True Crime News Presents: American Hustlers

Kim and Julie have tracked Kaushal and Danny from visa scams to jewel theft to art fraud. Now, finally, they begin to see how it all leads to murder. Since pulling off their lucrative art con, Danny and Kaushal’s friendship has mended though they don’t seem to be working together. But Danny, it seems, has been working Cliff - a beloved but lonely man looking for love. After connecting online, Cliff invites Danny to Palm Springs for a weekend. There was no love connection, but their friendship blossomed. Cliff was more than willing to fund Danny’s lifestyle in exchange for his attention. And Danny was there to help Cliff through a series of strange break-ins and odd experiences at home. Things were not where he’d left them, other items were missing completely. But eventually, Danny and Cliff have a falling out over money. As Julie and Kim dig into the details, they realize this may have been the fork where a plan to merely con Cliff turned deadly. Following his fight with Danny, Cliff told friends he felt like someone was watching him. He was right. Days later, Cliff vanished. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After returning from Hawaii, Kaushal is riding high and living large. He and Danny continue to mix with the upper echelons of the Castro’s gay scene which is how Kaushal becomes friends with Stephen Valentino, a bon vivant radio personality, host, and opera singer. Eventually, Stephen lets Kaushal move in with him and his ailing mother. Stephen doesn’t know it, but this choice will land him a front row seat to Kaushal and Danny’s next big score - a high level art scheme worth millions. But the success of this con also exposes cracks in Danny and Kaushal’s partnership. When Danny turns on him, Kaushal finds himself in need of more money - fast. Soon Stephen will discover he was never Kaushal’s friend at all - and just how far Kaushal is willing to go to cover his tracks. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How did Kaushal go from nearly broke to Armani suits, private limos, and a suite at the Four Seasons where the staff referred to him as “your Highness”? A prison interview from Danny gives Kim and Julie a clue - maybe the answer is in Hawaii. It’s there that Kaushal befriends Keiko, a Japanese businesswoman and mother of two on vacation. Like all of Kaushal and Danny’s victims, Keiko is smart and competent. And yet, before long, Kaushal will con Keiko - not once, but twice - to the tune of half a million dollars. Nearly her entire life savings. Investigating how he did it reveals an international visa scam, an elaborate - and fake - kidnapping plot, and possibly willing participation from someone inside the Bank of Hawaii. And it sets the stage for Kaushal and Danny to go from thick as thieves to partners in crime. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kim and Julie set out to uncover the origin of Kaushal Niroula - a story that does start in Nepal, but not in any royal palace. Instead, they discover a poor young man with his eye on America and the drive to get there on his charm alone. Befriending an administrator from New College of California scores Kaushal the student visa he needs to make it to San Francisco and on campus he presents himself as a man of wealth. But an interview with his former roommate reveals that Kaushal is actually sleeping on a thin mattress, passing JC penny rugs off as wall art, and barely making rent - something his natural showmanship helps him keep secret. But New College has secrets of its own - the school is enmeshed in scandal and teetering on financial ruin. And Kaushal sees opportunity. Soon, he’s befriended the College President and used the promise of a hefty donation from his royal family to allegedly get his transcripts altered and extend his visa. It’s his first con on American soil - and when rumors of it get out, it helps put the final nail in New College’s coffin. Still, there’s one thing that doesn’t add up; at some point Kaushal did start throwing money around like a prince. The question was, where did it come from? To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tyson Wrensch knows the exact moment that Danny Garcia got past his defenses. It was when, early in their friendship, Danny told him about Bay Area millionaire philanthropist Thomas White – and the abuse he suffered at his hands. Tyson was moved by the trust he felt Danny had put in him. And that made Tyson trust Danny. But as Julie and Kim consider this pivotal moment, it raises new questions – how could Danny Garcia, an alleged victim himself, go on to victimize so many others? Is it possible that Thomas White wasn’t really a predator at all? Was he actually one of Danny’s victims? Trying to decode the Thomas White story will lead Kim and Julie to another seriously dangerous character: Danny Garcia’s cousin, Dennis. Dennis was Danny and Kaushal’s driver, an ex-con, weed farmer, and self professed black magic practitioner. On at least two occasions, Kaushal asked Dennis to kill for him. Dennis claims he knows the truth about the Thomas White affair. So, to find out, Kim and Julie will have to sit down with him, face to face. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hosts Julie Golden and Kim Kantner dive headfirst into the story behind the murder of a reclusive, gay Palm Springs millionaire, Cliff Lambert. Their first introduction to the story comes by way of a warning: very few people are likely to talk about this story because the characters behind the murder are that scary. Those characters are a gang of charming, charismatic, and ultimately dangerous con men - including Kaushal Niroula, the self-proclaimed “Prince of Nepal”, and Danny Garcia, one of San Francisco’s prettiest party boys. When our story begins, the only person willing to talk to Julie and Kim is Tyson Wrensch, a one-time private eye turned Silicon Valley exec who was taken for hundreds of thousands of dollars by Danny. Tyson has spent the years since being conned by his then best friend tracking down this group of savvy grifters and attempting to bring them to justice. Julie and Kim meet him on this journey - an odyssey that includes identity theft, near misses on the San Francisco BART train, and a trip to the desert to try and find what police never could. Cliff Lambert's body. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new podcast series about a pair of con men whose escalating crimes of greed left a trail of victims in their wake. The show follows the stories of Kaushal Niroula, Danny Garcia, and the victims whose bank accounts they drained and lives they upended. The two men masqueraded as real estate moguls, art dealers, bankers, and even royalty as their web of manipulation crossed academia, immigration, and finance. They scammed anyone they could — including each other — until they committed the one crime they couldn’t con their way out of: murder. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices