Scams Hitting the Slopes w/ Sam Sanders

Summary

Podcast Summary: Scam Goddess – "Scams Hitting the Slopes" with Sam Sanders

Episode Details:

• Podcast: Scam Goddess
• Host: Laci Mosley (aka Scam Goddess)
• Guest: Sam Sanders
• Episode Title: Scams Hitting the Slopes w/ Sam Sanders
• Release Date: February 4, 2025

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Introduction to the Episode

[01:00] Laci Mosley kicks off the episode by setting the stage for an in-depth exploration of scams, robberies, and fraudulent activities, specifically targeting the ski industry. She emphasizes the podcast's unique blend of true crime and comedy, promising listeners a blend of insightful breakdowns and humorous commentary.

Introducing the Guest: Sam Sanders

[01:13] Laci introduces Sam Sanders, a seasoned journalist with a history of insightful and entertaining discussions. She highlights their previous collaborations, including a live show at the Ford Theater and episodes of her TV show Scamgods on Bishop More Whitehead.

Notable Quote:

• Laci Mosley: "Sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them. Again, I will rem." — [01:09]

The Saga of J Peak Resort

Background of J Peak

[18:16] Laci delves into the history of J Peak, a ski resort in Vermont, established in 1957. Initially a beloved spot among hardcore skiers known for its deep snow and challenging slopes, J Peak struggled with outdated amenities and financial instability in its early years.

Notable Quote:

• Sam Sanders: "Skiing is just a world that I'll never know about." — [17:01]

The Role of Bill Stanger and Ariel Kiros

[22:54] In 1984, Bill Stanger, the resort's general manager, brings in Ariel Kiros, an ambitious entrepreneur aiming to transform J Peak into a year-round destination using the EB5 visa program. This program attracts foreign investors by offering green cards in exchange for significant financial investments intended to create American jobs.

Notable Quote:

• Laci Mosley: "If you are rich and not from America, if you promise to invest in a business that puts jobs in rural America, you can just cut the line." — [26:45]

The Fraudulent Scheme Unfolds

[32:52] Bill ambitiously raises $350 million through the EB5 program, promising to create 10,000 jobs and revamp the resort. However, Ariel uses $200 million of these funds for personal luxuries, including a condo at Trump Place in New York, and funnels the rest through shell companies. Sam and Laci dissect how Ariel manipulates financial systems to siphon funds, highlighting the sophisticated nature of the scam.

Notable Quotes:

• Laci Mosley: "Ariel used 13.5 million of Bill's scammer green card money to make the initial payment to purchase the resort from the owner." — [46:50]
• Sam Sanders: "He moved the money to say that it was his and then paid it." — [43:54]

SEC Intervention and Legal Consequences

[64:07] Eight years post-investment, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) raids J Peak Resort, uncovering the massive fraud. Ariel pleads guilty to charges including wire fraud, money laundering, and obstruction, while Bill serves nine months in prison and is banned from the EB5 program for life.

Notable Quotes:

• Laci Mosley: "The SEC don't come in because they give a fuck about morals. They're coming in because they're seasoned. That's just a cute word for government theft." — [66:09]
• Sam Sanders: "He ain't gonna get that much. Cause he's rich already. Two?" — [69:46]

Broader Implications on the Ski Industry

[75:00] The discussion broadens to critique the inherent dangers and exclusive nature of skiing. Laci and Sam humorously label skiing as a "scam," pointing out the high costs, lack of safety measures like seat belts on ski lifts, and the industry's exclusionary practices that favor the wealthy.

Notable Quotes:

• Sam Sanders: "Skiing is a scam. Come on. What y'all doing?" — [75:00]
• Laci Mosley: "The last time that I looked this up, they were on so, like, the ski lift lines were so long because they were like, anybody can do this." — [75:28]

Humorous Banter and Side Stories

Throughout the episode, Laci and Sam engage in lively and humorous exchanges, touching on various side topics such as:

• Efforts to Scam Within the Podcast: They joke about creating their own scam ventures, complete with pitch decks and fake business plans.

  Notable Quote:

  • Sam Sanders: "If I have access to half a billion dollars, I'd stop. I'd be like, no, I'm good." — [60:38]

• Personal Anecdotes: They share personal stories and playful banter about everyday scams and humorous mishaps.

Promotional Segments

[17:01], [82:33] Towards the end, the episode includes promotional segments for related shows and products:

• Sam Sanders' New Show: An upcoming episode honoring Grammy Weekend, featuring interviews with prominent vocal coaches.
• Laci’s Other Projects: Promotion of her book Scam Goddess, TV show Scamga Goddesses, and the upcoming Scam Goddess TV show on Freeform and Hulu.

Notable Quote:

• Laci Mosley: "Stay scheming." — [83:17]

Conclusion

[83:42] Laci wraps up the episode with final thoughts on the pervasive nature of scams in various industries, emphasizing the importance of awareness and skepticism. She reinforces the comedic yet informative tone of the podcast, encouraging listeners to stay vigilant and entertained.

Notable Quote:

• Laci Mosley: "Scams are now hitting the slopes. So, stay scheming." — [83:17]

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Key Takeaways:

1. Sophistication of Modern Scams: The J Peak Resort fraud showcases how intricate and large-scale scams can be, especially when intertwined with legitimate investment programs like EB5 visas.
2. Regulatory Oversight: The role of the SEC highlights the importance of regulatory bodies in uncovering and addressing financial frauds.
3. Industry Vulnerabilities: Sectors like the ski industry can be fertile ground for scams due to high investments and limited regulatory scrutiny.
4. Cultural Commentary: Through humor, the episode critiques societal norms and exclusive practices within affluent activities such as skiing.
5. Comedic Relief in True Crime: Laci and Sam effectively blend humor with serious discussions, making complex fraudulent schemes accessible and entertaining.

Notable Quotes Recap:

• Laci Mosley: "Sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them." — [01:09]
• Sam Sanders: "Skiing is a scam. Come on. What y'all doing?" — [75:00]
• Laci Mosley: "The SEC don't come in because they give a fuck about morals. They're coming in because they're seasoned." — [66:09]
• Sam Sanders: "He moved the money to say that it was his and then paid it." — [43:54]
• Laci Mosley: "Stay scheming." — [83:17]

This episode of Scam Goddess offers a compelling mix of true crime storytelling, insightful analysis of financial frauds, and the signature comedic flair that makes the podcast both entertaining and informative. Whether you're a true crime aficionado or simply enjoy a good scam story with laughs, this episode delivers on all fronts.

Stay tuned for more episodes every Tuesday and catch classic re-releases every Friday. Don't forget to watch the Scam Goddess TV show premiering on Freeform and Hulu on January 15th!

Transcript

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[Sam Sanders]

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[Lacey Mosley]

Scam, robbery and fraud.

[Sam Sanders]

Scam.

[Lacey Mosley]

Robbery and fraud. Scam Goddess. What's poppin, Congregation? It's your girl, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scam Goddess, back with another episode of the podcast, all about robbery, fraud and those who practice it. Sometimes we love them, sometimes we hate them. Again, I will rem. This is also still a comedy podcast. Don't know why I have to do that now, but I feel as though y'all already know. I'm very. What? Yes. I'm excited, I'm elated, I'm thrilled. Congregation, we have a friend of the show back in the building. Listen, we got a real journalist today. Y'all know I pretend to be one. That's my scam, okay? I'm doing it on Scam Goddess, the TV show. Am I not doing journalism real good? It seems as though I'm a journalist. I think I am now. I think I went to the school of life for journalism, but he went to school actually. Listen, this is a savvy, intelligent, hilarious king who I fell in love with the second I met him. He's also a fellow Texan. Okay? From New Braunfels, to be exact. I don't know if I've ever been to New Braunfels, but I am from Texas. Okay?

[Sam Sanders]

So I was born there and then I left.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay? I'm from Terrell, so it's one of those. Okay, yeah, me and Jamie Foxx on the Wikipedia. That's. That's. That's our claim to fame from the awesome podcast Vibe. Check. A weekly podcast where your favorite group chats, they come to life and it's always a vibe. Plus, he has a new entertainment show coming out on kcrw, which just dropped this past Friday, where he got to speak to Billie Eilish, Y'all. Billie Eilish's vocal coach himself.

[Sam Sanders]

Not Billie, just the coach.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay. But he had some tricks of the trade. But who's cooking up the voice? Okay.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. I'm talking about the one and only Sam Sanders.

[Sam Sanders]

It is so good to be back.

[Lacey Mosley]

It's so good to have you back.

[Sam Sanders]

You know, since I was on your show the first time at this point years ago, we talked about Pastor Gucci.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes, ma'am.

[Sam Sanders]

Never forget. But since then, you came and helped out. Vibe check. At a live show we did last summer at the Ford Theater. Such a kiki.

[Lacey Mosley]

That was such a kiki. It was such a blast.

[Sam Sanders]

It was a good crowd. They all loved you. We're so glad to have you.

[Lacey Mosley]

Thank you. I had a good ass time. We were dancing and acting a fool. Like, the crowd was amazing. And since we talked about Pastor Gucci, I actually did an episode of Scamgots, the TV show on Bishop. More whitehead.

[Sam Sanders]

Really? What's the latest on him?

[Lacey Mosley]

So he. Right now he is a guest of the state.

[Sam Sanders]

That's.

[Lacey Mosley]

I love that he's a. He's neighbors with P. Diddy. Oh, he's at. Yeah, he's at that same. I actually went and visited that jail girl. Yeah. And I mailed him a letter. No worries.

[Sam Sanders]

That's nice for you.

[Lacey Mosley]

If he got back. That's nice of you. No, it wasn't like a sweet letter. It wasn't hate mail, but it wasn't, hey, boo, I know they don't got Gucci in jail, but I hope you know. No, no, no, I wasn't. It was like, come talk to me, criminal. Wasn't very. It wasn't mean, but it wasn't nice. But. Yeah. So right now he's the guest of.

[Sam Sanders]

The state, and so is he snitching on Mayor Adams? Cause they were tight. Right.

[Lacey Mosley]

You know what's interesting is when I did further research in Brooklyn and I was in Canarsie and I spoke with victims of his, it became ever more clear that he was always dropping Mayor Eric Adams name, which we laughed about on the show. And we were kind of like, I don't know if he's really conn. At that time, we didn't know that allegedly Mayor Eric Adams was out here, first of all, being a Turkish city girl.

[Sam Sanders]

Literally whoring himself out for a seat.

[Lacey Mosley]

Upgrade and a nice hotel suite.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay. All right. That makes it a little better.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay. That's why you blackmailed a fire chief. Okay. Cause, you know, so wild.

[Sam Sanders]

I also found out in Reading about Eric Adams. Just a sidebar. He still, like, goes to the club every night.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, yeah, no, I told three before 11. Mayor Eric Adams is there.

[Sam Sanders]

UNK should not be at the club.

[Lacey Mosley]

He's in there popping bottles until.

[Sam Sanders]

Why is he there? Anywho, he's done it.

[Lacey Mosley]

And then even him, like, walking around with Luigi Mangione in that big perp walk that they did. The fact that he was behind Luigi, I was like, sir, first of all, you have charges. Like, you.

[Sam Sanders]

You're fighting some stuff too, right?

[Lacey Mosley]

I'm just saying he doesn't really go in there because they may not let you out.

[Sam Sanders]

Come on.

[Lacey Mosley]

Come on. So I don't know why he was like, we're tough on crime. And he actually said some things that were damaging to the state's case because he called Luigi Mengioni a murder and a killer. You can't say that if the person has not been adjudicated. It's all alleged. And it's like, you're the mayor, you dummy. And then he canceled all of his, like, Martin Luther King day celebrations in New York so that he could fly to the inauguration of Trump. Yes.

[Sam Sanders]

He's sucking up to him.

[Lacey Mosley]

I'm sure he trying to get one of them pardons.

[Sam Sanders]

You know what? He might get it because Trump would love to do it and then be like, I love the blacks. I love the blacks. I love the blacks.

[Lacey Mosley]

He's the only DEI award. He's the only good DEI we ever.

