Spotlight: Snitch City brings listeners inside the clandestine world of police informants through the story of one police department. Investigative reporter Dugan Arnett uncovers rampant misconduct and explores how, in a nation addicted to drugs, police have become addicted to informants.
Pulitzer Prize winner Jake Halpern and journalist Jess McHugh investigate Sarah Cavanaugh's elaborate six-year deception, which impacted many lives, in this episode of Deep Cover: The Truth About Sarah.
6 May 2025TRANSCRIPT
UPDATE: Case Dismissed
Reporters Dugan Arnett and Andrew Ryan cover the potential dismissal of Steven Ortiz's drug trafficking case due to police misconduct, revealing the possible consequences for law enforcement in this interview episode.
2 May 2025TRANSCRIPT
Introducing The Burden
This episode introduces the investigative podcast *The Burden*, which explores Detective Louis Scarcella's controversial conviction record in 1990s New York City and the subsequent release of over 20 individuals.
1 Apr 2025TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE 5: “All this for nothing”
Two former New Bedford informants tell shocking stories. The first: a woman who didn’t even know she was being used as an informant by the cop she was sleeping with. The second: a man who was Paul Oliveira’s informant decades ago and who knows – better than anyone – how the police chief exploits the secrecy of this world. Spotlight reporters Dugan Arnett and Andrew Ryan try to get answers and accountability.
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25 Mar 2025TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE 4: Cops & Robbers
When Frank "Rizzo" Simmons was a big-time drug dealer in New Bedford in the '90s, he went toe-to-toe with a drug cop named Paul Oliveira. After a major bust of Frank’s headquarters, Oliveira tries to turn Frank into an informant. But snitching goes against everything Frank believes in. This won’t be the last time Frank will have to decide if he should cooperate. But the next time, it’s going to be harder to stay true to his code. Because next time, he'll be asked to snitch on Paul Oliveira.
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18 Mar 2025TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE 3: The Chief
Meet New Bedford’s police chief, Paul Oliveira. He’s had a hand in both of the stories we’ve already heard. And the Spotlight Team's reporting shows there's a dark backstory behind Oliveira's rise to the top of the department. Oliveira wrote the playbook on using informants. In this episode, a former New Bedford narcotics cop who worked alongside the chief for nearly two decades agrees to go on the record about everything he’s seen… and taken part in.
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11 Mar 2025TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE 2: Blind Trust
Spotlight reporter Dugan Arnett receives a desperate phone call from an informant who’s now in prison. He says he's afraid for his life because other inmates know he cooperated with police. This informant always knew he’d be in danger if someone from his gang found out that he was a snitch. What he didn’t anticipate was being betrayed by police, including a New Bedford officer who shares information with a member of the informant's gang.
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11 Mar 2025TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE 1: Officer Pastillas
On the docks of New Bedford, Massachusetts, whispers about a rogue police officer harassing fishermen and stealing drugs come to a head aboard a scalloping boat late one night. The officer forces his way on board, saying an informant told him there would be drugs on board, and demands some. But when another officer, Mark Raposo, shows up, he thinks his colleague is in the middle of a “drug rip.” Now Raposo is ready to blow the whistle on what he’s seen. And it turns out that this officer’s abuse of the informant system is just the tip of the iceberg in this historic port city.
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26 Feb 2025
Trailer
In a nation addicted to drugs, police across the country have become addicted to informants. Nowhere is this more apparent than in one New England port city, where police have been empowered to use informants to take down dealers by almost any means necessary. This is the story of a deeply flawed system, the flawed individuals working within it, and the injustices that can occur when no one’s watching.
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18 Feb 2025
Trailer Two
In just a few weeks, the Boston Globe’s new podcast will drop. Informants are the nameless, faceless cogs of the criminal justice system. And their use is cloaked in near total secrecy. Reporter Dugan Arnett will show how police misconduct and informant abuse have run rampant.
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9 Jan 2025
Coming Soon… Snitch City
Confidential informant expert, Dr. Tom Barker, a leading researcher on police informants, sheds light on the hidden world of snitching and its impact on the war on drugs, revealing the complexities and consequences of using informants to fight crime.
Inside a recent episode
Introducing Deep Cover: The Truth About Sarah
Published 23 May 2025 · Transcript excerpt
[…] Just snippets, really. But when I read about her was so bizarre, so unusual, I had a million questions. So I tracked her down. We started sending emails, talking on the phone, getting to know each other. And right from the start, she felt familiar to me. I have a few things in common, actually. […]
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