Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dunton. I got a question for you, Yes, do
Speaker 2: you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: I most certainly do.
Speaker 2: Are you going to share it with me? I guess,
Speaker 2: would you please?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I will.
Speaker 4: I love this time of year.
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of springtime, spring summertime.
Speaker 4: This spring summertime, not like the dog days of second
Speaker 4: later on, but this is the best time. And I'm
Speaker 4: really I just the other day cleaned my grill out
Speaker 4: in the back.
Speaker 3: Oh not my teeth, the.
Speaker 4: Barb exactly, keep it crusty. The barbecue got that goes.
Speaker 2: WHI whisk it up right?
Speaker 4: It was you know, it was time I took the
Speaker 4: cover off of it. It's the season.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get ready for it.
Speaker 3: And I so I really like that.
Speaker 4: I like entertaining and grilling and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: And you know, there are a lot of like chefs
Speaker 4: that you can follow who do that. It feels like
Speaker 4: it was maybe like fifteen years ago that it was
Speaker 4: all like the tattooed chef guys who were like, I
Speaker 4: want to show you how to girl?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Whatever? Did is it?
Speaker 2: Now? Who are the big girls?
Speaker 3: I don't know?
Speaker 4: But one that I that always kind of pops up
Speaker 4: is Bobby Flay.
Speaker 2: Oh God, Bobby Fla.
Speaker 3: I'm like, not a fan.
Speaker 2: Okay, doesn't people beat him? Is that the whole thing? Yeah,
Speaker 2: You're supposed to see him on the guy beat Bobby
Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh yeah, really yeah? Do you get
Speaker 2: to watch him get whooped at the point of the game.
Speaker 3: I have not watched that show.
Speaker 4: Okay, surprisingly title, So yeah. So Bobby Flay, right, I
Speaker 4: all I know about him is that he was married
Speaker 4: to one of the eighty as on Law and Order.
Speaker 2: Really, I think the blonde which blonde?
Speaker 4: The SVU one?
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, yeah, you're talking about Okay.
Speaker 3: I think they were married. And if I'm wrong, don't correct.
Speaker 3: I don't give a whoect anyway, but.
Speaker 4: There was something and I should have looked this up
Speaker 4: before I came in here, but something where like when
Speaker 4: they divorced, someone had like a sky like a banner,
Speaker 4: a plane pulling a banner that said something.
Speaker 2: I don't care if this is true or not. I
Speaker 2: love this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anyway, So Bobby Flay, I don't like him cat
Speaker 4: and I'm not sure why, but I just don't like him.
Speaker 4: He has joined forces with pepsi.
Speaker 5: Damn it.
Speaker 2: I know it's gonna be about sky riding. Like you
Speaker 2: know what, he found a new love because there was
Speaker 2: a new message in the sky.
Speaker 4: Okay, so he he was like grabbed Pepsi by the
Speaker 4: hand and was like, came here.
Speaker 3: They have a new grilling product.
Speaker 4: I forgot the grill, of course, but it's actually it's
Speaker 4: called Smoked, a grilling inspired cola on Colone. It's a
Speaker 4: cologne's eric and it combines quote the unmistakable scent combination
Speaker 4: of pepsi and a flame fired grill.
Speaker 2: So it's a grid pepsi a grill.
Speaker 4: And so it's like they said, the world's first ever
Speaker 4: cola own is designed to reinforce just how well grilling
Speaker 4: and pepsi go together.
Speaker 2: They really want to push that cola.
Speaker 4: Is in all cats and all if you don't even
Speaker 4: need to fire up the grill to experience the joy
Speaker 4: of pepsi and grilling. You can bask any unapologetically delicious
Speaker 4: scent everywhere you go, says Jenny Danzy, senior director at
Speaker 4: Brand Pepsi.
Speaker 2: They need to apologize to the French for cola and
Speaker 2: oh the stink of that, just the portmanteau of it.
Speaker 4: I know, col and then like Bobby Flay, there's a
Speaker 4: picture of him all arms crossed like.
Speaker 2: Bobby.
Speaker 4: Well, he's the one who came up with this, I guess.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: But do you think like they're gonna rebrand this as
Speaker 2: just the burger king smell in a little while?
Speaker 4: Oh my god. Although you know, here's the thing, like
Speaker 4: on East Fourteenth in Oakland, if you drive down East
Speaker 4: Fourteenth as you go through each neighborhood on like a
Speaker 4: Sunday afternoon, each like ethnic neighborhood, you get a different
Speaker 4: barbecue scent, and it's amazing. You just roll the windows down,
Speaker 4: like you go from like the Vietnamese neighborhood to the
Speaker 4: you know, South American Mexican. I like that, but I
Speaker 4: don't want to have it on my body anyway.
Speaker 2: That's ridiculous. You think Guy Fieri could pull this off?
Speaker 2: I'm sure Cola Owned Can he pull that off? I
Speaker 2: think he could.
Speaker 4: It'd be like Donkey Owned can just smell like mayonnaise
Speaker 4: and tequila.
Speaker 2: Well, well, I'll tell you what. That's ridiculous, Elizabeth. I
Speaker 2: got one for you, if you got a second, Yes, please.
Speaker 2: All right, this guy I'm gonna tell you about today.
Speaker 2: He was called the Craigslist bank robbery Right now, for me,
Speaker 2: I prefer his other nickname, dB tuber. Wait, yeah, Potato,
Speaker 2: Yeah like dB Cooper, but dB tuber like YouTuber. You know,
Speaker 2: like I'll explain later, but just know this, if you're
Speaker 2: going to do the crime, make sure you get a
Speaker 2: good nickname. Right, you got it. This is Ridiculous cron
Speaker 2: a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heiss and cons.
Speaker 2: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
Speaker 2: percent ridiculous. Yes, hey, Elizabeth, Hey, what's that you like stories?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Sure, you like dogs.
Speaker 3: I love dogs.
Speaker 2: I know you like dogs. I was just dog sitting,
Speaker 2: are you how'd that play out for you?
Speaker 4: Amazing?
Speaker 2: Did the dog? I agree? Like, oh hey that was also.
Speaker 3: The dog was like high five.
Speaker 4: I love this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do this again next week totally. Well, ever,
Speaker 2: tell you about my time posting pranks on Craigslist.
Speaker 3: In the early days of Craigslist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like this was like, this is like my dog sitting.
Speaker 2: It's like how I entertained myself.
Speaker 4: I love this and I've got some Craigslist antics too.
Speaker 3: But keep those.
Speaker 2: Okay, well mine, we're just cheap entertainment. Like I'd post
Speaker 2: an ad in the like services section for the short
Speaker 2: term gig. There was no short term gig, Elizabeth. But
Speaker 2: for example, like in San Diego, I posted an ad
Speaker 2: that I needed someone from the military to beat me
Speaker 2: up so my boss would believe my lie for why
Speaker 2: I was not at work so I wouldn't get fired.
Speaker 2: The post it read and I quote not kinky, looking
Speaker 2: for a man to beat me up for one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty dollars. It has to be real. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: can you guess what kind of reactions I go?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: One guy emailed me. He said, so I told my
Speaker 2: buddy about this, and he said, we can drive there
Speaker 2: from Colorado. We will take the trip. Wait, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: a woman, a woman wrote in I'm not a feminist,
Speaker 2: but I'm a woman. I've had a stupid day and
Speaker 2: could use something like this instead of taking it out
Speaker 2: on someone in a bitchy way. Off you up, let's talk.
Speaker 4: Wow, I'm not a feminist.
Speaker 2: I'd put in the ad that about how I didn't
Speaker 2: think a woman could do it. That's why I'm asking
Speaker 2: for a man. And I said look, I'm not a feminist, but.
Speaker 3: I was a little callback.
Speaker 2: It's like some Andy Kaufman stuff. Oh, totally producing me.
Speaker 2: You would have loved it. Another person they wrote in
Speaker 2: my boyfriend's trying to do this, his phones broke, So
Speaker 2: that was the only message I got there picking out
Speaker 2: their boyfriend's beating up but.
Speaker 4: The phones broke. I used to a friend of mine.
Speaker 4: Friends would post like things for sale on Craigslist. I
Speaker 4: would like create an email and then ask them questions
Speaker 4: like I was interested in buying it, but like really weird,
Speaker 4: like innocent questions, and then they'd get weirder and weirder,
Speaker 4: and then they'd be telling all the friend groups like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, I'm trying to sell this whatever they
Speaker 4: want to know if my couch smells like curry?
Speaker 2: That was I liked another one. I also had posts
Speaker 2: on Craigslist at ad in Cambridge, which is where t
Speaker 2: is right, and so I asked for.
Speaker 4: People all over the country.
