Unmasking Fraud and Corruption: A Conversation with Sam Antar on Brannon Howse Live

Folks, if you love a good personal interest story mixed with hard-hitting news, you’re going to want to sit down for this one. On a recent episode of Brannon Howse Live, I had the privilege of sitting down with Sam Antar—a man whose life could easily be the next Hollywood blockbuster, rivaling Catch Me If You Can with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. But Sam’s story isn’t just a wild ride of fraud and redemption; it’s a masterclass in auditing, forensic accounting, and sniffing out corruption—skills he’s now turning on some of today’s biggest political players, like New York Attorney General Letitia James. Buckle up, because this is a story you won’t want to miss.

From Crazy Eddie to Forensic Crusader

Sam Antar’s journey starts in the 1980s with Crazy Eddie, a family-run electronics empire in New York famous for its “insane” prices and iconic commercials. You’ve probably seen them—here’s a snippet from a 1978 ad: “Crazy Eddie guarantees you the largest selection, professionally staffed service centers, and the guaranteed lowest prices. Crazy Eddie, his prices are insane!” Sounds like a deal too good to be true, right? Well, it was.

Sam started as a 14-year-old stock boy, but his cousin Eddie Antar and uncle took him under their wing, sending him to college to become a CPA—not to keep the books clean, but to learn how to cook them. “I was trained to be a criminal basically from teenage years,” Sam told me. He aced the CPA exam with a 91 average—one of the top 1% in the country—and went to work for the accounting firm auditing Crazy Eddie, mastering the art of fooling auditors. When Crazy Eddie went public and brought in KPMG, a Big Four firm, Sam fleeced them too. “As a criminal, I never lost an audit,” he said with a wry chuckle.

The scam? Early on, it was garden-variety tax evasion—skimming cash, dodging sales tax, and under-reporting income. But by 1979, Sam had a bigger vision: go public and overstate earnings to inflate stock value. “If I overstate my income by a million dollars and overpay $400,000 in taxes,” he explained, “I still have $600,000 in pre-tax income. But as a public company, if my stock is trading at 30 times earnings, I’m creating $18 million in fictional wealth.” That’s right—overpaying taxes was the key to pumping up the stock, which they then cashed out on. It’s a scheme so slick it inspired the Ben Affleck movie The Accountant.

But every house of cards falls eventually. In 1987, a hostile takeover exposed the fraud—not because auditors caught it, but because the buyers believed Sam’s bogus financials and got burned. “I’m a victim of my own criminal success,” he said. Eddie and others went to jail, but Sam cooperated with the feds, landing six months of house arrest, 1,200 hours of community service, and $30,000 in fines. Remarkably, the civil plaintiffs gave him a complete pass on billions in liability, letting him start fresh.

Turning the Tables: Forensic Accounting Today

Today, Sam’s a quasi-retired forensic accountant with a knack for spotting what others miss. “I never had to look for work,” he told me. “People came to me because I had a marketable skill.” That skill? A CPA’s education paired with a crook’s experience—perfect for teaching government agencies and law firms how to catch the bad guys. He’s worked for the SEC on whistleblower claims and even some of the firms that sued him back in the day. Talk about redemption!

But Sam’s not resting on his laurels. On March 9, 2025, he tweeted an update to his investigation into Letitia James’ financial disclosures, and it’s a bombshell. “I’ve uploaded my March 6th investigation… with significant new details that further document a decade-long pattern of questionable reporting,” he wrote. On air, he broke it down: “I look for inconsistencies. She says something here, but it doesn’t match what she said there. When you see a pattern, that’s a major red flag.”

Take her Norfolk, Virginia property. James reported it’s worth $100,000 to $150,000, yet she’s got $509,000 in mortgages on it—per her own disclosures and property records. “How do you obtain a $500,000 mortgage on property worth $100,000 to $150,000?” Sam asked. He’s not accusing her of Trump-level fraud (he didn’t follow that case), but he’s got the receipts—links to source documents on his blog, whitecollarfraud.com. “I left nothing to guesswork,” he said. No cease-and-desist letter from James yet, either. “If they send one, they can shove it,” he quipped. “I’ve been bullied by the best—the feds—for 10 years. I don’t scare easily.”

Sam’s still digging, posting real-time forensic audits on X (

@SamAntar

) and his blog. He’s worked with every three-letter agency out there—“The FBI has my mugshot and fingerprints on file; they know where to find me,” he joked—and expects law enforcement to pick this up. Could Pam Bondi or others in the new administration take notice? Time will tell.

DOGE, Fraud, and the $5 Trillion Question

We also talked about Elon Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) initiative. With supercomputers like Grok—built just miles from my studio in the old Electrolux building—Sam sees potential. “What he’s doing is great,” he said. “Computers will catch irregularities, the kind of questions I’m catching.” But he cautioned, “You still need the human element… and subpoena power.” Musk’s quirks don’t faze him: “Maybe he over-embellishes, but what he’s trying to do is the right thing.”

Why does it matter? The feds spend about $5 trillion a year in taxes, and fraud’s eating a chunk of it. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimates fraud costs 6% of the U.S. economy—over $1 trillion. Congressman Tim Burchett, in a March 12 Oversight Committee clip, pegged agency fraud at nearly 8%. “If it’s just 2%, that’s $100 billion,” Sam said. “I don’t want to see that go to waste.” Add in waste—possibly 10 times more—and we’re talking serious money. Could we ditch the income tax if we rooted it all out? “I don’t know,” Sam admitted, “but we could lower taxes and improve the safety net. It’s a win-win.”

Advice for the Next Generation

Before we wrapped, I asked Sam for advice for young folks. “Save money,” he said. “Don’t spend $15 on a glass of wine. Invest in a no-load index fund and build your future.” No gold or silver for this “old-fashioned crook”—he keeps it under the pillow. But his real wisdom? Education. “Despite what you’ve done, if you have an education, you can always draw on it.”

Final Thoughts

Sam Antar’s story—from Crazy Eddie’s mastermind to white-collar crime fighter—is a testament to turning knowledge into power. His work on Letitia James and beyond is just getting started, and I’ll be watching. Follow him at @SamAntar and whitecollarfraud.com. And folks, if you like what we’re doing here, check out our sponsors at worldviewtube.com/sponsors—products we use and trust, from satellite phones to Bella Grace’s Elixir and Bellatrim (Logan’s on it now!). Save money, stay informed, and let’s keep shining a light on the truth.

WATCH FULL INTERVIEW: https://worldviewtube.com/tv/video/letitia-james-guilty-what-she-accuse…