Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, Saren Ware, you go, what do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: It is the time for the show. Yes I do.
Speaker 4: I was dreaming about it and I wanted to tell you. Okay,
Speaker 4: one of my interests is undergarments. Oh okay, dude, either
Speaker 4: the closest thing to you of your clothing?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Right, And I learned something new today about undergarments. And
Speaker 4: I'm not like reading about it all the time, but like,
Speaker 4: I try to keep a little facts and then I'm like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's interesting. Whale bones used to be used in bras.
Speaker 4: That's interesting, right, That's just interesting. Another bra fact while
Speaker 4: we're on the topic, turns out that, you know, the
Speaker 4: the clasp for the bra that hook designs like twelve
Speaker 4: year old boys have to practice with one hand on
Speaker 4: a Teddy bear to undo? Is that just me?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: Anyway, that clasp it was invented by who?
Speaker 2: Who?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: Who was invented by Elizabeth I give you.
Speaker 4: No, I give you a better guests. It was invented
Speaker 4: at the start or the end of the nineteenthentury early
Speaker 4: twentieth century. That period, I think who would be inventing stuff.
Speaker 2: Then child al capine.
Speaker 4: You know this person's name, Mark Twain.
Speaker 2: Mark Twain.
Speaker 4: Twain invented the modern clasp for the bra. We still
Speaker 4: using the clasp on the bra you're wearing now was
Speaker 4: invented by Mark Twain. Yes, wild right and ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I guess, thank you. Wow, that is ridiculous. So you're interested.
Speaker 2: I like how you said it was undergarments, but it's
Speaker 2: really bras No.
Speaker 4: No, like socks, all the whole thing, long underwear. I
Speaker 4: got opinions about all of it. You know this, I guess, dude. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the t tank tops. I mean, you name an undergarment
Speaker 4: I got.
Speaker 2: Opinion to, well, that is ridiculous.
Speaker 4: The lining of a like a sweatsuit. I'll give it
Speaker 4: my wetsuit lining. I got opinions about anything that touches.
Speaker 2: My skin touches you.
Speaker 4: We can't just be throwing anything on this. It is
Speaker 4: that's true. It is the integument.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 4: You know, we just recently found the second biggest organ recently,
Speaker 4: like in the last ten years, we have another organ
Speaker 4: that's all through our body.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the juice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go, the juice.
Speaker 2: So you know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 4: No, I'm out. That's it for.
Speaker 2: You, booze that costs more than a used Ford Taurus.
Speaker 2: What this is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and
Speaker 2: outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Damn right. Australia, Yeah, down Under.
Speaker 2: I can't stop telling stories about that fabulous land. Man.
Speaker 2: Did you know that gambling is legal in Australia?
Speaker 6: I did not, but you know, I'm not surprised Australians
Speaker 6: spend more money on online gambling than any other country
Speaker 6: on planet Earth.
Speaker 4: Really, yeah, why are they not known for this? Almost
Speaker 4: three you never hear about gambling as part of Aussie culture.
Speaker 2: It is clearly almost three quarters of Australian adults hit
Speaker 2: the tables and machines within like the last twelve months.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 7: And then more than the tables or machines within a year.
Speaker 4: I mean they're going to a place to be.
Speaker 2: And then more than a third of Aussi's gambled at
Speaker 2: least once a week. Wow, Yeah, I had, there's stuff.
Speaker 4: Apparently they're not good. No one else knows about this,
Speaker 4: not all, Like, hey, you should ask an Ozzie about that.
Speaker 2: All this work on, like trying to counter acts like
Speaker 2: gambling addictions, that stuff.
Speaker 4: There's got to be like corrosive.
Speaker 2: So there are some really nice like hotel casinos.
Speaker 4: There is a lot of money in Australia.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is.
Speaker 4: Everyone is gamming.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah it is. Yeah. So I mean think like
Speaker 2: there are Vegas style casinos these places.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, I'm imagining like the hard rock casino, Like
Speaker 4: the Seminoles are like.
Speaker 2: Eight hundred hard rock casinos. It's only that's the only
Speaker 2: kind that's allowed.
Speaker 4: They do they group them together like in Vegas Atlantic
Speaker 4: City kind of, or they're just sprinkled.
Speaker 2: Around, sprinkled around? Is my understanding? Correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Obvious one in Melbourne is the Crown
Speaker 2: Casino and it opened in nineteen ninety four right on
Speaker 2: the banks of this river. The whole place there's a
Speaker 2: casino and like three hotel towers and I think like
Speaker 2: a mall. It takes up more than one point five
Speaker 2: million square feet.
Speaker 4: It's a lot.
Speaker 2: It's a lot. It's like two city blocks.
Speaker 4: That's big.
Speaker 2: It's the largest casino complex in the Southern Hemisphere.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 2: And it's also one of the largest in the world. Okay, huge.
Speaker 2: Did you know that Keanu Reeves has stayed at the Crown?
Speaker 4: I did? He invited me. I was like, Kean, I can't.
Speaker 2: You know who else has stayed there? Your boyfriend Tom Cruise?
Speaker 4: Really?
Speaker 2: Yes, dude, Why.
Speaker 4: Are these guys not? Like they always tell me that
Speaker 4: I'm going to be there. I never believe them.
Speaker 2: That's like the place to stay when you're there.
Speaker 4: Into motorcycles and gambling.
Speaker 2: Tennis stars Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, they stayed there during
Speaker 2: the Australian Open.
Speaker 4: Yeah they never called me.
Speaker 2: Yeah they didn't. It's the real deal. It's five stars,
Speaker 2: super luck is what you're talking It's fancy pants.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is like Monico. Yeah, that's all five.
Speaker 2: Fingers, all four of my fingers. Even so, it has
Speaker 2: had its share of controversy. No, so, Chinese regulations wouldn't
Speaker 2: let Chinese citizens transfer more than like a set amount
Speaker 2: of money every year. So in that case, it's like
Speaker 2: fifty thousand US dollars or sixty nine point five thousand
Speaker 2: Australian dollars, is that.
Speaker 4: Transfer out of the country. It transferred to Australia, out
Speaker 4: of their country.
Speaker 2: And into another jurisdic So Section sixty eight of the
Speaker 2: Australian Casino Control Act makes it illegal to provide money
Speaker 2: or gaming chips in a transaction using a credit card
Speaker 2: or debit card, and that's intended to reduce money laundering
Speaker 2: promote responsible gambling.
Speaker 4: You have to have the cash.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like buying lotto tickets here,
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 4: That's hard. You don't want to have people draining their.
Speaker 2: Account or put it all on credit.
Speaker 4: To do at least one more step. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then Section one twenty four of the Casino Control
Speaker 2: Act requires casinos to retain specific accounting records regarding like
Speaker 2: how they handle their money so that the proper taxes
Speaker 2: are all done. Oh yes, Like basically, you can't charge
Speaker 2: something as one thing when it's another. So all three
Speaker 2: of those elements came together. The Crown Casino broke all
Speaker 2: those rules. So they were letting Chinese gamblers use something
Speaker 2: called a China Union Pay Bank card or Cup cup
Speaker 2: for gambling purposes, and they weren't using these directly for chips.