Speaker 2: Oh totally. I was asking people if they were willing
Speaker 2: to become part of an underground experiment, right, And I said, like,
Speaker 2: would you be a subject and let me do gene
Speaker 2: editing on you? So I give you your skin stripes,
Speaker 2: or like, maybe give you a taiale. I've worked out
Speaker 2: both of these with gene editing. Now, some folks they
Speaker 2: were willing to let me try my handed human experiments
Speaker 2: for no pay. I offered no money whatsoever. I just
Speaker 2: offered them the chance to have a tail or stripes.
Speaker 2: Some real life furries. They came at me, Elizabeth, and
Speaker 2: I didn't know they were furries at the time. They
Speaker 2: didn't say they were. But these people, they were like,
Speaker 2: give me the tale, right, Worse.
Speaker 4: Than furries, there are the other can ones.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, come at me, just come at me at
Speaker 3: this point.
Speaker 2: My favorite though, of all the Craigslist prank listings I did,
Speaker 2: had to be when I asked people in LA to
Speaker 2: come over to my house and help give advice to
Speaker 2: my sister, who was reluctant to listen. Right now the
Speaker 2: ad read quote wanted persuasive person to convince my sister
Speaker 2: she's not a mermaid. And then I explained, because people
Speaker 2: are like, well, so I wrote, help my sister thinks
Speaker 2: she's a mermaid. We've paid for therapists, she says they're fools.
Speaker 2: We've tried bringing in a marine bio. She said he
Speaker 2: was denying her truth. She just spends all day in
Speaker 2: the bathtub while I'm at work, and she makes my
Speaker 2: wife wait on her, bring her food and drinks to
Speaker 2: the bathroom, bring her new candles or incense. She gets
Speaker 2: drunk on wine and sings. She chanties to herself. She
Speaker 2: won't believe no matter how kindly we ask. Right now,
Speaker 2: there's more to it. I gave her a whole backstory
Speaker 2: about our parents and stuff and how her sister, my
Speaker 2: sister wouldn't forgive me. Then I offered three hundred bucks
Speaker 2: to anyone who could get her, like spatula, her out
Speaker 2: of my bathtub. Now, obviously they have to talk to
Speaker 2: her in the bathtub because that's where she lives. So
Speaker 2: since she's a mermaid now, one woman wrote back to me, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: is this for real? I would love to come and
Speaker 2: give it a try. I am a female unicorn fairy princess,
Speaker 2: age thirty four. I think I can do it.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, No, of course you get those right.
Speaker 2: But a guy wrote to me, Dude, your sister just
Speaker 2: needs to get laid or have a deep conversation. Either way,
Speaker 2: I can be that guy for he let me know,
Speaker 2: and I got you.
Speaker 4: Oh, my gosh, everything on this.
Speaker 2: There was another guy who wrote, I used to work
Speaker 2: with Alex Jones. If I can handle that, I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure I can handle your mermaid problem. What Alex Jones person? Yes,
Speaker 2: there was another person, a woman, who told me in
Speaker 2: a rather scathing email for three hundred dollars, I will
Speaker 2: convince you that you are a ridiculous storyteller and no
Speaker 2: mermaid should ever be denied simply because you can't tell
Speaker 2: a story that includes mermaids in a positive light. How
Speaker 2: bad ass is it? Your sister is a mermaid. You
Speaker 2: would think the tail would be a tell all, but
Speaker 2: just like Bible thumpers, you need more proof because I
Speaker 2: mentioned that she had a tail, but it's like a tail.
Speaker 2: I made it like a costume tale. But anyway, it
Speaker 2: was a long ass. Now I probably should have mentioned,
Speaker 2: as I said that she was always splashing around in
Speaker 2: the bathtub, because that was in the ad, like a
Speaker 2: big part of it. Like she's splashing water and she's
Speaker 2: got her tail. That's the whole point. Anyway. Some joykill
Speaker 2: finally wrote in Elizabeth, what type of sick joke is this?
Speaker 2: To lure people? I'm reporting this post? They thought I
Speaker 2: was like trying to get people in my home. I'm
Speaker 2: bizarre story.
Speaker 4: Where they're like, yet, no, seriously, that was that's a
Speaker 4: very predatory, bizarre era in your life. It sounds what
Speaker 4: are you talking about?
Speaker 2: I mean like, well, okay, you know the one I
Speaker 2: told you about where the guy said, hey, beat me
Speaker 2: up for my boss.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: One person told me I just saw your ad. I
Speaker 2: just want to let you know that you're saying a
Speaker 2: woman can't kick your ass. This will make me do
Speaker 2: it for real. Ten out of ten, I am a
Speaker 2: girl who could beat them out of you. I'll do
Speaker 2: it for seventy five dollars. WHOA. This is what I
Speaker 2: wanted to see as I wanted to see all like
Speaker 2: the negotiations and how people place value on the things
Speaker 2: that I arbitrarily created, and how willingly they would be
Speaker 2: engaged in and then they would travel from Colorado like
Speaker 2: I was like, what will people the story they tell
Speaker 2: themselves and then respond to and I'll just get them
Speaker 2: going with some nonsense about a mermaid. Anyway, My point
Speaker 2: is I tell you all this, Elizae, because this week
Speaker 2: I found someone who used that exact same sort of
Speaker 2: humor that I have, but instead of for a joke.
Speaker 2: He did it to rob Bank. Okay, yeah, see this
Speaker 2: dude used Craigslist job offers to pull off a super
Speaker 2: wicked heist. Amazing, right, yeah, so I mean, you know me,
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, Craigslist, this is free entertainment. This guy's like,
Speaker 2: hey Craigslist, this is free money and decoys. So Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: they call him dB tuber. Now you ask why dB tuber?
Speaker 3: Is that like a potato dB Cooper, but Genie Cooper.
Speaker 2: But it's also because he's struck in on the Pacific Northwest,
Speaker 2: just like dB Cooper. But also he had a wild plan,
Speaker 2: an imaginative escape that he had planned, right, and that
Speaker 2: was that he was going to use an inner tube. Therefore,
Speaker 2: dB tuber.
Speaker 4: Oh what an inner tube? Yeah, I'm really excited to
Speaker 4: find out how this all comes together.
Speaker 3: Doesn't involve water, oh it does.
Speaker 2: Okay now these days his bio reads. Anthony Curcio is
Speaker 2: a best selling author and motivational speaker who first gained
Speaker 2: notoriety when he committed an audacious heist back in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight. Cursio stole four hundred thousand dollars from
Speaker 2: an armored truck and then escaped in an inner tube
Speaker 2: Downer River. Yeah that's right, Elizabeth, motivational speaker. This dude
Speaker 2: is my kind of people in so many more ways
Speaker 2: than one.
Speaker 4: How he has turned this into a motivational speaker career.
Speaker 4: You know how I feel about motivational speakers and more importantly,
Speaker 4: life coaching.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, GTF.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he raided those two to gather through in
Speaker 2: some Ted Talk to give it some pizzazz and razzle dazzle. Now. Also,
Speaker 2: he'll probably need to update his bio from doing Ted
Speaker 2: talks to now working on his next memoir from prison
Speaker 2: because this year, the same cat got involved in the
Speaker 2: underground Pokemon scene.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, stop, Like yes.
Speaker 2: I swear to god he was pushing black market Sharrazard cards. Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: I'm not even kidding. This dude dB tuber really got
Speaker 2: involved in the Pokemon Criminal Underground, which totally is a thing.
Speaker 2: There's Pokemon Criminal Underground, got lighting over here with I
Speaker 2: like to imagine there's some dude out there who looks
Speaker 2: like Vin Diesel and he's like part of the Pokemon
Speaker 2: criminal underworld. He's telling you a Pokemon trainer is family. Anyway,
Speaker 2: we'll get into all this later first, let's talk DV two,
Speaker 2: but I want to explain what all that is. We'll
Speaker 2: hold the Pokemon questions for later. Yeah, So, Craigslist bank Rubber, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: I'd like you to meet Anthony J. Curcio. He grew
Speaker 2: up in the town of Monroe in the state of Washington.
Speaker 2: Tony was a big man on campus. He was a
Speaker 2: star athlete letard in football, basketball, so good in football
Speaker 2: that he was the captain of the team. He was
Speaker 2: that classic, as I said, big man on campus and
Speaker 2: eventually here into scholarship to go play football in college
Speaker 2: at the University of Idaho, which is in Moscow, Idaho,
Speaker 2: if you're curious. And then something happened to Elizabeth that
Speaker 2: derailed Anthony Cursio's all American story. Here, let's have Tony
Speaker 2: Curcio explain it.
Speaker 3: Himself, Tony Curtis.
Speaker 2: If I could do it, Tony Curtis impresion.
Speaker 3: Tony Curtis explained this.
