Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zaren Elizabeth Saren. Do you know I am going to
Speaker 2: start being early everywhere? Yeah. I got here twenty minutes early.
Speaker 3: Life changing idly. So you actually showed up somewhere early.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for the rest of my life early everywhere.
Speaker 3: Oh nice. You know I was raised by Navy people
Speaker 3: and they beat that into me. So yeah, like you do.
Speaker 4: The goal is you don't try to show up at
Speaker 4: the time. You try to show up like five minutes,
Speaker 4: ten minutes before. Can you make that the goal to
Speaker 4: aim at? Because if you try to show up at
Speaker 4: the time, like you s have to be somewhere too.
Speaker 4: You try to show up at two? No, you miss
Speaker 4: your I.
Speaker 2: Went to Catholic school, man, I usually show up everywhere.
Speaker 3: I know you're usually very tame minutes early. Yeah, you're
Speaker 3: just very very busy these days.
Speaker 2: Things, you know, you start to think like what does
Speaker 2: anything matter?
Speaker 4: Well, also you have your your succulent fan club meetings.
Speaker 4: There's that You're British tea cozy mystery meetings.
Speaker 2: Oh man, yeah, those two.
Speaker 3: Your social life is getting busy.
Speaker 2: I have a busy on the go lifestyle.
Speaker 3: I know it.
Speaker 2: And you know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 4: I saw this story and I thought of you minor
Speaker 4: league baseball. Yeah, because your your team is now playing
Speaker 4: in a minor league ballpark.
Speaker 2: I don't have a team.
Speaker 4: Your former team, the A's, are playing in Sacramento's minor
Speaker 4: league ballparks. So I was thinking about minor league baseball
Speaker 4: and you and you see these two guys here.
Speaker 2: That's two different guys.
Speaker 3: Their names are Brad Figel. They're both named Brad Figel.
Speaker 2: Brad Figel f E I g L Okay.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm pressing that wrong.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, one is a minor league ball player for
Speaker 4: the Long Island Ducks. Another one is a ballplayer for
Speaker 4: the Las Vegas Aviators. Oh okay, yeah right. So they're both,
Speaker 4: as they said, ball players in minor league. But they're
Speaker 4: both pitchers. They play the same position, and they.
Speaker 2: Were and they're both named Brad Figels.
Speaker 3: And they look they look exactly the same, identical. So
Speaker 3: they have the same doctor.
Speaker 4: They both got Tommy John surgery, and their doctor confused
Speaker 4: them and thought like, oh, because they had the same name's.
Speaker 3: Like, what are you talking about? Man? They did this?
Speaker 3: How did you undo the surgery? And then that's when
Speaker 3: they realized, wait, there's another Brad Figel.
Speaker 2: How does that work?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So then when they find out about each other, they
Speaker 4: went and actually took DNA test to see if they
Speaker 4: were related, like maybe dad was.
Speaker 3: A traveling man.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, right, so yeah, it was like a kind
Speaker 4: of a hard to explain, uh mystery. But it turns
Speaker 4: out that they were not and uh they're not related.
Speaker 4: They were not separated at birth. The DNA showed no
Speaker 4: biological connection. They just happened to have a really strong
Speaker 4: gene expression for the Figyl genes, the.
Speaker 2: Name exactly, and they have the same First I want
Speaker 2: to I want to retest.
Speaker 3: That is very so ridiculous.
Speaker 2: That's weird, ridiculous. Do you want to know what else
Speaker 2: is ridiculous? Oh my god, I'd love to bunco. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: this is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
Speaker 2: and cons. It is always ninety nine percent murder free
Speaker 2: and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Oh you damn right.
Speaker 2: Now. I am in my family, I'm known as the fixer.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the wolf.
Speaker 2: That too, Like someone has an issue, like I'm called
Speaker 2: into repair things, solve everything and it's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2: But like hot diggity dog, I'm good at it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you really are.
Speaker 2: It can be something like mundane like travel stuff, or
Speaker 2: maybe like someone's having a meltdown and they're stuck in
Speaker 2: an unfamiliar city, or yeah, negotiations need to happen and
Speaker 2: I can get everyone to agree.
Speaker 3: That is true. Yeah, you always ask the central question,
Speaker 3: what do you want?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What what remedy.
Speaker 3: Do you see? Say it?
Speaker 2: But from what you've told me, you play that role
Speaker 2: in your family too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was a much more of a blunt approach,
Speaker 3: much more of like, look, this is what's happening. I'll
Speaker 3: pay for you to shut up, you know, like that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff that's fixing it.
Speaker 2: I got a fixer for you today. This one takes
Speaker 2: place in the wild West.
Speaker 3: Sort of like a lot of the Old West.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of like we like wild West.
Speaker 3: I love him.
Speaker 2: I have one for you today is full of characters,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to dive right into it. Bro getting
Speaker 2: right in. I'm talking today about lou.
Speaker 6: Blander lou Blannger, lou Blanger rhymes lou Blanger.
Speaker 3: Did get lost.
Speaker 2: It sounds it sounds like a name. I'd make it.
Speaker 3: To my friend Lou Blancher.
Speaker 2: It's a real name. He was born in Vermont in
Speaker 2: eighteen forty nine. He was the eighth of thirteen children.
Speaker 3: Oh, the blonders. They liked.
Speaker 2: His dad French Canadian Stonemason.
Speaker 3: Oh, I called the French Canadian named.
Speaker 2: Simon peter be.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: His mom was from Ireland. When Lou was five, the
Speaker 2: family moved from Vermont to Wisconsin. They went to a
Speaker 2: place called Sholsburg.
Speaker 3: Like to keep it wooded.
Speaker 2: Well, no, they're out in them parts. They mind lead.
Speaker 2: Oh and they made cheese.
Speaker 3: Oh the Rocky mountain area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the rocky Mountains of wiscons.
Speaker 3: Well, not the actual rock the rocky in the mountainous area.
Speaker 2: The village that they moved to, this Sholsburg, that had
Speaker 2: only been around for like thirty years when they moved there.
Speaker 2: You know, opportunity, I suppose.
Speaker 3: So Lou's mom, Well, aren't all the towns new back?
Speaker 3: And then really at.
Speaker 2: Some point every town is new.
Speaker 4: But I mean really, then it's like all the times,
Speaker 4: like way were celebrating our twenty the anniversary.
Speaker 3: Enjoy the lead.
Speaker 2: Lou's mom passed when he was ten, Okay, and don't
Speaker 2: forget he had five younger siblings. Oh man, Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: tough times, right, what a life she had popped out
Speaker 2: thirteen kids, Lou he moved in with his older sister
Speaker 2: and her family, and then he changed his name, and
Speaker 2: his brothers had already done this. They anglicized and like
Speaker 2: simplified their last names from Belange Tolinger.
Speaker 3: Try again, guys.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm guessing that they just made the spelling match
Speaker 2: the way that people were already saying.
Speaker 4: Blinger okay, yeah, because they look at it and they're like, oh, yeah, correct.
Speaker 2: Pronunciation was probably more common when they were in Vermont,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, not so in Wisconsin. So since things seemed
Speaker 2: to happen every five years for Lou at this point,
Speaker 2: when he was a hair short of fifteen, he and
Speaker 2: his brothers joined up with the Union Army to fight
Speaker 2: in the Civil War, and so he put in for
Speaker 2: a one hundred day enlistment, which was I don't know,
Speaker 2: common for younger boys.
Speaker 3: Then I don't know, yeah, and then extended.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they assigned him to play the fife keep
Speaker 2: everyone in time while they battled the traders. Eight days
Speaker 2: in he fell down and hurt his leg. Eight days,
Speaker 2: eight days, and he spent the rest of the tour
Speaker 2: in an army hospital.
