[Zach Goldbaum]

When John grew up, he got his wish.

[John Teeling]

I was a special agent, primarily with criminal right here in Billings, Montana.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In the early days of the FBI, there was this running joke that if you screwed up a job, they'd exile you to a remote field office in Montana where there was no action. But when agent Teeling was assigned there early in his career, that's not what he found.

[John Teeling]

I had to work. Rapes, murders, assaults, kidnappings, financial crimes, bank fraud, money laundering, bribery, political corruption. They'd call me the bull. And my buddies used to say, john, I hope you never investigate me, man, because I don't have a chance.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In 2018, the bull was getting ready to retire after 33 years. Then a mysterious construction project caught his eye, and it quickly became the talk of the town.

[John Teeling]

People in eastern Montana or South central don't flaunt their wealth. They'll drive old trucks, wear old coats, blue jeans, and all of a sudden, this guy comes into town and he's building this 15, $20 million mansion. That's a monstrosity. It's like the whole community's like, who the heck is this guy and what's going on?

[Zach Goldbaum]

The multimillion dollar monstrosity that Agent Teeling is talking about isn't exactly a house. It's more like a castle, literally. It has turrets, a shallow moat, even a drawbridge. There's also 10 bedrooms, a five story glass elevator, a 14 car garage, a home theater, indoor shooting range, bowling alley, three swimming pools, and for some reason, 19 bathrooms. At over 30,000 square feet, it was set to become the biggest private residence in Billings, Montana. And it happened to be just down the road from where Agent Teeling lived.

[John Teeling]

One night, my wife and I were driving with an ice cream cone and we pulled in front of the cul de sac where the castle was being built and all of a sudden, headlights go on, and they go down this long driveway that's about half a mile, this big black Escalade. And it drove up right next to me. And it was some kid. He had, like, a West Virginia twang. And he said, sir, the owner doesn't want anyone looking at his house. Move. And I said, excuse me, and I'm licking my ice cream cone, and I'm kind of a bigger guy, and, you know, I always packed heat. So when you got a Glock on your side, you're always pretty confident, right? And I said, I'll tell you what, I'm going to spend four or five seconds looking at the house, and I'm going to pull away.

[Zach Goldbaum]

What Agent Teeling didn't know at the time was that 1800 miles away in Virginia, the owner of that castle had just been found wandering on the side of the road. After LJ Price is found outside Bluefield, Virginia, he's rushed to the hospital. In an exam room, detectives help remove items from his pockets. He's confused and emotional. Once he gets his bearings, though, LJ Starts to tell his story. He explains how the night before, he was walking up to Hog Pit Motorcycles, a business that he owns, when two men leapt out of a white van. Pointing a semiautomatic pistol at him, he instantly realizes who it is. The Pagans, a fearsome motorcycle gang known for drug running, extortion, and murder. He knows they're Pagans because he met one of them at a Mexican restaurant a week earlier. A guy named Spinner. No, sinner. He can't remember. Anyway, LJ Price tells detectives they put a damp rag on his face. He thinks it must have had some chemicals on it because his face started to burn and his memory went fuzzy. The gang members then robbed LJ Of a knife, a pistol, and cash before putting the rag on his face again and dumping him back on the side of a dark country road. No one could find you for 24 hours, they tell him. Imagine if we didn't want them to find you. But as the police start to inventory LJ Price's personal items, part of his story doesn't add up. If LJ had really been robbed, why does he still have a wad of almost $4,000 in cash rolled up in a rubber band stuffed in his right pocket? So detectives in Bluefield, Virginia, do a little more digging into their alleged kidnapping victim. They learn that in addition to various business endeavors in Virginia, Price is also a vice president of a coal mine in Montana called Signal Peak. They also learn that Price has a second home in Billings, Montana. So they call up the FBI field office there and guess who answers? Agent John Teeling.

[John Teeling]

They called me and asked my thoughts and at that point I said, you know, I'm just going on a gut read. You call it. Jdlr and law enforcement just don't look right. And it just didn't seem right.

