michael jackson the dangerous tour

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Dangerous World Tour

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The Dangerous World Tour is the second worldwide concert tour by Michael Jackson . It was launched in support of the artist's eighth studio album, Dangerous (1991) and lasted from June 27, 1992 until November 11, 1993. The shows were sponsored by Pepsi .

The tour grossed a little less than its predecessor, Bad World Tour , gaining over $100 million. All profits were donated to charities including Heal the World Foundation . As it was nearing its end, the Dangerous World Tour was unfortunately cancelled due to Jackson's declining health. The tour was originally going to end on Christmas 1993.

• 1 Background
• 4.1 Cancelled dates
• 5.1 Live in Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour
• 6.1 Lead performer
• 6.2 Dancers
• 6.3 Musicians
• 6.4 Vocalists
• 9 References

Background [ ]

During the final show of the Bad World Tour in 1989, Jackson stated it was going to be the final time the world would see him on stage. This was initially the plan for his career going forward, as Michael later explained, concerts were exhausting and he went through "hell" touring. Additionally, the artist wanted to focus on making music and filmmaking instead.

On February 3, 1992 Michael held a press conference at Radio City Music Hall in New York, where the Dangerous World Tour would be announced. Michael explained, that the sole reason he'd do the tour was to raise funds for the Heal the World Fundation. The goal was to gain $100 million by Christmas of the following year; a goal the artist succeeded with.

As the tour was nearing its end, in 1993 Jackson was accused of child sexual abuse by Evan Chandler. This caused Michael to begin taking drugs to ease his mind, but caused his physical health to worsen. On November 11, Michael played in Mexico, which would unfortunately become the final show of the tour, as the rest of it would be cancelled so the artist can focus on improving his health.

Outfits [ ]

For the tour, Jackson rocked a couple different outfits. These were designed by Michael Bush and Dennis Tompkins .

He wore two different, military-like outfits; first was blue and glittery with a golden stripe crossing over the top, while another version was colored in black, and with two golden stripes. Another outfit was completely different from the above; featuring a completely golden top, and black pants. A fourth outfit featured Jackson with a golden, glittery top and two black striped crossing over it, and blue pants.

Setlist [ ]

• "Brace Yourself" (intro)
• " Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' "
• " Human Nature "
• " Smooth Criminal "
• " I Just Can't Stop Loving You " (with Siedah Garrett )
• " She's Out of My Life "
• Jackson 5 Medley
• " Thriller "
• " Billie Jean "
• "Black or White Panther" (video interlude)
• " Workin' Day and Night "
• " Beat It "
• " Someone Put Your Hand Out " (instrumental interlude)
• " Will You Be There "
• " The Way You Make Me Feel "
• " Black or White "
• " We Are the World " (video interlude)
• " Heal the World "
• " Dangerous "

Tour dates [ ]

Cancelled dates [ ], broadcasts & recordings [ ], live in bucharest: the dangerous tour [ ].

On November 16, 2005, a little over a decade after the show took place, a DVD of the October 1, 1992 show at the Bucharest National Stadium was released as a part of The Ultimate Collection , and saw its separate release as Live in Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour on July 25, 2005.

While all of the tour was professionally filmed, the Bucharest concert was the only broadcasted show of the Dangerous World Tour. However, amateur recordings of other shows have been shared online for years.

Personnel [ ]

Lead performer [ ].

• Michael Jackson

Dancers [ ]

• LaVelle Smith (choreographer)
• Dominic Lucero (asst. choreographer; 1992 leg)
• Jamie King (1992 and 1993 legs)
• Eddie Garcia (1992 leg)
• Randy Allaire (1992 leg)
• Travis Payne (1993 leg)
• Jason Yribar (1993 leg)
• Bruno "Taco" Falcon (asst. choreographer; 1992 and 1993 legs)
• Michelle Berube
• Yuko Sumida
• Damon Navandi

Musicians [ ]

• Musical director: Greg Phillinganes (1992), Brad Buxer (1993)
• Assistant musical director: Kevin Dorsey
• Keyboards, synthesizers: Greg Phillinganes (1992); Brad Buxer, Isaiah Sanders (1993)
• Drums: Ricky Lawson
• Lead/rhythm guitar: Jennifer Batten (1992), Becky Barksdale (1993), David Williams
• Bass guitar, synth bass: Don Boyette

Vocalists [ ]

• Vocal director: Kevin Dorsey
• Background vocals: Darryl Phinnessee, Dorian Holley, Siedah Garrett , Kevin Dorsey
• Slash – lead guitar on " Black or White " in Oviedo (September 21, 1992) and Tokyo (December 30 and 31, 1992)

Gallery [ ]

• After the Oslo, Norway concert, " The Way You Make Me Feel " and " Bad " weren't performed for the rest of the tour, although the songs did return for the first 4 concerts in Tokyo. This also became the final performance of "Bad" Jackson ever gave.
• " Workin' Day And Night " and " Beat It " were taken out of the setlist in the third leg. The cherry picker that was used for "Beat It" in the first and second legs was then used for " Black or White " in some concerts in the third leg.
• " Rock with You " and " Remember The Time " were taken out of the setlist due to wardrobe malfunctions.
• Rehearsals for the tour have taken place in Jackson's Neverland home and at Culver City Studios. Footage of the rehearsals can be found on YouTube. [1] [2]
• The " We Are the World " interlude in the 1993 shows was extended, starting with the band and the backup singers singing along with the crowd.
• In some early 1992 shows " Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' " and "Beat It" were performed in their original key.
• Diana Ross was in the attendance on the Oslo show on July 15th 1992.
• Elizabeth Taylor was in the attendance on the Stockholm show on July 17th 1992.
• " Man in the Mirror " was taken out of the setlist of 1993, but was performed in Argentina (first and second night, on the third he had a headache and didn't perform it. He had added it due to the Argentinian audience's warmth according to what their people had told us), it was also performed at the last concert in Mexico. Contrary to popular belief, "Man in the Mirror" was not performed on any night in Brazil or Israel. It is believed by the words of the public that "Man in the Mirror" was also performed during the concert in Chile.
• During " Heal the World " in Bangkok, Michael wore the white shirt from "Man in the Mirror".
• The magic trick at the end of " Thriller " was not performed at the third leg and at select first leg shows.
• Michael cut his finger during the performance of " Jam " in the Copenhagen show, prompting Michael Bush to put a bandage on Michael's finger during " Human Nature ".
• The silver jacket that Michael wore during "Jam" in the 1992 shows (except for Munich and 7 Tokyo shows), was used for the Jackson 5 medley in the 1993 shows. It was confirmed thanks to a photograph that it was used in Tokyo (December 24).
• The original black jacket of "Jam" was only used in Munich and in possibly 7 concerts in Tokyo 1992. This jacket has 3 other versions. One of these was used in the 1993 Superbowl . Another version was used only in the first concert of 1993. And the final version was used during the rest of 1993, during the photo session of the album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I in 1994, the Royal Concert 1996, and it was last used for Michael's scan for a video game in 1999.
• " Will You Be There " had 3 different endings during the tour: in one Michael would be joined by a female dancer in a angel costume (similar to MTV 10th Anniversary performance in 1991); in another one Michael would be joined by a girl who would do sign language and in the final one he would finish the song alone.

