Scamfluencers - Eddie Antar: The Criminal Antics of Crazy Eddie | 211

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Eddie Antar was the king of the deal, the man whose ads screamed at you from your TV set promising prices so low they were practically insane. He turned Crazy Eddie into a retail phenomenon, making himself and his family incredibly wealthy by hawking stereos, TVs and electronics at seemingly unbeatable prices. The brand's wildly memorable commercials became some of the most iconic ads in TV history. But behind the blaring deals and larger-than-life persona was a tangled web of fraud – including tax evasion, insurance scams, and bitter family betrayals. Even though his empire eventually came crashing down, somehow Eddie never stopped being a New York City icon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of scam influencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. Sarah, are there any ads from your childhood that are like still indelible in the hippocampus for you even now at your extremely old age? Yes, of course. I mean, anyone who grew up in Canada in the 90s and early 2000s will remember the PSAs from concerned children's advertisers, they warned against everything from playing around train tracks to eating random berries that you find, to acne, to drug addiction. Those raised me, okay?

Yeah, uh, formative memories, just watching ads as children. Yes. Who would have thought? Yes. Yes. Well, Sarah, today's story might remind you of some of those ads that you may have caught on television in the early 90s, a relic of the 80s, and. of a kind of retail culture and scam culture that we will just never have again.

It's April of 1992, and inside a police station in Bern, Switzerland, officers are trying to reason with a very agitated man. He's stocky, sweaty, and shaky, with a dark beard and a receding hairline. He looks like someone who has been under a lot of stress for a very long time. The man tells the police his name is David Cohen. He says he's a gemstone dealer from Brazil. and he's been locked out of his Swiss bank account, which has $32 million in it. David tells the cops that he doesn't know why he can't access his money, but he needs

this problem fixed and fast. He's already tried going to the bank in person, and he even hired a lawyer. But none of that worked, so now he's come to the police, hoping they can help. David's frantic energy makes them suspicious, but they look through his paperwork and a lot of his story does check out. He has a Brazilian passport and a Swiss person. bank account, which really is frozen, with millions of dollars sitting inside. But still, something feels off to the cops. So the police send David Cohen's information, including his photo, to several government agencies, until eventually it ends up at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. When the SEC's lawyer see David's passport photo, they recognize him right away,

and he is definitely not a jewel salesman. He's someone they've been trying to track down for years. His name is Eddie Antar, and he's the mastermind behind a chain of New York electronic stores called Crazy Eddie. Sarah, are you familiar with Crazy Eddie at all? No, and it seems like something I should really know, because how do I not know about someone named Crazy Eddie? I know, like a weirdo in New York, you should know him. I definitely should. Well, in the late 70s and early 80s, Eddie's stores were one of the most recognizable brands in the tri-state area. You might have even seen one of his famously chaotic late-night ads like this one.

Get a stereo system. Get a turntable, tape deck, amplifiers, speakers. Get them now because Crazy Eddie can't be beat. With prices so low, he's practically giving it all away. You know, this is the kind of local ad that I just go crazy for. And I feel like every kind of region has their own type of crazy Eddie guy. Like, just someone who buys a lot of ad space and you're kind of like, yeah, maybe I'll sell my goal. or go to this crazy warehouse to get cheap things.

And it's just like it's enticing. Like you remember these, you know. Yeah, very, very memorable. But at this point, Eddie has been on the run from the U.S. authorities for years. By the time the SEC alerts Swiss officials that they found their guy, he's already disappeared again. Still, his trip to the police station sets off a chain reaction,

one that will eventually bring his years on the run to a dramatic end. Because Eddie Antar didn't just build a flashy reality. retail empire. Behind the scenes, he orchestrated a massive web of fraud that ripped off customers, vendors, and investors for millions of dollars. For now, the feds are still a couple of steps behind him. But pretty soon, Crazy Eddie is going to have to face the music in beautiful stereo. From Audible originals, I'm Sachi Cole, and I'm Sarah Hagi. And this is scamfluencers. Eddie Antar made himself, and almost everyone related to him, immensely rich by selling stereos, TVs, and electronic equipment at rock-bottom prices.

His stores rose to prominence thanks to some of the most instantly recognizable advertisements in modern American history. But behind the scenes, the Crazy Eddie Empire was a rat's nest of scams and scandals, including tax evasion, insurance fraud, family betrayals, and even a near-fatal stabbing. Eddie stole from a lot of people and cost to shareholders millions. Yet somehow, to this day, many people still remember him with surprising fondness. He's become a New York City icon, eccentric, over the top, and impossible to fully pin down. This is Eddie Antar, the criminal antics of Crazy Eddie.

Eddie Antar is born in December 1947. His grandparents immigrated to the United States from Syria in the 20s. And now, the Antar family lives in a tight-knit Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn. Their household is pretty packed. Eddie lives with his parents, two brothers, and a sister. Growing up, Eddie is surrounded by family businesses, including his dad's Sam's successful window dressing company. By the 1960s, Sam's business is doing so well

that he starts buying shares in some of the stores he decorates. But Sam isn't just interested in making money, he wants to be sure to keep it. So he starts hiding cash around the house in order to avoid reporting it to the IRS. Young Eddie watches closely as his father hides stacks of bills in the radiator cabinet and inside a loose ceiling panel. As a teen, Eddie is bored by school. By 16, he drops out completely. He argues with his parents about it, but in the end, they can see that Eddie's gifts probably lie outside the classroom.