[Zach Goldbaum]

When LJ's asked about who is behind the kidnapping, he says he thought it was people he owed money to. But when he's pressed, he pleads the fifth. He says he doesn't want to name names because he was in a business deal with, quote, dangerous people. In May 2018, just a few weeks after LJ Price's kidnapping, agent John Teeling learned the identities of the mysterious investors. The ones so terrifying that LJ Price refused to name them to detectives. And these dangerous people, they were two middle aged gastroenterologists from Wyoming. And apparently I had picked the wrong profession because they were doing so well that they handed LJ Price $7.5 million. But now, two years later, they were wondering what happened to their money. So they reached out to the FBI.

[John Teeling]

They wanted returns on their investment. He was offering phenomenal returns.

[Zach Goldbaum]

But it isn't until Agent Teeling gets another call that he realizes the castle owning kidnapping victim L.J. price is in way over his head.

[John Teeling]

So the phone rings and it's an attorney. And he represents another group of people that invested money with lj and they lost millions, millions and millions of dollars. And they were in the midst of a Ponzi and they didn't really know it at first.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Agent Teeling had worked maybe 100 Ponzi cases in his career at the FBI. And although he was getting ready to retire, he begrudgingly set out to investigate one more. But this case seemed different. Call it jdlr. But once Agent Teeling got to work tracing the money and talking to victims, he wondered, was L.J. price acting alone or was there more than meets the eye at his Montana mine?

[John Teeling]

Signal Peak mine in Montana is the only underground coal mine in Montana. It is a world class coal resource.

[Zach Goldbaum]

This is a promotional video for Signal Peak. And no, we did not add our own music. But tell me that soundtrack doesn't make you want to mine some coal right now. It turns out Montana sits on more coal deposits than any other state in most countries, behind only China and Russia. And Signal Peak's operation there produces approximately a million raw tons of coal every month. Our coal mine is the largest longwall.

[John Teeling]

Mine in North America.

[Zach Goldbaum]

This is a really big Mine. The town closest to Signal Peak is Roundup. It's home to fewer than 2,000 people and around 30% of its tax revenue comes from the mine, which also lavishes donations on the town. There are Signal Peak scholarships for kids who want to study mining. There's the Signal Peak Rehab center. And if you ever visit Roundup, make sure to check out the hot new coal exhibit at the local history museum made possible by Signal Peak. Signal Peak in turn is backed by the railroads that transport coal, construction and shipping businesses, miners unions, and of course, politicians from both parties who want to take credit for the well paying jobs that the mine provides. But as I mentioned earlier, the coal industry has faced serious headwinds in the last few years. Natural gas fracking has replaced coal in much of the US So a lot of the big mines out west, including Signal Peak, looked to export their coal to new markets in Asia. But that strategy didn't pan out. The Asian markets cooled and one by one, these mines in places like Wyoming and Montana started to shut down.

[Pat Teeley]

A lot of these companies that had invested a lot of money in developing coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest, eventually, literally, they went belly up.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Clark Williams Dairy is an energy finance analyst based in Seattle.

[Pat Teeley]

But in the middle of all this, there was Signal Peak.

[Zach Goldbaum]

For some reason, Signal Peak, the mine that employed LJ Price, stuck around, even though, according to available financial records, they didn't seem to be making any money.

[Pat Teeley]

I never could quite figure out how it stayed afloat when the rest of the coal industry nearby was really struggling in selling coal to Asia. It had always seemed like there's something unusual going on there, like there's something funny going on at Signal Peak.

[Zach Goldbaum]

It turns out there was something funny going on at Signal Peak. But for the longest time, it was hidden from view. Until one day, the cracks began to show.

[Ellen Pfister]

The coal mine industry has an outlaw heart.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Ellen Pfister has lived in this part of Montana since the late 1940s, when her dad moved the family and their 300 head of cattle from the Powder River Basin into the Bull Mountains, Big sky country.

