A new podcast will delve into the story of a group of preppy investors known as the “Billionaire Boys Club” who went from pulling get-rich-quick schemes to committing murder during the 1980s.
The six-episode series will premiere August 18th with new episodes dropping every Tuesday (the whole series is currently available for Wondery+ premium subscribers). Actor Timothy Olyphant will co-host the show with Tracy Pattin.
A new trailer for Billionaire Boys Club provides a succinct set-up for the series centered around an overview of that distinctly Eighties creature known as “The Yuppie”: “Rich kids with college educations, high-paying jobs and very expensive taste,” a narrator says. “They were the epitome of greed, excess and materialism, and in Los Angeles, a group of young men would come to embody these ideals better than almost anyone. What did they want? All the riches and status they were promised since birth — and they’d stop at nothing to get it.”
The clip ends with a tantalizing teaser about the mayhem that would ensue, “And in the [Billionaire Boys Club], the end always justifies the means.”
Headed by Joe Hunt, the Billionaire Boys Club operated a lucrative Ponzi scheme where they bilked millions of dollars from investors and used it to fund their own lavish lifestyles. In 1984, however, things began to unravel when an admitted con man named Ronald Levin disappeared (a body was never found). Hunt was eventually charged and convicted of murdering Levin, allegedly in retaliation after Levin tricked Hunt into believing he had millions of dollars he actually didn’t. Hunt, who was sentenced to life in prison, has continually maintained that Levin faked his own death, disappeared and is still alive.
From Rolling Stone US