Speaker 2: I only do an impression of Tony Curtis doing an
Speaker 2: impression of Kerry Grant. That's the something like it hot. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 2: so this guy, Tony Curcio, he speaks with the site
Speaker 2: sportsman dot Com, which is a Pacific Northwest side Anyway,
Speaker 2: told the interviewer, quote, well, it is the story of
Speaker 2: a good footballer who has never committed a crime, who thinks, ah,
Speaker 2: screw it, I'm gonna go out and commit a robbery.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like that at all. It was definitely a
Speaker 2: gradual thing, and just like anything, it started small. I
Speaker 2: was a fast wide receiver and I went to the
Speaker 2: University of Idaho, the same place my dad had played
Speaker 2: the seventies, and things were going great. Then I tore
Speaker 2: a ligament in my knee, and that was pretty devastating.
Speaker 2: This is the common story. Elizabeth star athlete gets injured
Speaker 2: before turning pro, life changes dramatically. Now, I mean that's
Speaker 2: the same plot of Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray's bowling
Speaker 2: movie Kingpin, Right, I mean, boom there it is right there.
Speaker 4: Time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we all saw it. We just looked past it exactly.
Speaker 2: So Tony Cursey I was injured leads to an even
Speaker 2: worse downward spirals. Tony Cursey, I told the Sportsman, and
Speaker 2: I quote, my entire identity was wrapped up around sport.
Speaker 2: When I was injured, it was like my self esteem
Speaker 2: went down the drain. The pills made me feel good.
Speaker 2: It was a perfect storm for the addiction to stick. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right. He turned out pain pills.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what happens.
Speaker 2: It's terrible, totally tried to stay numb to life. But
Speaker 2: he doesn't wholly blame the pills, right or the addiction
Speaker 2: for him becoming a bank rubber. Instead, Cursio, he lays
Speaker 2: the blame at the feet of a more elemental truth, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: about who he is, or has he put it. I
Speaker 2: became very materialistic. I had never given it about fancy
Speaker 2: cars or looking cool or needing attention, but now I
Speaker 2: needed validation from other people constantly because I was so miserable.
Speaker 2: So I started to go out and party. I wanted
Speaker 2: people to like me. I just became a real douchebag.
Speaker 2: That's the best way to describe it. So big man
Speaker 2: on campus wants to reclaim glory, becomes bank rubber. Is
Speaker 2: essentially the story he thinks he is no anyway, So
Speaker 2: that's his Craigslist bank robber backstory. As I said, real douchebag.
Speaker 2: Just keep that in mind. Now that we've met our
Speaker 2: man of the hour, let's take a little break, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: and after these extra juicy ads. I got queued up
Speaker 2: for you. I'll tell you how this bank robbery plan
Speaker 2: plays out. Hey, Elizabeth Sarah, he diaging the Tony Cursio show.
Speaker 2: I know you love a story of a big man
Speaker 2: on campus. Yeah you also water sports.
Speaker 3: These are all your interests, all the good stuff.
Speaker 2: So after Tony Curcio left college, he came back home
Speaker 2: to small town Minroe, Washington.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 2: It's like a basically a suburb of Seattle, but it's
Speaker 2: not really a suburb. It's more like just a town
Speaker 2: outside of Seattle. Right. So Tony he gets back on
Speaker 2: his all American program as best he can. So he
Speaker 2: marries his high school sweetheart, They have a family. He
Speaker 2: finds work and success as a real estate agent. Boom.
Speaker 4: Right, it sounds like a good fit for him if
Speaker 4: he's you know yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and people know him like and he's got name
Speaker 2: recognition in Monroe. So anyway, remember, as he said, he'd
Speaker 2: become a douchebag or materialistic to put it or politely,
Speaker 2: So he starts chasing after monetary success. This is all
Speaker 2: to dull his sense of the lost promise of his life.
Speaker 2: So and also he's popping pills and drinking. One day,
Speaker 2: his wife, you know, she tells him she's pregnant again, right,
Speaker 2: and the new baby's on the way. Tony curcioh he's
Speaker 2: feeling a little overextended because he's a real ortor and
Speaker 2: this is two thousand and eight and he needs more money.
Speaker 2: So he decides to take the advice of your man
Speaker 2: Willie Sutton. He went down to the bank because that's
Speaker 2: where the money is. Exactly like will he suddenly planned
Speaker 2: to rob it, or rather, he planned to rob the
Speaker 2: armored truck that would deliver the money to the bank.
Speaker 2: Why go inside if you don't have to exactly real
Speaker 2: smart guy, you know, just a clearcut thinker.
Speaker 4: Efficient.
Speaker 2: So he picks a bank in his hometown of Monroe's
Speaker 2: right in the bank. Everybody knows exactly the Bank of
Speaker 2: America on Old Owen Road if you're from Monroe. Now
Speaker 2: the sportsman, they asked him why he chose to rob
Speaker 2: an armored car or truck or whatever, and Cursey I
Speaker 2: recalled how quote I was coaching a junior high football
Speaker 2: team in the town about forty minutes from where I lived.
Speaker 2: So one of those days where I went to get something,
Speaker 2: I was sitting there and I watched the Brinks truck
Speaker 2: pull into the bank. That was it light bulb moment.
Speaker 2: The seed had been planted.
Speaker 4: So now he's now he got a junior high school
Speaker 4: football pitch eating the whopper in his car in a
Speaker 4: parking lot season.
Speaker 3: Okay, yes, I'm painting a picture.
Speaker 2: I'm doing my own picture. And he goes, that's my
Speaker 2: answer right there, everything inside that car. All have to
Speaker 2: do is get it out and put it in my pocket.
Speaker 2: So he you know, as I said, he'd fallen on
Speaker 2: hard times when he wasn't being a real estate agent
Speaker 2: because that pretty much fizzles out in two thousand and
Speaker 2: eight because of the basically the financial meltdown, particularly in
Speaker 2: the real estate industry.
Speaker 3: He's underwaters.
Speaker 2: He's underwater or try over his head with like you know,
Speaker 2: bank loans and so forth on houses he's been trying
Speaker 2: to leverage.
Speaker 4: He's just like, no one's selling Oh.
Speaker 2: No one's selling houses. Yeah, definitely. So he starts working
Speaker 2: for his parents landscaping company. So he's doing that in
Speaker 2: the in the coaching right. So now he starts using
Speaker 2: the land gate company as cover. So while he cases
Speaker 2: the bank, he just right bracket forth. You gotta see this,
Speaker 2: Like I went and I looked at the Bank of America.
Speaker 2: I did it your way. I Google drove around it.
Speaker 2: There's very little landscaping to be done that way.
Speaker 3: He's on the sidewalk, and.
Speaker 2: It's ridiculous, like he would just need like a blower.
Speaker 2: Fifteen minutes, you're done anyway. So that's his gig and
Speaker 2: he's just doing it real slow. So we can case
Speaker 2: the bank and find out what happens on a Tuesday
Speaker 2: when the truck comes along, picks up the money from
Speaker 2: the weekend, and then boom boom, boom boom. The security
Speaker 2: guards they pay no attention to him because he's a landscaper,
Speaker 2: so it's like we see him here all the time. Boom.
Speaker 2: He's able though, to clock them, so he starts figuring
Speaker 2: out what the security guards are doing, what the armored
Speaker 2: car drivers are doing, gets the whole routine down. As
Speaker 2: he put it, I watched it every Tuesday for a
Speaker 2: month and a half, and there was a ton of
Speaker 2: planning and logistics. Sure there was coach.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: Once he had the armored truck delivery scheduled down, he
Speaker 2: starts working on his disguise because he's everybody knows who
Speaker 2: he is. He's in Monroe, so and he also needs
Speaker 2: to get away because once again he's in Monroe. So
Speaker 2: he decides, you know, because we always talk about this, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: the robbery isn't done until you get away with it,
Speaker 2: exactly right. He figures that out. He's like, okay, I
Speaker 2: gotta work on that first. So his first plan jet ski. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's like, look, there's a creek right by the bank, creak,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to put a jet ski in the
Speaker 2: creek and then just zoom away. It's a creek, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a creek. Yeah, it's it's everything you're
Speaker 2: picturing jets. So he goes out. He dredges the bottom
Speaker 2: of the creek for weeks and he figures out he
Speaker 2: tries to make it deeper because it's a creek. It's
Speaker 2: not going to take the jets.
Speaker 4: He's got like equipment, I suppose with his.
Speaker 2: He's got landscaping equipment. So he goes down there and
Speaker 2: he's doing it and he cannot get it deep enough
Speaker 2: to run a jet ski. So yeah, he's like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to need a new plant. So he switches
Speaker 2: so much time, new plan inner tube.
Speaker 3: So it's the fastest way to get down.
Speaker 2: He's the best way. So he's like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I may need a little help, So he strings some
Speaker 2: cables along the side through the tree. So now he
Speaker 2: kind of pulled himself along. Okay, right, that's not bad thinking.
Speaker 2: So lastly, he had to make a plan for himself about,
Speaker 2: you know, how to deal with the armored car security,
Speaker 2: because he didn't want to use a gun, so since
Speaker 2: that would change the nature of his robbery. So Tony Curcio,
Speaker 2: he's just focused on the money bags and how to
Speaker 2: convince an armored guard to drop the money bags. And
Speaker 2: it would be key since he's not armed. He doesn't
Speaker 2: want to hurt him, do want to punch him. He's
Speaker 2: like dress as a ghost, yeah, boom, you know.
