Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Zab look at you Za, I'm gonna start talking
Speaker 2: like this, Zab Hellai.
Speaker 3: I think that'd be really a good fit for you.
Speaker 2: And we're huge costume jewelry uh huh, coral lipstick, yes,
Speaker 2: and caftan.
Speaker 3: And really really floral perfume.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean you'll smell me common Yeah. Yeah, She's like, oh,
Speaker 2: she's coming over to my house. And then I pull
Speaker 2: up in my jaloppie.
Speaker 3: Zab before you make that ground domb life change and
Speaker 3: you have a question for you? Yes, do you know
Speaker 3: what else is ridiculous? Oh?
Speaker 2: I do?
Speaker 3: I do?
Speaker 2: Batman Batman? Yeah, but Mexican Batman Batman. Oh you know
Speaker 2: we've talked Batman extensively, ad nauseum completely and so uh
Speaker 2: you know John Batman d DS. Well, this is this
Speaker 2: a there's a Mexican vigilante honestly, and they're calling him
Speaker 2: Mexican Batman and he he's being hunted by the police
Speaker 2: because he finds guys who's stolen like uh, motor scooters,
Speaker 2: and he takes them and tapes them heavily to phone.
Speaker 3: Polls like duct tapes.
Speaker 2: Duct tapes them to lamp posts and he puts like
Speaker 2: a sign over their head that tells what they've done.
Speaker 2: It's taped to the post. And then like he draws
Speaker 2: like mustaches or cat whiskers with pen on their face
Speaker 2: and then he writes rato like a thief written on
Speaker 2: their face, and then puts the stolen scooter at their
Speaker 2: feet stolen again. And so they're calling him the Batman
Speaker 2: of Lagos de Moreno. And it's this place in Jalisco,
Speaker 2: So yeah, the law enforce less.
Speaker 3: Uh huh, where's like major cartel actions. Yeah, Mexican Batman.
Speaker 2: Hunting around so terrifying. It looks very abu gray, like
Speaker 2: the duct taping and the and they're just like arms
Speaker 2: to their sides, are in front of them right, also
Speaker 2: looks like sometimes it's two and one two on the
Speaker 2: same post. I'm going to have Terry put these all
Speaker 2: up on Instagram and so but if you don't have that,
Speaker 2: if you don't have Instagram, look up Mexican batman and
Speaker 2: it's all over the all over the internet. So the
Speaker 2: prosecutors are like, well, you know, these guys are actually
Speaker 2: the victims for abduction and like assault because they're also
Speaker 2: he beats the tar. Yeah, so they're all bloodied and
Speaker 2: like they got cuts on their faces, missing a tooth.
Speaker 3: Do we know for certain that they have stolen the
Speaker 3: motorcycles and motorbikes discooters allegedly?
Speaker 2: Allegedly, but like it's pretty pretty obvious.
Speaker 3: That part of the leg work.
Speaker 2: Oh, he totally is.
Speaker 3: It's not just like you know, getting referrals.
Speaker 2: Totally is. And so yeah, this started like in the
Speaker 2: beginning of June and it's gone on like there are
Speaker 2: five cases, I think, so all the rude dudes have
Speaker 2: been sending us this stuff and like I had seen
Speaker 2: it independently and it was just like, this is amazing.
Speaker 2: Is a Mexican batman? Awesomely awesomely ridiculous.
Speaker 3: It's gone over.
Speaker 2: Ten days, yes, ten day period. But I love the
Speaker 2: cat whiskers drom on their faces.
Speaker 3: That's an interesting touch. It's very Christian Bale batman. I
Speaker 3: gotta hand on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very George Clooney batman.
Speaker 3: It is not. There are no nipples, Clooney. Well, do
Speaker 3: you know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Please tell me?
Speaker 3: You know how the most crimes we cover begin with
Speaker 3: one of two things, either like this burning desire or
Speaker 3: like a very calculated plan. Sure, right, And typically an
Speaker 3: unplanned crime is the type that begins with desire, whereas
Speaker 3: the planned crimes usually begin with like a goal and
Speaker 3: some kind of like plan to get there. Right now, today,
Speaker 3: I have for you, Elizabeth, crimes that were planned but
Speaker 3: they failed because of the crimer's desire.
Speaker 4: Oh no, yeah, that's the both world worst enemy.
Speaker 3: This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
Speaker 3: hest and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free
Speaker 3: and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2: So saw Ridiculos got to work on it. I got
Speaker 2: to work it out, zob.
Speaker 3: It's coming together. It really is, Elizabeth, our first crime
Speaker 3: today because I have a compendium of crimes. It hinges
Speaker 3: on a mother's love, which can be a beautiful thing
Speaker 3: as we no it guess, and if the stakes are
Speaker 3: high enough, it could also be criminally ridiculous. So that's
Speaker 3: the case with this crime. But before we dive into
Speaker 3: this one, I have a question for you. It's about
Speaker 3: your mom. Okay, tell me about your mother.
Speaker 2: Don't talk about mama now.
Speaker 3: My question is rather straightforward. Yeah, imagine you were in
Speaker 3: prison serving a life sentence. Okay, okay, so you're imagining right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: I'm right there. My question is, do you think your mother,
Speaker 3: working all by herself alone at night, would dig an
Speaker 3: escape tunnel to free you from prison.
Speaker 2: I think if she had to, she would, But honestly,
Speaker 2: she'd spring me like the legal way.
Speaker 3: Other ways.
Speaker 2: Yes, she will assemble, like better than the OJ dream team. Totally,
Speaker 2: she would have It would be like you know, the
Speaker 2: the Vultron.
Speaker 3: They would come together and form a super Yeah, get
Speaker 3: me out on jurisproof.
Speaker 2: I'm standing legal grounds. If that wasn't possible, yeah, she
Speaker 2: would totally.
Speaker 3: Hire a French helicopter.
Speaker 2: Team and come up with some crazy plan and pull
Speaker 2: it off. She's tough. She's tough.
Speaker 3: That's what I was thinking. But now, for contrast, my
Speaker 3: mother would not even raise a finger to get me
Speaker 3: out of prison. Oh my god, are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: I can't imagine in her like small cramped spaces in
Speaker 3: the dark, taking a tunnel that ain't happening, yeah, and
Speaker 3: then then hiring a dream team. She'd be like, well,
Speaker 3: you know, honey, I tried, but I'm gonna pray about it.
Speaker 3: And I'd be like that ain't gonna work late. So now,
Speaker 3: if you can believe it, there was a mother who
Speaker 3: was faced with the same question, a mother in Ukraine,
Speaker 3: and she did exactly what one would hope mother might too,
Speaker 3: or I would hope she tried to dig a tunnel
Speaker 3: to prison.
Speaker 2: That's what That's what good, big bad mamas do, right.
Speaker 2: I love a good big.
Speaker 3: Band totally, Mama bear on the look on the for justice. Now,
Speaker 3: we don't know this woman's name, unfortunately it's never been released,
Speaker 3: but we do know she was fifty one years old
Speaker 3: at the time. We also know she traveled from her
Speaker 3: home in the Mikalayev region in Ukraine to the Zapporiza
Speaker 3: oblost in the settlement called Kamyantskiya. Sorry for my pronunciation,
Speaker 3: but sure, I'm trying.
Speaker 2: I'm so offended right now. Once she don't know what
Speaker 2: you really actually said, she.
Speaker 3: Found a rental house for herself. She rented that and
Speaker 3: according to the Ukrainian news outlets TSN, which in English
Speaker 3: stands for Television News Service, they reported on her daring
Speaker 3: prison break in. TSN explained that behind the prison's iron bars,
Speaker 3: the institution held lifers and murderers, so it was like
Speaker 3: a maximum security joint and the American magazine Popular Mechanics.
Speaker 3: They also covered this story much easier to read in English.
Speaker 3: From me and then their reporting, they found official records
Speaker 3: that suggested the prison was the Vilneskaya in Stitution for
Speaker 3: the Execution of Sentences number eleven. Okay, such like the
Speaker 3: most like god, I know right Eastern European prisons.
Speaker 2: I can see, I can see it, like printed on
Speaker 2: a piece of vapor.
Speaker 3: Exactly. Now, this is all backed up by the October
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four Ukrainian Ombudsman National Preventative Mechanism Report. That's
Speaker 3: basically a prison inspection. Right, So, at the time of
Speaker 3: the most recent prison inspection, that facility in Vilniskaya they
Speaker 3: had held a one hundred and sixty seven people. That
Speaker 3: number included one hundred and four people who were sentenced
Speaker 3: to life imprisonment. That's crazy numbers, one hundred and four,
Speaker 3: one hundred and sixty seven wiers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the rest of the marl.
Speaker 3: Exactly, I hope I make it. Now, presumably her son
Speaker 3: was one of the lifers, and I assume that means
Speaker 3: he was in for murder. Once again, all the assumptions,
Speaker 3: none of this is in the reporting. So this same
Speaker 3: prison report from October twenty twenty four, they noted that
Speaker 3: the Vilniskaya prison was in poor shape. They had numerous
Speaker 3: buildings in the prison complex only partially usable or they
Speaker 3: were listed as being in the middle of repairs. Right,
Speaker 3: but the repairs had gone on for like twenty years.
Speaker 3: Like I found that there was one building where only
Speaker 3: five percent of its roof wasn't damaged. It was damaged.
