Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I do.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: Actually, the reason I know this is because one of
Speaker 4: our listeners was kind enough to share something that I
Speaker 4: particularly the interns handed it to me and I was like,
Speaker 4: that's not ridiculous, that's genius. But they said it's ridiculous,
Speaker 4: so I'm gonna go with them. Listener Ryan M. Ratley
Speaker 4: aka Boo Ratley. They wrote in a message to the Instagram,
Speaker 4: I believe and said quote something ridiculous.
Speaker 3: But not a crime.
Speaker 4: There is a tree in Georgia that legally owns itself
Speaker 4: and the eight foot area around it's right. The former
Speaker 4: owner of the land had so many good childhood memories
Speaker 4: under the tree that when he died, he willed the
Speaker 4: tree to itself in an effort to preserve it. In
Speaker 4: nineteen forty two, a storm blew it over, but someone
Speaker 4: saved an acorn from the tree and planted it on
Speaker 4: the spot as the sun of the old tree. The
Speaker 4: new tree legally inherited the land. So there is a
Speaker 4: tree that owns the land inherited from its father.
Speaker 2: A tree that is incredible. That is so beautifully ridiculous,
Speaker 2: and I love it so much.
Speaker 4: I want to go around giving and bestowing legal rights
Speaker 4: on trees and rocks at rivers. I'm going to become
Speaker 4: a lawyer just so I can do Who sent this
Speaker 4: to us?
Speaker 3: Ryan Ratley? That was dope. You made both our days.
Speaker 4: Yes, and yes, it is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: But it's also super awesome. That is ridiculously awesome. You
Speaker 2: want to know what else is ridiculous? Oh yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: here for stealing art only to give it right back.
Speaker 2: What this is ridiculous crime. I'm a podcast about absurd
Speaker 2: and outrageous caper's heiss and cons. It's always ninety nine
Speaker 2: percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. You heard
Speaker 2: that we don't like murder, No, we do not. We
Speaker 2: like principled thieves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we like someone who does it for the people.
Speaker 2: I this guy I'm going to tell you about does
Speaker 2: it for the people's erin does he? He he hates
Speaker 2: murderous and he's a principled thief.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: I think he may be one of my favorite crimers
Speaker 2: we've had on here.
Speaker 4: So really excited.
Speaker 2: Yes, when he was about eight years old, he committed
Speaker 2: his first crime.
Speaker 3: I like, when you start young, it tells me we're
Speaker 3: in very I know, right.
Speaker 2: Eight years old crime. So at the time, he was
Speaker 2: tired of the jobs that he'd had.
Speaker 3: Numerous jobs.
Speaker 2: He worked in a morgue for a little.
Speaker 4: Bit, for a little bit and age.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he decided it wasn't for him. And then
Speaker 2: he got a job working at a bakery. But he
Speaker 2: kept eating all the baked goods.
Speaker 4: Probably because he was angry child.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let him go. He got high on their supply.
Speaker 2: So he retired from the traditional workforce in the age
Speaker 2: of eight.
Speaker 4: Oh, I thought he started carrying like hot rivets on
Speaker 4: the still buildings. He got a hopper and he was
Speaker 4: climbing up.
Speaker 2: No, he retired, and then he turned to a life
Speaker 2: of crime.
Speaker 4: Oh good for him.
Speaker 2: What was his first theft? He was walking by a
Speaker 2: dairy and sitting, no, sitting outside, cattle rustler. Sitting outside
Speaker 2: was a fifty liter milk tin, all right full and
Speaker 2: that's like those.
Speaker 3: Big old silver wants with a double handle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay, I believe I will, said the boy,
Speaker 2: or rather.
Speaker 4: Oh yes, I believe I will. In Italian, thank you, Elizabeth,
Speaker 4: I'll be translating if you want.
Speaker 2: This is a good time to tell you that this
Speaker 2: takes place in Venice, Italy. Okay, yes, in nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 4: Oh, I like you.
Speaker 2: That's when he's eight years old. This is three years
Speaker 2: after The Bicycle Thief.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the movie Yeah totally and then really not
Speaker 3: called it the Bicycle Thieves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he grew up with the Thief and the bicycle
Speaker 2: zikas the bicycle Thieves. I suppose you know that illustrated
Speaker 2: the desk inspiration faced by Italians struggling in a war
Speaker 2: torn So this little boy sees the milk rolls that
Speaker 2: jug on home. When he gets to his house, his
Speaker 2: mother takes one look at the jug and then starts
Speaker 2: dividing it up with the neighbors. He gotta live.
Speaker 4: They're in post war depressions.
Speaker 2: It's just great, exactly. So the boy then smashed up
Speaker 2: the tin and sold it for scrap like the kids, right.
Speaker 2: This little boy was named Vincenzo Peppinocen Vincenzo. He was
Speaker 2: born in nineteen forty three in Venice and after the war,
Speaker 2: his dad worked as a ferry boat captain. There was
Speaker 2: no money, that's.
Speaker 3: What was morning.
Speaker 4: Do they have any like a tourist economy.
Speaker 2: No, No, just rebuilding.
Speaker 3: So they're doing the lace and moving boats around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they over on Burano, they had they had a
Speaker 2: really rough go of it. So Vincenzo starts stealing. This
Speaker 2: is how he learns his way around those like labyrinthine
Speaker 2: streets of Venice. Have you ever been to Venice?
Speaker 4: No, I've never been.
Speaker 2: I know a lot of people say Venice is an
Speaker 2: overrated tourist trap, but it most certainly is not.
Speaker 3: I love you've been a couple of times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, as you know, there are no cars there.
Speaker 2: You get around either on foot or by boat.
Speaker 4: I love all the bridges.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and at night, the you know, the winding streets
Speaker 2: so quiet. The place is amazingly sinister, but like in
Speaker 2: a good way. It's not Savannah Georgia, sinister where the
Speaker 2: sins of the past are haunted.
Speaker 3: You can hear the chains in the wind.
Speaker 2: Exactly, no offense Savannah. There are these quiet little neighborhoods
Speaker 2: in Venice, beautiful areas outside of the tourist zone along
Speaker 2: the Grand Canal.
Speaker 3: I say this like I've just seen pictures, but yes,
Speaker 3: I'm familiar.
Speaker 2: It's not easy to navigate those streets. It's in no
Speaker 2: way laid out in the grid.
Speaker 4: Oh really, yeah, I had I had the canals like
Speaker 4: in the Netherlands, like Amsterdam.
Speaker 2: Not at all, not at all. It's all winding, you know, Serpentines.
Speaker 2: I had a professor in grad school who had this
Speaker 2: theory about how cities whose streets are laid out in
Speaker 2: the grid are masculine and those with winding streets are feminine.