References [ ]

• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC_cWKW3EOc&pp=ygUZZGFuZ2Vyb3VzIHRvdXIgcmVoZWFyc2Fscw%3D%3D
• ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DPeBxSE6BI&t=11049s&pp=ygUZZGFuZ2Vyb3VzIHRvdXIgcmVoZWFyc2Fscw%3D%3D
• 1 List of unreleased songs
• 2 Bigi Jackson
• 3 Brandon Jackson

Dangerous World Tour: 1992 – 1993

The Dangerous Tour started on June 27th 1992 and ended on November 11th 1993. It consisted of 69 concerts and was seen by approximately 3.5 million people. All proceeds from the tour were donated to various charities, including Michael’s Heal The World Foundation. The tour was unfortunately cut short due to health reasons.

The tour had a spectacular ending, with what looked like Michael putting on a jet pack and flying over the audiences’ head and out of the stadium’.

Set List – 1st Leg:

• Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’
• Human Nature
• Smooth Criminal
• I Just Can’t Stop Loving You
• She’s Out Of My Life
• Jackson 5 Medley
• Billie Jean
• Workin’ Day And Night
• Will You Be There
• The Way You Make Me Feel
• Black Or White
• Heal The World
• Man In The Mirror

Set List – 2nd Leg:

Latest news, michael biopic set for 2025, the greatest night in pop trailer, ‘we are the world’ documentary, alternate ‘thriller’ album cover photos, ‘beat it’ hits 1 billion.

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Michael Jackson Live in Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour

Michael's "Dangerous Tour" was the biggest tour any performer had done in history, the staging took nearly 3 days to set up. The tour included 69 concerts reaching over 3.5 million fans. Thi... Read all Michael's "Dangerous Tour" was the biggest tour any performer had done in history, the staging took nearly 3 days to set up. The tour included 69 concerts reaching over 3.5 million fans. This concert aired on HBO in 1992. Michael's "Dangerous Tour" was the biggest tour any performer had done in history, the staging took nearly 3 days to set up. The tour included 69 concerts reaching over 3.5 million fans. This concert aired on HBO in 1992.

• Andrew Morahan
• Michael Jackson
• Siedah Garrett
• Darryl Phinnessee
• 8 User reviews
• 1 win & 2 nominations

• Self - Duet vocalist

• Self - Backing vocals
• Self - Dancer
• Self - Electric Guitarist
• Self - Bass Guitarist
• Self - Keyboardist

• Self - Drummer

• Self - Dancer …
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia The 'Dangerous' tour entertained 3.5 million fans during 69 concerts.

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Michael Jackson's Dangerous World Tour ( AKA Heal The World Tour) Live In Bucharest October 1, 1992 (Remastered in 4K 60FPS)

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Dangerous was Michael Jackson's true career high

Michael Jackson's Dangerous was the first album I ever owned, a cassette copy that I pored over like the Rosetta Stone. What was that dog in ermine robes about? Was In the Closet about literally keeping something in a closet? All that was certain was that Macaulay Culkin, in being allowed a spoken-word intro to Black Or White, as well as starring in Home Alone 2, was the luckiest kid alive.

Looking at the sales figures, it's clear that everyone's currently on a Jacko reappreciation binge. My own has inevitably (and nostalgically) honed in on Dangerous, and one thing is objectively clear: this album rules.

As its initial release dovetailed with the Jordan Chandler allegations, the album is now falling neatly into an accepted narrative – that it's part of Jackson's decline, both artistically and personally. The reality is that Dangerous is Jackson at the very peak of his powers, with his widest ever emotional range set to production that makes new jack swing seem much more than just lame dance moves and fluorescent man-made fibres .

Produced mostly by Teddy Riley, the tracks are fiendishly intricate, loaded with scratching, multiple layers of drum programming, and shiny smashes of hyper-artificial brass. In its mechanic complexity and tautly funky precision, it mirrors and amplifies Jackson's corporeal and vocal exactitude; it also reflects Jackson's fascination with the robotic that imperceptibly crept into his dance moves and continued in his Moonwalker film.

Jackson, meanwhile, is revelatory. On Remember the Time , he is soft and teasing, ruthlessly manipulating his former paramour, before unleashing ferocious passion at the climax. Indeed, Dangerous is the only album on which he sounds believably erotic, all strained frustration and full-throated entreaties; Riley extracts a sexual urgency that the Neptunes would later draw from Justin Timberlake. Meanwhile on the baked-Camembert ballads Heal the World and Will You Be There , he's charmingly innocent, and sings simple, effortless melodies.

And while Quincy Jones once allegedly shouted, "No squeaks, motherfucker!" during the recording of Thriller, here Jackson is off the leash, brilliantly weaving his vocal tics into the fabric of Riley's production. On Who Is It , he elicits a gulping sob that syncs exactly with the beat – surely the funkiest crying ever recorded?

In all the swooning at Thriller's album sales and Jackson's pre-surgery beatitude, Dangerous risks becoming even more underrated than it is now. That would be a tragedy – for me, it's his finest hour. Does anyone else agree?

• Michael Jackson
• Pop and rock

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Dangerous World Tour

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The Dangerous World Tour was Michael Jackson's second concert tour. The tour took place from June 27, 1992 to November 11, 1993.....

The 69 concert dates of the tour attracted more than three million fans & the staging of the concert sets took nearly three days to set up. There were 20 trucks of equipment that were shuttled on cargo planes to countries around the world.

Michael ended up cutting the remainder of his tour short due to the stress from the child sexual abuse allegations levelled against him.

• 1 Tour Overview
• 2 Preparations & Set Designs
• 3.1 Super Bowl XXVII Halftime Show
• 4 Opening Acts
• 6 Tour Dates
• 7 Concert Broadcast & Recordings
• 8 Tour Personnel

Tour Overview [ ]

Following the huge success of Michael's first solo world tour, Bad World Tour (where he earned over $125 million), the star claimed that he would not tour again and would concentrate on making films and records instead.

On February 3, 1992 in a Pepsi press conference, it was announced that he would be touring again. The announcement coincided with a new deal between Michael and Pepsi with a reported $20 million deal to sponsor the tour.

