Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Burnett. Oh yeah, what's up? Well? I was just
Speaker 2: sitting in here talking to the interns, going do you
Speaker 2: think she's gonna show up today? And all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you breeze in and everyone's all happy to see Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I go, you know what, it's a beautiful day.
Speaker 3: But it's not the heat. It's the pepperoni. That's what
Speaker 3: we like to say in the biz.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I ate my pepperoni pizza in the studio.
Speaker 2: Get used to this, like.
Speaker 3: A nineteen eighties round table.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, and they're kind of good. The red plastic
Speaker 2: cups are by my touch to make it feel authentico.
Speaker 3: It does. It does a picture of root beer, please.
Speaker 2: I got a question for you. Yeah, along with your
Speaker 2: picture of root beer? Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: You sure do? I sure do. This isn't ridiculous. Independent
Speaker 3: baseball leagues.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. I love them because.
Speaker 3: They're not affiliated with MLB, which I'm not a fan
Speaker 3: of these days.
Speaker 2: Oh, because you're as.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they're more fun. It's like more immediate, authentic baseball,
Speaker 3: and so the you know, there's like the Savannah Bananas
Speaker 3: are part of that coastal league. It's like a collegiate
Speaker 3: league Oakland Ballers or Pioneer League. And then there's this team,
Speaker 3: the uh Madison Mallards.
Speaker 2: Don't know them, I'm assuming Madison.
Speaker 3: I wasn't. Yeah, I wasn't familiar with their game. And
Speaker 3: then a bunch of a bunch of rude dudes were.
Speaker 2: Like, hey, look at this.
Speaker 3: Okay, we are Oh so it's not a mashupdes but
Speaker 3: it is a lot it's similar. It's one of those
Speaker 3: weird promotions.
Speaker 2: You hook me and you're no.
Speaker 3: So the Madison Mallards for their July eighteenth game had
Speaker 3: this thing where if you buy a ticket and you
Speaker 3: enter in this promo code for twenty one dollars for
Speaker 3: a grand stand ticket or forty eight dollars for the
Speaker 3: bush light duck blind okay section the duck line, you
Speaker 3: can get this promotion thing. So you know, with like
Speaker 3: the a's used to get like bubble heads or little
Speaker 3: mini bat night not a good idea, like little blankets,
Speaker 3: I don't know, garbage stuff anyway. Yeah, so the Mallards
Speaker 3: they're giving away a Wiener wallet and it's a belt
Speaker 3: with a holster on it where you put.
Speaker 2: A hot dog alster like a gun on the side.
Speaker 3: There's a picture. We'll have them put that on Instagram
Speaker 3: for it. And so yeah, it's like on the side
Speaker 3: where you it looks like a gun holster, but you
Speaker 3: put a hot dog in there, and then there's a
Speaker 3: little pouch next to it for your squeezes of ketchup
Speaker 3: mustard whatever. Yeah, so it has an expandable belt because
Speaker 3: they said it fits no matter how many wieners you
Speaker 3: put down. They there's the condiment pouch, blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: And so they said, what can we use it for?
Speaker 3: And then I'm glad you asked and they have like
Speaker 3: an f a Q wiener wallets are perfect for And
Speaker 3: I'm going to read you the list please. Times when
Speaker 3: you want to wear your worst wu rs apostrophe, don't
Speaker 3: when you got to have another red hot at the ready,
Speaker 3: When you need a place to park your pork sword,
Speaker 3: oh god, see yeah, if you need a holster for
Speaker 3: your hot dog, when you need to tuck away your
Speaker 3: tube steak, if you're looking for a carrier for your coney,
Speaker 3: if you feel like a Frankfurt or fashionista, when you
Speaker 3: got to gather your grease missiles when you're out of
Speaker 3: places to grip your glizzies, and when you want a
Speaker 3: pocket full of pigs in a blanket.
Speaker 2: So when you want to keep that foot long on you,
Speaker 2: you keep.
Speaker 3: That thing on you. Yeah, so that's what they have.
Speaker 3: If you're in that area, try and score a ticket
Speaker 3: that you can't buy them. It's a promotion attached to
Speaker 3: the ticket. And uh yeah, wiener wallet.
Speaker 2: You cased meats.
Speaker 3: Well that's kind of why I brought it up.
Speaker 2: Oh well, thank you. If you're looking out for me.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: Every day, just stay strapped exactly. Well, I'll give you that.
Speaker 2: That is ridiculous, and thank you for your dudes for
Speaker 2: not letting that be a full mash up. Ely, Well, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: I got one for you.
Speaker 3: Sure I'll take it.
Speaker 2: Now. I have a modern version of the children's cautionary
Speaker 2: tale Peter and the wolf kind of looks at the table.
Speaker 3: Aolved not in this.
Speaker 2: But pretend there are just imagine them, so you know.
Speaker 2: Peter claims he was attacked by an unseen wolf. Paul
Speaker 2: Village is an uproar, but the wolf claims he was framed.
Speaker 2: This always happened after a brief investigation. Please claim Peter
Speaker 2: did it for clout or perhaps a quick payout. This
Speaker 2: is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
Speaker 2: heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free
Speaker 2: and one hundred percent ridiculous. Yes, Oh, Elizabeth Saren. You
Speaker 2: are a woman with many interests. Sure, some of them
Speaker 2: we often touch upon on this show. Yeah, such as
Speaker 2: your love of gardening, sure, your love of RuPaul's Drag Race,
Speaker 2: British TV shows, Scottish detective novels, and of course, for
Speaker 2: longtime listeners, your love of trains. Sure. But we also
Speaker 2: have touched upon your love of bears.
Speaker 3: I do love bears like.
Speaker 2: You, legit love Alaska's Fat Bear. We do. You talked
Speaker 2: about this in an episode on the Fat Bear Week
Speaker 2: vote rigging scandal. Correct, now, I did. You've often told
Speaker 2: me that you would like to one day hug a bear.
Speaker 3: I would love to hug a bear nuts.
Speaker 2: Which is why I thought of you, And I also
Speaker 2: thought you might remember this story. So when I was
Speaker 2: reading it, I thought of you, and I thought, you
Speaker 2: know what, Lizbeth might remember this. Over in China, there
Speaker 2: was a story about a sun bear at a Chinese zoo.
Speaker 3: Oh, there's like kind of light brown. Yeah, sun bear.
Speaker 2: Now do you remember this news story from twenty twenty
Speaker 2: three about a fake bear that was in an exhibit
Speaker 2: at a Chinese zoo in eastern Hong Shiao City.
Speaker 3: I have vague recollection.
Speaker 2: Okay, lay it on me. When folks caught sight of
Speaker 2: videos circulating online, people were convinced that the alleged sun
Speaker 2: bear in a Chinese zoo is actually a man in
Speaker 2: a bear suit right now, According to the Associated Foreign
Speaker 2: Press back in twenty twenty three and I quote, a
Speaker 2: Chinese zoo has been forced to deny that its sunbear
Speaker 2: is actually a human in a costume after a video
Speaker 2: of one standing on a tined legs raised online accusations
Speaker 2: of a furry impostor. Now, in case you don't quite
Speaker 2: recall what the alleged sun bear looks like, here is
Speaker 2: an image of the suspected man in a bear costume.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that does look like a dude in like he's
Speaker 3: got his belly out, looks like his hands are on
Speaker 3: his lips. I don't know. I'm not wearing my glasses
Speaker 3: and you're holding that up and I'm doing my best.
Speaker 2: Also noticed like the wrinkles around his posterior. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: kind of looks like, you know, is is that a
Speaker 2: bear suit? Because of how it just droops around, you know.
Speaker 3: Missing judge, that's I see. You're doing a lot of
Speaker 3: body shaming for that bear.
Speaker 2: You should have more thickness to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I got to ask you, and you don't have
Speaker 2: to answer right away. I'll give you more time on this,
Speaker 2: And so what's your call? Is this a real sun
Speaker 2: Bear or is it a person in a bear costume?
Speaker 3: Saren? I think I need more information.
Speaker 2: I think you do too. It's debatable. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 2: if you look at the loose, wrinkled skin and the
Speaker 2: way it sort of bunches oddly around the bear's butt,
Speaker 2: as I've pointed out, it's you'd suspect, right, but this
Speaker 2: could easily be like a person in a bear costume,
Speaker 2: But it could just as easily be an actual sun Bear.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, despite all the online overnight bear experts in their
Speaker 2: opinions that it was not a real bear and instead
Speaker 2: it was a pathetic hoax that was giving fake bear,
Speaker 2: officials at the Zoo insisted at the sun Bear was
Speaker 2: a real, actual factual Bear the Bear debate crossed the seas,
Speaker 2: and eventually The New York Times had to weigh in
Speaker 2: on whether or not it was a real sun bear
Speaker 2: or a person in a bear suit. As The New
Speaker 2: York Times reported quote. The confusion appeared to begin in
Speaker 2: late July when a video surfaced on the Chinese social
Speaker 2: media site Webo of a sunbear named Angela standing on
Speaker 2: a rock and its zoo enclosure with ramrod posture on
Speaker 2: its hind legs. Okay, so now we got a name
Speaker 2: Angela Angela.
