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Speaker 1: Okay, so we have made it to the final chapter

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Speaker 1: of the Good Thief saga, and I'm gonna pull a

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Speaker 1: move you've all seen before. Before I get to the ending,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring us back to the beginning. Do you remember,

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Speaker 1: way back in episode one, the scene where a chopper

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Speaker 1: lands on the prison roof. These guys crawl up a ladder,

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Speaker 1: gunshots ring out, and prisoners go wild with applause. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's where we are in the story. Our man, Vasilispaliocostas

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Speaker 1: was on the outside for a few years, but by

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Speaker 1: late two thousand and eight, he's back in cuffs, taken

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Speaker 1: right back to the notorious prison complex he had escaped from.

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Speaker 1: This time, the prison swears they can contain. He's put

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Speaker 1: in a solitary with an armed guard stationed nearby, and

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Speaker 1: they've doubled down on vigilance. But there are two glaring oversights.

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Speaker 1: The first officials placed Vasili's in the same hallway as

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Speaker 1: his accomplice from the first helicopter escape. The two men

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Speaker 1: had parted ways after breaking out together in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and six, where freedom was short lived for both of them,

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Speaker 1: and now both men were behind bars, awaiting trial for

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Speaker 1: their breakout, and in some version of prison logic, officials

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Speaker 1: reason that it made sense to place both men in

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Speaker 1: the same heavily guarded corridor in the solitary confinement way,

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Speaker 1: which brings us to the second oversight. That same area

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Speaker 1: had access to the roof. Reporter Mariana Kakaunaki covered the

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Speaker 1: case for the local newspaper, and she told us that

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Speaker 1: the prison officials did debate whether or not to put

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Speaker 1: them so close to the roof, but in the end,

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Speaker 1: you can't give to the bookleta.

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Speaker 2: They thought that another escape, especially one as flamboyant as

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Speaker 2: an escape by helicopter, was out of the question.

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Speaker 1: And yet that's exactly what they did, using the same

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Speaker 1: damn playbook they followed. The first time, Auquette gets a

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Speaker 1: cell phone calls his girlfriend. On the outside, she finds

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Speaker 1: a helicopter company that offers day trips and getaways and

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Speaker 1: get this, the company's name escapes. Literally. She does her research,

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Speaker 1: make sure the chopper is minimally guarded, and on the

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Speaker 1: day of the ride, Hey, I'm.

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Speaker 2: Gonna Once they're in the air, she turns to the

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Speaker 2: pilot and says there's been a change of plans, and

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Speaker 2: she pulls out a knife and a hand grenade, and

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Speaker 2: soon the helicopter is flying in a different direction.

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Speaker 3: Can miskitovon Vida's and the gonna laugh us.

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Speaker 1: Now you know where this is going. The chopper heads

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Speaker 1: to the prison, descends, the guys climb up, the helicopter

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Speaker 1: disappears into the sunset, and Vasilis gets away for a

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Speaker 1: second time, except this time he's truly in the wind.

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Speaker 1: To this day, no one knows where he is. Some

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Speaker 1: say he's gotten plastic surgery and looks totally different now.

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Speaker 1: Others say he moves around in costume, wearing wigs and

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Speaker 1: other phony disguises. Rumor has it he's married in Bulgaria,

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Speaker 1: or living on an island somewhere all alone, or roughing

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Speaker 1: it in the mountain caves of Greece. Throughout our reporting,

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Speaker 1: we were told over and over that we shouldn't even

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Speaker 1: bother trying to find him, that Vasilis Poaliocosas cannot be found.

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Speaker 1: And after over a year of trying, we figured everyone

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Speaker 1: was right. He's just too damn good. But then late

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Speaker 1: last year, just as we were about to wrap things

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Speaker 1: up on this podcast, we caught a break. I'm Miles

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Speaker 1: Gray from Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcast. This is the Good Thing,

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Speaker 1: Chapter one, the source. There are two versions of the

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Speaker 1: Vasilis Paliocosta story, depending on whom you ask. There's the

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Speaker 1: official version that he's disappeared and no one has seen

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Speaker 1: him since. And then there's the unofficial version, the one

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Speaker 1: we got after reporting from more than a year, the

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Speaker 1: one that always seemed to be the subtext of any

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Speaker 1: conversation about him, that people who knew him or were

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Speaker 1: from his hometown knew more than they were letting on,

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Speaker 1: that the police had leads they just wouldn't talk about

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Speaker 1: because there have been breadcrumbs. In twenty eleven, he was

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Speaker 1: supposedly sighted in a coffee shop, but his face looked different,

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Speaker 1: altered by plastic surgery. In twenty thirteen, a toll road

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Speaker 1: Cameron Athens supposedly caught a glimpse of him speeding along

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Speaker 1: the highway, and just a few years ago a local

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Speaker 1: swears they caught sight of him at a cafe eating

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Speaker 1: fish while summering in Thessaly. And then in winter of

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Speaker 1: last year, there's another possible sighting. Our team in Greece

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Speaker 1: stumbled across a short news item that describes this incident.

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Speaker 1: It's late November twenty twenty two, near the village of

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Speaker 1: Kipselli in central Greece, and apparently a BMW is tearing

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Speaker 1: down a desolate mountain road. With all due respect to

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Speaker 1: the people of Kipselli, this is the middle of nowhere.

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Speaker 1: There's no cell service out here. Most roads are unpaved

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Speaker 1: and a lot of cars can't even handle the terrain.