Speaker 2: They would get phony invoices for hotel services.
Speaker 4: It's like a credit line kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Money would know it would make it look like, oh,
Speaker 2: you paid for six Hamburgers.
Speaker 4: Through the hotel, so they're just like going, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: you got twelve.
Speaker 2: And then the Chinese gambler would pay the fake bill
Speaker 2: using their I.
Speaker 4: Got you and then they would be given the money
Speaker 4: for the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the staff gives them a voucher they
Speaker 2: can trade it in for casino chips. The head of
Speaker 2: Australian Gaming Commission, fran Thorne said quote Crown's cup procedure
Speaker 2: was a covert, purposeful scheme that violated the Casino Control
Speaker 2: Act and was also designed to help customers circumvent China's
Speaker 2: foreign currency conversion regulation.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they're trying to circumvented, at least to government exactly.
Speaker 2: So she also pointed out that Crown knew this was shady.
Speaker 4: Yeah they call.
Speaker 2: They still kept it.
Speaker 4: They came up away to get around it.
Speaker 2: They don't need no stinking regulations and they tried to
Speaker 2: cover it up.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: So in all, they processed about one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: four million Australian dollars in these payments and they made
Speaker 2: like thirty two million off of it.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so they got busted and they were fined
Speaker 2: eighty million Australian dollars for this scheme. Oh wow, And
Speaker 2: it wasn't their only tangle with the Gaming Commission.
Speaker 4: Did actual people who are involved actually go to jail
Speaker 4: or have to pay fine?
Speaker 2: They just paid fines and that wasn't even their biggest fine.
Speaker 2: Oh damn eighty million. So in twenty twenty two they
Speaker 2: got pinched, and this time for a bunch of violations.
Speaker 2: And it seems that like for more than ten years,
Speaker 2: they were letting patrons gamble for more than twenty four
Speaker 2: hours at a time without a break.
Speaker 4: How do you track that though?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but there's apparently this law you cannot
Speaker 2: cannot let someone.
Speaker 4: Get you need to go sleep, like you need.
Speaker 2: To go get some water. Think about what you've done.
Speaker 2: They also were letting gamblers use these plastic picks to
Speaker 2: hold down machine buttons. It's like, you know how you
Speaker 2: see people at like video poker, which the Ausies call
Speaker 2: pokey machines, or like slot machines where there to hit
Speaker 2: them all quick.
Speaker 4: I've gone to yeah casinas with my family members.
Speaker 2: It's that and the picks. They let people play multiple
Speaker 2: machines at a time as well. Yeah, so in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: the Crown was told, hey, listen, you got to stop
Speaker 2: giving people button picks. This is their you have to
Speaker 2: take steps to make sure that people stop using them.
Speaker 2: And there the crowd's like, hmm okay, no they didn't.
Speaker 2: And so Franz Thorne, right, she steps up, she said quote.
Speaker 2: For a long time, Crown had promoted itself as having
Speaker 2: the world's best approach to problem gambling. Nothing could be
Speaker 2: further from the truth. Like what casinos like, I'm going
Speaker 2: to take care of problem gambling. No, they're of course,
Speaker 2: they're like, come hide under my coat. You're refined. Get
Speaker 2: in here. So for those two violations, the extended play
Speaker 2: periods and the pick action, they got two fines. They
Speaker 2: got twenty million for the picks, yeah, and one hundred
Speaker 2: million for the all day play. Wow, that was the
Speaker 2: maximum penalt million.
Speaker 4: They got two million in fine.
Speaker 2: Tundred million in fines, and the casino they released this
Speaker 2: statement quote, we are genuinely remorseful for the failings of
Speaker 2: the past, and we're committed to becoming a world leader
Speaker 2: in the delivery of safe and responsible gaming and entertainment.
Speaker 2: The recently appointed new leadership team at Crown is driving
Speaker 2: a whole of company transformation program designed to uplift the
Speaker 2: culture and build a better crown which exceeds the expectation
Speaker 2: of our shareholders.
Speaker 4: I love the valley girl who works in the Australian
Speaker 4: gaming industry.
Speaker 2: Right. They are in cities, They're everywhere. They're so hard
Speaker 2: to get away from. You know, they get these communications,
Speaker 2: this degree, they go wing top consulting. Next thing you know,
Speaker 2: they're running crowds. See they're like I graduated from Irvine
Speaker 2: and here I am okay. So you know that if
Speaker 2: they were hit with these kind of fines and they
Speaker 2: just kept rolling that they're taking in a ton of
Speaker 2: money in every amount. Yeah, casinos are basically money printing operations.
Speaker 2: Like there's no way to lose money when you own
Speaker 2: a casino.
Speaker 4: Well, some people have found a way, Elizabeth. There's like
Speaker 4: this one guy he found in Atlantic.
Speaker 2: City, some guys. Yeah, so they had a crazy stick
Speaker 2: up there was on August twenty it did a crowned.
Speaker 4: So people are like, oh, man, I gotta rob that.
Speaker 2: They have so much money, let's do this. August twentieth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. Recently, recently, Thomas Mangoes who made me
Speaker 2: think of that commercial that runs during football. I Am yours.
Speaker 4: Mango Bring Back.
Speaker 2: He had a pretty serious gambling addiction and he'd been
Speaker 2: gambling at the Crown Casino for like sixteen hours. I
Speaker 2: have gambling mango problems. Yeah, so he sixteen hour run,
Speaker 2: that's insane. Yeah, And at around five am he walks
Speaker 2: up to the cashier in the Mahogany room and he
Speaker 2: pulled out a gun and don't worry, it was a
Speaker 2: toy gun, but the cashier didn't cashier didn't know it.
Speaker 2: And he says, give us your hundreds. He tells her,
Speaker 2: and the cashier she starts handing over them honeys while mangoes.
Speaker 2: He's like shoving the bundles into his jacket, but he's
Speaker 2: like calm, He's calmly doing this, calm the whole time.
Speaker 2: What if he was wearing one of those like photographer's vests.
Speaker 2: The tourists were all, but he wasn't doing like the
Speaker 2: frandic hand it over. In all, he gets one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty six thousand dollars in hundreds.
Speaker 4: Out of one hundred, had big pocket from a table.
Speaker 2: He had from a cashier. Oh right, Yeah, so he
Speaker 2: walks out of the casino, hails a cab and takes
Speaker 2: him too.
Speaker 4: For he walks out after doing this, huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, walks out, grabs a cab. He goes to Footscray,
Speaker 2: which is a suburb of Melbourne. You say, so he
Speaker 2: tips the driver seven hundred dollars, which is like really
Speaker 2: nice of him, but that's not the best way to
Speaker 2: avoid attention.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 2: And so from there he goes to Geelong. And this
Speaker 2: is a city on the other end of corey O Bay.
Speaker 2: It's like a big city in its own right, not
Speaker 2: really a suburb of Melbourne. So in Geelong he checked
Speaker 2: into a hotel under a false NAMEID. Then he shaved
Speaker 2: off his mustache. I forgot to tell you as mustache.