Speaker 3: That's incredible.
Speaker 2: So what's the truth. Is Angela the Sunbear reel or
Speaker 2: is Angela more like a college mascot? Well, folks in
Speaker 2: China had good reason to doubt that Angela the sun
Speaker 2: Bear was real. I mean, there have been multiple zoo
Speaker 2: hoaxes in China reported in the past.
Speaker 3: Could they could be saying, yeah, it's a bear, but
Speaker 3: it's really like a very large hairy man inside the costume,
Speaker 3: so technically it's a bear.
Speaker 2: In a costume. They're not lying your heads had now.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty thirteen, there was a zoo in the
Speaker 2: Hanan Province in China that claimed to have an African
Speaker 2: lion on display, but it turns out the purported lion
Speaker 2: was actually a Tibetan mastiff.
Speaker 3: Oh, they kind of do a click lions. Did they
Speaker 3: have like a wig on it?
Speaker 2: Well, they kind of like, you know, they cut the
Speaker 2: main to look a little bit. Yeah. So at the
Speaker 2: BBC report at the time quote Chinese media reports said
Speaker 2: the zoo had replaced its genuine lion with a Tibetan
Speaker 2: mastiff dog. A zoo official and Hanan province said the dog,
Speaker 2: owned by one of the workers, was put in the
Speaker 2: cage when the real lion was sent away to a
Speaker 2: breeding center. Outraged visitors to the zoo and lu Ouhu
Speaker 2: City said they had been cheated.
Speaker 3: That those are those dogs. I've seen the videos of
Speaker 3: those dogs getting grooms.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but they had just their first of all,
Speaker 2: they're normal, enormous. It is one of the biggest dogs.
Speaker 3: And then the hair situation is just crazy. See I
Speaker 3: can see if you shave down the body and left
Speaker 3: the top.
Speaker 2: I pay to see that the grooming all of it
Speaker 2: or the end result. Okay, well for the.
Speaker 3: Grooming the after as long as they're treating the dog.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'll give you five bucks.
Speaker 2: I'm with you on that now. The way the deception
Speaker 2: came to light was kind of fun to picture. The
Speaker 2: story goes a mother brought her son to the zoo
Speaker 2: to check out the animals, like young kid, and she
Speaker 2: was having fun introducing her child to all the animals,
Speaker 2: and she was educating her son on all the different
Speaker 2: sounds that animals make. And then when they approached the
Speaker 2: enclosure with the alleged African lion, they watched this animal
Speaker 2: for a while and the mother's like, you know, doing
Speaker 2: the distinctive lion roar for her son. She's like, soon
Speaker 2: he's going to do that, But instead, when the alleged
Speaker 2: lion finally did make a sound, it barked. The kid
Speaker 2: looked at it up his mom like, why are lying
Speaker 2: to me? The mother, knowing what a lion should sound like,
Speaker 2: was obviously shocked, and so this is when the deception
Speaker 2: was revealed, or rather confirmed. So zoo keepers admitted that
Speaker 2: their real African lion was away at the moment, and
Speaker 2: they'd subbed in a Tibetan masta, you know, and it's like, look,
Speaker 2: I know, it looks a lot like a lion, right,
Speaker 2: And she was like, my child, So the deceived mother.
Speaker 2: She's pissed, right, she told the local press quote, the
Speaker 2: zoo was absolutely trying to cheat us. They are trying
Speaker 2: to discus dogs as lions.
Speaker 3: I give him credit for it. Look, lady, you can
Speaker 3: either go and have a sign that says, you know,
Speaker 3: exhibit closed, or you can go and see a cool
Speaker 3: your choice.
Speaker 2: All the kid's not gonna remember a good point. Now,
Speaker 2: she may not have been wrong to level such accusations,
Speaker 2: because it wasn't just the African lion that was fake
Speaker 2: in the zoo. There was also a fake leopard. Visitors
Speaker 2: who looked closely at the animals stalking in the so
Speaker 2: called leopards den would notice it was actually a white fox. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a big difference totally. And in the enclosure that
Speaker 2: purportedly held a wolf, it was also a dog. The
Speaker 2: zoo in question, they claimed the two cages were simply mislabeled,
Speaker 2: which I find a little hard to believe.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Plus, there were other incidents in China of doubtful
Speaker 2: wild animals going down, like for instance, uh. Unlike with
Speaker 2: that zoo, the other incidents did have good or at
Speaker 2: least reasonable explanations. For instance, there was a reserve in
Speaker 2: the Sechuan Province and the panda keepers. They would often
Speaker 2: zip up a human sized panda costume and then they
Speaker 2: would join the pandas in the enclosure. Yeah, in this case,
Speaker 2: it wasn't meant to fool the humans because it was
Speaker 2: clearly like, that's not a panda. It was meant to
Speaker 2: trick the pandas because they want the zoop keepers. They
Speaker 2: wanted to like slip on the panda costume to alleviate
Speaker 2: the panda stress and if they got moved, or also
Speaker 2: to help them overcome any like attachment with their human caregivers,
Speaker 2: so they wouldn't be going up to people going do
Speaker 2: you have bamboo shoots?
Speaker 3: Well, you've seen the thing of the little baby panda
Speaker 3: that makes a snarling face when breaking. Oh yeah, because
Speaker 3: he learned not from an adult panda but from the
Speaker 3: zoo keepers how to snap the bamboo. But everyone have
Speaker 3: like a pained look on their face as they exerted
Speaker 3: to snap the bamboo. Yeah, so this little panda bear
Speaker 3: like snarls.
Speaker 2: It is a rough one.
Speaker 3: So they got to be careful. I see why they
Speaker 3: do it. They're so sweet innocent.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, just little I love pandas. The by the
Speaker 2: way the zip up panda costumes. They were often visually
Speaker 2: troubling for visitors to the panda reserve. And you can
Speaker 2: see why. This is what a human in a panda
Speaker 2: costume looks like.
Speaker 3: That is disturbing. I feel like if he turns around,
Speaker 3: the butt cheeks are like cut out.
Speaker 2: That's just it looks like a slender Man costume, but
Speaker 2: for a panda.
Speaker 3: Well there's no padding and it's yeah, it's very droopy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, It's just it's a low effort. It looks like.
Speaker 3: Those seventies Halloween costume.
Speaker 4: Yes, you know.
Speaker 3: They would give kids like a plastic front, only mass
Speaker 3: hard hard plastic, and then like a garbage bag that
Speaker 3: had a like the outfit printed on it.
Speaker 2: But only the front because the back would be a
Speaker 2: solid color.
Speaker 3: And if I'm sure that if it got caught on
Speaker 3: a jack land and it would go up like like
Speaker 3: a Roman candle.
Speaker 2: Pretty much everything in the seventies was flammable. It's very true, yeah,
Speaker 2: especially if it was for children. For children. So way
Speaker 2: back to Angela the sun Bear, we need to resolve
Speaker 2: this right, Yes, thanks to the fake lion, the fake leopard,
Speaker 2: the humans in a panda suit. You can see why
Speaker 2: Chinese zoogoers might have their doubts, sure right, and come
Speaker 2: to believe it was a person in America.
Speaker 3: Houl bitten twice, shy.
Speaker 2: Totally, It's totally fair and on their part, I'm not,
Speaker 2: you know, slighting them for being doubtful, suspicious, what have you.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna victim blame.
Speaker 2: What's the truth. Was it a real sun bear or
Speaker 2: a zoo keeper in a bear suit? What's your call, Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Why not both?
Speaker 2: Oh? Like that? I live in very diplomatic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's live in the gray.
Speaker 2: So it turns out it was a real sun bear.
Speaker 2: It was are so the zoo claimed. One of the
Speaker 2: zoo keepers took to social media to defend Angela, and
Speaker 2: they posted that quote, of course it's a real animal.
Speaker 2: It's definitely not a person in disguise. Our place is
Speaker 2: a state run facility. Such situations won't happen here.
Speaker 3: But I could see where they're like, we're not some
Speaker 3: fly by night private But oh they're also like, Okay,
Speaker 3: Angela's got a weird body. You guys don't like, don't
Speaker 3: accuse her of being human. She's a real bear. She's
Speaker 3: one hundred percent bear.
Speaker 2: Now that same zoo worker also offered some reasoning as
Speaker 2: to why I couldn't be a person in a bear suit.
Speaker 2: They reasoned that it was way too hot in the
Speaker 2: summer to throw on a bear costume just to con
Speaker 2: some tourists for a couple of dollars or you know
Speaker 2: you want.