Speaker 4: And then you run to your inner tube in the
Speaker 4: brackish waters and then he float on down.
Speaker 2: What Tony's plan was, and I quote the big problem
Speaker 2: for me, he was getting the guard to let go
Speaker 2: of the bags. A gun wouldn't have been sufficient because firstly,
Speaker 2: I'm not a gun guy. I don't want to shoot anybody.
Speaker 2: But secondly, I pull a gun. He pulls his and
Speaker 2: although his hand comes off the bag. It's an immediate stalemate.
Speaker 2: So became a question of how to get his hands
Speaker 2: off the bag, plus make sure he doesn't pursue me
Speaker 2: and ideally not even see me. And that's yeah, well
Speaker 2: his answer. Yeah, that's where pepper spray became a win
Speaker 2: win situation maker exactly. It's non lethal and the perfect
Speaker 2: way to get his hands off and up onto his
Speaker 2: eyes because no matter what, no matter how hard, people
Speaker 2: try hit him with pepper spray, and they're going to
Speaker 2: touch their eyes. Interesting, He's not wrong. It's a biological response.
Speaker 4: This.
Speaker 2: Now, as far as the arm guards and the question
Speaker 2: of if they choose to shoot at him, Tony said
Speaker 2: he had a plan for that too. The old fashioned
Speaker 2: element of surprise, Elizabeth. Yes, if there's one thing I
Speaker 2: learned from football, it's the element of surprise. Yes, people
Speaker 2: always say football is the element of surprise.
Speaker 3: It's like warfare, the core notion of it.
Speaker 2: And He's like, as a wide receiver, I always knew
Speaker 2: where I was going and what I was doing, which
Speaker 2: gave me a huge advantage over the defensive. That was
Speaker 2: my thing on the day. I had the advantage because
Speaker 2: I knew where I was going Granted he had a
Speaker 2: gun and I did not, but that still doesn't take
Speaker 2: away how valuable that element of surprise can be.
Speaker 4: What was the surprise in being a player who knows
Speaker 4: exactly where he's.
Speaker 2: The defensive back doesn't know his rout he's gonna ring.
Speaker 2: So he's like, I'm totally surprised, man, this is just
Speaker 2: blowing me away. All the defensive backs like, I just
Speaker 2: watch your belt buckle and it tells me where your
Speaker 2: body's gonna go. Anyway, his plan is he'll surprise the
Speaker 2: arm guards, pepper spray them, grab money bags, make a
Speaker 2: run for it, element of surprise down to his waiting
Speaker 2: inflatable inner tube, and then escape down the creek. Whole
Speaker 2: proof plan Elizabeth in his hometown. Now he's also created
Speaker 2: tearaway clothing for his disguise, because remember a hometown. So
Speaker 2: he secreted a bright yellow getaway inner tube, and then
Speaker 2: he did a few dry runs because he wanted to practice.
Speaker 3: He use a bright yellow inner tube.
Speaker 2: I do not know, but so to practice ditching his
Speaker 2: disguise and timing how long it would take to get
Speaker 2: you would get away Interer two. But he's doing the
Speaker 2: dry runs, you know. Lastly, he puts the final little
Speaker 2: piece of his plan into action. He posts an ad
Speaker 2: on Craigslist. Yes, the ad was for short term work
Speaker 2: as a landscaper. It offered twenty eight fifty per hour,
Speaker 2: which in two thousand and eight that's great pay, especially
Speaker 2: for landscaping. Right there, you're like, oh, totally, But in
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, trust me, I was in construction.
Speaker 2: That'd be like, I will be there on Tuesday. What time? Yeah,
Speaker 2: So enough of that it would guarantee plenty of folks
Speaker 2: like me to come. That's my point right now. So
Speaker 2: potential employees were told to show up at the Bank
Speaker 2: of America on Old Owen Road at a set time,
Speaker 2: and to show up dressed for work. Right, So the
Speaker 2: ad listed what these prospective employees should be wearing. So
Speaker 2: now all is set, and then comes the fateful day
Speaker 2: September thirtieth, two thousand and eight. It was, of course,
Speaker 2: as I said, a Tuesday, because that's the day he's
Speaker 2: watching every time. It's Tuesdays at around eleven am. Strangers
Speaker 2: being able to show up at the Bank of America
Speaker 2: wearing yellow safety vests, safety goggles, a blue shirt, and
Speaker 2: a respirator mask. They all are wearing exact the same thing.
Speaker 2: Among them is Tony Curcio, wearing the exact same thing,
Speaker 2: only he's also wearing a wig, and all of his
Speaker 2: outfit is tear away clothing with velcrow inside.
Speaker 4: Right, Okay, first of all, wigs, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yes, I needed that. You need the wig? I figured.
Speaker 2: So when people arrive, he's already working, so and he's
Speaker 2: always pretending to work, and he's spraying weeds outside the bank,
Speaker 2: and his plan's working perfectly. People keep showing up, they
Speaker 2: keep billing about more and more people. As he put it, though,
Speaker 2: he gets a little annoyed by the people. I'll let
Speaker 2: him toe it. They were very annoying when they got there.
Speaker 2: I was already pretending to be working. So here's a
Speaker 2: bunch of guys dressed like me, waiting for a supervisor
Speaker 2: that hasn't showed up, and they want to know what's happening,
Speaker 2: and they naturally assume I must know what's going on
Speaker 2: because I'm working away. So these two guys start following
Speaker 2: me everywhere, actually running after me. I had to go
Speaker 2: around a corner real quick and ditch the disguise. And
Speaker 2: this is before the money is even turned up by
Speaker 2: the time it shows up. I'm up in these bushes
Speaker 2: behind a grocery store putting my outfit back on. It
Speaker 2: was crazy. I don't know, Elizabeth. Together you would think
Speaker 2: that they were going to come up to you and
Speaker 2: ask what's going on?
Speaker 3: Do you think would happen?
Speaker 2: I do know. I think you just wanted it all
Speaker 2: to work seamlessly, like they all showed up at the
Speaker 2: exact same moment, like within like thirty seconds of each other.
Speaker 4: But even then, they're not just gonna stand there like
Speaker 4: you know video game characters are gonna have to do something.
Speaker 2: They're gonna know about and wonder who's paying me this?
Speaker 2: Twenty eight do I talk to?
Speaker 3: Oh man, there's all these other dudes. I got here.
Speaker 2: Exactly there you go? You see Where'm But Elizabeth, what
Speaker 2: why do we talk about this? Why not? You know?
Speaker 2: We've gotten to the crucial moment, Elizabeth. I'd like you
Speaker 2: to close your eyes. I'd like you to picture, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: You are in the small town of Monroe, Washington, located
Speaker 2: there in the foothills of the Cascade Mountain Range, at
Speaker 2: the confluence of three rivers, the Skykomish, the snow Homish,
Speaker 2: and the Snow qualamy. In fact, the snow Quality Falls
Speaker 2: is the famous waterfall that features in Twin Peaks, if
Speaker 2: you're familiar with that anyway. At the moment, you're in Monroe, Washington,
Speaker 2: looking to find work, and it isn't easy because it's
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight. That whole globalomy crushing financial crisis
Speaker 2: is bedeviling you. Two today, as I said, Tuesday, September thirtieth,
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight, and you, Elizabeth, are pulling into
Speaker 2: a Bank of America parking lot. You pull up in
Speaker 2: a borrowed car at nineteen seventy seven Ford Ltd. That
Speaker 2: rattles and runs a bit rough. It backfires, and you
Speaker 2: pull into the parking lot. You find a spot, as
Speaker 2: you also spy a gathering crowd in the parking lot.
Speaker 2: A dozen strangers are wearing the exact same outfit that
Speaker 2: you brought with you to this temp gate and they're
Speaker 2: all standing in the parking lot outside of the exact
Speaker 2: same Bank of America. Once you park, you put on
Speaker 2: your bright yellow safety vest, your safety goggles, and your
Speaker 2: respirator mask. You turn off the radio and shut off
Speaker 2: the car. Its sputters and dies. You really hope it
Speaker 2: will start again. When you're ready to leave. Then you
Speaker 2: get out closed the heavy door, dressed in your matching
Speaker 2: bright yellow safety vests, safety goggles, and respirator mask. You
Speaker 2: walk over to where others are knowing about some guy
Speaker 2: introduced themselves Mike, and he's hoping that you're in charge.
Speaker 2: And she says, I came across the ad that was
Speaker 2: for a prevailing wage job for twenty eight to fifty
Speaker 2: an hour? Can you believe it? And that's all he
Speaker 2: pretty much knows about anything. It's all you know. He seems.
Speaker 2: Whoever is in charge, whoever is doing the paying and employing,
Speaker 2: has yet to arrive. As you look around for someone
Speaker 2: acting like a boss, you see an armored car arrived.