Speaker 2: That's not a conditions must have just been.
Speaker 3: Oh completely, Yeah, I imagined wintertime, like you're getting snowed
Speaker 3: on inside of the prison. Okay, you get the idea. Now,
Speaker 3: imagine your son or your daughter is in this prison
Speaker 3: serving a life sentence and they don't even have a
Speaker 3: roof over their head, and that everyone around them is
Speaker 3: basically a murderer. So obviously a mother's like, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: have to break my boy. Yeah right, I.
Speaker 2: Don't have a kid. But if that happened to my nephew,
Speaker 2: are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: See, you know, you couldn't.
Speaker 2: Spring that kid so quickly, even if he was a
Speaker 2: grown man.
Speaker 3: So what was this mother's plan to free her son?
Speaker 3: Great question, Elizabeth, it is you get right to the
Speaker 3: point always. Her plan was, as I said, she'd tunnel
Speaker 3: to the prison grounds. Then she'd like pop up in
Speaker 3: the prison and somehow find and free her son. I
Speaker 3: don't know, it's a classic she all breaks scenario. Once
Speaker 3: I'm inside, I'm gonna get busy. Yeah. So she rents
Speaker 3: that rental house I said, near the prison, and she
Speaker 3: brought with her and an electric scooter.
Speaker 2: Cute.
Speaker 3: Why an electric scooter? Well, because the mom planned to
Speaker 3: do some sight seeing. No, like some kidding like.
Speaker 2: A moped scooter or like one of those push ones.
Speaker 3: I think electric, like you know, like the bird scooters
Speaker 3: that you see, yeah, lettering.
Speaker 2: Downtown, the ones that people ride on the sidewalk at break.
Speaker 3: Next speed they go over twenty five miles an hour.
Speaker 2: And I love when it's like a tourist in San
Speaker 2: Francisco and it's like a girl in you know, awkward
Speaker 2: sandals in the sundress and she's just hauling down ahead.
Speaker 3: Her friend is on the scooter with me.
Speaker 2: It's really wobbly, and I'm just like I can't I
Speaker 2: can't watch. I cannot watch them just eat gravel like this.
Speaker 3: Is so Luckily mod did not eat any gravel. So
Speaker 3: but what she really wanted. What she was after was
Speaker 3: a form of travel that was both light so she
Speaker 3: could lift it move it around, and also was silent.
Speaker 2: That's good too, run silent, run deep. Exactly a weapon
Speaker 2: if it's light enough.
Speaker 3: Breaker.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm talking about. I take that scooter into
Speaker 2: the prison and just right hi, Yeah, I'm like one coming.
Speaker 2: I'm like, that's the noise that it makes when you
Speaker 2: crack someone skull with a scooter?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Have you ever heard that? Sounds probably what I never
Speaker 2: heard when it echoes through the halls of a dilapidated prison,
Speaker 2: heads bursting like melons. Go ahead, tell the rest.
Speaker 3: So every night, imagine this single mom fifty one year old,
Speaker 3: hopped on her electric scooters, silently gliding through the darkness
Speaker 3: as she.
Speaker 2: Commutes to her She wore a cape.
Speaker 3: So too, but also like a kerchief. Yeah, exactly got
Speaker 3: the whole. So she said, there she is commuting to
Speaker 3: her improvised dig site. You got the mental image. Since
Speaker 3: she didn't want any of the locals to discover what
Speaker 3: she was really up to when it was daytime, she
Speaker 3: largely avoided any and all contact local folks, Like she
Speaker 3: didn't leave the house. Yeah, she's like on straight Batman hours.
Speaker 3: To put it in terms of yeah, so there she is,
Speaker 3: laying low. She did do some grocery shopping apparently, but
Speaker 3: other than that she kept her head down. She's there exactly, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: She wasn't there to make any new friends, obviously, or
Speaker 3: to find any silver haired lovers, so it wasn't hard
Speaker 3: for her to keep focused and just be like all
Speaker 3: about that tunnel life. So meanwhile, every night for about
Speaker 3: three weeks, she'd sneak out on her silent electric scooter
Speaker 3: commute to her dig site, and with none of her
Speaker 3: neighbors ever catching on, she was like this ninja grandma, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: And she was so successful that at the first part
Speaker 3: of her plan, the langlow totally successful. So even to
Speaker 3: the point that Ukrainian news reporters when they asked the
Speaker 3: locals about her and they like had a picture of her,
Speaker 3: they like showed her the picture. No one in the
Speaker 3: village recognized her, Like nobody they went to like the
Speaker 3: main store in the village, like you know this woman,
Speaker 3: yeah yip. So once she's at her dig site, right,
Speaker 3: she get to work like she's on the clock, right,
Speaker 3: So she's hand built this curious device to help her
Speaker 3: with her tunnel plans. According to a local firefighter who
Speaker 3: saw this handbuilt device, it was and I quote, a
Speaker 3: special little cart made of plywood with small wheels that
Speaker 3: she would lay down on and drive there. And the
Speaker 3: thing was like seventy centimeters wide. Yes, so imagine it's
Speaker 3: like twenty eight inches wide, so like a little over
Speaker 3: two feet wide, and you're laying it down like it's
Speaker 3: like not on rails like El Choppo with the motorcycle.
Speaker 3: The same idea, something to be able to scurry or
Speaker 3: scoot back and forth real yoah yeah, and also carry
Speaker 3: loads of dirt with you get the idea, clever. Imagine
Speaker 3: like all the research she's done for this tunnel is
Speaker 3: like watching the prison movie The Great Escape, and she's like,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do everything they did. I will be Charles Bronson.
Speaker 3: No I. So she's in her subterranean tunnel by hand,
Speaker 3: by hand, Elizabeth, can you imagine being in your own
Speaker 3: hand dug amateur tunnel night after no.
Speaker 2: Because I'm terribly claustrophobe. I would lose it, and I
Speaker 2: am terribly impatient in most things like that. So I'm
Speaker 2: just digging. I'm like I can't. It would be faster
Speaker 2: for me to go and get a job in the
Speaker 2: prison and work my way up to and then be like,
Speaker 2: gues ps, you're out of here.
Speaker 3: I don't eve think you have to get that far.
Speaker 3: Just get up to guard and just escort them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's easier. You get like a fake
Speaker 2: you get's doing all this digging. Come a cook, put
Speaker 2: the put the emphasis on fake papers. You have a
Speaker 2: different ID, and then you weasele your way in that way.
Speaker 2: And oh, you're just like the best employee. You can
Speaker 2: do whatever you want.
Speaker 3: I like your plan so good. With plans down the
Speaker 3: street and around the corner on this plan from where
Speaker 3: she is.
Speaker 2: You know, kids have lemonade stands.
Speaker 3: Outside, you've got criminals.
Speaker 2: I'm going to set a table out like Charlie Brown psychiatrist,
Speaker 2: except I'm just gonna be plans.
Speaker 3: You're the lucy in this case.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You just come to me and you're like, here's
Speaker 2: my dilemma. I was like, all right, here's your plan.
Speaker 3: I need to get two cousins out of Afghanistan. They're
Speaker 3: locked up.
Speaker 2: All right, let's do this. Sit down, let me get
Speaker 2: out my paper, let's go.
Speaker 3: So after three weeks of work, her tunnel had managed
Speaker 3: to stretch thirty three feet towards the prison yard.
Speaker 2: That's a long way, especially for.
Speaker 3: One person working alone, but at night by themselves.
Speaker 2: And how like what kind of soiler we.
Speaker 3: I imagine it was pretty hard. It was pretty difficult ground.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, if we're talking winter, we're like,
Speaker 3: you got frozen earth?
Speaker 2: Oh forget it. There's no way she could.
Speaker 3: Do it in the winter or even close. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe you're thawing out. I don't know. Well.
Speaker 2: And then if it's summertime, mosquitos zerin.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're in the tunnels.
Speaker 2: Could they chase you in there? They would follow me
Speaker 2: in there.
Speaker 3: Just chasing the heat. So one resident of vill in
Speaker 3: the Sky I told the TSN News outlet quote the
Speaker 3: mother prepared so thoroughly. Maybe she's a minder's daughter. It
Speaker 3: would be difficult to simply dig three meters deep. I
Speaker 3: don't think she called an excavator, excavator.
Speaker 2: Excavator Wait, so she went, o wait, three meters deep?
Speaker 2: So okay, I'm trying to figure this out.
Speaker 3: Three meters deep, thirty three feet long? Yeah, wow, there're
Speaker 3: ten meters if you are right right right, keep it meters.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, keep it say so.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm freaking out thinking about being in that tunnel.
Speaker 3: Right over, nine to ten feet deep. No to go.
Speaker 3: And also, by the way, she's just doing this all
Speaker 3: full on, single mother style, handling it all by herself, right,
Speaker 3: So to get rid of the excavated earth, she didn't
Speaker 3: do like they did in the Great Escape, or they
Speaker 3: filled their pockets with dirt and they secretly empty their
Speaker 3: pockets as they walk around to the prison yard. Nope,
Speaker 3: not her. Her plan was way simpler, right to the point.