In an interview, Michael stated, " The only reason I am going on tour is to raise funds for the newly formed Heal the World Foundation, an international children's charity, that I am spearheading to assist children and the ecology. My goal is to gross $100 million by Christmas 1993. I urge every corporation and individual who cares about this planet and the future of the children to help raise money for the charity. The Heal the World Foundation will contribute funds to paediatric AIDS in honour of my friend, Ryan White. I am looking forward to this tour because it will allow me to devote time to visiting children all around the world, as well as spread the message of global love, in the hope that others will be moved to do their share to help heal the world ."

" Michael's show, I loved ," said Janet Jackson. " The only thing – and I told him – that I wish he had done was to play more songs from the new album. And I wish he had played 'Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough'. He goes, 'I know, Jan, and the other brothers told me that, but you know what? I was really pressed for time.' And that's the thing, when you become so busy. So it was pretty much the same show as he's been doing for some time ."

Preparations & Set Designs [ ]

The stage used for the tour required more time to set up than before. Equipment, which in total weighed over 100 tons, required two Boeing 747 jet aircraft and multiple lorries to transport to each venue.

For the tour's design, Michael was influenced by the uniform worn by the military. For "Jam", the first performance on the set list, He wore two variations of a faux-military uniform.

During the 1992 leg, the uniform was a grey-green jacket with a one bolted strap which sparkled with multicolour.

For the Tokyo and 1993 leg, Michael wore a black uniform with three gold bolted straps, one going from his collar to his waist in one direction and the other two in another; he also used similar costume at the first Dangerous tour concert in Munich, the Super Bowl XXVII halftime show in 1993, and later at the Royal Brunei Concert in 1996.

The tour also incorporated several stage illusions. The Dangerous era was considered one of Michael's best.

Each concert on the tour ended by a stuntman, Kinnie Gibson, who secretly switched with Michael as he kneels down a trap hole in the stage, dressed in a full astronaut costume (therefore appearing as Michael Jackson), flying out of the arena using a rocket belt.

Each concert also began with an illusion-like stunt dubbed "the Toaster" in which following the ringing of bells and the roar of a panther, Michael catapults on to the stage through a trap door in the front, sending off pyrotechnics that electrified the crowd.

" That opening was kick-ass ," admired Janet Jackson. " I'm sitting in the sound tower and all the kids are everywhere. And when he jumped out of whatever the hell that thing was, I was yelling so loud, the kids in front of me were looking back and I didn't even know it. My friend Tina is saying, Jan, they're looking at you. Because I was going, Fuck yeah, Mike! That was the shit to me. That was so bad-ass. Why didn't I think of that? When he thought of that shit, he hit it. "

A similar version of "the Toaster" stunt was used in the beginning of Michael's Super Bowl XXVII Halftime Show performance in 1993.

During the 1992 leg, the transition from "Thriller" to "Billie Jean" was another stage trick.

When Michael walks into two pillars, he secretly switches with a werewolf-masked backup dancer while he changes for "Billie Jean."

The backup dancer posing as Michael is placed into a coffin which disappears when dancers posing as skeletons and zombies drape a cloth over the coffin and pull it out. He appears fully dressed for Billie Jean in the upper stage level as it lowers down.

The coffin portion of this stage illusion was removed in some of the 1992 leg shows and the entire 1993 leg of the tour, and replaced with the Michael Jackson impersonator and the backup dancers performing an encore of the "Monster Breakdown" (the dance sequence in "Thriller").

The Show [ ]

The original set list for the 1992 leg featured " The Way You Make Me Feel " and " Bad ", but these were taken out after the eighth concert in Oslo, Norway. However, these two songs were returned for the first six performances in Tokyo, Japan.

During the Europe leg in 1992, MTV was allowed to film backstage and broadcast six fifteen-minute episodes of the tour. The show was called "The Dangerous Diaries" and was presented by Sonya Saul.

MTV released footage of "Billie Jean" and "Black Or White" at the first show in Munich. "Billie Jean" was released with 2 different versions, one by MTV as a special, and the other on the "Dangerous Diaries" documentary.

Both versions have placed a snippet of Michael's original a cappella recording for "Billie Jean" over the live vocals when he throws his fedora.

Michael sold the film rights to his October 1, 1992 concert in Bucharest, Romania to HBO for $21 million.

The deal was the highest ever paid for a live concert. The concert was broadcast live on radio and shown on television across 61 countries and received the highest TV ratings in the history of the HBO network, in which Michael was honoured with a CableACE Award.

In 2004, the concert was released on DVD as part of Jackson's The Ultimate Collection box set. It was released again in 2005 as the separate DVD "Live in Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour." The footage used on the released version is actually a mixture of footage from Bucharest – The BBC Broadcast, HBO live telecast (pay per view) and the HBO TV version.

The Dangerous tour was met with some backlash by music critics and fans because of Jackson's increased habit of lip syncing his live performances.

The Toulouse, France concert performed on September 16, 1992 featured a special instrumental performance of the first half of the song "In the Closet" as an interlude between the songs " Heal the World " and " Man in the Mirror ".

Princess Stéphanie of Monaco (who was the "Mystery Girl" in the actual song) was in attendance at this concert. This concert marked the first and only time that this song was performed during this tour.

On December 31, 1992 during the New Year's Eve concert in Tokyo, Japan, Slash made a special guest appearance for the performance of " Black or White ". Slash also made a special appearance for "Black or White" at the concert in Oviedo, Spain in September 1992.

On August 29, 1993, Michael performed in front of 47,000 on his 35th birthday in Singapore.

During his visit to Moscow in September, he came up with the song "Stranger in Moscow" which would be released on his 1995 album HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I . It was during a time when Jackson felt very alone, far away from his family and friends, yet every night throughout his tours fans would stay by his hotel and support him.

Michael performed a free concert at the Jerudong Park Amphitheatre in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei on July 16, 1996.

The concert was in celebration of the fiftieth birthday of Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei and was attended by the Brunei royal family. This concert resembled the Dangerous tour with the addition of HIStory songs, " You Are Not Alone " and " Earth Song ".

Super Bowl XXVII Halftime Show [ ]

Unlike many previous years, Michael was the only performer in the entire Super Bowl XXVII halftime show.

The show started with him dancing on certain jumbotrons, followed by impersonators that posed on top of the screen, which gave the illusion of Jackson moving from one side of the stadium to the other. Then Michael himself catapulted on stage and simply stood frozen in front of the audience.

Jackson's set consist of a medley: "Jam" (with the beginning of "Why You Wanna Trip on Me"), "Billie Jean" and "Black or White".

