Who doesn’t love a good true crime podcast? The best ones offer all-too-human characters, a compelling mystery, an engaging host, authentic soundbites and a sense that what you’re listening to really matters because you know it’s real. With the new podcast Chameleon: High Rollers, all of that is true, with a special bonus: The story mostly takes place in Las Vegas. As you listen, you’ll experience moment after moment of recognition, as the plot unfolds in your own backyard.
Author and Award-winning investigative journalist Trevor Aaronson hosts High Rollers, which evolved from a news story he covered for The Intercept. The 10-episode documentary podcast explores a two-year FBI money laundering sting in Las Vegas that might have been based on nothing (no spoilers here; you’ll have to listen to find out). Hours of undercover FBI recordings add to the flavor and authenticity.
When one of the subjects of the FBI investigation reached out to Aaronson, the journalist was skeptical. “My initial instinct was that this seems too far-fetched to be a story,” Aaronson says. But the sources checked out, and Aaronson soon found himself in a stranger-than-fiction world of diet clinics and overzealous FBI agents who really like free lap dances.
“It’s this kind of fun crime caper story in that the FBI is going in there and trying to bust up a money laundering ring that might not really exist,” says Aaronson, who authored the book The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism.
High Rollers is different from most true crime podcasts in that nobody dies. You don’t have to feel guilty about consuming entertainment based on the murder of an innocent.
“It’s a fun story,” Aaronson says. “But I also think it’s fun in the sense that it really challenges and plays around with your perceptions of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.”
None of the characters are spotless. Aaronson compares them to roles in a Coen brothers movie, “where everyone’s a bit flawed and everyone’s a bit quirky.” Diet clinic owner Emile Bouari, who gets pulled into the FBI’s web, “isn’t a great protagonist; he’s quite flawed.” For their part, the FBI agents “aren’t the white hats that you’d expect them to be.”
Beyond the entertainment value of a good podcast, Aaronson wants listeners to learn an important lesson. “I hope that people take away that the FBI is this enormously powerful agency that deserves more scrutiny than it currently receives,” Aaronson says. “If you’re caught up in an FBI investigation, even if you’re not guilty—like what ends up happening to the people in Operation Bo-Tox—it can be a really life-altering and life-damaging experience.”
Chameleon: High Rollers Complete 10-episode series available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and at campsidemedia.com/shows/chameleon-s2-high-rollers.
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