Speaker 2: He cut his hair. I forgot to tell you it
Speaker 2: had hair, hair and anyone out and he got tattoos.
Speaker 4: So you also forgot to tell me he had no tattoos.
Speaker 2: This is exactly why why am how I got all
Speaker 2: my tattoos? Job cover up?
Speaker 4: Seriously, his idea is that he's going to have these tattoos,
Speaker 4: and like, clearly I can't be that guy because I've
Speaker 4: got all this press police.
Speaker 2: He's really fresh covered up in the plastic.
Speaker 4: Don't touch that, it's healing.
Speaker 2: He gets all this done, he's a new man.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 2: He goes to sky City Casino in Adelaide, he says,
Speaker 2: and he checked in under a fake name, spent two
Speaker 2: weeks there, and in that time he turned over more
Speaker 2: than a million dollars, but he lost almost one hundred
Speaker 2: and one thousand, so he only has like, wait, out
Speaker 2: of his one hundred and thirty six thousand, he loses
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand, nine hundred.
Speaker 4: Dollars, and in the meantime he builds up to a
Speaker 4: million and gets back down exactly. So he makes he's
Speaker 4: got like twenty grand something. He's like exactly.
Speaker 2: So, ye, he's left like thirty six thousand dollars September
Speaker 2: twenty seventh. And remember he pulled this job on August twentieth.
Speaker 2: He turned himself into police.
Speaker 4: He just had to get this jag out.
Speaker 2: His defense was that he had PTSD after a video
Speaker 2: shop that he owned since nineteen ninety burned down after
Speaker 2: an armed robbery in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 7: So two decades later, yeah, he's likely also, he's like,
Speaker 7: and then seven years after that, my marriage fell apart
Speaker 7: and I got divorced in two thousand and that was
Speaker 7: just all too much for me.
Speaker 2: So twenty two years later, I'm going to pull this
Speaker 2: weird oh hic.
Speaker 4: I had to like act it out, get it out
Speaker 4: of my system. I'm going to wash that pt sest
Speaker 4: out of my hair.
Speaker 2: You know what, your ghost, You demonstrated remorse. You show
Speaker 2: some shame, and we love shame.
Speaker 4: Oh, we do love the shame.
Speaker 2: And so he ordered him to serve non parole period
Speaker 2: of three years, basically probation.
Speaker 4: So he's just out, just out, just be a cautionary
Speaker 4: tale telling people about.
Speaker 2: There said quote, all of this behavior endorses the fantasy
Speaker 2: world and surreal nature of the entire event.
Speaker 4: So I don't even understand what that means.
Speaker 2: There were bigger let's criminal elements at this casino though,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. So in twenty twenty one, so this is
Speaker 2: before the stick up, the Finkelstein Report was released, and
Speaker 2: it's a six hundred and fifty two page document on
Speaker 2: an inquiry into whether the Crown Casino should be able
Speaker 2: to keep its gambling license six hundred pages, six hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty two pages.
Speaker 4: And then can you imagine the movie Martin Scorsese can
Speaker 4: make out of that six hundred page report.
Speaker 2: I'd love this. It's like an upside down casino. So
Speaker 2: it just ripped into the Crown for all sorts of
Speaker 2: illegal activities. There's a list in the document. I'll give
Speaker 2: you some choice. Once they facilitated millions of dollars of
Speaker 2: money laundering. They allowed operators with links to organize crime
Speaker 2: to arrange for junket players to gamble at the casino.
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 2: One of the quotes, for many years Crown Melbourne has
Speaker 2: engaged in conduct that is, in a word, disgraceful. They
Speaker 2: called it illegal, dishonest, unethical, exploitative. They said they have
Speaker 2: the catalog of wrongdoing is alarming, but more so because
Speaker 2: it was engaged in by a regulated entity totally.
Speaker 4: And when you've gone past litany into catalog, this thing
Speaker 4: just goes hard.
Speaker 2: And then they bring up the whole China stuff. And
Speaker 2: so the report recommended that they be put under a
Speaker 2: special manager for two years and that would let them
Speaker 2: keep their license to operate, but they'd have to make
Speaker 2: major changes, and they did. They got an all new
Speaker 2: board and senior staff, and then they brought in a
Speaker 2: different inspector to monitor whether the money laundering the loan
Speaker 2: sharking and the drug deals were still going on.
Speaker 4: We'll do whatever as long as printing machine running.
Speaker 2: It looks like they're in full operation right now. Click
Speaker 2: and they might be riding the ship. But they're still
Speaker 2: underwatched from the government, but you wouldn't know it from
Speaker 2: their website. It's business as usual. So let's hold up,
Speaker 2: wait a minute for some ads, and do go there
Speaker 2: because I am with it. When we come back, I'll
Speaker 2: explain how the forementioned activities are not the most ridiculous
Speaker 2: crimes up in there.
Speaker 9: Nice all right, Zaron, good eye, Elizabeth.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I'm getting in the mood.
Speaker 2: Crown Casino. Crown Casino, So a lot of hanky shesh
Speaker 2: has gone down there, and maybe they've been able to
Speaker 2: smooth things out.
Speaker 4: What I'm saying is, let's give them the benefit of
Speaker 4: the doubt.
Speaker 2: Suomie, Crowned Casino, That's what I'm saying. Here's a quick question.
Speaker 2: Apropos of nothing, Yes, I love those. How much do
Speaker 2: you think the world's most expensive cocktail is?
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, what how much is the world's most expensive
Speaker 4: cocktail tail? This is like one of the things like whoa,
Speaker 4: we put real gold in there whatever. Oh, it's not
Speaker 4: about the actual research that okay. So I'm imagining how
Speaker 4: much would it cost to make a really fine drink
Speaker 4: five for I don't know, a few grand.
Speaker 2: Twelve thousand, five hundred Australian dollars. And that's back in
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen. You were close.
Speaker 4: No, I was more than seven at all. That's like
Speaker 4: three times is what I was saying.
Speaker 2: More than seventeen thousand dollars American today in the Year
Speaker 2: of Our Lord twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: I like how generous you were, Like, you were close, Elizabeth.
Speaker 4: If the speed limit was twenty five or.
Speaker 2: You would have said forty dollars, I would have been like,
Speaker 2: you're close.
Speaker 4: H You're really close. I was like, imagine if someone's
Speaker 4: going seventy five and a twenty five mile an hour
Speaker 4: like zone, that's how far away I was. It's three
Speaker 4: times more anyway, I mean says this is like.
Speaker 2: That's what the most expensive cocktail. It's in the Guinness
Speaker 2: Book of World Records.
Speaker 4: Why is it so expensive?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you it was made on February seventh, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 4: It's made is not constantly being made.
Speaker 2: By a man named Joel Heffernan.
Speaker 4: This is like the biggest cocktail ever made?
Speaker 5: Is that?
Speaker 2: It is the Giants swimple?
Speaker 4: Yeah, the whole town in Milwaukee help make this.