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Speaker 1: But this vehicle, it moves with confidence. Whoever is behind

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Speaker 1: the wheel knows these roads. They also don't have license plates,

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Speaker 1: so when the car zooms past a lone police cruiser,

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Speaker 1: the officers flip on the sirens. Details of what happens

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Speaker 1: next are scarce. All we know is that there are

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Speaker 1: multiple people in this car and someone inside starts shooting

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Speaker 1: at the cops. Within ak forty seven the cops break

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Speaker 1: and the car gets away, and well, Christina, I feel

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Speaker 1: like at this point this sounds all too familiar.

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Speaker 2: For sure, but the article doesn't say it's Vasilis. It

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Speaker 2: does have the hallmarks of a typical Vasilis police chase,

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Speaker 2: but it's just a news account of the incident. The

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Speaker 2: police give no indication of who they think it is.

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Speaker 2: But still we obviously couldn't stop talking about it in

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Speaker 2: the office, and we just felt that this might just

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Speaker 2: be him, so we tried to fill in more of

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Speaker 2: the blanks. I called to the local police, and of

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Speaker 2: course they refused to talk. We also contacted some locals

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Speaker 2: who were equally vague and of no help. And then

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Speaker 2: we tracked down an incredible source, somebody who has inside

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Speaker 2: knowledge of Vasilisa's patterns of movement. This person has been

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Speaker 2: following Vasilisa's trail for years. They wanted, or I should

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Speaker 2: probably say, needed, to remain anonymous, so we can't play

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Speaker 2: any interview tape for you. But when we asked them

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Speaker 2: about the article, they said that it wouldn't be hard

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Speaker 2: to believe that Vasilis Polo Costas was in the car

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Speaker 2: that night, and when we asked why, they pointed out

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Speaker 2: some very important clues. First, the location. It's the perfect

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Speaker 2: place for Vasilis. This region is Black Country, the region

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Speaker 2: where his people, the Blacks, are most concentrated, meaning he

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Speaker 2: has a built in support network. The region is also

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Speaker 2: not far from the village of Mouscrofo, where Vasilis was

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Speaker 2: born and grew up. Plus it's near a national park

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Speaker 2: home to tens of thousands of acres of inaccessible backwoods.

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Speaker 2: Imagine a labyrinth of rivers and ravines, canyons and caves.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, why a national park? Is that advantageous for

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Speaker 1: him or something?

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Speaker 2: The advantage for Vasilis is that communication in this area

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Speaker 2: is futile. GPS and police radio's hardly work. In fact,

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Speaker 2: the forest is so dense that search helicopters and drones

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Speaker 2: are useless. According to our source, Vasilis actually moves through

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Speaker 2: this rea and quite often he may even be staying

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Speaker 2: here full time. And apparently this isn't the first time

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Speaker 2: he's crossed paths with the cops. There have been as

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Speaker 2: many as seven or eight close encounters, and each time

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Speaker 2: he has moved around with one or two accomplices. Would

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Speaker 2: people suspect our bodyguards?

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Speaker 1: On one hand, all this new information was incredible, and

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Speaker 1: it kind of confirmed something we'd been suspicious of from

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Speaker 1: the start, that people in this region know more than

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Speaker 1: what they're letting on. It even made us rethink our

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Speaker 1: interview with Costa Samaras, Vasilis's mentor, when he said.

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Speaker 4: If I knew, I would not say anything, but if

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Speaker 4: he is alive, he must be living well, he must

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Speaker 4: be hiding now, whether he's here, which I don't believe,

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Speaker 4: or somewhere else. He knows how to move around. Let's

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Speaker 4: just say he might be traveling with those papers. He

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Speaker 4: may have changed his face by disguise or censoring, maybe

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Speaker 4: change his fingerprints. Vasilis knows how to protect himself.

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Speaker 1: But it was also a little disheartening. Like we've done

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Speaker 1: over fifty interviews with everyone from chief of police to

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Speaker 1: Vasilis's literal partners in crime, and yet until now we

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Speaker 1: hadn't been able to get a real foothold on where

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Speaker 1: Vasilis had been hiding. But according to Christina's source, there's

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Speaker 1: a reason why.

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Speaker 2: So there's apparently a team of police whose job is

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Speaker 2: twenty for seven to hunt down Polo Costas. It's there's

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Speaker 2: so mission, and they've been on the case since Vasili's

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Speaker 2: last escaped, but the government has kept this task force

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Speaker 2: hush hush. In fact, these same police officers are being

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Speaker 2: closely surveyediled by intelligence agencies from the federal government to

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Speaker 2: make sure that nothing leaks to the outside, and that

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Speaker 2: could be the reason that despite all our requests, no

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Speaker 2: current police have wanted to talk. But it's still amazing

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Speaker 2: to hear that they're actively working to try to find him,

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Speaker 2: using sizeable resources and still haven't managed to do it.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I'll admit it. It feels like we've been on

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Speaker 1: a wild goose chase, chasing any possible lead in searching

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Speaker 1: the whole country from Athos to Kadia for Vasili's Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the police have been sitting right here and have allegedly

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Speaker 1: seen Vasilis seven or eight times on these little country

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Speaker 1: roads circling around the same mountain where he was born.

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Speaker 1: But as soon as we hear this, we know we

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Speaker 1: have to go north. The weather is against us. It's

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Speaker 1: December and very soon the roads are going to be

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Speaker 1: impassable because of snow. None of us are mountain climbers,

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Speaker 1: and none of us own a vehicle that can reasonably

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Speaker 1: handle the terrain. Plus we're up against a clock. We

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Speaker 1: know the weather is about to change, so George reaches

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Speaker 1: out to a mountain guide in the region, hoping to

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Speaker 1: get help navigating the roads. Daphne's uncle loans us a

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Speaker 1: rave four to get around, and since we didn't want

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Speaker 1: George hunting for an Interpol's Most Wanted criminal, and his

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Speaker 1: two bodyguards all by himself. We decided to keep the

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Speaker 1: family theme going and sent him up there with Daphne's partner,

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Speaker 1: also named George, And so with that, George and George

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Speaker 1: packed their bags and headed for the mountains. Chapter two,

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Speaker 1: The Trip. If you did get.