[Ellen Pfister]

My dad bought the Bull Mountain place and it was a high relief topography. Hills, steep slopes, big sand rock cliffs. The best place to go look at the landscape was from the top of Dunn Mountain. The pine trees, you know, they make a certain noise with the wind. It's kind of like a sea of its own.

[Zach Goldbaum]

But that sense of peace wouldn't last. Ellen went to Ole Miss to study law in the fall of 1962. The only woman in her class and While she was away, her mother got a visitor.

[Ellen Pfister]

Consolidation Coal, which was at that time the largest coal company in the United States, came around to my mother and asked her to sign a release of damages so they could explore for coal. And so she looked at it, and they could go anywhere and drill anywhere and do anything, and they were going to pay her a dollar. And so she said, well, who assigned this? And they rattled off several neighbors, and she wrote their names down. She says, well, I won't sign it today, but I'll think about it. So after they left, she called the neighbors, and none of them had signed it. And that was the beginning of our local group when they lied to my mother.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Ellen's mom co founded a group called the Northern Plains Resource Council, and she and Ellen became accidental activists. She was relentless, learning everything she could about coal. By that point, it was increasingly obvious that coal was the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, that mining it is dangerous, and that the waste it produces poisons the water.

[Ellen Pfister]

I always knew it was a fight we had to wage. And when mother was there, she was the face. But she sent me to do all the dirty work, so to speak, and I did.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Then in late February 1972, Ellen and much of the nation were gripped by a tragedy on the other side of the country in Buffalo Creek, West Virginia. That's where three dams holding coal slurry at a mine collapsed in the early morning, sending a wall of black water through the town below.

[Amy Price]

The only warning we had was just a neighbor woman had spotted it and hollered, run. The dam has broke.

[Zach Goldbaum]

And then you could hear the roar.

[Amy Price]

Of it, and, well, you could see it.

[Zach Goldbaum]

The Buffalo Creek flood swept away entire houses. Trees snapped like matchsticks. 125 men, women and children were killed. Many more were left homeless. Ellen was horrified, so she went to Washington to testify against dangerous mining practices along with other people who had been affected by an industry with few guardrails.

[Ellen Pfister]

That was the beginning of a national movement, and we worked very hard to get a federal strip mining bill. We got it through on Nixon, he vetoed it on Ford, and he vetoed it. And Carter signed it. And thank goodness that he did.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Ellen had now successfully lobbied to regulate strip mining, an especially destructive type of mining that rips away rock, soil, and even entire mountaintops to expose the coal underneath. And back in Montana, she and her family had also successfully repelled the coal companies in the Bull Mountains. So when she moved home to take over the ranch in 1972, Ellen thought her days battling unscrupulous mining companies had come to an end. But that was before a new company moved in. And this time, they didn't need to buy Ellen out. They took the coal right out from under her feet. Yeah, they can do that.

[Ellen Pfister]

So where does the mine sit from where we're looking now? We're looking east. Well, I'll show you where their headquarters are.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Not long ago, Ellen Fister and one of our producers hopped in Ellen's yellow pickup truck for a tour of her ranch.

[Ellen Pfister]

There. See that going up that hill over there? That's a subsidence crack, that one. That kind of cuts right in the middle. Yeah. So when you say subsidence crack, remind me what that means. Well, but when you pull 10 or 12ft of coal out from underneath the ground and don't leave a support under it, the ground above it subsides and.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Cracks, and it cracks unevenly, and sometimes it completely collapses. One night in 2015, three years before LJ Price went missing, Ellen was sitting at home with her husband when she got a call from her neighbor. He told her there was something on her property that she needed to see. So Ellen drove up the mountain, and that's where she saw it. A biblical chasm in the earth.

[Ellen Pfister]

Where was that on your ranch? It was up on top, over on this. On top of this left hill. How big would you say it was? Well, it was a quarter of a mile wide. And it was. Well, you couldn't find the bottom of it because it just went and went and went down.

