Lawless Planet: A Polygamist Cult-Leader’s Billion-Dollar Biofuel Scam | 194

Scamfluencers

Wondery

Society & Culture

4.1 • 7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ll be back soon with brand new episodes. In the meantime, we’re sharing an episode from our friends at Lawless Planet, hosted by Zach Goldbaum. Lawless Planet is a podcast about the scams, crimes, and cover-ups fueling the climate crisis, and the battle between those trying to save the planet…and those cashing in on its destruction.

Today’s episode tells the story of the biggest biofuel scam in U.S. history. An unlikely duo – a polygamist cult leader and an Armenian mobster – spotted massive loopholes in America’s clean-energy tax credits and exploited them for over one billion dollars. They thought they’d pulled off the perfect con…until the FBI and EPA caught up, aided by a young woman who escaped the cult just in time.

Special thanks to: Jeff Manuel, author of Ethanol: a Hemispheric History for the Future of Biofuels.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, Scamfluencer's fans. Want to be the first to know how these wild scams unfold.
0:05.0	Join us on Patreon to get early access to episodes, add free listening, and exclusive content that reveals even more of the drama.
0:13.0	Just search for scamfluencers on Patreon and dive deeper into the scandal.
0:17.6	We're doing something a little different on scam influencers this week.
0:20.7	We're sharing an episode from our friends over at Lawless Planet, a little different on scam influencers this week. We're sharing an
0:21.3	episode from our friends over at Lawless Planet, a show about the scams, murders, and cover-ups
0:26.7	behind the climate crisis. Every week, host Zach Goldbaum tells a new story from the frontlines
0:32.2	of the battle between people who are either trying to save our world or destroy it.
0:37.3	The episode we're dropping today is about an unlikely pair, a leader of a polygamist
0:41.9	cult called The Order and an Armenian gangster known as the Lion.
0:46.6	Together, they looked at a convoluted new system of tax credits for producing gasoline
0:50.6	alternatives called biofuels and saw huge loopholes. Then they proceeded to exploit
0:56.8	those loopholes to the tune of $1 billion. Yes, that is billion with a bee.
1:04.2	They thought they had concocted the perfect scam until the FBI and the EPA took them down,
1:09.9	with the help of a brave young woman who escaped the order,
1:12.9	just before an arranged marriage to her first cousin.
1:16.3	So here it is, lawless planet,
1:19.0	and a polygamous cult leader's billion-dollar biofuel scam.
1:26.6	One, Your Honor. It's just before sunrise on June 15, 2013, and Mary Jacobs is tiptoeing through her house in the suburbs of Salt Lake City.
1:49.0	She's 17 years old with long, dark hair and expressive eyes. One by one she peeks her head into her siblings' rooms.
1:53.0	They're still asleep, but she says goodbye to each of them.
1:56.0	Unsure when or if she'll see them again.
	...

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