Speaker 3: Seriously pothole.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, or maybe he did, and he just milked
Speaker 2: it like it was like this fify. Yeah right, so
Speaker 2: you know, okay, all well, war ends. He meets up
Speaker 2: with his twenty five year old brother Sam. Sam hadn't
Speaker 2: served in the war. He was out west. He was
Speaker 2: just out there being rugged. So he did like minor
Speaker 2: forty nine er stuff in Colorado. He drove wagons through
Speaker 2: the Sierra Nevada.
Speaker 3: Reco the mid eighteen sixties.
Speaker 2: Now yeah, okay, yeah, just after the so he was
Speaker 2: there for the war totally. Sam had come back to
Speaker 2: Wisconsin to visit the family. Lou was living with a
Speaker 2: pal of his. Sam sweeps into town, he wooed and
Speaker 2: then married Lou's pal's sister. Okay, and then he also
Speaker 2: sent Lou off to go to college in Chicago at
Speaker 2: a business college, and then off he goes. So he
Speaker 2: just likes wow, cezes through. Five years later, Sam and
Speaker 2: Lou and then lose pal and his family. They all
Speaker 2: headed west. The railroad's hum and now so that sort
Speaker 2: of like travel was easier.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't have to take your life in your hands. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So they made their way to Utah and they hit
Speaker 2: up a bunch of mining towns. In each of them
Speaker 2: they would either like set up or buy a saloon.
Speaker 3: And they're from a mining town, so they know mining
Speaker 3: town call, they.
Speaker 2: Know mining people.
Speaker 3: Yeah we should sell drinks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to have a saloon. We're going to
Speaker 2: have to establish some sort of vice trade here.
Speaker 3: Ah, I hate a cover.
Speaker 2: They do a little mining themselves.
Speaker 3: A little prospect might get lucky.
Speaker 2: They might get deputized.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know the usual.
Speaker 2: They did this all over the West.
Speaker 3: Really, we run the vice out here.
Speaker 2: Uh huh, Utah to Nevada, to California and back. In
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy nine, Lou moved to Colorado. And when you
Speaker 2: think about that time in the US and the Western States,
Speaker 2: everything seems so transient, so like so many people made
Speaker 2: their way out there, and they were often running from
Speaker 2: something or running too and imagined no one was really tethered,
Speaker 2: and like everything must have seemed really temporary.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: It's so common to read about people who bounced around,
Speaker 2: chasing opportunities or like looking for good fits until finally
Speaker 2: finding a place. But then you look at places like
Speaker 2: the South, and that's just not the case.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, completely, even a lot of the Midwest that's
Speaker 4: considered the South, but West the same thing exactly.
Speaker 2: And so I feel like the subsequent crimes of those
Speaker 2: times reflected, oh good points, Like there's a much much
Speaker 2: more of like an embedded nefarious storytelling in southern cons
Speaker 2: of the era. It's more subtle and paste and not
Speaker 2: like as brazen and audacious fraudsters and scammers and con
Speaker 2: artists in the West. They were dealing with people who
Speaker 2: almost had this sense of mania, right, and like they
Speaker 2: could be looser and grander with their claims and their stories.
Speaker 4: You're a lot more suckers if you're just running out
Speaker 4: to get gold on the West. You know, you're somebody
Speaker 4: who's already shown people that you will be happy to
Speaker 4: cross and do arduous task, simple.
Speaker 2: Gain and magical thinking.
Speaker 3: I'm going to go out there.
Speaker 2: And just pull, you know, gold from the roofs. I
Speaker 2: may be off of, but you know, if I am
Speaker 2: keeping to yourself, Yeah, anyway, thank you. Eighteen seventy nine,
Speaker 2: Lou found himself in Georgetown, Colorado, that's just west of Denver,
Speaker 2: and when he was there, he ran a theater that
Speaker 2: put on vaudeville shows, and pretty soon the other Blonder
Speaker 2: brothers started descending on the town. Simon, the oldest of
Speaker 2: the kids. He got a gig, is superintendent at the
Speaker 2: Robert E. Lee Mine, which is curious naming Marvin the youngest.
Speaker 2: He worked there too, So this is a big spread.
Speaker 2: No sooner had this gang of blonders reunited than Lou
Speaker 2: and Sam hit the road like we're out of here.
Speaker 2: They're scratching that itch. Maybe they're running from something.
Speaker 3: Who's run tight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those two are best buds. There's ten years between
Speaker 2: them that they're very close, so.
Speaker 3: They would have been similar or at least, you know, very.
Speaker 2: Very similar in personalities. They went off to New Albuquerque,
Speaker 2: New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Albuquerque. It was a little railroad
Speaker 2: junction that would eventually merge with regular It's called out
Speaker 2: so it would it becomes today, like what's downtown Albuquerque
Speaker 2: different than old town. Back then it was like the
Speaker 2: up and comer. It's the railroad spot, all these new businesses.
Speaker 3: We should have settled here.
Speaker 2: Yes, So Lou and Sam they get there and they
Speaker 2: like really quickly ensconced themselves. In eighteen eighty two, Sam
Speaker 2: was appointed Marshal of New Albuquerque. He turned around and
Speaker 2: then immediately deputized Lou.
Speaker 3: Good call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the two of them, they fought crime. They
Speaker 2: took down bad guys. That's well. They also dipped into
Speaker 2: the vices, well, apparently opening a brothel, you know, cop stuff.
Speaker 2: In April of eighteen eighty two, Sam had to head
Speaker 2: out of town to Denver for a bit. He's like
Speaker 2: doing some sort of mining deal. So yeah, so he
Speaker 2: left Low in charge. Zarin, close your eyes. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: I want you to picture it. Hell yeah, It's April fifteenth,
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty two. You are on a train from Tucson
Speaker 2: headed to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Things got hot for you
Speaker 2: in Tucson a few days back. You and your associates
Speaker 2: got into a little trouble, caused a little trouble. You
Speaker 2: were seeking revenge, but that doesn't matter. Crime is a crime.
Speaker 2: A murder's a murder. It's morning and you can see
Speaker 2: the New Albuquerque station in the distance. You sit across
Speaker 2: from your closest friend, your brother at your side, four
Speaker 2: others in the seats behind you. You're hoping to outrun
Speaker 2: a state police posse that's after you. If you can
Speaker 2: get somewhere quiet with some cover, there may be time
Speaker 2: for the governor to negotiate a pardon for you and
Speaker 2: your boys, or, more likely, you can regroup and try
Speaker 2: and make it to Colorado. Your friend slowly, repeatedly flips
Speaker 2: a silver dollar coin into the air with his thumb
Speaker 2: as he stares out the window. The sound dances back
Speaker 2: and forth with the chug of the car on the
Speaker 2: rails and the occasional baleful whistle of the train. Oh
Speaker 2: I should mention you're wyat er you and you're a
Speaker 2: vendetta posse as you've been dubbed. Are on the run
Speaker 2: after avenging your brother Morgan's murder and the naming of
Speaker 2: your brother Virgil too. Oh yeah, you're on what they're
Speaker 2: calling the IRP vendetta ride. You're trying to get to
Speaker 2: Albuquerque because you understand that if you give interviews to
Speaker 2: the paper there, they'll keep it quiet that you're in
Speaker 2: town and they won't publish until after you're gone. It's
Speaker 2: a deal, you'll take. The train has reached the depot.
Speaker 2: The brakes let out a mighty squeal. The sound of
Speaker 2: steam hisses alongside the cars and onto the platform at
Speaker 2: the station. What's the Walt Whitman column, You think, the
Speaker 2: one where he's totally describing a train as a man's
Speaker 2: dingus is shaf as Pecker. That's right to a locomotive
Speaker 2: in winter, type of the modern emblem of motion and
Speaker 2: power pulse of the continent. He wrote that that's the train,
Speaker 2: all right. When the engine has finally halted, you and
Speaker 2: your posse stand and make your way to the doors.