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Speaker 3: I'm in the village of Kipselli with our mountain guide,

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Speaker 3: Christos Cordulas. It's taken almost five hours to get here

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Speaker 3: from Athens, and now we're slowly rumbling.

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Speaker 5: Up the road.

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Speaker 3: Kipselli is sort of dead. There's only a few hundred

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Speaker 3: people live here in the village and all the tavernas

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Speaker 3: look closed. But inside the car, our guy Christos, he's

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Speaker 3: this whirlwind of energy. He's constantly on this satellite phone.

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Speaker 3: It's the only thing that works out here, fishing for

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Speaker 3: any local source he can. You know, he's he's calling

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Speaker 3: the mayor as soon as we're in the car, he's

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Speaker 3: calling the police, the owner of a supermarket, anybody and

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Speaker 3: everybody who might want to talk, telling them, hey, I'm

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Speaker 3: with a reporter from Athens who wants to know about

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Speaker 3: Balliot Costas. He's a fire cracker, like he's this sixty

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Speaker 3: nine year old who chained smokes but still jogs every day,

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Speaker 3: does yoga, used to be a documentary filmmaker, then run

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Speaker 3: an organic grocery store nearby, and now he operates this

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Speaker 3: mountain refuge, Gadadaktis Mountain Refuge, which is this stone shelter

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Speaker 3: where obviously, you know, hikers can go for a hot

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Speaker 3: meal and a warm bed. And he grew up in

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Speaker 3: these mountains, and frankly he's with us because well, you know,

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Speaker 3: we'd be lost without him. I've been to a lot

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Speaker 3: of places in Greece, but I can confidently say I've

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Speaker 3: never been anywhere like this. We climb past massive white waterfalls,

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Speaker 3: tumbling hundreds of feet down like a bridal veil, and

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Speaker 3: the mountains a tower above us. They're rocky and dark,

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Speaker 3: and it's even more dramatic because it's raining today and

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Speaker 3: the cloud cover is making them look really ominous. And

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Speaker 3: as we climb higher and higher, the visibility deteriorate. The

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Speaker 3: fog turns all soupy and thick, to the point where

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Speaker 3: we can't really see in front of the vehicle. But

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Speaker 3: that doesn't stop Christos when he's trying to make the calls.

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Speaker 3: He's given me the lay of the land again, there's

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Speaker 3: a magic to this place, he says, and his eyes

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Speaker 3: are all lit up as we pass his childhood home.

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Speaker 3: He describes how the fruit trees blossom in springtime, how

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Speaker 3: he spent the summers of his boyhood napping under the

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Speaker 3: shade of these mountain peaks. But there's a sadness in

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Speaker 3: his voice too, that there are stories of the old

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Speaker 3: flower Grit's mill that shut down, you know, stories of

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Speaker 3: all these tight knit villages emptying out as people moved

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Speaker 3: to the city, Tales of violent earthquakes that shook old

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Speaker 3: stonehouses to rubble. Meanwhile, he keeps making.

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Speaker 5: The calls good on it's this.

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Speaker 3: Suddenly he puts the phone down, turns to me and says,

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Speaker 3: somebody wants to talk.

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Speaker 1: Over the last fourteen years, Vasilis Palio Costas hasn't robbed

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Speaker 1: another bank or kidnapped another tycoon. Any criminal activity has

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Speaker 1: gone completely underground because he knows if the police ever

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Speaker 1: catch him, he's toast.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So, after Vasilis's second helicopter escape, the government had

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Speaker 2: a total meltdown. The Prime Minister scheduled an emergency cabinet

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Speaker 2: meeting where the Minister of Justice, completely embarrassed, went on

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Speaker 2: the attack. What the escape really did was expose the

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Speaker 2: prison system's weaknesses, but the Minister of Justice refused to

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Speaker 2: admit that there were any structural issues.

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Speaker 1: Instead, he played the blame game.

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Speaker 2: He called the prison staff at Gorridalos corrupt and complicit.

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Speaker 2: He vowed that the heads would roll, and he launched

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Speaker 2: an investigation. All prison officials were required to declare their

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Speaker 2: whereabouts at the time of the escape, and those who

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Speaker 2: had been present had their houses rated by detectives in

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Speaker 2: the middle of the night, with officers barging into their

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Speaker 2: homes and searching for evidence of bribery. They didn't find any. Still,

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Speaker 2: the minister wanted heads. A handful of guards were arrested

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Speaker 2: and brought to the courthouses in the middle of the night,

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Speaker 2: standing trial under the cover of darkness. Eight guard would

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Speaker 2: be suspended, four would be arrested under suspicion of helping

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Speaker 2: us in his escape. All but one of them would

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Speaker 2: be accuted.

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Speaker 1: It was, in a way the kind of behavior of

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Speaker 1: Vasilis had warned everyone about Greese's big wigs, rather than

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Speaker 1: own up to a systemic failure and fix that system

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Speaker 1: or target someone high up on the food chain, went

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Speaker 1: after the little clod. It was easier to throw a

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Speaker 1: blame than to actually fix the problem. Not only had

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Speaker 1: Vasili's hoodwinked the justice system again, he had pulled off

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Speaker 1: something even more improbable. He'd forced the state to turn

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Speaker 1: against itself, and that made him a bigger enemy than

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Speaker 1: ever before. Chapter three Bombshells. The Ministry of Citizen Protection

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Speaker 1: is housed in a drab looking building. It sits on

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Speaker 1: the edge of a highway in East Athens and frankly

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Speaker 1: looks like a tower of lego blocks. But appearances, as

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Speaker 1: they say, are deceiving. The building is the nerve center

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Speaker 1: for the country's police, and we're told headquarters for the

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Speaker 1: team hunting down Vasilis Palio Costas. June twenty fourth, twenty ten.

