Nevin Shapiro: Gameday Grifter | 237

When Nevin Shapiro becomes a booster for his beloved Miami Hurricanes, he doesn’t just want to root for his favorite team – he wants to be their go-to guy. To one who leads the football team out of the tunnel by day, then rolls up to the club with the players at night. But that lifestyle doesn’t come cheap. And as Nevin struggles to keep up with the lavish gifts, wild parties, and cash bonuses, he finds another way to fund it all: a good, old fashioned Ponzi scheme. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sarah Hagi?

  Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

• 0:15Scaachi Koul?

  Gonna go out on a limb here, Sarah, but I'm guessing you're not particularly invested in American college football.

• 0:22Sarah Hagi?

  No, I don't know anything about it. And it makes me kind of sad thinking about these poor young athletes who have so much pressure to like, perform in this crazy way.

• 0:32Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, I mean, it was only when I moved here that I realized how big of a deal it is and like, how many layers there are to the business of it.

• 0:41Sarah Hagi?

  I think there's a lot of unfairness when it comes to college athletes, because up until recently, they weren't even getting paid to play. Like, they were just getting these scholarships and that type of thing. But considering the amount of money they generate, they deserve a lot and the physical toll on their bodies.

• 0:58Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Well, speaking of all of that money, do you know what a booster is? Absolutely not. But you'll tell me. I will tell you. A booster is someone who supports the team financially. Basically, a superfan with deep pockets. But our scammer today didn't feel that proximity to players was enough. He begged, borrowed, and ultimately stole to live out his college football dream, until he went from the big man on campus to the big house.

• 1:31Scaachi Koul?

  It's mid-November 2007 at Miami's Orange Bowl Stadium. The Miami Hurricanes are playing the Virginia Cavaliers, and they are getting clobbered. It's 31-0 at the half, and like most fans, Nevin Shapiro is drunk and pissed off about the score. But unlike most fans, he can actually talk to someone about it. Someone with power in the athletic department. Nevin is in his late 30s, and he's brash, short, and aggressive. And today, he's probably flush in the face as he storms into the Miami press box looking for a fight. He spots Miami's head of compliance, David Reed, and he makes a beeline for him. Nevin blames David for the team's struggles.

• 2:14Scaachi Koul?

  He thinks David has put up too many barriers between the boosters, like Nevin, and the players they help bankroll. If David would just back off and let them spend more time with the players, Nevin thinks they'd land better recruits and probably have a better program.

• 2:30Scaachi Koul?

  Nevin gets in David's face, calling him a sissy, trying to bait David into a literal fight. But someone jumps in and separates them.

• 2:40Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's pretty weird, as a grown man who's a fan of a sport, to get that involved. I mean, it's just, that's plain weird. Yeah, I mean, there's caring about sports, and

• 2:52Scaachi Koul?

  then there's wanting to fight about it.

• 2:54Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah.

• 2:55Scaachi Koul?

  Well, days later, Nevin gets a call from someone in the athletic department. His tantrum prompted David to run a background check. Boosters aren't formally employed by the university, so they hadn't run one on Nevin before. The background check turned up something troubling. Nevin's a part-owner of Access Sports, an agency that represents current and former Miami athletes. It is a huge conflict of interest and a potential violation of the NCAA rules. Sarah, the NCAA is the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the governing body for all college sports. But despite this worrisome discovery, the background check results just magically disappear.

• 3:38Scaachi Koul?

  Maybe because Nevin has a lot of friends in the athletic department who want to keep him and his money around. For now, he's able to keep going. But Nevin's conflict of interest is just the tip of the iceberg. As a booster, he's been playing fast and loose with the rules for the past six years. He's taken players to strip clubs, let them party on his yacht, and straight-up given them cash. He does this all knowing it's explicitly against NCAA rules. But Nevin's finally bought his way into the cool club, and he has no plans to leave it. On top of that, the money he's lavishing on the university and its players, it's not even his. Nevin has been running one of the largest Ponzi schemes of the 2000s.

• 4:22Scaachi Koul?

  And when that secret comes out, Nevin will make an unexpected turn from con artist to whistleblower and an existential threat to college football as we know it.

• 4:37Speaker 09

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• 4:57Speaker 01

  I'm Candace DeLong, host of the podcast Killer Psyche. In our latest episode, we go inside the case of Lindsey Clancy, the postpartum psychosis defense, and the stunning mistrial that just reignited a national debate. Listen to Killer Psyche on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 5:21Scaachi Koul?

  From Audible Originals, I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Haggie. And this is Scamfluencers.

• 5:34Scaachi Koul?

  Nevin Shapiro doesn't just want to root for his beloved Miami Hurricanes, he wants to be the Miami guy. The one who leads the football team out of the tunnel by day, then rolls up to the club with the players by night. But that doesn't come cheap, and his bank account struggles to keep up as Nevin treats athletes to lavish gifts, wild parties, and cash bonuses. So he finds another way to fund this lifestyle: ripping people off with a good, old-fashioned Ponzi scheme. But when it all starts to unravel, Nevin will prove that the only thing more dangerous than his ambition is his need for revenge. When Nevin learns the hard way that all that cash didn't buy him any loyalty, he'll burn

• 6:16Scaachi Koul?

  every bridge in Miami on his way out of town. This is Nevin Shapiro, Game Day Grifter.

• 6:27Scaachi Koul?

  It's September 1979 at the Orange Bowl Stadium in Miami. The University of Miami Hurricanes are playing their first game of the season. Today, kids can get in for free if they wear their football pads. 10-year-old Nevin Shapiro walks through the gates in his full Peewee getup. For him, there's no better place to be. For the past four years, ever since his family moved from Brooklyn to Miami, Nevin's gone to every home game. That day, Miami wins 24-12. Nevin is thrilled. But then, it's time to go home, which is a lot less fun. His parents recently divorced, and his dad bounced. Nevin's mom, Ronnie, is raising him while working as a secretary for a lawyer in South Beach.

• 7:11Scaachi Koul?

  But he and his mom make it work. He wrestles and plays basketball in high school, but he stops growing at around 5'5", making it hard to compete in athletics. By senior year, his only elective is Leadership Club, with, get ready, Sarah, Brett Ratner.

• 7:28Sarah Hagi?

  This is a very tragic beginning. Early on Brett Ratner mention. Can you ima-- how would you make it out of meeting Brett Ratner at such a tender, vulnerable age? Yeah, it's over for you. Also, shockingly, this is the first time I think he's come up in any story we've told.