Speaker 3: She hauled the dirt from the tunnel and piled it
Speaker 3: in an abandoned building not far from the prison smart, right,
Speaker 3: So she's just got that. And I'm talking like, after
Speaker 3: three weeks she had a small hill of earth. It
Speaker 3: was literally tons of dirt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, three feet long. Bite whatever. Every day you call
Speaker 2: her single mom. It reminds me of the time I
Speaker 2: came here to headquarters and I had a bandana on,
Speaker 2: like my head kerchief style, and you told me I
Speaker 2: look like a seventies single mom who's having like irritated
Speaker 2: at the price of cereal.
Speaker 3: Don't like Marcia Mason would play you in the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like cutting coupons and really sweating it. But
Speaker 2: guess what kids were gonna be? Okay, have never worn
Speaker 2: a bandana kerchief since I'm so sorry, it's okay.
Speaker 3: So the trouble for this dedicated single mother was although
Speaker 3: she had dug the thirty three feet ten meters, she
Speaker 3: still had another two hundred meters to go or about
Speaker 3: six hundred, oh good sixty feet, Elizabeth, she wasn't even
Speaker 3: like tenth of the.
Speaker 2: Way they're telling you. She got to come to me
Speaker 2: and maybe.
Speaker 3: Five percent is not. Long story short, the single mom
Speaker 3: on a mission never really got close to the prison fence,
Speaker 3: let alone into or under the prison grounds. Her tunnel
Speaker 3: was discovered by prison staff long before that occurred. Yeah,
Speaker 3: how was it discovered? Great question? Yeah, it wasn't reported
Speaker 3: in the Ukrainian language news stories that I read and
Speaker 3: had translated into English. But the prison staff, apparently from
Speaker 3: what I could tell, refused to offer any details about
Speaker 3: how they found it in case anyone else wanted to
Speaker 3: try the same approach. Also, they seemed rather confident that
Speaker 3: even if she had made it under the prison fence,
Speaker 3: it would have been majorly difficult to link up with
Speaker 3: her son, and they turn them back out via the tunnel,
Speaker 3: because remember they got a prison full of murderers and
Speaker 3: lifers that she's got to get her to get to
Speaker 3: her boy. Yeah, and then get back out with that
Speaker 3: any of them going I'm coming too right. Maybe she
Speaker 3: planned to go in there like going heavy with an
Speaker 3: AK forty seven and started barking orders.
Speaker 2: I don't know, pop out of the ground like a gopher. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like Constantine, Constantine, have you seen him?
Speaker 3: But as one local, Anastasia pi Leifskya, told the Ukrainian News,
Speaker 3: that's what the mother is like, and now she will
Speaker 3: sit with her son.
Speaker 2: Oh oh burn, that is so cold, yeah, Tray Slavic, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it is very.
Speaker 3: So that same local Anastasia, she also expressed a larger
Speaker 3: concern beyond a mother's love for her son, pointing out
Speaker 3: that uh, after all, they are lifeers and there are
Speaker 3: murderers there. Many would have escaped. So she was with
Speaker 3: me on the whole point of like this mom is
Speaker 3: not just getting her son, she's creating a pathway out
Speaker 3: for all those people we want to be in there.
Speaker 2: Liberation.
Speaker 3: That would have been Batlizabeth, It really would have been
Speaker 3: I wish I could tell you what Justice's mother faced
Speaker 3: for her attempted prison break in, But as Popular Mechanics found,
Speaker 3: they were quote unable to find any public report or
Speaker 3: statement that confirmed whether she was ever convicted, imprisoned, acquitted,
Speaker 3: or otherwise had the case resolved just disappeared. But we
Speaker 3: do have to give her an a for effort, because
Speaker 3: I know for a fact, once again, my mother would
Speaker 3: never So with that, Elizabeth, let's take a little break
Speaker 3: after these messages. We will be back with more crimes.
Speaker 3: And we're back, Elizabeth. We are you ready for part
Speaker 3: two of our compendium of well planned but poorly executed crimes? Well,
Speaker 3: next up, we have a truly awe inspiring combination of words.
Speaker 3: Some might call this a cursed headline. I say it's fun.
Speaker 3: You ready, Yeah, Techno DJ jailed after selling sixty thousand
Speaker 3: fake plane parts to major airlines.
Speaker 2: Oh you just never see where it's coming exactly, Like, what.
Speaker 3: How does that relate?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: God, Techno DJ is selling fake plane parts to major airlines.
Speaker 3: Gotta love that sixty thousand, So on the face of
Speaker 3: it is clearly patly ridiculous. If you want to get
Speaker 3: to the heart of it, this one requires a whole
Speaker 3: lot of unraveling, and it only gets more ridiculous the
Speaker 3: closer you get to the juicy heart. Now, the mastermind
Speaker 3: of this scam is a man named Alejandros. The DJ
Speaker 3: in question. Now, since I know you're wondering, his DJ
Speaker 3: name is Santa Militia or Santa Militia Military. I don't
Speaker 3: think it was Spanish translation Santa Militia, of course, I
Speaker 3: think I think of it as Santa Militia, like like
Speaker 3: Santa Cohn. It's just Santa.
Speaker 2: Oh, he's like a militia of Santa.
Speaker 3: I guess I don't know. Just giving out gifts to children.
Speaker 2: I just imagine that it's not my it's not for me.
Speaker 2: It's not I have just had I've had to admit
Speaker 2: there are things in this life that are just not
Speaker 2: for me. And I'm you know what you do?
Speaker 3: You house, techno, jungle, break beat, none off, that's for
Speaker 3: you now. According to the music outlet Electronic Groove DJ.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's my favorite magazine, a.
Speaker 3: Santo Malicious set. It was a millage of sounds, or
Speaker 3: rather they were because he no longer is a DJ,
Speaker 3: but as Electronic Groove put it, and I quote moving
Speaker 3: between house, techno, hip hop, Latin and Afro influences. Zamoras
Speaker 3: sets are journeys that resist algorithms and stay rooted in feel.
Speaker 2: Means that's all over the place, right you.
Speaker 3: Want that though, Elizabeth to stay rooted and feel.
Speaker 2: It's a journey, Zeron, if he's the standard industry US
Speaker 2: journey in the articy, what I'm saying, it's a journey.
Speaker 2: What that tells me is that like he just doesn't
Speaker 2: know how to go, how to like keep a through
Speaker 2: line through and he's just all over the place.
Speaker 3: Whatever I feel right now and on next thing is
Speaker 3: the next thing, and they don't want.
Speaker 2: To cap on him, so they're like, it's a journey.
Speaker 3: If you think to stay rooted and feel or to
Speaker 3: take a journey is empty phrasing, then you just don't
Speaker 3: know electronic music journalism because it was all through that
Speaker 3: stuff I read now. In that same interview, Zamora explains
Speaker 3: how his creative effort, the White Collar Project, is a
Speaker 3: means for him to explore all kinds of creativity. As
Speaker 3: Zamora says, and I quote, I tried to approach music, visuals,
Speaker 3: and clothing with the same care and attention for me.
Speaker 3: It's all one language, just different ways of telling the story.
Speaker 3: I don't treat fashion or art as an afterthought, just
Speaker 3: all storytelling.
Speaker 2: He's all storytelling. I'm gonna tell you a story instead
Speaker 2: of working actual job.
Speaker 3: It's also just different ways of telling a story, like,
Speaker 3: for instance, I once told you a story exclusively in shoes.
Speaker 3: It wasn't easy. I mean I had to come up
Speaker 3: with different voices for all the shoes to keep your attention.
Speaker 3: But it all works seamlessly with my DJ set I
Speaker 3: mean set right.
Speaker 2: Do you remember you and I were at a place
Speaker 2: where DJ was playing and it was like the most jarring.
Speaker 2: It would go from like a Bauhaus song to like
Speaker 2: too short, and I was my mind was He kept.
Speaker 3: Shooting me looks so like, yeah, did you hear that?
Speaker 3: How can I not hear it?
Speaker 2: I imagine it was like at that that show.
Speaker 3: Ye put yourself there and be rooted in.
Speaker 2: The opening acts or opening acts.
Speaker 3: For a reason, this is very true. It is now
Speaker 3: Old sent to militia. You know, he'd figured out that
Speaker 3: there's lots of ways of telling a story, and some
Speaker 3: of them are You could tell a story in crime,
Speaker 3: which is what he eventually got around to because he
Speaker 3: kept telling his newfound crime story until eventually cost airlines
Speaker 3: about fifty three million dollars.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait to find out how we get from
Speaker 2: like my T shirt to tistic journey.
Speaker 3: To high ripped top want to buy a ring? So
Speaker 3: the story goes. Elizabeth A. Zamara started out like many crimers,
Speaker 3: with just a shell company, and then he, like Stone,
Speaker 3: souped his way into ripping off major airlines. No, he
Speaker 3: called his shell company AOG Techniques a O G. All right. Now,
Speaker 3: next thing, you know, he found himself a right market
Speaker 3: to explo with his shell company. In his case, he
Speaker 3: focused on aftermarket plane engine parts for commercial airlines.
Speaker 2: I mean, how how did he get it? Does he
Speaker 2: have like an uncle who does this?
Speaker 3: I could not find a single example from anybody about
Speaker 3: like how did he get from A to C? In
Speaker 3: this case? What was the B he went through?
Speaker 2: You feel like he was at like a rooftop pool
Speaker 2: like Caba. I think he knew somebody and he started
Speaker 2: talking to some cat and the guys like listen, I
Speaker 2: got this great deal.
