Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
Biohacking or Black Market? The Dark Side of Wellness | Scott Carney
08 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Andrew Huberman, these mega huge podcasters, they identify a problem. You want to live longer. You want to live healthier. And then they tell you that they have the solution. And usually it comes with a discount code, a supplement, and all the grips work a little bit different, but they also all work a little bit the same.
Things that I'm most known for now is, again, I'm looking at wellness grifters. I've done a bunch of pretty big podcasts on like, you know, Andrew Huberman's sex life. That was with the New York Magazine. If you've ever seen that, he was like sort of taken down recently. I was the primary, one of the primary sources in that.
I've done a big video recently on AG1, which is like a supplement powder that every podcast advertises. You take it once a day. Well, I looked into the founder's criminal past on that. That was ludicrous. He had this actually real estate crime in New Zealand where he did this rent-to-own scam on people. And so basically in the .com, not .com, in the 2007 scandal, real estate crisis.
Chris Ashenden, who was a former cop, former dropout of nutrition school, had failed to do a supplement company. He read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. It was like, hey, I can do this. And he started this grifting real estate company, which sold people contracts and houses on a rent-to-own basis, but was basically designed to steal all their money.
And it's more complex than that, but that's the gist. And he got indicted on 90 counts for violating fair trade practices. And he skipped out on his trial, fled New Zealand, backpacked around the world, landed in Phoenix, Arizona, and started the world's most profitable supplement company called AG1, which is like everywhere. It's worth like $1.2 billion right now.
And it was really interesting to go dig into his past and tell the story that no one else had come up with, even though the records are publicly available. It wasn't like too difficult to find. But I found it. And when I did that, this is crazy. AG Wan, when I was writing that piece, I reached out to them because part of being a journalist is you reach out to the people.
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Chapter 2: What does Scott Carney mean by 'wellness grifters'?
The lawyer who argued the case and got that plaintiff was the one writing me saying, Scott, you know, we're going to sue you. Um, and so I did, so I, but, but they were lying to me. They were telling me that Chris Ashenden, the founder of that company was never in jail. had never been convicted of a crime, had never done all these things.
And it just turns out they were lying, that they were just sending me these false records, these records that were misleading. And it was fun. After the video came out, and it's done quite well, it has like 300,000 views or something like that. After that video came out, And you have the exclusive here because I haven't actually talked about this publicly. They fired the legal team.
So I had a total victory. It was cool. I went from being threatened to winning that one. Doesn't happen too often.
Did he ever get extradited back to Australia?
No, no, no. By that time, he was a criminal, but it was on the various trading charges. But it was an old thing, and he had eventually paid all the fines and made all the restitutions that he needed. It's ancient history. But he didn't want the world to know that he was a criminal, right? Because he's selling a wellness brand. He's selling this thing that doesn't go well with a criminal history.
and uh yeah i put that out in the world what's the organ trafficking you wrote a book on organ trafficking i did yeah so uh the red market so i lived in i was so i'm an investigative journalist i write for wired for npr mother jones have a youtube channel sub stack all of that stuff um but i got my career as a foreign correspondent in india looking at organ trafficking
uh, sort of organized crime in India, in the tech centers, uh, and, you know, war corresponded stuff in that, in that region. So yeah, that book is right here. Look at this book. A beautiful thing.
It's called The Red Market on the Trail of the World's Organ Brokers, Bone Thieves, Blood Farmers, Child Traffickers, where I basically looked at the real world of people buying and selling human body parts. And it's a thing that actually happens. You can buy and sell human kidneys. They can buy skin and blood and uh, corneas, hair, surrogate, wombs, eggs, that sort of stuff.
And I spent a chapter on each sort of Oregon market. Um, it's about 10 years old now, or maybe even older, maybe it's 13 years old now. So it's a little bit out of date, but I can only say that the market has gotten way worse than it ever was back then.
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Chapter 3: How did Scott Carney investigate the founder of AG1?
I want to say I read a, Oh, I read a, an article in wired. magazine about this might have been wired where they actually had like how much they were going for uh the whole thing yeah you read my article oh did i yeah right yeah was there stuff in china
so um traditionally so yeah i mean so the thing that was happening in china at the time i was writing so we have this these dissident movements inside china the falun gong or falun dafa however you want to talk about if you've seen the shen yun posters all around america of like chinese people waving scarves you've maybe seen these billboards outside of like every major city uh that group is connected to this political dissident group
in China and they were being put in political prisons, like essentially Chinese gulags. At the same time, the Chinese government really didn't like these people because they had so many members, they were actually larger than the Chinese Communist Party. And they would round them up Put them into these gulags and then tissue type them. This is this is not crazy.
They would actually do like blood tests on them, take out their genetic markers. And there were there was a program to do executions on demand for organ procurement. And that was a program that at least was running between about 2005 and 2011, my book. China now says that they don't do it anymore, and I really hope that is true.
But I certainly talked to prisoners, former prisoners, who had been tissue-typed, who were part of this sort of Falun Dafa organization, who said that they were tissue-typed, and the other people in the prisons were not. And of course, people would then go leave the prison, and they'd never come back, never find them again. Horrible stuff. And there were even...
