Bad Magic | The Closing Bell | S4-E4
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It was a freezing night in January of 2018. A car pulled over on a quiet stretch of road in northeastern Vermont. Inside was Jerry Banks, a jail guard. He put the car in park and took a deep breath. Then he picked up his phone. He'd been preparing for this night for months. A neighbor of his back in Nevada, a man named Aaron Etheridge, had come to him with a job.

Banks did a reconnaissance mission and figured it was going to be more complicated than he thought. So he upped his fee. And now, here he was. Banks pulled a ski mask with a U.S. Marshal's insignia on it down over his face, then turned on police lights on the dashboard of his white Ford Explorer, and drove a short distance down the road to the house of Greg Davis.

The day after Davis's body was found, a state trooper was on patrol just outside Alma, Kansas when he noticed a vehicle stray from its lane. He turned on his lights and pulled it over. A white Ford Explorer. It was a little after 2:00 PM on an overcast winter day. As the trooper approached the vehicle, he noticed the back seat was folded down and a mattress spread over the back of the car.

Jerry Banks had been driving for over 24 hours since the murder. He was exhausted and, according to the trooper's report, acting extremely nervous. The officer peered inside the truck and saw what appeared to be law enforcement equipment, including a bulletproof vest and a gun. He looked Jerry Banks up and down, but then sent him on his way.

Four days later, Enochian Biosciences was born and Serhatgumrukju was on track to be worth millions. But soon, there would be more than a state trooper asking questions.

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Now, customize your smart home security system with the intelligence of Google. Google is a trademark of Google LLC. Go to ADT.com today or call 1-800-ADT-ASAP to learn more. From Wondery, I'm Laura Beal, and this is Dr. Death. Bad magic. This is Episode 4, The Closing Bell.

It was December of 2018, almost a year after Greg Davis' body was found. There'd been no arrests. In the media, the case seemed all but forgotten. Meanwhile, in New York's Times Square, a giant jumbotron was broadcasting Nasdaq's closing bell ceremony. There, surrounded by advertisements for TV shows, perfumes, and mobile phones, Enochian's logo flashed up on the screen.

NASDAQ is delighted to be your partner and we look forward to supporting Enochian Biosciences as you continue to grow as a NASDAQ listed company. Less than half a percentage point of companies in the United States are listed on a major stock exchange. Enochian Biosciences would soon be valued at $600 million. Trading on NASDAQ also meant Enochian could raise the kind of capital they needed to fund their cutting edge science.

The possibilities seemed endless. I would like René Sinleve, chairman, Dr. Serhat Gumruku, scientific founder, and Mark Dybul, Dr. Mark Dybul, to join me to ring that bell together as a team. Serhat walked on stage wearing a slim black suit and skinny gray tie. He stood next to one of Enochian's scientific advisors, Dr. Mark Dybul, a slight man with thinning blonde hair.

On the other side stood the chairman, Rene Sendlove, tall with a pocket square and shiny buttons on his dark suit. I know it's been a long journey. You're here, so many new things to come with the recent merger and hopefully great data on HIV and AIDS that you're looking to cure and the cancers as well. We look forward to you to come back and celebrate many more milestones. Congratulations. As Serhat pressed down on the button triggering the closing bell,

A boyish grin appeared on his face. According to Thomas, the Hindenburg researcher, there were some Adenokian who raised questions about their star scientist. One senior executive Thomas spoke with said he became suspicious of several of Serhat's claims.

There were small things like once he tried striking up a conversation with Serhat in one of the nine languages he boasted about speaking, but Serhat just looked back at him with incomprehension. And then there were more serious things. According to court documents, Enokian's chief financial officer brought concerns about Serhat to the board. His security detail was costing the company nearly $800,000 a year.

When asked about the security detail, Enokian responded, "The board of directors reviewed the security arrangements for Gemruchu on several occasions and concluded that they were in the best interests of the company." But from the outside, Enokian was going from strength to strength. In 2021, the board brought in a new CEO, Dr. Mark Dybul.

