523 - I'm the Loudest, You're the Smartest

Summary

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My Favorite Murder, Episode 523: "I'm the Loudest, You're the Smartest"

Podcast: My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
Date: March 12, 2026
Episode Theme:
A lively St. Patrick’s Day-themed episode featuring tales of notorious “Bad Bridgets” — Irish women immigrants in North America who found themselves labeled, policed, and sometimes criminalized in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The hosts also dive into an outrageous contemporary scam story: the teenage hoax that conned New York's media elite.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Karen and Georgia celebrate Irish heritage while digging into the lesser-known crime histories of Irish immigrant women in America, inspired by the book and podcast Bad Bridget: Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish immigrant women. They examine how sexism, racism, and survival intersect in these women’s stories — some desperate, some daring, and some just plain clever. The second half shifts gears to a contemporary tale of teenage bravado and media gullibility with the saga of the “$72 Million Teen Trader.”

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1. Setting the Scene: St. Patrick’s Day and Podcast Updates

[03:26 – 05:56]

• Karen and Georgia set the festive tone, joking about balloons, Irish political colors, and holiday symbols.
• Banter about Irish/Protestant symbolism in party decorations (Karen: "I noticed that whoever got these balloons, very Protestant based...I just want to say right now, I didn’t know there’d be a lot more green in here if I was the one at the end of…" [03:41]).
• Quick rundown of the Exactly Right Network podcast highlights, including:
  • “Buried Bones” covering a 1955 Long Island murder
  • True crime binge suggestions (“Two Face,” “John of God”)
  • Merch drop: MFM collegiate unisex crew necks (“It turns out all you have to do is buy this sweater. Grab yours while they last…” [05:32])

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2. Story One: The “Bad Bridgets” — Irish Immigrant Women and Crime

[09:59 – 35:21]

Historical Context

[09:59 – 13:10]

• Inspired by Bad Bridget (Elaine Farrell & Leanne McCormick) — book & podcast.
• “Bridget” was a demeaning nickname for Irish women in 19th-century America, given their prevalence in domestic work.
• Irish arrived in massive waves from 1850–early 1900s, mostly poor and Catholic, facing intense discrimination (“no Irish need apply” signs).
• Irish women were deeply over-policed: In 1860s NYC, 4 out of 5 women incarcerated were Irish [12:27].

Karen:

"It sounds familiar because it is familiar." [12:36]

• Stats fueled stereotypes about Irish criminality, but real stories were more complex.

Case 1: Bridget McCool — Bigamy or Survival?

[13:10 – 16:52]

• Arrived Massachusetts (1804), worked mills & laundry, abandoned by her husband Thomas.
• Remarried without legal divorce out of necessity; Thomas rats her out though he too remarries (“I’m a douche AND a narc. What a combination.” – Karen [14:42]).
• Both arrested; Bridget repeatedly punished for remarrying (prison, reformatory, societal stigma).
• Eventually gets illegal divorce on cruelty grounds after being betrayed by her fourth husband (who himself was secretly a bigamist).

Memorable Moment:
Karen and Maren joke about romanticizing their own marriages in contrast. (“Less lying, less prison time. He is no fucking narc, I'll tell you that right now.” – Maren [16:13])

From Survival to Sex Work & “Badness”

[16:52 – 23:09]

• Life choices were limited: Laundry, domestic service, or sex work.
• NYC 1870: ~10,000 sex workers (1:100 ratio to population)
• Not all entered by exploitation — some by necessity, some forced, every path was unique (“Some are vulnerable. Some have no connections… Some are exploited by bad men when they arrive.” – Karen [17:56])
• Karen shares her Irish grandma’s terrifying arrival story — avoiding a sketchy sponsor and heading for “cleaner” San Francisco [18:33].
  • Quote: “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting out of here.” [19:08]

Case 2: Marian Canning — Falsely Accused

[20:37 – 23:20]

• Arrived NYC 1890. Lived in crime-ridden tenement; suspected involvement in brothel.
• Accused of theft by a client; despite lack of evidence, sentenced to seven years (21:29).
• Family intervened: Governor grants pardon, she returns to Ireland, marries — but shame veils entire story back home.
  • Quote: “The disgrace attached to being in prison would have been enough to prevent a marriage taking place. Never mind…the shame of having been involved in sex work.” [23:09]

The “Clever Criminals”: Margaret Brown aka "Old Mother Hubbard"

[23:44 – 34:31]

• Irish-born career pickpocket and shoplifter operating under various aliases (Margaret Brown, Elizabeth Haskins, Eliza Burnham, Jane Hutchinson, Mrs. Arthur Young).
• Police begin mugshot databases; Margaret is immortalized in an 1886 album [24:12].
• Known for disguises: Calico dresses, posing as an unassuming old lady (“Basically doing grandma drag.” – Karen [29:06])
• Signature moves:
  • Lifting wallets, closing handbags so targets don’t notice.
  • Using wires to tangle clothing, distract, then pickpocket (“As Margaret…apologetically works to untangle the wire, she does a sleight into the pockets of the mark and steals their valuable. Oh, I’m so sorry of you. Okay. Over here.” – Karen [30:24])
• Lifelong thief, caught several times, served sentences across multiple states, in and out of notorious institutions like Blackwell's Island.
• Fate unknown after 1885 arrests.
• Acknowledgment that, as Irish Americans gained upward mobility in the 20th century, stories of these marginalized women were erased from “official” narratives.
  • Quote from Bad Bridget: “Telling the stories of these women is crucial to our understanding of the Irish past.” (Read by Karen [33:12])

Notable Pop Culture Tie-in:
Upcoming “Bad Bridget” film starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, directed by Rich Peppiatt, who previously made the acclaimed “Kneecap” movie [34:31].

Reflections & Listener Engagement

• The hosts marvel at mugs and photos from the original mugshot album (“If I could find one of those in an estate sale, my life would you be complete…” – Georgia [35:51])
• “Bad Bridgets” punk band, anyone? [36:38]

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3. Story Two: The $72 Million Teen Trader Hoax (Mohammed Islam)

[40:21 – 61:52]

High-Pressure High School & Teen Ambitions

[40:21 – 44:59]

• Shift to a modern scam: Maren covers the case of Mohammed Islam, student at NYC’s elite Stuyvesant High.
• Overview of the pressure-cooker environment: competitive exam schools, immigrant children, high academic expectations.
• Mo is known for his brilliance and heads the school’s investing club (simulated trades).

The Legend Builds: “$72 Million Teen”

[45:00 – 47:58]

• Rumors swirl that Mo is investing real money — and allegedly making outrageous sums.
• Business Insider features him; soon, the number $72 million attaches to his supposed fortune.
• New York Magazine reporter Jessica Pressler is tasked to write about the story [47:30].
  • Quote: “Rumors on Wall Street can be powerful… There may only be one other place where gossip holds such sway, and that is high school.” (Pressler via Maren [47:45])
• Mo is coy: won’t confirm, but hints his net worth is “in the high eight figures.” [48:12]

Media Feeding Frenzy & Collapse

[49:21 – 55:39]

• Mo and his friends act the part of Wall Street big-shots: cafe meetings, caviar, and cold-pressed apple juice [49:45].
  • Memorable exchange: “My father has a quote… 'You can rob a bank with a gun, but you can rob the whole world with a bank.' Which I kind of fucking love. Oh, shit.” – Maren [50:14]
• New York Magazine’s fact-checkers demand proof; Mo provides a Chase bank statement showing eight figures.
• The story blows up: New York Post leads with "$72 Million Teen," becomes viral, and is picked up everywhere.
• Quick skepticism: Financial reporters question the plausibility of the returns (“He’d have needed to average a…796% return,” cited by Maren [51:42]).
• Mo and his friend Demir are invited to CNBC; reality sets in during car ride and interrogations: they admit the number is fake and didn’t want to go on air.

