World's Greatest Con
Cons don't fool us because we're stupid, they fool us because we're human.
Brian Brushwood's World's Greatest Con is a meticulously crafted odyssey through the most astonishing schemes, deceptions, and impossible gambits ever attempted. Boasting over 1,000 five-star ratings on Apple Podcasts, start from the beginning here.
“Thrilling, funny, suspenseful, and SO thought-provoking.” - Teller
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About the host
Brian Brushwood
Brian Brushwood is the co-creator and host of World's Greatest Con. A magician, comedian, author, podcaster, and creator of The Modern Rogue, Brian has logged more than 2,000 live stage-magic performances, hosted the National Geographic series Hacking the System, built beloved shows including Scam School and Scam Nation, and helped teach magic, scams, and social engineering to a massive online audience.
His work has earned People's Choice Podcast Awards for Scam School and Night Attack. Today, alongside deception and security expert Perry Carpenter, Brian is pushing even deeper into the modern frontier of social engineering, deepfakes, synthetic media, and narrative manipulation: exploring not just how people are fooled, but why the right story can make almost anything feel true.
Operation Mincemeat
A corpse in uniform, a false identity, and Hitler's army chasing shadows.
Game Show Scandals
Rigged booths, coughing majors, perfect bids, and America's favorite prizes gone crooked.
Project Alpha
Two teenagers claim psychic power in a lab. They're lying. Lives break.
Epcot
Walt's secret Florida city becomes a kingdom of theme parks and broken promises.
Greatest Magic Show
Robert-Houdin takes French magic to Algeria, with a marked bullet waiting.
Q-Ships
Merchant ships play helpless until hidden guns turn U-boats into prey.
Crazy Eddie
Eddie Antar's electronics empire screams low prices while the books bleed fraud.
Ponzi Scheme
Charles Ponzi sells Boston impossible postal profits until forty thousand wallets vanish.
Rainmakers
Charles Hatfield promises San Diego rain, then the dams begin to break.
Princess Caraboo
Mary Baker becomes Princess Caraboo, and Bristol's elite beg to believe.