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Episode: Bad Magic | The Data are the Data | S4-E5
Author: Wondery
Duration: 00:34:00
Episode Shownotes
The team at Hindenburg race to publish their discoveries about Serhat. But how will he answer the charges? Need more Dr. Death? With Wondery+, you can listen to all episodes, unlock exclusive content, get early access to upcoming episodes, and enjoy an always ad-free experience. Start your free trial in
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Summary
In this episode of "Dr. Death," titled "Bad Magic | The Data are the Data | S4-E5," the Hindenburg team investigates Dr. Serhat Gumrukcu, whose controversial claims about revolutionary treatments for cancer and HIV have led to serious ethical questions. Jeffrey Drew, a trial participant, voices frustrations over false medical promises, while revelations of Serhat's fabricated credentials and legal troubles unfold. Enochian's attempts at damage control illustrate the fragile trust in healthcare, culminating in significant financial repercussions as the company rebrands to Renovaro amidst ongoing skepticism about their motives and integrity.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Bad Magic | The Data are the Data | S4-E5) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
Full Transcript
00:00:12 Speaker_08
A year before Serhat was arrested, the filmmaker Zebariah Newman climbed out of his car in the parking garage of Serhat's clinic. This was as close as Zeb and his camera were allowed to come to the building itself.
00:00:29 Speaker_08
In the dim light, he spotted his friend, Jeffrey Drew, waiting for him. Jeffrey was about to undergo yet another blood draw at Serhat's clinic.
00:00:39 Speaker_08
It had been almost two years since Jeffrey started his HIV trial, had been getting his blood drawn regularly, and each time he was told that his HIV levels were undetectable. The experimental treatment seemed to be working.
00:00:54 Speaker_08
But Jeffrey was starting to get impatient. He wanted to know if Serhat's donor cell injections had retrained his immune system to fight the virus.
00:01:05 Speaker_08
As Zeb turned on his camera that morning in the parking garage, Jeffrey was having trouble summoning his usual charisma.
00:01:13 Speaker_12
He's, you know, he's annoyed. He's lacking patience. He even says that morning on film, like, I'm feeling bratty. I don't want to be here. Do this anymore.
00:01:25 Speaker_08
Eventually, Jeffrey got up and trudged inside alone. When he came back out, his mood wasn't any better. The two men sat in Jeffrey's car, talking.
00:01:38 Speaker_12
Jeffrey doesn't cry. He's not a very emotional person, but he was very emotional and he got angry, you know, and he felt a little used and abused.
00:01:51 Speaker_08
If it was a cure, then Serhat stood to make a lot of money.
00:01:56 Speaker_12
He said, I think that they might make a billion dollars, and I didn't get anything. He said, I didn't even get a fruit basket.
00:02:03 Speaker_08
But Jeffrey kept going on with the trial. He'd been risking his life now for nearly two years. It was too late to stop now.
00:02:12 Speaker_08
Even if someone else made billions from it, he was still hopeful his contribution could make a difference in the fight against HIV-AIDS. Then one day, Zeb heard from Jeffrey. He'd gotten some good news.
00:02:26 Speaker_12
There was this idea that Jeffrey was going to go to Washington, D.C. and sit with Dr. Fauci and have a conversation about HIV, and he's going to sit before some organization.
00:02:37 Speaker_12
They're going to look at his data, and they're going to either grant us the money to do a nationwide, government-funded trial or not.
00:02:46 Speaker_08
But there was something even more exciting in the works.
00:02:49 Speaker_12
And they're either going to say Jeffrey is HIV cured or not.
00:02:53 Speaker_08
Jeffrey waited to hear more about the trip. He kept reaching out to the clinic. But they kept putting him off. Eventually, in the spring of 2022, Zeb heard from Jeffrey.
00:03:07 Speaker_12
I think Dr. Serhat's in trouble.
