Today on the weekend intelligence, we're bringing you the first half of a new eight-part podcast series, Scam Inc.

I'm Rosie Bloor, co-host of the intelligence, and I was completely gripped from the moment my colleague, Su Lin Wong, first told me about this podcast.

This is the biggest story you've never heard of. Su Lin follows a trail around the world, taking us deep into

the heart of the ingenious and sophisticated networks working so hard to rip us off. She follows the

money, even as it appears to scatter like feathers, out of our bank

accounts, laundered and back, full circle onto the streets of our cities. And most of all,

she digs into the heart of a new, developing, terrifying trade in human emotions.

You can find the whole series by searching Scam Inc wherever you get your podcasts.

In the summer of 2023, there was a drought in Kansas.

But Jim Tucker's family had weathered worse.

Jim's great-grandfather had first settled here as a homesteader,

not long before the Dust Bowl era in the 1930s.

A tall, affable man, Jim still farms the family plot today.

It's home, and he loves it. You know, we're in the southwest corner, Kansas,

very rural area, and you can see for miles in every direction. Miles out across fields of wheat,

corn, and sorghum, and up into a night sky unspoiled by city lights.

Stars are just fascinating here, and often, you know, on a clear night, you can see planes

twinkling across the skyline in different directions.

That's comforting to be here in the middle of nowhere.

You feel safe.

You feel isolated from the rest of the world.

And so when there's major conflict, you know, with wars or something,

...