The Hoax Revealed

[55:39 – 58:41]

• Under media pressure, boys hire a crisis PR firm, confess all to The New York Observer: the $72 million was a fiction; even the $3 million figure is a lie; Mo only did simulated trades.
• Mo’s parents are furious: “Honestly, my dad wanted to disown me. My mom basically said she’d never talk to me…then they can no longer trust me.” – Mo [56:45]

Fallout & Reflection

[58:41 – 61:52]

• Journalist Jessica Pressler defends her story but gets job offer rescinded at Bloomberg (she later redeems herself by breaking Hustlers and Anna Delvey stories).
• The episode closes with a reporter’s wry take:
  • Quote: "A quick dance with a calculator probably would have saved these young men and a couple reporters some embarrassment." (Ken Kurson [60:58])
• Karen and Maren reflect: In a high-pressure environment, some kids just wanted a way to stand out—and the adult media fell for it.
  • Quote: “I'm the loudest friend. I'm the loudest, you're the smartest. Let's do this thing…” (Maren [60:39])

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4. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Irish immigrant experience:
  • "One thing goes wrong and then it all goes wrong." – Karen ([16:49])
  • "You’ll never know how fucking difficult life was and is for other people." – Maren ([16:58])
• On crime and necessity:
  • "The law punishes the people who are just trying to survive the worst usually." – Karen ([17:11])
• On sex work as labor:
  • "She’s guilty by her association with sex work in the eyes of the people that they’re reporting to." – Karen ([22:13])
• Margaret Brown’s criminal artistry:
  • "A specialty of opening handbags, removing the pocketbook, and closing them again." (Police description, quoted by Karen [29:34])
• On media and gullibility:
  • “The story smelled fishy the instant it appeared, and a quick dance with a calculator…" – Kurson ([60:58])
  • "They made themselves a story. And the adults fell for it." – Karen ([57:24])

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5. Episode Structure & Timestamps

| Segment | Start | End | Notes | |---------------------|--------------|---------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------| | Holiday intro | 03:26 | 05:56 | St. Patty’s, network, merchandise rundown | | Bad Bridgets intro | 09:59 | 13:10 | Book context, mass immigration, stereotypes | | Bridget McCool | 13:10 | 16:52 | Bigamy, bad husbands, legal system irony | | Survival & Sex Work | 16:52 | 23:20 | Life choices, stigma, Marian Canning case | | Margaret Brown | 23:44 | 34:31 | Con artist legend, pickpocketing, mug shot history | | Cultural wrap-up | 34:31 | 36:38 | Irish uplift, representation, upcoming film | | Teen Trader Hoax | 40:21 | 61:52 | Stuyvesant High, Mo Islam story, media frenzy, fallout | | Episode closure | 62:00 | 62:44 | Irish heritage reflections, sibling support (“two sisters” wisdom) |

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6. Tone & Style

Throughout the episode, Karen and Georgia maintain their trademark irreverent-yet-caring conversational tone, blending historical fact, modern comparison, and comedy. They center the human experience behind “crime,” challenging societal narratives about criminal, “bad,” or “immoral” women and interrogating media gullibility.

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7. Takeaways

• The “Bad Bridgets” were not simply criminals but the marginalized survivors and sometimes rebels of their era—humane, complex, often funny, always worth remembering.
• Media and rumor can quickly spiral into “truth,” as in the $72 Million Teen saga; even the seasoned can be duped when a story is too good to check.
• Both stories underscore the tension between societal expectation, survival, and personal mythmaking—whether in 19th-century tenements or 21st-century Manhattan high schools.

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End-of-show reflection:
Karen: “You can do anything if you have two sisters along with you, because that's really the magic of all of this. Am I right?” [62:36]
Maren: “You are. Stay sexy and don’t get murdered.” [62:44]

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Transcript

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Maren McGlashan]

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Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's Georgia Hardster, that's Karen kilgarra, and it's St. Patrick's Day, everybody. Welcome to our St. Patrick's Day party. I noticed that whoever got these balloons, very Protestant based. The orange represents Northern Ireland. I just want to say right now, I didn't know that there'd be a lot more green in here if I was the one at the end of

[Maren McGlashan]

the There was a green shamrock balloon situation. They didn't float. I'm sorry.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, is that true?

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah, we had a balloon fiasco earlier.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, no. Did I just uncover it through politics?

[Maren McGlashan]

I'm highly political. Send us your hate email at my favorite murdermail. What side are you on of the Irish civil War? Let us know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Let us know. Should we just get right into the network stuff?

[Maren McGlashan]

Let's do it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All right, so we have a podcast network, and here's some highlights and stuff that's going on there.

[Maren McGlashan]

This week on Buried Bones, Kate and Paul head to Long island in 1955 to kick off part one of the shooting of the century. Some of America's wealthiest socialites gather for a glamorous party. But before morning arrives, a murder is committed.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Also, the final episodes of our two newest series, two Face John of God dropped last week. You can binge the entire story in both English and Spanish. We expect you to listen to both.

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And on I said no gifts, Bridger

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Goodbye. And I go first today. So Maren, I believe, suggested this after reading a book and the book is Bad Bridget Crime, Mayhem and the Lives of Irish immigrant women by doctors Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick.

[Maren McGlashan]

How fitting.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So of course as we are heading into St Patrick's Day, we do love to celebrate the holidays here on my favorite murder it's But I'm gonna zoom in on a very specific corner of the Irish diaspora, which is Irish girls and women who emigrated to North America in the late 1800s and the early 1900s. We remember them as tireless, resilient, selfless women who worked their fingers to the bone to build a better life for their families. It's very true. Having being very related to some Irish women of this era were distinct, they were diverse, they were complex. And regardless of whether history remembers them individually as saints or sin, their stories are always filled with an incredible amount of humanity and of course, humor. So here's a few of the cases unearthed by the Irish historians Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick for their book Bad Bridgets. There's also a deep dive podcast that they made called Bad Bridget. So if you wanna hear more of these stories, cause they've got a bunch of them. Cause it's basically like the crime records of the day. So you can go and listen to that. So these women basically are referred to as Bad Bridget. Bridget is a very common Irish name at the time. And in the 19th century, Bridget was a catch all kind of shitty nickname for Irish women in general because there were so many domestic workers who had emigrated to America. So the Bridgets were everywhere. So this is roughly between the years of 1850 and the early 1900s where Irish immigrants have arrived at ports in these cities around the country in huge numbers. They are mostly poor, they're mostly Catholic, not Protestant.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I said I was sorry.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And they're deeply unwelcome by the white Protestant establishment. So the people that came over in the Mayflower, those are the Protestants. The Catholics were the ones that were being persecuted in many places. So that's why some Catholics came over. Many people though, were starving from the Irish potato famine, which was in fact the British government withholding food from the Irish. We're just getting everything real clear here on St. Patrick's Day.