Speaker 2: The station's empty, not many people on this early train.
Speaker 2: You walk through the platform and into the station building. There,
Speaker 2: just inside it stands a man. He's got a full nose,
Speaker 2: powerful like a potato, and a big bushy mustache turned
Speaker 2: up at the edges like your pile. Doc. He stands
Speaker 2: beside you, still flipping that silver piece. The man in
Speaker 2: front of you is also wearing a uniform and the
Speaker 2: gold star of a Marshal's deputy, lou Blander. He says,
Speaker 2: Acting Marshal of New Albuquerque, Your men slowly lift their
Speaker 2: right hands from their sides to the holsters concealed under
Speaker 2: their coats on their belts. You lift a hands, stop them.
Speaker 2: You recognize this man. You played poker with him some
Speaker 2: ten years ago in Dodge City. So you remember me,
Speaker 2: he says to you. You nod? You boys, Come with me,
Speaker 2: he says, as he turns and heads for the exit.
Speaker 2: I've got a place for you to bunk down, he
Speaker 2: says over his shoulder. You'll be taken care of the
Speaker 2: editor of the paper, he said, he'd like to see
Speaker 2: you this afternoon. My brother Sam, he's the marshall and
Speaker 2: he'll be back next week. We know what it is
Speaker 2: to take care of family. You shoot a look at
Speaker 2: your brother. Warren gives you a slight nod. Lou turns
Speaker 2: and faces you out on the street in the glowing
Speaker 2: light of the morning. Don't you boys worry, he says,
Speaker 2: tipping his head towards your group. Like I said, we'll
Speaker 2: take care of you here. People keep their traps shut
Speaker 2: here in New Albuquerque if and we tells them to.
Speaker 2: You follow him down the raised wooden sidewalk. You look
Speaker 2: over at Doc and he raises an eyebrow to you. This,
Speaker 2: Lou is all.
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, oh man, I know you enjoy that does
Speaker 5: better in tombstone indible.
Speaker 2: So the IRB posse. They left about a week later,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't long before Sam lost his job as
Speaker 2: Marshall well off on another land deal. But it didn't
Speaker 2: matter because Lou and Sam they went their separate ways
Speaker 2: and kept driving in that way that people did in
Speaker 2: the old way, you know, like lose. Lou's drifting wouldn't
Speaker 2: last long. He would meet up with Sam again. Of course,
Speaker 2: they would start a whole new venture. Let's take a break.
Speaker 3: How hard it is to run into your brother.
Speaker 2: Back in like the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 4: There's not that many towns you're going around. You're like, oh,
Speaker 4: I'll just go over this town, over the hill.
Speaker 2: How do you reach each other if you don't know
Speaker 2: where you've got. It's not like oh, I can send
Speaker 2: a telegram and like, yeah, let's take a break and
Speaker 2: think about that. When we get back, we're going to
Speaker 2: hit the next stop on the Blonder Tour and get
Speaker 2: into some actual crime aside from harboring a fugitive.
Speaker 3: Zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: How about them ads?
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, so good. I gotta put my wallet away.
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but I'm really glad that
Speaker 2: I listened to him. I feel like I'm a better
Speaker 2: person for it.
Speaker 6: Probably doesn't take munch, but yeah, it's now inflamed Lou Blanger,
Speaker 6: he was drifting around the Southwest.
Speaker 2: He even headed out to San Bernardino Old Burdou eighteen
Speaker 2: eighty eight. He arrived in Denver and so did his
Speaker 2: brother Sam. Reunited and it felt so good. They got
Speaker 2: to work setting up enterprises on both sides of the law.
Speaker 2: So they opened saloons and they opened gambling parlors. Do
Speaker 2: you remember who else had gambling halls and saloons in
Speaker 2: Denver at this smith? Soapy Smith.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: They were swindling the good folks of Denver at the
Speaker 2: same time. Yes, so Soapy he ran the Tivoli saloon
Speaker 2: and gambling hall.
Speaker 3: And he was from the South, so that maybe that
Speaker 3: Robert E. Lee Mine suggests there's a lot more people
Speaker 3: from the South who thought, oh, we can all make
Speaker 3: a ride in Colorado.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, and they should have left that behind, so
Speaker 2: you don't name things, okay. Anyway, Lou and Sam they
Speaker 2: owned the Elite Saloon on Stout Street, and the place
Speaker 2: was over the top, like super rich, dark wood frescoes
Speaker 2: on the Elite so luxurious, and.
Speaker 4: We're talking like Art Nouveau style picture, yes, very yeah,
Speaker 4: and also ornate and so.
Speaker 2: This saloon they had all manner of like poker and
Speaker 2: farrow tables, and they also really fell I don't know,
Speaker 2: let's open a parlor. Why not. They also ran something
Speaker 2: that we've talked about a number of times on this show.
Speaker 2: Numbers games illegal lotteries.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So in some of our tales that racket was just
Speaker 2: for neighborhood folks or for like Rube prospectors in Denver
Speaker 2: in the late eighteen hundreds, it was aimed at tourists.
Speaker 2: So like, just like Soapy and his scambars are Soap
Speaker 2: filled with supposed cash. So the Blonders their policy racket,
Speaker 2: the numbers game played into people's gambling addictions. They made
Speaker 2: it way too irresistible. But make no mistake, well they
Speaker 2: would just juice numbers and like tease people in. When
Speaker 2: Lou and Sam got to town, Soapi was the one
Speaker 2: running the joint. He ran the town. Denver had become
Speaker 2: known as a place conducive to running scams with like
Speaker 2: little or no interference from the funds, and Soapy made
Speaker 2: sure of that. So on top of the gambling and
Speaker 2: the vice, Soapy and the city fathers they had this
Speaker 2: whole protection racket going keeping the other crimers in line,
Speaker 2: So the Planders and Soapi they had somewhat of like
Speaker 2: an agreement.
Speaker 3: Of course they have to.
Speaker 2: They tussle over territory or like the share of the
Speaker 2: roobs on the street, but generally they kept a good time.
Speaker 4: Like when deliveries came into town, they'd be like, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna get my portion that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Right, You're like, you know, you're pulling too many of
Speaker 2: these people off the street, you know, two blocks over, Oh,
Speaker 2: into your parlor. Your cut them off before they get here, right.
Speaker 2: So I didn't really get into it in the Soapie
Speaker 2: Smith episode, but about a year after that failed takeover
Speaker 2: of city Hall that he had, Soapy absolutely wrecked shop
Speaker 2: on all the other saloons in the entertainment district. It
Speaker 2: was like eighteen ninety five. He's drunk as a skunk
Speaker 2: and he's like just tearing through he realizes like physical,
Speaker 2: physically damaging these He's in the middle of smashing up
Speaker 2: the elite saloon Lew and Sam's play. It's when the
Speaker 2: cops finally caught up to him and hauled him away,
Speaker 2: and like, Soapy is lucky that the cops showed up
Speaker 2: because Lou was behind the bar with a shotgun trained
Speaker 2: on Soapi and like about to unload. So it was
Speaker 2: actually this drunken rampage that was the wake up call
Speaker 2: for Soapy and imagine for Denver, well not really so
Speaker 2: like Soapi's his rebellion had been squashed. He was like,
Speaker 2: no longer really running the Denver streets the way you can,
Speaker 2: and so he that's when he pulled up stakes and
Speaker 2: went to Alaska.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, I want to be epic there instead.
Speaker 2: So Lou was like, I see a void, I shall
Speaker 2: fill it. Lou Blonder now running Denver, he took over.