Speaker 2: Yes, how do you know Joel worked as a bartender
Speaker 2: slash mixologist?
Speaker 8: Oh?
Speaker 4: I love that term.
Speaker 2: I know what do you do?
Speaker 4: And you're liked?
Speaker 2: You just hit me in the face. It's at a
Speaker 2: place called Club twenty three. And as you've probably guessed,
Speaker 2: the Club twenty three was located inside the Crown Casino.
Speaker 4: Okay, there we go. So is that for Jordan because
Speaker 4: he's a big gamblers Club twenty three Michael Jordan. But
Speaker 4: all that is gambling, it's not about sports at all. Yes,
Speaker 4: they're like his pictures of him and other casinos and
Speaker 4: then him.
Speaker 2: Leaving the NBA.
Speaker 5: Why so.
Speaker 2: Uh it's still this is still listed as the world's
Speaker 2: most expensive cocktail ever sold. Okay, And in this world
Speaker 2: of TikTok excess for drink videos, no one has tried
Speaker 2: to unseat it.
Speaker 4: Really, even all those glow Gold schlogger people.
Speaker 2: Apparently. So the pre the Vius world record for a
Speaker 2: single cocktail was held by Salvator's legacy. Okay, and that
Speaker 2: drink was developed by famous. I guess to like booze
Speaker 2: aficionados and hospitality folks. This famous guy, Salvatore Calibres.
Speaker 4: Oh, Salvatory Calibreci, Elizabeth, you tell me you don't know
Speaker 4: sal Calibre.
Speaker 2: He made it. He made Salvatores legacy.
Speaker 8: Can you say that?
Speaker 2: I love saying it with Claude des Griffier view Coniac
Speaker 2: from seventeen seventy eight.
Speaker 4: Like I know what that is?
Speaker 2: That drink Conaksting sold for fifty five hundred pounds in
Speaker 2: October twenty twelve at the Playboy Club in London. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: funny story about that cocktail when Salvatory tried to make
Speaker 2: it for the world record in July of that year,
Speaker 2: like things went south. Oh that bottle of seventeen seventy
Speaker 2: eight cognac, which was worth about like fifty thousand pounds
Speaker 2: at the time. Are you yeah, got dropped the bottle?
Speaker 2: Days someone dropped the bottle and he was going to
Speaker 2: like open it to poor to make the cocktail, and
Speaker 2: she's wetting to stop the is what Salvatory said. Quote
Speaker 2: when something gets smashed into a bar, it's normally cleaned
Speaker 2: up straight away, but in this case, everyone just stood
Speaker 2: looking at the puddle for ten minutes. Should we try
Speaker 2: to sponge it up and filter the liquid? We mopped
Speaker 2: it up in the end. Funnily enough, the bartender who
Speaker 2: cleaned it away was stopped by police on his way
Speaker 2: home and asked if he'd been drinking just freaked so salvatory.
Speaker 4: He put on, you didn't have any like real alcoholics, Like,
Speaker 4: I got a tow, Let me get on a straw.
Speaker 4: Would like the put like.
Speaker 2: A cigarette filter at the end of the straw in a.
Speaker 4: Little red cocktail straws like they're sipping on like a
Speaker 4: Roy Rogers.
Speaker 2: So Salvatory. He like takes the shards of the bottle
Speaker 2: and he puts it in this glass cabinet that also
Speaker 2: holds like more than a million dollars worth of vintage kgnacs.
Speaker 2: So anyway, are kidding?
Speaker 4: That's like putting the four hundred and fifty million dollars
Speaker 4: in Leonardo da Vinci painting on a yacht, Like why
Speaker 4: would you put all that there? I mean, you're just
Speaker 4: asking gravity do it. Gravity.
Speaker 2: When he actually made the drink, he got his hands
Speaker 2: on another bottle of this stuff, and so then he
Speaker 2: made he makes the tipple with the Kognak, a seventeen
Speaker 2: seventy bottle of Kumel liqueur, an eighteen sixty dub orange currosow,
Speaker 2: and a tiny bottle of nineteenth century anguester of bitters. Okay,
Speaker 2: so back to the Crown. Yeah, February of twenty thirteen,
Speaker 2: the Crown sends out this press release. It crowed about
Speaker 2: how like this New Zealand millionaire has agreed to pay,
Speaker 2: you know, twelve and a half thousand dollars for the Winston.
Speaker 2: The Winston, that's what the cocktail was called, the prescos Nuts.
Speaker 2: There's all these like breathless articles about this obscenely decadent
Speaker 2: and ostentatious drink, and they're all it's all over the
Speaker 2: media in Australia and then like food and drink publications
Speaker 2: around the world. Sure, so what's in the Winstone?
Speaker 4: What is in the Winston?
Speaker 2: Elizabe, I'll tell you. It's made with eighteen fifty eight
Speaker 2: vintage kroy Say couve leone Cognac.
Speaker 4: And by the way, when you're saying all this stuff,
Speaker 4: I got some of the words. I know something I don't,
Speaker 4: But the eighteen fifty that is the year, and not
Speaker 4: like some name for.
Speaker 2: That's the year that's from. And I gotta say, I'm
Speaker 2: saying these words. I don't know them. Yeah they mean nothing,
Speaker 2: sounds like you. No, they don't.
Speaker 4: No much more than in there. You don't want to
Speaker 4: hear me, try it?
Speaker 2: Okay. So this is this, this eighteen fifty eight, that's
Speaker 2: the same cognac that Winston Churchill and Twight D. Eisenhower
Speaker 2: sipped when planning the D Day landings. I imagine them
Speaker 2: like drinking black coffee as they ponder the fate of
Speaker 2: Europe in the free world. The hands imagine brave Allied soldiers. No,
Speaker 2: they're sipping on yak and just like looking at each
Speaker 2: other all the crazy their.
Speaker 4: World leaders debating something that may be the end of
Speaker 4: the world. You're gonna have coffee stuff you can.
Speaker 2: Find or steal. The fun fact about that batch of
Speaker 2: conyak is also the cognac that was stocked on the Titan.
Speaker 4: Okay, So, like, are you thinking about crossing the Atlantic?
Speaker 4: I've got the Kodiac for you.
Speaker 2: So you've got that quisette cognac dating back to eighteen
Speaker 2: fifty eight, it's already a world record holder because a
Speaker 2: bottle was valued at one hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: That is nuts And they're like, there too, two nips
Speaker 2: of that are in this drink and that's normally it's
Speaker 2: normally six thousand a shot. Yeah, there's.
Speaker 4: I've owned less than that. Shop.
Speaker 2: Then there's gramoy A quintessence. Total Wine and More describes,
Speaker 2: as the quote, a premier blend of extremely rare cognacs,
Speaker 2: some over one hundred years old, sourced exclusively from Grand
Speaker 2: to Champagne, the most prestigious growing region of cognac. Double
Speaker 2: distilled wild tropical orange essence and aged in French oak casks,
Speaker 2: limited annual release.