[Maren McGlashan]

Got it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So when these immigrants arrived, there were signs in shop windows that said, no Irish need apply. There was a lot of what now seems kind of like really Irish racism, But it was part of the across the board racism that I think every immigrant probably dealt with coming into America at the time. So Irish immigrants are shut out of decent paying work. They are packed into tenements, they're over surveilled, they're over policed, and that means they're disproportionately represented in the prison system. It sounds familiar because it is familiar. Early 1860s in New York City, Irish women account for four out of every five women in the jails or prisons that are there.

[Maren McGlashan]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. In turn of the century, Boston Irish women and girls make up nearly 40% of the prison population, despite the city's overall population being less than 20% Irish. And of course, these numbers are used to justify ugly stereotypes that Irish women are inherently criminal or morally corrupt. But the second you dig into the actual stories behind these stats, of course, things are much more complex. So that brings us to our first Bridget that I'm gonna be talking about. A woman named Bridget McCool. In 1804, she arrives in Massachusetts as a teenager. She finds work as a laundress and in a mill. Then she marries a guy named Thomas. But it's not a good relationship. He abandons her within two years, and he leave penniless. And because she's a poor Irish Catholic woman, divorce is basically off the table. It's stigmatized by the church, like, especially back then. It just never happened. But on top of that, it was expensive and it was time consuming, and yet a woman abandoned in, like, a major city who has no idea where her next meal is coming from, needs a husband for a shot at financial stability. So Bridget gets remarried without first divorcing Thomas. So she's a bigamist. When Thomas catches wind of Bridget's illegal second marriage, he reports her to the police.

[Maren McGlashan]

Dude, just go away.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, how do you prove better that you should have been divorced than to be that kind of guy?

[Maren McGlashan]

Hey, I left her. Now she's remarried.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm a douche and a narc. What a combination. More so he's remarried at this point.

[Maren McGlashan]

Come on.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So he basically shoots himself in the foot because they both wind up being arrested because they're both adulterers and bigamists. Bridget spent two years in prison, but when she gets out, her personal life doesn't improve. Over the next couple decades, when she serves out her sentence, she tries to pick up the pieces of her life. She gets married a third time, again. Still hasn't gotten that initial first divorce. So she gets sent back to a reformatory. And once she completes this sentence and after her relationship with husband number three ends, she goes ahead and illegally marries a fourth time. Okay, good God, she's just doubling, tripling, quadrupling down. This one's actually a remarriage to her second husband who financially supported her. After Thomas, husband number one left. But then once she's in this marriage, the twist is that Bridget McCool finds out that her current husband. So number two and number four, one guy, he's been lying this whole time about being a widower. A woman he'd married years earlier, who he's no longer with, but hadn't divorced, is in fact still alive.

[Maren McGlashan]

This is really romantic because yesterday was mine and Vince's 10 year anniversary. It just feels like a great story

[Karen Kilgariff]

for this time to show you how it could be and that how it is not.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah, that's exactly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I would imagine a lot less lying from our man Vince.

[Maren McGlashan]

Less lying, less prison time. He is no fucking narc, I'll tell you that right now.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's certainly no narc. No, that is very true. And you know what? He wouldn't call himself a widower unless he really was a widow.

[Maren McGlashan]

Thank you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're welcome. Of course, this betrayal is what finally pushes Bridget to seek and obtain illegal divorce on the grounds of cruelty. And finally that story like wraps up. But it's that kind of thing where it's like thinking about the immigrant experience. You are left, you are sent away from your family, often alone or with maybe one or two other people trying to make it in a place like New York City, Boston, wherever. And one thing goes wrong and then it all goes wrong.

[Maren McGlashan]

Totally. Yeah. And as much as I wanna be like, why'd you keep doing that? It's like, because you'll never know how fucking difficult life was and is for other people. So I'm not gonna.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right. And this idea that especially back then, women, it was like you can be a laundress and touch everybody's shit stained sheets or you could be a sex worker, like. But that's the worst thing morally that the man in the sky thinks. Okay, so Even though Bridget McCool is technically a criminal in the eyes of the law, she's clearly not a bad woman. It basically just drives home this truth that the law punishes the people who are just trying to survive the worst usually. And that's a common theme for sex workers from this era. And there were a lot of them at the turn of the 20th century. In New York City in 1870, for example, the New York Times reports that there are more than 10,000 sex workers at the time when the city's population is just under 1 million people. That means this is the new how much in today's Money that means one sex worker for every 100 New Yorkers.

[Maren McGlashan]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

As Dr. Verrell and Dr. McCormick point out in their book, the paths Irish women and girls take into sex work is not monolithic. Some are vulnerable. Some have no connections or legal protections in the US Some are exploited by bad men right after they arrive. I think I've told you this story, but my grandmother came here when she was 17 with her two sisters. They land in New York City, they go through Ellis island, and then they're supposed to meet a sponsor, and the sponsor is the person that set them up with work, which is the reason they were able to come. And sometimes they come on a loan, and the sponsor's like, I fronted you this money. Now you're gonna go work here.

[Maren McGlashan]

Jesus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's not great. So they landed, and this man meets them at the docks or whatever, and he's like. You know, my grandmother described it to my aunt, who described it to me that he was just kind of some blowhard with, like, you know, in white line. And he drives them into a tenement house on the Lower east side and walks them up and puts them into this apartment that's one room, basically. And he's like, and I'll be here in the morning. You better be ready. And da, da, da. And the door shuts, and he leaves. And my grandmother, who's 17 years old at the time, turns to her older sister and her younger sister and goes, I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting out of here. And they had a postcard that they used to have in their house in Longford, Ireland. Relatives sent them a postcard of this, of San Francisco. So my grandma said, let's go to San Francisco. The streets are really clean there.

[Maren McGlashan]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And that's how, like, our family came

[Maren McGlashan]

to be was, like, across the fucking entire country. I'm 17. 17, new to this place.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And, like, basically, like, fuck this shit. This ain't me.

[Maren McGlashan]

What would have happened?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I want to go somewhere else. Yeah. It's so crazy. So that idea that, like, the amount of money and trust people were putting into the hands of, like, basic strangers to say, please take Care of my teenager, Please take care of my family member. Once you get here, obviously, whole different story, right? So many enter sex work because it's preferable to low pay, taxing labor, long hours of domestic or laundry work. I mean, that's. There's some people who just make that choice, but oftentimes people are forced into it. And of course, there's all the risks that come with that decision, which is of course, disease, infection, unwanted pregnancies, male violence, and then incarceration. So this brings us to our second bad Bridget. A woman named Marian Canning who arrives in New York City in 1890. When she's 18 years old, she moves into a tenement on Mulberry street in the notorious Five Points neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. So my grandma's story would be 25, 30 years later.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, wow.

