How we research: sources, reenactments and corrections

Every MATERIUM episode rests on at least ten sources read in full, three of them primary (court rulings, indictments, official statements or documents from the scam itself), and no sensitive figure makes it into a script without two independent sources or one primary source. What you see on screen is always labeled: “REAL ARCHIVE” if it's authentic, “REENACTMENT” if it's been rebuilt. If you find a mistake, email us at info@materium.tv.

What sources do we use, and how much do we trust each one?

Before a single line of script is written, the research on every case has to clear a gate: our in-depth research standard. At a minimum, it requires:

• Ten sources actually read, not summaries. Read in the original and, at least one of them, in the language of the country where the case happened: French newspapers for Lustig, Spanish ones for Baldomera Larra, Russian ones for Mavrodi.
• Three or more primary sources. A court ruling or filing, a statement from prosecutors or police, a public record, an original statement or a document from the scam itself (a brochure, a bond, a contract).
• A clear order of priority. First, official documents: the courts, the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC, Spain's CENDOJ court database. Next, period newspaper archives, such as the Library of Congress's Chronicling America in the US, the Hemeroteca Digital of the National Library of Spain, Gallica in France or the newspaper portal of the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek. Then reference books and quality journalism. Encyclopedias, Wikipedia included, are support, never the only source.

How do we separate fact from legend?

Every piece of information in the research carries a label, and that label decides how it's told:

1. Proven: a conviction or an official document says so. We state it.
2. Documented: serious journalism has published it with documents. We state it and cite who published it.
3. Claim: one of the parties says so, whether the con artist, a victim or a lawyer. We attribute it: “according to him,” “according to prosecutors.”
4. Legend: it gets repeated without proof. We tell it as legend, or we leave it out.

This method is what makes episodes like Frank Abagnale's possible: his story as a fake pilot and doctor, made famous by Hollywood, clashes with the prison records published by researcher Alan C. Logan. When the sources don't agree, we say so (“sources vary between X and Y”). Estimates are presented as estimates.

What do we double-check?

Sensitive claims: amounts of money, convictions, alleged crimes, information about victims, minors or health. They need two independent sources or one primary source. And not only in the narration: every piece of on-screen text is a claim. Stamps, captions, the figures in collages and thumbnail headlines go through the same fact-check as the voiceover.

With living people or open cases we're stricter: we only tell what's already published and documented (convictions, court documents, published investigations), always attributed to its source and without adjectives a court hasn't handed down. Before each episode is published, we check the status of the case again (appeals, pardons, new charges) and note the date we checked.

When an episode gives a character a voice, the script marks whether the words are real (said or written by that person, with a source) or reenacted (a documented scene with reconstructed words true to their meaning). We never put a fact in anyone's mouth that isn't in the research.

How are real archives and reenactments labeled?

Real archival material (photos of the subject, documents, checks, tickets, period newspapers) goes into an episode under three conditions: it comes out of the research, it has a purpose (setting context, proving a fact or holding attention) and it's anchored to a specific sentence in the narration. It carries the “REAL ARCHIVE · MATERIUM” stamp and a credit with the source and license.

We only use public-domain or freely licensed material (Wikimedia Commons, national archives, official documents, mugshots released by the authorities) or, briefly, transformed and credited, as a quotation under Article 32 of Spain's Intellectual Property Law, where the series is produced. We never use frames from other documentaries or photos from news agencies or press photographers. Of the victims, we only show what they themselves made public; when in doubt, we don't. Third parties' personal data is hidden.

When no archive exists, especially in 19th-century cases, we reenact: a letter, a receipt, a newspaper clipping or a period portrait, rebuilt with artificial intelligence from what the sources describe. Whatever isn't known is left illegible or out of focus. Every reenactment carries the “REENACTMENT · MATERIUM” stamp and a “Reenacted from” credit naming the source that describes it. Reenacted portraits are never photorealistic: they're made in the style of an engraving, an oil painting or a newspaper illustration. And every video is uploaded to YouTube with the altered or synthetic content label turned on.

What happens if we get something wrong?

We fix it, at the root. Email us at info@materium.tv with the page or episode, the sentence or timestamp and, if you can, the source that contradicts it. We review every report against the sources for the case.

Inside the team, every mistake follows a five-step protocol: it's logged as soon as it's spotted, we look for its root cause (why the process let the mistake through, not just where it showed up), it's fixed in the shared process and not only in the affected episode, it gets a check that keeps it from happening again, and earlier episodes are reviewed against that check. A mistake without a check is considered open even if the episode has already been fixed. On this site, when a correction changes a fact, the page and its last-updated date are updated.

What don't we do?

• We don't ask for money. Ever. Not by email, not on social media, not on WhatsApp. Anyone who does it in MATERIUM's name is scamming you.
• We don't recover money. Offers to recover what you've lost in exchange for a fee are themselves a well-known scam.
• We don't give financial, legal or tax advice, and we don't recommend investments or products.
• We don't collect data about victims or individual cases.

If you think you're being scammed, use our scam checker and contact your bank, the police and your country's regulator: in the US, report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and, for online fraud, to the FBI's IC3; in the UK, check the FCA Register and report it to Report Fraud. To understand why the cases we investigate worked, start with The Laws of Deception or the documented cases, and if you want to know who makes the series, read what MATERIUM is.