Speaker 3: If anyone's ever been to like Disneyland or a theme park,
Speaker 3: you know that no one cares. The owners of places
Speaker 3: don't care how hot. Oh yeah, they'll put you in
Speaker 3: a big old sweatsuit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as long as that sweaty stink doesn't come out
Speaker 2: of the suit. They don't care what's going on inside
Speaker 2: the exactly.
Speaker 3: So that you know what, I discount that point. Give
Speaker 3: me your next argument, Chinese zoo.
Speaker 2: Well, the zoo keeper wrote on social media, if you
Speaker 2: were to wear a suit, you definitely couldn't bear it
Speaker 2: for more than a few minutes. You'd have to lie down.
Speaker 2: So fun puns aside.
Speaker 3: Does that pun translate from Chinese?
Speaker 2: I wondered that too.
Speaker 3: It's really interesting. Yeah, I don't think it does.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think it just happened to be.
Speaker 2: It just lined up in English. But I could be wrong.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're ready. I don't know. You know what, Now
Speaker 3: I feel like we've blown this whole thing wide open.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's a problem because was he writing
Speaker 3: it in English?
Speaker 2: No, It's written in Chinese as far as I can tell.
Speaker 3: And then translates like perhaps if Chinese speakers can clarify
Speaker 3: for it, it.
Speaker 2: Could be the translator introduced the pun.
Speaker 3: Oh took some liberties again. Now I'm just not I
Speaker 3: don't know who to believe anymore, Sar, I don't know
Speaker 3: what what's fake.
Speaker 2: Well, all this gave me an idea. Whenever you finally
Speaker 2: open your strip club for ladies who just want to
Speaker 2: lie around on couches and robes slots, you should open
Speaker 2: a roadside zoo attraction that's just people lying around wearing
Speaker 2: half zipped bear costumes. Okay, right, just so for the outside,
Speaker 2: you know, it's like kind of like you're like, hey, look,
Speaker 2: we got a roadside attraction to bring in the truckers.
Speaker 3: Sure, but I'll put the I'll put the fellows outside
Speaker 3: in the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally outside exactly, and the lady's gonna be inside
Speaker 2: with the air conditioning robes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, girl, Ladies to the front. Girls to the front.
Speaker 2: So back to Angela that maybe or maybe not Sunbar.
Speaker 2: So what is the truth? Well, in order to convince
Speaker 2: the public that Angela Sunbear was a real bear, the
Speaker 2: zoo put out a press release allegedly written by the bear.
Speaker 2: I don't now convince.
Speaker 3: Okay, So now who tells the truth around here?
Speaker 2: Well do you check this statement? And I quote? Yesterday
Speaker 2: after work, I received a call from the park manager
Speaker 2: asking me if I was slacking off and had a
Speaker 2: biped replace me. Much to my surprise, I'm just sitting
Speaker 2: in the mountains and I go viral on the internet.
Speaker 2: Some people think I look too human when I stand up.
Speaker 2: It seems you really don't understand me. Previously, some visitors
Speaker 2: even thought I was too petite to be a bear.
Speaker 2: I want to emphasize again, I am a Malaysian sun bear,
Speaker 2: not a black bear, not a dog, a Malaysian sun bear.
Speaker 2: So that was the press release allegedly written by Angela
Speaker 2: the sun Bear. It's not helping quell any of the doubts.
Speaker 2: So if that didn't convince you, Elizabeth, we also have
Speaker 2: test the money from Charles Robbins, director of research at
Speaker 2: the Washington State University Bear Center, which I'm sure you
Speaker 2: should follow on social media, and according to The New
Speaker 2: York Times, Robbins assessed the bear question it offered his take,
Speaker 2: saying that in his professional opinion and I quote, it
Speaker 2: looks like a sun bear to me. Presumably the bear
Speaker 2: has been rewarded with food by the crowd for standing,
Speaker 2: so it learned very quickly to do just that. So
Speaker 2: that's the whole he's getting rid of the standing part now.
Speaker 2: Robin's also addressed the posture of the sun bear, adding
Speaker 2: the quote, I have a grizzly bear that will stand
Speaker 2: and walk two legged. So now he's just like bragging
Speaker 2: on what he got.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm just okay, so what's it? Is he
Speaker 3: in their pocket too?
Speaker 2: No, but he's the deciding factor in this one. So
Speaker 2: there you go in the sun Bear innocent. Which brings
Speaker 2: me to another big bad bear story where the nature
Speaker 2: of the bear was in question. When this story hit
Speaker 2: the press recently, a number of rude dudes reached out
Speaker 2: to us and sent us this story.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Perhaps inspired by the Chinese zoos, a group of southern
Speaker 2: California men got some notions for how they they might
Speaker 2: pull off some bear bas crimes. First they got a
Speaker 2: bear suit, Then they played rock paper scissors to see
Speaker 2: who would wear the bear suit. Then on January twenty eight,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, they took three cars and drove out
Speaker 2: to Lake Arrowhead, which is up there in the mountains
Speaker 2: above Los Angeles, where they then proceeded to stage their crime.
Speaker 2: The men filmed an alleged bear breaking into their cars
Speaker 2: and thrashing the insides.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that just happened up in Tahoe a couple weeks
Speaker 3: ago totally.
Speaker 2: And these cars, they were really nice, Like one was
Speaker 2: a twenty fifteen Mercedes G sixty three AMG, another was
Speaker 2: a twenty twenty two Mercedes E three fifty and the
Speaker 2: third car was a twenty ten Rolls Royce Ghost.
Speaker 3: Itok, a Rolls Royce up to Lake Arrowhead.
Speaker 2: I know right now. The men had a good thing going,
Speaker 2: that is until they got greedy with it. Because you see,
Speaker 2: they filed not one, not two, but all three different
Speaker 2: insurance claims reporting that a bear broke in and damaged
Speaker 2: their cars. And they filed the claims with different insurance
Speaker 2: companies on and two of the insurance companies seem to
Speaker 2: have been tricked. But the third company, the one that
Speaker 2: ensured the Rolls Royce wasn't so easy to cause.
Speaker 3: To say, why did they go up there and then
Speaker 3: film themselves trashing the car? Well, now I get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, insurance for the insurance fraud. So their ruse was
Speaker 2: revealed on the video proof they submitted to polster their
Speaker 2: insurance claims, which means they made the mistake of filming
Speaker 2: their crimes one right, and then because you know, as
Speaker 2: you point out, they needed the video proof for the
Speaker 2: insurance companies. They also made the mistake of filing the
Speaker 2: claims on the exact same date at the exact same
Speaker 2: location and said, you know, here's how it goes, which
Speaker 2: linked the claims. When one of the claims was for
Speaker 2: the rolls, Royce triggered an investigation Elizabeth by the California
Speaker 2: Department of Insurance. No one sees them coming never. The
Speaker 2: investigation was cheekily called Operation bear Claw No No. Their
Speaker 2: investigation into the alleged to bear attack on these string
Speaker 2: of luxury cars. The insurance fraud investigators noted that when
Speaker 2: they carefully considered it the video evidence, it sure looked
Speaker 2: like the bear recorded inside the expensive cars looked a
Speaker 2: hell of a lot like a man inside of a
Speaker 2: bear costume. Thrashing around in the luxury cars, and I've
Speaker 2: seen it and it definitely does really. Oh yeah. So
Speaker 2: the investigators they took the video evidence to a group
Speaker 2: of wildlife biologists who worked for the California Department of
Speaker 2: Fish and Wildlife, and they asked them for their professional
Speaker 2: opinion on the alleged bear attack video. It did not
Speaker 2: take the wildlife biologists very long? Did it determine? That? Quote?
Speaker 2: It was clearly a human in a bear suit?
Speaker 3: Oh no, I see videos like that all the time.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure, both from Tahoe and from southern California.
Speaker 2: So once the insurance frauds confirmed, charges were filed against
Speaker 2: the purps. The men, Alfia Zuckerman thirty nine of Valley Village,
Speaker 2: along with Reuben tamarazi In twenty six of Glendale, and
Speaker 2: Vahi morod Kanian of thirty two, also of Glendale, were
Speaker 2: all sentenced to one hundred and eighty days in county jail,
Speaker 2: and the men were also ordered to pay restitution which
Speaker 2: amounted to one hundred and forty one thousand dollars. Wow.
Speaker 2: Now there was a fourth suspect, Era Rot Chirkinian thirty nine,
Speaker 2: as also of Glendale, tell by the ian whose cas
Speaker 2: His case is still pending. So there you go.
Speaker 3: Did they rent these cars, like, did they own the They.
Speaker 2: Own the cars. And then they were filing insurance claims
Speaker 2: on the damage done and basically saying, oh, my car
Speaker 2: has been total Exactly, a bear totaled my car from
Speaker 2: the inside out.
Speaker 3: There's the one that happened up untill they showed they
Speaker 3: didn't have the picture of the bear in there, but
Speaker 3: the bear got stuck.
Speaker 2: And it was a legit bear. Though it was a
Speaker 2: legit bear bears.
