Speaker 1: Previously on Queen of the con.
Speaker 2: So this is the craigslisad here yep okay looking to
Speaker 2: interview female shoplifters about why they do it and how
Speaker 2: they do it.
Speaker 1: And that female shoplifter that I uncover is really plugged
Speaker 1: into the whole southern California shoplifting scene.
Speaker 3: You just get a back full of stuff, you know,
Speaker 3: like that could be like one thousand dollars a day,
Speaker 3: So you can.
Speaker 1: Make a thousand dollars a day shoplifting a.
Speaker 3: Couple of years ago, but now you can probably make
Speaker 3: like maybe like five hundred dollars a day.
Speaker 1: But before Susan gets into actual shoplifting, she figures out
Speaker 1: a clever way to make thousands of dollars by just
Speaker 1: hanging outside big box stores. Wow, you just blew my mind.
Speaker 1: I never knew that was a fit. I mean, technically
Speaker 1: it's not shoplifting and anyone can do it and get
Speaker 1: a lot of cash, but it's still illegal.
Speaker 3: We met this kid who was like homeless and he
Speaker 3: had no idea how to make money, and so we
Speaker 3: told him about that, and we blew his mind too,
Speaker 3: and we're like we're like yeah, he's like no, he's
Speaker 3: like I can make money like this.
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, I'm Jonathan Walton and this is
Speaker 4: Queen of the Con Season six, The California Girls, Episode three,
Speaker 4: Reverse Shopping.
Speaker 3: We hate Lost Prevention, Oh my god, because Lost Prevention
Speaker 3: they think that they're calm and they treat people like
Speaker 3: that with such like disrespect. If they catch us on
Speaker 3: a store, they're like the worst people.
Speaker 1: That's a woman we're calling Susan admitting she has Lost Prevention,
Speaker 1: those undercover security guard stores hired at cat shoplifters. Susan
Speaker 1: is not her real name, and that's not her real voice.
Speaker 1: We're disguising it to make her comfortable enough to talk
Speaker 1: to us. Right now, Susan is connecting with me on
Speaker 1: zoom from her cell phone as her shoplifter boyfriend, who
Speaker 1: you'll hear chime in every now, and then drives them
Speaker 1: both to meet up with one of their many fences.
Speaker 1: Susan herself has been a professional shoplifter for the past
Speaker 1: ten years, starting when she was just nineteen years old,
Speaker 1: which was about a year after her mother kicked her
Speaker 1: out of the house and she became homeless.
Speaker 5: Have you been arrested, No, No, I've never been arrested
Speaker 5: for shoplifting?
Speaker 1: Have you been busted shoplifting by anyone?
Speaker 5: By Walmart?
Speaker 3: And like Target? But like what they do is like
Speaker 3: have you caught by them? What they do is that
Speaker 3: it make you like sign like a paper, you know,
Speaker 3: like saying that you'll never come back from this location.
Speaker 3: But then like Walmart has like facial recognition, you know,
Speaker 3: and so like if you go into another Walmart, like
Speaker 3: they'll like start following you around because you're in their system,
Speaker 3: do you.
Speaker 1: Know, so you're in Walmart's system? Yees. As for Target, I.
Speaker 3: Really hadn't been caught from Target for since like twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: you know. And I was like they're like, oh, have
Speaker 3: you ever been caught before? And I was like yeah.
Speaker 3: They're like, so you know the drill, you know, and
Speaker 3: they take a picture of you for facial recognition purposes,
Speaker 3: and then they tell you that you can never come
Speaker 3: back to this location. So they're like, when's the last
Speaker 3: time you got caught. I was like, like, I was
Speaker 3: like like a long time ago. I was like I
Speaker 3: really haven't even been getting in forth trouble, you know.
Speaker 3: And they're like, oh, well, They're like and so they
Speaker 3: pulled up what like a long time ago, like the
Speaker 3: last time I got caught. They pulled it up in
Speaker 3: their system and they're like, oh, and they told me
Speaker 3: exactly what I stole, you know, and.
Speaker 5: I was like, yeah, I remember, you know. It was
Speaker 5: only worth like forty dollars like total, I think.
Speaker 1: And then they let you go event right, how did
Speaker 1: that happen?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: They make you sign a paper saying that you will
Speaker 3: never return to this location, and then they walk you right.
Speaker 1: Out the door and they never call the cops.