Speaker 2: So with Denver on lock, Lou and Sam they decided
Speaker 2: to diversify their interests and go back into mining. Okay,
Speaker 2: so it's the ultimate Yeah, it's like the ultimate draw
Speaker 2: for a gambler, I'd imagine, because there's the possibility of
Speaker 2: striking at mega rich. Yeah, and you can look like
Speaker 2: a hero, a wise man.
Speaker 4: You know when you find it, and is luck somewhat,
Speaker 4: But it's also a little bit of work, A.
Speaker 2: Little bit of work. Yeah maybe track.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're also God's favorite. It's all like, hey too,
Speaker 3: there's that too.
Speaker 2: Eighteen ninety two, Sam and Lou. They found the Forest Queen.
Speaker 3: It's not some queen, not some.
Speaker 2: Byroness, mythical creek.
Speaker 3: I just ask that sounds It was a.
Speaker 2: Gold mine, a right by Cripple Creek, not Robbie Robertson's
Speaker 2: fictional Cripple Creek chronicled in the eponymous song by the
Speaker 2: band Oh Okay. Now this was a real place, and
Speaker 2: maybe the one from the song too, but in the
Speaker 2: song it's near the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's what I was wondering.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Cripple Creek, Colorado. The brothers found this gold mine.
Speaker 2: They named it the Forest Queen. They put it to work,
Speaker 2: and the one of the work though, is like reeling
Speaker 2: an investors, That's what I imagine.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they got like judges, das certificates. Yeah. J W.
Speaker 2: McCullough he owned Green River Whiskey. He put up twenty
Speaker 2: barrels of the good stuff in exchange for a stake
Speaker 2: in the mind. So now that you've got the saloon.
Speaker 3: Stock, it's like booze equity.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the mine it really did produce, though, It
Speaker 2: turned out serious loads and they were like serious profits.
Speaker 2: So you take the money they're making and their influential
Speaker 2: and straight arrow business partners and the blonders, they're getting
Speaker 2: like serious power in the area.
Speaker 3: They're basically early bootleggers.
Speaker 2: Yes, but yeah, so they're doing this is completely on
Speaker 2: the up and up, and they're making all these influential
Speaker 2: people a lot of money.
Speaker 3: Empire is a great way to get rich. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Lou moved his center of operations from the Elite
Speaker 2: saloon to the American National Bank building, so he's like,
Speaker 2: in an actual offer, he wanted to look less like
Speaker 2: a gambling hall proprietor more like someone interested in the
Speaker 2: mineral rights in places. This is a new era, though,
Speaker 2: it's the era of the Bunco ring. For let's talk
Speaker 2: Bunco for a second. You mentioned it recently when you
Speaker 2: were talking about Bob Nygard and the National Association.
Speaker 3: Of Bunco Investigations.
Speaker 2: So Bunko is technically a dice game, but when we
Speaker 2: talk about it here, we're talking about a type of
Speaker 2: criminal swindle or confidence game. A Bunco schemes like a
Speaker 2: street game basically. Yeah, and the dedicated detectives who investigate
Speaker 2: these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known
Speaker 2: as the Bunco squad. Why do we call it bunco?
Speaker 2: It comes from the Spanish word banco oh, meaning bank.
Speaker 2: Basically schemes where con artists exploit a person's trust, their
Speaker 2: greed fake. We talk a lot of bunco around these parties.
Speaker 2: Nineteen o four, we're sick in the Buncos, the bunk bunks.
Speaker 2: Lou and his gang they joined forces with this other
Speaker 2: con artist ring leader named Adolph Duff of Duff Beer.
Speaker 3: I was just about saying, the founder of not Beer
Speaker 3: in the Simpsons.
Speaker 2: Yes, so Lou picks up Adolph Duff. Lou had Adolph
Speaker 2: run the street level bunko stuff. Okay, so like staffing
Speaker 2: the cons, setting up the fake gambling dens and such,
Speaker 2: and like maybe buying and approving all the costumes and wigs.
Speaker 3: Got a big.
Speaker 2: One the Bunco though, the Bunco strang.
Speaker 4: So we're thinking like like the staying where they're doing
Speaker 4: like the big store type of scam.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that's what that's This one is like their
Speaker 2: greatest hits. One is called the Rag and it's a
Speaker 2: fake stock exchange. So Lilda's crew they pulled this in
Speaker 2: Denver in the summertime, but then in the winter they
Speaker 2: moved it to like Florida, California, Cuba.
Speaker 3: What's where the money would be in the winter wintering
Speaker 3: in the.
Speaker 2: So you start with the store and that's the fake
Speaker 2: stock exchange or in some cases a betting parlor. It's
Speaker 2: kitted out like some sort of movie sets. So there
Speaker 2: are connected rooms, props like a desk, phone like boards
Speaker 2: with stock prices on tick or tape, guys yelling by
Speaker 2: so sell buy. It's basically the same as you said
Speaker 2: as the Sting, the movie Sting, except instead of off
Speaker 2: track betting, it's a stock exchange. And the Sting was
Speaker 2: actually based on another set of real life brothers Fred
Speaker 2: and Charlie Gondorf.
Speaker 3: Look into that we do. So they were doing a
Speaker 3: fake stock with I imagine telegraph reporting.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, yes. So you have the store and then
Speaker 2: you have the look out upstairs. That's like the business office.
Speaker 2: The manager works up there coordinating the guys on the street,
Speaker 2: and then the guys on the street who pulled people
Speaker 2: in are called the ropers, and they would bring in
Speaker 2: the marks, the suckers, and those were tourists because like
Speaker 2: you don't want to hit locals.
Speaker 3: It's too risky. They know where you can live, but
Speaker 3: they can find out where you are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, and they spread the word. The roper
Speaker 2: befriends the mark, steers them toward the operation, and the
Speaker 2: mark is told, okay, I've got this like can't miss
Speaker 2: investment opportunity, and someone gave me in side info on
Speaker 2: stocks is about the skyrocket, right.
Speaker 3: So the also all the mining stocks would suddenly break.
Speaker 4: People would see like, oh this load hit or you
Speaker 4: know whatever, the comstock load.
Speaker 3: All people who held stock in that were suddenly.
Speaker 2: Millionaires and you're in the epicenter.
Speaker 4: So it was very much like their dot com boom
Speaker 4: or their whatever in terms of an equivalent overnight billionaires,
Speaker 4: millionaireffs and such.
Speaker 2: So the roper is like, look, come check it out
Speaker 2: with me, like I'm your new pal. Let's let let's
Speaker 2: get in MS. Let's see if it's legit totally and
Speaker 2: so sometimes the roper would pretend to be totally skeptical
Speaker 2: at first and then be convinced by the legitimacy of
Speaker 2: the operations. So first things.
Speaker 4: First, the market, and also he can kind of erode
Speaker 4: the the skepticism of the mark by being basically in
Speaker 4: front of them by being like, oh yeah, asking tougher questions,
Speaker 4: and then when they eventually you're convinced, it's like, well,
Speaker 4: why am I.
Speaker 3: Still being resistant? I was less resistant than him before.
Speaker 2: Right, right. So they get the mark to invest in
Speaker 2: a hot stock and they show them the trades that
Speaker 2: are happening in real time, and when they buy, they're
Speaker 2: shown immediate returns, like the prices rise, the ticker suddenly
Speaker 2: shows a profit. The clerks are confirming it maximum stokage
Speaker 2: in the air. People love making money, and then when
Speaker 2: they're greed pops in, it overrides any doubts they may
Speaker 2: have had, you know, suddenly, oh this is totally yeah,
Speaker 2: this is worth it. So they're encouraged by their early
Speaker 2: gains they want to invest more. Sometimes they get fake
Speaker 2: dividends or like partial payouts to further hook them in
Speaker 2: and like, but you know what, you know what that
Speaker 2: smell is a turn? A turn is coming. So once
Speaker 2: the Mark's in deep serious investments, the stock suddenly quote
Speaker 2: crashes or the office is just empty, like they have
Speaker 2: r u n n o ft they're gone and places
Speaker 2: Places was so lou so, like he went all out
Speaker 2: on the scam. He had actors posing his brokers, Bunko
Speaker 2: ring members posing his fellow investors. Yes, super realistic fake
Speaker 2: stock tickers, telegraphs supposedly sending real time data. Remember Soapy's
Speaker 2: fake telegraph offices. Scot a town with no telegraph was
Speaker 2: one of those units. My first telegraph from play school.