He'd previously been one of the company's scientific advisors. For Robert at Hindenburg, Dybul was one of the biggest mysteries of all. What did he see in Serhat? You know, he's like this Georgetown doctor, professor. He's worked in like high-ranking government-related healthcare positions for years. This guy is super pedigreed. Dybul defended Serhat even about things that might have raised eyebrows.

In January 2020, a journalist from MedWatch, a pharma industry news outlet, asked Dybul about the fact that Serhat was listed online as an expert in paranormal psychology. Dybul said he saw nothing wrong with it. Personally, I think it's fantastic. He admitted that Serhat had an unorthodox research approach, but said he was an unconventional genius, one like Einstein or Bill Gates.

And Dybul's opinion had weight. An esteemed lecturer at Georgetown who works at NIH, like a protege of Fauci. And this guy was singing his praises. So, you know, this is clearly someone who merits the kind of praise from well-respected doctors. And so I think people would buy into this story that he was a once-in-a-generation genius. Still, Dybul did face some concerning questions about Serhat.

In January of 2020, MedWatch asked him about Serhat's use of mistletoe and laetrile to treat cancer patients, something which the FDA had not approved. Dybul emphasized that Serhat was at no time employed by Enochian Biosciences, and that the science Enochian was licensing from him was separate. None of these licenses have any relation to your line of questioning.

Within months, Dybul's description of Serhat as a, quote, rare genius had disappeared from the Enochian website. Dybul was walking a tightrope. Sometimes he was Serhat's biggest advocate, sometimes not. In late 2020, Serhat wrote to the Turkish court to try and clear his name for the fraud case that had led him to flee the country.

The submission came with a letter of support for Mark Dybul. Dybul says he wrote the letter to support a citizenship application and was not aware that Serhat was using it in a criminal case.

The letter made Serhat sound like an incredible scientific luminary. I have been privileged to know Nobel laureates, leaders of industry and philanthropy, including Bill Gates, heads of state and government, among others. Dr. Gamrukju rises to the top of that group. He is a rare genius who has tremendous potential to advance science and human development in a historical way. The letter went on.

Dr. Kamrook-Chu is somewhat unique among the scientific geniuses I have met. He is deeply compassionate, empathetic, and approachable. He is an exceptional leader. His science emanates from his deep commitment to serve people who suffer from incurable and untreatable diseases. He has the potential to contribute greatly to scientific discoveries, education, job creation, and philanthropy.

I provide this strongest of recommendations freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. Respectfully, the Honorable Mark Dybul, MD. Yo, what is going on YouTube? I am Jerm here. As you guys can see up on the screen today, I wanted to talk about Inotion Biosciences. It's up 54% still. On June 14th, 2021, Inokian Biosciences made a big announcement.

Serhat's HIV therapy had taken its first step towards FDA approval. An amazing, crazy, crazy big day for ENO being in this video today. That morning, the stock opened at more than double the previous day's closing price. The value of Serhat's stock briefly soared to more than $100 million.

The announcement didn't give many details. And truthfully, there was still a very long way to go before the treatment could be greenlit for patients. But the stock market was eating it up. Insane groundbreaking would be so great for the world, for humanity, but also be very, very great for this company as well and the hype surrounding it. But Serhat didn't seem to have been content with just founding a biotech firm.

A few months after Enochian was formed, he helped open a new clinic offering treatments directly to patients. The clinic was named Seraph after the highest rank of angels. It was located in LA in a sleek office tower with tinted windows, but he kept it low key.

There are no ads that we found, no evidence that he ever tried to go kind of mainstream with this. He didn't buy those kind of late night infomercials about any of these sorts of things. And I think he just tried to somewhat fly under the radar. It seemed clients were finding out about Serov's supposed cures via word of mouth. That's where Zeb's friend Jeffrey got his treatment. Patients also traveled to Los Angeles from all over the world.

One area where Serhat kept coming up was in the Danish press. He had developed a sort of market niche with Danish parents of terminally ill children. Soon enough, the clinic caught the attention of Danish national public radio. The broadcaster asked several prominent doctors to review the treatments of the children. The first thing one of the doctors noticed was the sheer number of therapies they offered.