[Sam Sanders]

Eric would be up there with his little Temu gold chain being like, yeah, boss.

[Lacey Mosley]

Literally. That man has no scruples.

[Sam Sanders]

When is Pastor Gucci out?

[Lacey Mosley]

I think it's episode five.

[Sam Sanders]

No, of the state.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, now that to be seen. My episode of his television show Scam got us to be out on Hulu, you know, maybe this week. But as far as long before he's out, long before he's free.

[Sam Sanders]

All right, so your EP comes out for sure. Before he gets free.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. But before he gets free, we will release it on Freeform.

[Sam Sanders]

I can't wait to watch it.

[Lacey Mosley]

About his freedom. We don't know.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay, okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

But, yeah, so it's so funny that we were talking about him and now he's in jail. But. Oh, the last thing I was gonna say is that at the time, we were kind of making fun of him. Always name dropping Eric Adams. But now the more that I see the people that Eric hangs with, I'm like, maybe him and Pastor Gucci were friends and he just distanced himself. Because as soon as diddy went to prison. He took the key to the city back from him and was like, I don't know him.

[Sam Sanders]

And it's like, see now I just feel like at some point we're gonna find out more and more about Eric Adams and his just general scam life.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes.

[Sam Sanders]

It feels scammy.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, it is.

[Sam Sanders]

You're the expert. It's scammy, huh?

[Lacey Mosley]

For sure.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Like none of it looks above board.

[Sam Sanders]

None.

[Lacey Mosley]

You know, allegedly. I mean, even when he had that video that we showed where he was like casing the kid's room and telling them where to look for drugs in a baby doll's butt and a gun under the pillow. It was so unserious.

[Sam Sanders]

It's too much.

[Lacey Mosley]

He's just such an unserious guy. Like, if you're at the club at that age, how pop, what are you doing in the club?

[Sam Sanders]

Nothing good happening for you?

[Lacey Mosley]

No, nothing good. And then women don't want you. I remember being in a club at that age and like if we saw like a 50 year old or like somebody you know of that age, all.

[Sam Sanders]

They can do is buy you a drink. That's all you can let them do.

[Lacey Mosley]

And we would only go to. We weren't even taking drinks. You had to have bottle service. We would come stand, be beautiful by your table, drink the horrible alcohol with pineapple juice. And then once you of next to the next table.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh yeah, listen, we're not going home with you, unk. Listen, I'm 40, so I'm like, unk adjacent. I already know the rules. I don't go out past nine unless there's seats at the place.

[Lacey Mosley]

It looks so good though. I feel like you could still be out here in the street.

[Sam Sanders]

My godson calls me Unk. So I'm like, you know what?

[Lacey Mosley]

I'm Unk. He wrong for that.

[Sam Sanders]

And my thing is, like, I should not be anywhere after 9pm where I can't sit down.

[Lacey Mosley]

Big fact.

[Sam Sanders]

I'll go if I can sit, but if I gotta stand around these 20 somethings and stilettos and the age range.

[Lacey Mosley]

Needs to be similar to mine. Like, I'm not close. I'm not 40 yet. I'm not close yet. But you know, I'm not. I'm also not 22.

[Sam Sanders]

There you go. Right?

[Lacey Mosley]

You know what I mean? So, like, if the girlies are in there giving, like we just got out of college, I don't need to be here.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, like, I am. I'm done with club energy. I want lounge energy. Cause that implies seating but what I really like now, I ain't got no kids, but I love it when my friends with kids invite me to like, the bars that also just have like a little fucking playground.

[Lacey Mosley]

Millennials need help, that's all.

[Sam Sanders]

All of my white friends who are parents of young kids, all they want to do is take that toddler to a bar and have other friends join them while they drink.

[Lacey Mosley]

Their childcare is wild.

[Sam Sanders]

They love is a high art in Los Angeles.

[Lacey Mosley]

Of course they love it, but I'm still like, bringing a baby in a.

[Sam Sanders]

Bar art in Los Angeles. You know that Firestone bar on La Brea used to be a Firestone tire shop. Now it's a big old bar. And they have skeeball machines there. I go there a lot. Cause I like to skeeball. I saw some people there. It's a bunch of adults. And some dude had brought his like 5 year old and just let her run feral. She was climbing up the skeeball machines, cheating. She was looking for pins right on the windows.

[Lacey Mosley]

Maybe criminal.

[Sam Sanders]

And he was like, I don't give a fuck. I'm drinking. I'm drinking my ipa.

[Lacey Mosley]

He was like, she'll be fine. Yeah, she takes care of herself. Okay.

[Sam Sanders]

Anywho, that's my energy right now.

[Lacey Mosley]

Well, Sam, we always ask. I mean, I think we kind of got into it, but like, what is your relationship with scams? You hate them. Is there anything you're fixated on right now? Have you run anything you can talk about? It could be anything.

[Sam Sanders]

I am my energy right now in 2025 post Trump inauguration and Trump 2.0 is just radical acceptance of all things. And what I'm trying to practice radical acceptance around right now is the fact that a lot of the American government and federal government as we know it, that was low key, a scam. And Trump is just pointing that out.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, he's just taking advantage of it in a louder way than other people have. You know, we see Nancy Pelosi selling out them stocks. We know she's been doing that forever. Everybody, everybody used to just be classier about their crime. And now he's just like, no, I'm doing crime. Buy my meme coin two days before the inauguration. We're criminals. What's up?

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, well. And what he's done that I find so remarkable? Cause I used to cover politics. I covered him in the 2016 election. And I was on the road chasing Bernie and then Hillary and Trump. And I remember the narrative around his first term was like, well, you know, he's not gonna be able to supersede, like, the laws and the constitutions and the rules. And what he's proven is that most of the time, rules are just norms. Yeah, they're suggestions. Yes, they're suggestions.

[Lacey Mosley]

It's a social contract.

[Sam Sanders]

Come on.

[Lacey Mosley]

That we've all decided that we were gonna abide by to have a society. But scammers are always like, look, I didn't make that up, and I don't wanna abide by.

[Sam Sanders]

There you go.

[Lacey Mosley]

There you go.

[Sam Sanders]

And like, he is a. He's just playing chicken with every law ever written down in American history. And you know what he's good at? Playing chicken.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

Cause he ain't got no sense. He won't stop.

[Lacey Mosley]

No. Never.

[Sam Sanders]

He won't stop. Anywho. So I'm just, like, accepting the scamfication of our government right now and being like, you know what? It is what it is. I don't want everyone to feel the awful effects of what might happen, Right? But a lot of folks who thought he was gonna lower their price of eggs thought he was gonna help them, like, get ready.

[Lacey Mosley]

We were just talking about that. I mean, I feel like you're. What'd you call it? Radical acceptance.

[Sam Sanders]

Radical acceptance.

[Lacey Mosley]

I call it choosing delusion. For myself. It was like, I just can't deal with this right now. I'm a choosing delusion. And y'all know on this podcast, I like to let y'all be Delulu so we won't live in the reality of life for too much, you know, let's all escape.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's enough for tr. Deep.

[Sam Sanders]

Breathe it out.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. Breathe in. Scam. Exhale the God. Okay, we're all just gonna, you know, touch grass. Literally. I've been rubbing so much grass. So many different types. Kentucky Blue, you know, even crabgrass. I don't discriminate, you know. You know, get out there. Pick a flower. Yes, it's a weed, but it looks familiar to me.

[Sam Sanders]

Come on.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, that's what we're doing. We're choosing delusion.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

Everything's fine.

[Sam Sanders]

Everything's fine. Listen, I have my little auto donations set up for the groups that are in the fight. And I told all my friends, let me know when it's time to march and put them pussy hats back on. But until then.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, you put on the couch notification. Oh, y'all not catching me in the Kuchi Kango. I won't be there. I will not be there.

[Sam Sanders]

I want to do it for one selfie and then take it off. I need one Selfie of that.

[Lacey Mosley]

I'm actively not gonna be there. I want you to know I chose not to go. I want you to know I was available.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

I'm gonna drive past it and be like, look at me not going. No, I gotta check out. Look, as a black woman who've been black womaning for a long time, I think y'all.

[Sam Sanders]

And y'all told us.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, y'all gotta.

[Sam Sanders]

Women told us y'all can let someone else carry that baton for a while.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. And y'all gotta believe in you. You know, that's why I do. I'll give you a motivational speech. Okay. I'm gonna read what Viola Davis said in the Help. You was kind, you was smart, you was supporting. You know, you is coochie. Get out there. Fight. Fight for your right. Okay? And I'll be supporting you from afar. From afar with vibes and manifestation.

[Sam Sanders]

We like that.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. I'm a burn incense on Instagram Live and that's how y'all gonna know I support you.

[Sam Sanders]

Listen, stay safe at the house.

[Lacey Mosley]

Listen, stay safe at the house. The house is becoming the safest place. Okay. Cause every time I look at. Look outside, I'm like, oh, no.

[Sam Sanders]

Especially in la, let's. Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

Let's not even go.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

Anyway, again, choosing delusion. We're all choosing delusion. Okay. Scams.

[Sam Sanders]

Hey there. We're Vibe Check. And we're partnering with Ulta Beauty again this year to celebrate black excellence. And Ulta Beauty is celebrating black owned and founded brands. Brands like Donna's Recipe, Pattern Beauty, Stack Cosmetics, Fenty Beauty and more. Ulta Beauty has everything you need for healthy curls, coils, waves and scalp soothing skin care solutions and makeup for every style. Ulta Beauty is honoring the pride, power and brilliance of Black Beauty this month. And always visit your Ulta beauty store.

[Lacey Mosley]

Or ulta.com to shop your favorite black owned and founded brands. And of course, check out Vibe Check this month. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. It's February, y'all. The sexiest months of all the months. And feeling sexy is supposed to be fun. Whether you have a significant other or not, you can still enjoy. Adore me because they make fun, flirty, playful lingerie bras and more that are all about what gets you excited. Adormi offers extended sizing across a wide variety of thoughtfully designed styles. And look, you don't have to just get in there and get the sexy lingerie or the corsets. They also have supportive swimwear, pajamas and activewear. They have it all. But I have like this cute set that has like this red bow that goes around it and like under boob, which is like really hot right now. And I was like, okay. And with sets starting as low as $19.95, you can feel sexy even if you're on a budget. New customers can get a bra and panties set for as low as $19.95. So take this as a sign to order yourself a new bra or maybe even some new crotchless panties. Head to adore me.com now to shop for more than just lingerie in over 60 sizes. So let's get into our first segment here. Historic Hoodwinks. This is where I will regale Sam with a famous con caper group of criminals. We'll see what they're up to. And speaking about choosing delusion, we're going to talk about one of the most delusional activities that only a certain sector of the population really does unless you live in the area. You know what I mean? So we're talking about how the US government seized control of two snowy mountains from perpetrators of the Kingdom, the biggest fraud in ski industry history. So scams are now hitting the slopes.

[Sam Sanders]

For me, skiing is just a world that I'll never know about. When I was skiing, I know so bad, I found out that Sonny Bono died while skiing.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, he had him.

[Rich Garcia]

Trees.

[Sam Sanders]

Began to ski into a tree. And as soon as I found that out, I said, well, I'll never do that.

[Lacey Mosley]

Liam Neeson's wife went out the same way.

[Sam Sanders]

And I never have. You ain't never seen me on a motherfucking. Can I honestly, it's not gonna happen.

[Lacey Mosley]

I mean, but like the accidents are, they're not high. But when you hear about a famous person. Yeah, I just don't feel like I'm gonna ever be professional enough to be on like a real slope. I go on the bunny slope or you know what I do? I would get like a real like fire ass moncler fit and I would get the skis and I'd be out in the snow and I'd get the girl some whooshes, some whooshes. And I'd be like, move the camera so it look like I'm whooshing. And then I'd take that shit off and go inside by the fire like.

[Sam Sanders]

Nah, See, all I want is like the cozy cardigan to be by the.

[Lacey Mosley]

Fire all day, just two handing my.

[Sam Sanders]

Cup strong Irish coffee. Getting fucked the fuck up by that fire.

