Warlords, Espionage, and Disinformation | Introducing Hot Money: Agent of Chaos

Bad Women: The Blackout Ripper

Pushkin Industries

History, True Crime

4.6 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2020, the Financial Times exposed a 2 billion euro fraud at Wirecard, a high-flying German fintech. Many thought that was the end of the story. But for reporter Sam Jones, it was just the beginning.

This season on Hot Money: Agent of Chaos, from Pushkin Industries and the Financial Times, Jones investigates Wirecard’s chief operating officer who vanished just as Wirecard collapsed. And turned out to also be a Russian spy.

Here’s episode 1. Listen to Hot Money: Agent of Chaos wherever you get your podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Pushkin.
0:10.1	Hi, I'm Sam Jones, and I hope you don't mind me dropping in to give you a quick preview of my new podcast, Hot Money, Agent of Chaos.
0:19.1	It all started in 2020 when my colleagues at the Financial Times
0:22.7	"'exposed the German company wirecard as a huge fraud.
0:26.2	"'But underneath that, I discovered another more elusive tale.
0:30.2	"'Yan Marseleck was more than just Europe's biggest financial con artist.
0:34.4	"'He was someone who had other lives.
0:37.2	"'And his shadow, it seemed to appear in the most
0:39.8	unexpected places, in the investigation into a deadly poisoning, in the wake of an Austrian
0:45.5	political scandal, in Libya's refugee camps, with mercenaries in Syria, oligarchs on the French
0:52.3	Riviera, Bulgarian criminals in a disheveled English
0:55.6	seaside resort. I've been pulling together all these threads to try and understand who Jan Marseleck was
1:02.2	and what it is that connects them all. And I think I've got an explanation for you. It's a story that
1:08.5	says as much about our own society as it does about the wildlife of one
1:12.8	rogue individual. It's about power and corruption and the secret front line of a huge geopolitical
1:20.1	game that affects us all. I hope you enjoy this preview and if you do find hot money,
1:26.7	agent of chaos, wherever you listen to your
1:28.9	podcasts this is an iHeart podcast your instincts your aim your edge only you know how it all comes
1:40.9	together so why settle for someone else's gaming setup?
1:46.3	Go to Lenovo.com slash customize and custom build your Legion Gaming laptop
1:48.8	with the graphics, frame rates and processes
1:51.1	that turn grind into glory.
	...

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