He quickly starts working a gift shop in Times Square, and it turns out he is a natural salesman. Eddie targets tourists and sells them things like cameras and pocket knives at 900% markups. He brags to his friends about how easily he can rip off customers and about the money he makes doing it, up to a thousand bucks a week. Wow, Crazy Eddie, you would have loved, like, drop shipping. Thank God Crazy Eddie never had sheen. It's normal to do that now. Well, in 1969, when Eddie is 21 years old, his dad, Sam, approaches him with a business proposal. Sam just bought an electronics store in Brooklyn with Eddie's cousin, Ronnie,

and he wants Eddie to help manage it. In exchange, he'll give Eddie a one-third ownership stake. Eddie's dream is to own his own business, not split one with his dad and cousin, but he's not in a position to turn it down. He's in love with a blonde Jewish woman named Debbie, and they want to get married and start a family. So Eddie takes the job.

Eddie, Ronnie, and Sam do their best with the store. By 1971, they've renamed it. sights and sounds, which is definitely a step up. But still, business is not booming. There's one big thing holding them back. At this time, under U.S. retail laws, manufacturers set the prices for their products, which means stores can't slash prices or offer big discounts to undercut their competitors. This makes it hard for sights and sounds to stand apart from every other store. And after just three years, the business is struggling to stay afloat. The numbers are actually so dismal that run Bonnie sells his steak in the store to Eddie.

But Eddie is not ready to give up. So he gets creative. He figures if he can't lower the official price of his products, maybe he can find ways to buy them cheaper. He starts purchasing stereos and TVs from a supplier that also happens to be a front for a mafia-run gambling operation. The operation is making millions from underground betting so they can afford to cut Eddie a deal on the merchandise.

Next, he starts employing some of the sales tactics he perfected with Times Square tourists. He institutes a policy he calls, nail him at the door. Basically, no customer is allowed to leave empty-handed. If someone's trying to walk out of the store without buying anything, Eddie's salesmen are supposed to pressure them

until they buy something. Sometimes Eddie stands at the door himself, intimidating customers until they make a purchase. That sounds like being held hostage. And I feel like when you walk into a store, you can feel that energy. pretty easily, but to physically have it happen is a whole other thing where I feel like, I don't know. Some people would just be like, sure, I'll buy it. Who cares?

Yeah, well, Sarah, all of this actually works, especially because Eddie hires employees who are hustlers just like him. He builds a staff of classic New York guys who fit right into a Safty Brothers movie. Some are vaudeville actors, others or Times Square scammers, but they all know how to smooth talk a regular Joe into spending hundreds of dollars. And Eddie has a natural charisma that gives him an almost magnetic authority over his employees. When the store feels disorganized or chaotic, he rallies his staff with a big dramatic speech. At annual meetings, he walks around with his arms raised like Rocky, while everyone chants his name. Between his loyal staff, his shady suppliers, and his aggressive sales tactics,

Eddie's new version of sights and sounds finally starts to turn a profit. But he still needs a gimmick, something that will really set him apart from the competition. So, in 1973, he renames the store Crazy Eddie. The joke is that his prices are so low, it's insane. But this rebranding isn't enough to make the store really stand out. There are other retailers doing the same thing, including an electronic salesman who calls himself Crazy Earl. Eddie needs something truly unique. And luckily for him, inspiration is.

about to arrive over the airwaves. Around this time, Jerry Carroll is working as a radio DJ in New York. Jerry's tall with a wide forehead and an expressive, elastic face. And he has the kind of smooth voice that's perfect for radio. On air, he goes by Dr. Jerry, and his bit is that he prescribes listeners a steady dose of rock and roll. Like most DJs, part of Jerry's job is reading ad copy. One day, he's handed a spot for a store called Crazy Eddie. The copy ends with a slogan written out in a very particular way.

His prices are insane. Jerry decides to lean into it and really stretches the word out. Not long after, Jerry gets a call from Eddie Antar, aka Crazy Eddie himself. Eddie says he loved the way Jerry delivered the ad read. He loved it so much that he makes Jerry an offer. He wants Jerry to star in TV commercials for the store. Jerry's flattered and probably excited.

to step out of the radio booth and in front of some cameras. So he says yes. Eddie wants his commercials to feel fresh and attention-grabbing, so he plays around with a few ideas, like a commercial where a bunch of greasers sing a doo-op song in a public bathroom. But once the ads start airing, it quickly becomes clear that one particular format works better than anything else. In these ads, Jerry wears a blazer and a turtleneck

and sits in front of a towering stack of TVs and stereos. He speaks in a fast, high-pitched voice about Crazy Eddie's prices building towards his signature tagline. It's a crazy Eddie blowout blitz and Crazy Eddie's going nuts with his lowest sale prices ever. See Crazy Eddie now his blowoutput sale prices are insane. Yeah, this is definitely the blueprint for all of those types of ads. It's like very striking. The stacked TVs and stuff looks like what people put at galleries and this guy's screaming

at you and throwing cash and you're like. Yeah, like it gets you jacked up. So I think these people are onto something advertising-wise for sure. Yeah. Well, Eddie starts buying up a ton of airtime on late-night cable TV. And the ads quickly gain a cult following. Jerry's screaming is annoying. People literally come into the store to complain about him.

But Eddie is a salesman, and he knows there's no such thing as bad attention. The ads stick in people's minds and crazy Eddie's sales numbers start to rise. Jerry becomes a local celebrity too. People who see him around New York think he's the real crazy Eddie. Because Eddie is so hands-on with commercials, he added scripts and micromanages all the details. He and Jerry end up spending a lot of time together. They hang out and talk about everything from philosophy to politics.

Jerry genuinely likes his boss, but he's definitely eccentric. Despite the almost cult-like loyalty he inspires in his staff, Eddie is a very private guy. He doesn't want to be interviewed and rarely lets anyone take his picture. He spends almost two years wearing the same lucky sweater every day, and he has a German shepherd named Sugar

who licks people's ears when they come in for meetings. He's also obsessed with exercise. So when Jerry stops by his office, Eddie's often peddling furiously on an exercise bike or hanging upside down in gravity boots. So he really is crazy, Eddie.