[Maren McGlashan]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But not crazy. Far away. Which is the weird thing. Marian's building has a reputation. At the time that she lives there, multiple stabbings and murders are reported inside. It's also thought that a brothel is operating out of it, which is probably how she came to live there. So, fast forward a year after her arriving in the city. It's July 1891. Marian's heading to her home one evening when a firefighter named Richard Bronkbank approaches her outside, propositions her for sex. She brings him inside and then later on, he ends up accusing her of stealing his watch and some of his money. Someone calls the police. We're not sure which one of the two of them. Richard claims he calls the police to report the theft. Marian says she called the police cause she wanted a cop's help cause she was being falsely accused.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Either way, Richard's watch and cash are not found on Marian, but she's charged with and carted off to jail anyway. We'll never know if she was innocent or if she did rob Richard and hide his possessions somewhere in her apartment. What we know is that many sex workers of this era do pick through their clients pockets, knowing that the stigma of them hiring a sex worker is going to keep them from being reported. But even if Marian is innocent of this crime, which she very well might be, she's guilty by her association with sex work in the eyes of the people that they're reporting to. And she pays the price for it. She's sentenced to seven years in prison for this unproven theft.

[Maren McGlashan]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Fortunately, her parents in Ireland find out that she's in prison. They don't know why though. And her father ends up writing a letter to a judge. The judge from Marian's trial and to the Governor of New York begging to have his daughter back and promising to right her course and asking for clemency for her. And it actually works. The governor's sympathetic, and Marian, who's now 21, gets a pardon. And after less than a year of serving her sentence, she's freed from jail. Marian's father sends money for her trip back to Ireland. So she goes back home and gets married not long after. And as Leanne McCormick writes, quote, it's unlikely that anyone in her hometown ever knew the exact details of what had happened to her in New York. The disgrace attached to being in prison would have been enough to prevent a marriage taking place. Never mind the additional shame of having been involved in sex work.

[Maren McGlashan]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So she's incredibly lucky. Cause she has the kind of family that's like, wait, we can take her back and we can do something with this? But most people were, like, leaving in the end.

[Maren McGlashan]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And she lived a quiet life after that. So both Bridget McCool and Marion Canning are punished and criminalized for trying to make their way in a foreign land without money, connections, or protection. And there, of course, are countless stories like this, but not every bad Bridget fits this mold. The next Bridget I'm gonna tell you about seems to to commit crimes because she's really good at it, not because she's desperate.

[Maren McGlashan]

That sounds fun.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right? So we're back in New York City, 19th century, and the police are doing something revolutionary for the time, which is they're photographing criminals and compiling their images into big books that are basically our early mugshot databases. This is really helpful because so many criminals take on aliases, and basically, it's easy to evade the law. Cause they're just kind of like, no, it's me, Jerry. Totally Seinfeld. You know?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, wait, that's Jerry Garcia, and you

[Maren McGlashan]

know it, I know it, and you know it. We can't prove it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh. So of course, mug shots are, like, such scientific advancement, because now suddenly they can. It's not based on memory. It's like, it's this guy right here. They assemble one book in 1886 that features 204 criminals at large in New York City. And one of those criminals is Old Mother Hubbard now.

[Janice Torres]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, not the real one.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Got it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Not the one that's trying to feed her dog.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Got it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, this was the nickname that this woman got. Cause she just looked like an unassuming little old lady. Her name is actually Margaret Brown, but she's not the Margaret Brown from the Titanic. The Unsinkable Molly Brown that I've talked to you about.

[Maren McGlashan]

Bridgets and Margarets and Browns and fucking green and orange.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And green and orange. We've taken over. We've. Yeah, we've been under the skin of this country for such a long time. The Irish. So this Margaret Brown, which is, I think, like being named Jim Smith, probably. There's a lot of unknowns about her. And of course, she does have many other names besides Margaret Brown. We don't even know if that's her real name. It's just one of the names. She claims her legal name is Elizabeth Haskins. We don't know if that's true. She also goes by Eliza Burnham, Jane Hutchinson and Mrs. Arthur Young, which I'm taking that one. We don't know how old she is. Some of the best historical sources place her anywhere from her 60s to her 80s. Can we see that mugshot in here? Molly?

[Maren McGlashan]

That's another one of those. Is it an old hat or is it a young lady? Turn it upside down and it's a vase.

[Karen Kilgariff]

For real?

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Also, is it a wig and a hat?

[Maren McGlashan]

I feel like if I hadn't started getting Botox at 33, that's what I would look like right now.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. You know, I mean, it's dead on. It's so you.

[Maren McGlashan]

It's very amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You and your big hats and your downturn. I love it when people's expression is like, literally fully downturned, where it looks like Margaret can't smile if she wants to.

[Maren McGlashan]

No, no.

[Karen Kilgariff]

If only she knew she was surrounded by beautiful balloons. This is where you get to Margaret. Okay, so I think in that picture, I think she was. If it's 1886, I bet you she was in her late 50s. Yeah, yeah, it's one of those.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What she is is a superstar street thief who's operated in a large number of cities like Boston, Philly, St. Louis, as far away as Texas. Local newspapers have described her as, quote, one of the most successful and notorious pickpockets and shoplifters in the country.

[Maren McGlashan]

I mean, can we just say how fun is her life? Sorry, don't fucking steal from people. But.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But what? Look, she's like, I stole that hat. I stole it right off the dummy's head. Okay, so here's what we can't piece together about Margaret's life. She's born in Ireland, she emigrates to the us she takes on legitimate domestic work, and she eventually falls in with a woman named Frederica Mandelbaum or Marm or mother Mandelbaum. And we've actually talked about Mother Mandelbaum on this show before. She's a legendary fence. So remember that lady that used to sell stuff? Like, the criminals would come to her and she was like, the middleman.

[Maren McGlashan]

No, but it sounds right. It's a Mrs. Mandelbaum.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Mrs. Mandelbaum. And she's basically made her own way with the criminals and by the criminals. She moves stolen goods and she becomes a maternal figure for the gang of burglars and thieves and con men and women.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yes, I remember her now. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

On the Lower east side, Margaret Brown is one of those. Maren very clearly said no to Karen. Mandel Baum is Jewish, not Irish.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And also, you covered her.

[Maren McGlashan]

Right. That makes sense. All of it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The name of the episode you covered her in is called is episode 414, weather influencers. Remember that hit?

[Maren McGlashan]

No, but I'm on so much Sudafed right now, so it's. Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, just focus.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Is going fast helping, or would it be better to go slow?

[Maren McGlashan]

No, I'll fall asleep if you go slow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. Margaret's specialty is pick, which, at the time is mostly left to children and sex workers.

[Maren McGlashan]

Those little grubby hands.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, get in there. The best thing about, for me, the musical Annie is just the idea that it's like, well, there's orphans, but there's also children on the street. Urchins that are out there just, like, making it work.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But Margaret, who has a kind face and pretty hazel eyes, of course, has a real neck because she looks like a sad little old lady. Never expect an old lady to do anything. So she develops her own signature MO it's complete with a costume. She always wears these long calico dresses, like Little Bo Peep or Mother Goose.

[Maren McGlashan]

Picturing my cat for some reason. Calico.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's a lot of fur on the outside, Patches.

[Maren McGlashan]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Basically doing grandma drag. So it really looks like she's unassuming and. Right. She targets busy shops and department stores where she uses her quick, agile hands to lift things off of oblivious customers. So she's shoplifting off the shoppers.

