A narrative podcast about scams, community and trust.
Țeapă Țeapă Țeapă (Alex’s New Job) is an independent Romanian audio mini-series in 6 episodes, released in late 2025 and early 2026 on Youtube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
It is hosted by PressOne, a local investigative publication, co-financed by AFCN, backed by ING Romania and with the support of Balkan Watchers.
The series has received rave reviews online, has been praised by local journalists and has been featured in One World Documentary Festival, Romania.
THE SERIES
Spanning more than three years of work, Alex, far too curious for his own good, ends up infiltrating scammer networks, talking to victims from all over Europe and trying to figure out why scams have become so widespread.
Alex managed to confront actual scammers, collect troves of data, talk to experts form all sorts of fields, and even befriend a Nigerian scammer.
All this while keeping Ana, his girlfriend, in the dark!
Finally, Alex sits Ana down to unravel the entire story.
Digital fraud is the fastest growing form of crime and is severely affecting people from all walks of life, on both ends of the scam. The series tries to shed light on what goes on beyond the headlines: the shame, the poverty, and the stories.
FULL EPISODES WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Episode 1: The Offer
Alex takes on a shady “job” and enters an online community. Everything seems fun and full of promise. Not knowing where it leads, he asks Ana to keep it a secret from her, just for a short while.
As more money starts to flow in, things get more tense.
Episode 2: The Benefits Package
Alex follows the repercussions of the company’s disappearance and the attempts made those who got scammed.
An interview with one of the victims puts things in perspective: how they ended up losing money, despite good intentions and their own solid suspicions. We get to see how deep the wound can really be.
Episode 3: The PR Campaign
Alex and Ana discover that the whole thing is much larger than they could have imagined, both abroad and within Romanian communities. An university vice-dean gets used as a scapegoat.
Lastly, a juicy confrontation in a Christmas live stream.
Episode 4: Recruitment
Alongside sociologist Andrada Istrate, we unravel older Romanian schemes, grossly overlooked.
A trove of people tell their stories and patterns start to appear. We also get a glimpse of the fringes: some who try to game the system, others who take advantage of those close to them.
Episode 5: IT Support
With the help of experts, Alex explores the cross-border and psychological patters of fraud, as well as the economic cogs that fuel it.
We learn about global networks and modern slavery systems, as well as the big reasons that brought us here.
Spoiler, Alex befriends a scammer and things get pretty nuanced.
Episode 6: The Promotion
Fraud is becoming increasingly sophisticated.
In a world that is harder and harder to decode, Alex and Ana seek answers from experts about how we can protect in the face of increasingly aggressive waves of scams.
We close with more optimistic thoughts on community and trust.
CREDITS
ALEX LUNGU: host, producer, editor, writer
ANA TUROS: co-host
ANDREI BOBIȘ: sound designer, music
ANDREEA TĂNASE: writer, assistant producer
IOANA PELEHATĂI: story editor
DANIELA UNGUREANU: communications manager
ANCA TRUȚESKOV: PR manager
YANNA ZOSMER: graphic designer
MIHAELA VASILIU: social media manager
SMARANDA PASNICU: project manager
VLAD SOCIANU: animator
RĂZVAN PETRE: animator