Speaker 5: No, no, because I hadn't stolen.
Speaker 3: I really haven't stolen, like like I haven't gotten caught stealing,
Speaker 3: Like I really don't.
Speaker 5: Like we don't really go to Target.
Speaker 3: Because Target is like one of the things that like
Speaker 3: what do you how do you say? Yeah, they got
Speaker 3: like a thousand cameras and like they they've got like
Speaker 3: a team of like like their security system is like
Speaker 3: on fleek, so to.
Speaker 1: Speak, good job Target. Let's give a shout out to Target.
Speaker 1: Do you wear masks or disguises or anything.
Speaker 5: No, I've thought about it.
Speaker 3: I've thought about wearing like a wig or something, because
Speaker 3: like I mean, like I'm blonde, and so it's like
Speaker 3: kind of like really easy to like track me through
Speaker 3: the store, but I don't.
Speaker 5: I probably, but that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like it's like it's like you can't really alter your
Speaker 3: face your facial structure, you know, yeah, but then it's
Speaker 3: super noticeable if you have a face basket in like
Speaker 3: a store where like you know, like during COVID, it
Speaker 3: was one thing, you know, like like COVID was like
Speaker 3: a golden era.
Speaker 5: We would wear face masks everywhere, you know, and.
Speaker 1: You could just steal up a storm and nobody knows
Speaker 1: who you are exactly. Susan never set out to be
Speaker 1: a shoplifter. That was never her goal in life. But
Speaker 1: she's been homeless a bunch of different times over the
Speaker 1: past ten years in Elisa Viejo, than in Sacramento, and
Speaker 1: most recently in the Los Angeles area. How long were
Speaker 1: you homeless in LA before you found a place to live.
Speaker 5: We came down here.
Speaker 3: December, and we were homeless up until I want to say,
Speaker 3: like April.
Speaker 1: And were you living on the street, Were you living
Speaker 1: out of your car?
Speaker 5: We were living out of our car until it got impounded.
Speaker 1: Being homeless is really kind of a gateway to an
Speaker 1: onslaught of bad things, bad people, bad influences. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're living on the street, your survival instincts kick
Speaker 1: in and your sense of right and wrong changes accordingly.
Speaker 1: Before Susan became a full time professional shoplifter, stealing stuff
Speaker 1: every day for all her fences. Remember of fence is
Speaker 1: someone like Michelle Mack, someone who buys the stuff shoplifters steal.
Speaker 1: So before Susan finds her first fence, she made a
Speaker 1: lot of money doing.
Speaker 5: We would do like reverse shopping.
Speaker 3: Where we would like get receipt like cash receipt like
Speaker 3: from Momart, and then you find the stuff in the
Speaker 3: store and then you like go and take the stuff
Speaker 3: in the store, and then you go and return it
Speaker 3: and then you get cast for it. But then that
Speaker 3: is like is like so tedious and so like like
Speaker 3: a lot of times like you can't find like, you know,
Speaker 3: good enough receipts, you know, like because like people don't
Speaker 3: use like their cash anymore. They use cards, you know,
Speaker 3: and so when you when they use cards, like you
Speaker 3: can't really get any any cash from them.
Speaker 1: Where are you finding these cash receipts? Like people throw
Speaker 1: them in the garbage and you fish them out.
Speaker 3: No, No, like they're like the like they'll be like
Speaker 3: like wandering around in parking lots, you know.
Speaker 1: Like so people just throw their receipts away on the
Speaker 1: ground in the trash or whatever, and you're just searching
Speaker 1: that parking lot for those cash receipts.
Speaker 3: Well, my boyfriend, so he would look like he would
Speaker 3: find the receipts and then I would like he would
Speaker 3: show them to me, and then I would go in
Speaker 3: the thwing and get them.
Speaker 1: And then return it and get cash.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, you just blew my mind. I never knew
Speaker 1: that was a thing. With the receipt thing. It's literally
Speaker 1: any cash receipt you find, you go and find that
Speaker 1: product in the store, and then you return it and
Speaker 1: get cash.
Speaker 3: Like the best ones, Like the best receipts are like
Speaker 3: usually like diapers because those are expensive.
Speaker 1: You know, never had a problem doing that, Like they
Speaker 1: never figure it out. They think you bought the thing,
Speaker 1: they give you the cash back. Done.