[Zach Goldbaum]

The jagged subsidence crack Ellen found that night wasn't just deep. It was over four football fields long. And Ellen immediately knew who was responsible. Signal Peak.

[Ellen Pfister]

And we went up and took pictures. And when the mine realized we were taking pictures, they were not happy campers. I don't really know what they expected because you can't. You simply can't drop something 10ft and expect it not. It's like trying to drop plates off a balcony. They're gonna break.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In 1990, a company had purchased mineral rights to the coal underneath Ellen's property, even though she still owned the land on the surface. You know, an I drink your milkshake situation. And in 2008, new owners came in and renamed it Signal Peak Energy. And by the time Ellen discovered that crack, Signal Peak also had a couple of new executives, including a new CEO and a new VP of Surface Operations, L.J. price. Under their leadership, things were going a little topsy Turvy employees had once dumped wastewater into abandoned sections of the mine. That wastewater is called slurry, and it's full of coal, chemicals, and heavy metals. It's the same toxic water that broke the dams in Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, decades earlier. There is really no safe way to get rid of coal slurry. But Signal Peak just pumped it back into the mountain, destroying the land and water above. On Ellen's ranch, we would lose the.

[Ellen Pfister]

Water where they took the coal out. And we had four springs. And after they finished undermining, we only had one left.

[Zach Goldbaum]

What's a cattle rancher to do when their herd has almost nothing to drink, when their land is poisoned, when the ground is sinking beneath their feet? Well, if you're Ellen Pfister, you fight.

[Ellen Pfister]

Their natural inclination is to take things and do them the way they want to do them. And nobody tells them differently.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In 2018, Ellen challenged the Department of Environmental Quality's approval of Signal Peak's permit. So Signalpeak tried to have Ellen deposed. When she refused, they hit her with a slap suit, which stands for strategic lawsuit against Public Participation. It's basically a way for corporations to silence their opposition.

[Ellen Pfister]

Well, I'm not real noisy, but I'm awfully stubborn.

[Zach Goldbaum]

She eventually won, and Signal Peak was forced to pay her court fees. And so Ellen continued on her mission to expose Signal Peak, the company that had destroyed the land her father had left her, the land she loved, the Bull Mountains. And though she didn't know it at the time, someone else would also start looking into the Mayan's business practices. FBI Special Agent John Teeling, who was broadening his investigation of LJ Price.

[John Teeling]

So I would go contact these miners, like, go winding roads in Montana, knock on their doors.

[Zach Goldbaum]

One night, Agent Teeling found himself at a house out in the country.

[John Teeling]

And this particular encounter, it's dark, it's after hours, so I just show up on a door and say, hey, would you please help me? And they're like, yeah, come on in, John. There's a bunch of trophies on the wall, like, big elk, big bucks, right? So you complicate the guy. Holy crap, that's a huge elk. Where do you get it? And I said, hey, you know, how did you get the sports car in the driveway? He says, well, you know, the company gave it to me. And I said, but why did they just give everyone a Corvette? Well, no. Did LJ give it to you? I. Gosh, my memory's so bad. Yeah, I think he did. Well, how? Well, he just showed up one day. I'm off. He says, let's go to the car lot and get you a Car.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Now Agent Teeling's curiosity is piqued. It sounds like LJ Price has been using his Ponzi scheme not just to build himself a castle, but to lavish gifts on some of the miners. And before he can ask why, the miner's wife chimes in.

[John Teeling]

She says, well, you know, you did fall 7 to 10ft on your head. Well, gosh, that sounds a little serious. Yeah, I don't really remember. His wife says, well, they did put you in a medically induced coma for a week. He goes, oh, did they? And she says, well, you did knock all your teeth out on the top row. He says, well, I guess I did.

[Zach Goldbaum]

And this guy who allegedly had new teeth and a brand new red sports car in the driveway, was not alone. We haven't been able to independently verify every workplace injury, but we know one guy lost a finger and was given $2,000 cash. And another worker had his leg crushed and was told it was, quote, a bad time for this to be happening. So he told the hospital he was in an ATV accident and Signal Peak never reported it.

