Multimillionaire businessman Igor Kotelnikov is used to the high life: fancy cars, big houses, fine dining. He’s lived a life of luxury, which is why it’s hit him so hard to be sent to a pre-trial detention centre in Moscow. These are some of the worst jails in the whole country. Will Kotelnikov survive? What do you think…

Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv

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Russian financier Georgy Chibisov is partying on a yacht on the Moscow River. At some point in the night he steps out for a breather. It’s the last one he’ll ever take. Georgy falls into the water and drowns. But did he really fall, or was he pushed?

Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv

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Municipal lawmaker Vitaly Kapustin is found hanged in a tall tree using a cable attached to his car. The police rule it a suicide, that is until an eyewitness makes a statement saying Kapustin’s hands were tied behind his back…

Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv

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We’re halfway through season 2, so this episode is an interlude of sorts. As you can probably imagine, the work that goes into this project is massive. We’re fighting an uphill battle against Kremlin state media. FSB interference, and a huge Russian wall of silence. We want to share with you some of the behind the scenes struggles of the Sad Oligarch extended universe...

Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv

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Senior accountant Evgeny Postrigan hangs himself in the garage of his home in the closed city of Zheleznogorsk. This is a place shrouded in secrecy, where weapons grade plutonium and military satellites are produced. On the surface, Postrigan was just depressed. But we dug deeper and discovered a huge web of corruption and state embezzlement...

Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv

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The dead body of Alexey Sinitsyn is laid out under a bridge in Russia’s European exclave, Kaliningrad. It is missing one very vital component—the head. This local CEO has somehow ended up decapitated. A nylon tow rope is laid out near the corpse. The head is further away. When the police arrive, their initial cause of death is “suicide”… How? 

Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv

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Russian rocket scientist Vitaly Melnikov has been picking wild mushrooms his whole life. Somehow though, at 77-years-old, he picks a bad one and eats it up. This kills him. His body shuts down and he's entered the eternal cosmos for real. Coincidentally, this happens just after the extremely important Kremlin Lunar 25 mission he worked on malfunctioned and crashed into the surface of the moon...

Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv

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Russian oligarch Roman Starovoyt is having a very bad day. He’s the Minister of Transport, a prestigious position in Putin’s regime. Well, he was the Minister of Transport. Starovoyt has just been fired for allegedly stealing money from the state. After clearing out his office, he cleared out his head with a bullet. At a glance, it's an open-and-shut case. Under scrutiny, it's anything but...

Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv

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Deep in the Siberian peninsula, a corrupt politician falls out of the window of his home and hits the ground hard. Eyewitnesses describe the scene, explaining how he plummeted to the concrete and died. By the time the news hits the government controlled media though, something has changed. The fall is now reported as a heart attack and the coroner declares no foul play before the body is even cold. Something doesn't add up...

Jake Hanrahan's projects: www.hanrahan.tv

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Since January 2022, dozens of Russia's wealthiest oligarchs and power brokers have died suddenly. One was poisoned with frog venom. Two killed their whole families. Several fell out of high windows. Most of the deaths are suspicious. Russia says they're coincidental suicides—that the deceased were simply depressed. We don't think so...

Sad Oligarch is an investigative podcast series that looks into the strange deaths of the Russian elite, unravelling a dark tale of Kremlin corruption and Putin's political dictatorship across the world. This is season two—Russian oligarchs are still dying and things have gotten even weirder...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.