He lives up. to the name. Yeah, he's like a true weirdo, you know? True blue weirdo. It's really interesting that this guy clearly wants to be behind the scenes despite being, you know, usually the type that wants a lot of attention, you know? Yeah, he's definitely giving off some Wizard of Oz vibes, like behind the scenes puppet master. Well, as the commercials start catching on, the business also gets an unexpected boost from changes in the law. In the mid-70s, the rules that allowed manufacturers to that the prices their products could be sold for began to disappear. Once this happens, Eddie can really start undercutting his competition.

He quickly doubles down on advertising. He hires a small crew of acquaintances to make as many ads as possible, as fast as they can. Jerry dresses up as characters like Santa and Superman. He motor mouths his way through musical numbers, seasonally themed ads, and parodies of movies like Saturday Night Fever and Casablanca. In the end, Crazy Eddie will run more than six. 7,500 radio and TV spots, most of them featuring Jerry in some way. The ads supercharged the business, and what started as a regional curiosity, starts growing

into something bigger. By 1977, Dan Aykroyd is parodying them on Saturday Night Live. Crazy Ernie, boy is Ernie crazy crazy. He's been out of again, folks, slashing prices solo. You won't believe it. Shop around and come see for yourself. Crazy Ernie will not be undersold. Crazy Ernie is really crazy. I don't mean crazy prices, crazy. I'm talking crazy not playing with a full deck crazy. I mean, really crazy. To tell you the truth, I don't like being left alone with them.

You know, if I had a shovel or something to stun him with, you know? You'd be crazy not to take advantage of these bargains. His prices are insane. Wow. This means it was a very, very big deal. Pre-internet. Yes. Now a lot of sketch comedy,

they have a lot of things that are viral online to draw from, but that this was just an ad, on TV in a very specific region and it spoke to people in how insane it was is very telling. I feel like this is a huge success for Eddie. Yeah, it's kind of nuts. And about a year after that sketch airs, Eddie opens a new store in New Jersey. On the morning of the opening day, there's a line of 20,000 people around the block, waiting for free t-shirts and frisbee's.

And, most importantly, the chance to meet Jerry I are. Business is booming. Eddie's running one of the greatest marketing campaigns in America. But he's just getting started. Soon, he's going to turn the volume on his success all the way up to 11. It's 1977, the year that SNL runs its crazy Eddie parody sketch. And Eddie has his chain of stores running exactly the way he wants it. He's got most of his family on the payroll.

His wife, Debbie, is collecting a check for a dubious executive position. His brother, Mitchell, has been managing the chain's day-to-day operations, and his dad, Sam M, is a part owner of the franchise. Eddie is the lodestar for the family's fortunes, and he's determined that those fortunes go up and up and up. On the surface, a typical day at a crazy Eddie store looks like any other retail gig. Picture a crowded shop filled with 70s electronics, everything from cheap, junky systems to high-end stereos.

Customers are milling around, testing out the merchandise. Most of them will end up buying something since the employees are still using Eddie's nail-em-at-the-door system. Meanwhile, in the back of the building, where they keep the inventory, the roof is leaking. A lesser business owner might see this as a liability. But at Crazy Eddie, it's an opportunity. If a store has a leaky roof or a burst pipe,

Eddie doesn't move stuff out of the way. Instead, he gets his employees to gather up any merchandise, that isn't selling and move it right under the leak. Then, he collects insurance on the damaged items. He does this so often that he has a name for it, spiking the claim. This is kind of what I expect from Crazy Eddie. I feel like he's someone who will constantly be thinking of a scheme to make as much money as possible, to bend the law to his will as much as he can.

But I do wonder how long this can last, this leaky pipe, damaged goods type thing, you know? Yeah, I mean, it kind of gets worse because back on the shop floor, let's say a customer is finally ready to leave with what they think is a brand-new stereo system. There's a decent chance that it's actually a floor model that's been illegally repackaged and resold. But some of the shadiest dealings happen at the register.

Since it's the 70s, most customers pay with cash. When they hand over the full price of the item they're buying, plus sales tax, the cashier records the sale in a special pay. book. But chances are, this sale won't go on Crazy Eddie's official records. The store keeps two sets of books. One is the real sales record, which Eddie and his dad used to keep track of their actual profits. The second book has the numbers they show to the IRS. In this book, they deliberately leave out a bunch of their sales, which means the totals they report are significantly lower. After all, the less income Crazy Eddie reports to the IRS, the fewer taxes they'll have to pay.

Yeah, so I mean, I guess they are engaging in some pretty run-of-a-mill tax fraud, right? Yeah, exactly. Now, the second part of this plan involves skimming the sales tax off all of these unrecorded purchases. The store still collects sales tax on every purchase, so they seem legit. But since they're not reporting that money to the government, Eddie just pockets it. And I mean that literally. He keeps a lot of this extra cash at home under his floorboards or inside mattresses. just like his dad did when he was growing up.

There's actually so much of this skimmed-off cash piling up at his house that eventually Eddie finds a new place to stash it in overseas banks. He literally flies to Israel with money taped to his body, and when he gets there, he deposits it in a secret account at a bank. Okay, you know, I'm starting to think I fully understand why Crazy Eddie

doesn't want to be known as the actual Crazy Eddie. because he would have been so famous if he had been in those ads. There would have been so many eyes on him knowing that he was doing something weird. So it actually is probably one of the smarter things the scammer we have covered has done is to have someone else be like the mascot for your scam. Yeah, it's a rarity that we have a scam artist who isn't desperate to tell people that he's ripping everybody off. And all these shady business practices have been working really well so far.