[John Teeling]

I think one guy lost a foot, and we interviewed him, and he's like, that is the best company I've ever worked for in my life. Dude, you're missing your foot. I couldn't be happier with that company. So whatever they gave him, these people were happy. You see what I mean?

[Zach Goldbaum]

Now, Agent Healing wondered if Signal Peak was paying off its minors to cover up workplace injuries. What else could they be hiding? Back in Bluefield, Virginia, where LJ Price had gone missing overnight, detectives were increasingly puzzled. They had scoured security footage at Hog Pit Cycles, looking for confirmation of LJ's kidnapping story, but there was no evidence of an assault. When they confront him, LJ comes up with another story. He explains that the leader of the Pagan motorcycle gang had coerced him into handing over train schedules for transporting coal out of the mine. Why? To traffic meth. But now that LJ was trying to sever his relationship with the Pagans, they'd kidnapped him and he feared would come for his family next. It's a pretty good story. Too bad it's fake. When detectives check LJ's phone records, they discover that on the day of his disappearance, he had communicated several times with a woman who wasn't his wife. LJ insists that the woman manages a local restaurant he owns and that the calls were strictly professional. But when police interview the woman, she tells a different story. She and LJ had known each other since high school, and according to her, they'd Experienced, quote, occasional intimacy. When police picked him up, he was on his way to a house where they planned to hole up before running away together. If you're trying to disappear, you might want to pick a place more than a few towns over from where you live. But by this point, it's clear to authorities that LJ Price hadn't been running away for love. He'd been fleeing the debts he'd racked up while orchestrating a massive case of financial fraud back in Billings. Agent Teeling now had what he needed to arrest LJ and bring him in for questioning. And soon he'd discovered that while LJ may have been the ringleader, he was not operating alone. In May of 2018, the U.S. attorney in Montana indicted LJ Price for wire fraud, money laundering, and making false statements. Agent Teeling had gathered a ton of evidence, and even LJ's lawyer thought he was cooked. The best he could do was cooperate and try to get a reduced sentence. And so Agent Teeling finally meets LJ Price face to face.

[John Teeling]

So then they bring him in. Guy was a big, kind of a muscular miner. These are not panty waists. These are alpha dogs. So he was a very powerful, soft spoken guy that knew it was up.

[Zach Goldbaum]

So what does he start to tell you?

[John Teeling]

He's everything.

[Zach Goldbaum]

From day one, LJ starts naming names, and it turns out that most of the top brass of Signal Peak was on the take as well.

[John Teeling]

The three amigos at Signal Peak, Brad Hansen, he would be the president of the coal mine. And then Day O Musgrave, the underground vice president. Someone has to get the coal out of the ground and on the surface. And once it got on the surface, that's when LJ took over. They were the three insiders.

[Zach Goldbaum]

While Dale Musgrave helped cover up workplace injuries, LJ claimed that Brad Hanson, the CEO, orchestrated the financial schemes. And on top of the outside investors, a lot of the money lining their pockets was coming from Signal Peak itself.

[John Teeling]

So when you run a coal mine, you buy conveyors worth a million dollars, two million bucks. You buy trucks, you're buying chemicals. So LJ would pay a vendor and they would give him a kickback. Then you had LJ paying just outright false invoices, just total fraudulent transactions. I'm buying a conveyor belt worth a million five. They never bought a conveyor belt.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In all, LJ Price claimed to have stolen anywhere between 20 and $40 million through embezzlement, tax evasion, bank fraud, and money laundering. But if I learned anything in Ponzi 101 you have to make sure you steal more than you can spend.

[John Teeling]

These guys shared a learjet. They had RVs. They handed out Rolexes like gummy bears. Women, booze, hunting trips, cars, trucks, super bowl tickets, country club memberships. They'd have a private showing for him at the jewelry store. I think they even brought in a special collection for him to look at. And he'd show up chewing with tobacco juice dripping out of his mouth.

