Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
The Black Market for a Lifesaving Cat Drug
About This Episode
In 2023, Marlena Arjo adopted a one-eyed kitten with a penchant for destruction. She named him Otto, and over the next eight months, Otto grew into his own little chaotic personality.
“ He’s laying on houseplants, he’s tearing books out of the bookshelves, ripping the calendar off the wall…I wasn’t prepared for having a criminal in my home,” Arjo joked.
Within months, Otto got sick and stopped eating. Arjo rushed him to a vet and learned he had feline infectious peritonitis, better known as FIP, a disease that kills nearly all cats that contract it.
The vet said there was nothing the clinic could do. But there was something Arjo could do.
“I shouldn’t tell you this,” Arjo recalled the vet telling her. “But by the way, you can get drugs for this if you go to this Facebook group.”
This week on Reveal, in partnership with the Hyperfixed podcast, we tell the story of the cat drug black market, why it was even necessary, and how cat lovers fought for big changes to make the black market obsolete.
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Inside America’s Race to Hide the World’s Money
SummaryThis episode of Reveal investigates the booming domestic trust industry, which has transformed the United States into a primary global destination for hiding assets. The hosts explore how wealthy individuals use trusts—legal mechanisms once reserved for the ultra-wealthy—to avoid taxes, protect assets from creditors, and maintain complete financial privacy. Through the story of entrepreneur Alessandro Chesar, the episode highlights the disparity between the sophisticated tools available to the rich and the financial realities faced by everyday Americans. Reporters Sally Hersch and Leah McGrath Goodman take listeners to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, an unlikely epicenter for this trillion-dollar industry. They reveal how states compete to enact the most lenient, secrecy-favoring laws to attract capital. Experts discuss how these practices, including perpetual trusts and structures that keep beneficiaries in the dark, contribute to extreme wealth inequality and complicate legal efforts to trace hidden funds. The episode paints a picture of a system where legal loopholes are actively cultivated to prevent the redistribution of wealth, ultimately questioning whether these secretive financial practices are fueling a new era of American aristocracy.
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