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Speaker 1: Left Eddi's Ikonomu is working in his office on the

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Speaker 1: Ministry's sixth floor. Now left Eddi's is one of those

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Speaker 1: career law enforcement guys. He started as a regular police

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Speaker 1: officer and worked his way up the ladder to get

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Speaker 1: a cushy management job working as head of the Hellenic Police.

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Speaker 1: We heard from him in a previous episode, It's a

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Speaker 1: quiet Thursday evening. Left Eddis is in a meeting with

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Speaker 1: some high ranking officers when he hears a loud bang.

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Speaker 1: So marchiez so Risha meld.

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Speaker 6: At the beginning, we thought there had been a short

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Speaker 6: circuit as fifty air conditioning unit blew up. But a

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Speaker 6: few minutes passed and the lights went out. Suddenly I

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Speaker 6: could smell smoke.

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Speaker 1: Lefedi says he'll never forget the smell. It was reminiscent

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Speaker 1: of burnt almonds. Years of police training told him what

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Speaker 1: it actually was. The residue of explosives LEFTI starts to worry.

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Speaker 1: On the floor above him is the office of the

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Speaker 1: Minister for Citizen Protection, the guy who runs public security

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Speaker 1: in Greece, Mihalis ris Us.

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Speaker 6: I immediately went up to the office of the minister.

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Speaker 6: It was dark, there was a commotion. We were trying

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Speaker 6: to see exactly what had happened.

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Speaker 1: Leftedi's rushes to the Minister's office to check on Riso roids.

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Speaker 1: The minister is okay, but the office next to his

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Speaker 1: looks like a war zone.

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Speaker 6: The officer of mister Vasilakis was damaged. The wall and

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Speaker 6: the plaster board were falling apart. There had clearly been

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Speaker 6: an explosion. There was complete upheaval. Everything was overturned.

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Speaker 1: The space belongs to the minister's right hand man, George Vasilakis,

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Speaker 1: a lifelong public servant, a father of two. He's lying there,

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Speaker 1: motionless on the floor.

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Speaker 6: It was obvious that he was dead.

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Speaker 1: Ekonomu bites his lip and steps out of the room.

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Speaker 1: Investigators quickly pieced together what had happened. Vasilakis always opened

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Speaker 1: the minister's mail. Today was no different. He received a

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Speaker 1: thick envelope addressed to the minister. He opened it and

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Speaker 1: inside was another package. He placed the envelope down and

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Speaker 1: began tearing it open. He didn't know it was booby

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Speaker 1: trapped with gunpowder and ammonium nitrate. At the crime scene,

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Speaker 1: detectives would find the outer envelope still intact. They took

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Speaker 1: it in for forensic analysis.

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Speaker 6: Like part of the envelope had not been damaged, and

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Speaker 6: then investigators discovered there was a fingerprint, a fingerprint of Paliocostas.

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Speaker 1: Chapter four, The Truth Leferisiconomu is certain that Vasili's Paliocostas

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Speaker 1: killed his colleague. He tells us the fingerprint proves it.

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Speaker 1: In a mire of his.

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Speaker 6: It is undeniably strong proof of Palaeocostas's involvement in this murder.

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Speaker 6: Surely he touched the envelope and actively participated either in

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Speaker 6: its construction or transfer. This leaves us no doubt about

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Speaker 6: his involvement. The message he wanted to send was clear.

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Speaker 6: Mister Chris Okoidas as the leading political figure in the

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Speaker 6: effort to dismantle terrorism in Greece, and Palio Coustas tried

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Speaker 6: to strike a blow against the minister.

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Speaker 1: Vasilis, of course, had been labeled a terrorist by the

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Speaker 1: Greek state long before the bombing. For decades, most domestic

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Speaker 1: terrorists in Greece had funded their activities through bank robbery,

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Speaker 1: and Vasilis, a gun toting bank robber himself, was automatically

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Speaker 1: put in the same category. It's a classification that he

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Speaker 1: takes issue with. As he writes in his autobiography.

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Speaker 5: The majority of the country's politicians the ideal regime is repressive,

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Speaker 5: vindictive and totalitarian. So even if there are no terrorists,

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Speaker 5: some must be invented to justify repressive legislation.

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Speaker 1: One of the guys behind those laws was the minister.

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Speaker 1: For the longest time, he was Greece's top anti terrorism cop.

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Speaker 1: He was credited with taking down the terrorists running the

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Speaker 1: notorious seventeen November organization, and by this time in twenty eleven, krisl.

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Speaker 1: Hoils was the country's number one law and order guy.

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Speaker 1: He led the country's fire, public safety, and police departments,

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Speaker 1: and he was the guy leading the hunt for Vasilis.

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Speaker 1: To be clear, Vasilis definitely held a grudge against the

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Speaker 1: man because in January twenty ten, Vasilis did something he

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Speaker 1: had never done before. He wrote a letter to a

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Speaker 1: Greek newspaper. In it, he rails against the police. He

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Speaker 1: says they're out to kill him, but he reserves his

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Speaker 1: harshest words for the minister himself.

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Speaker 5: He is a devoted fan of snitching and loves rats.

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Speaker 5: His hobbies include setting prices for the heads of the wanted.