[Zach Goldbaum]

But when some of the initial investors wanted their money back, including those scary gastroenterologists, that's when the whole thing started to unravel. LJ panicked and started selling off some of his assets. I'm talking boats, RVs, a couple of hot tubs, and yes, even his house. I'm sorry, his castle. Eventually, when LJ realized he couldn't fire sale his way out of trouble, he decided his best option was to disappear. Getting picked up on the side of the road hadn't been part of the plan. Although it seems like there wasn't much of a plan at all. And that's what led LJ to spin the fake kidnapping story. You said LJ told you everything. What is the most shocking thing that he told you?

[John Teeling]

We'd say, how can you do this? How did you get away with it? And LJ said, every man can be bribed and compromised. Every person has a price. And we'd say, well, what do you mean? He insisted they never had troubles with mine inspectors, politicians, law enforcement, nobody. They told me bribery is a way of life in the mining industry. This is nothing. This goes on at every mine. He said, that's the way it works. Every man has his price. The developer of a huge west end mansion in Billings admits to embezzlement and fraud today in federal corn.

[Zach Goldbaum]

38 year old Larry Wayne Price Jr.

[Clark Williams Dairy]

Admitted to his crimes including defrauding three.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Companies of more than $20 million and lying to investigators about a false abduction. Once LJ was arrested, more dominoes started to fall. An investor was indicted for the payback scheme to sell Signal Peak equipment through one of Price's businesses. Price's assistant got hit with a firearms charge for looking after LJ's stash of AR15s while he was on probation. Dale Musgrave, the VP of underground operations, was charged with conspiring to see submit false statements about all the workplace injuries. And the FBI also found out that he had received regular FedEx shipments of cocaine at his house. But they kind of let that one slide because who among us anyway? Then there was the CEO of Signalpeak. Brad Hanson, LJ said they were partners in crime, but he died in 2020 before he could be indicted. In total, nine people associated with Signal Peak were either charged were convicted. Ellen Pfister and her fellow ranchers felt vindicated to some degree.

[Ellen Pfister]

Well, we were chuckling on our side because we knew that they weren't honest and they finally got caught out on it. And that's always nice when it happens, but with an outfit like that, it certainly doesn't tip them over.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Signal Peak was charged with violating a dizzying number of environmental, health and worker safety regulations. The U.S. attorney said the mine owners quote, fostered a climate of fraud and called it a den of thievery. And the US Mine Safety and Health Administration cited Signal peak for over 1600 safety violations, including 122 accidents and at least one death. For all this, the company was fined just $1 million. We asked Signalpeak for comment but never heard back. However, last fall, the new CEO told Coal Age magazine that the company had suffered from the poor choices of the three amigos, but that it's quote, all been handled. He also said that more than 50% of the previous staff were no longer at the company. But even with everything that had happened, the mine kept hauling coal out of the ground. And then in 2021, ranchers outside, outside of Signal Peak's permit area started getting letters. Signal Peak was planning to expand. They said that if they couldn't, they would be forced to close. Ellen Pfister and her neighbors saw it as the last round in their fight to save the Bull Mountains, a fight they'd come to call the Battle of the Bulls. But they had no idea who they were really up against. By 2022, Signal Peak was still pushing a plan to expand their operations. For the people who owned property in the path of the expansion, it was devastating.

[Ellen Pfister]

There were some people who had put their life savings into buying these country lots, thinking they were going to have a nice safe place to retire. And then they found out they weren't going to.

[John Teeling]

Might as well sell out. To them, my place would be worthless.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's Pat Teeley, one of Ellen Fister's neighbors, in a news report about the expansion.

[John Teeling]

Obviously, the real owners of this operation are unaffected if they can just throw out a million dollars and walk away.

[Zach Goldbaum]

But who were the real owners?

[Ellen Pfister]

They have to list their ownership, so you have to read the government documents and that's all on their permit.