Speaker 2: You don't know it, but it's right on schedules. Just
Speaker 2: s's Tuesday. You wait a little more, nothing's happening. No
Speaker 2: boss arrives. Now, being curious as you are, you note
Speaker 2: that one of the landscapers is walking over towards the
Speaker 2: security guard as they walk out of the bank with
Speaker 2: the money bags that they are there to pick up.
Speaker 2: The landscaper walks right up to the armored car guard.
Speaker 2: He's pushing a hand cart loaded with heavy money bags.
Speaker 2: The landscaper acts like he knows him. Then he whips
Speaker 2: up his hand to ie leve him. He sprays something
Speaker 2: in the guard's face. You guess it's pepper spray based
Speaker 2: on the guards hanged the action. He cries out and
Speaker 2: grabs at his eyes. Doing so, he drops the money
Speaker 2: bag cart. The landscaper scoops up two money bags and
Speaker 2: runs across the parking lot like a running back or
Speaker 2: merging from the line and breaking away from a long
Speaker 2: end zone run. He could go, oh the way you
Speaker 2: watch a landscapers. He runs across the two lane roads.
Speaker 2: He stops a moment, rimps off his yellow safety vest,
Speaker 2: his respirator mask, his safety goggles and the wig all gone.
Speaker 2: He runs across a gravelly parking lot between a pair
Speaker 2: of small local businesses. You can still see the landscaper.
Speaker 2: He stumbles as he crosses the grass. He drops one
Speaker 2: of the money bags. He doesn't look back, He just
Speaker 2: keeps going with the money bag. He runs along Steven's
Speaker 2: Pass Highway, headed for Woods Creek. Then he disappears into
Speaker 2: the woods down by the creek. Gone, Elizabeth. It doesn't
Speaker 2: take you long to put it all together. You were
Speaker 2: just conned into being a decoy for a bank robber.
Speaker 2: You turn to the guy next to you, Mike, not Mike,
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, and you say great, looks like we're not
Speaker 2: getting paid, are we? And you also hope you're nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy seven, Ford Ltd Starts back up now that you
Speaker 2: have no reason to stay. But you're not going anywhere, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: because you just realize you're a night witness to a
Speaker 2: bank robbery. The cops are gonna have questions.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, he dropped one of the bags.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so Elizabeth, you just watched all this go down. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Tony Curciel's plan executed, gets away with his robbery, or
Speaker 2: you know, at least one of the bags. And can
Speaker 2: you guess how much cash was inside the bag? To
Speaker 2: one bag?
Speaker 3: One bag?
Speaker 2: Four hundred thousand dollars?
Speaker 5: What?
Speaker 2: Yep? What grays is a very interesting question we did
Speaker 2: for me. How much does four hundred thousand dollars in cash? Way?
Speaker 4: But okay, aside from that four hundred what are they
Speaker 4: doing with four hundred thousand dollars at this bank?
Speaker 2: There was way more than that.
Speaker 4: Generally don't move that much cash.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Turned out that there was this like fair
Speaker 2: in in the area at the time. The fair generated
Speaker 2: all this extra money and he knew that it would be.
Speaker 2: And then it's also basically right during the you know, September,
Speaker 2: so people are all coming doing back to school stuff,
Speaker 2: all the big shopping in September. So there's a lot
Speaker 2: of loose money.
Speaker 4: Wow, that's a that's a ton.
Speaker 2: But mostly it's the state carnival that is in there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So how much does four hundred thousand.
Speaker 4: Dollars wagh nine million pounds?
Speaker 2: If it was in one dollar bills, it would weigh
Speaker 2: eight hundred and eighty one pounds. In twenty dollars bills, though,
Speaker 2: it would only weigh forty four pounds.
Speaker 3: And this was in one bag and there were multiple bags.
Speaker 2: Well, he only carried two. Yeah, he dropped in one. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 2: he got lucky because the one that he had had
Speaker 2: the fourhundred thousand dollars in it. So one hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty thousand of it was in one hundred dollars bills.
Speaker 2: Can you guess how much one hundred eighty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: one hundred dollars bills?
Speaker 4: Right, hundred thousands.
Speaker 2: I'll just tell you four pounds, four pounds. It least
Speaker 2: four pounds. Yeah, okay, good, good, great answer. How'd you
Speaker 2: know that?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: So that's that's nothing. We can run at four pounds, right,
Speaker 2: That's exactly what Tony Curcio said to the sportsman. He said,
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty thousand and one hundred dollar bills, that
Speaker 2: was no problem. I could run with that like a
Speaker 2: football all day. But the remainder, the other two hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty thousand, that was in twenty dollar bills. Now,
Speaker 2: can you guess how much two hundred and twenty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in twenty dollars bills weighs? Elizabeth, come on.
Speaker 3: Big Winter, Big winner, million pounds.
Speaker 2: Very close. Twenty four pounds. Okay, yeah, that may not
Speaker 2: sound like much, but it's an awkward, sloppy twenty four pounds.
Speaker 2: So Cursio said, that was a problem. That was a
Speaker 2: lot of weight, but the adrenaline helped.
Speaker 4: It's like you get a twenty something pound bag of
Speaker 4: dog food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really, it's wrestling. Yeah, it's not easy.
Speaker 4: So going into the robbery, two of them thirteen pound
Speaker 4: bag to that.
Speaker 2: Way, he had no idea how much the money would
Speaker 2: he expected the money bags right, and as I said,
Speaker 2: he just knew there's a carnival in town. He expected
Speaker 2: about three hundred and thirty thousand dollars way over because
Speaker 2: one bag's got four hundred thousand. He's stoked, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: He manages to run down to the creek line. There
Speaker 2: he finds his waiting yellow innertube. You asked earlier. This
Speaker 2: is the waiting yellow innertube.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, it's like a kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like no bright yellow kids intertube. Look at that
Speaker 2: bad boy. Could he be any brighter?
Speaker 4: He should have been on one of those swans.
Speaker 2: That would be amazing. So he hopped on this. It's
Speaker 2: also wrapped in canvas a little bit on the bottom. Anyway,
Speaker 2: pulls himself up the creek. It is. He doesn't go
Speaker 2: down the creek. He goes weight up the creek. Yeah,
Speaker 2: using a cable and pulley system that he'd rigged in
Speaker 2: the trees. He goes two hundred yards upstream. There he
Speaker 2: rips off his tear away disguise, climbs out of the water,
Speaker 2: crawls into the trunk of a waiting getaway car disappeared
Speaker 2: driven away by an association.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: The cops respond quickly. They're honest small town to go upstream, yeah,
Speaker 2: everyone would think exactly. So the cops respond quickly, not
Speaker 2: quickly enough, Elizabeth. When they arrive, you're still standing there
Speaker 2: with a dozen other people. That's all they have would
Speaker 2: be landscape, and they all say, yeah, that guy ran
Speaker 2: off that a way, and they'd go down to the
Speaker 2: creek and they think, what you think they go downstream?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the localman rope d quickly determined why there are
Speaker 2: so many would be landscapers because they heard about the
Speaker 2: Craigslist ad. They go, Okay, they do the math. These
Speaker 2: people are decoys, and the detectives realize this is our
Speaker 2: only lead to go on, is this Craigslist ad. So
Speaker 2: then got to call Craigslist and see if they can
Speaker 2: find out who posted the ad.
Speaker 3: Well, hello Craig.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Tony Curcio, he's at a you know, celebrating his
Speaker 2: score because he'd done it. But the cops, they do
Speaker 2: eventually discover the tear away disguise, the dust mask and
Speaker 2: wig that the purp had worn.
Speaker 3: Oh DNA part.
Speaker 2: So now they've got a DNA party exactly popping off.
Speaker 2: So if the purpose in the system he or his
Speaker 2: family ever used twenty three and meters. He's gonna get
Speaker 2: caught well.
Speaker 3: And then this is a federal thing though, because.
Speaker 2: It's exactly I was gonna come in.
Speaker 4: Local PD doesn't have to handle all that stuff.
Speaker 2: So let's take a little break, Elizabeth, and we get back.
Speaker 2: We will find out if and how they catch him.
Speaker 2: Oh oh yeah, and also pokemon, Elizabeth. He ready for
Speaker 2: some more. So my man, Tony Curcio, he's gotten away
Speaker 2: with it. He's gone upstream instead of downstream. He's got
Speaker 2: decoys instead of actually going in with like accomplices. The
Speaker 2: guy's kind of brilliant in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: Well, he did have the accomplished driving.
Speaker 2: He did have the accomplaice to drive him, so he did. Yes,
Speaker 2: we know about that.
Speaker 3: So we did it, Joe.
Speaker 2: Now that he's done it, and he takes his four
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars two hundred and twenty and twenties and
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty one hundred dollars bills, what do
Speaker 2: you think he's going to go.
Speaker 3: Off and do I don't know, by a better n
Speaker 3: or two?