• 7:46Scaachi Koul?

  Hmm, probably not the last, though.

• 7:47Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Scaachi Koul?

  Well, Nevin attends a public school in Tampa for college instead of the University of Miami. But he's still a diehard Hurricanes fan. Around his freshman year of college, Nevin's mom remarries. His new stepdad is a wealthy Canadian named Richard Adam, who runs an international loan company. Richard's doing so well that he moves Nevin and Ronnie into a big house in a nice neighborhood. And Richard leases a Cadillac Seville and buys two yachts. Nevin is amazed. He gets swept up in how cool it all is. And in a place like Miami, he sees how far wealth can get you. It's part of why he loves the Hurricanes so much. They're the epitome of Miami glitz and glamour.

• 8:32Scaachi Koul?

  They're aggressive and swaggy, and they lean into a hate us 'cause you ain't us attitude. Throughout Nevin's time in college, he adopts that persona for himself to the extreme. During his senior year, he punches a student referee during a flag football game when a call doesn't go his way. He gets arrested and leaves school before graduating. Nevin feels like he's taking a cue from his beloved Hurricanes. When someone wrongs you, rip off your helmet and fight, no matter what the wrong was or how much you stand to lose.

• 9:06Scaachi Koul?

  It's April 1995, and Peter Hohnerkamp is closing down his South Beach Club. Not just for the night, for good. Peter is 41 years old, a native New Yorker with a handlebar mustache. And for two and a half years, he's been running the Miami outpost of his club, Steven Talk House. The original in New York is still thriving, but the South Beach branch just never took off. Peter's trying to enjoy his final evening when he notices a 20-something-year-old guy in the back hallway trying to sneak in. The guy is short, with a baby face, and gold chains stacked around his neck. He and his friends are obviously looking to avoid the $25 cover charge. Peter might have let it slide another time, but not tonight.

• 9:50Scaachi Koul?

  He storms over to the group and tells them that they have to leave. The short guy is, of course, Nevin, and he immediately goes from zero to 100. He gets in Peter's face and asks him if he's coming on to him. Peter looks over his shoulder to get a bouncer's help with this drunk idiot. But by the time he turns back around, Nevin is swinging and lands a punch right in Peter's eye. His ring rips Peter's tear duct and blood sprays everywhere. Peter is rushed to the hospital. He sees multiple specialists and eventually ends up wearing a stent in his eye for a year. His eye is permanently damaged.

• 10:29Sarah Hagi?

  People get into these type of drunken fights, thinking it'll end that night. You know what I mean? Just like, oh yeah, I socked a guy. But when it gets to real injuries like that, you realize how scary those types of fights can be.

• 10:42Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it's scary, and the consequences are very real, which Nevin was not ready for. It takes a couple of months for the cops to track Nevin down, but they eventually find him hiding at his mother's house. He's arrested on felony assault charges, but insists that Peter attacked him. Luckily for Peter, nobody buys Nevin's bullshit story, and he ends up pleading guilty. Peter's worked in bars long enough to know that people get caught up in the heat of the moment. All he wants is for Nevin to apologize and cover his medical expenses. But Nevin never says sorry, so Peter follows up the criminal charges with a civil suit. Peter attends Nevin's sentencing hearing, glaring at him the entire time.

• 11:26Scaachi Koul?

  Sarah, will you read what Peter had to say about Nevin?

• 11:29Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, he says, quote, "This guy was all about himself. He was just a short guy who wanted to act like a Napoleon sack of shit." The people we quote have really good insults, and "short guy who wanted to act like a Napoleon sack of shit" is great, and I can't think of anything more cutting.

• 11:49Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, I'm gonna add that one to my personal lexicon. While Nevin is sentenced to 18 months probation and anger counseling, the assault goes on his permanent record, and he's forced to pay Peter's medical expenses. And with that, Peter returns to New York and tries to never think about this scumbag again. Unfortunately, Nevin hasn't learned a thing, and he's about to dive headfirst into Miami's business world, where he'll unapologetically hurt a lot more than one bar owner, to the tune of "Millions." It's 1997, and Nevin, now 28, is at his family's house. It's the fancy place his stepdad, Richard, bought years earlier.

• 12:31Scaachi Koul?

  But Richard isn't living there right now, because he's on the run, evading an FBI arrest warrant for fraud. Eventually, FBI agents track Richard down in Canada and arrest him, and the truth comes out. Richard's super-successful business was all a scam. For years, he and his partners promised they could secure loans in exchange for upfront fees. They made some wild claims, like that they ran trusts for a Saudi prince and the Queen of England, and clients all over the world believed them. Then, they just never made good on the loans. Richard kept the fees anyway, almost $6 million in total. He spends nearly six years fighting extradition from a Canadian jail cell before finally pleading

• 13:15Scaachi Koul?

  guilty to fraud. Wow, a scam within a scam.

• 13:22Sarah Hagi?

  You know, it's never a good sign when there's already a beginning-to-end scam story before I even know the crazy shit Nevin's gonna do.

• 13:29Scaachi Koul?

  I know. It's a real Russian nesting doll of scams. Yeah. Well, meanwhile, back in Florida, Nevin is trying to make an honest living. He's a broker for Atlantic Wholesale, a company that buys discounted groceries in large volumes and resells them for a profit. He's been there for more than three years, learning the ropes. But the job is mundane, and now that his stepdad has been exposed as a fraudster, Nevin started noticing scams everywhere he looks, which, you know, relatable, including in the discount grocery industry. Around this time, a Miami grocery brokerage company gets in serious trouble for operating a large-scale Ponzi scheme.

• 14:09Scaachi Koul?

  That company, Premium Sales, promised impossible returns and took more than $250 million from investors. 36 people were arrested. Maybe Nevin was inspired by these scammers and his stepdad despite the arrests. Maybe he could take their ideas and do it better.

• 14:29Sarah Hagi?

  Ugh, it's one of those dangerous thoughts I feel like everyone has when they hear about a scam that you're like, I could have done that better and I wouldn't have gotten caught. And some people get pulled into the darkness with that thought.

• 14:43Scaachi Koul?

  Yes, exactly. It is a really, really bad instinct. But in 1998, Nevin launches Capital Investments USA. He's still reselling groceries, but now he's the owner, not just a broker, which means he gets to keep all the profits for himself. He quickly starts looking for investors. His big selling point is that capital doesn't store merchandise. It only buys products after they're ordered. So he says he can guarantee risk-free returns of 10% to 26%. Before long, capital is bringing in millions in investments.