Speaker 3: You know, like maybe a former like the romantic partner
Speaker 3: worked like doing paperwork for this, and he saw how
Speaker 3: easy it was to get that, I don't know, but
Speaker 3: I do know how he did it. He he used
Speaker 3: his personal computer to create fake safety certifications, then he
Speaker 3: printed those up and attached the counterfeit safety certificates to
Speaker 3: unlicensed engine components. Oh my god, he primarily focused on
Speaker 3: this CFM fifty six engine. And it's neither you nor
Speaker 3: I are aeronautics experts. No, I looked up the CFM.
Speaker 2: Tell me, please tell me what plane it's in.
Speaker 3: Technically, the CFM fifty six is a quote high bypass
Speaker 3: turbofan aircraft engine. It's also the product of a joint
Speaker 3: enterprise between the French company Saffron Aircraft Engines and the
Speaker 3: US company ge Aerospace. Okay, now, this engine came to
Speaker 3: market about a little more than fifty years ago, in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy four. Initially it was a bust. But after
Speaker 3: I'm talking like a bust, Like after five years of
Speaker 3: making this engine, the joint enterprise had not received a
Speaker 3: single order for their engine.
Speaker 2: You're kidding. They just kept making, not one they're piling
Speaker 2: up at Oh.
Speaker 3: My god, thank god. They had just like a stack
Speaker 3: of them, all shiny and new, created up ready to go.
Speaker 2: What kind of plane. Is this intended to go in?
Speaker 2: Because now I'm terrified that I've flown in one of
Speaker 2: these hut oh no.
Speaker 3: So things were looking bad for the old CFM fifty six.
Speaker 3: The French American company was about two weeks from shutting
Speaker 3: its doors because they couldn't make any more engines to
Speaker 3: not sell them. But then a stroke of good luck
Speaker 3: occurred because both Delta air Lines and United Airlines ordered
Speaker 3: some engines, which saved this company. And this like nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy nine. A few years later, in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 3: Boeing was looking to upgrade and replace engines on its
Speaker 3: commercial airliner, the very common Boeing seven three seven or
Speaker 3: seven thirty seven. Whoa yes, it selected the CFM fifty
Speaker 3: six as the replacement engine. And thanks to the engine'es
Speaker 3: like low fuel consumption and it's like reduced engine noise,
Speaker 3: it sells really well and soon enough becomes an industry standard.
Speaker 2: Well, we know how meticulous Boeing is, exact great safety.
Speaker 3: So I entered DJ Santa Militia aka Jose alejandros Zamora Jerrara.
Speaker 3: He looks at the CFM fifty six, it's supply chain
Speaker 3: as a Golden ticket. So because the reason why is simple.
Speaker 3: The CFM fifty six is perhaps the most common commercial
Speaker 3: aircraft engine in the world. Other than it's ubiquity. The
Speaker 3: reason why is the more focused on that engine remains
Speaker 3: a mystery. Like I said, I could not tell you,
Speaker 3: but he just knows, like everybody uses this one.
Speaker 2: So someone gave him a hot tip somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he chooses this one as his target for
Speaker 3: his fraud, and so, using a show company's pertzal computer
Speaker 3: and a printer, he creates his phony supply chain for
Speaker 3: his frauduently replacement parts and then he starts selling them
Speaker 3: to major airlines and he does this for years. The
Speaker 3: worst part is his airline parts were not authenticated because
Speaker 3: he was using counterfeit authorized release certificates. Those are the
Speaker 3: ones he was printing up at home, and those certificates,
Speaker 3: when genuine, are meant to guarantee the parts are proven
Speaker 3: to be airworthy. So his parts obviously skipped that crucial step,
Speaker 3: meaning they were not confirmed to be airworthy. And who
Speaker 3: knows that this would work?
Speaker 2: Where was he getting the actual parts?
Speaker 3: He was getting them from like you know, like you know,
Speaker 3: like he get like parts like aftermarket parts. He was
Speaker 3: going to like distributors. Basically it's like spelled wrong, like
Speaker 3: it's CSM fifty six.
Speaker 2: Is the flea market? Yeah, Like you know, I would
Speaker 2: understand if he was doing We've seen that a bunch
Speaker 2: of times of like I've got all this paperwork and
Speaker 2: they're never actually getting the parts. He somehow is delivering.
Speaker 3: He's delivering the sixty thousand.
Speaker 2: Parts like they're like the seconds. They're the ones that
Speaker 2: get thrown away because they weren't proper. That's the question
Speaker 2: he dumpster dives. That is the question.
Speaker 3: That's the big questions Why did these get kicked out
Speaker 3: of the supply chain?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 3: Originally like was there a defect? Was yes? So from
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen to twenty twenty three, Zamoras sells his unlicensed
Speaker 3: aircraft engine parts for the Boeing seven thirty seven and
Speaker 3: the Airbus A three twenty oh great right to commercial
Speaker 3: airlines all around the world, and I mean to the
Speaker 3: big airlines. So we're talking major airline companies, American Airlines, Delta,
Speaker 3: United Southwest, Ryanair, Virgin Australia, Ethiopian Airlines, all of them
Speaker 3: have their parts in their plans. So do I handle
Speaker 3: this insane amount of engine replacement parts he sold. Zamore
Speaker 3: created a bunch of fake employees. He had phony sales managers,
Speaker 3: totally fake quality control managers, and he's using this small
Speaker 3: army of like sock puppet employees to personally while he's
Speaker 3: personally handling all the customer correspondence in business trads actions.
Speaker 2: He's a busy guy totally.
Speaker 3: When he was djaying, he was just like eight totally.
Speaker 3: I don't know why he couldn't find a real one, yea, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: His fake airplane parts was crushing it. I mean, like
Speaker 3: at least compared to the money he was earning his
Speaker 3: DJ Santa Militia. He's like, clearly, Claire and House. Now you,
Speaker 3: as you were wondering earlier, is it possible that you
Speaker 3: flew in one of the airlines with one of his
Speaker 3: phony engine replacement parts? The odds are low. But if
Speaker 3: you flew on United American Delta or Southwest, all of
Speaker 3: which I know you have flown on, the odds are
Speaker 3: not zero. Because over that four year stretch, he sold,
Speaker 3: as I said, sixty thousand replacement parts. So yeah, so
Speaker 3: from from the sales of those sixty parts, they do
Speaker 3: the CFM fifty six engine old DJ Santa Militia. He
Speaker 3: managed to pull in a profit a roughly nine point
Speaker 3: three million.
Speaker 2: Dollars good night.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he does all of this without a single
Speaker 3: AI agent. I mean he just old fashioned human criminal ingenuity,
Speaker 3: lots of emails, printer ink getting the job done. Pretty
Speaker 3: analog operation, totally, just one DJ working from his home
Speaker 3: office in Surrey. That's true, he was. So how did
Speaker 3: DJ Santa Malicia's criminal enterprise come to an inglorious end?
Speaker 3: Please tell me question, Elizabeth. Thankfully, his campaign of phony
Speaker 3: airplane parts wasn't discovered due to some like fatal commercial
Speaker 3: plane cash.
Speaker 2: Thank goodness.
Speaker 3: Instead, as it turns out, Zamora was undone by the
Speaker 3: smallest thing possible. This fraud was not caught by some
Speaker 3: eagle eyed plane inspector it was, nor was some wrench
Speaker 3: turning airline mechanically. Wait, you just part ain't right, none
Speaker 3: of that. It was a far more humbling way to
Speaker 3: get caught. He was caught by paperwork.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm so hoping you would be like his own mama.
Speaker 3: No, that'd be great. But someone in Portugal contacted the
Speaker 3: French half of the joint venture and they asked to
Speaker 3: authenticate a part number. It was just one person doing
Speaker 3: their due diligence because the number didn't latch, and someone
Speaker 3: from the tap Air Portugal they reach out to Saffron
Speaker 3: to authenticate this engine part and that they'd perch is
Speaker 3: from Zamoras Shell Company and they just wanted to ensure
Speaker 3: that it was airworthy. Thank goodness for everybody involved exactly.
Speaker 3: So Saffron they checked their sales record, their parts manifest
Speaker 3: and they're like, that is not one of ours. Where
Speaker 3: did you say you purchased it?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: No, Now, realizing they were facing a major crisis the
Speaker 3: parts of Saffron, the immediately contact the major airlines safety organization.
Speaker 3: So this is like the FAA in the United States
Speaker 3: is the US Aviation Safety Agency, the UK's civilian or
Speaker 3: civil aviation authority. They all flag AOG Technics parts for
Speaker 3: a safety alert through all the airlines, which then leads
Speaker 3: to planes being grounded, like whole fleets of seven thirty
Speaker 3: sevens and Airbus Yes planes being grounded. It costs the
Speaker 3: various airlines fifty three million dollars in loss profits and
Speaker 3: increased expenditures due to having to like bring in people
Speaker 3: to fix and replace the parts, and they got to
Speaker 3: go through all their engines and look for these things,
Speaker 3: and then there's sixty thousand.
Speaker 2: We have to make that up for them and then
Speaker 2: we pay.