Speaker 2: He bought a range Rover SUV. What yeah, okay, remember
Speaker 2: materialistic douchebag, he said it himself.
Speaker 3: How did did he go in with cash?
Speaker 2: I'm assuming so then he also suspicious. He invited some
Speaker 2: friends and his mistress to join him on a trip
Speaker 2: to Las Vegas to go blow his payday, like want
Speaker 2: to be high rollers? Wait mistress, Oh yeah, he's got
Speaker 2: a mistress. Yeah, I just saw that in a couple
Speaker 2: of news stories. They're just like, oh yeah, and his mistress. Anyway,
Speaker 2: So back in Monrow, the FBI arrives in town and
Speaker 2: they want to investigate the robbery. All they have to
Speaker 2: go on is this physical evidence. Right, So they go
Speaker 2: and they collect the DNA, they run it, they test it.
Speaker 2: The purpose not in the system. Damn it, there's no
Speaker 2: good but they hang on to it. Becau it's still
Speaker 2: good evidence.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: And then Tony Curcio though he's made one mistake, one mistake,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth that the FBI and eventually, well his doom will
Speaker 2: be all come together because this guy, what do you
Speaker 2: think the one mistake was?
Speaker 3: Umm, the driver.
Speaker 2: It's a good one. It's a really good one. No,
Speaker 2: he pretended that a homeless person or an unhoused person
Speaker 2: wasn't a person, and it wasn't somebody sitting right there
Speaker 2: watching what he was doing. He allowed her to be
Speaker 2: a witness he was doing collect watching him do his
Speaker 2: dry runs, watching him practice, watched him rip off his
Speaker 2: wig and stuff, and then he had done that before
Speaker 2: right in his dry run. Well, guess who went over
Speaker 2: and collected a free wig and a free stuff. This
Speaker 2: unhouse person and that guy is going to bring down
Speaker 2: Tony Curcy carefully executed plan right because as I said,
Speaker 2: during one of the dry runs, he tears away his clothing,
Speaker 2: his wig, leaves it all there. The unhask guy he
Speaker 2: keeps it and then he goes and he contacts the
Speaker 2: City of Monroe employee about this odd behavior he had seen.
Speaker 3: Look at this good citizen right.
Speaker 2: And then three weeks later, that same bank that he'd been, like,
Speaker 2: you know, sitting near watching this occur gets hit, gets
Speaker 2: robbed by a man wearing a mask, a dust mask
Speaker 2: and in a wig. So this same man comes forward again.
Speaker 2: Now this concerned citizen becomes a good samaritan and he
Speaker 2: tells the cops what all he's seen, what all's he's collected.
Speaker 2: But not only that, this guy turns over and I
Speaker 2: swear to God, this is amazing. A black two way radio,
Speaker 2: a yellow safety vest, a black wig with a short ponytail,
Speaker 2: dark sunglasses, a large can of mace, and a baseball
Speaker 2: cap another DNA party.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: Right, So also there's another thing he's got. He wrote
Speaker 2: down the license plate of the car because of the
Speaker 2: odd behavior of the man who just kept doing these
Speaker 2: dry run So he hands over the license plate number
Speaker 2: to the cops. He's like, here you go, and the
Speaker 2: license plate the cops they run it real quick. The
Speaker 2: license plate belongs to Tony Curcio's wife. He took his
Speaker 2: wife's car. What ach Now they have a suspect. FBI
Speaker 2: agents get to work. They start to surveil Tony Curcio.
Speaker 2: Investigators grab a bottle that he was drinking from when
Speaker 2: he pulls into some gas station. They run the DNA
Speaker 2: on that. It matches the folks that they'd like the
Speaker 2: Washington State crime Lab. Right. They test it and it
Speaker 2: matches the DNA from the recovered items from the bank
Speaker 2: job and from the dry run. Boom, Tony Curcio has
Speaker 2: now been made. He's out driving around in his new
Speaker 2: range Rover, shopping with a friend in an outlet mall.
Speaker 2: The same buddy who was the getaway driver and the
Speaker 2: FBI rolls up with the local Monroe PD and arrest
Speaker 2: Tony Curcio at the outlet mall.
Speaker 3: Why is it so hilarious to me that isn't an
Speaker 3: outlet mall?
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, so materialistic and on a deal. So boom,
Speaker 2: Just like that, Elizabeth, perfectly planned executed robbery goes bust
Speaker 2: because he ignored one man, Yeah, human, one man who
Speaker 2: is down on his luck.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't even realize he's there. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: Further proof, Elizabeth, as you often indicate, you ignore another
Speaker 2: person's humanity at your own peril. So, years after he
Speaker 2: got busted by that on house good samaritan, Tony Curcio
Speaker 2: looked back and he said, it was a huge surprise.
Speaker 2: I was so shocked. I just never saw it coming.
Speaker 2: After the robbery, everything went to plan. The money moved
Speaker 2: exactly as it was supposed to, funneled and cleaned through
Speaker 2: two small businesses in the area. But the person who
Speaker 2: laundered the money became an informant, and that was another
Speaker 2: nail in the coffin. You know, the only person who
Speaker 2: stayed quiet, had no reason to stay quiet, was my wife.
Speaker 2: She said to the police, do you think I'm going
Speaker 2: to assist you put the father and my kids away.
Speaker 2: He needs help, not jail, So she's right, but she
Speaker 2: needs Yeah, And anyway, he got jail, so he was.
Speaker 2: He was arrested on charges of robbery first degree. He
Speaker 2: was released on bail. Tony. Then while he's out on bail,
Speaker 2: he goes and tries to contact witnesses and gets sent
Speaker 2: back to jail for engaging in witness tampera. Yeah. So
Speaker 2: finally May fifth, two thousand and nine, he pleads guilty
Speaker 2: and he sentenced to seventy two months in prison three
Speaker 2: more years of supervised release.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, And as I told you up top, though, we're
Speaker 2: far from over from Tony Curcio because out once he
Speaker 2: comes out of prison, remakes and rebrands himself. Then he
Speaker 2: gets busy in that underground Pokemon scene. Connect.
Speaker 4: I don't even know.
Speaker 2: You ready to hear about the recovery and the the
Speaker 2: it's like rise in second Fall of Tony Curcio. So, Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: after he gets out of jail, Tony Curcio published a book,
Speaker 2: of course, because you know, as we constantly cover, there's
Speaker 2: no better writing retreat than prison exactly. So he wrote
Speaker 2: a book for children about what to think and feel
Speaker 2: when daddy is in jail. Yeah, I think it's a
Speaker 2: meaningful book. I mean he had talent. He was doing
Speaker 2: pictures for the other inmates to give to their kids
Speaker 2: when they come to visit. It means like I got
Speaker 2: a talent for this. Then he started writing a book
Speaker 2: about what it means when daddy's in jail. It's a
Speaker 2: necessary yeah, totally so. And he parlayed the same book. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 2: I know exactly. It's a very common book, but I
Speaker 2: mean it can hurt if you can reap into a
Speaker 2: different group whatever. Exactly, It's a story that needs to
Speaker 2: be told. It's true anyway. He parlays that book into
Speaker 2: a redemption narrative that eventually sees him land on like
Speaker 2: the Ted Talk stage right now. He's He also gets
Speaker 2: back into football, you know, and he starts coaching, as
Speaker 2: I said, for the local.
Speaker 4: Youth team, going to try and go semi pro.
Speaker 2: And while I was riding high on all of his
Speaker 2: newfound success, he gave an ama on Reddit, your favorite
Speaker 2: place on the Internet, and he answered questions. Tony was
Speaker 2: very candid, and I was surprised by this, Like he
Speaker 2: was asked like if he came out of prison a
Speaker 2: more hardened criminal, which is a question we often consider,
Speaker 2: like you know, basically it's like you know, criminals university
Speaker 2: and there exactly. Tony said, well, I'm definitely more hardened
Speaker 2: now than I've ever been. And sure when I came home,
Speaker 2: I did have a lot of offers to get back
Speaker 2: into crime because I kept my mouth shut inside and
Speaker 2: that's rare. Oh you didn't flip on yourself, buddy, Way
Speaker 2: to go, right. But I'm not about the money anymore.
Speaker 2: Money can't be important to you. If you want to
Speaker 2: stay out, you can't get a career. Yes you can't
Speaker 2: get a job, but you can't get a career, So
Speaker 2: people go back to crime. It's a vicious cycle. But
Speaker 2: ever since I walked out a solitary, I've never wavered
Speaker 2: from where it is I wanted to go.
Speaker 4: What was he doing in the solitary.
Speaker 2: He apparently was in solitary for either his own protection,
Speaker 2: he was getting in fights. I couldn't quite Yes.
Speaker 4: It is his own protection, because he irritated.
Speaker 2: That that's what I was, That's what I'm thinking. So
Speaker 2: it changed him that his time in the hole and
Speaker 2: forced him to confront himself, and he said, well, I
Speaker 2: was in the hole. I started asking myself, how did
Speaker 2: I get here? Who put me here? Whose fault is it?