Speaker 2: So if they're going to pull this off, they had
Speaker 2: to go all in, like the best SNL hosts, all in,
Speaker 2: no holding back. So the environment was like super realistic,
Speaker 2: super convincing. Absolutely, everyone from the receptionist to the stockbrokers
Speaker 2: is in on the scam. Sweaty stress, and it's like
Speaker 2: a little cottage industry of its own.
Speaker 3: It's like total economy.
Speaker 2: It's a theme park basically that they create. Every single
Speaker 2: outcome has to be controlled, so they have to have
Speaker 2: total handle on prices, and of course because it's all theater,
Speaker 2: that's easy. But the most important thing is timing. Timing
Speaker 2: is everything, So like you need to make sure that
Speaker 2: you're that when these reports are coming in, or you
Speaker 2: you've fully isolated this mark that you're getting them at
Speaker 2: the right time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the tickers going off and the people know
Speaker 4: you'd be excited or to do the buy or the
Speaker 4: sell or whatever.
Speaker 2: You can't let anyone else get in their ear. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they have to be totally like pulled aside, isolated.
Speaker 2: Uh that you have to be the only source of
Speaker 2: information or opinions. Yes, so like no contact with legit
Speaker 2: brokers or voices of reason.
Speaker 4: And back then it was a much easier because they're
Speaker 4: out there in the middle of the West. Essentially the
Speaker 4: telegram is the only connection to.
Speaker 2: Back east, well and the SEC.
Speaker 3: And then you got the.
Speaker 4: Bank people in town telling them like, oh, yes, we're
Speaker 4: doing this blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But there wasn't the regulation, like you didn't get the
Speaker 2: SEC to like the thirties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 4: And some guy with basically a suit in some sideburns
Speaker 4: is going to be believable, especially he's got like, you know,
Speaker 4: a three pieces.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and the scene and yeah, yeah so there
Speaker 2: are and people weren't investors, weren't educated like you know.
Speaker 2: So this said is the core techniques, this illusion of legitimacy,
Speaker 2: the fake platform, social engineering. Those still exist in online
Speaker 2: investment scams, pump and dumps, fraudulent crypto schemes.
Speaker 3: Crypto is a huge area for this.
Speaker 2: So Bey and Lou would have loved crypto.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, they'd lose their minds over crypto.
Speaker 2: I still don't totally understand.
Speaker 4: Unregulated like money, you got all these suckers trying.
Speaker 3: To buy on the idea worth more tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I don't quite get it. And so but if someone
Speaker 2: were to try and explain it to me, I would
Speaker 2: be like, yeah, sure, it's like like the scam Milonia
Speaker 2: trump coin, yes and all those like what are a
Speaker 2: conse con exactly? I don't I don't get it.
Speaker 3: But whatever, can I tell you? Give me your money.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be worth more tomorrow, no matter what that is. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 3: so that's a scam.
Speaker 2: Over over a decade, Lou and the Bunko ring, they
Speaker 2: swindled millions from wealthy businessman, tourist, speculators like anyone coming
Speaker 2: through town. Only twice in nearly two decades did Blonder
Speaker 2: almost get arrested?
Speaker 3: Really almost? Do you not pay off the right people?
Speaker 2: I know? Nineteen ten they tried to get him in
Speaker 2: connection with the scammering in.
Speaker 3: Iowa nineteen ten.
Speaker 4: Things start changing because you have like enough you go
Speaker 4: through the eighteen nineties and people just kept getting ripped off,
Speaker 4: and then you get into the you basically flip over
Speaker 4: to the next century. Before right before World War One,
Speaker 4: you have this push for like we need to do
Speaker 4: banking regulations, we cannot have this and that, and also
Speaker 4: does all the patent medicine. The two were kind of
Speaker 4: running neck and neck. People were dying and losing all
Speaker 4: their money.
Speaker 2: He was able to though, because it was in Iowa,
Speaker 2: he was able to be like, that has nothing to do.
Speaker 2: Nineteen fifteen, he had workers in his office doing a
Speaker 2: remodel and they figured out what was going on in there,
Speaker 2: and they tried to rat them out, but he got
Speaker 2: out unscathed because he owns everybody.
Speaker 4: So wait, he hired a bunch of like basically like
Speaker 4: house counters to get carpenters to come in and like
Speaker 4: build him a Bunco lab.
Speaker 2: No, like, we're like redo his but then they like
Speaker 2: stuff and they saw things, and they're like, we're going
Speaker 2: to the cops, and the cops are like, no, you're not.
Speaker 2: So he's a friend of the family exactly so Sam.
Speaker 2: He passed away in nineteen fourteen, but the Bunko Ring
Speaker 2: only continued to grow, lose power and fortune just swelled
Speaker 2: he started wintering in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He hung out
Speaker 2: there with an old pal of his, none other than
Speaker 2: Alan Pinkerton, what president of the Pinkerton Detective.
Speaker 3: The founder of the Pinkerton.
Speaker 2: And they were like BFFs that Hot Spring.
Speaker 3: Not a nice person, No, not at all.
Speaker 2: So things are going.
Speaker 4: Swimming like ankles deep in water with Alan Pinkerton talking
Speaker 4: about like all the people you've.
Speaker 2: Con bus Yeah, things things were going swimmingly at the
Speaker 2: Hot Springs, but then they weren't. Let's take a break,
Speaker 2: well we return more bunco zaren great ads ten out
Speaker 2: of ten, no notes unless there were some problematic ones
Speaker 2: in there, And then.
Speaker 3: I say, boom, I just had post it notes of
Speaker 3: like more ads.
Speaker 2: More more Bye bye Blue rhymes with conjure. I have
Speaker 2: to keep telling myself that longer blonder. There are a
Speaker 2: lot there's as an aside, there's this whole website about
Speaker 2: the Blonder Brothers.
Speaker 6: Really yeah, and it's called dot com.
Speaker 2: Lauder Brothers dot com. And they have a like thing
Speaker 2: about the pronunciation that's not really helpful. Well, they're like
Speaker 2: you could say like this, you could say, But then
Speaker 2: I found a lot of places where they said blonder
Speaker 2: like conjure. So I'm going with that multiple places blonder. Okay,
Speaker 2: So these dudes, they were fleecing so many people. Dude,
Speaker 2: are good going away with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they don't see to piss people off. I haven't
Speaker 3: heard like it. And then so and so tried to
Speaker 3: kill them.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: No, No, Lou's running things. He's turning into quite the
Speaker 2: power player.
Speaker 3: I bet so.
Speaker 2: It made sense that in nineteen twenty, during the primary
Speaker 2: election for the Denver District Attorney, Lou reached out to
Speaker 2: Phillip van Seiss, the Republican candidate. He was like, look,
Speaker 2: I want to kick some money to your campaign, maybe
Speaker 2: send some votes your way. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Van
Speaker 2: Seiss said absolutely not. Yeah, I want nothing from you.
Speaker 2: No one ever said this to Lou, and he's lose.
Speaker 3: Shocked is the reform candidate.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but like whatever he moves on.
Speaker 3: It was like, because I guess I can't buy him.