Speaker 3: Well, So there's like open, there's there's a store like
Speaker 3: a Walmart, right, and they refuse to do cash returns
Speaker 3: like they like like they will not do cash returns.
Speaker 3: And it's funny because they had to get like Walmart's permission,
Speaker 3: like corporate Walmart's permission to like because like I know,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you like notice, but like when
Speaker 3: you go into a Walmart, they have like a sign
Speaker 3: behind like the customer service, and it says, you know,
Speaker 3: at this Walmart, we can do non receded returns, right,
Speaker 3: And so they had to get like corporate Walmart's permission
Speaker 3: to redo their sign that says that they will not
Speaker 3: do no receiped returns. And so like that's like like
Speaker 3: a known thing, you know, like if you're trying to
Speaker 3: do return like at Walmart, like you cannot go to
Speaker 3: the one like off.
Speaker 1: Of among your circle. Everyone knows that, yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 1: Susan does this reverse shopping thing with cash receipts for
Speaker 1: a couple of years to get by in between shoplifting
Speaker 1: for herself. She's not doing it professionally at this point,
Speaker 1: She's just stealing stuff she needs to live on, like.
Speaker 3: Grocery items, you know, like food. We walk out with
Speaker 3: like a cart furll of groceries. You know, that's like
Speaker 3: what we would do for ourselves. We had like no clothes,
Speaker 3: and so you know, we were like trying to get
Speaker 3: like anything that we needed or like from Target like
Speaker 3: we would steel. I would steel like a cooler because
Speaker 3: we were living out of our car for a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know, how do you take a cooler out of
Speaker 1: target without them knowing?
Speaker 3: Well, I would do like like I would swamp up
Speaker 3: our codes, so like say, there's like a cheap personal
Speaker 3: cooler for like ten dollars, you know, and then but
Speaker 3: the one that we want is like really sixty dollars.
Speaker 5: They don't really know the difference between the the you know,
Speaker 5: whitch coolers, which as long as the the same brand.
Speaker 1: Do you worry they're watching you do that in the store?
Speaker 1: Nobody really noticed.
Speaker 3: You kind of got to like make sure that like
Speaker 3: like like because law promation will be like if you're
Speaker 3: in their system, they're going to be following you around to.
Speaker 5: The store, so you have to make sure that you're
Speaker 5: like watching them.
Speaker 1: But the way Susan gets drafted into becoming a professional
Speaker 1: shoplifter and actually moves into her fence's house is just insane.
Speaker 1: After the break, welcome back to Queen of the Khan.
Speaker 1: So at this point, Susan and her boyfriend are homeless,
Speaker 1: living out of their car, and overnight they'd park wherever
Speaker 1: a bunch of other homeless people are staying because when
Speaker 1: you're homeless, there's safety in numbers. You don't want to
Speaker 1: be sleeping anywhere by yourself. And in a very short time,
Speaker 1: Susan and her boyfriend start making friends with other homeless people.
Speaker 3: We ran into these people that they were like, you know,
Speaker 3: if you could give us a ride, because they asked
Speaker 3: us for a ride down the street. You know, We're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: if you ever need a ride, you know, anywhere else,
Speaker 3: like let us know, you know. And so they told
Speaker 3: us like basically like I've got a fence.
Speaker 5: And I need to.
Speaker 3: Go to stores, like like a bunch of stores. They
Speaker 3: said that they would pay us good, you know, and
Speaker 3: that we wouldn't have to steal anything, that we would
Speaker 3: just have to like bring them there and then park
Speaker 3: in the parking lot and then just you know, drive away.
Speaker 3: They told us like would pay you like probably like
Speaker 3: one hundred dollars to two hundred dollars a day.
Speaker 5: And so we were like all right.
Speaker 3: So then when we saw what they were doing and
Speaker 3: then like like where they were going. At first we
Speaker 3: were taking them to a house to where they could
Speaker 3: sell their product to like this person, well that person
Speaker 3: the fence there got caught because of all the people,
Speaker 3: all the traffic coming.
Speaker 5: To her house.
Speaker 3: One of the people like that came to sell like
Speaker 3: the product, went to the wrong house with a bunch
Speaker 3: of products and so like they're like going up to
Speaker 3: this like strange like this like random people's house and
Speaker 3: they're like, yeah, I'm here to sell the product and
Speaker 3: they're like.
Speaker 5: What product are you talking about?