Speaker 3: In the ticket price. So after a two year inquiry
Speaker 3: by the UK Serious Fraud Office, not the Silly Fraud Office,
Speaker 3: the Serious Fraud Office, the SFO arrested and charged Zamora
Speaker 3: with fraudulent trading. That was the crime. Yeah, not like
Speaker 3: endangering travelers. It was fraudulent trading anyway, as reported by
Speaker 3: the airline industry outlet Aerospace Global News and I quote.
Speaker 3: According to the charge sheet filed at the hearing at
Speaker 3: Southwark Crown Court in London, he was charged with quote
Speaker 3: falsifying documentation relating to the origin, provonauts, status and or
Speaker 3: condition of aircraft parts between January twenty nineteen and December
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three. In response to the charges, Zamora Urala
Speaker 3: admitted at first instance to operating his company AOG Techniques
Speaker 3: for fraudulent purposes as set out by the charges, impleaded
Speaker 3: guilty as a result. I gotta say, I do love
Speaker 3: the phrase admitted it first instance.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's like what.
Speaker 3: An elevated way to say homie cracked under pressure imdiately
Speaker 3: and confessed all the crime he'd been doing for years now.
Speaker 3: In his trial, Zamora was facing a maximum sentence of
Speaker 3: ten years in prison. Finally, in February of this year,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six, Jose Alejandro aka DJ Senta Militia was
Speaker 3: sentenced to four years and eight months in prison in
Speaker 3: the UK. Good but what a run he had. Honestly,
Speaker 3: you never expected Techno DJ to be secretly running a
Speaker 3: cabal the phony airline party.
Speaker 2: No, no, you never did.
Speaker 3: Right, It's just further proved that facts will always be
Speaker 3: fiction exactly because can you picture a single author who
Speaker 3: had ever come up with that as a side hustle
Speaker 3: for a DJ. No, Like, I'm gonna write this DJ character,
Speaker 3: but I want to make him complex. Okay, let's take
Speaker 3: another little break and after these message we will be
Speaker 3: back with the most audacious plan. Yes, and we're back, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Back you ready for another fun run? I? Yes, this
Speaker 3: one is way more involved and it says so much
Speaker 3: about what happens when people become self important academics.
Speaker 2: Oh no, yes, Zaron.
Speaker 3: Gets to poke at the academy. So a quick question, Elizabeth, Yeah,
Speaker 3: have you ever heard of the International Society.
Speaker 2: Of Philology Philology.
Speaker 3: Yes, the word philology comes from ancient Greek philologia. It
Speaker 3: means love of word. And as you know, I assume
Speaker 3: philology is the study of language. Specifically, it's a criticism
Speaker 3: of a text or a literary tradition, linguistic patterns inherent
Speaker 3: in an oral or written record. So it really examines
Speaker 3: the word different than like say alexographer lexicographer.
Speaker 2: And I think that the common thread of all these
Speaker 2: people in that study is that they get high on
Speaker 2: their own.
Speaker 3: Farts in practice of philologist studies, as I said, texts
Speaker 3: to establish authenticity, to critique the meaning or the history
Speaker 3: of some oral or written text. And they are academics
Speaker 3: who stay focused on words and meaning.
Speaker 2: That's everything for them.
Speaker 3: And keep all that in mind as I tell you
Speaker 3: this story, Elizabeth, it's time to meet our next crimer
Speaker 3: of the day. His name is Florent monte Claire and
Speaker 3: for most of his academic career, Moulticlaire was, according to
Speaker 3: the Guardian of the UK quote an unremarkable teaching instructor
Speaker 3: who liked to write fantasy books, many about vampires in
Speaker 3: his spare time.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, you know what, God bless you, do you?
Speaker 3: It's not for me, yes, but he is, in your
Speaker 3: words quirky, like if you met him at a dinner party.
Speaker 2: It's not you know what, so nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: That's not for me.
Speaker 3: In twenty and fifteen, there was a news item in
Speaker 3: his local newspaper that proclaimed that Multiclaire was set to
Speaker 3: be feted for winning the quote the equivalent of a
Speaker 3: Nobel Prize or Fields Medal.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, and yet no one has heard.
Speaker 3: Subsequently, early on in twenty sixteen, in February, the rumpled
Speaker 3: and bespectacled Montclair was invited to a gala event to
Speaker 3: accept the twenty fifteen Gold Medal of Philology from the
Speaker 3: International Society of Philology. Yeah. The awards ceremony was held
Speaker 3: at the French National Assembly. The attendees to the awards
Speaker 3: ceremony included Nobel Prize winners. There were Ministers of Parliament
Speaker 3: and government ministers. There were also other illustrious French scientists
Speaker 3: and academics. It was quite the party.
Speaker 2: Was it a pot luck?
Speaker 3: Yes? They all had to bring their own Keyshe y, Multiclaire.
Speaker 2: But black tie of course, black type pot luck.
Speaker 3: My favorite, very French multi Claire arrives to accept his
Speaker 3: award in an ill fitting suit, which was made more
Speaker 3: garish by his rose colored dress shirt. The quote so
Speaker 3: called unremarkable academic was the first Frenchman to receive this
Speaker 3: illustrious medal, and apparently from what was told to that
Speaker 3: year's attendees, a previous winner was the Italian writer and
Speaker 3: academic Umberto Echo. Oh no way, okay, So you know,
Speaker 3: monta Clair was joining distinguished company, and it's the first Frenchman.
Speaker 2: That's interesting because they're very into fold particular particular about
Speaker 2: word I mean and all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and also preserving language. And so he'd finally
Speaker 3: made it Elizabeth before that evening, all eyes are on
Speaker 3: Florent Montclair. It was the honor of his academic lifetime.
Speaker 3: The very next year, the winner of the Gold Medal
Speaker 3: of Philology went to a truly famous academic and word
Speaker 3: nerd Noam Chomsky. Oh eighty seven years old at the time.
Speaker 3: He traveled to Paris to accept the prestigious award. He
Speaker 3: was celebrated by an audience of two hundred luminaries, well wishers.
Speaker 3: You can kind of get the picture. Yeah, you might say,
Speaker 3: this was the high point in the history of this
Speaker 3: particular academic award, or possibly giving it to Umberto Echo before.
Speaker 2: I would put with Echo. But yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, next year, twenty eighteen, a Romanian academic named Eugene
Speaker 3: Simeon was designated the winner of this most honored prize
Speaker 3: for word lovers. The eighty five year old academic was
Speaker 3: the first Romanian to win the Gold Medal of Philology
Speaker 3: from the International Society of Philology, and according to the
Speaker 3: press release quote, the idea of creating a special prize
Speaker 3: for a grammar or literature analysis, critics and scholars was
Speaker 3: born in nineteen twenty seven when French philosopher Henri Bergson
Speaker 3: received the Nobel Prize for Literature despite the fact he
Speaker 3: was neither a poet nor a novelist. Thus, it was
Speaker 3: decided that every five years the International Society of Philology
Speaker 3: would award a Gold Medal of Philology and memory of
Speaker 3: Alfred Nobel, modeled after the Fields Medal for Mathematics. Naturally,
Speaker 3: now to see a Romanian win such a distinguished awards
Speaker 3: set off this wave of pride for Romanians. They're all excited,
Speaker 3: like we're up there with no Chomsky, Elmberto Eco whoever
Speaker 3: that first jen was. Now then some Romanian journalists are like,
Speaker 3: I've never heard of this society. They decide, well, we'll
Speaker 3: do more than just quote from the press release. Let's
Speaker 3: go check the website, see what else we can find,
Speaker 3: who else is wanted in the past, and we can
Speaker 3: add some extra laurels, you know, to our our boy
Speaker 3: Eugene Simeon, and instead that they end up doing some
Speaker 3: real investigating to see what this ward is all about.
Speaker 3: As a journalist from the Romanian online news outlet Sina
Speaker 3: nine wrote, and I quote for a prize that claims
Speaker 3: to have such a long history and such select company
Speaker 3: Nobel and fields the gold medal are sived by Chomsky
Speaker 3: and Simeon is as obscure as they come. Google doesn't
Speaker 3: know much about it either, So we contacted the Swedish
Speaker 3: Nobel Foundation in order to find out if they have
Speaker 3: anything to do with Simeon's prize. So, after these journalists
Speaker 3: reach out to the folks from the Nobel Committee to
Speaker 3: see what's up with this award from the international society Philology,
Speaker 3: they heard back. The response was from this cat Michael Ostland,
Speaker 3: communications pr officer with the Nobel Foundation. He was in
Speaker 3: a word dismissive. Oastland replied that the Nobela Foundation is
Speaker 3: in no way affiliated with the institutions you mentioned in
Speaker 3: your email, so that was a strike that. Okay, hold on,
Speaker 3: but you guys are I mean checked the website. So
Speaker 3: the journalists they do more digging. They look into these
Speaker 3: three organizations mentioned in the press release announcing the Romanian
Speaker 3: recipient of the prize. There's the Center UNESCO de be,
Speaker 3: the International Society of Philology, and the University of Philology.
Speaker 3: So they start with.
Speaker 2: This whole University of Philology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, whole University of Philology. Yes, curious, So they start
Speaker 3: with the Center Unesco de The website for the center
Speaker 3: was a dead end. There's nothing here. We keep going,
Speaker 3: we get four or fours. So the Romanian journalists reach
Speaker 3: out to the United Nations to ask about UNITSCO, which
Speaker 3: stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Yes,
Speaker 3: your guys, bit what's up? So Leticiakasi from the central
Speaker 3: UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Response to their query. She replies
Speaker 3: back to quote, the center is nothing lot of database.