[Lacey Mosley]

Just sipping it so slow.

[Sam Sanders]

No girl gurgling it, drinking it Give it all to me.

[Lacey Mosley]

Sip it slow and sit here at the crackling fire and think about your life.

[Sam Sanders]

True, true, true.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay. You gotta think about how richness is hurting you.

[Sam Sanders]

It's so painful, this richness.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay, listen, y'all don't know my problems. As a richie. As a richie. The scams have hit the slopes. So we're talking about this old ski spot. So J Peak is a snowy mountain in Vermont, 20 minutes from the Canadian border. And they opened for skiing in 1957. And people see that's the kind of slope I'm talking about. I would never be on that slope. That's the slope with the. Look, that's the slope with the murder trees.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, that's it. Oh, yeah. That's too steep.

[Lacey Mosley]

No. I make one wrong move.

[Sam Sanders]

No, no, no, no, no. Them trees will cut you.

[Lacey Mosley]

No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Sam Sanders]

There's no guardrails. There's no seat belts. See, there's no bumpers on the side.

[Lacey Mosley]

I understand this as a white people activity, though, because when y'all leave the house, it's not as dangerous for y'all. I leave the house, I get in my car, I'm like, I hope I come back, I get pulled over, I'm like, ooh, I hope they don't kill me.

[Sam Sanders]

And let me tell you what, feels like a Jordan Peele movie. The, like, black ski weekends.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, you know, they stay in the house. They are in the house playing king, cup and spades. And they take that one picture, like I said, in the Montclair.

[Sam Sanders]

Then they're back inside.

[Lacey Mosley]

And then they're back inside. Okay. They're not hitting the.

[Sam Sanders]

I didn't do my hair for this shit.

[Lacey Mosley]

Right?

[Sam Sanders]

A helmet. No, no.

[Lacey Mosley]

They're not snowboarding. They're not hanging 10. No. Their asses is in the house. They just want to tell people they black and they could get to the.

[Sam Sanders]

Ski place that said, if anyone listening is planning a black ski weekend, invite me and I can sit in the cabin the whole time.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. Pay our way.

[Lacey Mosley]

I saw, like, a black and almost like it was black and gay ski weekend. They were in the house playing their own game of traitors. They were not skiing. They were not skiing video of them. Come on.

[Sam Sanders]

They weren't skiing. They get it.

[Lacey Mosley]

They might get on the lift to really, like, give the girls a moment, but then they gonna wait till they lift, circle all the way back, all.

[Sam Sanders]

The way back down, and they gonna.

[Lacey Mosley]

Get off and they'll go home. You know, I'm sure some of y'all are out there, like, really skiing.

[Sam Sanders]

There's like one black skier who's like, man.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, okay.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, good for you.

[Lacey Mosley]

Good for you.

[Sam Sanders]

Blessed.

[Lacey Mosley]

Good for you. He's probably adopted. He got two white parents. Like, he's not. He. Not really one of us, but, you know, you still black. If you were adopted, you still black. But if you out there skiing like that, you know, good for you. Good for you for going through life with less white skin.

[Sam Sanders]

We are limitless. We can do whatever we want to do.

[Lacey Mosley]

We contain multitudes.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, I don't contain that multitude, but you do. And good for you, sir.

[Lacey Mosley]

And for the large population of this audience that is white. Don't you take this information nowhere else. Okay? These are not stereotypes that you can now proliferate.

[Sam Sanders]

You can say it. You cannot.

[Lacey Mosley]

You never heard any of this. Yeah, fast forward. We gonna put a note in the footnotes.

[Sam Sanders]

And if you ever see me on a ski slope. No, you didn't.

[Lacey Mosley]

No, you didn't. No, you didn't. Yeah, listen, you just. You saw nothing. So this place opened in 1957. And people started skiing the cute, craggy summit in the mid-60s using a new chairlift in Vermont's only tramway, which was cutting edge at the time. Right. This is like 57. Right. So this is like 60s and 70s. And like, you know, you got hippies out doing the summ of love. And then I guess you got, like, bougie people doing the winner of ski.

[Sam Sanders]

Winner of ski.

[Lacey Mosley]

So in the 1970s, the Hotel J opened with 48 slope side rooms.

[Sam Sanders]

That's cute.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, that's cute, right? You got a little view. That's where I would be inside. Real ski bums knew and loved the mountain. But it was located in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, a chronically impoverished area. Not exactly a luxury getaway like Aspen. So this was like, they said ski bum. So remember when I said, like, either you live in the area and you. Or you're rich and you ski, there's really no in between. So I'm figuring ski bums are like, you know, real ski heads. I feel like they, like, lube. They boards up every night with the ski lube.

[Sam Sanders]

It's like the same energy as dudes who, like, live on a houseboat year round.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

They're committed to the bit.

[Lacey Mosley]

And, like, there are people who come in and surf, and they're doing it, like, very expensive. Like, but the houseboat guy, you know, he out there tan as fuck. Cause he always in the sun and he, you know, lubing up his boards.

[Sam Sanders]

Have a job. May not. Doesn't matter.

[Lacey Mosley]

Doesn't matter.

[Sam Sanders]

Doesn't matter.

[Lacey Mosley]

He's not in nowhere. Hair long as.

[Sam Sanders]

Yep.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. Barefoot as hell and. And tan is all. Get out. So these are real ski bumps who love this mountain, but they know it's kind of like a little ratchet. It's not Aspen.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

So in 1984, Jay Peak, like the owner of it, brought ski enthusiast Bill Stanger on as a resort general manager. So he's got this 48, you know, view, like hotel slope, side rooms. Now he brings on this guy Stinger.

[Sam Sanders]

And he just looks like he could scam something.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. He also just looks like one of those guys who's, like, an active participant in the church, but then one day, he might be a family annihilator. You just. Yeah, you know, or like. Or he got, like, a secret in the basement.

[Sam Sanders]

There's a secret somewhere.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, he's not an annihilator. They tend to have, like, more CRO Magnum for his, like, little more exercise. It's given, like, something in the basement that they find. Yeah, but they were, like, he was always active in the church, and.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, I bet he was.

[Lacey Mosley]

So for the next 20 years, Bill became obsessed with an ambitious redesign that would make the resort viable year round, even when the snow melted in the summer. So this could bring tourist dollars to the area and keep him from laying off seasonal workers. Oh, because they care so much about the seasonal workers.

[Sam Sanders]

They care so much.

[Lacey Mosley]

They hate laying them off.

[Sam Sanders]

We hate it. Why would we ever. It hurts us more than it hurts you.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. We would keep you on year round if there was a way for us to make way more money than you ever do.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

So by the early 2000s, J Peak Resort was renowned among hardcore skiers for its deep snow and tough slopes. But the amenities were dated and needed refurbishment stat. So they started getting more skiers because they were like, oh, the people really hitting trees over here. Because I feel like they.

[Sam Sanders]

That's that tree.

[Lacey Mosley]

I feel like they heard about people hitting trees, and they were like, that's where we need to go. We need to do that. We tired of these bunny slopes at Aspen.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, I'm a danger.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, we're real ski girls, okay? If I don't see three ambulances when I pull up, I'm not skiing there. So one news account called the area shabby, unchic, and seedy.

[Sam Sanders]

Seedy? Oh, no.

[Lacey Mosley]

Very rude. Very nasty.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

I feel like once you say shabby and unchic, you really don't have to throw in seedy like, you already kicking them.

[Sam Sanders]

I get it. You got us. Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

And nasty. Nasty, filthy, rotten. Like, it's okay. We get it.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Ah. So every few years, Bill found an investor for his dream mountain reno project, right? Usually, like, a Canadian banker who liked to ski, but every time, the investment will fall through. So he's probably finding, like, a hardcore skier who's, like, in the nasty CD lounge at a hotel, and. And they're. They're guzzling their Irish whiskey.

[Sam Sanders]

There you go.

[Lacey Mosley]

And he's got him. He's got them on the second guzzle, and he's like, you know, you could get a part of this place, man. You know, this place is hardcore.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, it's real. It's real.

[Lacey Mosley]

You hit them, right?

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

You saw how many ambulances we had out front. Get it on the ground floor, on the edge, literally. Yeah. People are going off it all the time. So, you know, then they're like, oh, I'm interested. But every time he would kind of get them to that point, the investment money would, like, fall through. But Bill kept trying, and then finally, he figured out the key to easy investor money in an economically depressed area was cash for green cards. Oh, you've heard of Cars for Kids? We have cash for green cards.

[Sam Sanders]

That. That turned bleak real quick.

[Lacey Mosley]

He's like, this investing thing isn't working. Okay, let's skip to something else. He pivoted hard.

[Sam Sanders]

He really did.

[Lacey Mosley]

He pivoted like them slopes, dude. That's why people flying off of him.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

So Bill raised money using EB5 visa programs, which channeled foreign investments into businesses that created jobs for Americans. So especially, like, in rural or poor parts of the country. So they were trying to use this to build up those areas by, you know, if you want to move to, like, the rusty, dusty, seedy, shabby, unchic.

[Sam Sanders]

Place, we'll get some money for that.

[Lacey Mosley]

We'll let you be a citizen, and we'll give you some money, huh? So for $500,000 in 2008, which today has been raised to $900,000, $400,000.

[Sam Sanders]

Damn inflation, y'all. They're right. The eggs are too damn expensive. It's the inflation.

[Lacey Mosley]

It's the inflation.

[Sam Sanders]

It's real.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's why it costs more to come here now. Cause of the eggs. Don't think about it too hard.

[Sam Sanders]

I can't. I can't. I had eggs today and was like, should I be doing this?

[Lacey Mosley]

Are you rich, girl?

[Sam Sanders]

Them eggs was Sam. No, Those eggs Had been in my trunk.

[Lacey Mosley]

Are you some sort of baron?

[Sam Sanders]

Those eggs had been in my fridge before Trump.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yo, Rich, lock the door. We finna rob Sam. We finna rob Sam. Come here. Talk about, oh, I had eggs.

[Sam Sanders]

I had eggs.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, were they poached? You throw a little caviar on top, Girl, I'm country.

[Sam Sanders]

I scrambled my eggs in bacon grease. That's what I do. That's what I do.

[Lacey Mosley]

He's got money for the grease of the pig as well. Okay, we know who we're dealing with now. You know you can't get out of this building without a key.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh my God.

[Lacey Mosley]

I'm gonna just walk you to your car.

[Sam Sanders]

Uh huh, uh huh. Just be on the safe side.

[Lacey Mosley]

I just. On the safe side.

[Sam Sanders]

Looking out for me. Looking out for me.

[Lacey Mosley]

Always looking out for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You walk in front, I walk in back. Cause I got your back.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Not just. Cause that's probably where you keep your wallet, but just, that's, you know, I'm helping you out, Mr. Mr. Incredible Edible Egg. So I can't believe that he came out as a rich guys over eating eggs whenever he wants. So Basically now it's $900,000 and foreign investors and their families become eligible for green cards as long as that money succeeds in creating at least 10 jobs.

[Sam Sanders]

American jobs.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

So essentially they paid a cut to the front of the line at US immigration. Since 1990, 10,000 green cards have been set aside each year for people willing to invest. And recently the program really started to pop off.

[Sam Sanders]

So basically, if you are rich and not from America, if you promise to invest in a business that puts jobs in rural America, you can just cut the line.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. Because it makes investors and their families like. So that's like basically chain and immigration is. Our whole family would be able to come over. You're eligible for the green card if you pay this amount of money and you promise that you're gonna create at least 10 jobs.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, so you pay the government a flat fee and then you promise to invest in this case ski slope thing. Okay. Interesting.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. So in 2015, the developers behind Manhattan's Hudson Yards raised at least 1.2 billion in EB5 financing for their luxury shopping mall, condos and office tower. You've seen that place.

[Sam Sanders]

An abomination.

[Lacey Mosley]

It's very ugly.

[Sam Sanders]

What is it? There's a name for it. What is it called?

[Lacey Mosley]

Ugly.

[Sam Sanders]

Hudson's yards is cursed. It's cursed.

[Lacey Mosley]

Why did they make it like that?