Speaker 3: So those people ended up calling the cop and that's
Speaker 3: how she got caught.
Speaker 1: Wow, so it was a neighbor of hers. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's sloppy, right. Yeah, so they're paying you a couple
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a day. At what point do you think, Ah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do what they're doing.
Speaker 3: Well, so a friend of ours, the first time that
Speaker 3: we started driving around, they kind of like got like
Speaker 3: out of like shoplifting and like started dealing drugs. Because
Speaker 3: there was so much traffic at the fence's house, they
Speaker 3: weren't staying there, and so they asked us if, like
Speaker 3: if we needed a place to stay, and we were like, yeah,
Speaker 3: like that'd be really cool because the fence like she
Speaker 3: rents out like every room there, like, oh, she'll even
Speaker 3: rent out the garage per day, it's per day, So
Speaker 3: like so for.
Speaker 5: One room, it's like fifty dollars a day.
Speaker 3: It's like almost in laws quarters, and it's like and
Speaker 3: it's you get in by.
Speaker 5: A code, you know, on the door.
Speaker 3: And so a lot of people they'll just give her
Speaker 3: a product for payment, so they'll bring her like, say,
Speaker 3: you stay there like two days, you know, then.
Speaker 5: You'll owe her one hundred dollars in product, you know.
Speaker 1: And how long were you living with this fence?
Speaker 5: How long are you saying there? Probably like a couple months.
Speaker 1: And God, that doesn't seem very smart on her part,
Speaker 1: right to have all these shoplifters staying at her house.
Speaker 3: Well, it really wasn't smart when she was having people
Speaker 3: bring her product there too, like to buy it off.
Speaker 5: Them, like because that's what was happening.
Speaker 3: And then and then but then she got caught, and
Speaker 3: so now she meets them like down the street. She
Speaker 3: really needs to find like a different like approach because
Speaker 3: like she'll meet people like in the same spot every day.
Speaker 3: So did she get a right did I've heard through
Speaker 3: other shoplifters that she's like out on like a million
Speaker 3: dollar bill.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, God, I didn't know. Yeah, are you worried
Speaker 1: she's gonna like out you and give your name to them,
Speaker 1: or does she even know your real name?
Speaker 3: I don't think that she even knows. Like she knows
Speaker 3: like who we are, like if she sees our face,
Speaker 3: but like in terms of like if we call her,
Speaker 3: like she gets so many phone calls a day, like
Speaker 3: and there's so many people who show up, Like we
Speaker 3: were waiting for her the other like the Knight that
Speaker 3: I emailed you, we were waiting for her. We had
Speaker 3: like maybe like two or three hundred dollars worth of stuff.
Speaker 1: They really had a few thousand dollars worth of stuff
Speaker 1: that Defence was going to pay them two or three
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for. You see, Susan and other shoplifters talk
Speaker 1: about values based on what they get paid for the
Speaker 1: stuff they steal, and not on what the stuff is
Speaker 1: actually worth.
Speaker 3: In the stores we were waiting for her, we had
Speaker 3: like maybe like two or three hundred dollars worth of stuff.
Speaker 3: We look around and there's like two or three different cars,
Speaker 3: you know, and then not to mention that how many
Speaker 3: people show up on foot. It's crazy. It's just crazy
Speaker 3: how many people show up. And you think that like
Speaker 3: she would be like a little bit smarter with like
Speaker 3: how she spaces out her buys or something.
Speaker 5: You know, like or like just switch it up. And
Speaker 5: she always carries on like a lot of calf but
Speaker 5: people know not to fuck with her.
Speaker 1: But that fence is clearly disorganized. But there's another fence.
Speaker 1: Susan works for a guy who runs his shoplifting criminal
Speaker 1: enterprise a lot like Michelle mack ran hers like a
Speaker 1: real fortune five hundred company.
Speaker 3: He'll like send like an uber. He'll he you won't
Speaker 3: never meet him like in person. He'll send like an
Speaker 3: uber packaged like delivery person. So that way like you
Speaker 3: never have to be like face to face and like
Speaker 3: risk like your freedom, you know.
Speaker 1: And you've never gone to his house. Nope, how do
Speaker 1: you sell him the stuff?
Speaker 3: So we'll call him and we'll say, yeah, we have
Speaker 3: product for you. And so he'll send an uber like
Speaker 3: an uber delivery package person right to come pick up
Speaker 3: the package like with the products. And then when he
Speaker 3: receives the products, he'll call us. He'll go over each
Speaker 3: individual product so tell us like how much each thing
Speaker 3: is like worth and so on and so forth, and.