[Maren McGlashan]

Got it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Which is kind of smart.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Because they're watching the goods, not the people's pockets. Right.

[Maren McGlashan]

Sure.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So one officer describes her as having, quote, a specialty of opening handbags, removing the pocketbook, and closing them again.

[Maren McGlashan]

Whoa.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That is a specialty.

[Maren McGlashan]

That's, like, unnecessary. You're showing off at this point. You don't need to do that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You didn't notice. Also, I'm thinking back then, but I'm thinking of like 40s, 50s purses. Those ones with the big ball clasp that goes snapping. Yes.

[Maren McGlashan]

Loud ass clasp.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. She stashes the stolen loot in a waste bag that she's wearing under her dress.

[Maren McGlashan]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's also known to use a long wire, which she might stick out of her pocket or through a shopping basket. And after identifying her mark, the person she's gonna steal from, she'll position the wire so that it gets tangled in that person's clothing. As Margaret, with all her grandmotherly sweetness, apologetically works to untangle the wire, she does a sleight into the pockets of the mark and steals their valuable. Oh, I'm so sorry of you. Okay. Over here.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah. Love it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

In one documented theft, Margaret steals $260 from a man's satchel.

[Maren McGlashan]

Okay. 19.

[Karen Kilgariff]

1890.

[Maren McGlashan]

1890. 260. I'm gonna go 21,000. 20,000.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's $3,200. Sorry,

[Maren McGlashan]

did. I mean, I'm tired.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm tired also, I. I won't stop playing this game.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know.

[Maren McGlashan]

And you're just like, I won't stop letting you play it and doing it.

[Bethenny Frankel]

Sorry.

[Maren McGlashan]

Why would a guy be carrying?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She just basically makes bank off one man.

[Maren McGlashan]

Great.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But she keeps going. And as skilled as she is said to be, she does get caught several times. After one of her arrests, police discover she's wearing an expensive silk dress under her cheap dress.

[Maren McGlashan]

Layers. You've got a layer.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Kind of awesome. Where she's like, I'm actually very stylish. This is merely a costume. In a criminal career that's said to span four or five decades, Margaret will serve time in Chicago, Boston and New York, including a stint at Blackwell's island just a few years before trailblazing journalist Nellie Bly goes undercover there.

[Maren McGlashan]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's seen all the bad shows. If you wanna know the story of trailblazing journalist Nellie Bly, which is. It's pretty good. It's in episode 401. Keep a lid on it. You know that one. So during a different incarceration at Joliet in illinois in the 1870s, this or early work, per some sources, Margaret would be in her 70s, but she tries to escape, which I don't buy it. Cause I think her 70s.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah. She probably wanted to look older than she actually was. Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And was lying to people. They wrote in the book that she was in her right. She probably wasn't. And here's maybe proof of this theory.

[Maren McGlashan]

Did you just call me baby?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey, baby. I think I Said here's maybe.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Did I?

[Maren McGlashan]

You did.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What am I on? She reportedly tries to escape from jail by jumping out of a third story window.

[Maren McGlashan]

No, just, just, just hang out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She falls to the ground and almost dies from her injuries. But she doesn't die from those injuries. She recovers. She completes her prison sentence. And she continues creating a paper trail of arrests. She keeps it up into the 1880s. Her documented arrests stop somewhere around 1885. Whether this is when she dies, when she retires, or if she just stops getting caught altogether is a mysterious piece of her story. By the early 20th century, the number of Irish immigrants arriving in North America starts to slow down. Discrimination softens. Irish Americans begin seeing real upward mobility. As Lane Farrell and Leanne McCormick re write in their book Bad Bridget, quote, the dominant narrative of Irish immigration to North America became focused on those who came from humble beginnings in Ireland and made a better life for themselves. They or their children went on to become pillars of society. They became the Kennedies, a political dynasty, or the Eatons, who established Canada's largest department store chain. But as the Irish became more upwardly mobile, establishing themselves within North American society, there was no appetite on either side of the Atlantic to face up to the reality that many Irish female immigrants did not succeed and that many ended up on the wrong side of the law. Telling the stories of these women is crucial to our understanding of the Irish past. End quote. And so today, as we celebrate St. Patrick's Day, we are honoring the Bridgets of all kinds and the Margarets and the Marians and the Annie's and her two sisters, who, as poor women, belong to a demographic that is so often omitted from history books. But now, thanks to the tireless efforts of Farrell and McCormick and all of the historians that are keeping all of this history alive for all of us and the history of the Bad Bridge, it's alive. Specifically, the stories are finally being told. And of course, there's a movie in the works starring Daisy Edgar Jones from Normal People.

[Maren McGlashan]

Nice.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it's gonna be directed by the director, Rich Pepia. But I don't know if you ever saw the 2024 movie kneecap about the Irish rappers. And they're super political and it's amazing.

[Maren McGlashan]

Is it a documentary or is it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's scripted. It seems like. What do they call that? It's like a pseudo doc where it's like, scripted, but it's based on their real lives and how they basically busted out as these kind of like, Irish, I guess, rappers, but they like their shit Is about like freeing Palestine and stuff. Like they're hyper political global. It's very, very cool. And the mov and got a lot of awards. So the Bad Bridgets movie is gonna be made by the kneecap guy, which is nice. Very deserved, very on theme. And that's the story of the Bad Bridgets of early America. Wow.

[Maren McGlashan]

I love that term, Bad Bridgets. Like that just encapsulates so much. Do you have pictures?

[Karen Kilgariff]

The Lower east side, that's five points. There's a tenement house.

[Maren McGlashan]

Oh, look at that. Tenement house.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Picture my grandma going, I don't know about you guys, but I'm not staying here.

[Maren McGlashan]

Absolutely not.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She said no way too much clutter.

[Maren McGlashan]

God, that's so crazy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's the mugshot database. It wasn't a book.

[Maren McGlashan]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's why Maren called it a database. It literally looks like mini X rays.

[Maren McGlashan]

It does. Like a X ray board. There it is.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, there we go.

[Georgia Hardstark]

God, if I could find one of

[Maren McGlashan]

those in an estate sale. My life would you be complete in

[Karen Kilgariff]

the basement of a Lower east side old tenement house.

[Maren McGlashan]

That's in there.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Just go in. Cause the individual pictures in that thing are incredible. I bet you. I mean there's like, there's her and then there's.

[Maren McGlashan]

That's like the. Find someone, let us know. That's like. Remember in the very beginning of the podcast? And I was like, I've always wanted one of those dare drug suitcases that would bring to dare and show you all the different kinds of drugs. And someone went in their dad's fucking ex cop garage and sent me that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He got it.

[Maren McGlashan]

So we're asking for this now.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Ship it.

[Maren McGlashan]

Ship this. We wanted to express this rare antique.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We'll just hang it there and then when we have pictures for our stories, we'll put them in that.

[Maren McGlashan]

I love it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And light them up.

[Maren McGlashan]

We'll use it for good, we promise. Great job, Bad Bridgets. If that's not a fucking punk band yet, then come on all lady punk

[Karen Kilgariff]

band, let's talk to the kneecap Boys about it.