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Speaker 1: He calls KRISL. Hoils an egomaniac, a guy who fantasizes

347
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Speaker 1: about having his greatest arrest turned into a Hollywood movie

348
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Speaker 1: played by George Clooney. Mister Clooney, if you are listening

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Speaker 1: to this podcast, I'm sure you are, and you do

350
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:14,399
Speaker 1: want to option this into a movie, please give us

351
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Speaker 1: a call. Anyway. A few months later, when that bomb

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Speaker 1: goes off, detectives look back to that letter. The letter

353
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Speaker 1: gives them a motive, and the fingerprints are the evidence.

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Speaker 2: Vasilica's reputation got a lot more cloudy after the police

355
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Speaker 2: linked him to the bombing. The heroic good thief follows

356
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Speaker 2: the story that the mountain thief who does not harm

357
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 2: suddenly seemed like the opposite. A lot of that charm

358
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Speaker 2: he had was lost.

359
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:51,919
Speaker 1: Vasilis's reputation took a bigger hit in the following months

360
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Speaker 1: because after the bombing, domestic terrorism in Greece went a wire.

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Speaker 1: Letter bombs began turning up all across Athens, at the

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Speaker 1: embassy of Bulgarian, the embassy of Mexico and Russia, Chile,

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00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, even neutral Switzerland. One letter bomb was discovered

364
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Speaker 1: en route to the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

365
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:20,479
Speaker 1: Fourteen letter bombs appeared, sparking so much fear in Greece

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Speaker 1: that for the first time ever, the government shut down

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Speaker 1: international airmail for forty eight hours. Eventually, the terrorist group

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00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 1: Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei took credit for all of these attacks.

369
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Speaker 1: You might recall that Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei looked up

370
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Speaker 1: to Vasilis as a hero. In their communicas. They cited

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Speaker 1: him as an inspiration. Detectives saw all of this as

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Speaker 1: more evidence that Vasilis was becoming too dangerous. Maybe he

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Speaker 1: wasn't behind these fourteen letter bomb attacks, but he inspired them,

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Speaker 1: and that was a problem. Vasilis needed to be high

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Speaker 1: it down and soon. For the record, Vasilis Palio Coostas

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00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: denies mailing a bomb to the Ministry office, and if

377
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,640
Speaker 1: we asked him, he probably tell the punks running fire

378
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 1: Nuclei to get his name out of their mouths. One

379
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Speaker 1: of the most consistent things about Vasilis is that he

380
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: takes blame or credit for every crime he's committed, and

381
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Speaker 1: in this case he's adamant the police are lying. In fact,

382
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Speaker 1: in his writing he tries to point out how improbable

383
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Speaker 1: this all seems.

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Speaker 5: Inside an A four sized envelope which I never saw,

385
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 5: never attached, never mailed, and which exploded, destroying half a

386
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 5: floor in the Ministry of Citizen Protection, the police managed

387
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Speaker 5: to find a whole palm print of mind.

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Speaker 2: Mind you, a lot of people are on Vasilica's side here,

389
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:00,960
Speaker 2: doy think this was all a setup, all fairness, there

390
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 2: is plenty of evidence to support Remember, in twenty ten,

391
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Speaker 2: the Vasilis myth is at its height. He's embarrassed the

392
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Speaker 2: police with a second insane helicopter escape. Fan pages have

393
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:18,160
Speaker 2: popped up all over Facebook. People are painting religious iconography

394
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Speaker 2: with his likeness on it, making the outlaw look like

395
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:25,159
Speaker 2: a Saint Vasilis, and popular bands like a Mumbai the

396
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 2: artists who play our theme song are composing tunes about him.

397
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Speaker 2: Vasilis is also making international news. He isn't just famous

398
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 2: in Greece anymore. He's getting right ups in Jerusalem, in Dublin.

399
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Speaker 2: His story spreading to all corners of the globe. He

400
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 2: has complete control over the narrative and if you're the police,

401
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 2: you're losing badly. And in what better way to regain

402
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 2: control of the narrative than Trump up charges against him

403
00:28:56,600 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 2: to claim that his fingerprints are on a bomb that

404
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 2: killed an sent father of two.

405
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Speaker 1: I mean, it is weird that police claim to have

406
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: found a bunch of Vasilis's fingerprints, right, It's completely out

407
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Speaker 1: of character. By this point, he had been committing crimes

408
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: for two decades. We know he was very self conscious

409
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: about leaving fingerprints anywhere, let alone all over a package

410
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Speaker 1: containing a bomb. Vasilis's old mentor, Costa Samaras says, a

411
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: student of his would never make such an amateur mistaken.

412
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Speaker 4: I don't believe that Vasilis was so stupid that he

413
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 4: would leave his finger printed the envelope. If he wanted

414
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 4: to get involved with terrorism, he would do it his

415
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 4: own ways. Remember, they never found half of the million

416
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:57,480
Speaker 4: nso with three or four million euros, he could organize

417
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 4: an army to overthrow the government within a wiki she wanted.

418
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Speaker 1: The point is, in the eyes of the public, Vasilis's

419
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Speaker 1: guilt is not unanimous. During our reporting, we ran into

420
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 1: people who've called Vasilis a murderer, others who have called

421
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: him a saint. But in the absence of a smoking gun,

422
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 1: it may just be a matter of whose story you

423
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Speaker 1: want to believe the most. Chapter five, Back in the mountains.

424
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Speaker 3: We're in Kipselli, the village where Vasilis was allegedly cited

425
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 3: a few weeks ago, and Christos has brought us to

426
00:30:49,440 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 3: this taverna. It's a humble place with kind of log

427
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 3: cabin vibes. There's wood paneling everywhere, and all the tables

428
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 3: have legs made from old branches. On the there's a

429
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 3: big painting of a bear hunt. It's only one pm,

430
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,120
Speaker 3: but Christos insists on ordering us chubulo, which is basically

431
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:12,480
Speaker 3: kind of a Greek brandy. We're alone except for a

432
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 3: guy sitting with a big play of pasta by the bar.