[Zach Goldbaum]

They learned that Signal Peak's permits list a group of limited liability corporations. These companies typically have no assets Just a lawyer and a receptionist at an office in Delaware. It's a clever trick to insulate the real owners of Signal Peak, a trio of out of state behemoths, including a company with deep ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. We could do a whole episode just on the three shadowy owners of Signal Peak, but here are the highlights, or maybe I should say lowlights. The first owner is called Gunvor Group, founded by a buddy of Putin's, a Russian oligarch named Gennady Timchenko. One of the people sanctioned by the.

[John Teeling]

US Government earlier today is Gennady Timo.

[Zach Goldbaum]

After Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, Timchenko claims to have sold his stake in Gunvore for a billion dollars because of U.S. sanctions. But some people believe Putin remains a beneficiary of Gunvor and therefore Signal Peak. Gunvore has also been embroiled in corruption scandals in the Republic of Congo and Ecuador. So that's the first shady owner of Signal peak. Next up, FirstEnergy. Tonight, their new federal charges in connection with the First Energy House Bill 6 bribery scandal. FirstEnergy is an electric utility company based in Ohio. Around the time LJ Price was faking his own kidnapping, First Energy executives and lobbyists were funneling bribes to public officials. They were trying to pass House Bill 6, or HB6, which would provide backdoor subsidies to coal plants and coal coal mines owned by FirstEnergy. Oh, and also implicated in the Ohio bribery scheme, but never charged, was Signal Peak's third owner, a handsome coal baron named Wayne Boych, who liked to hobnob with celebrities. On the day HB6 passed, FirstEnergy's CEO sent a message to Boych containing a picture of Mount Rushmore with his and Boych's faces photoshopped over two of the presidents. The caption read, HB6 fuck anybody who ain't us. Yeah. So the Gunvore group, FirstEnergy and Wayne Boych. These were the sketchy characters behind signal peak. The U.S. interior Department said the mine was violating ownership disclosure rules, but it seemed to be by design. By using shell companies, Signal Peak could avoid paying to clean up the land and water their operation had destroyed. But the company couldn't outrun its environmental record forever. The fate of the city of Roundup.

[John Teeling]

Hangs upon the outcome of the possible closure of the Signal Peak mine. The mine's destiny dependent upon an environmental impact study.

[Zach Goldbaum]

In 2022, a federal judge rejected Signal Peak's expansion plans and ordered a new environmental impact study. The judge said the expansion could make the mine the single largest source of greenhouse gas in the U.S. now, I know that sounds crazy, but the judge actually calculated that if Signal Peak ends up mining all of its coal and that gets burned, then that's what'll happen. The company claimed that without the expansion, the mine would be forced to close. The truth is, even after everything that happened with L.J. price, the workplace injuries, the rap sheet of Signal Peak's owners, this is still coal country.

[John Teeling]

Today, we're here to support the coal mine and Signal Peak Energy. There are plenty of people that would like to see an end to coal production here in Montana, and we just can't have it. There's too many families that depend on it.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Last year, residents of Roundup held a rally in support of Signal Peak Coal. Dollars pay for the fire department. It pays for the law enforcement to keep your city safe. It pays for the hospital. Agent John Teeling, who finally retired but still lives in the area, is sympathetic to that view.

[John Teeling]

You know, there's a nasty side to capitalism. Capitalism is dirty and cutthroat. So I'm sure they have to deal with workplace accidents. I'm sure they have to deal with roof falls and safety issues. But at the end of the day, they also want to keep that mind open and make money.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Do you think any of the behavior, you know, covering up of workplace injuries, like you said, did that help profits for the company?

[John Teeling]

Oh, I'm sure it did. Yeah, I'm sure it did. Those mines are difficult to operate under the best circumstances. To make money, you need to be open 24, 7, 365 days a year. But companies that pay taxes are a good thing. That mine needs to stay open. And mine Coal Energy has a trade off. Everything's got a trade off.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Still, for Ellen Pfister, no amount of investment justifies the ultimate trade off.