Speaker 3: When they showed the inside of the car, I mean,
Speaker 3: like you see like the claw marks, and they just
Speaker 3: that thing went to town and there.
Speaker 2: They do real damage to damage a human being could
Speaker 2: not do. Exactly, you just don't have the musculature.
Speaker 3: No, no, So let's.
Speaker 2: Unzip, step out of our bear costumes, and when we're back,
Speaker 2: we'll get into some more fake emergencies. There were actually
Speaker 2: ridiculous crimes, and we're back, Elizabeth, back, you're ready for
Speaker 2: round two of Yeah, dude, fake uh, fake fakers, fakers,
Speaker 2: fraudsters in this case, fake emergencies.
Speaker 3: Oh oh yeah, that's not funny.
Speaker 2: So this next one is another recent news story. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you saw this one on your news
Speaker 2: feeds or perhaps on social media. It involves those folks
Speaker 2: who pay large money to climb Mount Everest.
Speaker 3: Oh those folks. Yeah, yeah, I try and ignore that stuff.
Speaker 2: I figured, but as you might guess, people who are
Speaker 2: willing to pay a lot of money to climb up
Speaker 2: a mountain also make really easy marks to.
Speaker 3: Con Oh, I can imagine. Have you seen the pictures
Speaker 3: of them, like the traffic jam, it's just a line
Speaker 3: of people. Oh yeah, and they're not even really like
Speaker 3: there's one step.
Speaker 2: At a time, and they're holding onto the guide ropes
Speaker 2: and it looks like, you know, like a line for Disneyland,
Speaker 2: like you're waiting for Space mountain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then they leave their trash and then dead
Speaker 3: friends all over the places. Bottles close it down, shut
Speaker 3: down the mountain.
Speaker 2: So the story goes Sherpas the aka the mountain guides,
Speaker 2: who you.
Speaker 3: Get treated like garbage by the way, largely Yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they leave these mountain climbers up the face
Speaker 2: of Mount Everest, where allegedly now they are poisoning the
Speaker 2: climbers halfway up the mountain. They're poisoning, poisoning them. Why
Speaker 2: why would they do that, You may be wondering, is
Speaker 2: it because they're so poorly treated? Possibly? But mostly it's
Speaker 2: for the big payday.
Speaker 3: Okay, like the big candy bar.
Speaker 2: No, but actual like here's your check. Nice work, like
Speaker 2: poisoning the Western Yeah, like, how does poisoning your client
Speaker 2: result in a payday? That's great questions, Elizabeth. It was
Speaker 2: a classic case of insurance fraud because you see, if
Speaker 2: you have a medical emergency on Mount Everest, you can't
Speaker 2: just climb back down. You can't send up a traditional
Speaker 2: ambulance to go pick them up. And due to the
Speaker 2: often bad weather on the mountain and the lack of
Speaker 2: negotiable roads past a certain height, is only one way
Speaker 2: to get to them, which is a helicopter. So you
Speaker 2: send up a helicopter ambulance and then those helicopter rescues
Speaker 2: they aren't cheap, so the sherpas would conspire with the
Speaker 2: helicopter companies to fake a medical emergency or would need
Speaker 2: be cause one, so that way the helicopter ambulances would
Speaker 2: have to take expensive rescue missions, and that we're paid
Speaker 2: for by the Western insurance companies. Amazing right, As The
Speaker 2: Daily Mail reported on a story that was first reported
Speaker 2: by the Katmandu Post Quote. The fake rescue racket works
Speaker 2: by getting a climber to stage a medical emergency. A
Speaker 2: helicopter is then called and taken to a nearby hospital.
Speaker 2: An insurance claim is then filed that bears little resemblance
Speaker 2: to what actually happened. So it had fast become a
Speaker 2: fifteen million pound insurance scam. Yeah, one that involves sherpas,
Speaker 2: helicopter pilots, local doctors. It was a whole cottage industry. Again.
Speaker 2: According to the Daily Mail and I Quote, Nepal's Police
Speaker 2: Central Investigation Bureau identified two ways this game is manufactured.
Speaker 2: The first involved tourists who don't want to walk all
Speaker 2: the way back down tracks can take up to two
Speaker 2: weeks on foot, so guides tell climbers to fake a
Speaker 2: medical emergency so that a helicopter comes. But the second
Speaker 2: method is far more troubling and involves tricking climbers into
Speaker 2: thinking they're having a medical emergency. Oh wow, that's where
Speaker 2: the poison comes in.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: And this, Elizabeth, is where I say, rather than me,
Speaker 2: tell you about the poison. Yes, Elizabeth, close your eye
Speaker 2: as I want you to picture it. It's a pleasant
Speaker 2: day on Mount Everest, or at least it was when
Speaker 2: you first began your ascent, But now after you've been
Speaker 2: at it for a long while, the weather has started
Speaker 2: to turn. You fight against strong gusts of wind that
Speaker 2: whisks snow from the mountain side, creating a dramatic white
Speaker 2: cloud from the snow spray effect. The reduced to visibility
Speaker 2: has left you clinging to the guide ropes and the
Speaker 2: mountainside itself. Turns out, this is your first time climbing
Speaker 2: the famous tallest mountain in the world. You were excited
Speaker 2: to come. You felt abuliant when you first began the
Speaker 2: hike up Everest, but now as a weather turns more foul,
Speaker 2: you've grown nervous about what could happen. You know the statistics,
Speaker 2: and you've already had to step over more than one
Speaker 2: frozen corpse of a hiker who failed the summit the
Speaker 2: mountain and now resides permanently as a human popsicle landmark
Speaker 2: on the trail to the peak. Luckily for you, you
Speaker 2: have an experienced mountain guide with you, and your Shirpa
Speaker 2: promises you he'll keep an eye on you and keep
Speaker 2: you safe. He says he has a phenomenal safety record
Speaker 2: This is reassuring, since at your current altitude, the air
Speaker 2: has become thin, oxygen is scarce. At the moment, you
Speaker 2: feel like you're breathing through a carpet, absolutely fighting to
Speaker 2: replenish your oxygen after each hexhay and your Shirpa notices this.
Speaker 2: He informs you that above three thousand meters, this is
Speaker 2: a common experience. You know what he's referenced. It's called
Speaker 2: altitude sickness. You were warned about it in the many
Speaker 2: online forums you checked before you came to Everest, the
Speaker 2: same forums and subreddits you read obsessively before you booked
Speaker 2: your trip, and so you know all of the signs
Speaker 2: of what to look for. Headache, a tangling sensation in
Speaker 2: your limbs, and extremities. All of this is due to
Speaker 2: the precipitous drop of oxygen in your blood. But that's
Speaker 2: the odd thing. You aren't experiencing any of those telltale
Speaker 2: signs of altitude sickness. So you argue that since you've
Speaker 2: come this far, you want to push it. You want
Speaker 2: to continue your ascent to the summit. Your Sirpa seems
Speaker 2: disappointed in your response, which you find kind of odd.
Speaker 2: Maybe he's just the worrying kind, because a dead hiker
Speaker 2: is probably bad for his online reviews. Anyway, you manage
Speaker 2: to press on your feet find purchase in the icy
Speaker 2: mountain side. Your breathing is labored, but it remains steady
Speaker 2: because you trained for this climb and you're convinced you
Speaker 2: can make it. A little while later, your shurpa calls
Speaker 2: for a rest. He says you all need to catch
Speaker 2: your breath, rest your weary bodies, and eat something to
Speaker 2: restore your energy reserves. You agree, so you and your
Speaker 2: climbing partner who came along at your invite, and your
Speaker 2: trustee sherpa all stop to eat. You tear open your
Speaker 2: trail snacks. You gobble them up rather voraciously. After you've
Speaker 2: sucked down your energy slurries and protein bars, you wash
Speaker 2: it all down with some hot tea from a thermos
Speaker 2: that your shurpa brought. It tastes good, i'llbeit a little
Speaker 2: bit odd to your palate. After your brief rest, you
Speaker 2: all reset the ice bikes of your climbing boots into
Speaker 2: the icy mountain side. You get back to hiking. You
Speaker 2: managed to put one foot in front of the other
Speaker 2: for another hour or so, but you feel this rumbling
Speaker 2: in your tummy. There's a strange, unsettling gurgling. As you
Speaker 2: march up the mountain, your discomfort only grows more intense.
Speaker 2: Soon enough, you're in actual physical pain. It feels debilitating.
Speaker 2: You begin to doubt if you can go on. Your
Speaker 2: Shirpa notices it. He stops you all again and says
Speaker 2: he's worried about you. He says you don't look good.
Speaker 2: It's altitude sickness, he says. He tells you he's going
Speaker 2: to radio back down to the base camp and call
Speaker 2: for an emergency helicopter to come up and get you.
Speaker 2: You try to protest, but you can't make a meaningful
Speaker 2: argument against a rescue chopper because you are in agony.
Speaker 2: A little while later, you hear it long before you
Speaker 2: see it, and then boom, you spy it, the rescue chopper.