Speaker 2: We see this a lot right sometimes to come up
Speaker 2: with good answers.
Speaker 4: I can answer that for him. Right now.
Speaker 2: I came to accept it was my fault, nobody else's.
Speaker 2: I created the scenario, and if I could hold myself
Speaker 2: accountable for that, I could change the direction I was going.
Speaker 2: My focus stopped being about me, It became about my kids.
Speaker 2: And that's when the transformation happened. Elizabeth. I think what
Speaker 2: he said, he meant it. But then the colors came Pokemon,
Speaker 2: and he forgot all, forgot about his kids.
Speaker 4: Plame the kids for that.
Speaker 2: The kids introduced him Gateway drug. So this year Tony
Speaker 2: Carcio he made headlines again when the FBI arrested him.
Speaker 2: And I have to say all that follows is alleged
Speaker 2: because he's yet to be tried and convicted. So but
Speaker 2: as FBI Assistant Director in charge James Smith alleges for
Speaker 2: over two years, Anthony Carcio and Joe Bonder Chuck allegedly
Speaker 2: manipulated common level trading cards to fraudulently inflate the retail
Speaker 2: price from its true market value by assigning false validity grades,
Speaker 2: resulting in more than two million dollars in victim losses.
Speaker 2: How did they do this? Great question? Was a bit
Speaker 2: thank you again, According to allegations in the DOJ's indictment, quote,
Speaker 2: Cursio ordered from an online marketplace various items needed to
Speaker 2: create forged cards, cases and labels. The items included various
Speaker 2: card grading cases, thermal transfer bar code labels, a magnifier loop,
Speaker 2: optical glass, a handheld inkjet printer, a lock cutting kit,
Speaker 2: an electric grinding pen, an abrasive buffer and polishing wheel,
Speaker 2: and abrasive and bristle brushes and drill bits designed for engraving.
Speaker 2: End quote.
Speaker 3: So he bought all this stuff online.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a hell of a counterfeit kit.
Speaker 4: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: So what do you know about the world of Pokemon
Speaker 2: Elizabeth and Pokemon cards?
Speaker 4: It's pronounced pokemon.
Speaker 2: Oh right, sorry, not much.
Speaker 3: I know that's the Pika choose.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to collect the card.
Speaker 2: Do you know they're valuable? Sure, like like a lot
Speaker 2: of valuable, totally surprisingly, So it works like this for
Speaker 2: the modern trading card market because you're oftentimes like oh,
Speaker 2: baseball cards aren't worth anything anymore. It's not exactly true.
Speaker 2: It kind of is true, but you'll hear. So it
Speaker 2: works like this. There's this company that functions as a
Speaker 2: card authenticator and a greater. So for a fee, this
Speaker 2: company will verify a trading card, be it a baseball, football, basketball, hockey,
Speaker 2: or Pokemon or Pokemon, and the company they rate the
Speaker 2: card graded on scale of one to ten, right one
Speaker 2: being the lowest, ten being the highest. Top grade. You
Speaker 2: send the card to the company to be graded, and
Speaker 2: then they after inspection the company, they seal the card
Speaker 2: in this quote distinctive Tampa resistant plastic case that encloses
Speaker 2: the card to preserve its condition and indicate it's great
Speaker 2: on in a fixed label label as a barcode. It's
Speaker 2: a sealed deal, right. Naturally, the market value hugely affected
Speaker 2: by this company's great process. So this is what Cursio manipulated.
Speaker 2: For instance, I'll give you another for instance, nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: six Fleer Brand Michael Jordan number fifty seven Rookie card
Speaker 2: aka the nineteen eighty six MJ Card. Can you guess
Speaker 2: how much this card is worth? If it carries a
Speaker 2: grade of.
Speaker 4: Eight nine hundred million dollars six to.
Speaker 2: Seven thousand dollars. Now, can you guess what that same
Speaker 2: card is worth if it carries a grade of ten?
Speaker 2: Just two steps up hundred and eighty five to two
Speaker 2: hundred and three thousand dollars hihs grade way up high?
Speaker 2: Whoa big difference, right, Yeah? Enter Tony Curcio. In May
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two, he posted on the site The
Speaker 2: Manhattan Marketplace that he possessed a nineteen eighty six MJ
Speaker 2: card with a sale price of one hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: one thousand dollars. Real deal, Elizabeth, Here's the card he listed,
Speaker 2: just so you get a sense of.
Speaker 4: It, Okay.
Speaker 2: Now, rather than have the card be graded by a
Speaker 2: company responsible for such things, he just did it himself.
Speaker 2: He's like, I've got the tools, I've got the time.
Speaker 3: It looks like a ten to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I love this card. It's a total tag.
Speaker 2: So the card listed he purported it to be in
Speaker 2: a Tampa resistant plastic case that add the barcode from
Speaker 2: the grading process, blah blah blah with a certification number. Now,
Speaker 2: according to the FBI, Cursio and his Underworld associates they
Speaker 2: successfully sell these cards through the Manhattan Marketplace for a while.
Speaker 2: And they're all counterfeits, right, but they're real cards. The
Speaker 2: grating is the counterfeit part. So you buy a Michael Jordan,
Speaker 2: it's the Michael Jordan card, it's just like a two
Speaker 2: instead of a tent exactly. It'll have like a rippling
Speaker 2: in the card, or freight edges or like dogs spit
Speaker 2: on it. I don't know, like whatever.
Speaker 4: This much money, oh yeah, And they're.
Speaker 2: Just milking people who are basically how afraid of us?
Speaker 2: Are you? That's the kind of the thing. So they
Speaker 2: sell their counterfeits. They mostly go to card shows. They
Speaker 2: go to auctions places with a lot of foot traffic,
Speaker 2: also card shops where people don't really know any better,
Speaker 2: and of course online platforms. That's where they can really
Speaker 2: bring in the suckers. Sometimes, though, a buyer would receive
Speaker 2: the card and they would be like, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: like you, this is bys this is fake, fraudulent, I
Speaker 2: cry lie. They get pissed, right, so then they'd make
Speaker 2: a bunch of noise and I'm gonna go into Manhattan
Speaker 2: Marketplace and denounce you, and cursio Ow and his partner
Speaker 2: they would apologize, Oh, I'm sorry when to sent you
Speaker 2: the wrong card, send it back to us. We'll return
Speaker 2: your money. They would, And then they go around and
Speaker 2: they take that card. They'd find a new sucker and
Speaker 2: sell it to him. So they just kept doing this
Speaker 2: in all the while, they're doing this with fake names.
Speaker 2: Right to Tony Curcio, he can't use that name because
Speaker 2: you type it in into Google and poop Upcom's a bank robbery.
Speaker 2: So his name was John Steele. Chum, so you wanted
Speaker 2: to get into porn, I'm John Steele now. He would.
Speaker 2: Also if he got into real trouble, he would occasionally
Speaker 2: direct his buyers to one of his friends to deal
Speaker 2: with the problem. For instance, according to the DOJ indictment
Speaker 2: and I quote, after a victim complained to Bonderchuck about
Speaker 2: his sales of fraudulent cards, including a Tom Brady Rookie card,
Speaker 2: a John Elway Rookie card, and various Michael Jordan cards,
Speaker 2: Bonderchuck gave the victim Cursio's phone number, but falsely told
Speaker 2: the victim that the phone number belonged to another individual,
Speaker 2: who in reality was a leader of the Hell's Angels
Speaker 2: motorcycle wait a second, So that part was real. It
Speaker 2: was a real Hell's Angels biker that the call got.
Speaker 2: So the person goes, hey, I'm gonna bonder Chuck. The
Speaker 2: associate goes, hey, you need to talk to John Steele. Yeah,
Speaker 2: John Steele's actually Cursio, and it gives them Cursio's number.
Speaker 2: Cursier was like, oh, you got to talk to my friend,
Speaker 2: gives them the number of a Hell's Angel biker, a
Speaker 2: real Hell's Angel biker who knows that the call is
Speaker 2: coming in and scares the hell out of the person.
Speaker 4: Right, this is what I always want my life.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's what I wanted to tell you.
Speaker 4: Who can just do those kind of things exactly?
Speaker 2: So they had that, They had your dream. Now where
Speaker 2: does the Pokemon mister Pokemon, where does he come into
Speaker 2: all the Where does in Elizabeth? There was a nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine Pokemon Venosaur or Venisair, I don't know whatever
Speaker 2: it is Venusaur card and a nineteen ninety nine Pokemon
Speaker 2: Charizard card. These are the two cards. Okay, yeah, I
Speaker 2: know you love these.