[Sam Sanders]

Tell me what that's called though. Cause I want listeners to be able to Google it.

[Lacey Mosley]

Like honeycomb.

[Sam Sanders]

It's like an alien contraption. The vessel. Hideous. Listeners Google it right now. The vessel. Hudson Yards. I want to run away from it.

[Lacey Mosley]

Were they trying to be ironic? Because it's like aliens. Like they're trying to be like illegal aliens.

[Sam Sanders]

Something. Something. Anywho. Anywho.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, it's hideous, but. So it's the most expensive real estate development in US at the time. A Waldorf story was completed in Beverly Hills using EB Dash 5 financing as well.

[Sam Sanders]

Really?

[Lacey Mosley]

And a Chinese themed hotel complex and casino called Resorts World went up in Las Vegas.

[Sam Sanders]

Girl, that's where I saw Katy Perry a few years ago.

[Lacey Mosley]

She would be there every time there's a scam. Katy Perry is somewhere nearby. I'm not even joking.

[Sam Sanders]

No, you're right. You know, she got into it with the Catholic nuns over real estate.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, and do you also know that when they were doing that leggings Lulu Laro scam?

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

She was performing at the Lulu La Robe event.

[Sam Sanders]

What?

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, she's Kay Perry loves a crime trip.

[Sam Sanders]

She's caught up in it. She's caught up in it.

[Lacey Mosley]

She said, make it to cash and I'll be there like a firework.

[Sam Sanders]

Hey.

[Lacey Mosley]

She always somewhere nearby. I'm going to just start assuming she's there.

[Sam Sanders]

I will say, hey, it's a good show. It's a good show.

[Lacey Mosley]

She got my nerves now. But I have seen her live earlier in her career.

[Sam Sanders]

Early Katie's great Katie. But then you realize a lot of early Katie was also a scam. Cause all of her big hits from back in the day. Dr. Luke.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, yeah. Woo.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. Let's move on from that real quick. Oi, oi.

[Lacey Mosley]

And fast. Back to the delusion. So this Las Vegas project was financed through almost a billion dollars in EB5 funding. In 2016, Jared Kushner's family used the program to build a 50 story Trump branded luxury apartment building in New Jersey.

[Sam Sanders]

I would not trust the 50th floor of a Trump building.

[Lacey Mosley]

Hell no.

[Sam Sanders]

That's a little. It was ugly too.

[Lacey Mosley]

You know, it's ugly. You know, it's gold.

[Sam Sanders]

Oof. Oof.

[Lacey Mosley]

Like, he's like, I don't know, like, like, I don't love it. Liberace was just somehow Trump has big Liberace energy. Yeah. But word.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. Did you watch the Apprentice? The movie?

[Lacey Mosley]

I did not watch the movie. I did watch the. Okay.

[Sam Sanders]

The movie's good because it shows you that, like, all of Trump's come Up was with the gays.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

The queens taught him all he knows. It's kind of hilarious.

[Lacey Mosley]

But at the same time, like, we have better taste than this.

[Sam Sanders]

That's true.

[Lacey Mosley]

Like this. We would have told you no to this penile shape, this gold penis building.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Like, what were you thinking?

[Sam Sanders]

What were you thinking? What were you thinking?

[Lacey Mosley]

He was like, they're gonna love it. It's gold. Looks like a penis. I love to stay in my gold penis. Everyone stays here. They love it. So good. Best penis ever. That's gold. So by 2006, Bill had raised $18 million from EB5 investors for job creating programs at the ski resort, but hadn't gotten it off the ground yet.

[Sam Sanders]

So he takes in all this money, but he has yet to actually hire anybody for these jobs yet.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay, but we working on it.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay. Allegedly.

[Lacey Mosley]

Allegedly.

[Sam Sanders]

Allegedly. Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

You know, you gotta get the money first. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get a green card, and then once you get the. Then you working on him. You know how these things work. So here's Bill selling the dream of green card investments at J Peak, which is the mountain.

[Sam Sanders]

If an EB5 visa is something that you're interested in for yourself and your family, there's no better regional center in the United States to associate with than the Vermont Regional Center. He was selling it.

[Lacey Mosley]

He was selling it. He looks legit. He's out in the snow. He's like, it's really a ski center. And if you're looking for this Visa, no better place.

[Sam Sanders]

That's insane.

[Lacey Mosley]

When the resort's owner suddenly died, Bill saw his opening and set out to find a new buyer for the resort. Someone who would share his vision for the future of the mountain. So remember, he was brought on, but he was never the owner of the resort. He was just trying to get the funding because he wanted to, like, update it so it wasn't gonna be unchic no more.

[Sam Sanders]

And next year, make it year round, all that stuff. Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Cd. So when the owner dies, Bill's like, I see an opportunity.

[Sam Sanders]

Cause, you know, camera's always the opportunity. Yeah, that's my first thought. Oh, they passed. What could I get?

[Lacey Mosley]

That is horrible. He had the funeral plotting. He's just there shaking hands like, yeah, this is so sad. You want my business card? Oh, my gosh. I'm torn apart. Yes. So we got all these EB5 visas that you could really get involved in. You know what would really honor his legacy is if you invested in J Peak. That's actually what he told me when he died is that he wanted his.

[Sam Sanders]

Last words in the hospital.

[Lacey Mosley]

Get more investors at the funeral. That's what he said. I've literally got an email like that before. Y'all know if you really are OG listeners to the podcast. I told y'all when my scam dentist died. They sent out an email and then the same email. It was like he died, but he would want y'all to keep yalls cleanings. That was what he would have wanted.

[Sam Sanders]

That's what he would have wanted.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's just what he was thinking about.

[Sam Sanders]

Listen, listen.

[Lacey Mosley]

I never went back, but I'll never forget that email. I'm like, you can't tell me that he died in the same email. Tell me to keep my appointment. What's wrong with y'all?

[Sam Sanders]

Come on. Come on.

[Lacey Mosley]

What's wrong with you?

[Sam Sanders]

That's rough.

[Lacey Mosley]

So disgusting. Robbery.

[Rich Garcia]

Skipping cold and flu season is plan A. But if you do get sick, be prepared for plan B with Kleenex lotion tissues. Kleenex lotion tissues moisturize skin, helping prevent the added discomfort of red, irritated skin on top of your cold and flu symptoms. So this cold and flu season, grab Kleenex lotion tissues. Visit kleenex.com to learn more and buy now for whatever happens next. Grab Kleenex.

[Whole Foods Market Representative]

Amazing deals on activewear. For all the ways you move are at Nordstrom Rack stores now.

[Lacey Mosley]

How did I not know Rack has Adidas?

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, I love these new Nikes.

[Lacey Mosley]

I always score at Rack.

[Whole Foods Market Representative]

Stock up on new gear from the best brands in the game, starting at at just $40. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

[Lacey Mosley]

So the buyer, he finds turns out to be a pretty gnarly dude. So gnarly's like ski slang. Okay, so buying J Peak with its own money. So we have Ariel Kos. This is Ariel Kiros.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, those eyes.

[Lacey Mosley]

Those eyes.

[Sam Sanders]

Those eyes scare me.

[Lacey Mosley]

They're also, like, so magnetic, though.

[Sam Sanders]

That's a word for it.

[Lacey Mosley]

They're kind of like ocean ass.

[Sam Sanders]

What ocean? The Antarctic. Oh, my God.

[Lacey Mosley]

Those eyes are definitely still your soul. We can't look at them too long because I feel like I just made a deal with it.

[Sam Sanders]

It's like looking at Prince. You can't do it too long or he'll get you.

[Lacey Mosley]

He'll get you. Yeah. No, no, no, no. But also, I'm like, what does my soul entail if I do sell it to you, mister? Ey, man.

[Sam Sanders]

How much is my soul worth?

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, these times I might need to go ahead and.

[Sam Sanders]

He is wearing the J Peak. Vest, which is kind of cute.

[Lacey Mosley]

He looks like he's legit. You know, the eyeballs are not giving. Yeah, he can't. It's. He can't look at people in the face like that. Get him off the screen. Oh, my goodness. So this is Ariel Kiros. Right. He owned a condo near J Peak, that mountain. He never really went skiing, but he did project an air of wealth, maybe through his eyeballs. I don't know. So Ariel grew up in Harlem.

[Sam Sanders]

He did, huh? Okay. Yeah. Interesting.

[Lacey Mosley]

And he said that as a child, he sold Chiclets gum to classmates to make money.

[Sam Sanders]

Scammer.

[Lacey Mosley]

I've always said that. Got it in you.

[Sam Sanders]

You got it in you. Selling snacks in school.

[Lacey Mosley]

Scammer.

[Sam Sanders]

In the same way that, like, boys who, like, like, fuck with animals when they're kids, they're going to be a serial killer. If you're selling chicklets to your classmates, you're going to be a scammer.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. If you're selling anything at school. Hot Cheetos, gum, lemonade on the street. Why do you see your school as a business opportunity?

[Sam Sanders]

Also, where are the parents?

[Lacey Mosley]

Why are you taking your baby? Have you not noticed that you take your baby to Costco every other week, and then all of a sudden, they're out of everything that you bought?

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. Yeah. It's wild.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's called. They have two working parents.

[Sam Sanders]

Come on.

[Lacey Mosley]

Probably a few siblings.

[Sam Sanders]

Divorced parents.

[Lacey Mosley]

Ooh. It's definitely.

[Sam Sanders]

And the other one can't tell. And he just tells both parents. Well, I need chicklets, mom to get them for me.

[Lacey Mosley]

And it's definitely given, like, guilty divorced dad who, like, he takes his kid to the park so people can see him with the kids.

[Sam Sanders]

Just gave the kid his Costco card. He's like, go on, girl.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, just go in there.

[Sam Sanders]

Just go. Just do what you got to do.

[Lacey Mosley]

I'll pick you up in a bit. I got a date.

[Sam Sanders]

Whatever mom says about me, I love you.

[Lacey Mosley]

I love you.

[Sam Sanders]

It wasn't my fault.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's why I see you.

[Sam Sanders]

She cheated, right?

[Lacey Mosley]

Right.

[Sam Sanders]

She cheated.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's why I see you every sixth week of the month. Cause I love you. Now go into Costco and run it up. Text daddy when you're done. So Ariel seemed like a successful businessman. He wrote his emails in all caps. You know how.

[Sam Sanders]

See?

[Lacey Mosley]

You know how. When you successful.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. All caps. Caps. Was it in a Comic Sans font? Like, what the hell?

[Lacey Mosley]

Not. He got to use, like, Ariel or, like, his. What's a successful business?

[Sam Sanders]

I'm a G man times woman. Is.

[Lacey Mosley]

It's dated, but.

[Sam Sanders]

But it. It. It conveys the right energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

But he wrote his emails in all caps, so he was always yelling at you via email. It was like, we'll circle back and you're like, success. That man's successful.

[Sam Sanders]

Looking forward. Forward.

[Lacey Mosley]

Regards. It's like, oh, my God, what is happening?

[Sam Sanders]

Cheers.

[Lacey Mosley]

Poor rich. He's like, my ears. He also worked from a huge Miami office.

[Sam Sanders]

So of course, Bill, no scams in Miami.

[Lacey Mosley]

No.

[Sam Sanders]

Never Scam free. Everyone knows.

[Lacey Mosley]

Everyone knows.

[Sam Sanders]

Everyone knows.

[Lacey Mosley]

Huge Miami office. Scam free.

[Sam Sanders]

Come on.

[Lacey Mosley]

I have everything about, like, a lot of corporate office culture in Miami. And I don't know if this has shifted, but when I first got out of college Village, like, one of my friends moved there to work, you know, in a business office. I think it was like a real estate firm, but, like, but one of the bigger ones. So it wasn't like them sunset ladies who be wearing. Going to the, you know, appointments in a club dress. Yeah, it wasn't giving club dress.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

But like, where she would work and other people would work. Because I would sometimes just be in Miami. I lived there for a little while. The suits that they wear so tight.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

You could count the change in their pockets.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

I'm like, where are y'all getting these tight ass suits that's so tight?