Speaker 1: Then how will he pay you? Will he just Venmo.
Speaker 5: You he'll either Venmo or cash app. A lot of
Speaker 5: times it's cash.
Speaker 1: App cash ap Okay. Interesting. I mean, he sounds like
Speaker 1: he's going to be in the game a lot longer
Speaker 1: than this other lady. Right.
Speaker 3: It's funny because he actually used to be a shoplister
Speaker 3: just like us, and so one day the person.
Speaker 5: That was buying his product was going to go to
Speaker 5: jail and he.
Speaker 3: She just kind of like handed over the keys to
Speaker 3: the castolic to him was like, keep it going. He's
Speaker 3: only been doing this for a couple of years and
Speaker 3: has already made like over a million.
Speaker 5: Dollars in the bank.
Speaker 3: He told you that, Yeah, yeah, I mean he's really
Speaker 3: he's really forthcoming.
Speaker 1: The other thing that differentiates this guy, this extremely organized fence,
Speaker 1: from a lot of other fences Susan works for is
Speaker 1: that he sends her and all his shoplifters really detailed lists,
Speaker 1: as in color coded PDFs with columns for what he'll
Speaker 1: pay for each item.
Speaker 3: I emailed you the list and if you wanted to
Speaker 3: just take a look at, I mean, it's eighty pages long.
Speaker 3: Like there's like everything from like oral be you know,
Speaker 3: whitening strips to you know, prenatal to wait, what like
Speaker 3: the diaper rash being you know, like like everything.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. So this is like a PDF, color
Speaker 1: coded with yty five pages. Oh my god, volumeizing, Tonic,
Speaker 1: a lot of hair.
Speaker 5: Products, everything, everything.
Speaker 1: I'm posting screen grabs of this list from Susan's fence
Speaker 1: at Queen of the Khan on Instagram so you can
Speaker 1: see just how insanely corporate it looks. That column on
Speaker 1: the left is the price they pay you for.
Speaker 5: It, exactly. Yes, So like.
Speaker 1: Claren's Restorative day cream, they'll pay you thirty five dollars
Speaker 1: to steal that Claton Clareiton's expensive. They'll pay you six
Speaker 1: dollars for a Claiton chewable great flavor kids. Yep, wow, God,
Speaker 1: this list it seems so professional, right, and.
Speaker 3: That's that's like the most professional like list like that
Speaker 3: we've seen, Like, and it's very straightforward and that's what
Speaker 3: we like, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, color coordinated. It's very straightforward.
Speaker 3: Whereas like another lady will just send us like pictures
Speaker 3: like like literally like like take a picture or something
Speaker 3: and then send it to us picture after picture after
Speaker 3: the picture, you know, and like we'll have to ask her, okay,
Speaker 3: so how much for this? And like she'll tell us
Speaker 3: one price one day, and then the next day it'll
Speaker 3: go down, you know, and we're like, well happened yesterday
Speaker 3: it was twenty four and now it's twenty two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, I'm still I'm still scrolling mucinext. They'll pay
Speaker 1: you five dollars when you're filling the items on this list.
Speaker 1: Are you trying to get everything or you're just trying
Speaker 1: to get the high dollar things?
Speaker 3: It's like whatever really that you can get, like because
Speaker 3: some stores, like most stores up for Orange County areas,
Speaker 3: they'll have like all the advil and all the titleal and.
Speaker 5: Even sometimes like some of the toothpastes like.
Speaker 3: Locked up, you know, so where you have to like
Speaker 3: get like a representative or like an employee to come
Speaker 3: and unlock it, like and then then they'll walk it
Speaker 3: up to like the rent or whatever. Down in South County,
Speaker 3: you know, they're like they're it's not locked up down there,
Speaker 3: you know, like in the nicer areas of town, like
Speaker 3: it's nothing locked up like the more expensive items like
Speaker 3: Costco and Sam's Club, those like those usually.
Speaker 5: Have like the higher priced items.
Speaker 1: So I see here on the list they'll pay you
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty eight dollars to steal a two
Speaker 1: ME Alpha three extended trip four wheeled packing suitcase.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Have you stolen one of those?
Speaker 5: No, not yet.