[Maren McGlashan]

That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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Switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See full [e-mail]

[Maren McGlashan]

all right, well mine's actually like a kind of scammy, similar in scam, you know, the scam world. Although very different and a little not a little more, very more current day. So this story is about a bright teenager who got caught up in a tall tale and wound up telling an elaborate hoax that fooled.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Is it me Teenager that fooled half

[Maren McGlashan]

of the media industry in New York during a time when the media industry in New York was substantially bigger and, you know, more impressive I think than it is now. This is the story of Mohammed Islam. The main sources used for the story are reporting from the Guardian and the New York observer. And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. So it's the fall of 2013. Take us back. And we're in Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan. Stuyvesant is one of New York City's nine specialized high schools. So they have these high schools. Admission to these schools is determined only by a single academic entrance exam, which is all 8th graders take. It's really difficult to get into these schools. Yeah, it's an incredibly competitive environment and the pressure is very high. If you get in, you still fucking better perform. And actually that's how school is. Yeah,

[Karen Kilgariff]

stop that one test.

[Maren McGlashan]

No, fame is one of those school like the school where fame came from is one of the schools. It happens to just be performing arts. That one. All the other ones are based more on. Sorry.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, no. I just. When you said that about the schools. I thought of the Fame High school, but then I was like, don't try to change the subject to what you like talking about.

[Georgia Hardstark]

About.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So that's kind of exciting. That it is.

[Maren McGlashan]

Kate went to that high school. Stuyvesant.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You bet.

[Maren McGlashan]

Am I saying it right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

She says it's right.

[Maren McGlashan]

What the fuck?

[Karen Kilgariff]

God damn it.

[Maren McGlashan]

There's a film walk out there. That's crazy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wait, like, hot lunch jam. You stood on the table in the cafeteria and stuff.

[Maren McGlashan]

Not the Fame one. This one. Math and science.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, this one.

[Maren McGlashan]

Math and science school. Yeah. Not Fame. Not Fame.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She could have done both.

[Maren McGlashan]

But the fame of math and science. Yeah, whatever that. For thrilling nursing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That musical is the musical we want to see.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah. These are some of the best high schools in the country. And it's generally agreed upon that among these schools, Stuyvesant is the best in the city. I know these schools draw from all over the city, and Stuyvesant especially has a high proportion of students who are first generation Americans, often the children of immigrants who have made tremendous sacrifices for their children's education. So there's a lot of children of immigrants. However, there's just obviously, you know, a history of racism going on because it's a hard test to take, and a lot of students who don't go to these schools that are. You get it?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, you know what it makes me think of is the thing that happened where there was testing like that, and they discovered the systemic racism of that time, where it would be word problems in math, and it'd be like, if so many people can sit on this length of sofa, and so many people can sit in length of sofa, how long does the sofa have to be to fit this family? I totally made that up. Something like that. But the fact that they were using the word sofa instead of couch, so a bunch of kids who are culturally had never heard the word before were like, I don't even know how to work on this problem. And they realized that certain. And I think the study was being done about black students that were taking these tests. And, like, why do none of them do well? And it's like, because that no one's used the word sofa in their household ever.

[Maren McGlashan]

That's a systemic racism issue. Okay. So these kids who make it into these very difficult to get into schools often grow up with a huge amount of pressure to perform very well academically. So there's a lot of pressure going on. They're very smart, but, you know, they can't be like me and just not go to half of your high school period time. So the fall of 2013, a lot of pressure.

[Karen Kilgariff]

If you're an immigrant child whose parents gave everything up to bring you to have. Can you imagine? To go to school high.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah, yeah. It's the fall of 2013 and Mohammed Islam is one of these such students. He's a soft spoken 16 year old whose parents immigrated from Bangladesh. Mohammed is a junior in high school and he's known around school to be brilliant. In a school where everyone is pretty much brilliant, so that's a high achievement. He runs the school's investing club.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I was in that.

[Maren McGlashan]

That's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I was the secretary in which kids

[Maren McGlashan]

who are interested in the stock market market makes simulated trades with fake money. Just testing, just for fun waters.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

But then it starts to get around the school that on the side Mohammed at mo, as he's known, is actually making real investments with real money. So it's not simulated. Turns out the rumor is that he's doing very well with these investments.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I don't mean to press you, but is that legal for like a high school student to be day trading, I

[Maren McGlashan]

would assume you have to be 18. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But I don't know, maybe I'll learn something new. As you tell me.

[Maren McGlashan]

In November 2013, Mo appears in a listicle. Remember those on Business Insider of kid investors? It's like a 20 under 20. So I guess you can do that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, I guess I can.

[Maren McGlashan]

Gambling, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

It does. Or like something that should be more official, but I guess it's like regulated. I guess under 20 you can still be over 18 and under 20. But it doesn't seem likely.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Maren McGlashan]

He tells Business Insider that he had gotten his start in penny stocks and then worked his way into higher stakes securities. He says, quote, my main markets now are crude oil futures and gold futures and I trade small to mid cap equities. When the futures don't present a good trade, it just makes me think of trading places, which Vince and I watch every Christmas. And that's all I know about stocks. And that's what he knows about. So it's just stuff like that that I know nothing about. It's unclear how Mo first connects with the reporter of that Business Insider story. But at that point, he hasn't told anyone that he's made a serious amount of money with his trades. But somehow, over the course of the next year, rumors begin to swirl around Stuyvesant that MO has made a staggering amount of money. And people seem to believe somehow the number that gets thrown around, that gets tied to him is $72 million.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What, that. That he has made in some casual day trades.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah. Which is an outrageous and basically unheard of profit for anyone who's been trading for just a couple years, let alone a high school student. So it's wild. It's big. A whole year goes by. And then In December of 2014, New York Magazine includes an article about Mo and its annual Reasons to Love New York issue. Money, Money, Kids. Money, Kids, Money, Kids. Opening for Batman, Bridget and New Zealand Zebulon this weekend. It sounds like what happened is a parent of another student at Stuyvesant heard about Mo, then passed the story along to his colleagues at the magazine. Just how rumors start and continue.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

And then a reporter named Jessica Pressler is assigned to cover the story. So Jessica's story unquestionably categorizes the 72 million figure. As a. She's like a journalist. She's not gonna be, like, it's true.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

She writes, quote, rumors on Wall street can be powerful. A whisper can turn into a current that moves markets, driving a stock price up or sending it tumbling. There may only be one other place where gossip holds such sway, and that is high school.

[Karen Kilgariff]

High school. I was gonna say that. It's so clear that it's like, I heard he made $72 million. 72 million, 70. It sounds like a joke amount.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

Cause it's absurd.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

She writes that Mo is shy about confirming that exact number, but says that his net worth is in the, quote, high eight figures, end quote. So he's kind of confirming it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

In the article, Jessica writes about sitting down with Mo and two of his friends who act as his spokesman. I think they're a lot more gregarious and outgoing, and Mo's pretty shy. Mo smiles at the reporter and one of his friends, a boy named Patrick. Patrick says, quote, he's quiet today, and, like, they're almost just, like, talking for him. The other friend, a teen named Demir, adds, quote, this is our third meeting of the day. We saw a real estate agent, a lawyer, and you. End quote. And Jessica writes that they have a meeting with a hedge fund guy next. So they're, like, acting like movers and shakers, but they're.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But it's like, you're young. You have your whole life to do boring shit like that. Like that idea where it's to make money, make money, but also just kind of like, hey, listen, we've gotta go meet with a real estate agent. It's like, well, enjoy your meeting.