• 15:21Sarah Hagi?

  You know, if these scammers we cover and have been covering for years have taught me anything, is that anyone guaranteeing a risk-free return, that is impossible. You can't guarantee something is risk-free, period. Like, that's the whole nature of investing. No one can guarantee you anything, let alone 10% to 26%. Yeah, it's totally absurd.

• 15:46Scaachi Koul?

  And Nevin's financial records from this time are pretty murky, so it's hard to tell whether capital is initially profitable. But by the end of the 90s, when Nevin turns 30, he claims to have made several hundred million dollars through his company and lucrative real estate deals. Now that Nevin's got cash and influence, he's ready to go after what he really wants: to be a part of the University of Miami athletics program. And with his newfound power, he's found a way in. But it's gonna cost him a lot more than just money.

• 16:23Scaachi Koul?

  It's summer 2001, just before the start of a new college football season, and Nevin's writing a check for 12 grand. This is a dream come true. Today, at 32 years old, he's officially becoming a part of the Miami Hurricanes as a booster. Per the NCAA, a booster is an individual or organization that financially supports a university sports program. In other words, a rich Uber fan who uses donations to get better seats, access to players and coaches, preferential treatment, and the chance to help a team they truly love. Boosters like Nevin exist for all major college athletic programs.

• 17:04Scaachi Koul?

  They pump untold millions, maybe even billions, into the college sports system. And because the NCAA has strict rules about paying student athletes directly, teams rely heavily on booster donations. With this $12,000 check, Nevin is officially part of the Living Scholar program, which pairs a booster with a player to help fund their scholarship. In the 2000s, the NCAA's rule was clear. Boosters can't directly contact potential recruits, nor can they provide gifts or perks to recruits or current players. During his first few months working with the team, Nevin makes sure to comply. According to the NCAA, these rules are meant to protect the amateur status of the college

• 17:47Scaachi Koul?

  athletes, who at the time are prohibited from making money from the team or through outside sponsorships. To the NCAA, they're students first, athletes second. Their scholarships are what they're earning in exchange for a spot on the team. At this time, there's a lot of talk about the spirit of the game being compromised if schools treat student athletes like pros instead of amateurs. But that doesn't stop universities, along with athletic conferences, coaches, and the NCAA itself, from raking in billions of dollars from games, merchandise sales, and media deals.

• 18:24Sarah Hagi?

  I know that things have changed a little bit now, and college athletes kind of get paid. I still just think this is so twisted. These are really young people, especially something like football, where they're getting these crazy injuries, head trauma, and the amount of money invested in this, it makes me sick to think about, to be honest. And it's weird when an adult like Nevin, who has nothing to do with any of it, is like involved in it willingly this way. It's weird.

• 18:54Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it's really weird, but Sarah, Nevin actually agrees with you. The more Nevin sees how the college athletic system works, the more he thinks the NCAA is full of it. These players are often putting in way more than 40 hours a week with mandatory practices, film sessions, and travel, all dictated by the school. They're basically employees with none of the benefits. In Nevin's mind, a happier player is a better player. And if the NCAA isn't gonna take care of these guys, then why should he play by their rules? Nevin's not the first person to think this way. Like many colleges, the University of Miami has a history of boosters crossing the line by offering illicit perks.

• 19:38Scaachi Koul?

  Nevin's heard all about these under-the-table dealings. Now, he's ready to take it even further. He wants to become the most powerful man in these players' lives, the kind of man that they can't say no to, even when they want to.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  A trucker merges onto the I-10 in New Orleans. He checks his mirrors. The lane is clear. And then boom, impact. A pickup truck, seemingly out of nowhere, scrapes down the side of his 18-wheeler, multiple passengers inside. One man flees the scene. And the driver of the pickup, he doesn't seem all that upset. It didn't feel like a regular accident, because it wasn't. Across the city, truckers are getting sideswiped, all on the same stretch of the same freeway. And behind many of the cases is one person, a Hollywood stunt woman turned personal injury lawyer named Vanessa Moda. This podcast is a story about fake accidents that lead to real consequences and a scheme that ends in betrayal and murder.

• 20:44Speaker 02

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• 20:59Speaker 09

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• 21:43Speaker 09

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• 22:06Scaachi Koul?

  It's the end of the 2001 football season, and Nevin is sauntering into the University of Miami's annual team banquet. It's an event where the athletes are given awards and schmooze with well-connected, generous fans like Nevin. At the banquet, Nevin meets junior defensive end Andrew Williams and freshman defensive tackle Vince Wilfork. They're both big guys, over six feet tall, around 300 pounds each, and they absolutely tower over Nevin. Here's a picture of him with Vince. Sarah, can you describe it?

• 22:38Sarah Hagi?

  It's Nevin and this giant athlete who's in a tan suit. It's very early 2000s kind of look. I love photos like this because I feel like regular men are so giddy over athletes no matter what. Like, it doesn't matter how famous you are, how anything like men just want to be around athletes. And you can really see it in Nevin's eyes. He looks pleased as punch.

• 23:03Scaachi Koul?

  No, man, he looks really happy to be there. Nevin actually gives the guys his business card and says that if they ever need anything, give him a call. And he means it, whatever they need. They stay in touch, and Nevin says he gifts Andrew some tickets to a Miami Heat game. To Nevin, it's no big deal. But afterwards, Andrew introduces him to more of his teammates. And it must dawn on Nevin that though these players are the cool kids at the lunch table, he's the rich dude with an Amex Black Card. And the more he spends on them, the more they want him around. Hanging out with Miami football players is basically all Nevin's ever wanted. Soon, as he tells it, he's regularly showering them with gifts

• 23:47Scaachi Koul?

  and gets on a first-name basis with practically the entire starting roster. And Nevin claims that, though he may have started as a superfan, he starts to feel a deep responsibility to the players. A lot of them come from difficult backgrounds. And though they're putting their bodies on the line day in and day out, bringing in untold millions to the university, they're hardly making ends meet. The way Nevin sees it, he has the chance to make their lives a little easier. So why shouldn't he? But it's a slippery slope. Within a year, he goes from gifting Heat tickets to taking players to expensive dinners in VIP sections of strip clubs. And at the club, Nevin often shows up with thick wads of cash for the dancers

• 24:30Scaachi Koul?

  and spends thousands per night on alcohol. He regularly buys private rooms for the athletes to mingle with the dancers. And some weekends, he takes it even further, renting out multiple suites at hotels for wild parties. He uses an alias, hires sex workers, and invites only his favorite players. Nevin also doles out money on the field. Starting with the 2002 football season, Nevin tells players he'll pay them cash bonuses if they hit their rivals hard enough to make them leave the game. All season long, he watches with glee as one Miami player after another tries to take out players from opposing teams.