Speaker 1: That's the most expensive thing that you steal.
Speaker 3: Normally, it's like a skin cream or a skin elixir
Speaker 3: from Nordstrum.
Speaker 1: Skin Caviar, Lukes pre moisturizer. It's in a blue bottle.
Speaker 5: Right, yes, yes, exactly, and I.
Speaker 1: See one for six hundred dollars.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's like like it depends on like what
Speaker 3: like which one you get.
Speaker 5: But I mean, like.
Speaker 3: We'll just get any of them, and when we hit Nordstrums,
Speaker 3: we have to like come up with like a plan,
Speaker 3: you know, because like we'll have like a we'll have
Speaker 3: someone like cause a distraction or like like start asking
Speaker 3: the people, you know, like like questions so that like
Speaker 3: they're kind of distracted and then and then someone else
Speaker 3: will come in and get all the bottles.
Speaker 1: Wow, because if it's six hundred dollars a bottle, that's
Speaker 1: a lot of money quick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they don't have but they don't like keep
Speaker 3: like a bunch of them out at the same time
Speaker 3: because they're smart but I mean we'll get like probably
Speaker 3: two or three at the same time.
Speaker 1: Susan and her boyfriend make thousands of dollars shoplifting, but
Speaker 1: there's an annoyingly practical reason they still can't afford their
Speaker 1: own apartment after the break. Welcome back to Queen of
Speaker 1: the Con. I have no doubt that if Michelle Mack
Speaker 1: had not been arrested, Susan, with all her shoplifting skills,
Speaker 1: would have probably crossed paths with her. But Michelle Mack
Speaker 1: got arrested and shut down back in December, right when
Speaker 1: Susan moved to southern California.
Speaker 5: No, I've never heard of Michelle Mack, but we have
Speaker 5: a fence. She will buy anything, anything and everything like
Speaker 5: designer your liftis, you know, like like by the bundle.
Speaker 3: Or anything like Like she'll buy like like one hundred
Speaker 3: dollars bottles of wine, you know, like Louis Vuitton.
Speaker 1: She'll buy off you Do you ever go to like Sephora.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, like sport because they have the deor
Speaker 3: lipstics there and they're like and they have them, they stock.
Speaker 5: Them up there, man.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: And they're always right by the door. They're always right
Speaker 5: next to the exit.
Speaker 1: And what's your trick to stealing lipsticks from Sephora.
Speaker 5: It's easier to.
Speaker 3: Go in with like a like a big coat on,
Speaker 3: because like then you can just like grab like a
Speaker 3: handful of them at a time and then just like
Speaker 3: kind of like put them in your pockets.
Speaker 1: But the disorienting thing about talking to this professional criminal
Speaker 1: is just how nice and clearly intelligent she is. For
Speaker 1: people listening who are asking the question, well, why don't
Speaker 1: you guys just get jobs and stop shoplifting? What would
Speaker 1: you tell them?
Speaker 5: So when we got stuck down here, I had an ID.
Speaker 5: I ended up losing that ID.
Speaker 3: And so for us to like just get like enough
Speaker 3: money like because like we were having to pay for
Speaker 3: hotel like every night, you know, if we wanted a
Speaker 3: shower like whatever, and so like to have enough money
Speaker 3: like to like you know, live off of and then
Speaker 3: to have an extra amount to like go get an
Speaker 3: ID with because like I mean, ideas are like how
Speaker 3: much like forty dollars now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you got to pay the fees. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing you have to realize if you're homeless
Speaker 1: and you get your hands in a few thousand dollars
Speaker 1: from shoplifting, it's not nearly enough to get an apartment
Speaker 1: because you'd usually need a check for the first month's rent,
Speaker 1: the last month's rent, and a security deposit. Plus you'd
Speaker 1: need proof of employment. So when Susan and her boyfriend
Speaker 1: get money from shoplifting, they spend it on motels and
Speaker 1: hotels so they can sleep in an actual bed at
Speaker 1: night and have a roof over their heads. And that
Speaker 1: cost adds up fast, so they're in this perpetual suite
Speaker 1: of stealing enough to afford a motel or hotel to
Speaker 1: stay in and afford food to eat in the meantime.
Speaker 1: Susan says she's always looking for a real job. I
Speaker 1: mean that's how she found my Craigslist post in the
Speaker 1: gigs offered section. She was looking for a job.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like I keep sending out like I
Speaker 3: have a resume, you know, I made a really good resume,
Speaker 3: and I mean, like I've had jobs in the past.