Speaker 4: Very nice. What did BEVMO have to They wouldn't comment
Speaker 4: the orange cat. I've never heard of orange cast. That's nice, yeah, but.
Speaker 2: Like that's Gremoier is orange?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, of course the flavor. I just hadn't thought
Speaker 4: about orange cast. I was like, oh, that's great, and
Speaker 4: so no oak casts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you say they're orange, tropical orange essence, French
Speaker 2: oak cast.
Speaker 4: About that orange, I imagine the essence inside of the cast. Yeah,
Speaker 4: we've oiled the cast.
Speaker 2: Probably did. Don't trust me.
Speaker 4: My imagination is probably wrong.
Speaker 2: Diaper, Total Wine and More will sell you a bottle
Speaker 2: right now, cash on the barrel head for nine ninety
Speaker 2: nine dollars ninety nine cents. No, no thank you, no
Speaker 2: thank you. Next up Shartruse VP. They don't sell that
Speaker 2: at Total Wine and More. In fact, I had I
Speaker 2: had trouble finding an English language website that would talk
Speaker 2: about it. I did find one, though, and it reads quote,
Speaker 2: this specially matured version of green Shartruse is aged for
Speaker 2: at least eight years in oak vats, the initials VP
Speaker 2: stand for and I'm about to mess this one up
Speaker 2: vielles mont, except in Almont meaning exceptionally long aged. The
Speaker 2: individually numbered wax sealed bottles used are identical to those
Speaker 2: used in eighteen forty. Appearance clear pale, lime green with
Speaker 2: flecks of golden yellow aroma, herbaceous pine forest, with nasal cleaning, angelica, spearmint,
Speaker 2: aniseed and tobacco nasal cleaning. Taste slightly syrupy sweet, but
Speaker 2: with such earthy spirit pungent flavors that the sugar has
Speaker 2: a welcome taming effect.
Speaker 4: Earth and sweet.
Speaker 2: Cleansing, antiseed, peppermint, spearmint, angelica, lime, peel, tobacco, ginger root,
Speaker 2: and turmers.
Speaker 4: It's got everything.
Speaker 2: The aftertaste is called zy pine and peppermint fresh with
Speaker 2: enlivening cracked black pepper.
Speaker 4: If you ever wanted to drink just.
Speaker 2: To eat the forest floor. Yeah, and then while a
Speaker 2: fairy peas on there, it is down' have like a
Speaker 2: dash of anguster of bitters in there because apparently you
Speaker 2: can't do it. And then that comes from you know,
Speaker 2: Trinidada drink. Yeah, and then but I'm sure that that
Speaker 2: those particular ones are like super fancy under the light
Speaker 2: of the harvest moon, like a bed of hibiscus flowers
Speaker 2: or something. And to top it all off, the drink
Speaker 2: has a pop rocks rim and a slink gym swizzle stick.
Speaker 4: What they turned it into a kid's that's.
Speaker 2: For my imaginary pina colade of.
Speaker 4: Bread bowls, Like are you kidding this?
Speaker 2: This drink has a presentation of chocolate, nutmeg dust, essence
Speaker 2: of poppy seed, yeah, tele rim now, essence of poppy
Speaker 2: seed and roses, hints of coconut, passion flower and oranges.
Speaker 2: So the hints are just like it winks at it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we put we put the passion fruit on the
Speaker 4: same count.
Speaker 2: Comes in a cut crystal glass with a diamond encrusted stirstick,
Speaker 2: and it takes the bartender two days to make the
Speaker 2: twelve five hundred dollars drink.
Speaker 4: So I gotta ordered on Thursday for the weekend.
Speaker 2: It's like a crazy soufle. I have no idea what
Speaker 2: he's doing that whole time, but I think he needs
Speaker 2: help with time management.
Speaker 4: I mean, like I thought there was like you've seen
Speaker 4: some of those Japanese bartenders where they have like they
Speaker 4: make the drink with the cube and on fire and
Speaker 4: all this. I'm like, no, I just want to drink
Speaker 4: like this guy's like two days, we've.
Speaker 2: Had an anvil down in the basement.
Speaker 4: He's got to crystal the drink that was really close.
Speaker 2: To my drink that I call Elixir of the Gods.
Speaker 2: It's a drink that is sugar free lemonade and pineapple
Speaker 2: juice on the rocks.
Speaker 4: You keep talking about this is it good?
Speaker 2: So what does the Winston taste like?
Speaker 4: Money?
Speaker 2: Money?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: I was trying to think of someone who could walk
Speaker 2: us through it, and then I remembered that our ridiculous
Speaker 2: crime bar keep in the basement saloon. Yeah, he'd be
Speaker 2: the perfect person to tell us all I did. Come
Speaker 2: on in and Rascal Jack, it's good to see you,
Speaker 2: and you brought your parrot that plays the steel drunk.
Speaker 4: You can't sit there, No, it's fine.
Speaker 2: You're gonna us a song.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, let me tell you that a little drink
Speaker 4: called the Winston.
Speaker 8: It's a little bit doney, it's a little bit short, drenk.
Speaker 8: If you give me more, I might get sick. You
Speaker 8: put a little in a cup. Go ahead and put
Speaker 8: a little more in that cup. I need to get drunk.
Speaker 8: I just spent twelve thousand dollars on a drink. Have
Speaker 8: you ever felt like you've been getting ripped off? My friends?
Speaker 8: Just remember there's a guy who's been twelve contail.
Speaker 5: You know what.
Speaker 8: This isn't enough, zaren. I want you to close your eyes.
Speaker 4: And picture it.
Speaker 2: You heard the man, You heard the man clothes. It's
Speaker 2: February seventh, twenty thirteen. You are a bar back at
Speaker 2: Club twenty three at the Crown Casino. The place has
Speaker 2: been a buzz for days now in anticipation of the
Speaker 2: creation of the world's most expensive cocktail ever sold. The
Speaker 2: place is packed mostly with reporters, but also with high
Speaker 2: rollers and onlookers. Wanting to witness a gross display of excess.
Speaker 2: People chat and laugh as swanky, down tempo early ats
Speaker 2: ambient music fills the air. It's all very zero seven.
Speaker 2: You make your way from table to table, picking up
Speaker 2: empty glasses and wiping down surfaces. Your neat uniform of
Speaker 2: crisp black dress shirt, black slacks, and shined up black
Speaker 2: dress shoes adequately hides all the booze you spill on
Speaker 2: yourself or that's spilled on you. Through the evening, this
Speaker 2: place is full of the same people every night, rich
Speaker 2: middle aged guys and shiny suits and slick back hair,
Speaker 2: drinking expensive scotch their dates, wispy women half their age
Speaker 2: and sparkling slip dresses, sip champagne or martinis if they're
Speaker 2: trying to look sophisticated, and then other iterations of those folks.
Speaker 2: But there are a lot more people here tonight, a
Speaker 2: more diverse crowd. Of course, everyone's here to witness a
Speaker 2: world record being set. They want to see barman Joel
Speaker 2: Heffernan make the Winston for New Zealand millionaire James Manning.