[Sam Sanders]

And everyone is, like, dressed as if and walking around as if they could do a bump of coke right now.

[Lacey Mosley]

Right now.

[Sam Sanders]

Like, they're all cocaine ready.

[Lacey Mosley]

Like, you work at Ernest and Young. Why do you have a bbl? What is the purpose of that?

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

What are y'all doing?

[Sam Sanders]

What are y'all doing? What are y'all doing?

[Lacey Mosley]

So a Miami office is always gonna be sus to me. Cause what are y'all doing in here? And why?

[Sam Sanders]

Mm.

[Lacey Mosley]

But this portrays success to Bill. So in reality, Ariel's network at the time was around $5 million. And to buy J Peak, Bill needed 26 million.

[Sam Sanders]

So he didn't have that.

[Lacey Mosley]

No, no, he didn't have half of that. So the key was that 18 million that bill had already raised from investors was what he could use to get to that 26. So they needed 26 million total to buy the mountain. Yes. Okay, so Ariel only has five.

[Sam Sanders]

This is Miami with a dead eye.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, dead eyes. M. Yes, he has five. But Bill has already raised that 18, remember?

[Sam Sanders]

Huh? Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

So Ariel claimed that he needed to verify the money's existence from Bill. So Ariel convinced J Peak's previous owners to put it all in an account At Raymond James Financial Services, where his former son in law, Joel Burstein worked. Wait, so Ariel said. Ariel said, I need to know that y'all have the funds before I give you all of my way more than five funds. So he says put it in Raymond James Financial Services so we could all look at it. Right.

[Sam Sanders]

But his son in law.

[Lacey Mosley]

But that's his son in law who is black.

[Sam Sanders]

He's a little cute.

[Lacey Mosley]

He is cute. I guess he did say son in law because I was like, now where did he come from?

[Sam Sanders]

I mean, poor man's Damon Wayans Jr.

[Lacey Mosley]

But maybe like corporate Damon Wayans Jr.

[Sam Sanders]

But not nearly as cute.

[Lacey Mosley]

Not nearly as cute.

[Sam Sanders]

40% as cute.

[Lacey Mosley]

If Damon Wayans Jr. Was a congressman.

[Sam Sanders]

In D.C. if Damon Wayans Jr. Was on city council in D.C. damn.

[Lacey Mosley]

If David Waynes Jr. Was an alderman in Chicago.

[Sam Sanders]

If Damon Wayans Jr. Worked in the office of New York Mayor Eric Adams.

[Lacey Mosley]

If Damon Wayans Jr. Was a front facing client serviceman at bank of America.

[Sam Sanders]

That's it. That's it.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's it.

[Sam Sanders]

That's. There we go. Nailed it.

[Lacey Mosley]

He helps you open the account. He helps you close it.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. No, yeah. And he has a very strict script.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, yes.

[Sam Sanders]

He has to read the script.

[Lacey Mosley]

He does.

[Sam Sanders]

I'm sorry. This is what it says.

[Lacey Mosley]

And if there's any deviation, he has to go talk to his manager.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

He's not gonna try to work it out for you?

[Sam Sanders]

No, no. He's talking manager.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. No.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, yeah. That's his energy. Yes, yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

So strong. So in the hours before closing of the sale, Joel, our Damon Wayans Jr.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

Who not as hot. We love Damon Wayans Jr. Joel retitled the accounts in Ariel's names and transferred the money through a series of accounts. Right. So stepson.

[Sam Sanders]

Stepson of Myann.

[Lacey Mosley]

Stepson of Ariel in Miami, took all.

[Sam Sanders]

The money from the other investors, changed.

[Lacey Mosley]

The name of the account, moved it around, moved it around. Then Ariel used. This is Miami man with the eyes.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Ariel used 13.5 million of it to make the initial payment to purchase the resort from the owner. So remember, this is Bill's money.

[Sam Sanders]

He moved the money to say that it was his and then paid it.

[Lacey Mosley]

He said, bill, if you really got 18 miles, put it in this bank account. And don't worry that my stepson in law used to work there or work there. Don't worry about that, sweetheart. Just put it there so we can both look at it so I can make sure you have it. Then once the money was there, the stepson in Law. He extracts the money, changes the name on the accounts, and then basically puts it in Ariel's control.

[Sam Sanders]

So then he can be like, oh, I got this.

[Lacey Mosley]

Bill didn't own the resort. Bill needed another investor. He only had 18 mil to buy it. So he's like, buy it with me?

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Ariel's like, okay, bet. Yeah, we're going to buy it together. Just let me verify by you giving me all the money. And so then he goes past Bill and buys Jay's peak from the original owners with Bill's money.

[Sam Sanders]

Hold on. No, he. Okay, so Miami takes that money from the investors, then goes back to those.

[Lacey Mosley]

Same investors and says, so Miami, Ariel.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

He. Bill. Bill was like, miami, Ariel. You got that energy. You talking in all caps. You got an office in Miam.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

You look legitimate. Okay?

[Sam Sanders]

You look legitimate.

[Lacey Mosley]

Your eyes are like the depths of hair.

[Sam Sanders]

You got that pinky cocaine fingernail. I trust you.

[Lacey Mosley]

Literally. You're always yelling via email. I know you're a good guy. So he's like. Ariel's like, oh, okay, well, I fucks with you. Like, I'm down, but I got lots of so much money. Definitely more than 5 million. How much money you got? Cause it's gonna cost 26 million to purchase this, right? So Bill's like, oh, I got money. Money. And he's like, okay, Bill, verify that money by transferring it to this bank that I have no affiliation with so that I can see the money is real and that we investing together. And then I'm gonna put my money in there, and then it's gon. Cause remember, we gonna buy this from the owners together. So then he has the step ex, son in law, whatever. Who is Damon Wayne. Hood.

[Sam Sanders]

Rich Damon Wayans Jr. Hoodridge.

[Lacey Mosley]

Damon Wayans Jr. Who doesn't look as sexy.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

He has him change the account names and funnel all the money out so that Ariel has access to it. Then Ariel bypasses Bill and goes to the original owners of Jay's peak, whose.

[Sam Sanders]

Money he had moved over to his own side.

[Lacey Mosley]

No, he took the money from Bill, who he was supposed to buy the peak with.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes. And then goes.

[Lacey Mosley]

So then he moved past Bill and was like, hey, investors, I have the.

[Sam Sanders]

Money to buy Jay's peak, so y'all come with me. Yeah, F. Bill. Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Fuck Bill. Don't even worry about Bill.

[Sam Sanders]

Bill broke.

[Lacey Mosley]

Wow, Bill's so poor.

[Sam Sanders]

That is some, like, higher level scamming.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. And Bill's already scamming because he's like, y'all get these EB5s and then I'm gonna get y'all.

[Sam Sanders]

Bill's trying to hustle green cards.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, he's hustle.

[Sam Sanders]

He's the green card game. None of them. None on the up and out.

[Lacey Mosley]

Bill opens up that ski jacket, and it's just like, hustle, man. Just tons of green cars. He's like, you want one? You got 500k. Let me throw you one. Let me throw your family. I got you. You and yours.

[Sam Sanders]

Dang.

[Lacey Mosley]

So he's basically scamming a scammer. Yeah, and then buying something that Bill has saved up his scam coins for with Bill's money.

[Sam Sanders]

Damn, Bill, you got played, Bill. You played yourself.

[Lacey Mosley]

Bill, you played yourself. So then Ariel uses 13.5 million of bill, Bill's scammer green card money. Right. To make the initial payment to purchase the resort from the original owners. Ariel had brought J Peak using its own money, which obviously is illegal. But the sale went through. He made Bill CEO and gave him a 15% ownership stake in the resort.

[Sam Sanders]

But is that even real, that ownership stake?

[Lacey Mosley]

He gave him a cut of his.

[Sam Sanders]

Own stuff, his own scam man. Man layers.

[Lacey Mosley]

So Ariel consolidated Jay Peak's finances at Raymond James, which was the bank where, remember, Damon Bootleg Damon works at, right?

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

So that's where Bootleg Damon, AKA Joel, could buy treasury bonds and secure margin loans to cover up the missing EB5 investor money. And they were off to the races with an extreme, like, mountain makeover. So now they can finally make over the mountain. They own it. And then they covered up the fact that there wasn't money by Joel being like, oh, we actually put that money in bonds. It's in bonds, the stocks. So it's still there. It's just not in the account. But it's like the vibe of the money is there. We're doing a vibe check on the money.

[Sam Sanders]

Trust us. This is wild.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. So this is the extreme mountain makeover. They're finally gonna make it. Like, it's not gonna be unchic. It's not gonna be seedy and nasty anymore. It's gonna be sexy. In 2009, JP's first big EB5 project. So now what they said they were gonna do with the green card cards, they start it. It's a 57 suite tram house lodge. It opened up in 2009 with its boutique feel and theme decor, taking its place among the most appealing slopeside hotels in the ski industry. So now we have, like, a badge, like, hotel.

[Sam Sanders]

Love it.

[Lacey Mosley]

It's sexy. It's chic.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

The Seeds are gone.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes. Yes. It's, like, legit now.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. So soon after, the resort added two more hotels.

[Sam Sanders]

Where'd they get all this goddamn they're exp. Money coming from?

[Lacey Mosley]

They got a skating rink.

[Sam Sanders]

Wow.

[Lacey Mosley]

Indoor.

[Sam Sanders]

That's a lot.

[Lacey Mosley]

And that's like a big skating rink. Get your skate on in there.

[Sam Sanders]

I went ice skating once, and that was enough. Fell on my ass so many times.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, you fell.

[Sam Sanders]

You just fell on your ass?

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

Everyone's like, oh, that's cute. No, it hurt.

[Lacey Mosley]

I hug the side of the rink. It gets some bruises. But I would get out there and do a little. I could do a little something.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay, okay. Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

Not a lot, though. And then I would fall.

[Sam Sanders]

It's cute.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. And so they had this indoor skating rink, right? That was called Ice Halls.

[Sam Sanders]

Uh huh.

[Lacey Mosley]

They had the golf clubhouse, a $27 million indoor water park called the Pump House.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, wow. I see it. That is epic.

[Lacey Mosley]

And it's indoors, so they can just turn the heat up during the cold. Y'all can still get wet.

[Sam Sanders]

There's a water slide inside in the middle of some ski slopes. These people were just burning money.

[Lacey Mosley]

They were having everything here. Okay, you want snow? You want. We got snow. Yeah, yeah, they might, right?

[Sam Sanders]

And the elephants are over here.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, they're cold, but we got. We got blankets for them. Okay. Yeah, they're fine. So they also had a climbing gym.

[Sam Sanders]

This White chaos.

[Lacey Mosley]

White chaos. They said, what are all the things that white families love to do? And can we put them in one place? Like, at this point, I'm waiting for them to say ziplining. Like, you know, they were like, what.

[Sam Sanders]

Are all the white activities station. God. My God. Too much.

[Lacey Mosley]

They said, look, any white activity. Cornhole, y'all. We had cornhole. We. If you want it, we have it. White people. They had multiple condo complexes and multiple bars and restaurants. So J Peak was going so well. Aria bought nearby Burke Mountain, too. This man is just buying mountains. Cause, you know, so he keeps finding money, allegedly, because everybody's going to the water park, slash ice skating rink, slash ski.

[Sam Sanders]

So they're bringing in funds. They're bringing in.

[Lacey Mosley]

Trust fall centers. Okay. They even have a place where you can cosplay denying, you know, people of color, bank loans. You can do everything white people want to do there.

[Sam Sanders]

Everything.

[Lacey Mosley]

Don't worry about it.

[Sam Sanders]

They got a customer service room where you can just go yell at somebody for half an hour.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. Okay.

[Sam Sanders]

And then when the Karen room.

[Lacey Mosley]

The manager. The manager actually comes. You can yell at them too.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

You've heard of, like, they have manager reenactors.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. You've heard of those rooms where they, like, break stuff and, like, you destroy. They have that, but it's for just like, management reenactment. So you can yell at somebody.

[Sam Sanders]

Yell somebody.