• 25:09Sarah Hagi?

  See, this is something that makes me sick. Just the dynamic here of a man in his 30s and these guys in their 20s who are mostly black. And he's like, "Hey, guys, I'll give you money if you dance for me." It's disgusting.

• 25:24Scaachi Koul?

  It's like Gladiator stuff. It's like he's watching these guys like crunch their bones together.

• 25:29Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's like he's getting such a thrill from the violence of it. These are athletes. I understand it's a violent sport, but it's gross. It's very gross.

• 25:36Scaachi Koul?

  Well, it being gross does not slow Nevin down. After the 2002 season, Nevin moves the hotel parties onto his brand-new $1.6 million yacht. He keeps the fridge and bar stocked and mingles with the sex workers who lounge around in bikinis. He's almost always surrounded by Miami student athletes and sees nothing wrong with being a 30-something-year-old man partying with college kids. In fact, by this point, Nevin's convinced himself that actually, the athletes are using him. Sarah, can you read this quote he gave to Yahoo Sports?

• 26:10Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, he says, quote, "I can never be compared to a fan or a groupie. You have to realize who I was in South Beach at that time. I wasn't hanging out with them for celebrity. I was a celebrity. I wasn't calling them to go out. They were calling me. I wasn't looking to put liquor on their tab to buy jewelry with their money. They were doing that to me." That just isn't true. I'm sorry, like, he's not the most famous guy in Miami. There's no way they were like, "Yeah, this old guy's giving us clout." Dude, you're not actually famous. You're just someone who has money. So yeah, maybe they are like using you in a way, but it's not because they're getting clout off you.

• 26:49Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, he seems to have bought himself a hefty sense of delusion. But whether he admits it or not, Nevin knows that if he stops spending, the players will stop hanging out with him. So he throws down tens of thousands of dollars on luxury goods to keep them around. We're talking suits, watches, new rims for an SUV, diamond-studded dog tags, even an engagement ring for one of their girlfriends. But sometimes, players legitimately just need money to get by. And when they ask for help, Nevin gives it no questions asked. Like when he gives $1,000 in cash to a player who has a kid to support but can't pick up a job because of the hours football requires. It's moments like these

• 27:31Scaachi Koul?

  that make Nevin feel like he's doing the right thing. But while you could argue that Nevin is sometimes doing a good thing, he's definitely getting something out of it. As a booster, he's allowed to stand on the sidelines during games. And on at least two occasions, he runs out of the tunnel with the team. Once, he flies to a road game on the team charter. During another game, he's even honored on the field. For a guy who once wore Peewee pads to the stadium to get nosebleed seats for free, it's more than he could have ever dreamed of. Now that Nevin has had a taste of the super booster life, he wants to become indispensable. Behind the scenes, he spotted an opportunity that could make him very, very rich. All he has to do

• 28:15Scaachi Koul?

  is leverage the trust these athletes already have in him and point them in a direction that benefits everyone, especially himself.

• 28:27Scaachi Koul?

  It's late April 2004, and a rowdy crowd is gathered at the GameWorks Arcade at a mall in South Miami. It's the day of the NFL Draft, and they're here for a party being hosted for Miami defensive star Vince Wilfork. Vince is one of the players Nevin met at his first football banquet two and a half years ago. He's 22 now and anxiously awaiting the moment he's been working towards for years, going in the first round of the NFL Draft. Vince's agency, Access Sports, that's Access with an X, is co-hosting the party. The company is owned by Vince's agent, Michael Hugue. Michael actually works with Nevin, too. The two men met back in 2002 and realized they had a huge opportunity on their hands.

• 29:12Scaachi Koul?

  Nevin could use his close relationships with Hurricanes athletes to steer them towards signing with Access. And if Nevin invested in Access, he would financially benefit if they turned pro and started making millions. So he ponied up $1.5 million for a 30% stake. In case this isn't obvious, this is a huge conflict of interest for a booster. But Nevin didn't care. According to him, he later became a co-owner of the agency, though Michael denies he was anything more than an investor.

• 29:46Sarah Hagi?

  To me, this is kind of like insider trading-esque. Like, you can't be a registered superfan where you're investing all this money and then also be benefiting from outcomes in a different way because you're in a company. It kind of underscores how little Nevin really cares about these players, the way he's claiming to.

• 30:07Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it's completely inappropriate. But Vince has bigger things to worry about than Nevin and Michael's agreement. Though there are hundreds of fans waiting to see which NFL team signs him, he's likely thinking about the two people who aren't there: his parents. Within the last two years, Vince lost his mom to a stroke and his dad to diabetes. As part of the draft party, Vince is raising money for diabetes research to honor his dad. Despite all that tragedy, Vince has had a spectacular playing career at the U. He probably could have signed with any agency, but he chose Access Sports, most likely because of Nevin, who's been extremely generous. According to Nevin, a year earlier, he gave Vince $50,000.

• 30:52Scaachi Koul?

  Then, after Vince declared for the 2004 draft, Nevin says he bought two $50,000 Cadillac Escalades: one for Vince and one for Vince's then-fiance. Accepting perks like this from a booster is explicitly against NCAA rules, which every student athlete is expected to understand. But like so many players faced with temptation, it seems like Vince hasn't been able to say no.

• 31:19Sarah Hagi?

  Well, and I understand because Vince is inexperienced in life, and he sees someone who carries himself with a level of authority, a businessman who's also bankrolling these players in whatever way. I can see someone like Vince thinking it's like a wink, wink, we're not supposed to do that, wink, wink type of thing, rather than like a very hard and strict rule.

• 31:44Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. And I mean, speaking of all this like weird insider trading stuff, all Nevin technically does is introduce players to Michael. But the intention is clear. Can you read what one player said about how they felt toward Nevin?

• 31:58Sarah Hagi?

  He says, "It was almost like he had given so much to where it was like you got a ride with him. That's how it was." Yeah, that's also a huge thing, feeling indebted to this person who's giving you a lot of material things that you desire as a young man. And all you have to do in return is sign something, play a certain way, pay attention to him a certain way. It doesn't seem like a crazy exchange.