Speaker 4: It is so good.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: Last year twenty twenty three, Tony Curcio and his black
Speaker 2: market trading card underworld buddies. They were offering these two cards,
Speaker 2: the Venosaur card for ten five hundred dollars. Found a buyer,
Speaker 2: buyer put up money, they sent the card. When the
Speaker 2: buyer received the card, the undercovered law enforcement agent was like,
Speaker 2: thank you, Ding ding ding. We got our evidence. The
Speaker 2: case was made. So people have been complaining about him.
Speaker 2: Eventually somebody got to the marketplace and then that's all
Speaker 2: it took. They needed one card. Fraudulent boom. Tony Cursio
Speaker 2: gets popped for a second time. Now he's facing a
Speaker 2: maximum of twenty years behind bars for wire fraud and
Speaker 2: mail fraud because he sent it in the mail and
Speaker 2: that's where they get you, the mail telling you and
Speaker 2: every single one is its own charge. Yeah, and also
Speaker 2: a federal good point now, setting aside his foray into
Speaker 2: the dark underworld of counterfeit Pokemon, What I wanted to
Speaker 2: know about Tony Curcio he ended up answering during his
Speaker 2: Reddit ama. Yeah right, because someone on Reddit they asked
Speaker 2: him the question I would ask, which is, why didn't
Speaker 2: you just quietly take the cash and move to another state?
Speaker 2: You got away with it, bro, What was the whole
Speaker 2: point of staying in Monroe. If you robbed the bank,
Speaker 2: and so he said, and I quote, the whole purpose,
Speaker 2: the whole plan was to pull it off and stay
Speaker 2: right where I was. That was never part of my thinking.
Speaker 2: I wasn't really the wisest person back then, but I
Speaker 2: also was wise enough to know I didn't want to
Speaker 2: live without my family or live on the run.
Speaker 4: It sounded like he was laundering the money there, and
Speaker 4: that's hard to move.
Speaker 2: Seems like he thought it would just be an investment plan,
Speaker 2: like he would just get this money and then flip
Speaker 2: it around and take care of whatever the financial schemes.
Speaker 3: He at going be suspicious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the FBI wouldn't come in, Yeah whatever. Yeah, Well, anyway,
Speaker 2: not really the move, Homy. But you may be wondering,
Speaker 2: I thought he saw the light in solitary confinement. What
Speaker 2: happened when he came back out the Pokemon card? Why
Speaker 2: did he go back criming? Well, Tony Curci when he
Speaker 2: robbed the Armborg car and he took the proceeds and
Speaker 2: invested it in legitimate businesses, he also invested in some
Speaker 2: of them were illegal, as we covered right, This kind
Speaker 2: of points to he's never able to get away from crime.
Speaker 2: He can't out help himself. He's just kind of criminally minded.
Speaker 2: So with the benefit of time self reflection, he seemed
Speaker 2: to grasp something elusive about himself. As Tony Curcio put it,
Speaker 2: and I quote, I'm just very extreme. I got diagnosed
Speaker 2: during my time in prison with the psychologist in there,
Speaker 2: and they forced me to see psychologists as part of
Speaker 2: my probation. After a while it got old. He got
Speaker 2: frustrating to me, just because at this point I know
Speaker 2: who I am and what I need to do for
Speaker 2: my personality. He think he's right, he needs the juice.
Speaker 3: He was diagnosed as extreme extreme.
Speaker 2: You sort you have extreme itis. I'm so sorry you
Speaker 2: got a.
Speaker 3: Case of extreme.
Speaker 2: It's not going to go away. Yeah, it looks radical,
Speaker 2: bat it's congenital. It's totally radical batical, some gnarly tubularity here.
Speaker 2: So he wants to beat the system. That's what I
Speaker 2: seem to me like he wants to get away with it,
Speaker 2: be too smart for everybody else to you know, he's
Speaker 2: a big man on campus. He's used to getting away
Speaker 2: with it. Yeah, and he expects to that's my read. Anyway,
Speaker 2: what's our ridiculous takeaway here, Elizabeth?
Speaker 4: I don't understand the collections. I'm not a collector nor now,
Speaker 4: so I don't. I'm thinking, like, what are you going
Speaker 4: to use You're an experientialist, yeah, like what are you
Speaker 4: paying all this money for a pikachuo card? For?
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 2: And just to fight change in time? Basically, that's what
Speaker 2: I think. I think possessions give you a sense of
Speaker 2: control in an ever changing world. And so therefore it's
Speaker 2: like the nostalgia if you physicalize it and you can
Speaker 2: connect to it, therefore, it's almost a way to go
Speaker 2: take that back change you can, I can hold onto this.
Speaker 2: That's what I think. It is the way of the
Speaker 2: tiny way of control.
Speaker 4: Because I change, it just does not compute for me.
Speaker 2: You don't need that. You embraced change.
Speaker 3: I do, I really really do.
Speaker 2: You're more of a gardener I.
Speaker 4: Am, literally, but no, I think my my other takeaway
Speaker 4: is that the impulse control idea, Yes, you always he
Speaker 4: you know, he didn't have the impulse control before because
Speaker 4: he sees the armored truck and it's like, oh, there's
Speaker 4: my things. All of us that kind of stuff were like,
Speaker 4: oh my god, could you imagine if I and then
Speaker 4: we don't do it because we have impulse control.
Speaker 2: And we realize there will most likely be consequences for
Speaker 2: our actions.
Speaker 4: It doesn't think about all the stories that we hear,
Speaker 4: all these stories about people who rob armored cars and
Speaker 4: get away with it and they're never heard of again. No,
Speaker 4: there are no all those stories.
Speaker 2: Often, if you get away with it once, you'll try
Speaker 2: it again until you get caught.
Speaker 4: But see, but like it just doesn't. It's so rare
Speaker 4: that someone gets away with it.
Speaker 2: No, I think that that does happen. It's just rare
Speaker 2: to do it once and get away with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's it's rare, just full stop.
Speaker 4: And so everyone thinks they're the exception.
Speaker 2: And he thought he was exceptional. Yeah, he does elizabeth them.
Speaker 2: And my takeaway, thank you for asking. It's ridiculous. So
Speaker 2: Tony Curcio said in his interview with The Sportsman that quote,
Speaker 2: if you treat other people the way you want to
Speaker 2: be treated, if you put them first and do good
Speaker 2: things for them, it all comes back. That has been
Speaker 2: the key to my happiness. I feel better when I'm
Speaker 2: focused on other people than myself. My ridiculous takeaway is
Speaker 2: he forgot the most basic lesson that he himself learned
Speaker 2: is that what.
Speaker 4: He was doing when he was selling counterfit cards to
Speaker 4: people for his daughter's kids, putting them first.
Speaker 2: So there you go. It's all I got for them.
Speaker 2: For a talkback, flip one of those on Dave. Can
Speaker 2: you hit the lights on the talk back? Here you go?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I.
Speaker 3: Love get.
Speaker 6: Thanks, ridiculous crime, no lame limerick rhyme now just bad haikup.
Speaker 6: Hey Michelle here again. Sorry for the ridiculous poetry the
Speaker 6: last time I left a message. What can I say?
Speaker 6: You inspire my goofy side. I'm still laughing about the
Speaker 6: Tiger King of Harlem weeks later, and I need a
Speaker 6: bumper sticker that says I'm laughing because I'm listening to
Speaker 6: Ridiculous Crime. Thanks, you're the best.
Speaker 3: That's you know, we gotta start doing.
Speaker 2: I do like that. That's a really nice bumper stick right.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We would not have come up with that.
Speaker 6: I like it.
Speaker 4: We're always talking about how we need more merch, but
Speaker 4: we have busy on the go life.
Speaker 2: Especially you, especially me. I just have a passion for
Speaker 2: design and you hate what I come up with. You're like,
Speaker 2: you know what is that?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: It's awesome? I did this with a sharp pid.
Speaker 3: A T shirt underwear.
Speaker 2: Come on, Well, that's all I got for you, guys.
Speaker 2: You can find us online Ridiculous Crime on the social media's.
Speaker 2: We have our website ridiculous Crime dot com where you
Speaker 2: can get merch if you want some. And also we
Speaker 2: can go to the iHeart app and you can download
Speaker 2: it and record an app and maybe hear yourself here
Speaker 2: on the show and emails. If you like Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com, you can always write dear Dave
Speaker 2: just to mix it up.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, do that.
Speaker 2: As always, thanks for listening. We'll catch you next crime.
Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarain Burnett,
Speaker 2: produced and edited by The Man Pokemon Collects Dave Coustin
Speaker 2: and starring Anale Rutger as Judith. Research is by Don Russ,
Speaker 2: Rated rookies Marissa Brown and Andrea Song Sharpen Tear. Our
Speaker 2: theme song is by Thomas Tubing, is Life Lee and Travis,
Speaker 2: My Other Cars and Inner Tube Dutton. The host wardrobe
Speaker 2: provided by Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Ben Dbi, Kopper, Lives Bowlin and Noel
Speaker 2: I think dB tuber sounds like the name of a potato.
Speaker 5: Brown Redicus Crime Say it one more time, Gequs.
Speaker 1: Cry Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more
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