Crazy Eddies is doing great until one night when Eddie is rushed to the hospital. Eddie was leaving a bar on the east side when he got stabbed by two men, and now he's in critical condition. The doctors are going to operate on him, but nobody can say whether he'll live or die. The whole Antar family is on edge, and it doesn't help that reporters are sniffing around.

When one of them asks Eddie's dad to give comment on the incident, he says Eddie was just at the bar to inspect the sound system. But the family knows that. the truth. Eddie drinks a lot, and he's a mean drunk. This injury was almost definitely the result of a bar fight. The situation would be scary no matter what, but Crazy Eddie literally lives and dies with its namesake. And if Eddie doesn't pull through, their empire will collapse like a waterlogged stereo. It's New Year's Eve, 1983, six years after the stabbing, and Debbie Antar is sitting in a car with her sister-in-law on East 80th Street in Manhattan.

Debbie should be at a party or maybe ringing in the new year at home with her five daughters. But instead, she's staking out her husband. That's right, Eddie is alive. And not just alive, he's thriving. With another woman. Eddie told Debbie that he'd be spending the night with work friends. But right now, she can clearly see him sitting in a limo waiting for his date to come downstairs. Unfortunately, this isn't a total surprise.

Eddie and Debbie's marriage has been on the rocks for a while. His infidelity is an open secret in the family, but this is a new low. And to add insult to injury, Eddie's mistress is also named Deborah. He literally calls her Debbie II. I don't know who that is more insulting to Deborah 1 or Deborah 2, because, you know, I would hate to be Deborah 2, but also being Deborah 1 makes you sound old. It's a lot. I don't want any of it, frankly. Yeah.

But if you had to pick. I went Deborah three. Okay, well, I'm Deborah four, so. Right, okay. Well, it turns out Eddie's brush with death didn't slow him down at all. The stabbing left him with a 10-inch scar across his abdomen and required six separate surgeries. But he survived. Debbie might have hoped that nearly dying would push Eddie to change.

Instead, the opposite happened. By now, their marriage is in shambles. Eddie comes home whenever he wants, and sometimes he doesn't come home. at all. But Debbie is still close to the rest of the Antar family. She lives across the street from Eddie's dad, Sam. None of the Antar's approve of Eddie stepping out on her. And Sam in particular has grown increasingly frustrated with his son. He's been encouraging Debbie to leave Eddie. In fact, he's the reason she knows Eddie is here tonight. Sam tipped her off and encouraged her to confront him. What Debbie doesn't know is that Sam has an ulterior motive. He's been wanting more

control over the crazy Eddie business for years. If Debbie and Eddie split up, she would be entitled to half of Eddie's shares in the company, making her a powerful ally who could help Sam take over the business. But Debbie isn't thinking about business right now. She's focused on Eddie. She and Eddie's sister get out of the car and approach Eddie's limo. From there, things get heated. The three of them starts screaming at each other. At one point, Debbie climbs onto the roof of the limo and starts pounding on it. Things keep escalating until Eddie slaps his sister and cross the face. Someone calls the police.

But before they arrive, Eddie gets in the limo and drives off. But he can't escape his family's wrath. For years afterwards, the Antars will refer to this incident as the quote, New Year's Eve Massacre. I love these dramatic, crazy people. I mean, the massacre, first of all, is the New Year's Eve Massacre, sounds like something that actually happened. It does. Yeah.

That involves a real massacre. Yeah, actual death. Honestly, that's quite creative of them. Yeah. I feel like this is almost like a scene out of a movie. Like, it feels like it's from Wolf of Wall Street or something. It does. That's literally that scene where she pulls him out of the limo.

Yeah. Yeah, it's almost exactly that. Yeah. Well, the next day, New Year's Day, Eddie shows up to his dad's house and accuses Sam of setting the whole thing up. It's such an intense confrontation that Eddie's mother feels. Faints, and Sam has a heart attack the next day. He survives, but Eddie's marriage doesn't.

In 1985, after 16 years of marriage, Debbie officially asks for a divorce. First, Eddie nearly lost his life, and now he's lost his wife. With his personal life unraveling, the guardrails around him start to disappear. Soon, Eddie's going to make a drastic move to push Crazy Eddie to even greater success. But in the process, he'll strip away the static around the electronics empire, and reveal the fraud underneath, loud and clear. I'm Leon Nafeck, best known as the host and co-creator of podcasts, Slow Burn, Fiasco, and Think Twice, Michael Jackson.

I'm here to tell you about my show, Final Thoughts, Jerry Springer, whose name is synonymous with outrageous guests, taboo confessions, and vicious on-stage fights. But before the Jerry Springer show became a symbol of cultural decline, its namesake was a popular Midwestern politician and a serious-minded idealist with lofty. ambitions. Through dozens of intimate

and revealing interviews with those who knew Springer best, I examined Springer's lifelong struggle to reconcile his TV persona with his political dreams and aspirations. Named one of the best podcasts

of the year by the New Yorker and Rolling Stone, final thoughts, Jerry Springer, is a story about choices, how we make them, how we justify them to ourselves, and how we transcend them, or don't.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge the whole series ad-free, right now on Audible. Start your Audible subscription in the Audible app. I'm Leon Nafak, best known as the host and co-creator of podcasts, Slow Burn, Fiasco, and Think Twice Michael Jackson. I'm here to tell you about my show, Final Thoughts, Jerry Springer,

whose name is synonymous with outrageous guests, taboo confessions, and vicious on-stage fights. But before the Jerry Springer show became a symbol of cultural decline, its namesake was a popular Midwestern politician and a serious-minded idealist, with lofty ambitions. Through dozens of intimate and revealing interviews with those who knew Springer best,

I examine Springer's lifelong struggle to reconcile his TV persona with his political dreams and aspirations. Named one of the best podcasts of the year by The New Yorker and Rolling Stone, Final Thoughts, Jerry Springer is a story about choices, how we make them, how we justify them to ourselves, and how we transcend them or don't.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or binge the whole series, free right now on Audible. Start your Audible subscription in the Audible app. By the early 1980s, Crazy Eddie is on a meteoric rise. The store has 14 locations across New York and New Jersey. Eddie and Jerry are still cranking out commercials. Eddie's coming up with creative ways to bend the rules and maximize their profit. And lately, he's been dreaming about taking Crazy Eddie public. An IPO would mean a massive payday for their family. but it would also require them to completely change how they run the business.

