Scam Goddess: "The Cocaine Quarterback Con" — w/ Kimia Behpoornia

Release Date: February 3, 2026
Host: Laci Mosley
Guest: Kimia Behpoornia

Episode Overview

This episode dives into the true story of Owen “O Dog” Hansen, a USC football walk-on who wound up laundering money and running drugs for one of Mexico’s most powerful cartels. Laci Mosley and returning guest Kimia Behpoornia unpack Hansen’s path from being a beach volleyball prodigy crashing on a bunkbed, USC athlete, the team’s “unofficial doctor,” to international drug runner, money launderer, and ultimately a federal convict-turned-protein-bar vendor. As usual, their hilarious, incisive banter explores the absurdities, vulnerabilities, and cultural forces that propel even unremarkable jocks into the heart of global crime networks.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Scam Check-in and AI Anxieties

[04:26]

• The episode opens with Laci and Kimia catching up on recent scam culture, especially the exponential advancement of AI-enabled scams targeting the elderly.
• Kimia laments her parents being especially vulnerable to phone and AI scams:
  “All that happened was every day they'd get a phone call that they would interact with.” — Kimia [03:40]
• Discussion of “deepfake” Oprah pushing bogus weight loss products and the insidiousness of AI-generated viral pet adoption and Telenovela videos on TikTok.
• Laci’s stance: “People who don't have any creativity...get on AI and you just come up with something on there because that's not your ministry.” [05:57]

Modern Tech Scams: Waymo Woes

[07:31]

• Laci and Kimia vent about the risks and misfires of self-driving car services (specifically Waymo) as another flavor of scam.
• Horror stories:
  • Passengers locked inside, cars driving through flooded streets, and detection failures (such as missing road cones).
  • Urban legend of a man hiding undetected in the trunk of a Waymo:
    “One time a girl got into a Waymo and there was a man in the trunk...he was like, I don't know, they put me here.” — Laci [08:12]
• Both express deep skepticism of technological “innovation” nobody asked for:
  “What if we replaced everything you love with a machine and then you do the stuff that you hate?” — Laci [11:27]

Historic Hoodwinks: The Owen Hansen Saga

Introduction to O Dog

[14:04]

• The main con of the week: Owen Hansen’s journey from privileged, athletic obscurity (son of a construction worker, traumatic child-of-divorce, Redondo Beach) to cartoonish criminality.
• Guest and producer debate his alleged “hotness”; consensus: “That is a thumb come to life.” — Kimia [14:38]

Sports Pipeline to Crime

[15:20]

• Hansen becomes a high school volleyball standout (6’3”, 37” vertical jump), scores a USC volleyball scholarship, then fails to meet the all-star athletic bar and faces losing his scholarship.
• Seeking shortcuts, Owen tags in his neighborhood friend “Spanky,” leading to cross-border steroid runs from a Tijuana veterinarian—smuggled “in his booty crack” (not hole, as he insists in the docuseries) [26:23].

From Bunkbeds to Drug Smuggling

[21:03; 26:52]

• Owen’s “origin story” includes sharing a bunk bed with his father’s renter and developing a suspiciously intense emotional attachment to his volleyball.
• His steroid-smuggling antics escalate from athletics to criminal logistics:
  “This successful smuggling experience gave Owen a high that he continued to chase for the rest of his life.” — Laci [27:05]

Unofficial USC "Team Doctor"

[34:39]

• After connecting with a new plug, “Tank,” Owen acts as the campus “unofficial doctor,” providing Adderall, steroids, and painkillers to student-athletes.
• Laci: “I call scammers in different fields serial entrepreneurs. Or if you sell drugs, you're a street pharmacist. So I love that he's the unofficial USC doctor providing Adderall and non-booty hole roids.” [35:11]

Real Estate Crash & Pivot to Bookie Life

[36:08]

• Post-grad, Owen’s real estate venture (Owenssells.com) tanks with the 2007 crash.
• Next hustle: setting up “betodog.com” to take big sports bets, opening a shadowy Costa Rica office and hiring a 6’6” enforcer named “Cobra” [41:12].
• Insights on digital scamming and millennial tech fluency: “He’s registering domains. You know Godaddy hate to see him coming.” — Laci [40:32]

The Cartel Connection: From Bookie to Mule

[43:24]

• A Mexican cartel client starts betting big, loses, then wins a $220K parlay. Pays up, and soon Owen is being sent “encrypted BlackBerry” phones and asked to ferry $1M in cash from Texas—cutting him in for a $100K fee.
• This marks his “onboarding” to the cartel:
  “That's how Owen started working for the cartel.” — Laci [44:17]

International Crime Spree, Money Laundering, and “Robinhood702”

[45:00–51:51]