[Lacey Mosley]

You can say, do you know who I am?

[Sam Sanders]

Do you know who I am?

[Lacey Mosley]

That's what it's called.

[Sam Sanders]

Then you can record it and play it back when you have a bad day.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, okay. Everybody's cruising for a bruising in there. Okay? That's therapy. They got everything you need, so they bought another mountain, which I didn't know you could just be buying mountains like this. This is wild to me. I don't think you should be able to own a mountain. I think that mountains should just be land.

[Sam Sanders]

I think mountains should be free. I think beaches should be free. I don't believe in private beaches. I don't believe in it.

[Lacey Mosley]

I don't believe in it right now. When I have egg money like you, Sam, I will believe in a. Because I have to get the point after my sand.

[Sam Sanders]

Can I tell you a thing about my eggs? 711 eggs.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay, now that's crazy.

[Sam Sanders]

It was the closest. I wanted eggs. It was the closest spot that I could walk to. I got eggs at 7:11.

[Lacey Mosley]

The only other thing you could do at 7:11 that would make me even more questionable is get sushi or something. One of those rotated hot dogs. I'm like, sam, let's pray.

[Sam Sanders]

There was a 711 in D.C. during my time that had amazing beef patties, like Jamaican beef patties.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay, you know what? But I feel as though that was something.

[Sam Sanders]

And they knew what the fuck they were doing.

[Lacey Mosley]

They were doing that on the side. And that was not something. 7. They were just like, we're gonna sell.

[Sam Sanders]

We're doing patties.

[Lacey Mosley]

And they had them.

[Sam Sanders]

They had them on the little hot dog rollers. They had it next to the rolling hot dogs, like the Jamaican beef patties.

[Lacey Mosley]

Welcome to 711 with no hot dog.

[Sam Sanders]

That was a good scam.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's a good scam.

[Sam Sanders]

That's a good scam.

[Lacey Mosley]

Listen, my mama had chili day at Dairy Queen. She was making chili. Dairy Queen don't sell chili.

[Sam Sanders]

She's like, we're doing chili, Damn it.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, it was.

[Sam Sanders]

And I bet they loved it.

[Lacey Mosley]

I bet they loved it.

[Sam Sanders]

She probably made great chili.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, my mom is a fantastic. I'm like, is that money going to Dairy Queen bomb or you just having your own chili day at Dairy Queen? Selling chili.

[Sam Sanders]

Let it happen.

[Lacey Mosley]

I loved it.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

I feel like that's what your DC 711 was doing. They don't be selling no beef patties at 7:11.

[Sam Sanders]

Not 7:11 approved.

[Lacey Mosley]

I went to Oxtail. I went to 7:11, got me some Oxtail.

[Sam Sanders]

That 7:11 jerk chicken is popping, popping.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay. And they sell gas. That 711 never sold gas. No, you just go. And they give it to you in a. In a red can, right? You say how much you want? No, that's not a thing.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

No, no, don't worry about it, sweetheart. So J.P. is going so well, he don't even got. He was like, let's get more mountains. Okay. And he was going to develop that as a property, too. At Bill's urging, he had even acquired a plot in the town of Newport, where Bill lived, with plans to build a vast biotech facility that would manufacture sophisticated medical products. Another pivot.

[Sam Sanders]

That was a turn. Wow.

[Lacey Mosley]

How y'all going? From water parks and indoors ice skating to medical products.

[Sam Sanders]

That's a lot.

[Lacey Mosley]

Including dialysis machines and artificial organs.

[Sam Sanders]

Can't nobody do that yet. What year was this? What year Was this?

[Lacey Mosley]

After 2009?

[Sam Sanders]

Girl, ain't nobody had that skill yet. We can barely 3D print guns. Now.

[Lacey Mosley]

Listen, they're going to make poor portable heart, lung pumps and synthetic livers. Now, it will be made out of leftover plastic from the water slide, but don't worry about that. Don't worry about that.

[Sam Sanders]

Wow.

[Lacey Mosley]

With such grand plans, Bill and Ariel predicted that the projects could create about 10,000 new jobs, which, you know what that means.

[Sam Sanders]

Thousand. So they can get more of that EV5. Money. Money. This is giving. This is giving hints of Theranos at this point.

[Lacey Mosley]

I mean, they did actually build a thing. Elizabeth office. And she had a tiny thing that didn't work. And then the machine was splitting blood everywhere. But. But at least the water slide worked. And. And the bar definitely was serving cocktails.

[Sam Sanders]

True, true.

[Lacey Mosley]

You could definitely skate in the ice cream.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay, you could do that. But, like, they weren't making the punch.

[Lacey Mosley]

A manager at the therapy center.

[Sam Sanders]

Organs. That's a bridge.

[Lacey Mosley]

I just don't know how we got there. Neither of y'all are given, like, organ inventor.

[Sam Sanders]

None of that, sir.

[Lacey Mosley]

You type in all caps. You cannot make anything that I want put in my body.

[Sam Sanders]

That part.

[Lacey Mosley]

You don't know how to work a caps lock.

[Sam Sanders]

That part. Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

So with such grand plans, they predicted these projects were gonna really bring in the coin. And of course, that means more EB5 investors because they're saying 10,000 new jobs. And, you know, you only had to have 10 new jobs to get the visa, so.

[Sam Sanders]

10,000 they want do it a thousand times over.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes.

[Sam Sanders]

Scam.

[Lacey Mosley]

So Bill flew around the world wooing investors with the promise of green cards, and in total, he raised $350 million.

[Sam Sanders]

God damn.

[Lacey Mosley]

350.

[Sam Sanders]

I'm in the wrong line of work.

[Lacey Mosley]

We got to start making artificial organs.

[Sam Sanders]

We can have a really good pitch deck.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, for sure.

[Sam Sanders]

And imagine us in a room working some rich people to be like, we can get you a green card, too.

[Lacey Mosley]

Come on. Yeah, and we. Yeah, we also. Strat V. We. We'll get you card and make organ.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes, yes, yes. That's very good.

[Lacey Mosley]

It's like, why are they speaking in English but with a Russian accent?

[Sam Sanders]

You should have been in anora. Now I'm imagining Anora Part 2. Jungle Boogaloo, starring Lacy. They go, listen. They're like, we didn't left Queens. We a Canari now. Canarsi. Okay, so wait. I want that so bad.

[Lacey Mosley]

I feel like all we need is, like, an old white dude that we dress up, and we give him the script, and then we just. We're there. But we just say that we're like assistants.

[Sam Sanders]

We're sustained.

[Lacey Mosley]

We bring in the coffee, and we're like, deis guys. We don't give. They don't give us a lot of responsibility. We're just here for coffee. Sam's the driver.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, yeah. I'll be a very good driver.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

Big shades I don't see.

[Lacey Mosley]

And we just go on Craigslist and get this guy. There's so many out of work actors. We could definitely get a guy. You know, we might have to blackmail him, but one of us is gonna constantly have him at gunpoint because, you know, he'll get wised up and try to steal our business from us.

[Sam Sanders]

I'll do it. I'll just get him in. You know what? I will just. I'll get him in a situation where he's gonna give. I'll find a way to get him to, like, either send really inappropriate texts or nudes. Then I'll be like, I got you, girl.

[Lacey Mosley]

Then we yell, you are mine now. Yeah, you mine. We own you.

[Sam Sanders]

Y. Now. What country do we go to first to scam people to get this money?

[Lacey Mosley]

Where do we go first? I feel like we got to go someplace random. Like, let's go to Poland.

[Sam Sanders]

I was sitting here thinking, where would I want to, like, go on vacation?

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, no.

[Sam Sanders]

Ooh, South Korea. It's fun over there.

[Lacey Mosley]

We need people to want to come to America. That.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

So we go to the uk. They'd be like, we're good over here. It's very ratchet over there.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, we're not doing that.

[Lacey Mosley]

We don't want to wait.

[Sam Sanders]

Let's do. Okay. I feel you. On former Soviet bloc. Who has the best food in the former Soviet bloc?

[Lacey Mosley]

Ooh. Okay.

[Sam Sanders]

Where are the best pierogis?

[Lacey Mosley]

Trying to go on vacation?

[Sam Sanders]

I am. I know, I know, I know. Anywho, back to the. Back to the work.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay, but we're gonna work on our food. We'll figure it out.

[Sam Sanders]

We'll figure it out.

[Lacey Mosley]

We got it.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

So we could do. We could be like that black man who ruined his whole legacy. Remember most of them.

[Sam Sanders]

I can say it.

[Lacey Mosley]

I'm a black man. Hands. Miracle hands. Little hands. Oh, special hands.

[Sam Sanders]

The Dr. Ben Carson.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. Yeah. We could be like him. We could be like. We are actually his children. And we also have tiny miracle hands.

[Sam Sanders]

Fun fact. When he was running for president, he ran for president briefly in the 2016 cycle. And I followed that man for a week.

[Lacey Mosley]

Because you're his son.

[Sam Sanders]

That's what I'm sure. Than people thought. But let me tell you something. When you see him actually in the flesh doing his thing, you're like. You're a few cards short of a deck.

[Lacey Mosley]

Something's like he can't be good at everything. He was good at the tiny miracle baby hand surgery, I think.

[Sam Sanders]

And this is what I think about a lot of medical professionals who have access to the drugs. I think they take some of those drugs. Something about him made it seem like he, like, was getting too high on the supply for too long. Something wasn't firing. In the top. Something wasn't firing. Anywho, I digress.

[Lacey Mosley]

I'm sure. Having magic baby. He's dead. Dead.

[Sam Sanders]

He died?

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

Damn. Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Of COVID Shit. Am I. Am I wrong?

[Sam Sanders]

He probably did.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, I'm thinking of her.

[Sam Sanders]

No. Dead. This goes to show, if you're a black man and you start supporting Trump, you're going to start to all look like the same kind of ugly. That's what you get. Ben Carson. Herman Cain. Doesn't matter. We don't like you.

[Lacey Mosley]

Same guy. But also, Ben Carson is our dad and he taught us tiny baby miracle hands. That's why we're going to sell organs. Okay. It works. Don't think about it. Tomorrow.

[Sam Sanders]

Plan landed. We're good.

[Lacey Mosley]

We're good.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

So here's how Bill described the situation in 2012.

[Sam Sanders]

I think about it.

[Lacey Mosley]

Vermont life.

[Sam Sanders]

I won the Powerball.

[Lacey Mosley]

Wow.

[Sam Sanders]

I have a half a billion dollars to work with. Oh, my God. So what I've had the pleasure of being able to do is help create the blueprint of how that money can be invested.

[Lacey Mosley]

Vermont. I thought they were invested in you.

[Sam Sanders]

Eager to show their support. So. So this is what I'll never get. If I had access to half a billion dollars, I'd stop. I'd be like, no, I'm good. Cut me off 15 million. I'll invest it, let it grow. Let me go to, I don't know, Colorado and just sit my ass down.

[Lacey Mosley]

The thing is, is that now you owe half a billion dollars to people, so now you have to start proliferating more investments. The thing for me is, though, if I invested in you and we got to this half a million dollars total, why are you telling people you won the Powerball and that you're gon more. No, this is not chain investment. You're supposed to go do the thing right now. I can make money off of it. Not like you going to keep investing down the. What is that? What are you talking about?

[Sam Sanders]

No limit.

[Lacey Mosley]

Also, he slipped up saying he won the Powerball. Like, isn't this supposed to be investing?

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Like, if I ever went to, like, my investment firm and I was like, okay, I want to put this money in. In, you know, these different stocks, and they were like, we won the Power Ball.

[Sam Sanders]

I'd be like, what do you mean? What do you mean? You're scamming me?

[Lacey Mosley]

You didn't win anything. This is still my money, right?

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. Mm.

[Sam Sanders]

I feel you.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Steal your money?

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

I didn't win nothing. I mean, I won with you because I might win with you.

[Sam Sanders]

It remains to be seen if we're gonna win together.

[Lacey Mosley]

Anyway. My dad, Ben Carson, was telling me.

[Sam Sanders]

Or was it Herman? Listen, who's to say?