• 32:23Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, I mean, the quid pro quo is pretty clear. Signing with Michael was certainly the path of least resistance for Vince, and he's already a star. Everyone at the draft party is glued to ESPN's live coverage while Vince waits for a team to give him a call. And then, finally, his phone rings. It's the New England Patriots, picking him 21st overall. While the place goes crazy, Vince lets out a sigh of relief. He's gonna play with Tom Brady, and his rookie contract is for $9 million over six years. Vince has achieved his dream and is off to the NFL. Vince's hard work has paid off, for him and for Nevin.

• 33:05Scaachi Koul?

  Supercharged by this success, Nevin's about to start rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in professional sports, funded by money that was never his to spend. It's 2005, and Nevin's at a Miami Heat game. But Nevin isn't content to just be a fan anymore. He's sitting courtside and manages to schmooze with Heat superstars Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade. He tells the players they can both use his yacht whenever they want. He also gives Shaq diamond-encrusted handcuffs for his birthday, though Shaq later says that Nevin only coordinated the sale and that he bought the cuffs himself.

• 33:44Sarah Hagi?

  Shaq hasn't come up in our stories, but let's just say he's at the scene of many events, based on what I can tell.

• 33:53Scaachi Koul?

  Who could be guilty when all they're doing is buying diamond-encrusted handcuffs, Sarah? What's the problem?

• 33:58Sarah Hagi?

  I don't want to know. Like, that is scary to me. I don't want to think about Shaq with diamond-encrusted handcuffs, especially because he was like a volunteer cop or whatever for a while.

• 34:10Scaachi Koul?

  And I fear for where this is going for him. Okay, you're testing my tensile knowledge about Shaq, but okay.

• 34:18Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, I know a lot, so.

• 34:20Scaachi Koul?

  Well, Nevin's position in the sports world is soaring. But while he's having fun, he still has an actual business to run. Without capital investments, none of this would be possible. Nevin's been constantly seeking new investors since he launched the company seven years ago. Recently, he met a real estate baron named Sidney Williams, who goes by Jack. Jack personally invests $100 million into capital and also introduces Nevin to all of his wealthy friends who have even more money to burn. Nevin offers him a commission for every investor he brings in, and Jack ends up recruiting more than 60 additional investors, who put in another $300 million. Nevin should be ecstatic.

• 35:02Scaachi Koul?

  But here's the thing: capital investments is nowhere near as successful as he's making it out to be. In fact, by late 2004, it was operating at a loss. By 2005, according to court records, it has almost no business operations to speak of. To hide this, Nevin starts repaying earlier investors with funds from newer investors. You know how the Ponzi scheme goes? In total, he raises about $880 million to pay some investors what he owes them. But he can't stop spending some of that money on himself. During this time, he pays himself $38 million.

• 35:43Scaachi Koul?

  With that money, he pledges another $150,000 to the University of Miami's Athletic Department. In exchange, they name an athletic lounge after him.

• 35:54Sarah Hagi?

  This is so insane because earlier on, you're telling me he's kind of like, I can do that better. And in some ways, he kind of did. Getting $880 million to pay back investors in your Ponzi scheme is... The Ponzi scheme working in a way because you have the money to pay the people you're supposed to? But the problem is, anyone who does a Ponzi scheme has an illness where they cannot do the right thing ever.

• 36:21Scaachi Koul?

  It's crazy to me. Yeah, I mean, Nevin cannot help himself. He spends $6 million on a Spanish-style Miami Vice-ass mansion overlooking the bay and the city's skyline. It has a $50,000 monthly mortgage, and he decorates it with vintage arcade games and Hurricanes memorabilia. Like his yacht, players are welcome to come and go. Nevin's fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude has launched him into the realm of celebrity and fabulous wealth, and it's also about to get him into serious trouble. It's 2006, and the football season hasn't been going very well for the Hurricanes.

• 37:02Scaachi Koul?

  So, the University of Miami fires their head football coach and starts looking for his replacement. Nevin, who's now 37, meets with school president Donna Shalala and makes a bizarre offer. He can coach the team, and he's willing to do it for free. She laughs at what she assumes must be a very funny joke, but Nevin's serious. Needless to say, Nevin does not get the job. That role goes to Randy Shannon, a former NFL player and an experienced coach. On Randy's very first day, Nevin makes sure to meet with him. But when they sit down, it's clear Randy isn't interested in what Nevin has to say.

• 37:44Scaachi Koul?

  In fact, it seems like Randy straight up doesn't trust him. Later, Nevin hears that Randy actually warns the players to stay away from him.

• 37:53Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, that makes total sense because Randy's a former player. I think he could spot a leech. And also, this guy was trying to pay to have his job.

• 38:03Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, I think Randy can see him clearly.

• 38:06Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah.

• 38:07Scaachi Koul?

  But Randy is also not the only one with reservations. At the end of the following football season, in late 2007, Nevin verbally attacks Miami's head of compliance, David Reed. That's the almost fistfight from the beginning of our story. And remember, that confrontation inspired David to run a background check. And that's how he learns that Nevin is both a booster and a co-owner of a sports agency. Now, this is when the university could have stepped in. Both Randy and David now suspect that Nevin's been breaking the rules about contacting recruits and giving players perks, but neither bothers to report him to the NCAA. By all appearances, they prefer to take his money.

• 38:52Sarah Hagi?

  I can see these people thinking, we see through this guy, but let's use him.

• 38:57Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Well, the following year, in 2008, Nevin hosts a basketball fundraiser at a trendy bowling alley in South Beach. The men's basketball coach, Frank Hayth, and the University of Miami president, Donna Shalala, are both there. Nevin calls up Frank and Donna and presents them with a check for $50,000 for the Miami basketball program. Sarah, can you describe this photo of the three of them?

• 39:23Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's one of those photos where nobody's wearing the right-sized clothing.

• 39:29Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Sarah Hagi?

  It's these three, they're at a bowling alley. Nevin is holding a bowling ball and a microphone. And Shalala is wearing the strangest pants I've ever seen. This is like a very ugly-to-look-at episode.

• 39:46Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, I know, I'm sorry.

• 39:48Sarah Hagi?

  There's a lot of ugliness here. Also, Shalala is holding this check in her hands, which isn't a novelty check also.

• 39:56Scaachi Koul?

  It's very real-sized.

• 39:57Sarah Hagi?

