Wundery Plus subscribers can listen to scam influencers early and ad free right now.

Join Wundry Plus in the Wundry App or Apple Podcasts. Satchi, have you ever gone out of your way to buy specific products because

they're supposedly good for the environment? Not really. I think climate change wise I'm just I'm ready to go.

Okay but what if I told you you could get a huge tax break for buying those products

and it didn't even matter whether you use them or not tax break that changes everything

well that's the premise of the story I'm about to tell you it's about a scammer

who loves classic cars NASCAR and basically all things powered by oil,

but still made tons of money by peddling the promise of green energy.

It's a Monday morning in December 2012 and John Miranda is excited to go to work.

John's in his late 40s and he's got a nerdy earnest vibe. He wears thick black glasses and

his collard shirts are always rumpled. Today is John's first day as a communications

director of a buzzy green energy startup

called DC Solar.

They've only been around for a couple of years,

but they already have deals with big clients

like the paint company Sherwin Williams.

And their portable solar power generators have been used on the

sets of Hollywood movies like Inception.

John is passionate about fighting climate change and he

pulls up to the company's parking lot in Benicia, California,

a suburb of San Francisco.

But he's surprised by what he sees.

...