433
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 3: It's the owner, and he's also sipping a tall glass

434
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:20,640
Speaker 3: of liquor. And since it's just us, I figure it's

435
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 3: safe to ask whether he knows anything about the sighting

436
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 3: of Acillus. And well, he gets very angry very quickly.

437
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 3: You know, don't get us involved with Balogostas, he says.

438
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 3: He starts measuring me up. What kind of business do

439
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:38,520
Speaker 3: we have with him? And for the next five minutes,

440
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 3: everything that comes out of this man's mouth is just

441
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 3: spiked with scorn. He's cursing words that I've never even

442
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 3: heard before, and he starts mocking us. He's like, oh,

443
00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 3: I'll just give you an interview about Ballogosta's like we're

444
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 3: the best of friends. He turns to Christos, our guide,

445
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 3: and he's like shaking his fists, cursing him, telling him,

446
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 3: you know, we shouldn't go anywhere near this story. What

447
00:31:57,760 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 3: do we have to do with this story? But after

448
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 3: a few minutes of yelling, he kind of mellows out

449
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 3: a little bit and starts to soften. Let me make

450
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 3: you understand something, little boy. He says, right now, Vacilli

451
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 3: is out because the cops don't want to find him.

452
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 3: I know it for certain. They have thermal cameras, they

453
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 3: can do whatever they want, but they don't find him

454
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 3: because they don't want to. And before we can ask

455
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 3: him why he thinks this, he continues, Besides, even if

456
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:25,920
Speaker 3: someone wants to tell you something, they won't. They won't

457
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 3: tell you anything. You might run into someone who knows him,

458
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 3: but will they tell you anything. No. I kind of

459
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 3: get the impression that this guy could be speaking about

460
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 3: himself here, but it's hard to know. Is he saying

461
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 3: people won't speak up because they're lords of Vasilis or

462
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 3: is it because they're afraid of him?

463
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 5: Bows?

464
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 7: Did KiB selmod wl Ganlana?

465
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 4: Did good? Look mab dura.

466
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,960
Speaker 3: We get back in the car and continue onward towards

467
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 3: the hiker's shelter that Christos runs and owns, and he

468
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 3: wants to give us a lay of the land to

469
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 3: show us what hiding in these mountains actually takes. As

470
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 3: we drive up, Christos keeps making calls to people who

471
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 3: each refuse to meet with us. We make a pit

472
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 3: stop at a local pharmacy and you know, we ask

473
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 3: a couple of guys if they know by look Orstats.

474
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 3: They shake their heads as if to say, no, this conversation,

475
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 3: it's not happening. The thing is, when we took this

476
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 3: trip out to Kip Silly, I half thought these rumors

477
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 3: of us Illis hiding in these mountains were you know,

478
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 3: a little overblown, just more romantic law, like why would

479
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 3: Vasillis stay near his hometown when he has a world

480
00:33:34,960 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 3: to hide in. But so far everyone we've tried to

481
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 3: talk to has been evasive, like really evasive. And it

482
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 3: feels like the guy in the taverna was right, you

483
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 3: know that even if locals have something to say, they're

484
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 3: not going to spill secrets to an outsider. It just

485
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 3: feels like everyone here might know something. As we climb

486
00:33:57,280 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 3: up to the mountain refuge, the rain turns to hail,

487
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 3: The thickens and the wind roars. The road has like

488
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 3: turned to rubble every couple hundred of feet, Christs jumps

489
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 3: out the car to move giant rocks out of our way.

490
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 3: I feel trapped, you know. On one side is the

491
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 3: mountain face on the other side is a cliff, and

492
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 3: everything is shrouded in this, in this heavy fog.

493
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 4: She wants to in the car.

494
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:31,439
Speaker 3: Before long we've we've reached an altitude where the trees

495
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,800
Speaker 3: disappear and the dirt road is all rocks. Now finally

496
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 3: we reach a little stone hut, like a one story building,

497
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:40,759
Speaker 3: surrounded by a bank of snow, and I'm struck by

498
00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 3: just how isolated it is. Some people, you know, think

499
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 3: that Basillis is holding out strong in a cave or

500
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 3: camping in the woods, you know, or sheltered maybe in

501
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:52,359
Speaker 3: some remote hunting shack a little bit like this. But

502
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 3: being here as the first snowfalls, it strikes me how

503
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 3: hard it is to survive this place. That night, the

504
00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 3: car battery dies on us, and when we finally revive it,

505
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:10,759
Speaker 3: it starts storming hard. And now Christos is stepping out

506
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:14,320
Speaker 3: into what feels like a tornado, moving small boulders and

507
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 3: tree branches that have fallen across the road. So much

508
00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:21,840
Speaker 3: for not driving home in the dark, in the storm,

509
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:28,960
Speaker 3: in the middle of any to put it lightly, the

510
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:32,720
Speaker 3: drive home gets hairy, and it just hammers home the point,

511
00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:36,000
Speaker 3: you know, living out here takes goods it's not easy,

512
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 3: and I become convinced. If Vasilis is anywhere in the region,

513
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 3: it's not up on the mountain, it's in one of

514
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 3: the villages down below. The question is with.

515
00:35:47,480 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: Who Chapter six Greek Values. When Christina spoke to her

516
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:11,440
Speaker 1: anonymous source, they told her that Vasilis is never alone

517
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 1: and that he has managed to remain free because he

518
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:18,720
Speaker 1: has a network of people who help him. These people,

519
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 1: whoever they are, clearly provide him with shelter and transportation, and,

520
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 1: according to the source, a regular installment of money. But

521
00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:32,799
Speaker 1: even then there's the regular folk who don't help him,

522
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: who know he's around and keep their lips shut tight.