You know, there was this other book written. This isn't my book. This is someone else's book called Larry Kidney, Larry's Kidney by Daniel Asarosa. The reason why this book is so fascinating, it's not actually particularly well written. Sorry, Daniel. But it's a comedy book about a guy who's like deadbeat brother.
or cousin, deadbeat cousin needs a new kidney and he flies with him to China and they execute a prisoner to give him the kidney and ha ha ha, isn't that funny? But it's a true story of what would actually happen. So you have multiple sources coming into this horrible market.
How do you figure that out? So is this kind of like, if you're an American businessman and you need a new kidney, is there a guy, like I know a guy I can call type of thing? Like, hey, you can go on the dark web and say, hey, kidney's for sale. And then they send your whatever, they look for a match and they find one. And then what, you fly to China and you get one just like the book?
I mean, is it that simple?
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Chapter 4: What shocking facts did Scott uncover about organ trafficking?
I thought you were against it.
I am. They're idiots. I don't know why they contact me. I get all sorts of random emails from people. But yeah, they thought that I would broker. So I do have a policy. help people buy and sell human body parts. I don't know why I had to have that policy, but that's a policy that I keep to here in my tiny company.
Yeah, it's funny. I get contacted. Well, I really don't anymore, but there was a time when I would get contacted constantly by fraudsters who would say, hey, I can give you a few thousand dollars if you'll just have a conversation with me for like an hour. I'm like, I'm not doing that. I'm not getting out. I'm not getting added to your future indictment. Like, no thanks, I've been to prison.
Yeah, you were gonna be the Frank Abagnale of fraud, is that right? Yeah, so, yeah. Or I even had a guy one time kind of befriend me for months and then flew down to Tampa, wanted to have coffee. We had coffee and like three minutes into coffee, he said, look, you know, I originally, I contacted you and I came down here because I wanted you to know that I'm like a, for real,
And I need you to help me do this. And I was like, I'm not doing that. What are you doing? Like, this is what are you stupid? So I was like, I'm not going to do that. And then I, of course, I realized, like, so you contacted me three to six months ago or whatever it was, because you were hoping that you were going to con me into helping you. Like, come on, man. What are you doing? Right. Right.
People are idiots. Yeah. What are some of the what are what are the other books that you've written?
uh so i've written again six of them and they are like i'm pretty add if you've already been watching me i i look like a person who has add um i i they're all over the place the first is on organ trafficking the second one is is called the enlightenment trap and it's about how the quest for spiritual perfection can end very very poorly for people so i i tracked down i was um i was looking at people who meditated until they died
or committed suicide on meditation retreats, and sort of the spiritual wellness grist that happens around the world. And I was looking out of Indic traditions, but it applies everywhere.
What is that? I don't understand what you're saying. Like, where people pay to be taught? Or are you just saying people need to meditate? to extremes and extreme?
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Chapter 5: What advice does Scott have for aspiring journalists and content creators?
and they've hooked you, right? I mean, it's just a classic rift. It's a classic fucking scam. And we've been doing that scam probably since the beginning of humanity in one way or another. And so it's really complex because there are good things about it. It's not bad to learn to dance, right? Not bad to like try a lot of things.
But they get cynical at some point once power and money get involved. You know, why is it that all of the gurus out there, all of the religious teachers end up fucking their 20-year-old students. Like there's a reason. It doesn't matter what faith we're in, right? Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, they're all fucking their 20-year-old students or their kids or things like that.
Like it is a trope around the world.
Yeah, I was going to say the Grant Cardone, it seems like the whole Grant Cardone, you know, you get the, he initially, he said, it sounds like a bunch of really good stuff. And then when it does, if it doesn't work out, it's because you're not doing it right because you need special, you need special classes for you to really focus in on this. And so pay, sign up for my $2,200 course.
And then if that doesn't work and it, you know, it always, You're always on the cusp of winning, and if it's not working out, it's because it's you, not us, not me.
Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's the classic faith-healing grift, right? The tent revivalists in Christianity all had that same grift. We're also seeing it now in a different form among wellness influencers and even influential scientists who come on. like the Peter Attias or the Andrew Hubermans, these mega huge podcasters who sell science in the same way.
They're doing these same things where they offer hope. They identify a problem. You want to live longer. You want to live healthier. You... don't want to linger in your old age in a hospital bed and then die. Even the Buddha was selling that one. He was like, you don't want to be frail. You want to flatten the curve and just go right off. The problem is real.
We all want to be healthy, happy and strong. And then they tell you that they have the solution. And usually it comes with a discount code, a supplement and something that's pretty wonky and bullshit and not government regulated in a proper way. And all the grifts work a little bit different, but they also all work a little bit the same.
Right. So what other books? So you've written six books.
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Chapter 6: How does organ trafficking operate on the dark web?