It seemed like a lot for a small clinic with a fairly modest staff. The Danish reporting found that some of these therapies were only available through experimental studies, but they couldn't find that Serhat's lab participated in any formal clinical trials. The clinic's website said he'd published in prominent medical journals, but the doctors couldn't find the actual articles. They concluded that there was no evidence that the treatment worked,

and that families with terminally ill children were being exploited and fed false hope. As Robert digested the reports, he realized that journalists had already raised questions about Serhat. And yet, Enochian was still riding high. You know, this eccentric founder was in L.A., and it just seemed weird that all these articles that had come out in Denmark, how has this not reached the U.S.?

Several months into their investigation, Robert was becoming more and more consumed by his work.

And by Serhat himself. We've been researching this guy for months. He has become an obsession of mine. I'm doing, you know, all day at work. I'm coming home. I'm still researching this guy. I'm going through all his social media. I'm looking at all of his friends. I want to know everything about him because it seems like the more I dig, the more bad stuff we find.

What was happening at the clinic resembled the treatments Zerhad had done on a cancer patient in Pennsylvania back in 2015. And he was charging obscene amounts for them. It's just the whole thing is just really sad. And of course, they didn't work. The Pennsylvania family had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars. And in that instance, their son had been treated by a substance the FDA had not approved for use against cancer or any other medical condition.

The case in Turkey followed the same pattern too. A terminally ill patient, questionable treatment, huge cost. How many other people is he doing this to? Robert had never seen anything like this before. It was just like, oh my God, is this real? Like, is this guy, has he actually been pulling this off for like two decades? And he's like some kid from Turkey who's hanging out with celebrities and like,

It was just like unbelievable. And also like someone needs to stop this guy because he's treating like children. The team at Hindenburg had helped uncover Serhat's past as a magician, his lack of medical qualifications and his history of fraud in Turkey and the US. It was a potentially explosive set of discoveries. Up until now, they'd been trying to tread carefully so as not to tip Serhat off to their investigation.

Thomas had done his best to make sure it stayed that way. But in March of 2022, an email landed in his inbox from a law firm in Los Angeles. We'd already been weeks digging into this case. And it starts off, dear mister, this law firm represents Dr. Sehat Gumruchu.

We've received information from multiple sources of your apparent effort to publish a defamatory attack piece against Dr. Gumruchuk.

We have also received reports of your harassment of Seraph Medical's former patients and associates of Dr. Gumruchu and their family members. This letter serves as advance warning that should you fail to cease and desist and will publish an article about Dr. Gumruchu, we have been authorized to file suit immediately against you. That's just the first paragraph.

Thomas felt like the letter wasn't just a warning to Hindenburg, but to him personally. I've had people put guns under my chin and to my head. I've had people shooting at me. We've been in dangerous situations. But a big-ass legal case is a different matter. It's, will I lose my house? Will I lose my savings? How far will they go?

He worried about what Nate would say. You know, I fire off the letter to the boss with profuse apologies that I've attracted this unwanted attention.

Thomas waited by his computer, but Nate's response was surprising. Wow, that's a great letter. Congratulations. It's like, good, we must be on to something, because that was the old school way of journalists before. If somebody pulled a gun and put it to your head, if somebody phoned you up and made a death threat to you or served a lawsuit against you, it's like, carry on digging. You're on to the right path.

Even as Thomas and the rest of the Hindenburg team got closer to publishing their findings on Serhat, they had no idea that another team of investigators were also on his trail. And they were about to upend everything Thomas thought he knew.

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On May 25th, 2022, Nate woke to a cloudy day.

The Hindenburg team had been going hard for more than half a year at this point, and their report on Serhat Gamruksu was nearly done. Over that same time, they'd also been taking a short position or betting against Enochian stock. If Enochian's share price dropped after their report came out, they'd get paid handsomely. But it was risky, too.

You are often standing alone against management, the company's lawyers, investment banks and all their wealth resource supporters. And they'll often say or do just about anything to make a stock go up. So sometimes even if you present damning facts, the market just doesn't notice or care or the stock can go up anyway. If the stock was to go up, things could get bad for Hindenburg very quickly. You can lose 10 times your money.