The finale featured an audience card stunt, a video montage showing Michael participating in various humanitarian efforts around the world and a choir of 3,500 local Los Angeles area children singing "We Are the World", later joining him as he sang his single "Heal the World".

It was the first Super Bowl where the audience figures actually increased during the half-time show.

The selection of Michael for the halftime show was in response to sagging interest in recent performances, notably in the two years immediately prior.

The NFL and FOX network officials decided it was necessary to sign top acts for the halftime in future years to boost future viewership and interest. The NFL donated $100,000 to Michael's Heal the World Foundation.

Opening Acts [ ]

• D'Influence (England)
• Snap! (Bucharest)
• Culture Beat (1993 European dates)

Set List [ ]

1992 Rehearsals

• " Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' "
• " Human Nature "
• " Smooth Criminal "
• " I Just Can't Stop Loving You " (duet with Siedah Garrett )
• " She's Out of My Life "
• The Jackson 5 Medley: " I Want You Back " / " The Love You Save " / " I'll Be There "
• " Rock With You "
• " Thriller "
• " Billie Jean "
• " Remember The Time "
• " Workin' Day and Night "
• " Beat It "
• " Will You Be There "
• " The Way You Make Me Feel "
• " Black or White "
• " Heal the World "
• " Man in the Mirror "
• "Brace Yourself" (Introduction)
• "Black or White Panther" (Video Interlude)
• " Someone Put Your Hand Out " (Instrumental Interlude)
• " We Are the World " (Video Interlude)
• " Man in the Mirror "/"Rocket Man" (Final)
• " Dangerous "

1996 Royal Concert

• " I Just Can't Stop Loving You " (with Marva Hicks )
• "Black Panther" (Video Interlude)
• " Beat It " (with Jennifer Batten )
• " You Are Not Alone "
• " Earth Song "

Tour Dates [ ]

Concert broadcast & recordings [ ].

All concerts were professionally filmed by Nocturne Productions Inc., which filmed all of Michael's tours and private affairs.

During the 1992 European leg of the tour, MTV was given permission to film backstage reports, interview the cast and film live performance.

The mini-show was hosted by Sonya Saul and had six, 15-minute mini-episodes of concerts in Munich, Werchter, Dublin, Hamburg, Cardiff, London, Leeds, Berlin, Oviedo and Madrid.

Performances include Billie Jean , Black or White , Jam , Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' and Will You Be There .

The concert in Bucharest on October 1, 1992, was filmed and broadcast on television all across the world, giving HBO the highest rating garnered in cable TV history with an unedited version airing on the BBC.

The concert film titled "Live in Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour" was officially released on DVD on July 25, 2005.

Tour Personnel [ ]

• LaVelle Smith (choreographer)
• Jamie King, Evaldo Garcia, Randy Allaire (1992 leg), Wade Robson (1992, Oslo), Travis Payne (1993 leg), Damon Navandi, Bruno "Taco" Falcon, Michelle Berube and Yuko Sumida

Band members

• Musical director: Greg Phillinganes
• Assistant musical director: Kevin Dorsey
• Keyboards/ Synthesizers: Greg Phillinganes, Brad Buxer & Isaiah Sanders
• Drums: Ricky Lawson
• Lead/Rhythm Guitar: Jennifer Batten & David Williams
• Bass Guitar/Synth Bass: Don Boyette
• Vocal director: Dorian Holley
• Background Vocals: Kevin Dorsey, Dorian Holley, Siedah Garrett & Darryl Phinnessee
• 1 Cheryle Terrell
• 2 JohVonnie Jackson
• 3 Dangerous World Tour

Michael Jackson - Live in Bucharest: The Dangerous Tour

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© 2005 MJJ Productions

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• Bad World Tour  ( 125 )
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Average setlist for tour: Dangerous World Tour

Note: only considered 75 of 82 setlists (ignored empty and strikingly short setlists)

• Jam Play Video
• Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' Play Video
• Human Nature Play Video
• Smooth Criminal Play Video
• I Just Can't Stop Loving You Play Video
• She's Out of My Life Play Video
• I Want You Back / The Love You Save / I'll Be There ( The Jacksons  song) Play Video
• Thriller Play Video
• Billie Jean Play Video
• Working Day and Night Play Video
• Beat It Play Video
• Someone Put Your Hand Out Play Video
• Will You Be There Play Video
• Black or White Play Video
• Song played from tape We Are the World ( USA for Africa  song) Play Video
• Heal the World Play Video
• Man in the Mirror Play Video

Show Openers

Main set closers, show closers, encores played.

This feature is not that experimental anymore. Nevertheless, please give feedback if the results don't make any sense to you.

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MJ Explores Michael Jackson's Complex Legacy

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Entertainment | Nothing is black and white about “MJ: The…

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Entertainment, entertainment | nothing is black and white about “mj: the musical”| review, but you should see it anyway to remember — if not reconcile — with its star power.

UPDATE: This story was corrected at 1:20 p.m. on Friday, April 12. On opening night, swing Rajané Katurah played Katherine Jackson.

A patron rocked an impressively just-so mustache and black velvet jacket with gold braiding at the Buell Theatre for Wednesday’s opening night of the first national tour of “MJ: The Musical” (playing through April 28).

With the musical underway, three friends in the orchestra section shook the seats as they chair danced.

And one theater critic found herself near tears as the hits rolled out from the first album her parents ever gave her, featuring little Michael Jackson and brothers Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Jackie.

The audience’s waves of enthusiasm might simply be signs of the kind of sentimentality the show’s MJ expresses wariness of, or examples of a pining nostalgia for a time that isn’t this vexed present, but even in the midst of this hit-infused show, something deeper about talent and diligence, joy and trauma, and drive, so much drive, takes hold.

If your own Jackson reminiscences aren’t enough, here are five more reasons to hurry to the Buell for a jukebox musical crafted with an attention to detail and pleasure befitting its subject’s stickler tendencies.

On stage, memory proves to be the star worth interrogating.

There will be recollections: Michael Jackson’s and our own, fed by a mix of where we were, who we were when we listened to Michael, when we read about him, when we gawped and loved, worried for and perhaps turned away from the star.

“MJ” opens onto a rehearsal studio, with the musical’s ace ensemble milling about stretching, setting up, waiting for the man himself. All the while, Buell patrons mill about, too, making their noisy way to seats.

When he arrives, Michael (Roman Banks) and stage manager Rob (Devin Bowles) begin rehearsing the dancers and band for 1992’s Dangerous World Tour. With a book by Lynn Nottage, the show focuses on the lead-up to that record-smashing tour, but still enfolds a heck of a playlist. Recollections abound.