[Ellen Pfister]

There's nobody working at that mine that believes that this could impact the future of the planet. But it will. And I think it is. We've seen more droughts in the last 25 years than we saw in the previous 40 or 50 in this area. When it rains, it's like God is smiling on us. But he doesn't do it too often.

[Zach Goldbaum]

That's partly why a federal judge had ordered a new environmental impact study. But last month, something wild happened. The Trump administration stepped in and abruptly cut that review process short. Just like that. It approved Signal Peak's expansion, saying we faced a, quote, national energy emergency. Even though 98% of Signal Peak's coal ends up overseas. As of last fall, Signal Peak's Asian Exports were booming again. But to my mind, Signal Peak's story isn't about resilience, it's about impunity. Like Ellen Pfister said, coal has an outlaw heart. So where does that leave the battle of the Bulls?

[Ellen Pfister]

The final battle happened last year. I sold because I was getting old and I broke my hip and I decided it was time I had to sell it. I've wondered what my life would have been like if I hadn't had this fight. The old saying is, what the eye don't see, the heart don't grieve. Well, I might have tried to implement that, but I didn't and I was stubborn. Well, you've got a view of a lot of valleys up here. The snowies are visible on a clear day. And then you have the little wolves, the bighorns, the priors and the crazies. So it's a wonderful view.

[Zach Goldbaum]

On the day Ellen showed us her ranch, she ended by driving up to the top of Dunn Mountain.

[Ellen Pfister]

Now, if you look over there, do you see that one? Kind of a curving line goes up close to the top. See, that's not normal. That's a subsidence crack. And it looks like there's two or three, three more over there.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Back when she still owned this piece of land, Ellen told me she loved to visit a natural pond that would form at the top of the mountain. But that was before the coal mine hollowed out the earth below, changing the landscape forever.

[Ellen Pfister]

On top of Dunn Mountain, you had a whole little wet area up there. It was so wet it would even grow raspberries. And raspberries don't grow in eastern Montana very often. Those are just like little pieces of paradise in eastern Montana. And when they undermined the mountain spring, it ran for two weeks and then it quit. And it has never run since.

[Zach Goldbaum]

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short [e-mail] survey. Coming up on this season of Lawless.

[John Teeling]

Planet, if your customer thought you were a gangster, good. So be it.

[Zach Goldbaum]

I honestly felt like we were just casualties in this situation.

[John Teeling]

And as you get nearer, you start to breathe very, very poisonous air.

[Zach Goldbaum]

And he was panicked.

[Ellen Pfister]

And I said, we'll send people there.

[Zach Goldbaum]

To the house to get you, but don't call the police. I immediately knew this is some kind of sabotage operation. The big question was, who's behind it.

[Ellen Pfister]

They said, lyssa, you are going up against an empire. I said, you know what empires built of bricks.

[Amy Price]

You know how you dismantle one brick by fucking brick?

[Zach Goldbaum]

And on the next episode of Lawless Planet. Every day trains carrying oil and hazardous chemicals called bomb trains roll through small town America. What could possibly go wrong?

[John Teeling]

We're not getting any truth. They, they are not going to own up to what's going in there until they are forced to.

[Zach Goldbaum]

For today's episode, I want to thank the Northern Plains Resource Council, the Montana Environmental Information center and earth justice groups who have been in the trenches on this fight for years and whose court battles were critical parts of our research. We'll include links in the show notes. Lawless Planet is written, produced and hosted by me, Zach Goldbach. Our senior producer and senior story editor is Derek John. Senior producers for Wondry are Peter Arconi and Andy Herman. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. Our managing producer is Sarah Kenny Corrigan. Our associate producer is Lexi Perry. Field recording by Jackie Coffin. Sound design by Kyle Randall. Music by Kenny Kuziak. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Farzan Sync. Fact checking by Brian Poignant. Our legal counsel is Deb Droze. Executive producers are Marshall Louie, Erin o', Flaherty, n' Jeri Eaton and Jenny Lauer. Beckman for wondering. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next week.