00:03:12 Speaker_08
That was a serious understatement. And Jeffrey would soon have a lot more than a trip to worry about. Like, was anything he thought he knew about the doctor actually real?
00:03:29 Speaker_00
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00:04:03 Speaker_08
From Wondery, I'm Laura Beale, and this is Dr. Death, Bad Magic. This is Episode 5, The Data Are The Data. Over 5,000 miles away from Los Angeles, Enokian investor Ulle Abelgaard sat in his home in Denmark, staring at an email he'd just received.
00:04:32 Speaker_08
His mouth hung open in shock. On his screen was an article saying that the company co-founder had been arrested on murder-for-hire charges. As he told the Danish podcast Dr. No.
00:04:46 Speaker_05
I went out and threw up.
00:04:48 Speaker_08
I walked out to the bathroom and threw up. At first, I didn't believe it. Abelgo was used to the boom and bust roller coaster of investing, and he'd stared down major losses in the past without even blinking. But this arrest was different.
00:05:07 Speaker_08
This time, someone had been killed. And the motive prosecutors were pursuing connected right back to the biotech company. He found the many sides of the company's scientific founder hard to square.
00:05:21 Speaker_08
As he told the podcast, It is difficult for me to understand that you can call yourself a doctor without being one. You can be arrested for participating in and hiring assassins and at the same time be a genius.
00:05:37 Speaker_08
Abelgo turned off his phone and locked himself in his bedroom. He knew many people would be calling him with questions, and he wouldn't be able to answer any of them.
00:05:51 Speaker_10
What's at stake for Minokin at this point is its absolute survival.
00:05:57 Speaker_08
The Hindenburg team was scrambling to finalize their story after news of Serhat's arrest. The market was watching Enochian, but that could change any day, so they needed to get their report out as quickly as possible.
00:06:12 Speaker_08
They worked around the clock checking and rechecking every claim in their article, making sure that every accusation was backed up with evidence. Anything short of that meant...
00:06:22 Speaker_07
All you have to show for your 12-month investigation is an investment loss on top of all the research expenses, on top of the legal bills.
00:06:33 Speaker_07
And in a case like Enokian, you might also have an incredibly wealthy murderous psychopath who's not very fond of you.
00:06:42 Speaker_08
It wasn't enough for the report to be true. It had to be ironclad. Thomas, from Hindenburg, knew he needed to put the team's findings to Enochian's executives before the story published.
00:06:57 Speaker_10
— You have the privilege of putting in a final phone call that you've got them banged to rights. Hey, your top scientist has been arrested on murder-for-hire charges. What have you got to say? I mean, that is a real, real buzz.
00:07:16 Speaker_08
But this time, things weren't quite that cinematic. The CEO, Mark Dybul, wouldn't take Thomas' calls. Neither would a key member of the board of directors, Carol Brosgard, or the man who brought Serhat into the company, Chairman Rene Sendlov.
00:07:41 Speaker_08
They were stonewalling, and the strategy was working. Because each day that Thomas failed to get someone to comment, Enokian's stock was climbing back up. By May 27th, two days after Serhat's arrest, the stock had almost erased its losses.
00:08:00 Speaker_08
And if it kept climbing, it could be financially disastrous for Hindenburg. Two days before Hindenburg planned to go to press, Thomas was still trying to find someone to talk to at Enochian.
00:08:20 Speaker_10
— I just kept trawling and trawling through SEC filings and other documents, and finally came across a U.S. phone number, probably several years old, but hey, I think it was a Florida number from recollection.
00:08:35 Speaker_10
And so I think, well, what the hell, put in the call, Guy answers the phone, hey, is this Rene? Yeah, yeah, it's Rene.
00:08:45 Speaker_08
It was the Rene Sendlev, the chair of Enochian, the man who had merged his company with Serhat's. Thomas said he was a journalist and Rene stayed on the line.
00:08:59 Speaker_10
I said, did you know at the time that you did this merger deal, at the time that you announced it, that you were dealing with a felon?