Speaker 3: It is not patron by UNESCO, nor is it the
Speaker 3: secondary category. Center. UNESCO is in no way affiliated with
Speaker 3: the International Society of Philology and has nothing to do
Speaker 3: with the Golden Medal. So they're like, well, that's two strikes.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. So these Romanian journalists they check the listed
Speaker 3: addresses in Paris. They find that the indicated address in
Speaker 3: bessem Quon doesn't seem to host any cultural center, only
Speaker 3: a cozy family home enveloped in greenery. Oh that's three strikes.
Speaker 3: But they're not baseball players, so well, just keep coming going.
Speaker 3: Next they investigate the University of Philology and Education and
Speaker 3: the International Society of Philology. They find, okay, this, we've
Speaker 3: got to have some you know, real gravitas here. So
Speaker 3: they find that the addresses for both are located in
Speaker 3: a place called lowse which is a small town of
Speaker 3: three thousand people in the state of Delaware in the
Speaker 3: United States.
Speaker 2: They're like, that's curious, and Delaware Corporation.
Speaker 3: To keep that thought in mind. The reason for that
Speaker 3: is because it was due to Delaware law that email
Speaker 3: allows people to create firms and corporations even as a
Speaker 3: non resident of the state, as Silicon Valley Bank, it
Speaker 3: helpfully explains on its website. Right, Silicon Valley Bank more
Speaker 3: than two thirds of Fortune five hundred companies and most
Speaker 3: high growth technology startups are incorporated in Delaware. The Delaware
Speaker 3: corporation is a business structure registered in Delaware, offering a
Speaker 3: distinct legal and regulatory environment known for its flexibility and
Speaker 3: advantageous court of Chancery. So this is also why and
Speaker 3: I quote, Delaware is often the top choice for large
Speaker 3: corporations and VC backed startups seeking investors or planning an
Speaker 3: IPO thanks to its streamlined legal environment. Streamline you know, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: I once started a Delaware corporation with friends. Oh yes,
Speaker 3: one percent did, and we eventually merged it with a
Speaker 3: Korean company. It was like a real deal thing, and
Speaker 3: we did it for all the reasons as twenty year olds.
Speaker 3: We knew that's that's like, how do you want to
Speaker 3: get around the law start a Delaware corporation?
Speaker 2: I would imagine it's just like a po box.
Speaker 3: Yes, essentially, yeah, exactly, it is. That's now that has
Speaker 3: become common. But this was, you know, for decades, the
Speaker 3: way to make it look like you were a respectful thing,
Speaker 3: when actually you're just trying to dodge corporate oversight. Sure,
Speaker 3: so at this point it's also now the top choice
Speaker 3: for scammers looking for a patina of respectability. Right, So
Speaker 3: the Romanian journalists are like, okay, this is getting like
Speaker 3: mad hanky. So they get this point poll on Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: They go for a drive in the old Google street View. Yes,
Speaker 3: they find the addresses listed on the University of Philology's
Speaker 3: Facebook page, and they go and they check them out.
Speaker 3: They drive past them and they're like Google car and
Speaker 3: they find they do not match what they found on
Speaker 3: Google street View, like the pictures on Facebook website and
Speaker 3: the pictures we found driving around.
Speaker 2: Well, and the university is only on Facebook. They don't
Speaker 2: have their.
Speaker 3: Own Oh yeah right. So when these Romanian journalists reverse
Speaker 3: image search the photo, they find that the university's Facebook
Speaker 3: page photos are actually an apartment building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Speaker 3: And for images of the university's classrooms also shown on
Speaker 3: the university's Facebook page, those images were pulled from British
Speaker 3: Columbia University in Canada.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: So they're like, okay, they have a story on their hands.
Speaker 3: They're like, yeah, we have got something. So they keep digging.
Speaker 3: They're like, let's see how much more we can get.
Speaker 3: They revisit the website of the International Society Philology, and
Speaker 3: there they discover a collection of spelling errors, grammatical errors,
Speaker 3: the kind that would make most philologists tear their hair out.
Speaker 4: So they're like, okay, we love words werds.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh many as a journalist, can you imagine finding.
Speaker 2: All this motherless?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just high fives everywhere along. So next they
Speaker 3: discover a list of past recipients of the war dating
Speaker 3: back to nineteen thirty one. Coincidentally, there are only four
Speaker 3: living recipients of the award. There was Dom Chomsky, there
Speaker 3: was a Swedish linguist named Gorn Malbkvist. There was the
Speaker 3: latest winner, the Romanian linguist Eugene Simeon, and then there
Speaker 3: was the Frenchman Florent monte Claire, who was listed as
Speaker 3: the quote honorary chairman of the International Society of Philology. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so the Romanian journalists do some more digging. They investigate
Speaker 3: Noam Chomsky's reception and they find a minor scandal had
Speaker 3: gone down in Paris that year. Apparently the professor Embertus
Speaker 3: of Linguistics at MIT was indeed invited to Paris to
Speaker 3: receive the Gold Medal Philology. But then the French National
Speaker 3: Assembly rescinded the offer to hold the reception an awards
Speaker 3: ceremony due to some statements Noam Chomsky had made in
Speaker 3: support of Asama bin Laden. Oh that's not gonna fly here.
Speaker 3: We have way too many politicians. It's to be pictured
Speaker 3: with you. So the honorary chairman of the National Society
Speaker 3: Philology aka Florent mont Claire, he writes a letter to
Speaker 3: the French Academy Journal Philosophy, and he decries this the
Speaker 3: rejection of Noam Chomsky. It's an embarrassment for France, and
Speaker 3: he asked for assistance from his fellow academics to find
Speaker 3: a new location for the awards ceremony to honor the
Speaker 3: great Chomsky. The gambit works perfectly. Subsequently, one of the
Speaker 3: editors in chief of Philosophy steps in provides assistance. A
Speaker 3: replacement venue is found. The awards ceremony is held at
Speaker 3: the Center Willonni Bruks in Paris on November thirtieth, and
Speaker 3: there's a photo of Chomsky standing there on stage with
Speaker 3: Montclair as Chomsky holds up his gold medal. Okay, but
Speaker 3: the Romanian journalists also discovered that on a website for
Speaker 3: the International Society of Philology. The previous, more prestigious location
Speaker 3: is still mentioned as the location of the ceremony, the
Speaker 3: National Assembly. Montclair claims that he gave Chompsky the gold
Speaker 3: medal and I quote at the French National Library in
Speaker 3: front of the National Center for Scientific Research. None of
Speaker 3: that is true, so they're bsing on the website even
Speaker 3: though they did.
Speaker 2: Get Chompsky there there.
Speaker 3: So these plucky Romanian journalists they reach out via email
Speaker 3: to the then ninety year old Chomsky. They're like, let's
Speaker 3: fact check this, and Chomsky writes back. He gets back
Speaker 3: promptly to them and I quote, I know very little
Speaker 3: about the organization. They invited me to Paris for several talks.
Speaker 3: I don't really recall much about the individuals involved or
Speaker 3: the organization. I give a great mini talks organized by
Speaker 3: all sorts.
Speaker 2: Of groups, free trip.
Speaker 3: It's like I'm constantly talking. I don't know where. And so,
Speaker 3: when Schomsky's asked about his memories of receiving the award,
Speaker 3: Schomsky replies that he has no memory of quote ever
Speaker 3: being handed the Nobel Prize for Philology, but there is
Speaker 3: a picture of it, So in this case he's wrong.
Speaker 3: This part wasn't a lie, but I think they're calling it.
Speaker 3: The Nobel Prize for Philology is what threw him anyway,
Speaker 3: I think. So after this, the Romanian journalists do even
Speaker 3: more digging and they discover that quote. No major international
Speaker 3: publication ever mentioned such ceremonies having taken place. No credible
Speaker 3: source in the field includes as little as a single
Speaker 3: word on this mysterious society, the American University that allegedly
Speaker 3: hosts it, or flor At the Monte Claire, whose name
Speaker 3: is associated with all these institutions. However, Chompsky's name seems
Speaker 3: to have worked like a magic spell which dulled everyone's
Speaker 3: critical thinking. So news start to news story kept repeating
Speaker 3: Chomsky wins this prestigious award from the Society of Philology,
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, and so all these newspapers keep repeating
Speaker 3: the same thing that if you do a quick Google search,
Speaker 3: this is what pops up.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It was working perfectly truth online, which is a tad
Speaker 3: ironic that in terms of philology, which is the critique
Speaker 3: of text, nobody was critiquing the text except for these
Speaker 3: Romanians from Sena nine. So shout out to them. Journalism
Speaker 3: coming through it. So these same Romanian journalists, they also
Speaker 3: discover that all the websites associated with the University of
Speaker 3: Philology and Education and the International Society Philology quote existed
Speaker 3: solely through websites created and hosted in France. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: the university is located in Delaware, the websites are all
Speaker 3: listed in France. Like, we're so close, We're so close.