[Maren McGlashan]

But it's almost like that's what, like 30 somethings we'll do. And it's like annoying. Like, it makes more sense for a teenager to do it, to like, get

[Karen Kilgariff]

into where it's like, we're gonna spend

[Maren McGlashan]

money this and that. Yeah, it's a little less disgusting, but still. The three say that they plan to launch a hedge fund of their own When Mo turns 18, once he's old enough to get a broker dealer license. So maybe he can deal, but he can't get a license. This whole interview takes place at a downtown cafe where the boys eat caviar and drink cold pressed apple juice.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, they're babies. What a combo.

[Maren McGlashan]

That can't be a.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's really gross.

[Maren McGlashan]

That's disgusting. Mo hints that he's shopping for a BMW and apartments, and even though his parents won't let him move out until he's 18. And at the end of the interview, Demir says, quote, my father has a. A quote. It's really dope. Says the teenager. You can rob a bank with a gun, but you can rob the whole world with a bank, which I kind of fucking love. Oh, shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, I think we've really learned that here in 2026. That, that is.

[Maren McGlashan]

You sure have.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Absolutely. Not an exaggeration.

[Maren McGlashan]

No. Before the article is published, New York magazine's fact checkers get in contact with Mo asking for proof that his claims of an income in the high eight figures is true. The fact checker winds up going down to Stuyvesant so that Mo can bank statement, and Mo gives the magazine what appears to be a Chase bank statement confirming an eight figure balance. So they did do their due diligent. Due diligence.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You can't say that. Not on St. Patrick's Day.

[Maren McGlashan]

Hmm. Yes. Okay. So many drugs. The day the article is published, it completely blows up. Everyone who sits at a desk in 2014 who spends some of their workday scrolling on Twitter, reads this article, let's say, goes viral.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

It gets picked up by other outlets. The New York Post, of course, runs the story and puts that $72 million number in the headline. Kind of being, you know, they're not the biggest fact checkers of all time. So they're just like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Because you said it was like the 20 teens, right?

[Maren McGlashan]

14. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So it's. People are getting into clickbait.

[Maren McGlashan]

Exactly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

People love a clickbait. But headline click.

[Maren McGlashan]

Sure do.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It doesn't matter if it's true.

[Maren McGlashan]

And it's picked up by many Other sites and like kind of then treated as fact in a way.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, I have a little experience with that. As do you.

[Maren McGlashan]

Sure do do. But then pretty quickly, like a bunch of people stop and really think about the details. The return of $72 million in just a couple of years of investing is basically, basically impossible. Like not even just unheard of. It's not possible. Business reporters immediately start to have doubts. As Ken Kerson from the New York observer will later write, quote, even if this working class kid had Somehow started with $100,000 as a high school freshman on day one at sty, he'd have needed to average a compounded annualized return of something like 796% over the three years since then. He says, come on, man. End quote. So Mo and Demir are invited to appear on CNBC to talk about this, their investment strategy, because they're fucking whiz kids.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey, man.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah. But while they're on their way to the studio, you know, as this story is blowing up, the Business Insider reporter who had featured Mo on the list of the kid investor story calls and starts asking them some follow up questions. A little late at this point, Demir confirms to the reporter that that $72 million number is a rumor. But he says, quote, pretty sure Mo is a great trader and a genius, end quote.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, sure.

[Maren McGlashan]

What's it called? Dialing it back.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, yeah. Having to walk it back.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

The CNBC studios are across the Hudson river in New Jersey. So by the time the boys get there, they're pretty rattled. Cause clearly people are onto them. Mo at first doesn't want to get out of the car, even which, like, God, I've been there. Eventually some producers coax the boy into the building and they're brought to the office of CNBC's editor in chief. Like, so now the adults are like, asking them more questions and that you might get in trouble now also just

[Karen Kilgariff]

the idea of coaxing them out of the car where it's just like, look, we got Capri Suns and Atari or

[Maren McGlashan]

whatever with caviar and apple, fresh, crisp apple.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What kind of video games do you like, boys? All the fresh pressed, cold pressed apple juice you could drink.

[Maren McGlashan]

And this man who's the CNBC's editor in chief used to be an editor at the Wall Street Journal. So he knows what questions to ask. He starts asking Mo to explain his strategy and say exactly how much money is involved. You know, like, don't throw out rumor numbers. Mo tries his best to answer. And then the guy says, it isn't 72 million, is it? And Mo confirms that it is not and claims he's made a profit closer to 3 million, which is a lot less than 72 million. Still impressive for a teen.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Some would say it's 69 million less. That's what I would say.

[Maren McGlashan]

But who are we to say it

[Karen Kilgariff]

is such a hilarious lie? And also, I feel like I remember reading that story when it was the listicle story. Yeah. Where it's just like, what are these kids doing? The kids know what's going on, right?

[Maren McGlashan]

Maybe I could do it. No, you can't. And then the boys declined to go through with the on air interview, which is smart. But CNBC reports what they have learned. So the fucking jig is up that very evening. Demira and Mo, both 17 years old, mind you, hire a crisis PR firm and then head straight from CNBC to their offices to the crisis PR's office because they're like, fuck. But like, they never, like, they were just kind of nudging this thing along that the adults were all offering them. They were 17 years old and they're like, let's just tell them we did this. Let's tell them we did that. It's kind of funny. And let's pretend like we have this bravado that we don't have.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, we're exceptionally successful.

[Maren McGlashan]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But, like, the second you go $72 million on penny stocks. Right. Or whatever, I mean, that's the thing that sticks out to me of like. Remember we were playing penny machines in the casino?

[Maren McGlashan]

Penny machines are like how you get to hang out and oops, get free drinks all night.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, that's right. But you probably wouldn't get the jackpot of 72 million off pennies.

[Maren McGlashan]

Don't know. You wouldn't. So once they get this PR firm, they sit down with a reporter from the New York observer and the whole truth comes out. They tell them we were lying, that the $3 million profit that Mo claimed later to have is also a lie, and that Mohammed has only been placing simulated trades. There's no money at all. But I feel like they were just giving the adults what they were asking for.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Maren McGlashan]

You know what I mean?

[Karen Kilgariff]

We're extraordinary. We get good grades, we go to this rad school. We can do anything.

[Maren McGlashan]

We just lied about dumber shit. When we were in high school, they lied about something that adults cared about about, I guess.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. They like, instead of being like, I'm gonna be at George's house, and then you're like, I'm Gonna be at Karen's house. And then the big lies were drinking behind the grocery store.

[Maren McGlashan]

Those aren't my cigarettes. Those are Karen's cigarettes. She asked me to hold them for her.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You know how Georgia loves clothes, Mom. She does it every time I have to hold them.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yep. So he hasn't made any money at all. And Mo does say that if he had been investing money, he would have done really well. But it doesn't. Me too. Yeah, I know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Me too.