Right now, Eddie has been making money off the books by under-reporting sales revenue and pocketing sales taxes. In other words, he's making Crazy Eddie look less profitable than it really is. But going public means convincing investors the company is as successful as possible. It's pretty much the exact opposite of what he's been doing for years. And honestly, an IPO isn't really necessary. Crazy Eddie is already thriving. The rising popularity of VCRs has electronic stores booming. In 1982, Americans bought a total of 2 million VCRs.

By 1983, the number doubled to 4 million. In 1985, it'll reach nearly 12 million. And, according to an industry report, at the height of this boom, Crazy Eddie will account for 10% of all electronic sales in New York State. Eddie could simply keep doing what he's doing, and the whole Antar family would state. rich. Even Jerry, the voice of the commercials, tries to warn Eddie that going public is a bad

idea for someone who values privacy so much. But Eddie can't seem to turn down the chance to make more money. It's the only game he knows how to play. If the people who would benefit the most from him going public are saying don't do it, I do think that is worth considering. Yeah, I generally don't think going public is a good idea. Not that I have any personal relationship to that as somebody who works in like VC-funded media. But, you know, do what you will? Go for it. Like, what's the point?

You're already getting away with so much. Tales old as time, right? It's never enough. You know that. It's never enough, obviously. So the decision is made. Crazy Eddie will go public. Now, they need to come up with new ways

to juice sales numbers. The schemes they invent are pretty wild. For example, they just straight up lie to the government and their potential investors about their inventory. In one report, They claim that a single crazy Eddie store has 150 big screen TVs in it. Even though the sets are so big, there's physically no way that that many could fit inside the building. They also engaged in some good old-fashioned money laundering.

In one case, they persuade a client to write them more than $5 million in checks. Then they reimburse him with cash from Eddie's secret stash and falsify the paperwork to make the checks look like they came from legitimate store revenue. Meanwhile, Eddie's secret accounts, some in Israel, others newly opened, in Panama, become essential tools in the scheme. Cash, Eddie, had previously hidden away, now gets routed through these accounts and fed back into the company books

as if they were fresh income. And these tactics work. Between 1982 and 1983, the real business grows by a respectable 9%. But on paper, thanks to Eddie's fake numbers, it looks like sales grow by 35% that year. That's so unnecessary. It's like you already have like a respectable growth number.

He's not trying to save. a failing business. So why lie to that degree? The scaling of it is a bit weird to me, especially considering how cautious Eddie is in other ways. Yeah, huge waste of time. Well, there is still one looming threat to Eddie's financial well-being, his soon-to-be ex-wife, Debbie. Their divorce is still pending, and if she hires a good lawyer, she could take a big chunk of his earnings. Her share of their marital assets amounts to almost $9 million. And that's before. for the windfall Eddie expects from the Crazy Eddie IPO. So Eddie hatches another scheme.

In May 1984, he tells Debbie that she can have her divorce. Then he hands her a separation agreement, which stipulates that Debbie will get a measly $35,000 a year in alimony plus two grand a month for child care. The payments will stop when their youngest child turns 21. Or, if Debbie ever lives with another man for longer than three days. What? Yeah.

What? Yeah. Okay, I know it's the 80s, but... I mean, women just got their own credit card, Sarah. Think about it like that. Like, women just got the right to open their own credit cards. The fact that you can stipulate the amount of days someone lives with someone, honestly, this is so freaking messed up.

Yeah. I do feel like Debbie might outsmart him. I'm hoping she does. I'm hoping she does. Well, Debbie does have her doubts about signing the papers. but Eddie reassures her that this is just a temporary agreement until they finalize things properly in court. He also promises that when the dust settles,

he will gladly fork over her share of their marital assets. But the truth is, the paperwork actually is their final divorce agreement. But Debbie doesn't hire her own lawyer, so she doesn't realize it. Listen, we all know how you feel about divorce, okay? Oh, do we? Yes, we do. You literally wrote a book about it. I did.

What was it called? It was called Sucker Punch and it's out anywhere you can get your books. Thanks. But I would like to say, I can't imagine wanting to go back in time more and like shake this one. Be like, don't do it! They have five kids. It's crazy. They have five kids, yeah. Well, in September of 1984, with the company's numbers inflated and the divorce squared away,

Crazy Eddie goes public. It opens under the symbols, CRZY. on the New York Stock Exchange ticker, with nearly two million shares available at $8 each. By 1986, just two years after the IPO, the price climbs to $21.62 a share. Eddie is now officially a millionaire, and the company, which has a total of 1,500 employees,

is frequently written up in the financial press as a sure-fire investment. Things couldn't get any better. This is when Eddie brings in another family member, Sam E. Antar. Sammy looks like a caricature of a nerd. He's got prominent front teeth, big bushy eyebrows, and a wide forehead. He's been working part-time at his cousin Eddie's store since he was 14.

Even as a kid, he was interested in business. The other kids literally called him Sam capitalist in his high school yearbook. So when he told Eddie he wanted to become an accountant, his cousin offered to pay his college tuition. It was a kind gesture with an ulterior motive. Because once Sammy got a CPA license, Eddie hired him to be Crazy Eddie's controller. Even though Eddie's investors want someone experienced, someone outside the family, that just isn't how Eddie does things.