Speaker 3: So after their exhaustive investigation, the Romanian journal it's determined
Speaker 3: that all their roads of inquiry eventually lead back to
Speaker 3: the same source, Florent monte Claire. From what they can decipher,
Speaker 3: this shy retiring academic monte Claire aka the honorary Chairman
Speaker 3: of the International Society of Philology. He lives in Montpelliard,
Speaker 3: which is a small town with a modest population of
Speaker 3: twenty seven thousand people, located in eastern France. It's like
Speaker 3: in the region of France Compte, if that means anything
Speaker 3: to you. So there he teaches at this university. It's
Speaker 3: a branch of the fran Compte University, and he also
Speaker 3: is listed as a professor employed at the Marie and
Speaker 3: Louis Pasteur University in Besontent. So as such, he claims
Speaker 3: to hold two PhDs. One is for his study and
Speaker 3: analysis of the works of Jules Verne. The other PhD
Speaker 3: is focused on quote Gypsies in French literature, and it
Speaker 3: was it was quote allegedly awarded by the fictional university
Speaker 3: in Lews. Not only that, wow, yes, the Romanian journalists
Speaker 3: learned that quote. The Frenchman is also the one who
Speaker 3: sent Eugene Sime and his award letter, as well as
Speaker 3: the sole actual person in an ocean of false identities
Speaker 3: to provide all the details on the background of this
Speaker 3: award and the International Society of Philology. Now they've got it.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, Wait a minute, wait, he says one
Speaker 3: of his PhDs came from his made up university, so
Speaker 3: now they're on it. So as for Montclair receiving the
Speaker 3: Nobel Bride of Philology, as Noam Chomsky called it, he
Speaker 3: claimed that he attended an award ceremony in New York
Speaker 3: in twenty fifteen, not in Paris, which is interesting because
Speaker 3: in a French newspaper published in December twenty fifteen, Montclair
Speaker 3: said that quote the award ceremony was postponed because of
Speaker 3: recent terrorist attacks and rescheduled for February twenty sixteen at
Speaker 3: UNESCO headquarters in Paris, the very same headquarters that disavowed
Speaker 3: knowing him at all. So at this point the same
Speaker 3: news story from the French newspaper Monteclair said, and I
Speaker 3: quote this award shows that even professors at very small
Speaker 3: universities can be of interest for the whole world. Yes, indeed, professor, indeed,
Speaker 3: and just you wait, brother, because interest from the whole
Speaker 3: world is coming.
Speaker 2: Oh no.
Speaker 3: When the Romanian journalists published their article, they go with
Speaker 3: the ketchy and provocative headline the fake Nobel Prize that
Speaker 3: duped the Romanian Academy. They take shots at everybody. Good
Speaker 3: for you, guys. So since their story is published in
Speaker 3: Romania and in Romanian, it does not create a major
Speaker 3: stir in France. In fact, nothing really comes of it
Speaker 3: for seven years.
Speaker 2: Seven years.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, monta Claire's ambitions leave this trail of lies that
Speaker 3: lead right back to him. For instance, in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: he added to his resume that he'd co authored a
Speaker 3: paper with Noam Chomsky with the title the Galileeo Challenge,
Speaker 3: A New Aspect of the Study of Language. Now, if
Speaker 3: you check the academic record, and you check that title.
Speaker 3: There is indeed a paper with that title, and it
Speaker 3: was published singularly by Noam Chomsky.
Speaker 2: So he just tacked his name on.
Speaker 3: And dis wrote it in French so nobody would notice. Wow.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and then he eventually gave a ted X
Speaker 3: talk about the subject stop once again in French, so
Speaker 3: nobody would notice.
Speaker 2: You know what, it's not for me.
Speaker 3: He also claimed to give a conference talk at Harvard.
Speaker 3: His talk carried the title Gypsies in French Serial novel. Now,
Speaker 3: when the university was asked about this talk by the
Speaker 3: Romanian journalists, Harvard could find no record of such a
Speaker 3: conference or talk given by Montclair, just another long line
Speaker 3: of his lies. So in the meantime, the next year,
Speaker 3: in twenty eighteen, Montclair applied to the French Ministry of
Speaker 3: Higher Education asking for a promotion. He indicated his second
Speaker 3: PhD from the University of Philology as evidence he was
Speaker 3: due greater acclaim in the world of French academia and
Speaker 3: also a commensurate pay raise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's right, so though this.
Speaker 3: Would ultimately be his undoing flash forward April twenty twenty
Speaker 3: six this year, Yeah, the long lost article from Sena
Speaker 3: nine by the Romanian journalist. It becomes the spark for
Speaker 3: an investigation into Monteclair by French authorities and a public
Speaker 3: prosecutor bought Eddi Lalu, who works in Montepelliard in eastern France.
Speaker 3: He takes up this case. He and a team of detectives.
Speaker 3: They began to investigate Montclair and his academic bona fides,
Speaker 3: and as The Guardian reports, their investigation focuses on quote
Speaker 3: whether Montclair, employed at Marie and Louis Pastora University in
Speaker 3: besancon used the fake metal and a doctorate from the
Speaker 3: University of Philology and Education in the US to obtain
Speaker 3: a promotion and pay raise. That's what leads to a
Speaker 3: visit to meet the mysterio academic at the heart of
Speaker 3: this academic scandal. But rather than me tell you about
Speaker 3: that little visit, Elizabeth, Yes, I want you to close
Speaker 3: your eyes as I wants you to picture it. It's
Speaker 3: a charming Monday morning of February and you are in
Speaker 3: a car. From your open window, you note that the
Speaker 3: air is crisp, the skies overhead are blue as a
Speaker 3: robin's belly, The sweet aroma of a bakery filters into
Speaker 3: your consciousness with a sort of urgency you typically expect
Speaker 3: from a foul smell. But there is no stink here,
Speaker 3: just the overpowering fragrance of fresh baked baguettes morning pastries.
Speaker 3: In short, it's a beautiful morning in France, as you, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: noticed this all from where you were seated in the
Speaker 3: passenger seat of a French police car. The sound of
Speaker 3: the siren is the only indication that you are at work,
Speaker 3: because you are a veteran French policewoman, one who's accompanying
Speaker 3: a squadron of your fellow police officers, as well as
Speaker 3: the French public prosecutor, Paul Edouard la Lois. Within a
Speaker 3: short time, you all arrive at your target, a quiet
Speaker 3: residence belonging to a rather unassuming French professor. Car doors
Speaker 3: open and slams shut. You and the team of officers
Speaker 3: and a prosecutor approach the front door, unsure what to expect.
Speaker 3: Your squad commander knocks on the brightly painted blue front door,
Speaker 3: and you all wait until finally you hear from the
Speaker 3: other side of the door some rustling and then the
Speaker 3: twist of a door lock. Then the door swings open.
Speaker 3: With a slow creak. Standing in the doorway is the rumpled,
Speaker 3: bespectacled Professor Montclair. He looks surprised to see all the police,
Speaker 3: but you notice he doesn't look as prized as you
Speaker 3: might expect. It's as if he knew this day was coming.
Speaker 3: The public prosecutor steps forward and shows him a search warrant.
Speaker 3: He says, in a friendly tone, Monsieur montre Claire, do
Speaker 3: you know why we are here? The professor clearly does.
Speaker 3: He takes a silent beat. This pregnant pause heightens the drama,
Speaker 3: and then he says, with a wry smile, it's about
Speaker 3: the medal. I suppose the professor confirms his suspected criminal offenses.
Speaker 3: As you stand there a bit surprised how low key
Speaker 3: this professor is about the squad of police officers on
Speaker 3: the doorstep, he confesses to his crimes. He admits that
Speaker 3: he visited a jeweler in Paris, and that he asked
Speaker 3: the jeweler to make the initial gold medal of Philology,
Speaker 3: and he says it cost him two hundred and fifty pounds.
Speaker 3: Then he presented it to himself in that Nobel Laureate
Speaker 3: attended award ceremony. The Professor's also quick to admit that
Speaker 3: not only did he order the medal award it to
Speaker 3: himself and later to Nomchowski, he also single handedly created
Speaker 3: the Daisy chain of websites for the International Society of
Speaker 3: la and the related University of Philology and Education. You
Speaker 3: start to wonder when he'll stop confessing to crimes. As
Speaker 3: a professor stands there in his front porch confessing. The professor,
Speaker 3: in a very French way, finishes speaking as he concludes
Speaker 3: that what he did was obviously not illegal. You think
Speaker 3: yourself bonschance with that, professor? I doubt the courts will agree.
Speaker 3: The smug smile of the rumpled professor certainly falls and
Speaker 3: falls hard once the handcuffs are slapped on his wrists
Speaker 3: and he's led away to face justice. So there you go, Elizabeth. Wait,
Speaker 3: the moment has finally come.
Speaker 2: That has he broken a he lose?
Speaker 3: That's a good question, so, Elizabeth, Professor Moulticlaier is well
Speaker 3: constructed and well maintained academic lie does go pop, And
Speaker 3: you don't know, you do have to love that he
Speaker 3: claims that what he's done is no problem at all,
Speaker 3: because you know, he's like, oh, It all depends on
Speaker 3: what one means when one says forgery or what you
Speaker 3: mean when you say the word lie. He basically goes like,
Speaker 3: you know, full on President Bill Clinton. He's like, he says,
Speaker 3: his guilt depends on what the desfinition is.
Speaker 2: But he's just lying. He's not you know there, what's
Speaker 2: his I guess his gain is trying to get a raise.