Speaker 2: Joel's a good guy, and you know how nervous he
Speaker 2: is about this. He wants everything to go perfectly. This
Speaker 2: will push him into the ranks of the best in
Speaker 2: the biz, like Salvatore Calibraci or Rascal Jack. But the
Speaker 2: event was supposed to start twenty minutes ago, and there's
Speaker 2: no sign of James. Some pr folks walk by you
Speaker 2: briskly and they run into this vice president of VIP Services.
Speaker 2: He's got a guy with him that looks familiar. Oh
Speaker 2: that's Jang Win. He's a regular at the casino, doesn't
Speaker 2: come into the bars or clubs much. He has a
Speaker 2: suite here that he sometimes lives in. You heard he's
Speaker 2: part owner of the Geelong Football Club. Win is not
Speaker 2: dressed for the occasion. He's wearing old sandals and a
Speaker 2: grubby shirt, and he looks like he just woke up.
Speaker 2: The vice president of Vip Services. He escorts when to
Speaker 2: the bar, putting him right where James Manning was supposed
Speaker 2: to stand. The crowd and the staff mutter to each other,
Speaker 2: looking around in confusion. The music lowers and Joel begins
Speaker 2: to mix the drink. It's a very dramatic affair. The
Speaker 2: crowd and their glad rags lean in to watch him
Speaker 2: expertly put the wiggles on a cocktail shaker. He pours
Speaker 2: the concoction into a special glass. He dusts it with
Speaker 2: some stuff, sprinkles drops of other stuff from a test
Speaker 2: tube and a dropper. First, Joel hands when the bill
Speaker 2: for the drink, Newenn signs it without even looking at it.
Speaker 2: Fall or move, you think. Then Joel slides the cocktail
Speaker 2: across the rich, polished bar. Newenn looks irritated, like he
Speaker 2: has somewhere else to be. He checks his watch, The
Speaker 2: VIAP manager turns when to face the cameras both press
Speaker 2: and house, and Wind takes a sip of the cocktail.
Speaker 2: Everyone awaits his reaction. You've been wondering if James Manning
Speaker 2: would make a big show of it, raving about the
Speaker 2: complex flavors, or if he'd pose and pretend to be
Speaker 2: in deep thought, savoring the taste and thinking of the
Speaker 2: boys on Omaha Beach. Instead, you watches when puts the
Speaker 2: drink down, adjusts his shirt, and then walks out of
Speaker 2: the bar. The crowd is stunned. You are stunned. What
Speaker 2: just happened? And why wasn't James Manning here? I'm so confused, Jaren,
Speaker 2: I'm going to answer that question. I'm going to erase
Speaker 2: your confusion as soon as we get back from this break, Zarin.
Speaker 4: I'm still so confused to Elizabeth, I've been thinking about
Speaker 4: the entire commercial break better.
Speaker 2: He took one sip, so they just served the world's
Speaker 2: most expensive cocktail to the world's least interested casino cast
Speaker 2: one sip, sets it down, walks away. Why well, what
Speaker 2: was that about?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Is this a magic trick?
Speaker 2: James Manning? Why wasn't he there? Who is James James?
Speaker 2: Where are my pants? Who stole my pants?
Speaker 4: Why am I wearing your pants?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: Okay? So Manning he described himself as a quote substantial gambler.
Speaker 2: He's a whale. Okay, he's a property he was a
Speaker 2: property developer from New Zealand.
Speaker 4: And he was staying it doesn't it seem like hippos
Speaker 4: instead of whales should be the term for gamblers because
Speaker 4: whales are not known for a reading. But it's hippos.
Speaker 4: We always think it was like hu hippos, right, And
Speaker 4: that's like, oh, you don't want to mess with a hippo.
Speaker 4: You don't want to get in the water with the small.
Speaker 2: Fish in the pond and the whale comes in like
Speaker 2: was it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, never made sense to me anyway, Sorry, go on.
Speaker 2: He spends a lot of money there, he stay, he's
Speaker 2: staying at the casino February twenty thirteen. He's spending and
Speaker 2: he's winning lots and lots of money. So the casino
Speaker 2: reaches out to see if he wants to buy the
Speaker 2: world's most expensive cocktail of course, as long as you're here,
Speaker 2: And he's like, yeah, why not, So I'm down. And
Speaker 2: so he and his family had been staying there already
Speaker 2: for a couple of weeks. They're in like one of
Speaker 2: the high rollers swite.
Speaker 4: Sure, they have like their own cabana.
Speaker 2: And when he had his own VIP services person that
Speaker 2: was waid on accommodate his every win for our crew.
Speaker 4: So he liked to be a psychiatrists.
Speaker 2: He liked to play at the card tables. And I
Speaker 2: have to say I couldn't figure out exactly which game
Speaker 2: like they just talking.
Speaker 4: About or like game poker, Oh yeah, poker.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So the night like a lot of different games over
Speaker 4: in the Asian game.
Speaker 2: I think they have all sorts of yeah, so just
Speaker 2: card games.
Speaker 4: Okay, Poker's let's go with poker.
Speaker 2: So the night before this cocktail event. Manning's at the tables, right,
Speaker 2: He's at the high stakes tables, not the nickel slots,
Speaker 2: and he's on a roll and he's winning hand after hand,
Speaker 2: like and that kind of luck. Can't hold out like.
Speaker 4: Ten thousand hand minimum, that kind of table kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And but this is what makes him a whale. And
Speaker 2: so he's been having terrific luck though for a while
Speaker 2: he's just been raking it in, which is why the
Speaker 2: casino they were really eager to get him in on
Speaker 2: this cocktail stum spread some of the money around, get
Speaker 2: them away from the table off. But that night, so
Speaker 2: this is the night before, they have their eyes on
Speaker 2: chains on the floor as well as through the camera.
Speaker 2: At this point, there are more than two thousand cameras
Speaker 2: in this casino. It's a lot of cameras, and they're
Speaker 2: all like really HD like zoom in to all the
Speaker 2: stuff totally. I mean, they have like beta mass. So
Speaker 2: security noticed something. They are in colors erin so the
Speaker 2: cameras they were moving in like a weird way, and
Speaker 2: so they're watching James. They're watching James, but they see
Speaker 2: like on another camera is like zoomed in on the
Speaker 2: cards of the other players at his table. Oh yes,
Speaker 2: And the security officers weren't the ones doing the zooming,
Speaker 2: oh double. They used one of the cameras they did
Speaker 2: control to zoom in on James, and they thought they
Speaker 2: saw an ear piece and he he didn't wear a
Speaker 2: hearing aid that they were aware he got long hair.
Speaker 4: They saw, well, he can't.
Speaker 2: Quite make it out. So they watched him play eight hands,
Speaker 2: and he played him really quickly and they were all winners.
Speaker 2: And so then like he gets up and he retires
Speaker 2: to his luxury suite.
Speaker 4: Did she get that guy from casino with the cattle prod?