Uh, there's no reason to do that for like this book here because that book hasn't earned out at the bent. It'll be there forever.
right yeah i um i got an advance for like 3 500 when i was in prison for one of the books that i wrote here and uh it was probably two years before i ever saw anybody you know it's it's like i want to say is it every six months every six months or something i get a check for you know as a check between me so the Um, the literate, my, my literary agent takes a piece, could say a little more.
And then it's split 50, 50 between me and the author. Well, I mean, I'm the author, but the subject, the other guy.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so I get a check every once every six months or so for 50 bucks or $65 or $60 or, you know, but I remember that 3,500 bucks in prison was huge. Yeah. Right. What, what was way more money was the, um, I had gotten an article written about the book in Rolling Stone magazine and we optioned it. So it's like every 18 months I get a check for like seven grand.
And that's still for like that's happened four different times. I keep waiting for them to either make the movie. Unlikely.
um or um stop optioning it but they keep optioning it they even i i think warner brothers optioned it three times and then they sent it to like mgm or somebody and then they optioned it for even more money which to me isn't much as well as an extra like 1100 bucks or something so but um yes it's great to get suddenly you just get a check they have my ex-wife's
address so every every 18 months i get a phone call saying you've got you got a letter here from some lawyer who and then she tells me the law i'm like oh that's a check yeah right on
That's great. And you know what? I mean, I haven't had one of those recurring options in a while. All my books have been optioned and they don't send me... Your situation is really cool. Oftentimes, they've never given me the recurring 7,000 every six months check. I've heard about it. So congratulations on that. You won. You won that battle. And they'll never make the movie.
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Chapter 7: What are the ethical implications of organ markets?
I know. I know. I've been... I've been out of prison for – in two days, it'll be five years. Five years. What is today? Yeah, it'll be five years. And I've been – for five years, I have had – I've written 22 synopses and seven books and optioned – seven of them. And, um, most of the options do not continue to go right.
You get one option and then they, they're going, they plan on re-optioning. They want to talk about it. They're going to talk to their team. They're going to talk to Jennifer. She's getting back from vacation. You know, it's always like, okay, I'll call you back in two weeks. Well, let's schedule something. And then you, they don't, they just don't do it. So
Um, and you know, I've had all the meetings and all the sizzle reels that have been made and all the pitches and yeah, it's, it's nearly, and then I'll, I'll go, it's nearly impossible. And then I'll go to the movies and I'll watch a, or go to watch Netflix and watch some movie and halfway through the movie thing. How the fuck did this get made?
Yeah. It's trash, right? It's a total trash show.
Yeah. Well, you know, and as you're doing it, you realize that the way they get made is that you know, Todd's niece is friends with so-and-so and so-and-so, you know, and before you know it, you're like, like, this is all like nepotism. It's a combination of nepotism and, you know, and, and, you know, backscratching and just who knows who, and it's just, and it really just doesn't,
The way these movies gets made is not the way you think that they get made. They're not picking the best. It's just when the stars align and suddenly this movie gets made and sometimes it's a great movie and sometimes it's just dog crap. And you're like, it has nothing to do with really whether it was a great story or not.
A hundred percent, man. Like, yeah, I've been in constant conversations for I think like 10 years on all of the books. And it's like every Hollywood person wants to have a meeting. And in general, actually, it's funny. The reason why I went over to YouTube recently and I've sort of built up this YouTube presence in the last like year, you know, going from nothing.
Now I have like 50,000 or 60,000 followers, something like that. That's a lot. On YouTube? Yeah, that great? Subscribers?
Yeah. That's a fucking – that's a lot of fucking – bro. It's great. The average person – it takes – the average person on YouTube that uploads consistently, it takes three years to get 1,000 subscribers.
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Chapter 8: What personal experiences shaped Scott's investigative career?
And, you know, so if you, if you're, you were a part of a crime 30 years ago, And you were never indicted. And now you've got three kids and a business. And suddenly you get a phone call. Hey, by the way, you know, that drug conspiracy you were a part of that you were never found guilty or you were never indicted for. You thought had gone away.
Well, there's going to be a documentary and we're going to be talking about your involvement. Would you like to be interviewed? If you mention my name, you have no proof. Well, we have transcripts. We have FBI 302s. We have homicide reports. We have police reports. Suddenly it's, I'm going to get a lawyer. It's just super interesting.
And what's really interesting is the people that are willing to talk.
people that you think oh this guy is probably not going to talk and they're like absolutely i'll talk it's 25 years ago they're like i don't what do i care and then other people they're they're unwilling to talk so it's it's it's been interesting so i'm i'm dying to see what happens and i'm enjoying the process of going through it mostly because
I always joke that my fear is you go through the whole process and then you watch the documentary or the film or the series and you go, eh, it was all right. So I'm trying to enjoy the process of watching all of this happen.
Yeah.
You know, so we'll see what happens.
Never know with Hollywood. I don't put any faith in them to actually pull things off. No, I don't either. I do hope that it does work out for you. They do air. I've been in just too many rooms where documentaries, at any stage, they can fall apart. At any stage.
Listen, I'm not holding my breath. You know what I'm saying? I'm kicked back kind of just watching. Luckily, at this point, I'm kind of done.
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