• Now running major drug shipments and laundering money, Owen’s biggest problem is how to get millions in cash from Australia back to Mexico.
• Attempted solutions:
  • Packing gold in the soles of Ugg boots.
  • Engaging “Robinhood702”, a masked Las Vegas gambler who claims to “change the world for the better”—using the casino circuit to launder cash.
• Kimia senses a scam within a scam: “Oh, you think he’s keeping it?” — Kimia [50:02]
• Laci, explaining the laundering: “You have to show the government where you got the money from...that's why I'm making millions. There was a bunch of restaurants...pop up overnight....they were fronts.” [50:54]

The Fall: Federal Takedown & Aftermath

[52:32–58:00]

• The feds build a years-long case, finally arresting Owen on a golf course in 2015.
  • Laci's warning: “Target is just like the feds...they will let you hit the same [scam]...but they’re stacking up enough evidence so when they throw the book at you, it’s going to hit.” [53:17]
• Sentenced to 21 years (serves less than 7), lifetime supervision, ordered to pay $5M and forfeit luxury property.
• “If you get out of jail too early, the cartel be like, who you talking to?” — Laci [57:35]

Current Status: From Cartel to Protein Bars

[58:01–59:29]

• Out of prison, O Dog now hustles “ice protein” bars at Venice Beach, inspired by prison recipes.
  “Now you got out of prison and started making that jail talk food!” — Laci [58:18]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On scam culture:
  “Creativity is being commodified in such a way that everyone wants to participate in, everyone wants to go viral...if you don't have any creative instincts...then you get on AI.” — Laci [05:57]

• On technological solutions nobody wants:
  “What if we replaced everything you love with a machine and then you do the stuff that you hate?” — Laci [11:27]

• On trauma hierarchies:
  “There are trauma Olympics...mom trumps grandma...cat does not trump people.” — Laci / Kimia [18:24–18:47]

• On the evolution of a scammer:
  “He needed an excuse to do crime...he was roommates with a stranger in a bunk bed. Sleeping with a Wilson volleyball, that's giving trauma.” — Laci [54:44–54:59]

• On laundering dirty money:
  “Laundering never makes sense to me, so I'm so confused on this part. But that's okay.” — Kimia [50:50]

• On post-prison hustle:
  “Now you got out of prison and started making that jail talk food!...Calling it ice protein is really doing something.” — Laci [58:18, 58:28]

Timeline & Timestamps

• 04:26–07:31: AI, phone scams, and how their rapid evolution targets the vulnerable.
• 07:31–14:04: Waymo/self-driving cars, new scams from Silicon Valley, skepticism of innovation.
• 14:04–21:03: Introduction to Owen Hansen: upbringing, bunkbeds, trauma, volleyball prodigy.
• 21:03–27:05: Scholarship pressure, bunkbed woes, cross-border butt-smuggled steroids, the taste for risk.
• 34:39–36:42: Becoming USC's underground pharmacist/dope dealer.
• 36:42–43:24: Failed real estate pivot, entering the bookie business, Costa Rican operations.
• 43:24–45:26: Cartel recruitment, laundering drug profits through gambling and retail fronts.
• 50:54–53:17: Casino laundering, scams-within-scams, and the slow hand of the FBI.
• 54:44–57:34: Sentencing, asset seizure, suspicions of snitching to the feds for reduced time.
• 58:01–61:01: Post-prison penance: street vending “ice protein” bars and Laci’s musings on the cyclical nature of rags and riches.

Episode Tone & Style

Hilarious, quick-witted, sometimes savage but always rooted in compassion for “victims” and perpetrators alike. Laci and Kimia maintain a comedic but incisive analysis of modern scams, cultural privilege, and criminal Darwinism. The banter is deeply irreverent but never cynical—anchored by the sense that “true con” is as much about the systems that scaffold grifting as about the grifters themselves.

Final Takeaways

• Owen Hansen’s “rise and fall” is a comedy of errors, privilege, and persistent hustle—a tragicomic figure whose ambition for shortcuts finally crashes into the brick wall of federal prosecution…and ends up peddling protein popsicles on the beach.
• Laci and Kimia deftly tie the personal, cultural, and systemic forces that create scammers, blending empathy, humor, and hard truth about inequality, masculinity, and the lure of the con.
• “Stay schemin’,” as always, is less of a how-to and more of a cautionary sermon—one lubricated by laughter, sharp insights, and a healthy dose of internet scam paranoia.

For More

• Photos and references from the episode are available on Instagram: @scamgoddesspod
• Recent and upcoming live tour dates, book links, and links to the Scam Goddess TV show—all available via Laci’s socials (DIVA LACI on all platforms).

Stay schemin', congregation!