Speaker 2: The hammer? And security They keep their eyes on him
Speaker 2: the whole time as he goes back to the sweet
Speaker 2: they're trying to work out what was going on because
Speaker 2: they have all these high resolution cameras and it looked
Speaker 2: like someone had hacked the system and was relaying that
Speaker 2: information to James through an ear piece. Okay, and so
Speaker 2: he's using the casino's own system against it.
Speaker 4: And they can't like unzoom their cameras, like they have
Speaker 4: no control over those cameras. Like these people have.
Speaker 2: Hacked in deep, they've hacked indep and here he is,
Speaker 2: he's raging against the machine he's using it against. So
Speaker 2: there's this woman, Linda Hancock. She's a professor. She wrote
Speaker 2: a book about the Crown Casino, so she knows the place.
Speaker 2: She said that his winnings, all this winning, didn't draw
Speaker 2: attention right away because he's this big whale. You know,
Speaker 2: win big, bet big and like Pitt, you know what
Speaker 2: you're eventually the house is always going to win. This
Speaker 2: they tell themselves, she told Australian Broadcasting quote. The Crown
Speaker 2: Casino has about six or seven leer jets. It flies
Speaker 2: these VIPs in. So how it all works is that
Speaker 2: these people have a minder. The person had his family
Speaker 2: with him, so that's not uncommon either. They come in,
Speaker 2: they look after the family while the high roller gambles. Now,
Speaker 2: I would like to introduce you to someone else.
Speaker 4: Please, I love people.
Speaker 2: A casino consultant named Baron Stringfellow.
Speaker 4: What come on, that's a stringfellow.
Speaker 2: Look, it's so much better. He used to be based
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas, but now it looks like he operates
Speaker 2: out of Hiawatha, Kansas.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I'm fascinated by him. I am his and his
Speaker 2: amazing Barrenstringfellow Dot.
Speaker 4: Com website, I find the most interesting people.
Speaker 2: Here's some bio information from his website, and there's random capitalization.
Speaker 4: Oh, of course.
Speaker 2: Barn performed his first page show at the age of
Speaker 2: thirteen in nineteen seventy three. He is from Las Vegas, Nevada.
Speaker 2: He has been in casino as his profession for a
Speaker 2: bit less time than magic. I'm trying to give you
Speaker 2: the exclamation prints here. The two careers intertwined nicely into
Speaker 2: one amazing job. His combined works have been seen internationally
Speaker 2: and he may be the quote best kept secret in
Speaker 2: magic cheaters.
Speaker 4: Beware.
Speaker 2: Baron is an international casino scams expert and entertainer. Calls
Speaker 2: come in worldwide to solve casino crime and get Baron's
Speaker 2: insight into scams. Twenty years in tribal gaming, fifteen of
Speaker 2: those with our own consulting firm. We don't just train
Speaker 2: casino personnel, regulatory staff, and state federal government in a
Speaker 2: multitude of casino solutions. We enter train what intertrain events
Speaker 2: large and small flourish under Baron's application of sizzle. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so he uses magic to train casino folks in detecting
Speaker 2: fraud and implement tak best practices.
Speaker 4: I bet he's got great stories about how Penn and
Speaker 4: Teller are like dicks. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Probably one time he does seminars in Macau. Oh really yeah,
Speaker 2: one of his he's like a big name. One of
Speaker 2: his big topics is he says, so this is vicious
Speaker 2: activities and casinos, And like I said, he is fascinating
Speaker 2: and I would love to hear all of his stories.
Speaker 4: I would like to take a road trip with him.
Speaker 2: Be amazing. Anyway, So when they ask him about this heist,
Speaker 2: the press, they're like, who do we go to? We
Speaker 2: go to the number one guy, Barren Strings. So they
Speaker 2: talked to him. He said it took fewer resources than
Speaker 2: what you'd imagine for like an Ocean's eleven type.
Speaker 4: Thing, ocean thirteen type.
Speaker 2: Yeah quote, intercepting them the surveillance signals is simple as
Speaker 2: going down to a local radio shack. That's what he
Speaker 2: told Australian broadcast.
Speaker 4: He used radio shack. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 2: I wonder if there's still a radio shack in Iowas.
Speaker 4: I bet they're internationally too, though, Like you know, I
Speaker 4: hear that they.
Speaker 2: Maybe he still exists. I don't know, but I need
Speaker 2: to take one of them.
Speaker 4: I don't want to go there again.
Speaker 2: I know. So this is how he described the operation.
Speaker 4: Please quote.
Speaker 2: The player wears an earpiece that's fed information from an
Speaker 2: accomplice sitting somewhere in the casino or outside of it.
Speaker 2: This person would have access to the casino's surveillance feed
Speaker 2: and would be watching the action on the table. They
Speaker 2: would then relay the best plays and bets to the
Speaker 2: player and stringfellows and stuff like. This is actually like
Speaker 2: kind of common and that the casinos know about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but they don't report it because it would generate so
Speaker 2: much bad pr and encourage other people.
Speaker 4: Sure, I mean there's a lot of cheaters, and we
Speaker 4: see that this is usually the plan, which, yeah, how
Speaker 4: do you get eyes on whoever, either the dealer or
Speaker 4: your other opponents, and then how do you get into
Speaker 4: the person's ear or like with electronic like did he
Speaker 4: do it on their schedule?
Speaker 2: But the casinos they're like he said, quote, the problem
Speaker 2: with casinos is that they believe they are unbeatable, and
Speaker 2: we see over and over again that they are not unbeatable.
Speaker 2: If casinos would monitor for wireless transmissions, they would be
Speaker 2: able to thwart these plans on set.
Speaker 4: I bet because they have to use them themselves, that
Speaker 4: they can't use blocks.
Speaker 2: So the casino have clocks, like why would they not exactly,
Speaker 2: So the casino now knows what's going on. They know
Speaker 2: that Manning's up in his villa in Crown Towers, and
Speaker 2: they did the math and they figured out how much
Speaker 2: he'd taken them for. Okay, thirty three million dollars.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, buddy.
Speaker 2: So they head up there in the middle of the
Speaker 2: night and they gave him the boot what They kicked
Speaker 2: him out. They did not call the cops, They didn't
Speaker 2: beat it. They were like, sir, you need to leave.
Speaker 2: And he's like, my children are asleep. I don't care, sir,
Speaker 2: you need to leave.
Speaker 4: Isn't it a wild how? Like you can take the
Speaker 4: English culture and you get America, or you can get Canada,
Speaker 4: or you can get Australia. America were like, beat his
Speaker 4: ass Canada, Australia Like, well, sir, you need to get out.
Speaker 4: You can't be stealing, like we.
Speaker 2: Say, like you reach a certain threshold of money and
Speaker 2: consequences are different.
Speaker 4: I think that that guy, if he's not on the
Speaker 4: inside or doesn't have a lot of money, if he's
Speaker 4: just taking him for.
Speaker 2: A lo lot of money. He's a whale.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know though, I think I don't think
Speaker 4: this play goes in America.
Speaker 2: They did do something to him. They hit him with
Speaker 2: a withdrawal of license. Notice, yes, it meant that he
Speaker 2: couldn't come into the entire Crown complex, not even into
Speaker 2: the luxury shops.