  I feel like it should be a novelty check, you know what I mean? And she is smiling. She is beaming down at this check. She's the administrator of a massive school. You'd think she was used to this, but she looks really thrilled at this bowling alley with her weird pants. That looked like they're really starched as well.

• 40:17Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Well, unbeknownst to Frank and Donna, every cent of that donation is Ponzi money. Nevin's been spending his client's cash for at least three years, maybe longer, but he doesn't seem to think twice about it. He's too busy mingling with athletes and celebrities. But his seemingly endless bank account is about to dry up. Because as 2008 draws to a close, another massive, unrelated Ponzi scheme will make everyone turn toward Nevin with fresh, new eyes. It's December 2008, and in the midst of the financial crisis, Bernie Madoff has just been arrested for running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme.

• 41:01Scaachi Koul?

  Unfortunately for Nevin, this could not have come at a worse time. He's struggling to pay investors their interest, which of course does not exist because capital isn't making any money. And while he might have been able to explain it away before, the Madoff news has put everyone on edge. And soon, a few of his investors start asking questions. A Naples, Florida retiree with $150,000 invested asks Nevin point-blank,

• 41:27Sarah Hagi?

  "Are you a Bernie?"

• 41:28Scaachi Koul?

  Nevin assures her that he's not, and manages to convince her to keep her money invested.

• 41:34Sarah Hagi?

  Someone straight up being like, "Are you a Bernie?" And him being like, "No, I'm Nevin," is so depressing. I think it's just one of those things where you never will assume it's going to happen to you. And that's why she could ask point-blank, and maybe in a joking way, "Are you Bernie?" "He is, honey."

• 41:52Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. He is. He is a Bernie. Right around this time, he stops paying interest to his investors. By the end of November, a group of investors files an involuntary bankruptcy petition against Capital. They also file a petition to place Nevin into personal bankruptcy. Nevin panics and literally tries to go into hiding. If the process servers can't find him, he doesn't have to deal with the petitions, right? There's just one problem: Nevin's terrible at being on the run. His version of hiding out is posting up at a local cafe, wearing sunglasses. When a process server inevitably finds him, he refuses to admit that he's Nevin Shapiro, until a random friend passing by IDs him.

• 42:38Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, because Nevin's addicted to attention. He can't hide.

• 42:42Scaachi Koul?

  He's like, surely no one will recognize me in these sunglasses.

• 42:45Sarah Hagi?

  "I'm going to be wearing sunglasses in Miami, where everyone sees me in sunglasses." Someone goes up to him, "Are you Nevin?" "No." Another person walks by, "Sup, Nevin?" Like, oh, come on. Ugh.

• 42:56Scaachi Koul?

  Well, the sunglasses obviously don't work, and investors start lining up to file claims against Nevin. More than 60 in total. One is the owner of one of the Midwest's biggest Taco Bell franchises, who put in almost half a million dollars. Another is the University of Wisconsin athletic director, who'd sunk $600,000 into the scheme. In April 2010, Nevin is charged with running a $930 million Ponzi scheme. Later that month, he self-surrenders to the authorities. He assumes he'll post bail and walk right out. Instead, he's arrested and thrown in jail. That same month, Nevin pleads guilty on two counts: securities fraud and money laundering.

• 43:41Scaachi Koul?

  He faces up to 30 years in prison and more than $5 million in fines, plus whatever restitution a judge decides on. But Nevin knows he's got friends in high places at the U. He assumes his old buddies will come to his defense. After all, he took care of them. But instead, it's crickets. The University of Miami cuts ties with Nevin completely. All the athletes he thought were his bros stop answering his calls. And then he learns they aren't just abandoning him, they're betraying him. The government has 47 University of Miami players lined up to testify against him at trial. Nevin hits the roof. He's not going to sit back and be made to look like a fool.

• 44:24Scaachi Koul?

  Just like in the nightclub almost 20 years ago, Nevin's going down swinging. And he's going to bring everyone down with him.

• 44:37Speaker 00

  I'm Gemma Whelan, and in the new season of The Spy Who, we tell the story of the original femme fatale, The Spy Who Was Mata Hari. A famous dancer-turned-World War I secret agent accused of seducing Allied officers to uncover their plans. But was she a temptress or a scapegoat for French failures? Follow The Spy Who now, wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen to the full season of The Spy Who Was Mata Hari, early and ad-free on Audible.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  Ghosts aren't real. At least, that's what journalist Tristan Redmond always believed. Sure, odd things happen in his childhood bedroom, but ultimately, he shrugged them off. Until he discovered that he wasn't alone, that everyone who lived thereafter him also had bizarre experiences they couldn't explain. And it gets even weirder. It just so happens that his wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door. Is this ghost somehow connected to her murder? He decides to go where no son-in-law should, digging up a cold case and asking questions that nobody wants answered. Like, could his wife's great-grandfather have gotten away with the perfect crime? This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence, and the things that come back to haunt us.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  For the best bingeable series like Ghost Story, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can get all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 46:16Scaachi Koul?

  It's December 2010, and Yahoo Sports reporter Charles Robinson is sitting in the visitation room at the Hudson County Correctional Facility in New Jersey. On the other side of the glass is Nevin, now 41, and looking much worse for wear. But Charles isn't here to talk about the Ponzi scheme that put Nevin behind bars. Instead, with Nevin's cooperation, Charles is working on a story about all of the NCAA violations that Nevin was a part of. If Nevin is telling the truth, it's one of the biggest examples of rule-breaking in college athletics. So Charles is here to collect Nevin's receipts, literally. Nevin is handing over years of credit card statements, bank records, phone bills, emails, and thousands of photos.

• 47:01Scaachi Koul?

  Today, Charles is getting to the heart of things. He asks why Nevin is willing to rat on the players and coaches at the university he loved so much. Sarah, will you read what Nevin tells him?

• 47:12Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, he says, quote, "We always said we were a family. Be consistent with me. Don't take my money when you need help and then turn your back when I need help. This is what boys do for each other." So I'm learning that Nevin fundamentally does not understand who people see him as. He does not know who he is.

• 47:33Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, he also doesn't know what he was doing.

• 47:35Sarah Hagi?

  He doesn't know what he's doing, he doesn't know who he is, and it's like, this is what boys do for each other. Like, grow up, bro. Like, you are in too deep.

• 47:46Scaachi Koul?