Plus, Sammy knows all about the, shall we say, curious way that Crazy Eddie operates its books. With a loyalist overlooking the books, Eddie probably feels like he's set. He's running his business like VCRs will never go out of style. But markets change and run. Right now, the electronics market is changing fast. In the fall of 1986, Crazy Eddie's fortune start turning sharply. Competitors have adopted his strategy of aggressive price cutting, and for the first time, Eddie's stores are losing customers.

On top of that, the company has expanded too quickly, with stores opening locations so close together that they're competing with each other. But by November, there's an even bigger problem. Electronic sales are fading across the country as the market starts to saturate. Eddie's sales numbers start falling sharply. Eddie sees the writing on the wall and decides to make a drastic move to protect himself. By this time, he's promoted Sammy to be CFO of the company.

And one day, while Sammy is on vacation, Eddie quietly sells $20 million of his own stock. This is technically legal, but it sends a terrible signal to investors, and it's about to trigger a chain reaction that will change his fortunes and his life forever. By 1987, things are looking rough for Crazy Eddie. After years of massive growth, the company is in serious trouble.

The market hasn't bounced back since Eddie dumped his initial batch of stock. Eddie and Sammy keep artificially inflating their inventory numbers, but it barely helps. The entire industry is tanking just as sharply as it rose, and no amount of fraud can change that. Then, in January of 1987, Eddie does something that shocks everyone. He resigns as CEO and president of Crazy Eddie. The company releases a statement saying that he left for personal reasons, but inside the business, everyone, including his brothers and father, is confused about what's going on.

A rumor starts flying around Wall Street that Eddie is sick. Someone tells a reporter that, quote, I heard everything from AIDS to cancer. Yeah, I can imagine it's really confusing when this person also is extremely private, like, people think the person in his commercials is him. So I can see why this is, one, shocking for many reasons, and two, extremely mysterious. Yeah, I mean, in a vacuum, people will leap to wild conclusions, but shockingly, not yet starting rumors of fraud. But Eddie is not actually sick anyway. He's just lying low and planning his next move, including hiding some

of his money in his offshore accounts. Meanwhile, Crazy Eddie Inc. releases a disastrous earnings report. Profits have plunged by 90%. Investors, suspicious of the timing of Eddie's stock sale, file lawsuits accusing him of insider trading. By spring, Eddie has hit rock bottom. He's at a bar mitzv at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. And most of the guests are in tuxes and gowns, but Eddie is standing in the corner wearing a gray jogging suit. He looks thinner than usual, and he's nursing a drink. Then, a man approaches him, carrying a stack of legal papers. Eddie has just been served. Debbie, his first wife,

has finally figured out the divorce papers he made her sign were not temporary. Now she's suing him. I feel like Debbie one, as in... Number one, first Debbie. Of Debbie one and two. Yeah. She is getting her lick back,

and I'm very happy for her. I love her. I love Debbie one. Well, Eddie thinks he knows who's responsible for this. Ever since the New Year's Eve massacre, the entire family has been deeply divided. It's Sammy and Eddie on. on one side and Eddie's father and brothers on the other.

Eddie is convinced that the rest of the family is out to get him. So he retaliates. First, Eddie asks his dad, Sam, to tell Debbie to leave him alone. When Sam refuses, Eddie allegedly fires him and his brother, Alan. His other brother, Mitchell, resigns a few weeks later in a gesture of solidarity. The entire family is imploding. While all of this chaos is unfolding, Eddie and Sammy have been meeting with a Canadian family called the Belsbergs, who are known for staging hostile takeovers of struggling companies.

To Sammy and Eddie, that sounds great. By May of 1987, Eddie tells both the press and the Crazy Eddie board that the Belsbergs are bidding to take over the company. For a while, it actually seemed like they might pull it off and sell the business before anyone discovers the fraud holding it up. But Eddie is about to become one of the biggest victims of his own scheme. He and Sammy have done too good job of making their company look profitable. Now that Crazy Eddie looks successful, multiple buyers are interested. And unlike a floor model stereo, this is one broken product that Eddie can't simply polish and resell.

It's June of 1987, just a month after Eddie told the press that the Bellsburgs wanted to buy his company. A Houston businessman named Elias Inn is in Chicago for the International Consumer Electronics Show, and he's being hounded by reporters. because he's just announced his own bid to buy Crazy Eddie. In a lot of ways, Elias feels like an alternate universe version of Eddie himself. He's a bearded, eccentric, self-made Jewish stereo salesman with the gift of Gab. But instead of New York, he's from Texas.

And while Eddie tends to be secretive and paranoid, Elias is charming and quotable. Elias tells a reporter that he knows a good deal when he sees one. After all, he's spent more than a decade in the electronics business. He took his own company public two years ago, and now he's looking for opportunities to expand. Along the way, he's been trying out a little Eddie-style showmanship to get what he wants. He's been talking smack in the press about Eddie's leadership style, saying he's gotten lazy and that his salespeople are rude.

He rents an apartment in New Jersey near Crazy Eddie's head office and starts buying up as much of the company's stock as he can, laying the groundwork for a hostile takeover. Yeah, you know, it must really be painful to have, like you're tethered, be the one to take you down. Like someone who's so similar to you. Yeah. It's like having your bizarre self be the one who holds you accountable.