[Lacey Mosley]

Who's to say? Who's to say? So, obviously, Bill presented fraudulent job and revenue projections for the projects to encourage further investment. Investment. Now, Ariel, Mr. Eyeballs, he misused $200 million of the funds they had raised, and Joel covered their tracks.

[Sam Sanders]

How did you misuse that much? What were you doing?

[Lacey Mosley]

Well, he was illegally mingling funds designated for specific projects. Okay, so Ariel funneled much of the money through a variety of shell companies. And remember, he still got Damon Wayans Jr. Running the money for him. Drawn from memory, you know, stepson in law who works at the bank. So he was funneling the money through a variety of shell companies. And back into his own pocket for personal use. So some of these uses were $50 million that he spent on luxury purchases such as a condo at Trump Place, New York, he and two partners. So he went back to Gold Penis and he bought a condo. He and two partners used EB5 investor money intended for their non existent biotech firm to pay themselves for the distribution rights for the products that they were never gonna make.

[Sam Sanders]

Wait, they paid themselves distribution rights for the 3D organs that they hadn't even made yet? Honestly, hats off to you motherfuckers. God damn.

[Lacey Mosley]

Sounds like a lot of paperwork.

[Sam Sanders]

A lot of paperwork. My mind don't work like that. That's a skill.

[Lacey Mosley]

Honestly, I sent emails and they were really on Excel. Like, all right, we gotta get these emails.

[Sam Sanders]

If I get a Gmail that has like more than two or three in the, like, chain, I can't read it no more.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, no, I'm at probably like 300.

[Sam Sanders]

Someone has to call me. I can't open.

[Lacey Mosley]

People text me all the time. And they're like, hey, did you see this? And I'm like, no. I mean, Jess is sitting right here. She's like, always like, hey, Lacey, did you see this email? I'm like, no. I got to the point of executive function left.

[Sam Sanders]

It becomes a different language after like two replies. Yeah, it's not English.

[Lacey Mosley]

I had to choose two.

[Sam Sanders]

That ain't nothing. No, I can't do that.

[Lacey Mosley]

My lawyer was yelling at me the other day because I included somebody in an email that definitely should not be copied on. And she was like, what the hell is this? This?

[Sam Sanders]

And I was like, I don't speak email.

[Lacey Mosley]

I don't know how to do it. I thought I started a different thread. She was like, no, you literally just gave up financial. I was like, o, well, good luck with that. Yeah, you got it.

[Sam Sanders]

That's why I'm paying you.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, Grace, you got it. Go ahead for that. So eight years after Ariel bought jp, officials from the securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC raided the mountain resort and accused Ariel and Bill of defense defrauding 40 or foreign investors of $200 million. So remember, 200 million is the. Actually the number that Ariel has siphoned into shell companies.

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

So once he got to siphoning, the SEC was like, wait a minute going on here.

[Sam Sanders]

And all that they could seize was JP because nothing else had been created yet.

[Lacey Mosley]

No, we just got distribution rights. We got vibes.

[Sam Sanders]

We got vibes. We got artificial organ vibes.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. You know what I mean? It is artificial. So who's to say?

[Sam Sanders]

Believe the organ is there? Maybe it is.

[Lacey Mosley]

So the biggest financial fraud in ski industry history is what they did, right? As well as it being the biggest fraud in the state of Vermont.

[Sam Sanders]

Well, that ain't saying much. It's Vermont. It's tiny. I mean, I met there once.

[Lacey Mosley]

I feel like they're doing more fraud in Vermont. They're just better at it.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. Whenever I think of Vermont, I think of Bernie Sanders first, because I was there with him. Then I think of. Remember all Olivia Pope wanted was to get to Vermont with her white president.

[Lacey Mosley]

She did. And they ran scams, didn't they? They stole the election.

[Sam Sanders]

That was a scam show.

[Lacey Mosley]

Mm. I loved it.

[Sam Sanders]

It was so good.

[Lacey Mosley]

So they seized 81 million worth of assets from Ariel, including J. Lapeek and the nearby Burke Mountain that he had just bought.

[Sam Sanders]

They seized the mountain.

[Lacey Mosley]

They seized the mountain. They took the mountain.

[Sam Sanders]

That is biblical. That is biblical.

[Lacey Mosley]

And you know, the SEC don't come in because they give a fuck about morals. They're coming in because they're seasoned. That's all. That's just a cute word for government theft.

[Sam Sanders]

Imagine you're in the cabin and your monk Claire doing your photo shoot with your Coco, and they're like, hey, hey, Sec. The mountain, too. Put the yellow tape around the mountain.

[Lacey Mosley]

Get off the water slide now.

[Sam Sanders]

Stop petting the winter giraffe at the zoo. Got to go, right? Got to go.

[Lacey Mosley]

Put down that pina ka freezing, because we have to combine the tropical and the cold. Okay, Put it down.

[Sam Sanders]

Down. Put it down.

[Lacey Mosley]

Let go of that manager. The jig is up. So, obviously, Ariel, he pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges, including wire fraud, money laundering, and obstructing investors. If he had not touched the money, I don't know if the SEC would have got caught, caught on to this.

[Sam Sanders]

Let Damon Wayans take the fall for you. But he had his hand too much in there.

[Lacey Mosley]

But also the fact that they came to the tune of 200 million when they had raised 500 million. That number is the exact amount of money that you were funneling to. So it's your fault.

[Sam Sanders]

Yep.

[Lacey Mosley]

Y'all could have kept crying for a little more time. You should have just built out the other mountain and did legitimate things with the money that you stole.

[Sam Sanders]

Like, this is. This is why I can never be, like, a real official scammer fraudster. Cuz as soon as I got the first check from the first scam, I'd be like, I'm out.

[Lacey Mosley]

I'd be like, oh, my God. This is so wonderful.

[Sam Sanders]

This is great.

[Lacey Mosley]

We did it.

[Sam Sanders]

Damn. I made $700.

[Lacey Mosley]

You know how many artists and people in professional industry started in crime and then they were just smart enough to get out of crime?

[Sam Sanders]

Jay Z. Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

He said, I love Jay Z. And Parkwood Entertainment. That is all alleged. We don't know for sure.

[Sam Sanders]

He rapped about it.

[Lacey Mosley]

He did rap about it.

[Sam Sanders]

He was running that yayo.

[Lacey Mosley]

And you know what? Those raps were fake. They were just stories, guys. But you know, if I were to listen to an allegory like Jay Z's, it's like you do a little bit of crime to get your investment. Because it's not like he was born with a silver spoon. He's born in Marcy project.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

So he did.

[Sam Sanders]

And I get it. Do what you gotta do. And then when you can level up, you level up to legality.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

You level up to legality. Yes. That is the teachable moment of this episode. If you can level up to legality.

[Lacey Mosley]

Level to legality. And they had leveled up to legality. They turned $26 million into this huge multi million dollar company. And it was profitable. They owned hella mountains.

[Sam Sanders]

They owned mountains. And that wasn't enough.

[Lacey Mosley]

That wasn't enough.

[Sam Sanders]

I don't get it.

[Lacey Mosley]

Men can own mountains and be like literally organs.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

They needed to go to therapy because I don't know why y'all went into fake organs. And Bill just wanted to keep raising money. I think he just liked traveling the world. He was a people person.

[Sam Sanders]

He liked making the pitch.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

He likes the crowd.

[Lacey Mosley]

He likes making his videos.

[Sam Sanders]

Right.

[Lacey Mosley]

He likes to.

[Sam Sanders]

He wants people to listen to him.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's what it is.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

Men, you know, when you get older and it's like maybe his grandkids aren't very interested in what he wants to talk about. So he just goes to meetings and everyone's like, oh, Bill, you're so great. And you know, at that point, he's so rich, so the girls are gassing him wherever they're having their little scotch by the fire. And they're like, oh, Bill, what a wonder. Can he, he, he, he. So how many of those visas can I get? Like, you know, like, he loved that.

[Sam Sanders]

He loves it. The attention.

[Lacey Mosley]

Cuz he kept raising, he was like, I feel like I hit the Powerball. It's like, how much money do you need to raise before y'all start cooking up one of these fake ass organs?

[Sam Sanders]

Thank you. Didn't make one single kidney. Not a single fucking organ, not a.

[Lacey Mosley]

Liver, not A heart.

[Sam Sanders]

Not even a gallbladder.

[Lacey Mosley]

Could have made a spleen. We don't even need those for real.

[Sam Sanders]

Make a fingernail, anything.

[Lacey Mosley]

Right.

[Sam Sanders]

Couldn't do it.

[Lacey Mosley]

Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. So Ariel was sentenced to get this. You want to guess how many years he was sentenced in prison?

[Sam Sanders]

He ain't gonna get that much. Cause he's rich already. Two?

[Lacey Mosley]

Five.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay. All right. That's something.

[Lacey Mosley]

They threw the book at him.

[Sam Sanders]

I sure did. It's probably like the Martha Stewart prison. I'm sure.

[Lacey Mosley]

Well, yes, of course he's gonna get time served. And I'm sure that, you know Damon Wayne.

[Sam Sanders]

Damon had. Right. Rikers. He is at Rikers.

[Lacey Mosley]

No, no, I need Damon in the Fed. And they need to have, like, a fun buddy comedy in the Fed. They play tennis, they think about their next scheme. All right, you know, I don't. I don't want to see Damon Wayans bootleg. I don't want to see him down bad, either. And then Bill was sentenced to 18 months for submitting falsified documents. Yes. So I will say that Bill did get scammed already. Oh, look, Bill was with Bernie Sanders.

[Sam Sanders]

With Bernie Sanders. Speak of. That's hilarious.

[Lacey Mosley]

This is why you can't be taking too many pictures with folks. Because then they'll pull the picture up and be like this, you. And it's like, this man asked me for a photo. I didn't know he was robbing everybody, literally.

[Sam Sanders]

And although this is a sidebar, Bernie Sanders wife had a mini scam scandal years ago. They had appointed her to be president of a small college in Vermont. Within three years or so, they ran her out of town because she, through some kind of way, had spent all that university's money. They were broke. They said, you got to go. We ain't got no more money. Now let's do that episode. Whenever you're ready.

[Lacey Mosley]

Somehow she spent all their money. You never heard about this?

[Sam Sanders]

No.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's wild.

[Sam Sanders]

She ran a whole college bankrupt and nobody noticed.

[Lacey Mosley]

They weren't like, oh, the computer lab. Oh, the. What was her name?

[Sam Sanders]

Jane Sanders. Jane Sanders.

[Lacey Mosley]

Stop having pizza in the quad like nobody noticed. I just understand how she had access to all the funds where they were.

[Sam Sanders]

The New York Times article says, Jane Sanders and the messy demise of a.

[Lacey Mosley]

Vermont college taking a whole college down is a feat.

[Sam Sanders]

Can we do this limited series?

[Lacey Mosley]

We might have to come back and see what Jane was up to.

[Sam Sanders]

Jane, what was you doing, girl? Jane.

[Lacey Mosley]

And listen, are they still married?

[Sam Sanders]

Yes.

[Lacey Mosley]

You know, he stuck beside her Listen, and what, they got good PR because I never knew about it. Okay, so Bill. I feel like 18 months. He should have got longer, but at the same time, I feel like one. Bill wasn't stealing the money. He was raising it and lying.

[Sam Sanders]

But he was the original scammer in all this.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. And he was stealing visas that people were waiting in line for for sometimes many. It takes years to enter the country legally. He's bumping these people up the line, taking their money. But he was using it for the resort. You know, we saw the water slide.

[Sam Sanders]

We did. It was there.

[Lacey Mosley]

It was there.

[Sam Sanders]

The indoor ice skating rink. It was there.

[Lacey Mosley]

It was there.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah.

[Lacey Mosley]

You know what I mean? He had all the things for the girls. You know, there were so many ambulances. Like, they made sure that that place was popping. Okay. But he did get scammed as well, because Ariel stole his money and then bought.

[Sam Sanders]

If a scammer gets scammed, is it even a scam? It's like when you put two negative numbers together, it's a positive.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. I mean, it's also just like the SEC coming in and seizing the mountain. It's like, what are y'all doing with it?