Speaker 2: It emerges from the wispy white clouds. It's rotors whip
Speaker 2: and swirl the wind blown snowspray, and seeing the chopper,
Speaker 2: you feel defeated, but you begrudgingly accept the help. Your
Speaker 2: shurface secures you in the basket, and then you're winched
Speaker 2: up to the helicopter and brought inside safe and secure
Speaker 2: after a humbling white back down from where you were
Speaker 2: high above the clouds. You were flown directly to a
Speaker 2: hospital where the well practiced admitting staff takes you in
Speaker 2: it begins to treat you for altitude sickness. You're both
Speaker 2: angry and a little embarrassed that you had to be rescued.
Speaker 2: Oh well, maybe you'll have better luck next time. Okay,
Speaker 2: So there you go, Elizabeth. That's what a medically induced
Speaker 2: helicopter rescue looks like. Yeah, in practice, or in your
Speaker 2: imagined case, your shirp has slipped you some baking soda
Speaker 2: into your tea in order to trigger a medical emergency
Speaker 2: so he and his partners could scam the system and
Speaker 2: necessitate a mountainside rescue. You see, he gets a cut
Speaker 2: from the helicopter service for calling out the cavalry to
Speaker 2: come save you, because they all know the Western insurance
Speaker 2: companies will pay top dollar for your medical care. Who
Speaker 2: gets hurt here, you know? And like I said earlier,
Speaker 2: since they were scamming insurance companies, the fraudsters often went
Speaker 2: for every dollar or pound they could finagle, which means
Speaker 2: the purpose would claim that every single person that gets
Speaker 2: rescued required their own chopper, even though the rescue choppers
Speaker 2: were designed to carry multiple distressed or injured climbers, and
Speaker 2: if each person needs a fresh chopper, that makes multiple
Speaker 2: paid in Now, if you're wondering, the rescue flights would
Speaker 2: charge the insurance companies about nine thousand pounds per rescue,
Speaker 2: which is about twelve thousand dollars American. Okay, not bad
Speaker 2: for a scam. Sounds so bad, it really doesn't.
Speaker 3: In fact, that's cheaper than like if you don't have
Speaker 3: an insurance and you have to be airlifted after an
Speaker 3: action of this country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I forget about tie hundred thousand dollars exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I would rather call one of them. I'm like,
Speaker 2: flyover from the ball exactly now. In order to have
Speaker 2: all their ducks in a row, the purpse would also
Speaker 2: fake the paperwork, such as flight manifests and load sheets.
Speaker 2: That's the kind of paperwork that pilots had to fill out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and at the hospital they'd have medical aid professionals doctor
Speaker 2: up some of pony paperwork. So they'd even use like
Speaker 2: the digital signature of a doctor who never even saw
Speaker 2: the faked patients oftentimes didn't even know he was being
Speaker 2: involved in the scam.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So in the time between twenty twenty two and twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, investigators found that there were over three hundred
Speaker 2: confirmed fake rescues. Oh no what Oh yeah. In total,
Speaker 2: those paid out about fifteen million pounds in fraudulent insurance claims. Wow,
Speaker 2: which is about twenty million dollars. Now what's curious is
Speaker 2: that this scam was well known. Like, in fact, back
Speaker 2: in twenty nine there was so much insurance fraud going
Speaker 2: down that policy reforms were put in place by NEPAUL
Speaker 2: to stem this new trendy crime wave. But that reform
Speaker 2: backfired and it led to more fraud.
Speaker 3: Oh you're kidding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just ask Minaj Kumar Casey, who is the head
Speaker 2: of the Central Investigation Bureau of the Nepol Police. He
Speaker 2: told the catman do post quote. The scam continued due
Speaker 2: to lacks punitive action. When there is no action against crime,
Speaker 2: it flourishes. The insurance scam two flourished as a result,
Speaker 2: and so now this year, rescue chopper fraud is once
Speaker 2: again making headlines, especially after thirty two people were charged
Speaker 2: for making phony insurance claims. Yeah, nine of them have
Speaker 2: been arrested, which included pilots and staff from three different
Speaker 2: helicopter companies, along with doctors and it admin's staff from
Speaker 2: three different hospitals. So it's a widely engaged yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: But there's more to this story, Elizabeth, because you see
Speaker 2: when news stories broke about the charges being brought against
Speaker 2: the quote thirty two tour managers, rescue coordinators, hospital owners, doctors,
Speaker 2: and trekking guides who face charges under the Organized Crime
Speaker 2: Prevention Act is Climbing Magazine reported those news stories focused
Speaker 2: on the trend of poisoning mountain climbers in order to
Speaker 2: necessitate a chopper rescue, like what happened to you in
Speaker 2: the picture now. However, according to Climbing Magazine, that's not accurate,
Speaker 2: not according to the accounting of what is really happening.
Speaker 2: They have the receipts, Elizabeth. They can prove it based
Speaker 2: on the seven hundred and eighty four page charge sheet
Speaker 2: for the thirty two named Purpse. Insurance fraud is certainly
Speaker 2: going down on the mountain. Nobody doubts that. That's not
Speaker 2: up for debate. But the poisoning part seems to be
Speaker 2: a bit of a lie, or at least a major exaggeration. Now,
Speaker 2: remember having the picture that you were poisoned with and
Speaker 2: I didn't tell you, but it was baking soda I
Speaker 2: just put in the tea in order to necessitate an
Speaker 2: emergency chopper back. Well, poisonings like that didn't happen, at
Speaker 2: least not often. However, reported news stories about the charges
Speaker 2: in the insurance fraud, that was often the headline, like,
Speaker 2: you know mountain guides pol climbers.
Speaker 3: Is then it turns out of these poor innocent climbers
Speaker 3: exactly nasty locals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it totally plays into all of our biases
Speaker 2: and some orientalism. Throw that in there, right. So, as
Speaker 2: these news stories around the world focused on the sensational
Speaker 2: allegations that mountain guides were poisoning their clients for big,
Speaker 2: big money, yeah, none of that ended up showing up
Speaker 2: in the seven hundred and forty eight page charging documents.
Speaker 2: And to confirm this, climbing magazine they like went through
Speaker 2: all seven and forty eight pages with their highlighter pen
Speaker 2: and then once they were satisfied with that, they reached
Speaker 2: out to folks from the Central Investigation Bureau of the
Speaker 2: Nepal Police and they were told via email to date,
Speaker 2: the official investigation has not found any evidence of poisoning.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, as well, Senior Superintendent of Police Kumar Shreshed
Speaker 2: the put out a press release to quell the online
Speaker 2: fear mongering because this is big business for Nepal. They're
Speaker 2: like use of Mount Everest money. Yeah. So in his
Speaker 2: press release, the Police super tenant he informed the public
Speaker 2: and the press that quote the CIB Serious attention has
Speaker 2: been drawn to news reports broadcasted across national and international
Speaker 2: media regarding the fake rescue of tourists. These reports alleged
Speaker 2: to the Trekking guides in the Everest region made tourists
Speaker 2: ill by mixing poisonous substances into their food to facilitate
Speaker 2: fake rescues. During the investigation conducted so far, no facts
Speaker 2: have been found to suggest that poisonous substances were mixed
Speaker 2: into food. So then where do where the start? Well,
Speaker 2: as best as can be determined, it began with a
Speaker 2: repeated rumor. One mountain guide, a man named Uga Bajador Tappa.
Speaker 2: He said that quote, I've heard that foreigners are made
Speaker 2: ill by mixing bacon powder into their food. So that's
Speaker 2: all it took. I have heard, And then everyone just
Speaker 2: ran with it.
Speaker 3: Well, and I would imagine that some of these guys
Speaker 3: who are just you know, really full of themselves and
Speaker 3: have the money to do Everest and if they they
Speaker 3: poop out they can't make it. Oh, then they're like,
Speaker 3: you know what, I think I was poisoned by this
Speaker 3: mysterious Sherpah they do.
Speaker 2: They go into a subreddit and they see someone report
Speaker 2: this and they're like, that's what happened to me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's why I couldn't make it.
Speaker 3: But I mean, like I think because that's what you
Speaker 3: were talking about, Like this sense of disappointment is the
Speaker 3: helicopter crests and the person wants to you know, push through.
Speaker 3: I could see that, But then I could also see
Speaker 3: them being jerks and being like, well, I'm going to
Speaker 3: blame someone. I'm gonna blame the.
Speaker 2: She they poisoned.
Speaker 5: Otherwise I would have be sprinted. The last half I
Speaker 5: was doing record time they were carried him. No one
Speaker 5: has gone this fast like I was carrying.
Speaker 3: Two sherpas on my back and then they poisoned me.
Speaker 2: Now, since Tenseig nor Gay have seen.
Speaker 3: It made them look so bad, so as.