00:09:09 Speaker_08
In 2017, Serhat had been arrested on 14 felony counts relating to fraud and theft. It had never been clear how much Rene and Enokian knew about Serhat's criminal charges. Rene's response caught Thomas off guard.
00:09:26 Speaker_10
And he said, yes, we knew. But he only had to pay a fine of 400 bucks. And I knew exactly what that was about. And I didn't see that there was any need to discuss that.
00:09:38 Speaker_08
He also said that he didn't think Serhat had been convicted. Thomas didn't think that was the whole picture.
00:09:46 Speaker_08
If anyone looked at the case file, they'd see a series of high value financial thefts and frauds that might concern any potential business partner. So he tried again.
00:09:59 Speaker_10
Why didn't you stop it? You know, René Sindlef said to me, he says, regardless of anything that's happened, I still have to admit he's a genius, whether he's a doctor or not.
00:10:12 Speaker_08
Renee's belief in Serhat's abilities had not changed.
00:10:17 Speaker_10
It's like, how do you square that circle? You know, just how do you do it? You hired him because you thought he was a doctor. Everything pointed to the fact that he's a doctor. He can't be a genius whether he's a doctor or not.
00:10:31 Speaker_10
He's either a genius and a doctor, or he's an absolute con man that you've fallen for. But Sindleff seemed to believe that both things were possible.
00:10:42 Speaker_08
Thomas pressed Rene about Serhat's arrest in the murder-for-hire plot.
00:10:47 Speaker_10
He said, I don't care whether he's guilty or not. If he is guilty, he needs to be punished for it. And if he's not guilty, well, good for him. How a chairman of a US-listed company
00:11:04 Speaker_10
Can you be telling me that you do not care if your founder and scientific founder is guilty or not of conspiracy to murder?
00:11:17 Speaker_08
We reached out to Rene Sendlev for this story, but he declined to comment. It was June 1st, 2022, a week since Serhat was arrested. The markets were going to open in just over an hour, and Inokian stock was down just 60 cents from where it was before.
00:11:41 Speaker_08
Nate sat in his office chair reading the story one last time.
00:11:46 Speaker_07
We focused largely on his background. So we focused on how he had apparently fabricated every bit of his educational background that we could find, that he didn't graduate with multiple PhDs, that he didn't have any medical degrees or license.
00:12:05 Speaker_07
He was in fact a low-level Turkish street magician who had fled the country after charges of defrauding locals in Turkey.
00:12:17 Speaker_07
And we also highlighted, of course, his massive white-collar crime spree that he undertook right when he got to the U.S., just really a buffet of various different flavors of white-collar fraud.
00:12:31 Speaker_08
The article also detailed his treatment of cancer patients from Denmark and Pennsylvania.
00:12:37 Speaker_07
We really focused on his history to date to show that this is not the Michelangelo you think you have. This guy is a complete con artist.
00:12:48 Speaker_08
Nate checked in with his team. And when everyone gave the all clear, he pressed the button to publish their investigation into Serhat Gümröpçü.
00:12:59 Speaker_07
And just went outside and took a long walk and smoked a cigarette. And the reaction when I came back was pretty much instantaneous.
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00:17:10 Speaker_08
The article began to rocket around the internet. It made its way to Guy Rokin, the podcaster who'd interviewed Serhat.
00:17:18 Speaker_03
I get a DM, a LinkedIn message, from someone who I don't know, being like, hey, have you seen this article? Your podcast episode is referenced.
00:17:31 Speaker_03
I open it up, and the title is, Miracle Cures and Murder for Hire, How a Spoonbending Turkish Magician Built a $600 Million Nasdaq-Listed Scam Based on a Lifetime of Lies. And boy, was I, I was just blown away by this article.
00:17:50 Speaker_08
He thought back to Serhat's party he'd gone to in the Hollywood Hills. Suddenly, all the magicians that were there made more sense. But nothing else did.