Some come from Jackson’s inclusion of Jackson Five music into his upcoming show. But the presence of a journalist, Rachel (Mary Kate Moore) and her MJ fanboy videographer Alejandro (Da’Von T. Moody) allows Jackson to also reminisce more personally about his music, his process and, sometimes, fame.

The  MTV documentary crew wants to witness Jackson’s creative process at a time when rumors of child sexual abuse are muted but will soon start to swirl. Jackson shares thoughts about his long relationship to music-making: from kid stardom with Berry Gordy (J. Daughtry) and Motown with four of his brothers; to solo work with Quincy Jones (Josh A. Dawson) on “Off the Wall”; to striking out as his own producer on “Thriller.” In a quick and thoughtful touch, Suzanne de Passe (Zuri Noelle Ford) gets her moment as the boy group’s champion who gets an initially reluctant Gordy signed on.

The Michaels are all that and a bag of chips.

The beautiful trick that Banks pulls off as the adult MJ is to embody, not merely mimic. (Myles Frost won a Tony for the role in 2022). Sure, the actor speaks in that soft voice, even when Michael is demanding something of his manager, his dancers, his agent. Yes, he robots and moonwalks. And still, Banks brings an aura that is his own.

In addition to Banks’ show-shaping turn as MJ, there are two more Michaels: Brandon Lee Harris plays him as a teen and young man, while Josiah Benson (alternating with Bane Griffith) portrays Little Michael. They all have the moves but there’s something that makes each more than a spot-on replica or Vegas lounge act. It’s their talent as singers and dancers, sure. But it’s also the script’s linking each to the making and pathos of a perfectionist, whose drive was forged by his father Joseph’s hard if not violent discipline.

Ir’s smart

“I am a huge Michael Jackson fan,” the show’s writer, Lynn Nottage, told the Los Angeles Times in 2022. “The music is the soundtrack of my life. I perfectly track Michael Jackson from ‘ABC’ to ‘Off the Wall’ to ‘Thriller’ and back. If you remove Michael Jackson’s music, you remove a portion of my childhood.” She is not alone in that particular discography. But she has leavened complexity into her affection. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the show’s focus on the man at creative work.

To the aggravation of his own manager, Dave (Matt Loehr), Rob and maybe (though they’d never complain) the amazing dancers, the King of Pop revises and re-envisions and revises some more. Numbers get inserted and then get removed. He obsesses about a special effect called the “toaster lift” that he imagines catapulting him like a king of pop tart upwards at the concert’s start. The costs and paraphernalia of the tour balloon. The pressures mount and, as they do, his father and mother make appearances.  On opening night, Rajané Katurah was tremendous as the Jackson matriarch, Katherine Jackson, who may be kinder and gentler but doesn’t entirely protect her child from her husband’s volatility and manipulations. (Anastasia Talley will play her in most other performances.)

In a great bit of dual casting, Bowles plays both Joseph Jackson and tour manager Rob. It’s a genius gesture that allows the actor to stretch, but also act to protect the audience from living too unrelentingly with what could be called Jackson’s trauma.

It asks us to be smart.

For the most part, the show brackets out the controversies that bedevil Jackson’s legacy, but it doesn’t demand that we do the same. The pill-taking that eventually led to Jackson’s death gets attention. A family who will be part of the Dangerous Tour entourage is mentioned in passing. “MJ” treats us as grown-ups who will, with each faltering idol, continue to reckon with (not reconcile) the ways in which talent and fame can arise out of harm — and can cause damage.

It’s nearly as meticulous in its desire to expertly wow as the singer was.

At the start of intermission, a blue curtain comes down. On it are notes in what is presumably Jackson’s own hand: “Study the great and become great”… “Flash dance. All That Jazz. Bandwagon (girl hunt) number”… “For Criminal Dance look at ALL the great dances on tape.” Not only do these scribblings capture a creative, synthesizing artistic ambition, they also hint at what’s to come when the curtain rises. Indeed, Act II begins with an homage to Fred Astaire, Bob Fosse and the Nicholas Brothers. And once Jackson’s thoughts about those dancer-choreographers are linked to the dance numbers, their influence on Jackson feels like a no-brainer.

But the scrim, its notations and smooth flow into Act II are just one example of the elegant stagecraft of “MJ.” Scenic designer Derek McLane, along with lighting ace Natasha Katz, make room time and again for eloquent quietude or bold, hurly burly (the madness of “Thriller” with Joe Jackson as the monster), or a poignant and collective rumination (“Man in the Mirror”). And true to the ambitions of Jackson to create jaw-dropping moments onstage, the show sticks its landing. And how.

“MJ: The Musical”: Music by Michael Jackson. Book by Lynn Nottage. Directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon.  Featuring Roman Banks, Jamaal Fields-Green, Josiah Benson, Bane Griffith, Brandon-Lee Harris, Devin Bowles, Mary Kate Moore, Anastasia Talley and Da’Von Moody. At the Buell Theatre, 14th and Curtis streets in the Denver Performing Arts Complex.  Through April 28. Tickets and info: denvercenter.org or 303-893-4100.

Lisa Kennedy is a Denver-based freelance writer who specializes in theater and film. 

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How One Family Lost $900,000 in a Timeshare Scam

A mexican drug cartel is targeting seniors and their timeshares..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

Hello, James.

Hey. How’s it going?

Yeah. I’m not having much luck. So the problem is funding. And all of my money is in Mexico, all of it.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Katrin Bennhold. This is “The Daily.” A massive scam targeting elderly Americans who own timeshare properties has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars sent to Mexico.

Once you move forward and make your payment, if anything were to happen, he will directly pay you the full amount of what you’re entitled to, including the gains. He will pay you the full amount.

You’ve got all my money. It’s been sent. I sold a freaking house.

Listen to this. I sold a house that I grew up in so that I could come up with funds to send to Mexico.

I don’t even have anything from the sale, nothing.

My colleague Maria Abi-Habib on one victim who lost everything and the people on the other side of the phone.

That’s it. That’s it. There’s nothing —

You know what? That’s what has been said every freaking time. Every time, just pay this. That releases the funds.

But that’s why we won’t allow it to happen again. This is the last time, James.

It’s Friday, April 12.

Maria, you’ve been looking into this scam that’s targeting Americans. Where did your investigation start?

So several weeks ago, I received a phone call from a lawyer based in St. Petersburg, Florida, who had been contacted by a family who was very concerned that the father, this man named James, was in the middle of being scammed. He’d sent hundreds of thousands dollars to Mexico. And he was considering sending another $157,000 when his daughter decided to call up this law firm and try to get her father to stop, stop sending money to Mexico.

So I called him a few weeks ago as I was trying to understand what was going on.