Speaker 2: Were the actual insurance broud it largely stemmed from guides
Speaker 2: convincing hikers that they were experiencing a medical emergency and
Speaker 2: then calling a chopper to rescue them, and then charging
Speaker 2: the Western insurance companies for the medical emergency that actually
Speaker 2: was happening. Right like. For instance, consider the case of
Speaker 2: Tensing Sherpa. He's a guide for Panorama Himalayan Trekking expedition.
Speaker 2: He was named in the criminal indictment and he stands
Speaker 2: accused of radioing for a chopper to rescue a Canadian
Speaker 2: woman who was experiencing a medical emergency. The woman named
Speaker 2: Sylvia Albierre was choppered off the mountain and when she
Speaker 2: gets home to Canada, she sees in her latest bill
Speaker 2: her insurance was charged eighty two hundred dollars for the
Speaker 2: rescue plus thirteen hundred and two dollars for hospital treatment.
Speaker 2: And when she saw that bill, she did what many
Speaker 2: folks do these days, She went and got mad. On Facebook.
Speaker 2: She saw stories about similar fake rescues. She deduced that
Speaker 2: she too was scammed, so she wrote an email to
Speaker 2: the CIB in Nepal.
Speaker 3: Well did she she took a helicopter ride?
Speaker 2: She did take a legitimate She went to the hospital
Speaker 2: in you got the full trip ext So when she
Speaker 2: wrote her email to the CIB in Nepal, she told
Speaker 2: investigators her story, and in her email in January of
Speaker 2: this year, she wrote that she and her fellow climber
Speaker 2: were both duped, or she put it, we were denied
Speaker 2: the right to descend on foot as we intended. So
Speaker 2: apparently her email led to charges against Tensing Shirpa. Now
Speaker 2: in all, honestly, can you imagine know how pissed you'd
Speaker 2: be if you spend all this time preparing, all that time,
Speaker 2: securing of visa to climb Ount Everest, all that money
Speaker 2: to outfit yourself or your arduous mountain climb, and then
Speaker 2: when you finally get there, a guy's like you're having
Speaker 2: a medical emergency.
Speaker 3: It might be you know.
Speaker 2: That's the thing is, it's like you don't get to
Speaker 2: actually make the climb.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean she was on her way down. I
Speaker 3: could see where they're just like they have to make
Speaker 3: that call of Joe. I want as someone who's going
Speaker 3: to keel over, and a lot of people don't want
Speaker 3: to admit.
Speaker 2: Yes when they aren't.
Speaker 3: They don't have anyben to finish something. And you can
Speaker 3: see the egos on these people to go do this
Speaker 3: in the first place.
Speaker 2: Good point, and they're not going to.
Speaker 3: Be the one like, yeah, you know what, I don't
Speaker 3: think I can finish this. They're oh, I'm going to
Speaker 3: do this. But there was a case recently where these climbers,
Speaker 3: you know, we're having trouble getting up or whatever. I
Speaker 3: don't know what happened, but one of them collapsed and
Speaker 3: the sherpa picked him up, put his own pack down,
Speaker 3: picked the guy up and carried.
Speaker 2: Him back to back then a base camp, and.
Speaker 3: Then he gave it was some well known person. So
Speaker 3: it was like a press conference, doesn't think the It's
Speaker 3: like I want to thank my team and I want
Speaker 3: to think the King of England, but like you're just
Speaker 3: naming all these people and the shirp is like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, I just carried this big, you know, sack
Speaker 3: of potatoes down here, and what am I chap liver?
Speaker 2: Oh? And also I mean there's like in the mountain
Speaker 2: climbing community, there's a lot of stuff about like your
Speaker 2: climbing partner. You have to like you have to recognize
Speaker 2: you both are facing life and death and decisions, so
Speaker 2: you have to be very honest very truthful. It's like
Speaker 2: a bond. You're literally tied to each other, right, and
Speaker 2: if something happens to them, they break their legs. You're
Speaker 2: supposed to be like, I'm not going to the mountain.
Speaker 2: I got to help you get down to Basecam. There's
Speaker 2: whole documentaries about that. Now. Obviously, as you pointed out,
Speaker 2: it's a tremendous debacle to climb Mount Everest. These tastes,
Speaker 2: I mean quite honestly. I mean, not only do you
Speaker 2: have to step over the bodies of the frozen climbers
Speaker 2: died in the mountain and who are now frozen corpses
Speaker 2: who never get removed ever, they're they're for good. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 2: you spend most of your time on the mountain, like
Speaker 2: like I said, like you're at Disneyland righting in line.
Speaker 3: And they leave their trash everywhere, including oxygen.
Speaker 2: Bottles huge yeah, big break green.
Speaker 3: And I think they're framing the Sherpas quite frankly, because
Speaker 3: if you have all these Western tourists who are like,
Speaker 3: oh this is you know, this is fraud.
Speaker 2: They're making me do this.
Speaker 3: The government, like you said, they want that Everest money,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, big money, and the communities need that money,
Speaker 3: So if they're gonna say, oh yeah, okay, we'll crack
Speaker 3: down on it. And then I think gets curious that
Speaker 3: they don't do anything, because it's not really happening. The
Speaker 3: justice for the spas now.
Speaker 2: Also, I was thinking, if they can do helicopter rescues,
Speaker 2: why can't they clear the bodies of the dead hikers
Speaker 2: Just strap them onto the winch and pull them up,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Just get one of those big old helicopters and say
Speaker 3: we're going to close the mountain for a couple of
Speaker 3: days while we clear up the body.
Speaker 2: On the Soviet eraic cargo choppers. You can just like
Speaker 2: land in a field anywhere, like this field can be
Speaker 2: a swamp, doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: But then they also have to be blaring the supremes
Speaker 3: like the beginning of China Beach. And then yeah, I
Speaker 3: just want, like I want to blend all that imagery,
Speaker 3: all the stuff.
Speaker 2: And Cold war imagery a running rampant in current day.
Speaker 3: I like it. Let's do it.
Speaker 2: I like your imagination, thank you so much. So this
Speaker 2: story is bleak and ridiculous, right, so let's take them
Speaker 2: another little break, watch this one out of our heads,
Speaker 2: and when we're back, we'll dive back into another fake
Speaker 2: emergency for fun and profit, in this case influence. We're back, Elizabeth. Hello,
Speaker 2: So now are you ready for another fun with fraud
Speaker 2: and faked emergencies? Right? So, you know how you love
Speaker 2: online influencers and all that they bring to the world. Well,
Speaker 2: I've saved the best for last.
Speaker 3: Great.
Speaker 2: This is another modern one. This one went down recently,
Speaker 2: obviously since it's about an influencer. So the story goes
Speaker 2: twenty seven year old Brazilian influencer Monarchy Fraga had a
Speaker 2: big idea and so you can better picture her as
Speaker 2: I tell you the story. This is Monica Fraga.
Speaker 3: Okay, so she's like a like a bikini model.
Speaker 2: She's exactly that. You're correct.
Speaker 3: Well, me, it's just like you say, like imagine like
Speaker 3: an influencer. So it's like she has.
Speaker 2: A specific kind like she's not like doing the like
Speaker 2: I have. I'm involved in beijed life, you know, like
Speaker 2: some of them are right, some are like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: a food influencer and they're just like, oh, they have
Speaker 2: like tattoo sleeves and they.
Speaker 3: Have top hair that long hair.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't know the influencer.
Speaker 3: I don't like you jes honestly, Like.
Speaker 2: My social media feed, isn't it just not all influencers
Speaker 2: like yours?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but influencers like Inina Garden, that's my my influencers.
Speaker 3: I don't think I could name an influencer. Can you name,
Speaker 3: aside from the ones you're about to tell me about,
Speaker 3: can you name an influencer right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's tons of them, all.
Speaker 3: Right, give me a name, Give me one name.
Speaker 2: Jake Paul Is that.
Speaker 3: The boxer he's done about all they do, that's all
Speaker 3: he does, gets beat up for fun.
Speaker 2: No, that's what his sideline is. But he started as
Speaker 2: an influencer and then he's just branched out, like mister
Speaker 2: Beast is not a game show host, but now he is.
Speaker 3: He is. I think he's like a c I A oh.
Speaker 2: He's got dead eyes.
Speaker 3: There's something. There's something like and I don't even know
Speaker 3: like what he does or who he is, but he
Speaker 3: makes cookies or something.
Speaker 2: Now I have no idea. I mean he does everything now,
Speaker 2: he just he has like an talent agency to stuff
Speaker 2: escape from this house I set on fire? How long
Speaker 2: do you live in this?
Speaker 3: See? This is what I'm talking about. Man and the
Speaker 3: Jake Paul Guy. He came from that. He was an influencer,
Speaker 3: influencing people to.
Speaker 2: Do be their worse self. I don't know it makes sense.
Speaker 2: It's you also have a mixture, not because you have
Speaker 2: like the people who do like like I Show Speed.
Speaker 2: He's like a streamer where he's just constantly I show speed.