[Maren McGlashan]

Mo tells the reporter that his parents are furious with him about his lies. He says, quote, honestly, my dad wanted to disown me. My mom basically said she'd never talk to me. Their morals are that if I lie about it and don't own up to it, then they can no longer trust me. He's a fucking teenager. He adds that he's been sleeping over at a friend's house because his parents are so upset with him. He doesn't want to say who. But it seems like Demir is the one. And it seems like they're having a great time and just like, being teenagers and kind of like reveling in this. I don't know, it's like this thing that keeps moving forward even though it shouldn't have a long time ago.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. They made themselves a story.

[Maren McGlashan]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And the adults fell for it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And there is a victory in that. If you're a 17 year old in high school.

[Maren McGlashan]

Totally. Like these fucking actual business people believed you. Meanwhile, on Twitter, Jessica Pressler, member, the journalist who wrote, wrote that original story, saying. Not saying it was true, but saying these are the rumors. She defends her story, saying that she saw the bank statement and that the New York magazine isn't a financial publication anyways. So, like, it's not like a Wall Street Journal where the questions would have been asked about the actual earnings. Yeah, but that's a misstep because Jessica had been hired to work on a new investigations team at Bloomberg, which is a financial publication. And Bloomberg winds up rescinding the job offer. I think she kind of get some egg on her face from it. But Jessica does stay at New York magazine and goes on to report some very juicy stories in the future. And she does have a redemption arc. She will later say that she had a funny feeling about the story and asked her editor to check it out before running it, which is what they're supposed to do, and that that didn't happen. New York magazine changes the headline on the story to take out that $72 million number and adds a note at at the top explaining the situation. The note says, quote, we were duped.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

And then Ali wrote a note to me saying I was a cub reporter at Bloomberg when all of this was happening. Whoa, Ali, My fucking incredible researcher.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

There was a. She said there was a commotion. Jessica Pressler does fine in the end. She writes the article that becomes the basis for the movie Hustlers.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Right.

[Maren McGlashan]

Great movie. And later winds up reporting the Anna Delvey story. So she does okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She is fine.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah. She like, proves well.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And I think doesn't that kind of point back to. That's the kind of journalism like you were saying, it's not finance journalism.

[Maren McGlashan]

It's grabby, personality based. Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's very Internety. Like, can you believe this is real? Whatever.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And that is like, it's almost like human interest of did you even know there was a person like this?

[Maren McGlashan]

Right, right. So the New York observer reporter Ken Kerson wraps up his article like this. Quote, no one asked for my opinion, but I'm going to provide it anyway. Love that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Cool.

[Maren McGlashan]

Having sat with these kids for a good. On a tough day, they got carried away. They're not children, but they're not quite adults either. And at least Mr. Islam was literally quaking as we spoke. So I feel like his like, boisterous friends were like, you know, say it, say it. And like it just became bigger than it was supposed to. And it just so happened that they were in fucking Manhattan. And so it became huge.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Also, don't you think that not his name was Movie Mo's friend. There's one guy in there, and you know the type, and he's Mr. Big Personality. He's the personality.

[Maren McGlashan]

Fire. He's so fun.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Energy, energy, energy. Ideas, ideas. Good times.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Maren McGlashan]

He's the one. He spread that rumor, I bet.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hell yes.

[Maren McGlashan]

You know what, my friend did?

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know what, my friend?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna eat fucking caviar and apple juice all day. Do you wanna come with us? Like there's that where the guy that has the goods.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They're like, we're gonna do a bunch of stuff because of you.

[Maren McGlashan]

You're our smartest friend. We're gonna spread a rumor about you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm the loudest friend.

[Maren McGlashan]

I'm the loudest. You're the smartest.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Let's do this thing now. There's a third guy because there's always a third guy.

[Maren McGlashan]

Always. So, yeah, they should have known better. But New York and the New York Post probably should have as well. This story smelled fishy the instant it appeared. And a quick dance with a calculator probably would have saved these young men and a couple reporters some embarrassment. End quote.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, that's his quote. A quick dance with a calculator is such a funny way to say it.

[Maren McGlashan]

I know. That's part of Ken's quote. And that is the story of. That swept the halls of Stuyvesant High School and briefly fooled the world, or at least some of the world story of Mohammed Islam as you were kind

[Karen Kilgariff]

of like wrapping it down. It's like, these are kids at an incredibly competitive high school where excelling at anything, you have to do it. And you're used to being top three in your class. Now you're bottom 20, right. It makes sense that you'd be, well, maybe this will make me special. Maybe this will make me stand out.

[Maren McGlashan]

Let me spread this rumor. It goes a little too far.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We got money, baby. We're getting invited to parties.

[Maren McGlashan]

My parents are mad at me. Oh, shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I have to talk to a reporter, and it's making me shake.

[Maren McGlashan]

Yeah. But I'm bringing my friend, so he's gonna do it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's gonna mouth off. There's your podcast right there.

[Maren McGlashan]

There you go.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There it is.

[Maren McGlashan]

Well, thank you and for listening, everyone, and thank you for, you know, St. Patrick.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do you think maybe we thank St. Patrick for getting rid of all the snakes?

[Maren McGlashan]

Oh, that's what he did, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I think so.

[Maren McGlashan]

Okay, well, Vince will like that. He hates snakes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, he should go over there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Maren McGlashan]

I'm wearing green.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Celebrate meet you. I couldn't believe I found this. The green I had on was such a non green color. And I was like, oh, I don't really have anything. And then all of a sudden, I left. Look over.

[Maren McGlashan]

I was like, you have to wear. Yeah, you have to wear it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Have to represent.

[Maren McGlashan]

Definitely. Well, you did it. And thanks for representing here, everyone. We appreciate you guys listening.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey, and just remember, you can do anything if you have two sisters along with you, because that's really the. That's the magic of all of this. Am I right?

[Maren McGlashan]

You are. Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye, Elvis.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you want a cookie?

[Karen Kilgariff]

This has been a night. Exactly right. Production.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Our senior producer is Molly Smith, and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Our editor is Aristotle Lacvedo.

[Maren McGlashan]

This episode was mixed by Liana Squillacci.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Our researchers are Marin McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Email your hometowns to my favorite murdermail.com

[Karen Kilgariff]

and follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And when you're there, hit the the

[Maren McGlashan]

double thumbs up and the remind me buttons.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's the best way you can support our show.

[Maren McGlashan]

Goodbye. Janice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz. We host the podcast Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories produced by Ruby

[Janice Torres]

Studio in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We're back for season four to talk to some incredible small business owners.

[Maren McGlashan]

The big thing about working at tech is that it's ever evolving, ever changing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Every everyone's a rookie.

[Maren McGlashan]

That's how fast the industry is changing. So what I'm really excited about is to be part of that change.

[Janice Torres]

So listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Bethenny Frankel]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Bethenny Frankel]

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[Janice Torres]

Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to [e-mail]

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

episode is brought to you in part by Vital Farms.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Have you noticed that the egg section at the grocery store has gotten very complicated lately?

[Georgia Hardstark]

But Vital Farms makes it simple. Pasture raised eggs traceable to the farm.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Their hens have outdoor access year round with fresh air and sunshine, and forage on rotated pastures with local grasses.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Every carton can be traced back to the farm it came from, so you can see the pasture where the hens live by visiting vitalfarms.com farm.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Look for the black carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalfarms.com to learn more.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Vital Farms Good eggs, no shortcuts.

[Maren McGlashan]

Goodbye.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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