Hi, James. How are you?

Good. Thank you.

He’s asked that his last name be withheld for privacy concerns because he’s quite embarrassed about the story that I’m about to tell you.

You’re retired now, but what were you doing for work? And if your wife was working, what was her job?

I was with the Highway Patrol.

James is a retired state trooper from California. And his wife Nikki is a former school nurse.

She was born in ‘51. So 71-ish.

Two. She’s just reminded me, 72.

And they’re both in their early 70s. And they own this timeshare that is in Lake Tahoe, California. And they bought it in the 1990s for about $8,000.

And for someone who did not grow up vacationing in a timeshare, remind me how exactly timeshares work.

Timeshares are essentially vacation properties. And they tend to be beach resorts. And multiple people can buy into this property. The ownership is a shared ownership. And this gives you the right to use the timeshare for one to two weeks out of every year.

And so James and Nikki used their timeshare every other year with their daughters. But as they hit retirement age and their daughters are growing up and starting their own families, they’re just not really using it that much anymore. And timeshares require the owners to pay off yearly maintenance fees. And so they’re starting to think about maybe letting go of their timeshare and selling it.

Then one day, in late 2022, James gets a phone call from a company that is purporting to be based out of Atlanta, Georgia called Worry Free Vacations.

Worry Free Vacations?

That sounds enticing.

Yeah. And they start off with a simple question, which is, do you want to buy a timeshare? And James says, I already have a timeshare. And then they say, great. Well, what about selling the timeshare? Do you want to sell? There’s this Mexican businessman, and he’s interested in your timeshare. And he’s willing to buy it for about $20,000.

So we figured, well, what the heck? If we can make a few bucks on it, we’ll go for it.

And James jumps at the opportunity.

And did he do anything to try and verify that this was real?

Yeah. So remember, James is former law enforcement. And he feels very confident in his abilities to sniff out untrustworthy people. So he goes online, and he googles this Mexican businessman and sees that, yeah, he is a real person.

He’s a very well-respected individual in Mexico, very well off. And —

And this makes James feel at ease, that he’s selling to a legitimate person, that Worry Free Vacations are who they claim to be and that he’s going to double his money overnight, essentially.

And what happens next?

Well, a couple of weeks after he makes the agreement with the buyer, he’s told that he needs to send a couple thousand dollars to facilitate the purchase.

What does that mean, facilitate?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I can’t remember specifically whether it was supposed to be cross-border registration —

So he’s being told that there are these fees that are paid directly to the Mexican government.

Or SPID or some other fee that was Mexican government required or not.

A lot of these fees are the same types of fees that you would pay in the United States for a real estate transaction. So he begins wiring money to an account in Mexico.

After that —

— a few days later, we get a notification. Well, everything went well, except that we have to pay an additional fee.

Every time that he sends one fee, he’s being told that he’s got to send another fee right afterwards.

Does he get suspicious at any point?

His wife is suspicious. After the first couple of payments, she starts saying, this does not feel right.

But James is the former law enforcement officer, right? And he’s the one that basically handles the family finances. And he’s confident that all of this is going to work out because he’s being told that the buyer of the timeshare will reimburse James for all of these fees once the sale goes through.

Michael from the Worry Free Vacations was constantly reassuring me the money’s in that account. Check with the commercial escrow account. It’s there. It’s just these fees have to be paid, and you’re being reimbursed for all of this.

They’re sending James documents that show all of the reimbursements that he’s owed and how much money he’s going to get. And this just makes him feel like all of this is kosher.

We have this commercial escrow company that was involved out of New York. So there was an air of legitimacy that I was comfortable with.

Maybe OK, these guys just need one more fee and everything is going to finally be cleared.

But about a year in, James starts to get suspicious. He begins asking questions because he wants his money.

And every time I asked, hey, is there a way I can get a partial release of these funds, there was always no, these funds have to be paid from your account before they’re released.

But Worry Free Vacations, they pivot. And they tell him that, listen, there are all these complications. It’s going to be really hard to get your money out from this transaction.

I could pay about $30,000 and change to reinvest the $313,000 into an environmentally-conscious development in Loreto, Mexico.

Instead, we’ve got this other investment opportunity in Mexico.

And I’m sure you know where that is, over on the East Coast of Baja.

And that is going to make you a huge return, even more money than you had thought that you were going to make, much more than the $20,000.

I’m supposed to have 54 million pesos in a Mexican bank account.

So this is now no longer just about his timeshare. They are now partners in a real estate investment.

Right. And there’s this whole new round of fees and fines associated with that.

So how many payments would you say?

Quite a few. Couple dozen at least, maybe more.

When was your last payment?

It would have been 17 January.

Uh-huh. And what was that for?

Good question.

And all along, he believed it was necessary to pay these costs just to get the money that he’s owed.

The amount of money that I’ve sent to Mexico is just freaking exorbitant. And I mean, it is approaching $900,000 or more.

And at this point, he’s sent about $900,000 to Mexico over about a year and a half.

Nearly $1 million.

That was almost all the money that he and his wife had saved for their retirement.

It also included money from the sale of James’s childhood home and money that he had borrowed from his daughter and son-in-law, about $150,000 from them.

It’s awful. So they were completely cleaned out by these guys.

Yeah. And this is when his daughter asks a law firm to look into this, which is the point in the story when I meet James. And when we start talking, it was clear to me that he just did not know what to think, even after losing this much money.

So this started in 2022. When did it end?

We’re still in it.

And he’s still talking to the scammers.

And as a matter of fact, presently, there was a request for $157,000 and change to clear up this whole thing. It would clear the entire issue out. Now —

And James is even considering putting a second mortgage on his house to send that money that he’d been promised would finally clear all this up — one final payment of $157,000.

It really sounds like he’s still wanted to believe that this was somehow legit.

Yeah. It was pretty clear to me that he was being scammed. But I didn’t definitively know what was going on, so I asked him if he could start recording his phone calls with the scammers.

Would you be so kind as to do me a favor?

Would you be willing to give them a call and record them?

[LAUGHS]: I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’ve been recording them.

And it turns out he already had been.

Worry Free Vacations.

So he shared the recordings of these calls that he’d had with these scammers over the last year or so. And it was just remarkable. It gave me huge insight into how the scam worked and the way that it sounded over the phone.

Is this is Michael in? I think he’s trying to call me. I couldn’t get through pick up.

Yes, I believe he did try to call you, sir. Give me a second. I think he’s only going to be in for a couple of minutes. One second.

There are two main takeaways for me listening to these calls.

Good afternoon. Michael McCarthy.

Michael, I missed your call. I was trying to pick up.

Yeah, don’t worry. Yeah, I figured something was wrong with your phone. Everything OK?