We all have our own person who's very similar to us, who's kind of our enemy. And I'm saying it would be very painful to have the guy who's kind of like me be the one to really take my business down. And it's kind of what Eddie deserves. Yeah. Well, if that drama wasn't enough, the authorities have started to take it. notice. Elias doesn't know this yet, but the store employees are already summoned to testify to the SEC, and Sammy has sent six tractor trailers full of documents out to be shredded. Well, all this drama starts to make Elias uneasy. In July, he tries to drop out of the running,

but Eddie's dad and brothers ask if they can meet with him instead. They've decided that they want to align themselves with Elias' bid and offer to help him out if he ends up running the company. Maybe it's because they want the chance to get revenge on Eddie, or maybe it's because, if the authorities get involved, they want to distance themselves from Eddie and Sammy as much as possible. Whatever the reason, Elias is now a pawn in the Antar Family game. In September, just a few months after he made his first move, he watches as Eddie sells half his remaining shares, $6.1 million worth.

But Elias tells the press that Crazy Eddie isn't doomed. It just needs a little direction. He even doubles. down on his bid by teaming up with another financier. Together, they start buying more shares in the company. And in November of 1987, they finally win control of Crazy Eddie. The first thing they do is hire a new CFO, who starts going through the company's books. And when he finishes, he breaks the news to Elias.

Crazy Eddie is a fucking disaster. The company is basically just a tangled web of different kinds of fraud. Eddie and Sammy overstated its inventory by $65 million. It is so much worse than anything they could have possibly imagined. Elias tries his best to salvage what he can, but by 1989, less than two years after he took over, it's clear that Crazy Eddie is beyond saving. In February, Elias resigns a CEO.

Soon after that, Crazy Eddie Inc. declares bankruptcy and closes all its doors. Jerry Carroll records one final radio ad for the company where he says, in a somber voice, Crazy Eddie, may he rest in peace. Damn, how did he die? Was it his own doing that this business shuttered? He died from being too cool. He just died from being too cool, obviously.

And overstating the inventory by $65 million, this is such an immense fumble for something that was like a proto best buy, Well, even though his company has died, the real Eddie is still very much alive. And as people start looking more closely into his company's massive collapse, Eddie's life is somehow about to get even more insane. It's the early 1990s and a lawyer named Richard Simpson is sitting in his office at the SEC, going through the crazy Eddie case file for what feels like the millionth time. Richard started at this job in 1989.

And during his first week on the job, his boss's hand. him this case. Ever since then, he's been trying to entangle the sprawling web of fraud that brought the company down, working through stacks of financial documents and deposing members of the Antar family who are the only people who really know what happened inside the business. But Richard can't figure out who to trust. The Antars just wind up squabbling and blaming one another, implicating other family members while exonerating themselves. It's been an uphill battle, but by the end of 1989, they had enough evidence. to file a civil case against Eddie.

And in January of 1990, they got a break when a federal judge issued a preliminary ruling in their favor. Eddie surrendered to the authorities the next month, and it looked like investigators were finally going to get him on the stand. But when they held Eddie's next court hearing, he was a no-show.

He'd gone AWOL. Now, Eddie is officially on the lamb, and Richard knows Eddie has millions stashed away in overseas bank accounts, so there's a very real chance he might never come back to the U.S. again. Now, on top of all the other work he has to do, Richard is trying to figure out where in the world this guy disappeared to.

Richard is a financial lawyer and not a detective, so he does what he does best. He follows the money. Sarah, do you remember that moment with the Swiss police we talked about at the beginning of the show? Yes, because now that I know Eddie, I find this story even more funny because he really never wanted to be known in any way

so he could get away with cooking the books or whatever. And he does this whole dramatic thing at the beginning saying he's this Brazilian jewelry dealer. And that ends up getting him caught because they find out, no, that's Eddie. Yeah. Well, that was a major break for Richard. When the Swiss authorities told him about a gemstone dealer named David Cohen, Richard realized he was Eddie right away. Unfortunately, before Richard could send Interpol to nab him,

Eddie had already slipped out of Switzerland and disappeared again. But the net around Eddie is tightening. And no matter how many aliases he invents, he can't stay hidden forever. It's June 24, 1992, on a quiet residential street in an Israeli town just south of Tel Aviv. The houses on this block look pretty unassuming,

except for one, whose door is fortified with heavy bolts. Across the street, Israeli police officers wait patiently. Until finally, they see Eddie Antar and a friend step out of the house and get into a car. As a car starts driving up the street, it's intercepted by the cops who arrest Eddie on the spot. The jig is finally up. This has all been building for about a year.

In August of 1991, Sammy pled guilty to reduce charges and pay a fine in exchange for a promise to testify against Eddie. Sammy ended up giving investigators so much information. that by June 1992, a federal grand jury was able to charge Eddie with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, filing false annual reports and false warranty claims, and obstruction of justice. They also found evidence that he'd been using multiple fake identities to travel around the world and rent apartments in cities like London and Montreal before settling down in Israel under the name Harry Page Shalom. After the charges were filed, Interpol put out a warrant for his

arrest. After arresting Eddie, the Israeli authorities seized a bunch of financial records from his house. The documents turned out to be the cherry on top of the U.S. government's case, proof that Eddie had opened fake bank accounts and dummy companies in Panama, Gibraltar, and Liberia. The trial begins in New Jersey on June 15, 1993. Right away, Eddie's lawyers try to argue that his alcoholism is to blame for nearly two decades of rampant fraud, and even his decision to flee the country.

They also claimed that he left the U.S. to get away from Debbie, who was harassed. assing him. Unsurprisingly, the jury doesn't buy it. There's an enormous mountain of evidence against Eddie, along with Sammy's damning testimony. After six days of deliberation, on July 20th, 1993, Eddie is convicted on all 17 counts against him. But in 1994, something truly unexpected happens. During Eddie's sentencing hearing, the judge makes what seems like an offhand remark. Sarah, can you read this statement? Yes. It says, my object in this case from day one has always been to get back to the public that which was taken from it as a result of the fraudulent activities of this defendant and others.