Speaker 3: It's usually not hard for me to get a job,
Speaker 3: but like lately around here, like the jobs I've had
Speaker 3: in the past are like, you know, cashier jobs, like
Speaker 3: working at like food barista's.
Speaker 1: You know, Susan's not having a lot of success on
Speaker 1: the job front, but she recently reconnected with her grandmother
Speaker 1: and certain members of her family. Her grandmother is actually
Speaker 1: letting Susan and her boyfriend live with her. Now, what's
Speaker 1: your dream? What's your five year plan? Five years from now?
Speaker 1: Where do you want to be, if you could be anywhere,
Speaker 1: if you could be doing anything five years from now,
Speaker 1: what's your dream?
Speaker 5: My dream is too.
Speaker 3: The reason I moved with my grandma's because she she
Speaker 3: worries about me, you know, and she wants to make
Speaker 3: sure that when she's gone that I can be self
Speaker 3: supporting and not have to like rely upon really anybody,
Speaker 3: you know in my life. And I want to do
Speaker 3: the same thing because like my cousin had just graduated
Speaker 3: from you know, college recently, and so really like it's
Speaker 3: like it was kind of like an inspiration and for
Speaker 3: me to get back into school, you know, like and
Speaker 3: so hopefully so in five years I will be graduating.
Speaker 1: You know, I really do listen, and I mean this sincerely.
Speaker 1: I am so moved talking to you. You've really changed
Speaker 1: my mind about a lot of things. And I you know,
Speaker 1: I think you're an amazing person. I think you're super smart.
Speaker 1: I think if you apply yourself and you get that degree,
Speaker 1: I think you have a super bright future ahead of you.
Speaker 1: You need to get into loss prevention. If I was
Speaker 1: the head of Target or the head of Nordstrums, I
Speaker 1: would hire you. I would be like, let me pay
Speaker 1: you one hundred and fifty grand a year to help
Speaker 1: our people cut down on retail theft. Like who better
Speaker 1: than you?
Speaker 5: Thank you?
Speaker 6: Like really, yeah, because you've learned all these tricks, like
Speaker 6: you could help them and be it live an honest living. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm worried about you now a matter of time before
Speaker 6: the cars question.
Speaker 3: If you're trying to like stay on that straight and
Speaker 3: narrow you know, like the you know, not not do
Speaker 3: this like whenever we need money, just because also because
Speaker 3: like you know, defence is is pretty close to getting caught,
Speaker 3: you know, and like and if we like, if we
Speaker 3: keep selling to her, then we're probably gonna get caught
Speaker 3: red handed.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: I hope and pray you go on the straight and narrow,
Speaker 1: you get your degree. I hope and pray you get
Speaker 1: into loss prevention and get a get a good job.
Speaker 1: And because you know this is not going to end, well,
Speaker 1: look what happens. Everyone gets arrested, everyone goes to jail.
Speaker 1: I hope you take this advice. I hope you get
Speaker 1: on that track. And you know, because I feel like
Speaker 1: you're you're coasting close to the edge any day that yeah,
Speaker 1: you're under arrest for stealing a six hundred dollars moisturizer
Speaker 1: from Norse Drums exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially with facial recognition. We're preparing, you know, like
Speaker 3: we're like, I don't want to do this for like ever,
Speaker 3: Like it means to an end, you know, it means
Speaker 3: to to just like get get the money that you
Speaker 3: need like for the time being. I mean, yeah, you're
Speaker 3: either gonna get caught and due the time, or you're
Speaker 3: gonna stop and get a natural job, you know.
Speaker 1: And you know, it breaks my heart that you kind
Speaker 1: of got abandoned by your mother and your father died,
Speaker 1: and you know, you haven't had any like parental advice
Speaker 1: or supervision or guidance the past few years. But let
Speaker 1: me tell you this. I know schools hard and college
Speaker 1: can be hard, but I've talked to you more than
Speaker 1: an hour now. You are super smart. There's nothing you
Speaker 1: can't figure out. So whatever class you're taking in college,
Speaker 1: just know that there's a way through it. You can
Speaker 1: ace the class. You did a great job. Thanks for
Speaker 1: being so honest and forthcoming. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Not gonna lie. Getting to know professional shoplifter Susan has
Speaker 1: really affected me as I try to explain to my
Speaker 1: buddy Evan Goldstein.