523
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:41,360
Speaker 1: And that's amazing to me. What makes this community so loyal,

524
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 1: Like why doesn't some poor farmer turn him in and

525
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:48,760
Speaker 1: cash in that million euro reward? Is he really that good?

526
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 1: Or are the police that incompetent.

527
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 3: I taught to a good number of people on this trip,

528
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 3: and they all told me a version of the same thing,

529
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 3: that this part of the country has been forgotten, that

530
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 3: nobody in power cares about the rural villages. People in

531
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 3: power seem to know this too. When we talk to

532
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:08,440
Speaker 3: the former prime minister George Papandreau.

533
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 7: He admitted it all the economic activity was very much

534
00:37:13,640 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 7: centralized here in Athens. That meant that in the countryside

535
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 7: they did not have much.

536
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 3: He said that government policies helped gut these areas.

537
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:29,319
Speaker 7: Things like health, things like education, social service and so on,

538
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 7: all centrally controlled, really starved the countryside. So this is

539
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,919
Speaker 7: I think a probably just has grown and grown over

540
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:40,400
Speaker 7: the years.

541
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:43,640
Speaker 3: The strange thing about talking to people in this region

542
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 3: is that, honestly, a lot of the people feel more

543
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:49,800
Speaker 3: proud of being from the region than the actual country.

544
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:54,000
Speaker 3: And usually Greeks love talking about being Greek, but up

545
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 3: here it seems a little different.

546
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: In reviewing the transcripts, there's a line that the deputy

547
00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 1: Minister Leftedis Economo said that's stuck with me, that Vasilis's

548
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:10,480
Speaker 1: protectors don't have Greek values. But I don't think that's

549
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 1: the problem. I think the problem is, after decades of

550
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: neglect and power struggles, nobody can agree on what those

551
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 1: Greek values are anymore. And to the people in this region,

552
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:26,720
Speaker 1: values mean sharing the little you have, providing for one another,

553
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:31,319
Speaker 1: the same values that might have inspired our robinhood, and

554
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 1: maybe that's why this idea of an entire community protecting

555
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: Vasilis in solidarity of not turning him in for the

556
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 1: million dollar reward seems so foreign to many of us.

557
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:47,279
Speaker 1: Throughout this podcast, there's been one nagging detail that has

558
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:51,520
Speaker 1: kept bugging me. We keep hearing stories of Vasilis being

559
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:55,240
Speaker 1: so benevolent that he steals cars and gives them back,

560
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:57,720
Speaker 1: that he throws money out the window as he drives

561
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:01,359
Speaker 1: away from the scene of the crime. These stories are

562
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: always secondhand, always coming from somebody who knew a guy

563
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 1: who had a brother who like we never got the

564
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:14,360
Speaker 1: story from the source, and after making seven episodes talking

565
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:17,759
Speaker 1: to dozens and dozens of people, hopes weren't high that

566
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 1: we'd ever find someone. That is until George and George

567
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 1: were on the mountain trip and they visited a little

568
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:27,720
Speaker 1: village not far from where us a least was spotted

569
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:30,919
Speaker 1: a place called Borgarelli.

570
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 3: So here in Burgarelli, I'm at a grocery store, or

571
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:41,000
Speaker 3: I should say the grocery store. One of her Stusag's

572
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 3: contacts told us you have to talk to the owner.

573
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 3: So we step inside and we meet this guy's like

574
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 3: a nice looking family man in his fifties, you know,

575
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 3: grayin hair, and when he starts talking, you know, he

576
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 3: seems quite guarded, timid, And by this point we're used

577
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:57,360
Speaker 3: to it, right, I mean, and I'm clearly not a local.

578
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:59,640
Speaker 3: I've got this giant microphone with me. I've got more

579
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 3: of my mum's britishness that my dad's greekness in me.

580
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 3: So I get it. But when I ask him about

581
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 3: this ballio Acostas, he perks up and starts telling us

582
00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 3: how Balo Costas stole his car and then gave it back.

583
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:18,440
Speaker 4: After king.

584
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:23,320
Speaker 3: He said he left his car parked outside his shop

585
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:25,880
Speaker 3: one night and went to get some coffee. When he

586
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 3: came back, the car was gone. He didn't see it anywhere,

587
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 3: so he's looking and looking, and he actually thought like

588
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,320
Speaker 3: am I drunk? And after a couple of days he

589
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 3: learned that Ballocostas probably took it. He says, Baalocostas was

590
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 3: off and around the area. He even came into the

591
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:45,120
Speaker 3: shop to the bakery, things like that. And apparently Blocostas

592
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 3: kept his car and after two years he returned it

593
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:51,919
Speaker 3: with a little note. Kind of jokingly, I asked, well,

594
00:40:52,239 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 3: did he ever say thank you? And he's said, obviously,

595
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:03,799
Speaker 3: you know, he even changed the oil. He's a gentleman,

596
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 3: all right.

597
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 5: Now.

598
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:08,200
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but like, I can't imagine

599
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:11,640
Speaker 1: having my car stolen for two years and then calling

600
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: the guy who took it a gentleman. I don't care

601
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 1: if he changed my oil or not.

602
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 3: You know, you can tell this this was a story.