Eddie's lawyer picks up on one part of this comment. The judge saying he had an objective in the case, quote, from day one. Eddie's lawyer argues that the comment shows the judge was biased against Eddie from the start, and the appeals court agrees with him. The following year, Eddie's conviction is overturned. All of a sudden, the impossible seems like it could actually happen. Maybe Eddie's going to get away with it after all. Just kidding. When the case is assigned to a new judge, Eddie takes a plea bargain. He pleads guilty to a single charge of racketeering conspiracy and is ordered to pay back $63 million to his investors and spend the next three years in jail. One of his brothers is also charged with conspiracy and making false statements to the SEC. He serves

two and a half years in prison. While the founding father is in jail, the Antar family makes a few attempts at reviving the Crazy Eddie brand. In 1998, a few of Eddie's cousins try to reopen the stores, but the attempt flames out pretty quickly. Then, after he gets out of prison in 2001, Eddie tries to revive the store again himself. He leases a huge warehouse space in New Jersey

and attempts to reopen the brand as an online business. But that experiment doesn't work out either. Yeah, you know, it just doesn't have the same ring to it. Mm-hmm. I feel like the world probably changed too much by 2001 for his business to thrive, which is unfortunate because I'm sure he could have taken it into the new century if he had just been normal. Yeah, maybe, but I guess we'll never know. Eddie dies in 2016, though the cause of death is never revealed publicly.

When he dies, there's an outpouring of public nostalgia about Crazy Eddie. publications like The New Yorker and The New York Times run extremely warm pieces about the business, its ads, and its cultural legacy. Even though the company defrauded everyone from its customers to the U.S. taxpayers, people remember it fondly as a New York institution. And over time, the story of Eddie's crimes soften into something almost mythological. People still love Eddie, despite or maybe because of, his many frauds. Sarah, I guess this is a story.

a story that's a testament to the power of advertising. It all starts with just a jingle and a dream and then look, you go to prison. I guess this is another story of somebody with a very successful business who would have probably still been in business today. But instead, it wasn't enough that things grew by 9% a year. It had to grow by 35%. And here we are. There are no crazy Eddies because he couldn't get it under control. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting because it's like Eddie didn't know the impact he would have on the world with this kind of business model and these types of commercials and this tone. Like he thought he was just doing something flashy to get people's attention, but it kind of became its own type of like economy of like these kind of lower rent

discount stores. You know what I mean? And like it's easy to think, oh, he could have just been normal and it would have worked out or not gone public. It would have worked out. But he didn't know how well it would have worked out for him. I also feel like it's so clear that, like, everybody who knew Eddie was willing to co-sign the bullshit because they all wanted to stay comfortable. It really took somebody who was entering from the outside, looking in and being like, wait, these books are cooked. It's got to be a little fishy if you're only working with people who are like your little cousins. Yes. It's like, you know, I feel like there are so many parts of the story where he kept it small but also wanted to be big.

wanted his family involved, didn't want to be public, didn't want to be known, had to hire someone to make it seem like they were him. And it got away from him. Yeah, it's all very 80s. The lesson for me here is that Eddie should have believed in himself more and his concept more. If you are a vanguard in a style of commercial and business, just keep it going. You know, don't fix what ain't broken. It's so unfortunate that it ended this way and that he was such a shitty person. I guess the thing that I think is interesting about this particular scam is that it doesn't really hurt the customer. Like, making things cheaper for us at the cost of, I guess, the IRS is not a scam that's going to be considered unpopular by the masses. That plus a catchy

commercial, you're going to get a lot of public goodwill. Yeah, it kind of makes his whole history and his story more appealing as like a nostalgic figure because I do think people watch these commercials feeling like, you know, too good to be true. There's some type of scam going on here. But the fact that he didn't actually directly hurt his customers, I think, speaks to why he's looked at fondly or remembered in this way. Do you want to try to maybe come up with like a really good jingle for scam influencers? No, I don't know how to do that.

How about this? Let me creative direct. Yeah. You. Oh. Your brand, your product, what you have to offer. Yeah. I know you well enough.

Let me take the reins. Crazy Sachi. I don't think I need people saying that more than they're already saying it. Yeah, but it's crazy wink. It's crazy wink, not derogatory. Yeah, I fear that the wink is not going to get communicated. It will. With me as a creative director, it will.

Okay, we got to workshop this. All right, well. See, this is what I said. Don't work with people that you know too well. Yeah, something to consider. Follow scam influencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcast. You can listen to all episodes of scam influencers ad-free by joining Audible. From Audible originals, this is Eddie Antar, the criminal antics of Crazy Eddie for scam influencers.

I'm Sachi Cole. And I'm Sarah Hagey. This episode was inspired by a suggestion from our listeners, Mary Coyle and Kristen Peek. If you have a tip for us on a story you think we should cover, please email us at scamfluencers ataudible.com. We use many sources in our research. A few of those were the book, Retail Gang. The Insane Real Life Story of Crazy Eddie by Gary Weiss. Calculated Madness.

The Rise and Fall of Crazy Eddie Antar by Gary Belski and Phyllis Furman for Crane's New York Business. Crazy Eddie's Insane Odyssey by Barry Meyer for The New York Times. And The Electrifying End of Crazy Eddie by Howard Kurtz for The Washington Post. Emma Healy wrote this episode, additional writing by us, Sachi Cole, and Sarah Haggy. Sarah Eni was the story editor and our senior producer. Ginny Bloom is our senior producer. Our associate producer is Charlotte Miller.

Our managing producer is Desi Blaylock. Fact-checking by Gabrielle Jolet. Sound design by James Morgan. Additional audio assistance provided by Augustine Lim. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Frieson Sink. Our executive producer for Audible is Jenny Lauer Beckman. The head of creative development at Audible is Kate Naven. The head of Audible Originals, North America, is Marshall Louis,

and chief content officer is Rachel Giazza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC. Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC.