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PRETEND is an investigative true crime podcast about real people who lie for a living — con artists, scammers, and the victims caught in their web.
Hosted by journalist Javier Leiva, PRETEND exposes the human psychology behind deception and fraud. Each episode follows a real case of manipulation — from financial scams and Ponzi schemes to digital hoaxes and emotional cons
PRETEND explains how and why deception works without shaming victims, combining ethical journalism with cinematic storytelling.
Featured in lists of the best podcasts about con artists and scams, PRETEND investigates crimes of persuasion, trust, and betrayal. New episodes drop regularly with stories that reveal how manipulation shapes modern life, both online and off.
PRETEND is produced by Creative Babble, LLC.
© 2026 Creative Babble LLC
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The Stalker: Fit to Stand Trial? Part 24
According to police, Shelbey Fernandez ran a stalking campaign for years. She used burner numbers, fake accounts and fake 911 calls. She asked Google how detectives trace a texting app, how long a burner number lasts, and whether police can
The Prophet: A Word of Faith Fellowship Minister Back in Court, 13 Years Later
A 19-year-old says members of his church held him down, choked him, and beat him for two hours, trying to cast out what they called his “homosexual demons.” That was in 2013. Thirteen years, a mistrial, and countless delays later, the minis
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 10
When Gypsy Rose Blanchard was a little girl, the thing that comforted her most was her mother's touch. In the final episode of The Gypsy Rose Obsession, I ask Gypsy when that changed. I also track down the attorney who drew up a power of at
Nobody Should Believe Me: The Case of Dr. John Cox
This week I'm handing the feed over to Andrea Dunlop and her show, Nobody Should Believe Me. Andrea has spent years covering medical child abuse, and she came to the subject through her own family. In 2019, Dr. John Cox, an ER physician at
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 9
When Gypsy Rose Blanchard announced she was pregnant, the internet opened an investigation. The woman who spent her childhood trapped inside her mother's medical lies was now raising a daughter of her own. In this episode, I look at what th
BONUS: How Doctors Diagnose Medical Child Abuse
How does a doctor actually decide that a parent is making their child sick? Dr. John Melville is a child abuse pediatrician, president of the Ray E. Helfer Society, and one of the people who helped write the board exam that certifies child
BONUS: Gypsy Rose Blanchard's Partner Ken Urker Has Died
Ken Urker, Gypsy Rose Blanchard's partner and the father of their daughter, Aurora, died on October 1, 2026, his 34th birthday. The sheriff is still investigating, and no official cause of death has been released. Gypsy has said publicly th
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 8
Gypsy Rose Blanchard thought no one was listening. For years, everything she said from inside Chillicothe was being recorded. Now it's public. More than five hundred hours of it. Some of those recordings broke through on social media, becau
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 7
"I didn't f---ing get my own f---ing mother murdered just so I could live for everybody else." That is Gypsy Rose Blanchard on a recorded prison line, saying the quiet part out loud. She had taken the plea and could never be tried again, so
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 6
There are people online right now who don't believe Dee Dee Blanchard had Munchausen by proxy. Some of them don't believe Munchausen by proxy is a real thing at all. So if the abuse wasn't real, how do you explain the feeding tube, the shav
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, part 5
According to the anti-Gypsy camp, they've found it. The smoking gun. Gypsy Rose Blanchard has a rare genetic disorder, a microdeletion on chromosome 1, and depending on who you ask online, that one word explains the feeding tube, the leukem
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 4
According to the anti-Gypsy camp, they've got the receipts. Gypsy really had leukemia. She really needed that bone marrow treatment, and the feeding tube and the surgeries were all real and documented, not fabricated. Case closed, they say.