  Well, while Charles's investigation drags out for nearly a year, he learns that Nevin has written a letter directly to the NCAA. Nevin probably wants to make sure that punishments are doled out while the university staff, who betrayed him, are still working there. In the one-page correspondence, he teases the violations he committed and basically says, "If you want to know more, call me." Sure enough, the NCAA reaches out, and Nevin turns over materials corroborating the same claims he's made to Charles. That 72 players received illicit benefits, and that at least six coaches and as many as 10 athletic department employees were well aware.

• 48:25Scaachi Koul?

  He also names 39 Miami players or prospective recruits who he claims engaged with sex workers that he supplied. A lot of what Nevin's talking about happened more than four years prior, which is the normal statute of limitations for the NCAA. However, there's an exception if someone tied to a university has engaged in, quote, "a pattern of willful violations over a sustained period beyond that." While Charles continues his investigation, Nevin is sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay about $82 million in restitution. Five months later, Charles is ready to publish his exclusive on Yahoo Sports. And once it drops, there's no going back, for the University of Miami or for Nevin.

• 49:13Scaachi Koul?

  It's August 2001, and Maria Elena Perez is probably refreshing the Yahoo Sports website, waiting for Charles's report to drop. Maria is Nevin's lawyer. She actually represented his stepdad in his fraud case back in the day. She knows the family really well, and she likes Charles. She's been on board with his reporting of Nevin's story since the beginning. She hits refresh again, and finally, the article is up. Maria reads it over several times, and she's pleased. It's a little unorthodox to let her clients speak this freely, but she and Nevin seem to agree that the best strategy to protect his reputation is complete honesty. The fraud case is over. What else does he have to lose?

• 49:56Scaachi Koul?

  Of course, the story explodes in the college sports world. Everyone's wondering what's going to happen to the University of Miami. From prison, Nevin tells a Miami TV station that he thinks Miami is going to get the college sports, quote, "death penalty." By that, he means the NCAA could essentially ban the university from competing in football entirely. It's a punishment that's rarely been handed down, and it's a sentence that can decimate a program and force them to start again from scratch. The NCAA's final ruling could take months, but they do decide relatively quickly to suspend eight Miami players who received improper benefits, making them miss the opening games of the season.

• 50:38Scaachi Koul?

  Three months later, the University of Miami voluntarily bans their own program from postseason games and reduces its recruiting visits, hoping that might lessen their eventual punishment.

• 50:50Sarah Hagi?

  You know, it just sucks because these athletes, like, they're not the guilty ones, but they're the ones who are facing this consequence that will maybe hinder some of their careers, if recruiters aren't seeing them, for example.

• 51:03Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, it's not really fair to the guys, I'd say. Mm-hmm. Well, meanwhile, the NCAA is having trouble digging up the evidence they need. So Maria suggests a plan. She'll share her files from Nevin's bankruptcy trial, which might contain some useful testimony. To be clear, this is not allowed. The NCAA can't insert itself into a legal case and use depositions to enforce their own bylaws. It's pretty ironic that they're breaking the rules so they can punish people for breaking the rules. Legally, Maria shouldn't share this information, but she does. She hands over witness testimony and then invoices the NCAA $57,000 for her time and services. They end up cutting her a check for 18 grand.

• 51:48Scaachi Koul?

  When the NCAA legal department sees those invoices, they raise the alarm that their investigators may have overstepped, which eventually unravels the entire investigation into Miami. So even though Maria provided plenty of evidence of widespread rule-breaking, the NCAA can't use any of it. Ultimately, in 2013, after two years of back and forth, the NCAA's final decision comes down. Three years of probation and the loss of nine football and three basketball scholarships for future players. In the end, Nevin wasn't able to punish the people he was really mad at. Instead, he just ended up hurting future players at the school he once loved so much.

• 52:32Scaachi Koul?

  Maria also feels the sting of working with Nevin. After the NCAA debacle, the Florida Bar Association accuses her of violating legal ethics. In 2016, she ends up getting a 91-day suspension from practicing law. It's an anticlimactic ending to a story that gripped the sports world for years. But before the decade is up, it'll seem even more quaint, because the NCAA's rules about college sports are about to get completely flipped on their head. When Nevin was floating around the University of Miami, it was against NCAA rules to give perks to athletes, including cash, material items, or even food. But today, that is no longer the case.

• 53:14Scaachi Koul?

  The rules began to shift in 2019, when California became the first state to force colleges to allow their players to profit off their name, image, or likeness. Two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that college athletics should be treated like the lucrative entertainment industry it truly is. That ruling allowed athletes to make money off endorsement deals. And then, finally, the recent 2025 House v. NCAA settlement allowed schools to share revenue directly with athletes. Here's Nevin reflecting on the changes to TMZ after getting released from prison.

• 53:49Speaker 10

  Well, it's about time these kids got compensated for, you know, what they've brought from a TV revenue standpoint for all their universities and the NCAA. Long past due. I told these idiots from the NCAA 15 years ago what to do, or else it'll be done for them, as I was showing them.

• 54:08Sarah Hagi?

  It's really interesting that he is here being interviewed by TMZ, changing his tune and making it seem like this is what he wanted the whole time. No, everything you were doing was in your self-interest. You didn't care about these guys. But it's such a convenient switch-up for him. And also, I think, in a way, him trying to save face for being a loser.

• 54:27Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah. Well, in this new era of college sports, the Hurricanes have a payroll of about $30 million to spend on players. On top of that, there are boosters spending so much money, it puts Nevin to shame. And all of it is now allowed.

• 54:46Scaachi Koul?

  Sarah, are you so excited to learn about another thing that has been completely destroyed by influence and money? A thing that you didn't even care about an hour ago?

• 54:53Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's something I didn't care about because I knew it would piss me off. I have a lot of empathy for young people who are really talented and, like, so much is riding on their talent, which also is finite, because your body can only do so much. And it's so upsetting to me that these young people have to, like, bear the consequences of greedy, rich guys.

• 55:18Scaachi Koul?

  I mean, I guess the frustrating thing, or maybe the amazing thing about this story, is that at his core, he's right. I mean, these kids should be making more money off of the brutalizing work that they're putting their bodies through and their brains through. They're not able to work jobs. I mean, that is the job. They are working. This is a for-profit model, so it's so crazy that these kids aren't going to get any money to begin with or any real support because of these arbitrary rules. But like, you know what's not essential for a struggling athlete and a struggling student? Time at a strip club. It's not like he was necessarily paying everybody's rent. He's like, here is a sex worker for you to run around with.