The whole Hindenburg team had been working tirelessly to make sure they were right about Enochian's scientific founder. Thomas, the researcher, felt like he'd earned a day off. I'd gone to the city and thought, hey, I'm just going to hang out in a terrace cafe, take in some spring sunshine, drink a coffee on the sidewalk, you know, just do the kind of things that normal people with a few free hours on their hand kind of do.

I see from Nate a message that just says "GUYS" all in capital letters. And I'm like, "Oh man, this is gonna be good."

It was a link to a press release. The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont stated that Sirhat Kamrukchu, 39, of Los Angeles, California, and Burke Eritre, 35, of Las Vegas, Nevada, were arrested. We saw a DOJ alert that Sirhat Kamrukchu and other co-conspirators had been arrested for murder and a murder-for-hire plot.

Serhat had been arrested in connection with the death of Greg Davis, his former business partner, in the failed oil deal. Nate could hardly believe what he was reading. The first reaction was just to think, like, is there another Serhat Gamruku? Half a year of research, but this had come out of nowhere. And so here we are, and we're suddenly in absolute chase-our-tail mode.

My phone hasn't got a charge. I've got problems with comms and everything else. Dump the coffee, go and find a cell phone store and just sit in there on the couch, plug into their chargers and surfing their Wi-Fi system. The team at Hindenburg rushed to find out what happened.

In 2018, in the days after Greg Davis's body had been found in the snow, a detective in the Vermont State Police told the FBI they might want to take a listen to a 911 call that had come in on the same night that Davis was kidnapped. The caller told dispatch that he'd just shot his wife and he was getting ready to do the same thing to himself.

He gave an address where police could find the bodies, 71772 Cross Road, and hung up. Very quickly, the local police realized there was something off about the call. There was no Cross Road. The FBI traced the phone and found that it was purchased at a Walmart in Pennsylvania.

Security footage showed a bearded man in his mid-30s walk out of the store and climb into a white Ford Explorer. With no plates visible, it wasn't much to go on. Investigators sifted through more than 17,000 vehicle sales and service records looking for a match. By February of 2020, two years after the murder, they had traced it back to a used car dealer in Denver.

The salesman vaguely remembered the guy who bought it. He described him as a ghost, no credit, lived off the grid. A man named Jerry Banks. Investigators traced his call history and found that 24 hours after Greg Davis was abducted, Banks called a man named Aaron Etheridge.

After that, Etheridge had called a former neighbor of his, a man living just off the Las Vegas Strip, named Berk Erete. Now, the FBI hadn't just found their suspected hitman. They had a link to a possible motive, too. Because Berk Erete was a childhood friend of a certain Turkish magician. A magician turned biotech founder.

On May 24, 2022, while waiting to board a flight to New York, Serhat Gumrukcu was arrested on murder-for-hire charges connected to the death of Greg Davis. Investigators had found the messages about the failed oil deal on Davis' phone. Serhat pled not guilty. For the Hindenburg team, it had come out of nowhere.

They knew the magician, the healer, the scientific genius, but alleged murderer? And you got to keep in mind, we have been working on this for seven or eight months, day in and day out. We know everything there is to know about this guy. And we had no clue that he was capable of something like this. At Enochian Biotech on Wall Street in Copenhagen and in West Hollywood...

All hell was about to break loose. From Wondery, this is episode four of five of Dr. Death, Bad Magic.

I'm your host, Laura Beal. This series is written by Benjamin Gray. Producer is Nika Singh. Senior producer is Russell Finch. Story editor is Allison Weintraub. Senior editor is Rachel B. Doyle. Fact-checking by Jacqueline Colletti. Additional reporting by Gulsin Harman. Production assistance by Mariah Dennis and Emily Locke. Sound design and mixing by Kyle Randall.

Senior Managing Producer is Lata Pandya. Coordinating Producer is Heather Beloga. Produced by StoryForce. Music Supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Freesan Sync. Special thanks to Nate Anderson and the staff at Hindenburg Research for use of their reporting.

Executive producers are Bly Pagan Faust and Corey Shepard Stern for Storyforce. Our executive producers are George Lavender, Marshall Louis, and Jen Sargent for Wondery.

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