Laura Beil investigates a fake doctor's $600 million HIV and cancer fraud.
Dr. Death follows cases where confidence, credentials, and institutional silence turn medicine into danger. Recent episodes trace Serhat’s path from stage magic and alleged fraud to biotech hype, patient testimony, and a murder case tied to Enochian Biosciences.
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Dr. Death is a serialized, narrative-driven true-crime podcast produced by Wondery and StoryForce, hosted by journalist Laura Beil. Each season examines a different real-world case of medical betrayal, unfolding chronologically through investigation and legal developments rather than as a single self-contained story. The fourth season, subtitled Bad Magic, follows Serhat Gumrukcu from a fraud indictment in Turkey to co-founder of Enochian Biosciences, a company that claimed breakthroughs in HIV and cancer treatment and reached a $600 million NASDAQ valuation before being exposed as fraudulent. The season incorporates original interviews with Hindenburg Research's Nate Anderson, whose short-seller report first surfaced Gumrukcu's fabricated credentials, scientific-integrity researcher Elisabeth Bik, patients who underwent his experimental treatments, and reporting connected to the 2018 murder of Vermont businessman Greg Davis. Recurring throughlines include falsified clinical and academic data, insider-trading allegations against company executives, and the exploitation of terminally ill cancer and HIV patients seeking last-resort treatment. An earlier season profiles Michigan oncologist Dr. Fareed Fata, who diagnosed healthy patients with cancer and administered unnecessary chemotherapy for years before being caught by a whistleblowing nurse. The show mixes investigative journalism with narrative reconstruction, drawing on court documents, archival interviews, and firsthand patient accounts. It suits listeners already drawn to true crime who also want detail on how financial short-selling investigations and scientific peer review actually work. Episodes typically run 27 to 42 minutes and follow Wondery's standard narrative true-crime production format, with occasional interview-format bonus episodes.
Made for: True-crime listeners specifically interested in medical and biotech fraud, fake credentials, and the mechanics of short-seller investigations.
What sets it apart: Rather than general true crime, each season centers on a medical authority figure whose credentials become the fraud's vehicle, verified through direct interviews with the investigators, such as Hindenburg Research, who exposed them.
We’re at our most vulnerable when we go to our doctors. But what happens when we can’t trust them? Dr. Death is the award-winning series hosted by Laura Beil, now in its fourth season: Bad Magic.When a charismatic young doctor announces revolutionary treatments for cancer and HIV, patients from around the world turn to him for their last chance. As medical experts praise Serhat Gumrukcu’s genius, the company he co-founded rockets in value to over half a billion dollars. But when a team of researchers makes a startling discovery, they begin to suspect the brilliant doctor is hid...
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Dr. Death connects patient experiences, scientific scrutiny, financial investigation, and criminal cases to expose how medical authority can conceal harm.
Dr. Death traces how medical authority can shield harm, building its investigations through patient testimony, financial records, scientific scrutiny, and criminal allegations.
A fake marshal arrives at the door; your medical trust issues take it from there.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A sharp legal follow-up where a murder case, biotech trouble, and a destabilizing lawsuit keep tightening around the same story.
Bad Magic | The Lawsuit is less a courtroom blow-by-blow than a look at the corporate wreckage gathering around Serhat Kumruktu. The episode lays out a grim chain: the man accused of carrying out Gregory Davis's abduction and execution had pleaded guilty, prosecutors said Serhat…
A tight, uneasy look at Jeffrey Drew's frustration as Serhat's HIV trial starts to feel less certain.
Bad Magic | The Data are the Data narrows in on Jeffrey Drew nearly two years into Serhat's experimental HIV trial, still returning to the clinic for blood draws and still being told his HIV levels are undetectable.
A grim, procedural Dr. Death chapter about a staged Vermont killing, Serhat's clinic, and the damage done when red flags fail to travel.
A freezing roadside ambush gives this Dr. Death chapter its jolt: Jerry Banks, a jail guard in a white Ford Explorer, pulls on a U.S. Marshal-style ski mask, switches on police lights, and heads for Greg Davis's house after months of planning and a higher fee.
A slick West Hollywood fraud story about real estate, identity theft allegations, and a second life coming apart.
Bad Magic | Language of Angels follows Serhat in West Hollywood, where a polished new life starts to look like another stage set. The episode opens with the almost absurd calm of a 1920s bungalow, a sky-blue door, and a neighborly party, then turns toward an alleged real estate…
A short seller's fraud hunt and a magician's warning pull Serhat's story into stranger, darker territory.
The Golden Kid opens in an unlikely place for Dr. Death: a Virginia co-working office, where a security-protected researcher called Robert starts work at Hindenburg Research.
ABC Audio's Theranos fraud series that also introduces its other true-crime podcasts.
Patrick Radden Keefe investigates whether the CIA secretly wrote a Scorpions hit.
Jake Halpern and the Snowball team track a con artist who defrauded a family.
A city-by-city true-crime documentary, from Detroit's Kwame Kilpatrick scandal to mob confessions.
A murder rumor in rural Alabama unravels into a clockmaker's suicide and estate feud.
Documentary seasons on power, corruption, conflict, and Canadian public life.
Things were getting worse for Serhat Kumruktu.
Zebariah Newman meets Jeffrey Drew in a parking garage.
The episode opens on a freezing January 2018 night on a quiet road in northeastern Vermont.
Serhat arrived in West Hollywood while Turkish police were already looking for him.
In late 2021, Robert walked into Hindenburg unsure.