[Sam Sanders]

Like, come on.

[Lacey Mosley]

So Bill served nine months in prison and was released March 2023. He was also banned for life from the EB5 program. Obviously, we need to ban you for life. Don't come back over here.

[Sam Sanders]

Do not. Not.

[Lacey Mosley]

So J Peak remained open, but under federal receivership.

[Sam Sanders]

Wait, wait, wait. That takes the fun out of it. Yeah. Let's go to the slopes. It's the government slopes.

[Lacey Mosley]

The government slopes.

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, my goodness.

[Lacey Mosley]

So fall of 2022, the area was purchased by Park City based Pacific Group Resorts. Now, remember that they bought it for 26 million, right? The Fed sold it for how much? 76 million.

[Sam Sanders]

Feds got the last laugh.

[Lacey Mosley]

Hell, y'all making a come up.

[Sam Sanders]

Fed said, we got it, we gonna recoup.

[Lacey Mosley]

Now, when? Cause that's my thing about, like, restitution. And, like, they don't make you pay restitution. But it's rare to me that I have done research and found out that the feds make a profit off of something and then give it back to the investors.

[Sam Sanders]

Never give it back. Did they give it back to them?

[Lacey Mosley]

It doesn't say, but I hope they didn't.

[Sam Sanders]

I hope. I hope some bureaucrat in a windowless cubicle in D.C. got a little cut of that money. I'd rather them have it than, like, Bill and Miami.

[Lacey Mosley]

True. And, I mean, the investors were also committing Fraud. They knew that you're not supposed to be able to skip the line to get a visa for you and your whole family for 500,000.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah, yeah. No, all of the profit from this sale should have gone to Luann and HR at the sec. Give her a break. She's just out here working.

[Lacey Mosley]

What about the workers?

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, yeah, them too.

[Lacey Mosley]

They can have a little cut. We know they ain't never gonna get the workers cut. No, no, no, no, no. That's impossible. Oh, goodness, Grish. I mean, how do you feel about this scam?

[Sam Sanders]

I mean, it confirms for me a thing that I've thought my entire life as a black man who was never, never skied. Skiing is a scam. Come on. What y'all doing? What y'all doing? You're gonna break your fucking leg. You know, the white folks aren't wearing suntan lotion. So they get burnt. You get burnt. You get hypothermia. You spend too much goddamn money and you broke a bone. That's a scam. And then you want to keep going.

[Lacey Mosley]

Back and for as much as it costs. The fact that they don't pay the workers who work there a living wage, like, they. The last time that I looked this up, they were on so, like, the ski lift lines were so long because they were like, anybody can do this. And now they're. All the rich people are waiting in a line.

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. Waiting in a line to ride them little janky ass ski lifts up the mountain, knowing good and well those ski lifts don't have seatbelts. Right. It's all a scam.

[Lacey Mosley]

It's all a scam. A queue for me. No, a queue for you. I don't wait in line.

[Sam Sanders]

Have you seen the videos of folks falling off ski lifts? It happens. Damn. They don't have seat belts, Lacey, have you seen it?

[Lacey Mosley]

I thought they had, like, a little belt. Like. Like.

[Sam Sanders]

That's not a seat belt roller coaster. It's not a seat belt. It's like. It's just. It's at will. It's voluntary. All of skiing is. See, look at that. Dangerous.

[Lacey Mosley]

And I love.

[Sam Sanders]

If you choose that, then it's on you.

[Lacey Mosley]

This was the culture. They were like, yeah, y'all gonna sit up here on this.

[Sam Sanders]

Let's ride this Costco bench up a mountain.

[Lacey Mosley]

A mountain.

[Sam Sanders]

And then get down the mountain on 2St. 2 by fours. God damn. It ain't for me.

[Lacey Mosley]

This is an activity for the rich.

[Sam Sanders]

Seat belt on that one.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. No, they know you're not locked in.

[Sam Sanders]

No, you gotta hold on, see, we know.

[Lacey Mosley]

We know now. Now, I'm not gonna lie to you. I will be there soon.

[Sam Sanders]

Okay.

[Lacey Mosley]

I gotta get there. Okay. I just need to know what's up. I love a good scam. I want to be. I want to just walk, to shuffle around, take a picture. Then I'm going to be in the cabin. I might ride the. The seat. Beltless metal, plywood.

[Sam Sanders]

That's on you. That's on you.

[Lacey Mosley]

But I'mma ride it all the way around. I'm not getting off.

[Sam Sanders]

I'm like, I'll take it back down.

[Lacey Mosley]

As well to see the sights. That's enough for me. Thank you so much. It was such a lovely time. Yeah. What's. What's. What's. We're looking at ski lifts. What's the ski ticket cost on average? Ski lift ticket tickets. Let's just see. So, $300. And that's just the lift. No, girl, that's just the lift to go. That's not the resort. That's not the.

[Sam Sanders]

The, you know, I'm paying you to break my goddamn leg.

[Lacey Mosley]

That's not the equipment. That's not like all the, you know, jackets and things and helmets and such. That's just to get on the. The seat. Beltless metal.

[Sam Sanders]

Come on. That ain't for me. It ain't for me. Skiing is a scam.

[Lacey Mosley]

All right, Sam, I'm gonna hold you to that. Cause I feel like I'm gonna see you on some slows, like wee.

[Sam Sanders]

We're gonna be like some black alumni weekend ski thing. We'll just be there.

[Lacey Mosley]

Liz, we need someplace to talk about our new business venture.

[Sam Sanders]

What is the hoity toity school in Vermont? Is Dartmouth in Vermont?

[Lacey Mosley]

Hmm.

[Sam Sanders]

Burlington seems cute. Middlebury has a good language program. I would go up there for ski weekend and then stick around and learn Spanish.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes.

[Sam Sanders]

You speak Spanish?

[Lacey Mosley]

See, I don't. Focus me.

[Sam Sanders]

Teach me.

[Lacey Mosley]

They know here. But I'm like, I need to re up. I need to get back with that mean ass owl. I learned from being a kid and just being around Spanish. Yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

If you don't use him, his face changes. The app icon gets, like, grizzled.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. But I learned from speaking it. So it's like, I need to go back and, like, get back into grammar, you know?

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. I need someone to just like, sponsor me to be in Mexico for six months. Listeners sponsor me. I'll go down to Mexico City and learn it.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah. And it's for all of you because then we're also going to learn about our artificial Organs in Mexico because. And then we gonna bring back that technology.

[Sam Sanders]

There you go. Yeah, we're working for y'all.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay. Meet at y'all. Okay, Keres. Organs or not. Oh, Sam, thank you so much for being here.

[Sam Sanders]

This was delightful.

[Lacey Mosley]

This was such a good time.

[Sam Sanders]

Let me tell you what's never a scam. Hanging out with you.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, see, I've been doing more now that I'm back stateside. I haven't been in the. In the US In a minute.

[Sam Sanders]

Good.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, yeah, it was good.

[Sam Sanders]

It was.

[Lacey Mosley]

That was. That part was relaxing.

[Sam Sanders]

Let me tell you, as I said earlier, America's a scam right now.

[Lacey Mosley]

I mean, it's always. It has been, but now it's being revealed to all, you know, And I never run out of material, unfortunately. But we always ask, where would you like to be found? Anything you'd like to promote?

[Sam Sanders]

Yeah. So you mentioned it earlier when you introduced me my new show, the Sam Sanders show from kcrw. We have a very special episode coming out in honor of Grammy weekend.

[Lacey Mosley]

It's out. You can hear it.

[Sam Sanders]

I got to interview Billie Eilish's vocal coach, Doug Peck. This man is amazing. He's vocal coach Billie Eilish. He's also Vocal coached Patti LuPone and Hayley Williams of Paramore.

[Lacey Mosley]

Okay. These are voices.

[Sam Sanders]

He's worked with some Paramount.

[Lacey Mosley]

Patti LuPone and Hayley Williams. Those are voices.

[Sam Sanders]

And so he tells me all about what's. But we also had him sit down with me in a studio with a piano, and he walks me through, for the benefit of all y'all, some vocal coaching. Ooh. So I do some little vocalizations with him, and he teaches me some tips and tricks that, like, you can also use to be out here singing like Billie Eilish. It was so fun. So you can find that on YouTube or in podcast feeds. Just look for the Sam Sanders Show. It's there. And a bunch of other episodes as well. And then, of course, you know my sisters over at Vibe Check, Zach and Saeed.

[Lacey Mosley]

Love them.

[Sam Sanders]

We have a keke every week, and that show, Vibe Check publishes episodes every Wednesday.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. Get into it. And y'all, you can watch Scam Goddess free form on Wednesdays, and it's out now on Hulu. There's a few episodes out on Hulu as well. So come with me to cities all across America as I investigate scams and get the tea on the scammers and even meet some scammers, which is terrifying. You can also buy my book, Scam Goddess, wherever books are purchased. And watch Going Dutch. Yes. On Fox. Rich is like, you have one more show. You're missing one. Yeah. He gave me a salute. Was like, you're missing one. Yes. Watch Going Dutch. It's on Fox on Thursdays. Next day, Hulu as well. So get into the shows, y'all. The scams. I mean, listen, I knew the times were about to be rough. I was like, let me get all my black people jobs before they take.

[Sam Sanders]

Away the black tariffs come up in here. All that stuff. Just wait till the egg.

[Lacey Mosley]

Oh, my goodness. And the only one. Sam's gonna be eating eggs. I'm gonna be at his house. That's still so wild. All right, congregation, y'all get out there and get yourself an aerial view, you know, from the mountaintop.

[Sam Sanders]

Let's get a pitch deck together and get some investors lined up. You and me could work a room.

[Lacey Mosley]

We could.

[Sam Sanders]

We could work a room.

[Lacey Mosley]

Everyone get a pitch deck together. Doesn't matter about what. Doesn't matter about what. Get on Canva.

[Sam Sanders]

Just believe.

[Lacey Mosley]

Just believe.

[Sam Sanders]

Just believe. Believe. Elizabeth Holmes believed in herself. She's still my favorite scam of all time.

[Lacey Mosley]

She's one of my favorite scam.

[Sam Sanders]

She literally was like, if I just wear the turtleneck and deepen the voice. And she.

[Lacey Mosley]

And it works so well.

[Sam Sanders]

It worked. Worked.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yes. Y'all get out there now. The new Silicone valley drip is like a pullover and, like, some expensive white shoes that no one can really tell. Get some common projects and a pullover.

[Sam Sanders]

And, like, some J. Paul curls.

[Lacey Mosley]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Sanders]

Zuckerberg has gone full Paul Curlyan.

[Lacey Mosley]

He. He has. But he. But we know he's rich already. If you're not, you gotta just do the pullover and just like, khakis that somehow look very expensive, you know, get out there, walk slow, talk even slower, Take up space. I love this for you.

[Sam Sanders]

We love it. We love it.

[Lacey Mosley]

Scam got it. This has been an Earwolf production in association with Team Coco. Scam got its stars and is hosted by me, Lacey Mosley, AKA Scammer. I am Gaddis. Our producer is Scott Sahni, and our audio engineer is Rich Garcia. Research for the show is done by Kate Doyle. Stay scheming.

[Rich Garcia]

Skipping cold and flu season is plan A. But if you do get sick, be prepared for plan B with Kleenex lotion tissues. Kleenex lotion tissues moisturize skin, helping prevent the added discomfort of red, irritated skin on top of your cold and flu symptoms. So this cold and flu season, grab Kleenex lotion tissues, visit kleenex.com to learn more and buy now for whatever happens next. Grab Kleenex.

[Whole Foods Market Representative]

Amazing deals on activewear for all the ways you move are at Nordstrom Rack stores now.

[Lacey Mosley]

How did I not know Rack has Adidas?

[Sam Sanders]

Oh, I love these new Nikes.

[Lacey Mosley]

I always score at Rack.

[Whole Foods Market Representative]

Stock up on new gear from the best brands in the game. Stock starting at just $40. Great brands, great prices. That's why you Rack.