Speaker 4: Are they a man or a woman?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 4: Interesting?
Speaker 3: Did you agree with them?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It seems like a man's idea.
Speaker 2: Barcelona's pretty much laid on a grid, but Barcelona feels
Speaker 2: very feminine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Maggie, I haven't been to Barstone either, but looking
Speaker 4: at it interesting thing.
Speaker 2: To think about when we're another anyway. Venice can feel
Speaker 2: like a maze to the uninitiated.
Speaker 4: Oh I bet.
Speaker 2: But Vincenzo knew his way around as his little you know,
Speaker 2: this little preteen thief, and soon he gets a gig
Speaker 2: as a delivery boy. One day on the job, he's
Speaker 2: walking down the street and he sees a thirty kilo
Speaker 2: bag of sugar. I can't say where this bag was
Speaker 2: or who was supposed to be watching it, but a
Speaker 2: bag of that size may have well been full of gold.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, sugar.
Speaker 2: At that point, sugar was at a premium. It took
Speaker 2: a long time to rebuild after the war. England was
Speaker 2: on rations for a few years after and they won. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it took like five or six years for Italy's
Speaker 2: economy to return to pre war levels, at least on paper.
Speaker 4: Totally. I listened to all those old radio shows in
Speaker 4: America they were also rationing sugar, where it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: you got the blue stamps for sugar, then you ain't
Speaker 4: getting it, and so.
Speaker 2: You know, the reality on the street is always much
Speaker 2: worse than sort of as you play out on the books.
Speaker 2: So sugar was in demand at the time. People were
Speaker 2: selling it by the gram like it was disco dust.
Speaker 4: Yes, totally, just.
Speaker 2: A graham for the holidays, as they'd say, that's it.
Speaker 2: That's a shout out to all my nine o two
Speaker 2: and oh loving palace from UC Davis Coaggi's So here's Vincenzo,
Speaker 2: He's got thirty kilos of Hawaii's finest sweetened by the Sun.
Speaker 2: His dad saw the bag and looked at the label
Speaker 2: on the side. Property of the Italian navy. Yikes, that's
Speaker 2: ben So he told his son to give it back.
Speaker 2: So Vincenzo started to argue, and then his nana, his grandma,
Speaker 2: piped up. No, She shouted, the sugar stays here. She's like, look,
Speaker 2: I have seen things like we are.
Speaker 4: Keeping this, who is it?
Speaker 3: That's our navy, that's our sugar.
Speaker 2: And what Nana says goes. So the family utn't get
Speaker 2: By the time he was thirteen, his thieving was totally
Speaker 2: out of control. Yet right his mom was terrified, not
Speaker 2: only that he'd be caught, she worried about his soul.
Speaker 2: So she hatched a plan. She told him that another
Speaker 2: resident in their apartment building had an accident a while back,
Speaker 2: before he was born. You you don't remember this, Vincenzo.
Speaker 2: This woman was coming home late and trying not to
Speaker 2: make a lot of noise. Her leg gave out and
Speaker 2: she fell down the stairs in the dark and died
Speaker 2: instantly when she was impaled on exposed nail. Yikes, I
Speaker 2: mean that happened to me once and I died instantly,
Speaker 2: so I believe it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally sounds painful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the leg, the reason for the fall, was restless,
Speaker 2: and now it haunted their building. It was a ghost leg.
Speaker 3: Now just the leg.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The mom's like, there's a ghost leg and it
Speaker 2: is cursing young boys who come home late. No, it's
Speaker 2: not hopping, it's floating. But how does it anyway, So
Speaker 2: a ghost leg had a name, okay, like the Golden Leg.
Speaker 2: Vincenzo was terrified. He didn't want the ghost leg getting
Speaker 2: him wriggling its little haunted toes at him, so he
Speaker 2: changed his ways. He started stealing during the day.
Speaker 4: Smart kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he still needed to creep out at night.
Speaker 2: So he practiced, and he practiced until he became really
Speaker 2: good at climbing up the outside walls of the apartment
Speaker 2: building spider spider Man style, you know, Spider Man d
Speaker 2: DA style. That way, the ghost leg, which apparently lived
Speaker 2: inside the building, was unaware that he was outside scrabbling
Speaker 2: up the facade.
Speaker 3: It totally makes ghost leg sense to me.
Speaker 2: It totally makes sense. When he was at the ripe
Speaker 2: age of fourteen, he learned a new trick. He was
Speaker 2: out at the Lido, which is the beach area in Venice.
Speaker 4: At fourteen fourteen, so he's like six years into his
Speaker 4: crime curses. He's like still an apprentice journeyman. He's not
Speaker 4: quite a master, but.
Speaker 2: He gets there with this. It's like, so there's this
Speaker 2: like Barrier Island beach area. He and his friends they
Speaker 2: go out to the beach and they would crawl under
Speaker 2: the changing huts where they had previously drilled holes brilliant,
Speaker 2: and they would watch the ladies change into their swim suit.
Speaker 3: So I thought for changing stuff to drop.
Speaker 2: They were peeping. Who were some of these ladies, Actress
Speaker 2: Gina l La Brigida Wow. And then someone making her
Speaker 2: third appearance on this show, Sophia Lren Because this was
Speaker 2: like the bay call for me, this is the vacation hotspot.
Speaker 2: So they'd hang out under the huts all day, gock
Speaker 2: in it lady's tushies.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 2: But Vincenzo, he had more crimes on his mind than
Speaker 2: just gross invaved into privacy, right yeah. Uh. He realized
Speaker 2: that come wintertime he could unscrew the floorboards of the
Speaker 2: huts and then he'd be able to come back in
Speaker 2: the summer and lift out the planks while the tourists
Speaker 2: were out frolicking in the sun. So at that point
Speaker 2: he could slip in and take their valuable.
Speaker 3: That's what I thought they were trying to do the
Speaker 3: first and no.
Speaker 2: One sees him going in or out. So generally when
Speaker 2: he did this, he grabbed a few lara out of
Speaker 2: the wallets.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's why I figured they just get a hand
Speaker 4: up and reach him. But he's the whole plank, that's he's.
Speaker 2: Just lifting, so it's easy. One day, things change. He
Speaker 2: sees an American family heading out from a hotel to
Speaker 2: the Lido beach, Mark and Vincenzo. He clocks a big
Speaker 2: water dollar bills in the guy's shirt pocket, just you know,
Speaker 2: the loud American. So he had some cash in his
Speaker 2: wallet from his little Lightnings wallet Lightnings, so he headed
Speaker 2: over to a store and he bought these really expensive
Speaker 2: pair of shorts on the beach. He wanted to blend
Speaker 2: in on the beach with these wealthy tourists, So off
Speaker 2: he goes in search of the American family. When he
Speaker 2: finds them, he cozies up to their son. He's like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm Vincenzo, Shoe. You want to kick the ball around,
Speaker 2: so you like kick the old football around right soccer
Speaker 2: to us Yanks. So the kid obliges. He's like, oh, hi, yeah,
Speaker 2: you sound nice, and he's like show like smoking a cigarette.