Speaker 3: Well, that's it. His case comes down to the question
Speaker 3: of the gold medal that Monteclaire gave himself and then
Speaker 3: later awarded nom Chomsky. That's like the headline grabbing part.
Speaker 3: But technically that wasn't a forgery. You're right about it was.
Speaker 3: It was a phony award. It's not illegal to have
Speaker 3: phony awards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we have awards shows here every now
Speaker 2: and then.
Speaker 3: So, as a French prosecutor, Laois told The Guardian, in
Speaker 3: his view, the medal is not a forgery. A forgery
Speaker 3: implies that there is a genuine medal. As the genuine
Speaker 3: philology metal does not exist, his medal cannot be a forgery.
Speaker 3: He isn't good legal standing there, Yeah, you know, that
Speaker 3: is the power of words to define the reality. However,
Speaker 3: if you ask the Prosecutor Laois. He also has a
Speaker 3: different opinion about what it means that is a crime, because,
Speaker 3: for instance, as he puts it, anyone can create the
Speaker 3: medal you can order online the best journalists in France
Speaker 3: medal in gold is silver bronze, awarded to yourself. And
Speaker 3: hold your own little ceremony quietly at home over drinks.
Speaker 3: If you stay at home with your little medals on
Speaker 3: top of your mental piece, there are no legal consequences. If,
Speaker 3: on the other hand, you mentioned it to your employer,
Speaker 3: if you mention it to this media, and if all
Speaker 3: this leads to a certain amount of professional recognition, then
Speaker 3: it has a concrete implications. And that is well, the
Speaker 3: notion of fraud can begin to arise, and it does
Speaker 3: because Professor Multiplayer had screwed himself giving himself a fake
Speaker 3: awards one thing, but the real recognition he derived from it,
Speaker 3: the real promotion he finagled, and the very real pay
Speaker 3: raise received, that is all, no matter how you cut it.
Speaker 3: Exactly so, as Prosecutor Lawatta the Guardian, this whole scheme
Speaker 3: allowed him to gain academic standing that he would not
Speaker 3: have had it had it not been for the creation
Speaker 3: and media coverage of this medal and been back to
Speaker 3: writing his fantasy vampire books, and nobody would have been
Speaker 3: the wise. So as a result of this legal scandal,
Speaker 3: Multiplayer was suspended from the university where he works. Naturally,
Speaker 3: he plans to appeal that suspension because this case is ongoing.
Speaker 3: His lawyer, Jean Baptiste Uvaud, has argued that the creating
Speaker 3: a fake academic society and giving yourself a fake international
Speaker 3: gold medal is quote not the criminal offense which nobody
Speaker 3: is arguing. In a very French way, his lawyer also
Speaker 3: told the French newspaper Lamont that the people are saying
Speaker 3: that ten years ago everyone fell for a monstrous hoax.
Speaker 3: But everyone has the right to be imaginative. It's up
Speaker 3: to the person you're talking to whether they believe it
Speaker 3: or not. So in other words, he's kind of saying that,
Speaker 3: you know, if you fell for it, it is I
Speaker 3: believe your fault. Once again, the plan was excellent, but
Speaker 3: the realization of the plan ridiculously criminal. So Elizabeth, what
Speaker 3: is our ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, I just don't be your own worst enemy.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how you do that, but just
Speaker 2: don't do it well. I don't do it, bro.
Speaker 3: I think like putting on airs, he does it, and
Speaker 3: then trying to get a raise something you made up
Speaker 3: would probably do it.
Speaker 2: Well, these are not None of these were adequately planned. No,
Speaker 2: they were planned, but not adequately, not intelligently.
Speaker 3: Not to get away with them, passion.
Speaker 2: They all just they tricked people. Initial.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they got away with it for weeks at a time, months, years,
Speaker 3: and every single time they're like, oh wait, I have
Speaker 3: to completely get away with it, and then no one
Speaker 3: ever ever finds out. It can't just be that like,
Speaker 3: look I get I got what I wanted. Like he
Speaker 3: gets the closest, the last one gets the closest. I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess you could argue that DJ Santa Militia he
Speaker 3: also got pretty close pulling pulling nine million dollars out
Speaker 3: of the airlines.
Speaker 2: So what's your takeaway?
Speaker 3: My thank you for asking, Elizabeth is I just love
Speaker 3: that this last one took place in France. It made
Speaker 3: it so much richer because everybody took it so seriously,
Speaker 3: because like anything I was reading, like le mom that
Speaker 3: was like this is a crime. This is not the crime,
Speaker 3: is it? What does it mean? Being so friends about
Speaker 3: a fake gold medal. Who cares? Oh that was mine?
Speaker 3: You moved for a talkback?
Speaker 2: Certain I certainly am.
Speaker 3: Oh, oh my god, did you ill?
Speaker 6: His question is for Saron and Elizabeth. I was listening
Speaker 6: to the newest podcast episode I'm going to Steal Your
Speaker 6: Birth Strange World of Pigeons, and at the beginning, you
Speaker 6: guys are talking about the world come and all the
Speaker 6: countries you guys are writing for. I was just curious
Speaker 6: that you guys are for the USA as well.
Speaker 2: You didn't mention it, of course. Yeah, it's like the default, right.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm going to root for America to get
Speaker 3: as far as we can. I don't think America is
Speaker 3: gonna win it, and I'll be surprised if they do.
Speaker 3: But like, I'm actually rooting for other teams to get
Speaker 3: all the way to the end and win it.
Speaker 2: Well, And you and I were talking of it has
Speaker 2: you know, we joke around about like oh what my
Speaker 2: you know, ethnic makeup is, but we have each of
Speaker 2: us has like a very particular style of play that
Speaker 2: we like, and so like watching the US play Australia,
Speaker 2: they were so similar and it's very hard charging and
Speaker 2: like big booths. Yeah, and so that you know, it
Speaker 2: doesn't appeal to me as much as like the French
Speaker 2: play does. And so that's kind of where we get
Speaker 2: a lot of our motivations for who we root for.
Speaker 2: But like, how great would it be to see the
Speaker 2: USA go all the way? Will they know it's unlikely,
Speaker 2: But we don't also have those like a century of
Speaker 2: football culture with that here. Now we're still building. We're
Speaker 2: still building a.
Speaker 3: Samurai Blue of Japan. We are rather new, to.
Speaker 2: Be exactly exactly, and we have to get over the
Speaker 2: fact that we have Alexi Lawless. Yeah, we around looking
Speaker 2: like he's in the spin doctors being a fool.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We're on like thirty years deep into this experiment,
Speaker 3: exactly years.
Speaker 2: And it's like, you know, we're building it and building it.
Speaker 2: But then like you can't take the US team and
Speaker 2: put them up against the French, like.
Speaker 3: No, or even most of the Global South.
Speaker 2: Or Argentina my god, Yeah, I'm.
Speaker 3: Talking even Cameroon or Senegal or some of the teams.
Speaker 2: Read of course, by default, of course we root for
Speaker 2: the US. Yeah, and I'd love to see him get
Speaker 2: as far as possible. That'd be awesome.
Speaker 3: And I've always been very impressed with the US women's
Speaker 3: national team. They have won the World Cup.
Speaker 2: They're ahead. Yeah, they're definitely ahead in terms of like
Speaker 2: levels of culture.
Speaker 3: And I fed them for decades because my sister was
Speaker 3: big into soccer. She went very far with soccer. So
Speaker 3: I watched a lot of women's soccer and I really
Speaker 3: really enjoy watching the There's some really.
Speaker 2: Good players on the US men's team right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this team, for sure, it's a legit team, and
Speaker 3: a lot of the Mannalists think that they could go
Speaker 3: all the way. I mean many of them are Americans,
Speaker 3: but they're saying it out loud, which you've never said
Speaker 3: before in the world count.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it'll be really interesting whatever it is. I
Speaker 2: just love watching many rooting for the drama. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: So there you go. Thank you for the talkback. We
Speaker 3: always appreciate those. So please go to the iHeart app
Speaker 3: download it, leave us a talkback. We'd love to hear
Speaker 3: your voice here. Maybe you'd like to hear your voice here,
Speaker 3: so do it, you know, and if you don't want
Speaker 3: to do that, you can always go to our email
Speaker 3: send us an email. We love those as well. It's
Speaker 3: ridiculous crime at gmail dot com. We also have our
Speaker 3: website Ridiculous Crime dot com and you can go there
Speaker 3: and uh, you know, connect, get some merch. There's all
Speaker 3: sorts of fun gifts and stuff to check out. And
Speaker 3: I think that's pretty much. Oh, we have the Ridiculous
Speaker 3: Crime Pod on YouTube, but that is going away for
Speaker 3: a bit. We'll see, don hiatus. We don't know what
Speaker 3: the deal is there. Yeah, so keep your eye out
Speaker 3: and we'll keep you updated. So there you go. As always,
Speaker 3: thank you for listening, and we will catch you next crime.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Utton and Zaron Burnette,
Speaker 3: produced an edited by DJ Santa Con aka Dave Houston.
Speaker 3: Our ridiculous assistant is our assistant professor of criminal Philology,
Speaker 3: Terry Maldonado. Fall research is by Our Ridiculous Crime. Airlines
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Speaker 3: Lee and Travis Dutney. The host wardrobe provided by Botany
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Speaker 3: Executive producers are Ben who hasn't tried to break into
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Speaker 3: you're kidding.
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