In 1980, a bankrupt gambler came up with a plan to get his money back. He built an incredibly complex bomb, one that was impossible to defuse and that only he knew how to move, and snuck it into a Lake Tahoe casino with an extortion note demanding $3 million. Part of the plan worked. Part of it did not.

The magician who spent his life debunking spiritualists and exposing con men.

Partying with a lost tycoon on his birthday.

Unraveling a lucrative crime ring.

How a con man named James McCormick sold $38 million worth of phony bomb-detection devices to Iraqi authorities.

In search of the perfect lie detector test.

The underground routes by which drugs enter the U.S. from Mexico, and the officials who’ve found it almost impossible to curb their construction.

Scientists quarrel about the fate of animals living in the 1,600 square mile exclusion zone.

For the last two decades, the varied personalities behind the Vidocq Society—retired cops, sketch artists, FBI agents—have gathered in Philadelphia to tackled cold-case homicides over lunch. They claim to have solved more than half.

When ‘Ceca’, the Madonna of the Balkans, met Arkan, bank robber turned paramilitary leader and war criminal, and how it all came to a tragic end in the lobby of the Belgrade Intercontinental.

Tony Kaye was one of the biggest commercial directors of his time. Then he directed American History X and, by his own admission, completely lost his mind.

How the illegitimate son of Liberian ex-President (and accused cannibal) Charles Taylor went from being a small time Florida hoodlum to one of Africa’s most notorious killers.

Albert Talton started with some recycled newsprint and a cheap printer from Staples. By the end, he’d put more than $7 million into circulation.