Speaker 2: So the kid obliges. They like, he's happy to make
Speaker 2: a friend. They pass the ball back and forth. Then
Speaker 2: Vincenzo makes his move. He punts the ball into the
Speaker 2: family's beach hut all whoopsie. And then he's like, you
Speaker 2: know what, kid, Joe, John, Sam, whatever your name is,
Speaker 2: American kid, I'm going to run in and get it.
Speaker 2: So he runs in, zoinks the cash, shoved it in
Speaker 2: his new shorts, and then he comes out and he's like,
Speaker 2: I just remember I got to get home. Yeah, im,
Speaker 2: the canals are busy.
Speaker 3: These times, come up and stuff.
Speaker 2: So he takes off. He claims telling this story now
Speaker 2: that it was the equivalent of two hundred thousand euros today.
Speaker 2: What right, So why would someone carry that much money?
Speaker 2: But then I started thinking, Okay, maybe the exchange rate
Speaker 2: was all off and the dollar went super far at
Speaker 2: that time. That's my guess. I was going to track
Speaker 2: down how much a dollar to leiro was at that
Speaker 2: time and then try and convert to euros and then
Speaker 2: backtrack the inflation rate and then run forward to the
Speaker 2: current rate. And I thought, you know what, Elizabeth, who
Speaker 2: knows who cares. That's what I thought, Sarah.
Speaker 3: Apply that judiciously, thank you.
Speaker 2: So he had all these American dollars but nowhere to
Speaker 2: use them, because it would be really suspicious for a
Speaker 2: young Venetian to try and pay with American dollars. He
Speaker 2: did something even more suspicious, and he tried to exchange
Speaker 2: them for lira at the bank. Yeah, he was caught,
Speaker 2: he was arrested. He refused to admit what he'd done,
Speaker 2: but that didn't matter. He did seven months for that one.
Speaker 2: It should be noted that he learned to read and
Speaker 2: write during his various stints in jail, so yeah, and
Speaker 2: then he could read the sugar.
Speaker 3: Sacks like exactly rehabilitation.
Speaker 2: So as he grew up, he graduated to burglarizing tobacconists
Speaker 2: and jewelry stores. Okay, so like the corner stores, right,
Speaker 2: The smoke shops were there for just everyday need, so
Speaker 2: that's what he's getting there. The jewelry stores, though, he'd
Speaker 2: break in at night because I guess he wasn't afraid
Speaker 2: of the ghost leg anymore. He'd climb up inside and
Speaker 2: make a perfect hole through the ceiling and the roof,
Speaker 2: so he gets breaks into the shop makes a hole,
Speaker 2: I know, yeah, and he would replace the piece cut
Speaker 2: out and make sure no wind could blow through it
Speaker 2: or otherwise alert the shopkeeper that something was off. Then
Speaker 2: he'd scamper off into the evening. And then the next
Speaker 2: day he'd creep along the rooftops, but this time in
Speaker 2: broad daylight. I guess he's thinking everything's locked up at night,
Speaker 2: like in a safe for way. So everyone takes this
Speaker 2: little rest from one to three the shops are closed.
Speaker 2: Can I pause for one second and say that we
Speaker 2: must do this over here in this Oh my god.
Speaker 3: My entire life.
Speaker 4: I felt this every since I heard about it, whether
Speaker 4: we're talking about the Siesta or like the what.
Speaker 3: Did they call what we need?
Speaker 2: Three? Totally like you just shut everything and shut everything
Speaker 2: down in August, those two things. That is my platform.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth twenty twenty four. I'm telling you, Bumfardo is my
Speaker 2: running mate. Dunton Fardo twenty twenty four. I like, so,
Speaker 2: AnyWho where were Vincenzo and I on this one?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: He was tiptoeing across the rooftops to his Heidi hole.
Speaker 2: He'd pop out the roof stopper, the old ceiling.
Speaker 3: The old bunghole exactly.
Speaker 2: And he'd slip into the jewelry store and it was
Speaker 2: like one of those shopping streets when I was little,
Speaker 2: I felt like it was a common thing in entertainment
Speaker 2: and marketing, like you could win a toys r a
Speaker 2: shopping spree, you run around the store throwing things in
Speaker 2: the cart. Store still do that?
Speaker 4: Do you remember how excited that people would get, like
Speaker 4: almost violot with themselves trying to turn those corner.
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't think they do that anymore, like as
Speaker 2: a marketing prize giveaway and not like uncontrolled consumer shop lift.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, and not like the TV shows where it's
Speaker 4: just like I think they still do the grocery store one.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: Anyway, back to Vincenzo. He would slip into the store
Speaker 2: in the afternoon and take everything he could, lots of
Speaker 2: like those gold cornetto necklaces, and then he'd pop back
Speaker 2: out and scurry home. He got better though. This was
Speaker 2: him just training for his future as a serious burglar.
Speaker 2: Do you know what he took next? Let's take a
Speaker 2: break and when we come back, you'll find out when
Speaker 2: we last met Zarin, Yes, clad I was telling you
Speaker 2: about Vincenzo Peppinos.
Speaker 3: I love him, dude, so far I'm digging them.
Speaker 2: He's amazing. He was a petty thief in his younger days,
Speaker 2: but he started to set his sights on bigger hauls.
Speaker 2: Venice is brimming with art, from the works of the
Speaker 2: glass blowers on Morano to the artisans who craft carnival masks,
Speaker 2: which I find intensely creepy. Really, oh, I hate those masks.
Speaker 4: Do you mean like all of them, like the ones
Speaker 4: the rich ones are people wear like an eyes wide shut?
Speaker 4: Or do you mean like those long.
Speaker 2: Nose everything'll creepy?
Speaker 4: All right, I didn't know if to just specifically the
Speaker 4: long nose. Yeah, plague dog, everything everything masked. If I
Speaker 4: can't see your.
Speaker 2: Face, I have a crazy latex mask that goes over
Speaker 2: your head and then it comes down, you can like
Speaker 2: tuck it in your shirt song and it's an old
Speaker 2: man face and it looks amazing. And I love like
Speaker 2: when someone comes to my door throwing on and then
Speaker 2: open the door. I really really scarred my nephew doing
Speaker 2: that once.
Speaker 3: Oh god, he's young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, so art. You also then have the
Speaker 2: fine arts, the big dogs, right, Caneletto Giovanni and Gentile Bellini,
Speaker 2: Tintoretto Titian. I love the skies and Titian paintings. Yes,
Speaker 2: some of the greatest.