Speaker 2: Van Seiss did not move on. Oh he won the election,
Speaker 2: and then he put Lou on notice He's going to
Speaker 2: go after the Bunko ring like number one, Yes, within
Speaker 2: the first one hundred days and all that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: so this isn't going to be easy, though, because by
Speaker 2: this point Lou pretty much owns everybody.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm thinking, all the judges, all the people.
Speaker 2: Yes, and everyone had a good thing going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everyone's making everyone's wet their beak.
Speaker 2: The whole clash feels very nucky. Thompson versus Agent van
Speaker 2: Alden on.
Speaker 3: A Boardwine Empire.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, TV is my only point of reference. I
Speaker 2: never learned to read. Keep that in mind.
Speaker 3: Getting an English degree really hard.
Speaker 2: It was really really hard.
Speaker 3: Is there a TV show of this book?
Speaker 2: Because otherwise we are so.
Speaker 3: Did the Brits make one? They make a lot of
Speaker 3: It makes.
Speaker 2: So many good ones. Thank you so much, Britz. So
Speaker 2: Van size he knew from criminals because he was born
Speaker 2: in eighteen eighty four in Deadwood Territory. Oh, he was
Speaker 2: just speaking crime non of Deadwood. He came out of
Speaker 2: the earth.
Speaker 3: I was born in the mud.
Speaker 2: It's badass to be like, Oh, I'm gonna start telling
Speaker 2: people I was born you should in eighteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. People will love that.
Speaker 2: Don't believe me, so Van sise right, he's a lawyer obviously,
Speaker 2: is running for DA served as a World War One
Speaker 2: military intelligence officer. Oh man, big, big crusading reformer. Yes,
Speaker 2: everyone knows. And he's principled, he's incorrect, he's fiercely independent.
Speaker 2: When he got back from World War One with all
Speaker 2: like the counterintelligence, oh yeah, he put it to work, right.
Speaker 2: He's determined to take down the Blonder Gang.
Speaker 3: Oh man, he goes to war against.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he knew. He knew the police were compromised,
Speaker 2: he knew that the courts could be bought. He knew
Speaker 2: he couldn't trust City Hall, so he had no choice
Speaker 2: but to go rogue.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Van Size knew that if he's going to go after
Speaker 2: lou he needs to have resources, so he created a
Speaker 2: private intelligence unit that was financed by wealthy, reform minded businessmen.
Speaker 3: Okay, the other good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So these men they're all part of Verus economic elite, okay, right, bankers,
Speaker 2: industrialist lawyers, property developers, tco. Yeah, and they're all just
Speaker 2: like they can't take the corruption anymore. Everything's you know,
Speaker 2: we're a national joke.
Speaker 3: It's a new century. We're a national joke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there's just too much criminality. They're not like
Speaker 2: completely altruistic though, like some of them are just like
Speaker 2: look this crime is bad for investment, Like we're losing tourists.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to make other suckers.
Speaker 2: I get embarrassed I go places. I'm like, I'm from Denver.
Speaker 2: So here's some of the men who got in on this.
Speaker 2: JJ Jake Benedict. He was like this big banker investor.
Speaker 2: He thought the crime ring was a blight on the
Speaker 2: city image in the economy. And he's the one who
Speaker 2: helped organize the financial trust that supported Van Seiss and
Speaker 2: was likely he played the part of the financial go
Speaker 2: between and the fixer for the group. So Lou was
Speaker 2: seen at the time everyone called him the ultimate fixer.
Speaker 2: See him coming back around to be look at that.
Speaker 2: So now we got JJ Jake Benedict. He's the fixer
Speaker 2: for the good guys.
Speaker 3: So it's fixer versus fixerspy versus spot yes.
Speaker 2: And there and their little outfits in their pointy faith
Speaker 2: wigs of course Jiggs costumes wigs. Another dude in the
Speaker 2: rich guy anti Bunco club was Gerald Hughes. So he's
Speaker 2: another lawyer, he's a mining investor. He's super well connected.
Speaker 2: How is he well connected?
Speaker 3: You ask?
Speaker 2: No? His brother was Charles Evans Hughes former Chief Justice
Speaker 2: of the United States Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: Oh, snap, he ain't connected.
Speaker 2: He's a true believer, right. He wanted clean government, he
Speaker 2: wanted civic reform, and to get that, he funneled money
Speaker 2: to support the operations, logistics safe houses and surveillance safe houses,
Speaker 2: extra judicial stuff like you'd find in clean government.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so running a coupe and money funds and like
Speaker 4: dead drops everything.
Speaker 2: So then there's Frederick. I'm just imagine them doing like
Speaker 2: the dancing dead drop.
Speaker 3: Where they they did that too, the other dead drop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just in my head, like the guy with
Speaker 2: the big bushy mountain and high heels. There's a scene
Speaker 2: I gagged serving Frederick Bamfield's fee. He was the co
Speaker 2: owner of the Denver Post. He was known for backing
Speaker 2: moral crusades, pushing for civic reform and nineteen twenty you're
Speaker 2: brimming with moral cruise.
Speaker 3: I say that was the time. Then, Yeah, they were
Speaker 3: all about that. We got the racism. Those were the
Speaker 3: two things.
Speaker 2: Stick with it. There's also the John Evans family, and
Speaker 2: they were the descendants of John Evans, who was Colorado's
Speaker 2: second territorial governor. Ah, they're just like super powerful Presbyterian Reformers, philanthropist.
Speaker 3: Son of the founding founder, all.
Speaker 2: About cleaning up the city morally, socially. William Evans people
Speaker 2: very much, so so much Starch Williams, son of John.
Speaker 2: He was the president of Denver Tramway Company Railroad Railroad.
Speaker 2: So he's like deeply involved in civic development. He's got
Speaker 2: he's like, he has to have the city become respectable
Speaker 2: for investors and visitors.
Speaker 3: On the trams.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the trams everywhere, traming it up. The rest
Speaker 2: of the group of rich guys, they stayed anonymous. They're like,
Speaker 2: leave my name out of it. Here's some cash, I
Speaker 2: get it. Yeah, that extra digital go together though. They
Speaker 2: created a secret fund that was like had like twenty
Speaker 2: five grand in it. That's more than three hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: That's plenty of money.
Speaker 2: Now. So with that cash, they rented a private headquarters
Speaker 2: away from the DA's office. Okay, so they had their
Speaker 2: own store and look out. They paid undercover agents and informants,
Speaker 2: you know, the ropers. They purchased equipment like cameras, typewriters,
Speaker 2: why tap devices, costumes and wigs like now we're cooking.
Speaker 2: We got costumes and wigs. So the funds they paid
Speaker 2: they paid for out of town's surveillance because remember the
Speaker 2: ring was operating all the way to Cuba, so like,
Speaker 2: I guess one of us has to go to Cuba.
Speaker 2: Sorry Van Seiss He's like, we have to be have
Speaker 2: total secrecy for this.
Speaker 3: And they're not working with the FEDS on this. This
Speaker 3: is the local money.
Speaker 2: Local, yes, just plus but the chapstick and the dance boat.
Speaker 2: So that they're thinking, okay, since the Denver police are corrupt,
Speaker 2: you know, most of them are on lose payroll, leaks
Speaker 2: could lead to murder, witness intimidation, sabotage, so everything has
Speaker 2: to be super secret. Plus like the businessmen, they feared
Speaker 2: for their lives, as they should, and the financial retaliation,
Speaker 2: you know, not just that. So to hide their involvement,
Speaker 2: they used sheldone. They met in private homes in public
Speaker 2: Van Seiss just referred to them as my backers, and
Speaker 2: all records were kept off the books and stored personally.
Speaker 4: They had a couple of weekly Bible reading meetings. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you're gonna be at the Bible reading, Like.