00:18:01 Speaker_03
The Hindenburg team began hearing from people all over the world.
00:18:25 Speaker_07
The reaction was like, holy shit, like, what are you even talking about? Fake magician who lies about scientific research is not the norm for, you know, criticism of a public company listed on the NASDAQ.
00:18:40 Speaker_08
Sure enough, Enokian's share price dropped again. Hindenburg's report had spooked investors and their short sell had worked.
00:18:52 Speaker_07
Yes, in this case, we did make more than the cost of research for our short.
00:18:59 Speaker_08
Nate won't say how much they made, but the risk had paid off.
00:19:03 Speaker_07
Sometimes you can even be right on facts, wrong on timing. There's all sorts of reasons why a stock can go up. So it is often a very risky, I mean, always really a risky endeavor. But yeah, no, this one, this one was one that worked for us.
00:19:24 Speaker_08
Enochian's reaction to the story was immediate. The day the story went up, its CEO, Mark Dibal, wrote a letter to Enochian's shareholders. I have spoken to some of you about the serious and disturbing news that broke last week about Serhat Gumrucu.
00:19:42 Speaker_10
They try and tell us in the press release there has never been a formal role for Gumrucu in the company. and his remaining informal role as a scientific advisor is concluded.
00:19:53 Speaker_10
So they kind of say, we stand by his credentials, but he's not got a hand in the day-to-day running of the company.
00:20:00 Speaker_08
— This was damage control.
00:20:03 Speaker_07
So the company came out and said that they strongly refuted our findings. But noticeably, in the press release where they claimed that everything was great, they stopped referring to Serhat as Dr. Serhat.
00:20:18 Speaker_07
They just started calling him Serhat at that point.
00:20:23 Speaker_08
Enochian called Hindenburg's article, quote, misleading propaganda, intended to drive the company's stock price down.
00:20:31 Speaker_08
They said there had never been a formal role for Serhat in the company and that his informal role of scientific advisor had concluded. And they were insistent that their patents still had the potential to cure deadly diseases.
00:20:47 Speaker_08
In other words, they were saying that even if Serhat was a multiple fraudster and suspected murderer, his ideas still had merit. Dybul wrote, the science is the science. The data are the data.
00:21:07 Speaker_08
But how could Serhat's medical miracles be believed if it lied about everything else? One of the people focused on that question was Zeb. He was wondering what it meant for his friend Jeffrey.
00:21:22 Speaker_12
The very first thing I was concerned with was, is Jeffrey okay? I started to trace back in my mind all of the times where he appeared sick or run down. I started to question, like, was his undetectable status real? You know, like, why?
00:21:40 Speaker_12
It just, everything started to flash in my mind. And Jeffrey was very quick to reassure me and everyone that he was okay. But I don't believe that he was super okay.
00:21:53 Speaker_08
Zeb knew that Jeffrey didn't want to ruin the trial by going back on his old medication. Even when he'd been too sick to leave his house, he hadn't given up on Serhat's cure. So Jeffrey called Serhat's clinic and called and called.
00:22:11 Speaker_08
No one there could tell him what to do. So he went back on a regimen of antiretroviral drugs and ended his HIV treatment trial.
00:22:24 Speaker_08
We reached out to Mark Dybul from Enochian about Jeffrey's treatment and he responded, We had no involvement in the administration of this treatment to Mr. Drew.
00:22:35 Speaker_08
Moreover, Enochian had no involvement with any treatment conducted by Seroff Clinic and did not work with the Seroff Research Institute on any HIV treatment.
00:22:47 Speaker_08
Mark Dybul, however, was aware of Jeffrey's trial, and Enokian stood to benefit financially from any positive outcome. As far as Zeb could tell, the whole thing was a huge loss for his friend.
00:23:02 Speaker_12
— When we would do these press events and these Q&As, pride that he felt for potentially being a part of something that would help so many people was just massive for him.
00:23:22 Speaker_12
And so when all of that got taken away and suddenly he got put back on medication, it was devastating.