Speaker 3: Words of art. I just always think of the d
Speaker 3: I can't help it. Forgive me.
Speaker 2: So some of the greatest works of art were created there,
Speaker 2: and even more were on display in a number of museums.
Speaker 2: It was the perfect place to steal art. You know
Speaker 2: how we love art thieves. Vincenzo step up. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: here's the thing. In order to be a good art thief,
Speaker 2: one has to know about art.
Speaker 3: That it helps.
Speaker 2: Since Vincenzo had learned to read and write while in prison,
Speaker 2: he put those skills to work and he read everything
Speaker 2: he could about art. He hung out at the library,
Speaker 2: studying not just art history, but also Venetian aristocracy.
Speaker 3: Oh smart patrons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wanted to know who kept what art in
Speaker 2: their luxurious pilazzi that lie in the Grand Canal.
Speaker 3: Brilliant.
Speaker 2: He became an expert, so in his career he pulled
Speaker 2: off more than three thousand art thefts. Three thousands. Here's
Speaker 2: the craziest.
Speaker 4: Very good.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's very good at what he does. Here's
Speaker 2: the craziest part. He never sold the art.
Speaker 3: He just kept it off himself.
Speaker 2: He basically held them until they could be returned. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he was the Yeah, well no, he would have them all,
Speaker 2: you know, if you pay a little like ransom basically,
Speaker 2: and then all the other stuff from the home. That's
Speaker 2: how he's really funding the lifestyle, like jewelry, silver, gold,
Speaker 2: Funko pops.
Speaker 3: Oh. So he's like, I really like the art. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna respect that, but.
Speaker 4: You're silver, I'm moving that, yes, and the fun and
Speaker 4: the Funko pops.
Speaker 3: Yes, I saw you slip that in there. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to let you do that to the
Speaker 3: nice people of Venice because you're like, I'm doing that.
Speaker 2: The cops knew him, and the cops liked him.
Speaker 3: Wait for the Funko pops, for the whole thing.
Speaker 2: The whole kitten Kabuter. There was one investigator in particular,
Speaker 2: Detective Antonio Palmolcy. They had a pretty chummy relationship. They
Speaker 2: were buddies. He'd negotiate with Vincenzo to return the artwork,
Speaker 2: but you know, obviously for a cost, the aristocrats would
Speaker 2: pay up and get their loot back.
Speaker 3: No Is he pretending like I know a guy who
Speaker 3: has this, or do they know that he's the one.
Speaker 2: He's like, let me talk to let me find out
Speaker 2: who did I know who did it?
Speaker 4: Let me talk to him?
Speaker 2: Okay, cool, So everyone benefits Vincenzo. He makes a living
Speaker 2: off you know, what's basically a ransom. The cops look
Speaker 2: great because they've recovered these Yeah, the wealthy burglary victims.
Speaker 2: They get their stuff back and they boast about being
Speaker 2: hit by a famous thief.
Speaker 3: I'm sure this isn't a sitcommon Italy.
Speaker 2: So the aristocrats in the city they considered a theft
Speaker 2: by Vincenzo as a kind of badge of.
Speaker 3: Honors, totally like I earned it.
Speaker 4: He wanted to hit me exactly.
Speaker 2: I have really good taste, like expensive stuff.
Speaker 3: Do you know who robbed me the other day?
Speaker 2: Now, Vincenzo had a younger brother named Alfredo, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it does Alfredo has. Alfredo's career is amazing. He was
Speaker 2: a magician, Alfred. So Alfredo and Vincenzo, they both said
Speaker 2: Alfredo was not involved in any of this stuff. But
Speaker 2: sometimes the cops would just arrest Alfredo anyway, breaking the
Speaker 2: laws of physics with your magic, You.
Speaker 4: Got any new tricks, Freddy.
Speaker 2: Little Fredo. He did have an accomplice, though Vincenzo wasn't
Speaker 2: his brother. He had a bunch that he would use
Speaker 2: my name Luigi. No. The one guy that he liked
Speaker 2: to use was a man named Claudio Claudio Claudio, and
Speaker 2: he was there in a pinch. He was deaf, and
Speaker 2: that made things a little difficult.
Speaker 3: Did I sign language talking communicate?
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of gesturing. I mean they do a
Speaker 2: lot of gest language. Yeah. So one of Vincenzo's favorite
Speaker 2: techniques when scoping out a grand palazzo was to carry
Speaker 2: a pigeon, you know, just as a.
Speaker 4: Pal just like Nicola Tesla is like Caaren and around
Speaker 4: like this is my girlfriend.
Speaker 2: Well, he'd let it go in the house and see
Speaker 2: if it tripped any motion detectors. Oh that's that's totally smart.
Speaker 4: Wow, he was in his trained Imagine he's getting it
Speaker 4: right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then he uses the He was so good
Speaker 2: that there was an aristocrat named Count Barozzi who hired
Speaker 2: him to steal from his friends. So if the Count
Speaker 2: saw a piece at another rich person's house and he
Speaker 2: wanted it, he'd be like Vincenzo Okay, when you walk in,
Speaker 2: it's on the left, and Vincenzo got it.
Speaker 4: I've never been there, right.
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy one, he stole from the private gallery
Speaker 2: of Peggy Gougenheim. Oh yeah, twice, once in February, once
Speaker 2: in December, or twice. He was a serious character. Here's
Speaker 2: what Epic Magazine had to say. Quote. He once infiltrated
Speaker 2: the Swiss consulate and made off with one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty million lira in cash. In the late nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: he tailed Carrie Grant, who portrayed one of the most
Speaker 2: famous thieves in film history, and robbed him while he
Speaker 2: slept in his hotel room. Later, he freed a forlorn
Speaker 2: gorilla from the zoo in Rome, he felt bad for
Speaker 2: the animal, and robbed the Venice casino, all of which
Speaker 2: made him a local legend.
Speaker 3: How is this guy living my best life?
Speaker 2: I don't know how.
Speaker 4: I mean now, I can't do any of these things
Speaker 4: because he's done them all right.
Speaker 2: Well, he becomes known as the gentleman theater. He's a
Speaker 2: true gentleman in that sense. He was never violent, he
Speaker 2: never carried a weapon, andis love him. This guy's amazing well.
Speaker 4: And he may have returned generalized.
Speaker 2: He may have returned stolen items for a fee, but
Speaker 2: he never blackmailed anyone. And that would have been easy
Speaker 2: because he has embarrassing stuff.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure that's the city with lots of embarrassing stuff.
Speaker 2: Right, So he had a code respect people. Don't use weapons,
Speaker 2: don't steal from the poor, lawyers, doctors, magistrates or policemen,
Speaker 2: and smart too when stealing from jewelers, leave some of
Speaker 2: the gold, and don't take the jewelry that's being repaired
Speaker 2: because it belongs to a customer who's already paid for it.