Speaker 2: What's wrong.
Speaker 1: It's just you ever go into a situation thinking one
Speaker 1: thing to realize it's something else, entirely.
Speaker 2: My first marriage. But what are you talking about? What
Speaker 2: do you mean?
Speaker 1: So when I started this season the Queen of the
Speaker 1: Cohn about shoplifters. Shoplifters were like these evil people destroying society.
Speaker 1: I mean, I spent a couple hours talking to the
Speaker 1: shoplifter and honestly, it just broke my heart. It broke
Speaker 1: my heart.
Speaker 2: What what do you mean?
Speaker 1: I mean? This woman got kicked out of the house
Speaker 1: when she was eighteen. Her dad died of cancer. Her
Speaker 1: mom didn't like her and took all the money. The
Speaker 1: dad left and sold the house and has been bike
Speaker 1: riding all over the world with a thousand dollars bicycle.
Speaker 1: She's in Africa now biking. Like kicked the daughter out
Speaker 1: of the house, at eighteen she was homeless, Like this
Speaker 1: woman was homeless at eighteen, and you know what would
Speaker 1: have become of you? Like, I know your parents. They
Speaker 1: are nice, loving, kind people who have always supported you.
Speaker 1: Still to this day, they kind of support you. They
Speaker 1: look after your kids when you guys need date night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like your parents are always there. What would have become
Speaker 1: of you? Where would you be today if you got
Speaker 1: kicked out of the house at eighteen?
Speaker 2: I couldn't even imagine it.
Speaker 1: I can tell you where you wouldn't be. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: be executive producing William Shatner's show, Yeah, and wouldn't be
Speaker 1: doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where the fuck would I be?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean you don't know, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: there but for the grace of God go both of us.
Speaker 1: And this poor girl got kicked out of the house
Speaker 1: at eighteen, and she fell in literally with the wrong crowd.
Speaker 1: She was homeless. She fell in with other homeless and
Speaker 1: that's where she learned how to shoplift for money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's you know, it's survival.
Speaker 1: It's survival.
Speaker 2: Like you got to eat, you fundamentally need to eat.
Speaker 1: And then imagine your morals, your sense of right and wrong,
Speaker 1: what happens.
Speaker 2: To that, Oh, it would be so skewed because.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like prison. There are different rules in prison.
Speaker 1: There are different rules when you're homeless.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you have to survive. You have to do
Speaker 2: what you need to do to get by, and you
Speaker 2: don't have a roof over your head. What do you
Speaker 2: have to lose? You have nothing to.
Speaker 1: Lose, nothing to lose. Sorry to be such a downer here,
Speaker 1: but it just seems to me that a lot of
Speaker 1: these quote professional shoplifters are really living hand to mouth.
Speaker 1: They're not making millions of dollars selling all their stolen
Speaker 1: stuff on Amazon like Michelle Mack was. They're the bottom
Speaker 1: feeders in this relationship. And as with any relationship, it's
Speaker 1: the one with the money who makes all the rules.
Speaker 1: It's the one with the money that has the upper hand.
Speaker 1: It's the one with the money that has all the control.
Speaker 1: What Michelle Mack was doing was human trafficking. What Sergeant
Speaker 1: Jordan Marakian again explaining a concept I never even thought
Speaker 1: to consider.
Speaker 7: Yeah, if you really think about it, right, the definition
Speaker 7: of human trafficking is you're basically exploiting a human being
Speaker 7: and forcing them, coercing them or paying them to do
Speaker 7: a service for ill gotten gains, for illegal activity, human trafficking.
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Speaker 1: find us. Queen of the Cohn The California Girls is
Speaker 1: a production of AYR Media and iHeartMedia, hosted by me
Speaker 1: Jonathan Walton. Executive producers Jonathan Walton for Jonathan Walton Productions
Speaker 1: and Elisa Rosen for AYR Media. Consulting producer Evan Goldstein.
Speaker 1: Written by Jonathan Walton, Sound design by Zach Hirsch, edited
Speaker 1: and mixed by Zach Hirsch, Audio engineer Justin Longerbeam mastered
Speaker 1: by Justin Longerbean legal counsel for AYR Media, Johnny Douglas,
Speaker 1: Executive producer for iHeartMedia, Maya Howard