603
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 3: The owner's performed a lot, like he really enjoys the

604
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:24,320
Speaker 3: fact that his car was stolen. And as people were walking,

605
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 3: you know, in and out of the shop, all of

606
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 3: them start chipping in, like remember when Vassilis did this

607
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 3: or when Vasillis did that? They all had something to add,

608
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:36,279
Speaker 3: including this one guy who starts telling this story. One

609
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:39,799
Speaker 3: day by Lookostas barges into a local farmer's house and

610
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 3: he's like, I'm hungry, slaughter one of your sheep and

611
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 3: feed it to me. And the guy's a little afraid,

612
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 3: so he plucks a sheep from his flock, slaughters it,

613
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:51,320
Speaker 3: cooks it, and feeds it to Vasilis. And after the meal,

614
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 3: as Vasillis is leaving his house, he passes a farmer

615
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:58,320
Speaker 3: who's selling clover. Vasilis buys the whole truckload and tells

616
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 3: the seller give all of this cloth to the guy

617
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 3: who showed me hospitality, so that the rest of his

618
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 3: flock can eat. The way he told the story, it

619
00:42:06,600 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 3: felt like something from a story book like this could

620
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:10,919
Speaker 3: have been a folk tale from centuries ago.

621
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:14,359
Speaker 1: The stories feel as if they are fables written by

622
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: Asap or straight from the ballads of Robin Hood himself.

623
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: The same man has one more tale to tell us

624
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 1: when we have never heard before. He claimed it was

625
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:30,399
Speaker 1: the real Paliocostas origin story.

626
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 3: This isn't written down, but it's a story that's gone

627
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:41,040
Speaker 3: around our community. Years ago, the agricultural bank took advantage

628
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 3: of Facility's sister. She took out a loan for a

629
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:45,799
Speaker 3: house in Trico Lab but it was a rotten loan

630
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:48,040
Speaker 3: and the bank system got ahold of her and started

631
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 3: milking her as they usually do.

632
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 5: So.

633
00:42:50,520 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 3: The first vengeful act of the Palocostas brothers was to

634
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 3: rob the Agricultural Bank of Trikala. That is where their

635
00:42:57,760 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 3: illegal activity started.

636
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 1: The bank was robbing their sister, so they robbed the

637
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:06,759
Speaker 1: bank back. It's such a simple story, but it had

638
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:10,840
Speaker 1: all the elements of a true folk tale. Heroes, villains,

639
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:17,920
Speaker 1: a quest a moral and at the end, poetic justice.

640
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 1: But it's not true, at least according to Vasilis's own accounts.

641
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 1: It is, however, the type of thing that makes us

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00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 1: want to believe, the type of thing we tell ourselves

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00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: over and over because it feels right for a man

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00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: we want to believe is a saint. It also harkens

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00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:42,120
Speaker 1: back to the original robinhood story, because Robin, like Vasili's,

646
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:46,319
Speaker 1: was leading a perfectly legal life until a bad debt

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00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: forces him to become an outlaw. The folk tales we

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00:43:56,280 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 1: tell ourselves now and the tales told centuries ago haven't

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00:44:00,520 --> 00:44:04,279
Speaker 1: changed much. The settings have been updated, but the heart

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00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: of these stories is timeless, because there are times when

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00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 1: we just need a hero. Our team has spent a

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00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 1: lot of time trying to get to the bottom of

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00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 1: the Vasilis story, to find the capital t truth, to

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00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:23,240
Speaker 1: find out if Vasilis is actually not just good at thieving,

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00:44:23,880 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 1: but a genuine good thief. But out here in these

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00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 1: villages those questions don't seem to matter to the people. Here,

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00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 1: Vasilis has become a symbol. He stands for this idea

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00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: that wrongs can be righted, hope that things can one

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00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: day be just, which isn't to say that Vasilis has

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00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: lived a normal life. The big things he's done are

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00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:54,200
Speaker 1: genuinely extraordinary, and his story has plenty of real overlap

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00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,279
Speaker 1: with Robinhood, which can make it hard to know what

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00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: to believe. Back when George was in the mountains, he

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00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,399
Speaker 1: told us that he got this eerie feeling, this sense

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00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,880
Speaker 1: that Vasilis could be hiding just down the block, and

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00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 1: when he mentioned it to the grocery store owner, the

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00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 1: gentleman agreed. In fact, he said it had happened before

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00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 1: the next second, Yes.

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00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, So as we're trading stories, he told us about

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00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 3: this one time that there was twenty cops, you know,

671
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:28,280
Speaker 3: swarming the village, and there Vasilis was in the middle

672
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 3: of it, all dressed as a priest, just smiling and

673
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 3: hiding in playing sights.

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00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:40,240
Speaker 1: I like that idea, Like, what if Vasilis was hiding

675
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 1: in plain sight. Maybe as we were running around town

676
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: he was chilling in a little chapel dressed up as

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00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 1: a hermit or a monk. It'd be a fitting move.

678
00:45:51,280 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 1: After all, that's something Robin Hood did too. The Good

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00:46:15,120 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 1: Thief is a Kaleidoscope production in partnership with iHeart Podcasts

680
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:22,719
Speaker 1: gets hosted by me Miles Gray. Our executive producers Our

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00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 1: mangesh Hetikutur Costas, Linos, Ozwaalishan and Kate Osborne from iHeart

682
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:33,800
Speaker 1: executive producers are Katrina Norvel and Nicki Etor. Our partners

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00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:37,840
Speaker 1: at the Greek Podcast Project. Our executive producer Daphne carnisis,

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00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 1: field producers Christina Bilioni and George Miatis, and sound designer

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00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:47,160
Speaker 1: Nikos Stavenikis, who provided the English voice of Kosa Samaras.

686
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: Mary Phillips Sandy is our supervising producer. Shane McKeon is

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00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: our producer. The show is written and researched by Lucas Riley,

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00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: fact checking by Donya Suleman, sound design and mix by

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00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:04,320
Speaker 1: Pran Band. Special thanks to Fani Scolias and Elini Cassimo.

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00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 1: This episode featured the voices of Yourgo Scattamihos and Rich Green.

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00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Imam Baldi with additional music

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00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: by Botany. Finally thanks to Will Pearson, Connell Byrne, Bob

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00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 1: Pittman and John Mary Napolis