Speaker 2: He's this young black athlete essentially, and he just goes
Speaker 2: around the world doing fantastic things like with professional athletes,
Speaker 2: and you're just like, how he runs really fast. He
Speaker 2: can like do a jump and they drive like a
Speaker 2: sports car under him. He can like you know, do
Speaker 2: things that other like professional gymnasts can do. He's like
Speaker 2: he just goes Yeah, he's an incredible athlete, but he's
Speaker 2: just like too small to be a professional athlete in
Speaker 2: most American sports. So he ends up doing it online
Speaker 2: and people are just like he's like a huge star, right.
Speaker 3: And he makes money doing this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But he's basically a streamer, not really influence. He's
Speaker 2: not like telling people like, hey, wear are these shoes?
Speaker 2: Or like here's where I go to eat to do
Speaker 2: get energy for my you know, crazy stunts.
Speaker 3: So how does he make money as a street He
Speaker 3: does this on live Internet.
Speaker 2: People like donate money and then now brand partnerships is
Speaker 2: a big part of it. People like fly him over
Speaker 2: to Dubai to like, you know, jump a camel or whatever.
Speaker 3: I'm so old and I am so cranky.
Speaker 2: So like, yeah, I can name plenty, but they've become
Speaker 2: I couldn't get her.
Speaker 3: I can't just just something. That's the only one I like.
Speaker 3: But she's a comedian. She's the one who does your
Speaker 3: eccentric friend and okay, has all the crazy outfits. Oh right,
Speaker 3: I'm not sure she makes any money on it, but
Speaker 3: she's amazing and I love her. She's my favorite. She's
Speaker 3: like if my friend Sarah and I had a baby.
Speaker 2: Who's is she the one who does like I'm going
Speaker 2: to punch you that that thing?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: I love her. What did she say?
Speaker 3: I don't know what her name is like, but yeah,
Speaker 3: she like quietly threatens to punch. I haven't seen her
Speaker 3: in a long time. Okay, but no, this one is
Speaker 3: she's just jolly or something like.
Speaker 2: She's probably a comedian. I got cha.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and she she just like wears really outlandish outfits.
Speaker 2: Well that brings us back to Moniky Franco whole thing,
Speaker 2: which is she wears outrageous outfits. They're just always bikinis.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, no, that's not what this count does now.
Speaker 2: A year ago, in April twenty twenty five, Rakha posted
Speaker 2: to her forty eight thousand followers that she had gone
Speaker 2: through it in the jungle. She informed her fans and
Speaker 2: followers that she and her husband Lucas were near their
Speaker 2: home in Karasu, Burbazil, when they were accosted by three
Speaker 2: well armed men and what followed was a veritable nightmare
Speaker 2: Elizabeth and her video explainer of the attack. Sure when
Speaker 2: she told everyone what she got.
Speaker 3: For the first thing I want to do after an emergency,
Speaker 3: Yeah is a video.
Speaker 2: Explainer, so monikey. She claimed that the three well armed
Speaker 2: men kidnapped her and her husband. They were then dragged
Speaker 2: into the jungle where they were beaten and tortured. Her husband, Lucas,
Speaker 2: was allegedly beaten until he agreed to hand over valuables
Speaker 2: like some gold chain or something, and she had been
Speaker 2: posting about it before. That's what alerted them, Like you've
Speaker 2: got that gold chain, we want that anyway in other
Speaker 2: valuables as well. So the pair they're held in the
Speaker 2: jungle against their will for hours, and then they eventually
Speaker 2: are ransomed off to their family, like if you pay,
Speaker 2: release them, and so then the family pays and then
Speaker 2: they get released. Elizabeth, you have to understand this story
Speaker 2: was extra scary for her fans and followers to hear
Speaker 2: because Monarchy was a mommy influencer.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, the twenty seven year old mother of small kids
Speaker 2: told her fans and followers through tears, Elizabeth, Yeah, but
Speaker 2: and I quote, I spent hours in the woods. I
Speaker 2: didn't know if I'd make it back.
Speaker 3: Where were her kids when this was happening.
Speaker 2: Behind the camera. She also claimed that from what she
Speaker 2: could recall, there was a river there and the whole time,
Speaker 2: I thought they were going to kill me and throw
Speaker 2: me in there and I'd never see anyone again. All
Speaker 2: I could think about was my children. Meanwhile, all she
Speaker 2: could think about were her children, right, so, wherever they were,
Speaker 2: she had to witness her husband get his face rearranged
Speaker 2: by the bad men while she's thinking about her children,
Speaker 2: or she put it, they beat up Lucas they were
Speaker 2: after some gold chains I'd posted about, and I said
Speaker 2: those gold chains weren't mine, which is like a big
Speaker 2: time influencer truth, Like I was boring, right, stuff exactly.
Speaker 2: That's not my private plane. So this all obviously sounds horrendous, right,
Speaker 2: It's like something that might happen to a real celebrity,
Speaker 2: Like when Kim Kardashian got robbed for her jewelry in Paris.
Speaker 2: I thought that was fake, of course. I mean, I'm
Speaker 2: right there with young on the fence.
Speaker 3: But everything, Zaron, everything's sake.
Speaker 2: See, I go both ways on my things. I'm like,
Speaker 2: this could be fake. It might not be fake. I'm
Speaker 2: like that old Taoist story about the horse, like when
Speaker 2: they they go, yes, this happened, I'm like, it could
Speaker 2: be yeah, maybe, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Every time you say to me, did you see like
Speaker 3: when celebrities like get into relationships, I'm convinced they're all fake.
Speaker 2: Yes, you always say that this is pr and I
Speaker 2: believe on this set and they were both reading the
Speaker 2: same book Nothing's real. So in this Brazilian influencer's case,
Speaker 2: her story wasn't as believable as a Kardashian tail. So
Speaker 2: because when the Brazilian police investigated the alleged attack, they
Speaker 2: found that there were no well armed bad men who
Speaker 2: beat and tortured the couple instead, the police claimed it
Speaker 2: was all a stage stunt meant to build online cloud
Speaker 2: for Monique Fraka. You see the police they did their job.
Speaker 2: Yeah they would they first, they have a job. When
Speaker 2: they first heard of the alleged kidnapping, they launched a huge,
Speaker 2: sprawling operation to investigate the crime. And as they investigated,
Speaker 2: they found evidence of her story didn't line up with reality. Shocker,
Speaker 2: no right, So, according to Detective Clay Anderson, as the
Speaker 2: investigation progressed, it found indications that the alleged kidnapped for
Speaker 2: ransom was in fact nothing more than a plot between
Speaker 2: the supposed victim and one of the perpetrators. So that's
Speaker 2: when the police launched a second investigation into the couple,
Speaker 2: an operation which they called smoke Screen of Likes.
Speaker 3: Smoke screen of likes.
Speaker 2: Instead of lies. Likes is a one. Yeah, so I guess.
Speaker 3: Go back, start from the drawing board on this. We
Speaker 3: need to workshop the tel.
Speaker 2: Maybe it sounds better than the original Portuguese Perhaps, as
Speaker 2: Detective Anderson told local press, the investigation suggests she's not
Speaker 2: only knew about it, but agreed things in advance and
Speaker 2: stayed in contact with one of those involved afterwards.
Speaker 3: She like hired her boyfriend.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm thinking. See, now we're on the city.
Speaker 3: I like to imagine them just sitting in the woods,
Speaker 3: punching each other in the face. Her husband cooked it out,
Speaker 3: maybe with the rock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, try this one.
Speaker 3: Oh oh that's too hard, too hard. But yeah, now okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: so let's just say I'm gonna put on my.
Speaker 2: Detective hat please.
Speaker 3: She she had her boyfriend beat him up.
Speaker 2: I like that. I like where your head's at, good
Speaker 2: and suspicious.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, once thirty officers were taking part in the operation
Speaker 2: Smoke Screen of Likes, then it came a series of
Speaker 2: arrests and property searches as the truth of the stage
Speaker 2: attack began to come to light. It was revealed that
Speaker 2: it was partly true since the influencer Frago's husband was
Speaker 2: unaware that the beating was fake, because it sure felt
Speaker 2: real to him when he was getting beaten and tortured.
Speaker 3: When his teeth were all over the floor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was legit beaten. She arranged that part, like beat.
Speaker 3: Him up, but didn't she she supposedly got beaten, but yeah,
Speaker 3: not really, we've.
Speaker 2: Been She didn't walk out with the the way he looks, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So back to Detective Anderson, as he said, at all times,
Speaker 2: he has maintained that he genuinely believed it was a
Speaker 2: real kidnapping. Now, meanwhile, despite evidence that she arranged the
Speaker 2: kidnapping of her and her husband, she was also in
Speaker 2: contact with one of the three alleged kidnappers, her boyfriend,
Speaker 2: and she insists that she's innocent and she knows nothing
Speaker 2: about any publicity stunt right. Yeah, she faces now charges
Speaker 2: of blackmail, also wasting police time with a phony man hunt,
Speaker 2: and obstruction of justice.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Trouble for her is one of her alleged accomplices is
Speaker 2: now behind bars and another one is facing charges for
Speaker 2: receiving the ransom cash her boyfriend. I'm willing to bet
Speaker 2: that one, if not both, oh yeah, are likely to
Speaker 2: testify against her in exchange for lesser charges. So there
Speaker 2: you go. A quick around the world survey of faked
Speaker 2: emergencies for fun and profit and fraud with tourists.