00:23:31 Speaker_08
Jeffrey had spent two years of his life sacrificing his well-being in the search for a cure. Had it all been a sham?
00:23:41 Speaker_12
We'll never know how much this has affected his physical body and what the ramifications of this will be. And will he be able to withstand like cancer or some other type of sickness or disease that comes with life? It's incredibly infuriating.
00:24:01 Speaker_08
We did reach out to Jeffrey for this story, but he declined to comment. Not long after Serhat's arrest, Zeb's documentary on Jeffrey was taken down by the streaming service that bought it. For Zeb, that was tragic.
00:24:19 Speaker_12
I feel like in this entire tsunami of terrible bullshit, Jeffrey's story has been totally lost.
00:24:30 Speaker_12
And his act of service and his just willingness to put his life on the line to honor his fallen brothers that have died from this disease has totally been lost.
00:24:49 Speaker_08
A month after Hindenburg's article came out, another statement was posted on Enochian's website. The company said they'd been reviewing Serhat's test results. Quote, But that wasn't all.
00:25:10 Speaker_08
The company also disclosed that Serhat had faked the results of animal studies for their COVID and hepatitis B treatments. In this case, the data wasn't the data.
00:25:22 Speaker_08
As a result, the company will initiate legal action against Gumrukciu over the falsified data. Enochian was now taking to court its own inventor and co-founder, the man they'd described as a genius.
00:25:39 Speaker_07
They sued Surha, alleging that they had been duped and they had no idea that it was just a big fraud all along. And how could this happen? Just such a horrific surprise.
00:25:51 Speaker_07
And my thought was that this was just entirely disingenuous to show if anyone asks, like, look, we were also surprised by this. We had no idea.
00:26:00 Speaker_07
I mean, we were in line to make, you know, tens of millions of dollars from these lies and there were red flags all over the place, but how could anyone have seen this?
00:26:08 Speaker_08
By the time the lawsuit was filed, Enochian's share price had fallen to $2.11 a share. And the company and its investors had lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result.
00:26:22 Speaker_07
The largest holder of Enochian stock was Sirhat Gamruku himself and his family members and related entities. So the biggest loser in the stock market was Sirhat himself, which is exactly how it should be in our view.
00:26:40 Speaker_07
The CEO and several other executives and board members had stock, so they also lost significant amounts of their paper holdings.
00:26:53 Speaker_08
The fallout from the revelations about Serhat was worse for the patients and the people who loved them, those who had placed their hope in Serhat's hands.
00:27:02 Speaker_07
I think what he did was he preyed on vulnerability wherever he could find it and looked for the absolute most vulnerable people he could find and came in with a smile on his face and a calm voice and credentials and the white lab coat and pretended that he was going to solve their most horrific problem in exchange for a lot of money and people bought it.
00:27:30 Speaker_08
What was going through Serhat's mind as he offered these treatments?
00:27:35 Speaker_07
It's tough to pinpoint the motivation for Serhat. Certainly money. I think he was motivated also by fame. I think possibly motivated by a desire for respect amongst peers or intelligent people.
00:27:52 Speaker_08
But perhaps there's something else. That same look that his old school friend saw in his eyes long ago back in Turkey. That same hysteria when he first saw a magic trick. The delight of deception.
00:28:06 Speaker_07
A lot of times with someone like him, they're also motivated by a joy in tricking people and using his wits to get money from people, like a predator that feels a sense of joy from his prey.
00:28:31 Speaker_01
All right, welcome back inside our proactive newsroom. And joining me now is Dr. Mark Dybul.
00:28:36 Speaker_08
In late 2023, Enochian's CEO was excited to make an announcement.
00:28:41 Speaker_01
He is the CEO of Renovaro Biosciences. And Dr. Dybul, great to see you. How are you?
00:28:47 Speaker_02
Great, how are you? Nice to be with you, Steve. Thanks for inviting me.