The first is that these scammers had really gotten to know James so well, and they really made James believe that Worry Free was a company that was working for him.

That’s why we need to hurry up and get this money over to you. Because hey, I’m losing my mind too. I’m not even here to convince you, James. I’m not — I’m your broker, and —

One of the things they continuously say is, trust me.

Look, I’m doing everything I can in my power and will on my end. So James, just look — like I told you from the get-go, I’m going to resolve this. And we are doing it. I just need you to focus on the goal.

They would refocus the conversation on what James needed to do to get his money back.

Look, if you make your payment as a security deposit, right away they will release the funds to you. With these —

And the other thing —

I’ve been having so much trouble trying to reach you, and I have not been successful.

— is that the scammers had created this elaborate cast of characters.

Why don’t you answer my calls?

And some of them were really aggressive. James shared a recording of this one man who claimed to be an agent for the Mexican government. And he basically started yelling at James.

I don’t care if your wife is at the hospital. To be honest with you, I don’t give a damn! But you know where I do give a damn? It’s your money, and my name is written all over it! Do you understand?

And he even threatened James. If James didn’t pay off these fines, then he would lose all the money that he’d sent to Mexico already.

You could get the best lawyer you want. You could get whoever you want. And this is not a threat. This is facts. But anyways, who am I to convince you, right?

Well, thank you for the information. And — are you still there? Hello?

Wow. So these scammers were basically doing a good cop, bad cop routine to stop James from walking away and to squeeze every last penny out of him.

If you provide me your email, contact information, I will certainly be happy to forward all of the wire transfer information from my bank account to you so that you can see where those funds went.

Yeah, that would be great. I have your email.

James asks me, a reporter who’s based in Mexico, who speaks the language, if I could help him figure out where his money had gone to.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate your assistance.

I’m just doing my job. Thanks again, and we’ll talk soon.

And the only way that I could figure that out was to understand who was on the other side of the phone.

We’ll be right back.

So Maria, who was on the other side of that phone line?

So by the time that I’d met James, I’d already gotten a tip from US law enforcement agencies that they were seeing a new trend. Mexican drug cartels were getting involved in the timeshare scam industry.

Drug cartels?

Yeah. And not just any drug cartel. This is one of the most notorious, violent, bloody drug cartels that exists in Mexico and Latin America, the Jalisco New Generation cartel. And when I looked at James’s bank records, guess what? All the money that he was sending was going to various bank accounts that were all located in Jalisco state in Mexico.

Wow. So why would the drug cartels get into the timeshare scamming business?

It is a huge business. The FBI told me that it’s about $300 million in profits over the last five years.

But the thing is is that the potential for it to actually be multitudes more is huge. Because the FBI estimates that most of the scams are actually not even reported. In fact, only about 20 percent are. So that means the total timeshare scam business could actually be much larger than the $300 million that they have knowledge of over the last five years.

But wait. I thought the drug business was a pretty lucrative business in itself. So why get into the scamming of elderly people for their properties in Lake Tahoe?

Well, you have to remember that these drug cartels, they’re not just doing one thing. They’re doing multiple things. They’re essentially conglomerates. Because it’s really expensive to run a cartel. You need to pay off officials, both Mexican and American. You need to maintain basically an army in order to secure your routes up to the United States, ports of entry into Mexico from Colombia. And any big business, you need to diversify your income to make sure that you keep the money flowing. Because you never know when one business is going to be shut down by authorities or taken over by your rivals.

We’ve reported that they’re now in the avocado business and the construction business. And timeshare fraud is basically no different than any of those. So we’re seeing that the cartels have their fingers in many pies, the legitimate and the illegitimate economy here in Mexico.

It’s kind of fascinating to think of these drug cartels as like sprawling diversified business empires. But when did the cartels first get into the scamming business?

So Jalisco New Generation started about 15 years ago.

And when they started to consolidate their empire in Jalisco state, they found that there were all these scam timeshare call centers all over the state that were being run by various players, and that this was a huge, huge moneymaker. Because essentially, all you have to do is call up retired senior citizens in the US and Canada. It doesn’t take that much money to run that kind of a scheme. There’s no product you’re making.

So essentially, they conducted a hostile takeover of these call centers. They went in. They kicked down doors and dragged out the people who were managing these call centers by their hair and threatened to kill them unless they gave up the call centers or started handing over a cut of what they made. And slowly, slowly Jalisco New Generation cartel took over the entire timeshare fraud industry.

Interesting. Were you able to find any of these call centers?

So these call centers are pretty hard to find. They look like any other storefront. But I was able to visit two that were located in an upscale neighborhood in Guadalajara, which is the capital of Jalisco state. And it was just really perturbing because it was just so normal. Two villas about a mile away from each other outside. Outside of one villa, parents were walking by, holding their children’s hands as they did drop off at school.

It was right next to a park where people taking their morning exercise or their dogs for a walk. There was no real sign that the cartel was doing business there. But a few months before, Mexican law enforcement had found the bodies of eight young people who had used to work at one of these call centers and said that the Jalisco cartel had killed them.

Wow. What happened?

So I wasn’t able to talk directly to any of the victims’ families. They’re just too scared. But in general, this is usually how it starts.

The cartel seeks out English speakers to work for their call centers. Sometimes they don’t even tell them what exactly they are doing. They would tell the recruits that the job was adjacent to the hotel industry.

You have to remember, Jalisco is a huge, huge tourism magnet for Americans and Canadians and others. And the cartel would get their call lists from bribing hotel employees to give them the names of people who stayed at these hotels and also at the timeshare resorts. And the people who would work at the call centers are provided the names and a manual of what you need to do when you call, like a loose script of how to try to suck as much money as you can out of these people up North in Canada and the States.

So we don’t know for sure what exactly happened with the eight young Mexicans who were killed last year. But through an intermediary, one sibling told us that when their family member knew what their job actually was, they became extremely uncomfortable and tried to leave the call center and find another job maybe.

But the Jalisco New Generation cartel is known for being extremely brutal. They chop off heads, and they’ll put them on the gates of a playground, for instance. So that everybody in the neighborhood knows what went down. And in this case, it’s possible that they wanted to send a warning that there’s no defection from their timeshare call centers.

So basically making a very scary example of these guys, in case anyone else is thinking about quitting one of the call centers.

Exactly. And one man, who runs an organization who advocates for missing people and actually organizes search parties to comb the forests of Jalisco state looking for the missing, says that he knows of about 30 people who have disappeared from the call centers in Jalisco state since 2017. So while Americans and Canadians might be losing much of their life savings, in Mexico, this is actually deadly.

Are the authorities doing anything about this?