• 55:59Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, a lot of the weird thing about Nevin was his performance of masculinity and, like, things that men do. He was so on the outside in a way that I think he was like, okay, what should I give these young men? Well, athletes are always going to strip clubs and always have, like, girls that they're seeing, so I'll make that easy for them. It's just so cliché. He was just kind of funding what he thought was cool and interesting in their lives and what he thought would help him get closer to them as their stars were on the rise.

• 56:32Scaachi Koul?

  You know, I think there's a lot of talk about how there are systems within football that are so racist and feel very like, these white guys are buying black and brown bodies just to basically crunch them up and, like, cause them a lot of grief. And this feels like an extension of that, where you have this white guy who is not good enough to ever play, is trying to purchase proximity to coolness more than anything. It's not real power, it's just proximity to cool. And he's doing it by buying what he thinks these black and brown guys are going to like, right? So it's like, bitches money and, like, Ciroc.

• 57:13Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, I do think that's what a lot of these kinds of guys who become obsessed with athletes, like, their hanger-ons are doing. It's like this part of a fantasy. I think that's also why men kind of get obsessed with sports gambling.

• 57:27Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah.

• 57:28Sarah Hagi?

  You know, people talk a lot about fans, like, girls being fans of pop stars or whatever

• 57:33Scaachi Koul?

  and being fans. No one is worse than a man who likes a football team.

• 57:38Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, because they're talking about it in, like, a very serious and scary way that has nothing to do with loving admiration or, like, a sexual fantasy. Like, you know what I mean? It's really weird that it's hardly ever questioned.

• 57:51Scaachi Koul?

  Yeah, there's a lot of possession, the sense of possession over these players and over these teams. I think Nevin is, in a lot of ways, one of the greater losers that we've ever covered on this show, because he is so desperate to have association with these players, and he has no reason to be there. Like, he wasn't even a rich guy, you know? It's pathetic enough when there's, like, a very rich man who's funneling his money into something just so that he can, like, be in the vicinity of it. Mm-hmm. It's so much more embarrassing that he wasn't even rich. Yeah. He did not have any of that money. So it's like, you're not rich, the money you gave was fake, you're a tourist, you're just a fan. Like, that's so embarrassing. He sucks.

• 58:35Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's really insane fan behavior. It's really just loser behavior. Yeah, he's one of the bigger losers we've covered, who, like, did all this just to be around 20-something-year-old guys, probably can't even do their own laundry.

• 58:46Scaachi Koul?

  I know. It's also kind of incredible that one of the big reasons he got caught was because of Bernie Madoff. And like, everybody started to look around and be like, hmm, who has my money?

• 58:58Sarah Hagi?

  What is that? He did end up getting such a crazy amount of money.

• 59:02Scaachi Koul?

  Nevin spent his money in such a bombastic way, and he also spent the money in such a public way that I think it's maybe easy to forget that there's some very average people who lost a lot of money. People who were like, here are my life savings, take care of it. I could understand all these people giving Nevin all this money when he's saying, like, look at me, I'm hanging out with all these athletes, how could I be irresponsible? Look at all the wealth I'm around. You're half a million dollars to him. These are pennies to someone like that, so surely he'll take care of it. Exactly.

• 59:34Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, it's crazy how many victims there were in This and how Nevin truly never humbled himself at any point in any of this.

• 59:41Scaachi Koul?

  I mean, I'm sure I don't think the athletes knew it at the time that they were cover for the Ponzi scheme. I think they understood that they were cover for his like social.

• 59:51Sarah Hagi?

  He understood the social exchange happening, but there's no way anyone could have predicted that.

• 59:54Scaachi Koul?

  No, it's not something I would ever consider. If I am moving to a new town and I'm 18 and I'm about to play football in a new echelon of fame and, and money and physical obligation, I don't think I would have any questions about what my booster was doing when I wasn't around.

• 1:00:14Sarah Hagi?

  Oh, for sure. I'm like, yeah, he's some loser.

• 1:00:16Scaachi Koul?

  I mean, listen, you and I are never going to get involved in football like this. Do you feel like you learned any lessons today?

• 1:00:25Sarah Hagi?

  I feel like there is a level of suspicion we must all have for anyone who like wants to be where the action is that much, especially when it's around people who are so significantly

• 1:00:36Scaachi Koul?

  younger. Weird. Yeah, I think maybe the lesson is like, hey, if you ever see a guy who's like 32 and he's hanging out with a bunch of people who are not old enough to rent a car, something's wrong with him.

• 1:00:48Sarah Hagi?

  Here's one last thing. College athletes seize the means of production and you are the means and the production. Seize it. Seize it. Seize yourselves.

• 1:01:05Scaachi Koul?

  Follow Scanfluencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Scanfluencers ad-free by joining Audible.

• 1:01:14Scaachi Koul?

  For Audible Originals, this is Nevin Shapiro, game day grifter. For Scanfluencers, I'm Sachi Cole.

• 1:01:21Sarah Hagi?

  And I'm Sarah Haggie. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at [email protected]. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were Yahoo Sports's Renegade Miami Football Booster Sells Out Illicit Benefits to Players by Charles Robinson and Why Miami Is in Trouble by Dan Wetzel, as well as the Miami New Times's Nevin Shapiro, Miami's Caligula by Tim Alfrink, the South Florida Sun-Sentinels' Nevin Shapiro, The Fraudster Who Claims He Corrupted U M Football by Sally Kesten and Peter Franceschina, and the Free Press's Two Drinks With The College Football Booster Who Paid the Players by Joe Nocera.

• 1:02:04Scaachi Koul?

  Alex Burns wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Haggie. Olivia Bryle is our story editor. Our senior producers are Sarah Enni and Ginny Bloom. Our associate producer is Charlotte Miller. Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Fact checking by Gabrielle Drolet. Sound design by James Morgan. Additional audio assistance provided by Augustine Lim. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freeze on Sync. The executive producer for Audible is Jenny Lauer-Beckman. The head of creative development at Audible is Kate Nevin. The head of Audible Originals North America is Marshall Louis. The chief content officer is Rachel Giatza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC.

• 1:02:53Speaker 08

  Imagine you're reading Pride and Prejudice, except you're not reading it. Harris Dickinson and Marissa Abella are reading it to you on Audible. Her barbs sting you. His coldness sends a shiver up your spine. Your heart aches. Your ears burn. You yearn for Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy to profess their undying love for one another. You can't bear it any longer. Well, maybe a chapter longer. Performance is so good, you'll give love a second chance. Audible. Stories that speak to you.