00:28:49 Speaker_08
Enochian had a new name and a new focus.
00:28:53 Speaker_02
Renoborrow, it means to renew, is focused on platform approaches to strengthen our own immune system, to renew the immune system, to retrain it so that it can control diseases on its own.
00:29:07 Speaker_08
With a new name came a new focus on cancer. They were planning a merger with an up-and-coming AI company to supercharge their cancer detection. And that HIV treatment that Jeffrey went through so much for?
00:29:22 Speaker_08
In their annual report, the company announced they were dropping plans to make it into a clinical trial. In a separate statement to us, Mark Dybul said the results from the patient were promising and that he's hopeful the approach will be evaluated.
00:29:41 Speaker_08
As Enochian went public with the rebrand, their stock surged once more. Nate has seen it all before.
00:29:49 Speaker_07
I think it's just a cheap tactic to try and sort of gloss over the fact that they had just run this massive entity filled with lies and just change the story a little bit and see if they can sell the new story to people.
00:30:05 Speaker_07
And sadly, I think it will work. I think it's already clear that they've managed to pump their stock back up. They've got people excited about this new AI venture. That seems completely outrageous.
00:30:18 Speaker_07
And my guess is they will, if they haven't already, um, dump stock on the people that are buying into the new story. And I think they'll probably just keep doing it over and over and over again until and unless they are actually stopped.
00:30:36 Speaker_08
Meanwhile, one of the largest shareholders of Renovaro stock is behind bars. Serhat is still awaiting trial on murder for hire charges relating to the kidnapping and death of Gregory Davis. He has pled not guilty.
00:30:53 Speaker_08
If convicted, he faces up to life in prison. Serhat's trial isn't scheduled to start until October, 2024. We reached out to him, his family, and his attorneys, but all declined to comment.
00:31:14 Speaker_08
In the meantime, according to Serhat's friend, Brooke Casey, he's making the most of his time behind bars.
00:31:22 Speaker_09
He sort of sees this as an opportunity. He's been, you know, raising the consciousness of the people that he's met in incarceration, teaching meditation, teaching yoga.
00:31:33 Speaker_09
He's taking this as this moment to, you know, meditate and to, you know, have access to people that he wouldn't have had access to.
00:31:47 Speaker_08
People who might be looking for a guru, or a magician, or a genius who can make all of their problems vanish.
00:31:59 Speaker_06
I think in that respect, I'm very fortunate. I can say pretty much over 90% of things I've come up with panned out. And the less than 10% that didn't pan out taught me a lot.
00:32:27 Speaker_11
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00:33:15 Speaker_01
Get back in your car. Lizzie, it's okay. I'm here now. Josh, get in your car!
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Starring Bethany Joy Lenz, Clive Standen, and Michael O'Neil. Welcome to the Dark Sanctum. Listen to Dark Sanctum Season 2 exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
00:33:48 Speaker_08
From Wondery, this is episode 5 of 5 of Dr. Death, Bad Magic. I'm your host, Laura Biel. This series is written by Benjamin Gray. Producer is Nika Singh. Senior producer is Russell Finch. Story Editor is Alison Weintraub.
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Senior Editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Fact-Checking by Jacqueline Colletti. Additional Reporting by Gulsan Harman and Alyssa Jong Perry. Production Assistance by Mariah Dennis and Emily Locke. Sound Design and Mixing by Kyle Randall.
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Senior Managing Producer is Lata Pandya. Coordinating Producer is Heather Beloga. Produced by StoryForce. Music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesound Sync.
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Special thanks to Jesper Pedersen, to Ali Dashti, and Guy Rokin of the Fancy Lab Coat Guild podcast, and to Nate Anderson and the staff at Hindenburg Research for use of their reporting.
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Executive producers are Bly Pagan-Faust and Corey Shepard Stern for StoryForce. Our executive producers are George Lavender, Marshall Louie, and Jen Sargent for Wondery.