Not really, other than the fact that these two call centers were shut down. The authorities haven’t arrested others. They’re not putting pressure on Mexican banks, for instance, to look into these payments coming from senior citizens in the US or Canada. And you have to remember that people are really afraid. But you also have to remember that in Mexico things are not that clear. There is a lot of corruption and government collusion with organized crime and cartels.

And the tourism industry, it is huge in Mexico and particularly in Jalisco state. This is a multi-billion dollar industry. They don’t want Americans or Canadians or Europeans who are coming to Jalisco for its beautiful beaches and its mountains to hear about these stories regarding the cartels being involved in the tourism industry and think, I’m not going to send my family there for that beach vacation. It’s just simply too dangerous.

So everybody has an incentive to have the scam continue, whether because they’re too afraid and don’t want to speak out or because they’re in on it.

So in a way, local authorities have an interest in sweeping it under the carpet in order to just maintain this idea of a tourist destination.

Exactly. I mean, the spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office was very responsive to me until I told her what I wanted to ask her questions about. And then she just simply never answered any of my texts or phone calls.

So Maria, based on everything you know, all the information you have, would you say that you’re confident that the cartels were the ones who scammed James?

Yes, 100 percent. Everything I’ve seen points in that direction.

What did James say when you told him this?

So it took him quite a while to really allow himself to believe it. On the advice of his lawyers, he stopped picking up the phone calls. And about a week ago, they stopped after the scammers kept trying to call him.

But you said he was in it for over a year. Why do you think it took him so long?

Can you tell me, after all of that had been presented to you, why do you think you weren’t willing to be entirely convinced?

Well, I actually asked him that question.

That’s a very good question. Why wasn’t I able to pick up on that right away? And I think in the back of my mind, I’m finding out that I’m a little more stubborn than I thought I was.

And for him, it was pretty complicated.

And I think that I didn’t want to believe that I had fallen for this. I didn’t feel I was that foolish and stupid when it came to this. You know? I guess I didn’t want to believe that I could be fooled.

To come to terms with the fact that he had lost so much money was to come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t the person that he thought that he was, that he wasn’t this kind of clever former law enforcement officer who was used to fighting the bad guys and winning.

I’m disappointed in myself. There’s a huge level of anger towards the perpetrators. And all of those things wrapped into one. And part of that, I think, contributes to not wanting to actually believe that I was wrong.

Hmm. Yeah, I hear you. I’m sorry. I can hear the pain in your voice.

[LAUGHS]: Yeah.

Some of it’s based on shame, right? That he lost all this money, everything that he’s worked for, and the fact that this was all supposed to be money that his children and his grandchildren were going to inherit. And now it’s gone.

And have you told your daughter that you think you’ve come to terms with the fact that this might have been a scam?

Oh, she’s been involved. Yeah. They know.

My daughter does.

I’m sorry. This is a tough time.

So I’ve got to make some sort of arrangement to compensate them for this on top of our regular debt. So yeah. It’s been a swell experience, all of it brought on by my — evidently, my stubbornness to believe that I couldn’t possibly be a victim.

How’s your wife doing throughout this whole process, with this new knowledge?

She’s not real happy, obviously, at all. I hear a lot of “I told you so.” And at this point, I’ve got no defense. She’s absolutely right. There’s no question about it.

Do you worry this is going to affect your marriage?

Yes, there has been an effect.

And do you think that at this point there’s any way for James and his family to get some kind of justice or at least find some kind of closure?

Ay. Justice? Unlikely.

At this point, I’m not necessarily expecting much in the way of restitution.

And as for closure, it’s a little bit too soon to tell. In a way, James has gone through several stages of acceptance for what happened. There’s fear. There’s shame. There’s resignation. And now he’s talking to me partly because he feels like it’s a public service, that he needs to be vocal so that other people don’t go through what he’s gone through and fall for the scam. And I think it also helps him feel a little bit empowered in a situation for over the last year and a half he was at the mercy of these people who were calling him multiple times a week.

I want to try to get as much information to as many of these official organizations as possible. I have a streak of anger through me now that I’ve developed to the point where I’m not going to let this go.

Well, Maria, thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Here’s what else you need to know today. OJ Simpson, the football star who was accused and later acquitted of murdering his former wife and her friend, died of cancer at his home in Las Vegas, his family said Thursday. He was 76.

Today’s episode was produced by Astha Chaturvedi and Will Reid, with help from Clare Toeniskoetter and Lindsay Garrison. It was edited by Brendan Klinkenberg and Michael Benoist, contains original music by Marion Lozano, Rowan Niemisto, Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, and Will Reid, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

[THEME MUSIC]

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Katrin Bennhold. See you on Monday.

• April 16, 2024   •   29:29 A.I.’s Original Sin
• April 15, 2024   •   24:07 Iran’s Unprecedented Attack on Israel
• April 14, 2024   •   46:17 The Sunday Read: ‘What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise’
• April 12, 2024   •   34:23 How One Family Lost $900,000 in a Timeshare Scam
• April 11, 2024   •   28:39 The Staggering Success of Trump’s Trial Delay Tactics
• April 10, 2024   •   22:49 Trump’s Abortion Dilemma
• April 9, 2024   •   30:48 How Tesla Planted the Seeds for Its Own Potential Downfall
• April 8, 2024   •   30:28 The Eclipse Chaser
• April 7, 2024 The Sunday Read: ‘What Deathbed Visions Teach Us About Living’
• April 5, 2024   •   29:11 An Engineering Experiment to Cool the Earth
• April 4, 2024   •   32:37 Israel’s Deadly Airstrike on the World Central Kitchen
• April 3, 2024   •   27:42 The Accidental Tax Cutter in Chief

Hosted by Katrin Bennhold

Produced by Asthaa Chaturvedi and Will Reid

With Clare Toeniskoetter and Lynsea Garrison

Edited by Brendan Klinkenberg and Michael Benoist

Original music by Marion Lozano ,  Rowan Niemisto ,  Dan Powell ,  Pat McCusker and Will Reid

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

Warning: this episode contains descriptions of violence.

A massive scam targeting older Americans who own timeshare properties has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars sent to Mexico.

Maria Abi-Habib, an investigative correspondent for The Times, tells the story of a victim who lost everything, and of the criminal group making the scam calls — Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s most violent cartels.

On today’s episode

Maria Abi-Habib , an investigative correspondent for The New York Times based in Mexico City.

Background reading

How a brutal Mexican drug cartel came to target seniors and their timeshares .

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The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

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Katrin Bennhold is the Berlin bureau chief. A former Nieman fellow at Harvard University, she previously reported from London and Paris, covering a range of topics from the rise of populism to gender. More about Katrin Bennhold

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