The Stalker: Shelbey Fernandez Speaks, Part 23
It's like getting to the end of a movie and discovering the twist, then going back to the beginning because every scene means something else. That's what I've been doing all week with the Rick and Tanya Fernandez interviews. This time we're
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 3
Long before Gypsy Rose Blanchard's mother was murdered, the tension inside that house was already at a breaking point. The private videos between Gypsy and Nick Godejohn that nobody was supposed to see. The evidence of violence that the HBO
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 2
Her critics say Gypsy Rose Blanchard can't keep her story straight. So I sat down with her for almost three hours and asked about all of it. The pills through the feeding tube. The video where she tells Nick Godejohn she'd been hiding that
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Part 1
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is the most beloved convicted murderer in America. Half the country sees a victim. The other half thinks she conned everyone, including her mother. I spent months trying to figure out which side is telling the truth. Th
The Gypsy Rose Obsession, Official Trailer
Gypsy Rose Blanchard is America's most beloved convicted murderer. The media told us she spent 23 years in a wheelchair, with a feeding tube, a breathing machine, and a diagnosis list that never ended. None of it was real. Her mother made i
The Stalker: Police Say They Found Who Was Sending the Messages, Part 22
For almost five years, the Fernandez family told me their doctor's husband was terrorizing them. Threatening messages, unpaid pizza deliveries, police at the door for crimes that never happened. Three weeks ago, Peoria police surrounded the
He Turned His Own Father In. Then Built a Career Catching Con Artists.
William Ruzich's father stole his identity while he was deployed in Afghanistan. He came home from war at 21 to find bills, liens, and creditors in his own name. He turned his own dad in for fraud. Then he went to work catching people just
How Edward Smog Scammed a Retired Nurse Out of $150K
My friend Joe sells real estate. He called me about one of his clients, a retired nurse who was selling her house, because something about her story wasn't sitting right with him. She'd lost her savings to a man named Edward Smog. Found her
Chain of Command: An Inside Man Speaks
Darnell Emanuel spent years inside Rony Denis's inner circle at the House of Prayer Christian Church. His name is on documents. His credit was used to buy houses he never lived in. But when the fraud finally caught up with the church, Darne
The Greatest Footballer Who Never Played Revisited
We've covered a lot of PRETENDers on this show. But the guy in this one might take the prize. Carlos Henrique Raposo, better known as Kaiser, fooled the entire professional soccer world in Brazil for 26 years. He signed with more than 30 cl
Javier Stops by the Hot Mess Happy Hour Podcast 🍸
This week, Javier stops by the Hot Mess Happy Hour Podcast and it didn't disappoint. It was a hot mess! About Hot Mess Happy Hour: Are you always running late? Do you leave things on top of your car and drive off? You might be a hot mess to
Chain of Command part 7
Federal prosecutors say the man known as Rony Denis isn't Rony Denis at all. The arrest finally came in the fall of 2025. Three years after the FBI raids. But the church is still operating. So my friend Jared Smith from the Heliocentric You
Chain of Command part 6
In Part 6, the FBI comes knocking. Rony Denis and his top associates allegedly defrauded the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and military veterans out of more than $23.5 million. The House of Prayer Bible Seminary looked like a school.
Chain of Command part 5
Rony Denis wasn't just the spiritual leader at the House of Prayer Christian Church... He was their god. In Part 5, former members start connecting the dots on how Rony Denis consolidated control, and it's worse than you think. He ordered m
The Lottery Curse with Murder: True Crime Stories
I teamed up with Carter Roy for a special guest collaboration on Murder: True Crime Stories and this one is something else. For the full episode, follow Murder: True Crime Stories (https://pod.link/1745145932) on your favorite podcast app:
Chain of Command part 4
Note: This episode contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse and psychological manipulation. It started with a revolt. Thirty ministers walked out of NTCC mid-service and never looked back. They thought they were done with high-control
Chain of Command part 3
In part three of Chain of Command, we hear from those who grew up in the New Testament Christian Churches of America. From Victor Johanson, a former Army soldier who confirms on tape that NTCC ministers got vasectomies because children woul
Chain of Command part 2
Part one was about control. Part two is about the money. Behind the soul-winning and the sermons and the bylaws, the New Testament Christian Churches of America runs a very well-funded business. Tithing is tracked, enforced, and tied to you