Speaker 3: That's so nice, it's incredible.
Speaker 2: He was really sensitive while robbing people because.
Speaker 4: He's taking the cream, like like the world's a dairy.
Speaker 2: Well. He dig through underwear drawers looking for jewelry, but
Speaker 2: he made sure not to mess up the undies like
Speaker 2: he kept everything in order because he knew that seeing
Speaker 2: your private underthings tossed all over the place felt like
Speaker 2: a real violation, more so than having your Picasso, macgreet,
Speaker 2: Ernst Clee or Kandinsky taken from all Those are all
Speaker 2: artists that are told by the.
Speaker 3: Way, Oh wow, those are all just like adorn your underwear.
Speaker 2: Underwear that touches you. He says, quote to be a thief,
Speaker 2: you need a little culture, a little intelligence. You have
Speaker 2: to have a gentle good soul and to not be
Speaker 2: arrogant with him so.
Speaker 3: Good, I know he wouldn't be writing his crimes down.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, well we'll see. One time, in the middle
Speaker 2: of stealing everything from a mansion owned by a countess,
Speaker 2: the lady at the house returned and was like, who
Speaker 2: are you. You're in my house. Vincenzo and Claudio said,
Speaker 2: we are thieves. Don't worry, don't be afraid. We're not
Speaker 2: going to harm you.
Speaker 3: Like it the truth, and she's like, okay, I can
Speaker 3: trust you.
Speaker 2: Then they carried her suitcases upstairs for her before they
Speaker 2: took off and escaped into the night.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, good men, you just have a human moment.
Speaker 2: That's right. He says that quote stealing from the super
Speaker 2: rich is not a crime, and that he quote robbed
Speaker 2: from the rich to give to the poor.
Speaker 4: I super agree, you know.
Speaker 2: He also said that quote I gave everything back and quote,
Speaker 2: if I had just one percent of what I stole
Speaker 2: over my career, I would be rich. But if I
Speaker 2: had one percent of what I donated to the poor,
Speaker 2: I would be even richer.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: He would only steal from rich and people who wouldn't
Speaker 2: be hurt by the theft financially. And he only stole
Speaker 2: beautiful and valuable things. Not just valuable things, but if
Speaker 2: it was a piece of beauty. He's like, you don't
Speaker 2: deserve this. He believed that the theft was a price
Speaker 2: that they had to pay for being rich.
Speaker 4: Yeah, looks, people can celebrate Jeff Bezos for being able
Speaker 4: to skim a little off of all these workers and
Speaker 4: get it becoming a billionaire. Yeah, I like this guy
Speaker 4: for skimming from the billionaire. And I'm like, look, we
Speaker 4: just both were celebrating different skimmers.
Speaker 2: He would steal credit cards from the wealthy and then
Speaker 2: go to grocery stores and buy food for working people.
Speaker 3: Yes, see what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Since it was covered by insurance, he figured that he
Speaker 2: wasn't stealing from the rich. He was stealing from the bank.
Speaker 2: And he really loved that. One time he saw an
Speaker 2: old woman teleman begging on the street to go find
Speaker 2: a job. He was livid, so he quietly followed her
Speaker 2: home and he made a note where she lived. He
Speaker 2: checked in every now and then, and after about a
Speaker 2: month he decided it was time he broke into her
Speaker 2: house and stole a bunch of valuables. After he left,
Speaker 2: he was checking out his loot and he realized he'd
Speaker 2: accidentally taken an urn with the woman's husband's ashes in them. Ooh,
Speaker 2: and he always returned personal and sentimental objects that he
Speaker 2: had mistakenly taken, but not this time. He dumped the
Speaker 2: ashes over the rialto bridge into the Grand Canal, saying
Speaker 2: to the ashes, quote, go, you're better off free in
Speaker 2: the water than with your awful life.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's kind of heavy. That's when you get into
Speaker 4: like the Southern European of it all. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 4: had to do this, And they're like, Okay, I'm not
Speaker 4: going to argue.
Speaker 3: I got it. You gotta do this. That's messed up.
Speaker 2: His antics just continued. In the spring of nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: he used a telescope on the bell tower in Piazza
Speaker 2: San Marco, and he's like scoping out the nearby plaza.
Speaker 2: He really had his eye on this one palazzo owned
Speaker 2: by Raoul Gardini, a wealthy Italian entrepreneur and businessman. Sure
Speaker 2: Vincenzo saw a skylight on the roof about forty feet
Speaker 2: off the ground. A few days later, he and Claudio,
Speaker 2: who you know, trustworthy nearly deaf, walked up to the
Speaker 2: entrance of Palazzo Gardini. Claudio he guarded the alleyway entrance,
Speaker 2: and Vincenzo scaled the crumbling facade to the roof, just
Speaker 2: like he did as he was a kid, but now
Speaker 2: he was forty eight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and there's no longer ghost leg right.
Speaker 2: So he gets on the roof. The skylight's locked, but
Speaker 2: the frame around it is all old and rotten, so
Speaker 2: he just slips right. He enters the house, no alarms,
Speaker 2: walks down the set of stairs, opens the door to
Speaker 2: let Cloudio in. Cloudio can't hear him, so he has
Speaker 2: to like go out and like wave him down, like
Speaker 2: make a noise that come in and then waves him
Speaker 2: in comedy. Oh yeah, they searched the house, including the bedroom,
Speaker 2: and here's where Vincenzo and I are kindred spirits. Okay,
Speaker 2: this man loves kashmir cashmere. If he saw something cashmere
Speaker 2: he liked while on a highst he'd grab it, and
Speaker 2: he became known for wearing cashmere sweaters, so this time
Speaker 2: he finds a blue cashmere sweater that fit. He and
Speaker 2: Claudio then work their way through the rest of the house.
Speaker 2: Vincenzo ignores the artwork. He's like, this is not impressive.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, this is fantastic, puts it on. Oh
Speaker 2: this is better. So he'd seen and stolen better artwork.
Speaker 2: He wasn't interested in the stuff there. He did find
Speaker 2: some silverware worth more than over one hundred thousand dollars today.
Speaker 2: In total, they stole around four hundred thousand dollars worth
Speaker 2: of items they left. They loaded four duffel bags into
Speaker 2: a borrowed water taxi and then escaped into the canals.
Speaker 2: So good, they're very successful. In the fall of ninety eight,
Speaker 2: Vincenzo was walking through the streets of Venice eating a pastry,
Speaker 2: does another thing that I love about him, when he
Speaker 2: noticed some large homes with closed shutters. So he did
Speaker 2: some research and he discovered that one of the palazzi
Speaker 2: belonged to a man named Alberto Falk FA l c K,
Speaker 2: which is also.