Speaker 2: Let's go read the Bible again. So the strike team
Speaker 2: was staffed with undercover operatives. Most of them were like
Speaker 2: World War one vets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this dude's friends with Pinkerton.
Speaker 2: Lewis what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Again, the best like private detective on the continent and
Speaker 4: everybody they know, they know all of the black market.
Speaker 3: People, and so he has hard to find people they
Speaker 3: don't know, right, who were good at this kind of business.
Speaker 2: That's van siss world War One. He's got to go
Speaker 2: to the intelligence guy.
Speaker 3: And go to like the ones he knew.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's got to go personally people. I mean he's
Speaker 4: got a vet. Basically, he can't trust any that's not
Speaker 4: put that together.
Speaker 2: That's so good.
Speaker 3: Well, no, the Pinkertons was like, he should hire Painker.
Speaker 2: Oh he can't.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they monitored the known bunkomen for months and like
Speaker 2: along the way, they're just gathering all this airtight evidence.
Speaker 2: They filmed and documented like real scams as they happened.
Speaker 2: They didn't want lou to be able to weasel out
Speaker 2: of any and like you know, he'd have due process
Speaker 2: as afforded to anyone on your soil. So they needed
Speaker 2: to come correct though, with like actual solid evidence. So
Speaker 2: they tracked how the victims were roped in, lured to
Speaker 2: fake exchanges, conned and then dumped operatives posed as would
Speaker 2: be victims. And yeah, at one point Van Seiss's backers
Speaker 2: helped him tail and surveil the mayor, Dewey Bailey, because
Speaker 2: everyone was like, he's got to be protected. Bailey didn't
Speaker 2: ever get charged, but the surveillance helped prove like how
Speaker 2: far the rot had spread, totally reinforced that need for
Speaker 2: secrecy to so over the course of a year, they
Speaker 2: collected all this evidence against the blogger gang. They tailed,
Speaker 2: wire tapped, Van Seiss went through lose garbage on a
Speaker 2: regular personally. Yeah, they had a dictaphone installed in Lo's
Speaker 2: office secretly, which didn't require search warrant at the time.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, crazy, I would voice active talking he clicks over.
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, just two early early days.
Speaker 3: So Van size was premoranda, right, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But it's like it's new technology.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but if I'm saying that, they don't even have
Speaker 4: the thought to make it like, oh, yeah, you're gonna.
Speaker 3: Need you're gonna need this some legal protections.
Speaker 2: So Van Seiss found that there was a police detective
Speaker 2: in the DA's office who was on lose payroll, and
Speaker 2: he's like, you know what, don't worry about it. Van
Speaker 2: Siss just let him continue on his merry way. But
Speaker 2: fed him all this bad intel to mess with the
Speaker 2: Bunco ring.
Speaker 3: Oh smart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Van Sis he's ready to launch a raid
Speaker 2: on the gang. He prepares everything in advance, like down
Speaker 2: to the most minute detail.
Speaker 4: I don't normally root for the cops, but I'm lovings. Yeah,
Speaker 4: his operations great.
Speaker 2: He the whole thing was carried out using private cars.
Speaker 2: Trusted volunteers carried out the arrest, so not police. He
Speaker 2: pre rented jail space in the city jail.
Speaker 3: This apparent.
Speaker 2: I guess he's like, I just want to book it out.
Speaker 4: I'm having a party the Sea Block for the weekend,
Speaker 4: having a batch. I got some musicians coming into town.
Speaker 4: They need housing.
Speaker 2: It's like his backers paid for all the deputizing of
Speaker 2: like all the military vets, and you know those are
Speaker 2: the ones, like you said, he personally vented all of them.
Speaker 2: The takedown was almost surgical. So Van Seiss, he had
Speaker 2: a list of sixty seven names, and these were like
Speaker 2: every single key player.
Speaker 3: In the buckle.
Speaker 2: Yeah for Blue himself, down to like the Ropers Hills and.
Speaker 3: Like the lowest debts. You know, some guy had.
Speaker 2: A crooked wig being like how can I help you
Speaker 2: sitting at a desk. So, like any good cinematic takedown,
Speaker 2: they had to bust them all at the same time
Speaker 2: so they wouldn't tip each other off.
Speaker 3: He got sixty seconds to coordinate that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so can I call a time out really quickly
Speaker 2: here and point out that it didn't look to me
Speaker 2: like there have been any movies about Lou Blanger. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you need to call DIBs on the screenplay.
Speaker 3: I want that on site. Man, this guy is like
Speaker 3: an Elliott n.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, okay. So the sting they needed to get
Speaker 2: them all at once. They put in so much work
Speaker 2: they could not risk this falling apart. And like the
Speaker 2: worst would be if Lou gets away, because like he
Speaker 2: has connections everywhere, he can just disappear.
Speaker 3: You really want to get him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the he's the key. August twenty fourth, nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty two. So it's early in the morning. Van Seiss's
Speaker 2: team fans out across Denver in private vehicles.
Speaker 3: Sixty seven people they got to pick up.
Speaker 2: Arrest teams there were like two to three agents per target.
Speaker 3: That's at eighty people.
Speaker 2: Sure if you say so. Came to math. I don't
Speaker 2: even know how to read.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: These teams they hit homes, hotels, saloons, the fake investment offices.
Speaker 2: People are like, well, I open up my fake stock
Speaker 2: exchange this morning. Remember, no police are used, so only
Speaker 2: the trust exactly exactly. Some agents pretended to be clients
Speaker 2: and then arrested the con then dam like they would
Speaker 2: one last undercover.
Speaker 3: They know where they're going to be like nine am.
Speaker 3: Others I want.
Speaker 2: To They pulled them from like street corners. All the
Speaker 2: arrestees were transported immediately to the county jail, where they
Speaker 2: had like the pre reserved VIP cells. All of the
Speaker 2: arrests happened within a window of one to two hours,
Speaker 2: and so by mid morning, you know, everyone's in custody,
Speaker 2: including Lou. They picked him up as he was like
Speaker 2: walking down the street puffing on a cigar. He owned
Speaker 2: a cigar shop. He just gone in and picked one up,
Speaker 2: smoking a stogy. He and Duff were the first to
Speaker 2: be arrested. So thirty three of the rest of the
Speaker 2: ring were caught and they got held on fraud and
Speaker 2: conspiracy charges. The rest of the guys they escaped because
Speaker 2: they were like further down the ladder, further out on
Speaker 2: the arrest schedule in the morning. Van Seiss had everything
Speaker 2: on these guys. So they had the conscripts, the props,
Speaker 2: the fake telegrams, the stock ticker paper, testimony from out
Speaker 2: of state victims who'd been defrauded in Denver. Despite all
Speaker 2: of the pressure and all the threats, Van Seiss prosecuted.
Speaker 3: The case himself as the prosecuting.
Speaker 2: As the prosecution, he Van sised for the people. He
Speaker 2: did not trust anyone else to do it. Yeah, los
Speaker 2: lawyers filed motions, they bribed, they bullied, but like Van
Speaker 2: Size is like what you're gonna do?
Speaker 3: Like, my.
Speaker 2: Stuff is airtight. So the bust was huge, news splashed
Speaker 2: in paper coast to coast. Oh wow, it's amazing entertainment.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, but it's like a boss tweed kind of.
Speaker 2: But the Denver Post wouldn't print Lose name. What one
Speaker 2: of the co owners, Harry Tammin, He was a good
Speaker 2: buddy of Lose. But then remember the other guy, Fred
Speaker 2: Bomfield's the other co owner. He was helping fund the takedown. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it was a house divided so uh, Fred though
Speaker 2: he made the papers editors and that embargo print lose
Speaker 2: names and then support the prosecution of what they were
Speaker 2: calling the quote million dollar Bunko ring.