Speaker 3: That's incredible.
Speaker 2: This leaves me to ask you, Elizabeth, Yeah, what's our
Speaker 2: ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 5: Everything is fake, that is, and it's only worse now
Speaker 5: with AI, like, because we were already bad just on
Speaker 5: our own.
Speaker 2: And now we've introduced the worst bad actor you can.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we have. We've had like lies about you know,
Speaker 3: world events from governments. Oh okay, so we have like
Speaker 3: the top level bad lies. And then you can just
Speaker 3: it just keeps going.
Speaker 2: Influences start lying about their like what their lives are like.
Speaker 2: But oftentimes they're.
Speaker 3: Your whole thing is a lie. And then you have
Speaker 3: you know, I think everything is a lie.
Speaker 2: Also small time lies like oh yeah, boss, I'm at work,
Speaker 2: I'm working remote. And then they like use like whatever
Speaker 2: like however they do with your cursor to figure out
Speaker 2: whether or not you're really logged on. So they are
Speaker 2: alling even on the most smallest levels. Right, it's just
Speaker 2: lies everywhere.
Speaker 3: But it's also you know, it's we have built up
Speaker 3: this public persona of you know, not even just the influencers,
Speaker 3: but you know, you look at people's social media persona
Speaker 3: is a lie most of the time.
Speaker 2: I totally agree.
Speaker 3: You know, there are friends that I'm close with and
Speaker 3: I see like what they put on social media.
Speaker 2: True, yeah, it's like, well I was with you that day.
Speaker 3: Well no, it's not even like a lie, but it's
Speaker 3: like a misrepresentation and so you know, some of them
Speaker 3: are more egregious, where you're like, I know that your
Speaker 3: life is falling apart and you're looking like happy mommy.
Speaker 3: It does, and I feel for you, you know, and
Speaker 3: like mine like you. All of us curate, which I
Speaker 3: hate that word, but we very carefully release like what
Speaker 3: people can see.
Speaker 2: I don't. I just I neither post things, right, don't.
Speaker 2: The curation is what you post and what you don't. Well, no,
Speaker 2: the don't is just like the picture didn't turn out.
Speaker 2: Like if I take a picture to share it, I
Speaker 2: share it. Yeah, there is no like, oh I want
Speaker 2: to show people. I just take a picture of my life.
Speaker 3: Right, it's not you're not trying to give a narrative.
Speaker 2: No, I don't. I don't care what people think about me.
Speaker 2: That's that's that's the big secret for me.
Speaker 3: It really is.
Speaker 2: I'm very honestly sharing. I'm like, look, I want you
Speaker 2: guys to see this. Yeah, I mean it.
Speaker 3: We create narratives, and we've always done that, even prior
Speaker 3: to to social media. We create narratives to people that
Speaker 3: we know.
Speaker 2: See like I need traffic.
Speaker 3: Yes, we're like, no, I swear to God, like I
Speaker 3: wasn't doing that no, I really do have my seatbelt on.
Speaker 2: I turned the music down. I make sure my seatbelt
Speaker 2: is not behind me and actually over my shoulder.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So we we've always done that, right, but it
Speaker 3: gets magnified with social media so that you can create
Speaker 3: a narrative. And then the extreme of it are these
Speaker 3: influencers who are going to create a narrative that doesn't
Speaker 3: exist in reality of not even just like what they
Speaker 3: look like. Like there was a thing that I saw
Speaker 3: today about this this Chinese influencer who had a face
Speaker 3: o filter on and it was slitching.
Speaker 2: That the one in the car with the kid. Oh no,
Speaker 2: that's a different one. She was in Chinese.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, this this woman was like she's like a streamer,
Speaker 3: influencer whatever it was. I think she's a streamer and
Speaker 3: she was doing her thing and her face filter started flitching,
Speaker 3: so it was like normal person anime figure. I went
Speaker 3: back and forth, back and forth, and she lost all
Speaker 3: these subscribers and all stuff, because it's like that's not
Speaker 3: that's not reality.
Speaker 2: No, and a lot of people who've been wearing the filters,
Speaker 2: it's it's very convincing too.
Speaker 3: It was a lady who got abducted really and the
Speaker 3: problem that the police had is that all the photos
Speaker 3: that our family had were social media that were so
Speaker 3: heavily filtered anything like yeah, just but yeah, I mean
Speaker 3: that's the thing. And like that's another thing. You you know,
Speaker 3: you know people who you see their social media feed
Speaker 3: and you're like, none of these.
Speaker 2: Are years I saw you on Tuesday. That's not what
Speaker 2: you look like.
Speaker 3: That's not what you look like. And it's either the
Speaker 3: filter or they hide behind like the kitty cat face
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 2: Sure, it's just strange. Well, so, I mean I kind
Speaker 2: of go back to when you're in school and their
Speaker 2: teachers will tell you about using a calculators, like, well,
Speaker 2: you're not going to get better at math. And it's
Speaker 2: kind of like also like if you go like in
Speaker 2: the boy Scouts, like what they would tell you things
Speaker 2: about like morality, which essentially, if you lie to others,
Speaker 2: you're really lying to yourself because the rest of us
Speaker 2: aren't paying that much attention, right, that's the thing, and
Speaker 2: you start thinking that you've conned people, and so now
Speaker 2: you're the one who's really believing your lies. So that's
Speaker 2: my ridiculous takeaway. Elizabeth, Thanks for asking.
Speaker 3: Good, that's glad. I'm glad you were able to get
Speaker 3: that out.
Speaker 2: Now that we've done that, are you in the mood
Speaker 2: for talkback?
Speaker 3: Always in the mood.
Speaker 2: Produce a d Can you favors the one? Oh my God,
Speaker 2: I love cheek.
Speaker 4: Hi Elizabeth Zieron and producer D. I don't know if
Speaker 4: I just sent you a message or not. I got
Speaker 4: very confused. It's the Messa from Texas. I listened to
Speaker 4: your Dolphin episode. I really wanted to tell you that.
Speaker 4: When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies
Speaker 4: was this horrible movie called Dave of the Dolphins starring
Speaker 4: George C. Scott is awful. You must see it. He
Speaker 4: teaches the dolphins how to talk, and they talk like
Speaker 4: this podcast mackness back and as an adult I realized
Speaker 4: how bad it was.
Speaker 3: But it's full of intrigue. There are hush the dolphins
Speaker 3: are trying to silence her. That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Anything with George's gottall watch anything with dolphins. I will
Speaker 2: watch if they're together. This hit it's on.
Speaker 3: It's on.
Speaker 2: So thank you for this. So if you would like
Speaker 2: to reach out to us, you can go to Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 2: On social media, Instagram is usually the best one to
Speaker 2: reach out to, so it send a DM there if
Speaker 2: you'd like. Also, you can see pictures from all of
Speaker 2: our episodes, or you can go to Blue Sky and
Speaker 2: you can see links to the episode, so you can
Speaker 2: also DM us there if you like. Or you can
Speaker 2: go to Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and people
Speaker 2: Pop Pop Pop write us an email, and of course
Speaker 2: we have our account Ridiculous Crime pod pod on YouTube.
Speaker 2: They have animations and all the same shows there. If
Speaker 2: you'd like to listen to your podcasts on YouTube, go
Speaker 2: for that. And of course we have our website ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime dot com and it's filled with the gifts and
Speaker 2: all sorts of award winning recipes by Elizabeth that you
Speaker 2: can check out. And I'm just kidding there's no recipes there,
Speaker 2: but go check it out. I think you will enjoy it. Also,
Speaker 2: there is merch though that issue is a legit thing.
Speaker 2: And obviously we love your talkback, so please go to
Speaker 2: the iHeart app download it, leave us a talk back
Speaker 2: and maybe you'll hear your voice here you'd love to hear.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening and as always, we will catch
Speaker 2: you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
Speaker 2: and Zaron Burnett. Produced and edited by our favorite bear
Speaker 2: in a human costume, mister Dave Cousten and starring Annalice
Speaker 2: Rucker is Judith. Research is by our resident rescue Chopper
Speaker 2: pilots Marissa Brown and Jabbari Davis. Our theme song is
Speaker 2: by Brazil's top Influencer band Seniors Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.
Speaker 2: The host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred. Producer Deve's
Speaker 2: wardrobe provided by Mister Guy of Beverly Hills. Guest hair
Speaker 2: and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are
Speaker 2: two men in a one man bear suit, Ben Bolin
Speaker 2: and Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: Reds Why Say It One More Times? Cry Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts my Heart Radio,
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