Speaker 3: Like the same spelling fa l CKK.
Speaker 2: But it's like the ambulance service in Oakland's fault. And
Speaker 2: that's why I always yelled, oh Falc when they.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's why you yelled at yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh Falc was it was. He was a wealthy businessman
Speaker 2: from a really well known family in Milan. He also
Speaker 2: had this extra home in Venice and appeared he was
Speaker 2: currently away from it. So Vincenzo finds out that falk
Speaker 2: owned a caniletto painting called Il fongetto de la Farina
Speaker 2: The Source of Flower. This was one of Vincenzo's favorite paintings.
Speaker 2: It shows this like bustling scene of merchants waiting along
Speaker 2: the canal. Caniletto was an eighteenth century Venetian artist who
Speaker 2: often painted scenes of Venice, and as the son of
Speaker 2: the city, I feel like it must have really resonated
Speaker 2: with him, this image. So one day Vincenzo and a
Speaker 2: friend they enter Falkes home. They're mainly there to steal jewelry. However,
Speaker 2: Vincenzo sees the painting on the wall. He told the
Speaker 2: Italian paper Lesthompa in two thousand and eight that it
Speaker 2: seemed like the caniletto was calling to him. Do you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's pretty large.
Speaker 4: I imagine it's one of the biggest his paintings.
Speaker 2: And it was begging him to take it out of there.
Speaker 2: He said, quote, what was I supposed to do? Leave
Speaker 2: it there? So like the ghost painting is.
Speaker 3: Like take me with you.
Speaker 2: In short, Vincenzo, he was captivated.
Speaker 3: Divide it.
Speaker 2: He said, no, it was the painting that stole me.
Speaker 2: During the theft. It's around three am. Falk returns home. Oh, Falk.
Speaker 2: He didn't see the thieves or the thefts though, And
Speaker 2: after a bit, Vincenzo and his associate just leave. They
Speaker 2: just kind of slip right out. Vincenzo said that if
Speaker 2: he hadn't returned, they would have taken everything but the walls.
Speaker 2: I mean, they were just going to bleed this guy. Still,
Speaker 2: they stole so many bags of things, including the caniletto.
Speaker 2: Like he knew that stealing the painting, which estimated to
Speaker 2: be worth fifteen million euro.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, but it's Manning stolen him. He's not giving
Speaker 3: rid of that.
Speaker 2: Well, he knew would complicate things like the government's going
Speaker 2: to be notified and like, but he couldn't help himself.
Speaker 2: So months after the theft, he calls Falk and he
Speaker 2: told him that the painting I have it. Guess what
Speaker 2: I'm the one with your painting, and he's like, I
Speaker 2: will you need to donate it to the city of Venice,
Speaker 2: and Falk's like, no, you need to give it back.
Speaker 2: So Vincenzo eventually gives the painting back and he ended
Speaker 2: up spending seven months in jail for that one, but
Speaker 2: Falk later sent him some wine and three years later
Speaker 2: allowed the painting to be shown in an exhibit, something
Speaker 2: he hadn't done before. Now there's still one more major
Speaker 2: heightst I want to tell you about when we come
Speaker 2: back from this break, I'll introduce a new force to
Speaker 2: be reckoned with the mafia Zaren Zaren Elizabeth Vincenzo Peppine.
Speaker 2: Not long after that incident where he took the Kashmir
Speaker 2: sweater in the silverware, Vincenzo ran into a local mafio
Speaker 2: so named Andrea Zamatillo U Zamatillo. He worked for a
Speaker 2: guy named Philiche Manieioch man Happy Manieiro Filich is Philippe
Speaker 2: Filiche Maniio was known on the street as Faccia DiAngelo.
Speaker 3: The face of an angel, Angel Face.
Speaker 2: Angel Face Zamatillo. He wanted to talk to vic.
Speaker 3: His name is Happy and angel Face.
Speaker 2: Well, hold on, so Zamatillo, he wants to talk to Vincenzo.
Speaker 2: This is what it said in Epic magazine quote. Zamatillo
Speaker 2: was a member of the Mala del Brenta, the local
Speaker 2: mafia organization in the Venetto, the northeastern part of Italy
Speaker 2: that includes Venice. Under the leadership of Filiche Manieiro. The
Speaker 2: group had assassinated many of its rivals. Now they controlled
Speaker 2: everything from water taxis to drug trafficking in Venice. So
Speaker 2: the Mala del Brenta, it was kind of like the
Speaker 2: Cosinostra or Camora model of crime family, only morel Yeah,
Speaker 2: it started in the sixties. Though nineteen sixties, there were
Speaker 2: a bunch of high ranking Sicilian mafia members who were
Speaker 2: locked up in solitary confinement in prisons in the Veneto region.
Speaker 3: Now, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: So they're trying to like send them as far away
Speaker 2: as possible. Here are some of the heavy hitters. Salvatore Contorno,
Speaker 2: Gitano Finzantati, Antonio.
Speaker 4: I'm doing great so far.
Speaker 2: Just keep on you go, and Salvae and Giuseppe Madiona.
Speaker 3: There we go, there you go.
Speaker 2: Those are some amazing names in.
Speaker 3: The handjusters with them spot on.
Speaker 2: They're horrible men, but I love their names. So the
Speaker 2: criminal element up in the Venetto started reaching out to
Speaker 2: these guys. Eventually they all joined up together and built
Speaker 2: a really strong crime family. And the boss Filichim Niero,
Speaker 2: the police, they're cracking down on the mafia across the country.
Speaker 2: In that crackdown, one of Manieiro's cousins was arrested, and
Speaker 2: you know there it is so.
Speaker 4: The normal bribes.
Speaker 2: The normal bribes to get the cousin out of jail
Speaker 2: weren't working. Zarin, Yes, close your eyes, Oh yes, I
Speaker 2: want you to picture it. You're a Mala del Brena
Speaker 2: enforcer named Corrado, working with Felice Manieero's right hand man
Speaker 2: Andrea Zamatio. The two of you are walking around just
Speaker 2: at the foot of the famous Rialto bridge. You're headed
Speaker 2: toward Riva Rialto. It's a well known restaurant along the
Speaker 2: Grand Canal. It's a little touristy, but as you look up,
Speaker 2: you realize the rye humor in choosing this place. Above
Speaker 2: the awning hangs a large banner. It reads no Mafia
Speaker 2: Venizia isakra, No Mafia venice is sacred. But there you
Speaker 2: are two made men meeting up with an infamous thief.