Speaker 3: Once the music stops playing and the lights go on,
Speaker 3: well the dances got to do.
Speaker 2: It then that the million dollar bunko ring. That's like
Speaker 2: the press nickname right and coverages like reaching a fever pitch.
Speaker 2: Heading into trial, the guys they were pulling in way
Speaker 2: more than a million dollars a year, though it missed
Speaker 2: mind boggling amounts of money. So during the trial, everyone's
Speaker 2: pretty sure the jury had been tampered with. I'm guessing yeah,
Speaker 2: lose guys had approached four of the jurors and then
Speaker 2: they get to the fifth one that they're going to
Speaker 2: try and influence herman Oculi. Okay, he's crafty, right, he's
Speaker 2: he's acting like he's all in on fixing the trial.
Speaker 2: He took the money they offered and then he went
Speaker 2: right to his boss, who went right to Van Seiss.
Speaker 2: So the jury like they're deliberating, right, and it looks
Speaker 2: like they're going to almost be deadlocked, because like after
Speaker 2: four days, three jurors still wanted to acquit even though
Speaker 2: they have all this evidence, zero reasonable doubt. So then
Speaker 2: then herman he steps up right in front of all
Speaker 2: the other jurors. He told the three who wanted to acquit, quote,
Speaker 2: the difference between me and you is that I got
Speaker 2: my five hundred dollars, but I turned it over to
Speaker 2: the judge and you've still got yours. Oh and that
Speaker 2: freaked them out, like they didn't want to go down too,
Speaker 2: so they all flipped over to guilty immediately, immediately.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: So March twenty eighth, nineteen twenty three, the jury comes
Speaker 2: back guilty against Lou all the other defendants who are
Speaker 2: still on trial. In the end, Lou gets convicted and
Speaker 2: sentenced to seven to ten years. He was seventy five
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 3: Say he's got to be up there.
Speaker 2: Health wasn't the best. The trial really took it out
Speaker 2: of him. But what tipped him over the edge was
Speaker 2: the Denver Post because they ran an article after like
Speaker 2: you know, fair game, they ran an article that revealed
Speaker 2: that Lou had been leading this double life for twenty years.
Speaker 2: He lived with his wife Nola on the weekends, but
Speaker 2: during the week he lived with his mistress Iola Redon
Speaker 2: and the wife didn't know about the arrangement. What she
Speaker 2: thought he Maly just works in the city.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he stays so busy.
Speaker 2: He makes me so much money as so I get.
Speaker 2: How do you think the revelation destroyed him?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 2: Yeah? All he wanted at that point was his wife's forgiveness.
Speaker 2: That's all he cared about.
Speaker 3: Why did he I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: They patched things up. They patch things up?
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: And he transferred everything he owned, money, property, investments, everything
Speaker 2: to her before he went into the clink.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which, like you know, he wants to keep it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, lou he lost trust. Yeah, he lost a bunch
Speaker 2: of appeals, and in a last ditch effort, he wrote
Speaker 2: to Van Seiss and begged for leniency. This is what
Speaker 2: van Seiss wrote back, What leniency have you shown to others?
Speaker 2: What God have you worshiped except the almighty dollar? When
Speaker 2: you stole Preacher Mena's trust funds? Did you hesitate when
Speaker 2: overwhelmed with shame he committed suicide? Did you give any
Speaker 2: aid to his family when you took the life earnings
Speaker 2: of an old man Donovan of New Orleans and reduced
Speaker 2: him from comfort to penury. What did you do to
Speaker 2: ease the last months of his life? You have been
Speaker 2: a criminal from the time of your youth. You've been
Speaker 2: the fixer of the town. You have prostituted justice. You've
Speaker 2: bribed judges and jurors, state, city and police officials. You
Speaker 2: have ruined hundreds of men with that record. Tell me
Speaker 2: why a death sentence is not your day? With his
Speaker 2: l seven to ten years might have Well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we're all kind of just saying the
Speaker 3: same thing.
Speaker 2: And he did. He died in prison in nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: four after only being there a few months. The Blonder
Speaker 2: bust that cleaned out Denver's criminal elite, like basically overnight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, clan it the whole town. I imagine Van siss.
Speaker 2: He didn't run for reelection.
Speaker 3: That's all he wanted to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he returned to private law instead of like, you know,
Speaker 2: being tempted to be corrupted by politics.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Like he didn't want anything. He did his job. He
Speaker 2: wrote a book called Fighting the Underworld in nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: six tells his side of the story, and then his
Speaker 2: his like methods became a blueprint for fighting organized crime.
Speaker 3: Sounds like it, I mean, basically get Rico out of it.
Speaker 2: It's like pre FBI right, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: When you build a case over and show all the connections.
Speaker 2: Hey Edgar Hoover right from his playbook. Oh yeah, so
Speaker 2: because he used private funding, undercover infiltration, surprise prosecution like that.
Speaker 2: That you that's how you bust racket.
Speaker 3: Totally, the surprise raid, all on the same day.
Speaker 2: Saren, what's your ridiculous tickaway.
Speaker 3: That I've never heard of this cat van siss.
Speaker 4: I mean, like, you know, I listened to a lot
Speaker 4: of the old radio shows and they'll reference a lot
Speaker 4: of the stuff from the nineteenth century, a lot of
Speaker 4: the great outlaws, a lot of the great law men,
Speaker 4: and this one's never come up. And I've listened to
Speaker 4: stories about Denver. I've heard Soapie Smith mentioned in certain
Speaker 4: shows as like a outlaw figure, and they fictionalize them like, well,
Speaker 4: you know, Soapie Smith's got the so and So's saloon
Speaker 4: or whatever, and I'm like, oh, Lisciber told me about
Speaker 4: that guy. Never have I heard about this guy. But
Speaker 4: it's just fascinating what gets lost in American history. I
Speaker 4: think about the day about Smedley Butler, the guy who
Speaker 4: like stopped. You reminded me of this with with the juror,
Speaker 4: where you act like you're in on the scam. Yeah,
Speaker 4: you get enough evidence and then you flip right. As
Speaker 4: long as you're legitimately doing that, that's a great pull.
Speaker 4: And so I was thinking about that with him or
Speaker 4: he did that where he basically showed FDR that there
Speaker 4: was a coup against him. My point being that the
Speaker 4: ridiculousness is actually this not like it's not prosaic like sublime.
Speaker 4: Like the ridiculous is the juror doing the right thing.
Speaker 4: And I didn't anticipate that for Van Seiss not running
Speaker 4: for a reelection or trying to turn this into power
Speaker 4: and basically pulling a Cincinnatus in a George Washington and
Speaker 4: just walking away and.
Speaker 3: Being remaining Yeah, so ridiculous, this one is that exactly.
Speaker 3: We never we don't.
Speaker 4: We so rarely hear about good men doing things like
Speaker 4: this and ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And that's why you have to say, like, I can't
Speaker 2: like this guy is.
Speaker 3: Clean, totally, he's great.
Speaker 2: I love he's doing it for just.
Speaker 3: You want to protect people from penry. Exactly, you can't.
Speaker 4: Be taking all that the money from the old Yeah, So, Elizabeth,
Speaker 4: what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: I just the characters. I'm just enamored of every character
Speaker 2: in this that like Leu and his family are terrible
Speaker 2: but fascinating totally, and then Van Seiss coming through at
Speaker 2: the end. Oh yeah, I just I love good characters.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Oh by the way, thank you for letting
Speaker 3: me be whiter. That was fun.
Speaker 2: That was my gift to you. If to you, I
Speaker 2: need to talk back.
Speaker 3: Oh oh my god, I went.
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Speaker 4: You know what.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's I feel like.
Speaker 3: Right now for real perform That was so good.
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Speaker 2: Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced
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