Speaker 2: You see Vincenzo sitting at a table under an awning
Speaker 2: outside the restaurant. Gondolas and water taxis glide by in
Speaker 2: the canal. You join them. Zamatio is serious. He tells
Speaker 2: Vincenzo that Manierro wants him to lead a group of
Speaker 2: armed henchmen into a museum called Ka Ratzunico. He's supposed
Speaker 2: to steal the best paintings. You take a drag from
Speaker 2: your cigarette and you stare at this Steve. His dark
Speaker 2: brown Kashmir sweater is gorgeous.
Speaker 3: I really like it, sky you.
Speaker 2: You want to ask him where he got it, but
Speaker 2: now it's not the time. Zamatillo tells Vincenzo that Maniaro
Speaker 2: would trade the stolen paintings for his cousin's release. He'd
Speaker 2: also get a promise to take the heat off of
Speaker 2: Mala del Brenta. Vincenzo doesn't like this. He stares out
Speaker 2: at the canal and watches a mail boat drift by.
Speaker 2: I have an idea, Vincenzo says to you. He gets up.
Speaker 2: I'm going to steal a famous piece of art, he says,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to do it alone. You ask him
Speaker 2: which artwork, Vincenzo responds, Just read the newspapers you'll find
Speaker 2: out and scene.
Speaker 4: Okay, I was waiting for the mail boat and then
Speaker 4: the female boat to go buy. Every time you say that,
Speaker 4: I'm always like, it takes me a second. You take
Speaker 4: like the male car on the train, I'm always like, Wow,
Speaker 4: that's really stuck in there. I don't think of male
Speaker 4: as an adjectives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, go, So Vincenzo, he did not work with
Speaker 2: the mafia. He did not want to good call. This
Speaker 2: kind of robbery would scare civilians.
Speaker 3: We've seen how that works out. You have no one to.
Speaker 2: Call well, and you can't you can't say no, they
Speaker 2: can't hal a cop. If you do this kind of
Speaker 2: thing that it's going to cause the museums to improve
Speaker 2: their security. It's going to piss off the police. All
Speaker 2: of this is going to make his job.
Speaker 4: Harder, way harder, and he'll lose all of his good
Speaker 4: reputations and good rapport with the cops, and it'll put
Speaker 4: him over a barrel because they'll want more and more
Speaker 4: and more.
Speaker 2: Exactly, So this is what it said in Epic magazine.
Speaker 2: Until now, the Big Boss hadn't meddled in Peppino's work.
Speaker 2: But if Peppino was viewed as disloyal, Maniero could ban
Speaker 2: him from stealing in the region or simply haven't killed
Speaker 2: options two options. On October ninth, nineteen ninety one, Vincenzo
Speaker 2: joined a tour group at the Palazzo Ducale, the Doge's palace.
Speaker 2: It's now a museum. It's located near Piazza San Marco,
Speaker 2: and it's seen as a symbol of Venice. The group
Speaker 2: crossed over the Bridge of Size. It's an enclosed, bifurcated
Speaker 2: bridge to the former prison, and it got its name
Speaker 2: because it provided the last view of Venice that jailbirds
Speaker 2: saw before they went to prison.
Speaker 3: Oh that's nuts.
Speaker 2: So they would sigh at the beauty of the city
Speaker 2: and they're impending in carsons.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Have you seen some of the studies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah. So Vincenzo he lagged behind the group
Speaker 2: as it toured the bridge, and as the group left,
Speaker 2: he hung back and he hid in one of the
Speaker 2: old cells. So after the museum closed, he stayed hidden
Speaker 2: and he timed the guards round. He discovered that there
Speaker 2: was just one guard on duty, and he came by
Speaker 2: every forty five minutes. So around two am, Vincenzo crossed
Speaker 2: back over the bridge into the main museum, into a
Speaker 2: room called Sala de Cnsori. They were the historical protectors
Speaker 2: of Venice's public institutions, and the room held a lot
Speaker 2: of their portraits. But Vincenzo was focused on another painting,
Speaker 2: La Madonna colbambino Madonna and child. Yeah, that was painted
Speaker 2: in the early fifteen hundreds by a member of the
Speaker 2: Viverini school. It symbolized the power of the Venetian state.
Speaker 2: A comparison made is that it was like take it
Speaker 2: would be like taking the Constitution from the capitol. It's
Speaker 2: that important, really. Yeah. The painting was fourteen feet off
Speaker 2: the ground, so it's way up there.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: He reached up to a ledge below it, but the
Speaker 2: wooden ledge is old that starts cracking when he pulls
Speaker 2: on it. So before he can make his next move, though,
Speaker 2: he hears footsteps guard's back, so he runs to the bridge.
Speaker 2: He chose the side of the bridge, luckily that the
Speaker 2: guard did not walk down. When the guard turned around,
Speaker 2: Vincenzo returned to the cell to hide and regroup for
Speaker 2: another forty five minutes, so it's now around three am.
Speaker 2: When the guard finally passed again. Vincenzo ran to a
Speaker 2: supply closet, grabbed a ladder, climbed up to the painting,
Speaker 2: used a knife to separate it from the wall, covers
Speaker 2: it with a blanket, tucks it under his arm, leaves
Speaker 2: the museum. The next morning, a janitor discovered and reported
Speaker 2: the theft, and the city freaks out.
Speaker 3: Yeah he sold the constitution, Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: Oh totally, So the police come to investigate. There are
Speaker 2: no clues except for a shoe print left where dust
Speaker 2: from the painting had fallen. The forensics team they figured out, okay,
Speaker 2: these are clarks and the finally little soft shoes I know.
Speaker 2: And then the following morning they let Detective Paul Mossy know.
Speaker 2: But before Paul Mosy could send officers to arrest Vincenzo
Speaker 2: and take his shoes, he saw the morning's paper. Someone
Speaker 2: from the museum talked to a reporter because the article
Speaker 2: noted that the only evidence that at the scene was
Speaker 2: a shoe print. So Vincenzo takes his shoes, fills them
Speaker 2: with Rocks throws them into the canal. Police show up,
Speaker 2: no shoes. Paul Mosey is angry and he threatens Vincenzo
Speaker 2: with police surveillance. And that meant that any interaction with
Speaker 2: anyone considered a criminal would land him in jail. And
Speaker 2: that's like most of his friends. So he promised he
Speaker 2: would return the painting, and more than that, he'd give
Speaker 2: it back in twenty days.
Speaker 4: This is like the moment where like the police captain
Speaker 4: goes to the loose cannon, give.
Speaker 3: Me your badge, and you're gun. You're off the forest.
Speaker 2: I can't trust you to the loose cannon.
Speaker 4: Criminal, criminal exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, So he says, I'll get it to you in
Speaker 2: twenty days. Details about how he got the painting back,
Speaker 2: you know, given by the man himself, are hazy. He
Speaker 2: contradicts himself in his various tellings. So you said he
Speaker 2: didn't write these things down in twenty ten. I see
Speaker 2: he wrote a book. Stealing from the rich isn't a sin.
Speaker 3: Well with a book, okay, I'll give him that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we all know what happened with the books.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he said that he actually arranged to have
Speaker 2: Manieero return the painting in twenty Days as part of
Speaker 2: his initial discussions with the mafia. That doesn't really make
Speaker 2: sense given the purpose of the painting as a negotiation tool,
Speaker 2: but whatever. So in other places he said, he just
Speaker 2: you know what, I was on vacation in the Seychelles
Speaker 2: when it was supposed to be returned. I didn't have
Speaker 2: anything to do with this. That doesn't make sense.
Speaker 4: That's an odd one.
Speaker 2: In twenty fourteen, he told Epic magazine a totally different story,
Speaker 2: and he said, well, this is hypothetical and like, nothing
Speaker 2: I'm about to say is what happened. But if I
Speaker 2: did it so, according to this version, shortly after the
Speaker 2: Doge's Palace theft, he visited many Arrow at home under
Speaker 2: the pretense of making sure the painting was being properly stored,
Speaker 2: and it would be really detrimental to both of them
Speaker 2: it was if it was damage, so I just want
Speaker 2: to check on it. Vincenzo was told that it was
Speaker 2: being stored in a shed behind Maniero's cousin's house nearby,
Speaker 2: and that's where Maniero also kept his pets, so it
Speaker 2: is good to check on this thing, Vincenzo. He then
Speaker 2: had a forger friend paint a replica of the middana,
Speaker 2: and then he also had a veterinarian friend pick up
Speaker 2: some tranquilizers in case he needed them for Manieo's pets.
Speaker 2: So a week later it's like tenant night Vincenzo. He
Speaker 2: goes to Manniero's cousin's house. He has the replica painting,
Speaker 2: he has the drugs. When he approaches the shed, he
Speaker 2: sees that one of the pets is in a caged
Speaker 2: run in front of it in front of the shed,
Speaker 2: but instead of the expected guard dog, it's a tiger.
Speaker 2: What it's a tiger?
Speaker 4: What this is where they the mafia part jumps out.
Speaker 2: So he puts one of the tranquilizers into a piece
Speaker 2: of steak that he brought, you know, and he feeds
Speaker 2: it to the tiger, and after thirty minutes the tiger
Speaker 2: falls asleep.
Speaker 4: Oh good for him, right big.
Speaker 2: As he makes his way inside, he sees the painting,
Speaker 2: but he sees something else, another tiger. No, he had
Speaker 2: more meat on him and he had more tranquilizers. So
Speaker 2: he feeds it the tiger and the tiger falls asleep too.
Speaker 2: He's like, all right, sick, ready for y'all so he
Speaker 2: grabs the stolen painting, replaces it with the replica, and
Speaker 2: then it escapes back into them.
Speaker 4: They have guard tigers, guard tigers.
Speaker 2: You're still they have guard painting is guarded by tigers.
Speaker 4: This is what I want in movies and they have
Speaker 4: it in reality.
Speaker 2: Exactly. No, this is why Venice is amazing.
Speaker 4: And the criminals they want life to be like movies.
Speaker 4: I want life to be like Venice, right.
Speaker 2: We all do. November seventh, nineteen ninety one, the Venice
Speaker 2: police held a press conference. The madonna had been returned.
Speaker 2: It had been found via an anonymous tip Maniera's cousin
Speaker 2: was eventually released after being you know the negotiations for him,
Speaker 2: but Sanniio claims it was thanks to returning a different artifact.
Speaker 2: He'd stolen Saint Anthony's tongue and jaw bone rob from
Speaker 2: a church and patava by unidentified men with shotguns the
Speaker 2: day after Vincenzo had stolen the madonna. I think I
Speaker 2: now have to do an Italian relic theft.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah? Did they do it? As like like we
Speaker 3: need some leverage?
Speaker 4: Like all right, we will give you back the jaw
Speaker 4: bone if you give me back our boss basically.
Speaker 2: So throughout his career, Vincenzo says he stole nearly a
Speaker 2: ton of gold and hundreds of carrots of precious stones.
Speaker 2: He says he probably you know, like I said, what
Speaker 2: was it, three thousand thefts, but he's like it probably more. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He spent a total of around twenty to twenty five
Speaker 2: years in jail when you add it all up for
Speaker 2: his various thefts, oh little bits here and there. And
Speaker 2: he said that he was aware of the fact that
Speaker 2: sooner or later because of his job, he was bound
Speaker 2: to be arrested. There's just no way around it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're doing three hundred jobs.
Speaker 2: And sometime in the earlier two thousands he was convicted
Speaker 2: of cocaine trafficking and he was sent that's to eleven years,
Speaker 2: but he totally denies ever being involved in drug dealing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, he was arrested for a fake credit
Speaker 2: card scam. But it's not really It was hard to
Speaker 2: find out like if he was convicted, did he serve time.
Speaker 4: Or if he's with people who are.
Speaker 2: Doing it right, I got to So the story in
Speaker 2: Epic Magazine was picked up by twentieth Century Fox as
Speaker 2: a possible movie, but it doesn't appear it was ever made,
Speaker 2: and by twenty twenty, when he gave an interview with
Speaker 2: Vice Italia, he said he was retired. He's still out there,
Speaker 2: Vincenzo in the.
Speaker 3: Kashmir Vincenzo, I tipped my cap to you, bro.
Speaker 2: That's all I have. What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 4: That this man is out there living my best life
Speaker 4: and I only now hear about it. You know, I
Speaker 4: got a lot of reading to do.
Speaker 2: You really do watch, got to get to Venice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I Bennie, I'm coming.
Speaker 2: That's it for today. You can find us online at
Speaker 2: ridiculous Crime dot com. Hell yea, we have t shirts
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Speaker 2: Email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, leave
Speaker 2: us a talkback on the iHeart app, reach out Baby,
Speaker 2: connect and tune in next time. My rude dudes, or
Speaker 2: as they say in Italia, Mala Dugatti. Ridiculous Crime is
Speaker 2: hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited
Speaker 2: by Capo Ditkapi Dave Couste. Research is by Renaissance genius
Speaker 2: Marisa Brown and former plague doctor Andrea Song Sharpened Hear.
Speaker 2: The theme song is by itinerant gondolier Thomas Lee and
Speaker 2: Guy Who Once Saw a Dog walking a dog in Venice,
Speaker 2: Travis Cocolit Peo. Executive producers are conjoined glassblowers Ben Bowleen
Speaker 2: and Noel Brown.
Speaker 1: Ridicous QUI Say It One More Time? Ridiculous Crime is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts. My heart Radio
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