Speaker 4: Darren, Wow, he can't do the shopping. He will know,
Speaker 4: And he.
Speaker 2: Said okay, and then he went back with his family,
Speaker 2: presumably to New Zealand.
Speaker 4: No duty free goods for you, that's it.
Speaker 2: Sorry, And so that's why he wasn't there to drink
Speaker 2: the world's most expensive cocktail ever. So he just taken
Speaker 2: the casino for thirty three million dollars and had been evicted.
Speaker 4: And Wynn knew this. That's why he takes the silly Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, the casino that he's another whale. They just grab
Speaker 2: another whale, only this one doesn't give a tinker's damn
Speaker 2: about a cocktail he just wanted to get. He's not
Speaker 2: even like his buddy, No, no, no, so like the
Speaker 2: casino made a deal with when and he you know,
Speaker 2: they said, you you signed for the drink and then
Speaker 2: we'll pay you back later.
Speaker 4: Are you kidding.
Speaker 2: And then the casino it turns out they never charged
Speaker 2: him for it in the first place, so technically no
Speaker 2: one paid for the world record, right, the casino just
Speaker 2: ate the cost.
Speaker 3: So was it?
Speaker 2: Is it the most expensive cocktail ever sold? Still holds
Speaker 2: the record when you go to the Guinness website to
Speaker 2: this day, it holds the record.
Speaker 4: I'm calling hijinks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. So anyway, the casino fired the VIP
Speaker 2: services manager that was someone to Manning and his family
Speaker 2: because the thoughts were that he was the one. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so Victoria Police they did confirm that they were
Speaker 2: involved in the investigation, even though they didn't receive a
Speaker 2: formal complaint. So there's nothing on file. Everything's on the
Speaker 2: hush hush and.
Speaker 4: Away.
Speaker 2: And it looks like Manning and the casino came to
Speaker 2: some sort of deal. Speaking of deals, I'm not saying
Speaker 2: you're wanting this man to be heard?
Speaker 4: How how different the reactions you get to just do
Speaker 4: what you want.
Speaker 2: Linda Hancock, she's the one who wrote the book on
Speaker 2: the crowd.
Speaker 4: Yeah huh.
Speaker 2: She thinks that Manning and the VIP manager had a
Speaker 2: deal of their own. Okay, she's a quote. How it
Speaker 2: could happen is that they assigned someone to look after
Speaker 2: all the needs of the premium player. Sometimes they can
Speaker 2: be quite demanding. Sometimes they drink, sometimes they don't. They
Speaker 2: may have a particular food they like. This person was
Speaker 2: accommodated in one of the luxury villas up on the
Speaker 2: very high floor of the Crown Casino. There's the Versace villa.
Speaker 2: These villas are extremely luxurious. They cost thirty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: a night if you want to rent well yourself. Yeah
Speaker 2: and even what yeah night a night. So the whole
Speaker 2: thing is wired. And I guess if there is corruption
Speaker 2: in the ranks or collusion between the minder and the player,
Speaker 2: they must have struck a deal.
Speaker 4: Oh I need to pick my job out.
Speaker 2: I thirty thousand a night. It's just yeah. So the
Speaker 2: press got a hold of the story in March of
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, one month after it went down, and the
Speaker 2: casino told the press it was pretty sure they'd be
Speaker 2: able to get most of the money back. Stringfellow, our hero,
Speaker 2: he said, that's pretty much impossible. Yes, Like they let
Speaker 2: you walk out. He was like, quote chances or zero
Speaker 2: if they let you walk out of the casino game over, Well, you.
Speaker 4: Can still get back illegally, you can send the viper
Speaker 4: after May.
Speaker 2: Right, Manning denied the charges and I had trouble tracking
Speaker 2: him down after the heist, but I think I found him,
Speaker 2: did you. Well, there's a James Manning who's a bitcoin
Speaker 2: baron in Australia.
Speaker 4: Okay sounds.
Speaker 2: He was the CEO of Masson Infrastructure Group, which is
Speaker 2: like a bitcoin mining operation that was based in Pennsylvania
Speaker 2: and a right and so that he was the CEO
Speaker 2: up until May of twenty twenty three, and he got
Speaker 2: the boot when he failed to disclose related party transactions.
Speaker 2: He founded a hedge fund based in Sydney and in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two he and his wife, who's like a
Speaker 2: former fashion designer of course, have like four kids. They
Speaker 2: sold their house in Wallahara, a Tony uh the suburbs
Speaker 2: for fifteen million dollars house. Then they listed another house
Speaker 2: down the street that they had for eight million because
Speaker 2: two years later.
Speaker 4: Down the street it was like next door because they
Speaker 4: didn't want to have neighbors and he was down the.
Speaker 2: Street like they just buy up the neighborhood. So apparently
Speaker 2: bitcoin bosses are buying up a ton of high end
Speaker 2: Australian real estate. There are stories about this, and I
Speaker 2: imagine the same thing is happening all over the world.
Speaker 2: You know, they're a good number of properties in San
Speaker 2: Francisco that sit empty because owners buy them as investments.
Speaker 2: That's what everyone says.
Speaker 4: You don't even want to know the numbers, like it's
Speaker 4: you know that it's like I think right now, it's
Speaker 4: in America. There are twenty eight unoccupied homes for every
Speaker 4: homeless person. Yeah, okay, the numbers are stupid.
Speaker 2: And then the city like you'll see in those big
Speaker 2: high rise like luxury apartments, like most of whole floors.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, San Francisco's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's a good front.
Speaker 4: Who just pays attention to that? And he'll point out yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: the you know, the.
Speaker 2: Way that the property values keep increasing everywhere. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a good investment, which is just disgusting. I don't
Speaker 2: like that either. So that may or may not be
Speaker 2: the same James Manning. But the details and I mean
Speaker 2: Manning was described as a Kiwi in all the heist reporting,
Speaker 2: and this dude is in Australia, but I can't find
Speaker 2: a bio for Aussie James Manning to see if he's.
Speaker 4: Easy for a keiwave to go from New Zealand Australia.
Speaker 2: I mean, and it's it's weird that there's just like
Speaker 2: nothing about him. I did. I did find SEC filings
Speaker 2: that refer to Manning as having property development experience earlier
Speaker 2: in his career, so that lines up anyway. If that
Speaker 2: James Manning isn't the same one as the Crown Casino one,
Speaker 2: I apologize, and please don't sue me. I'm just basically
Speaker 2: asking people not to sue me today.
Speaker 4: And if you are related to the Manning brothers from football,
Speaker 4: please call me because I'd like to be on the
Speaker 4: Manning cast.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. We both have ridiculous takeaway. Oh no, I
Speaker 2: got what you ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 4: Pepe? Ask me Elizabeth. I'm so glad. I've been sitting
Speaker 4: here holding my fingers crossed for like five minutes. I
Speaker 4: can tell you this now. I don't I pick on
Speaker 4: the bitcoin guys because I think that what they're doing is,
Speaker 4: you know, just basically speculating. You're just creating this money
Speaker 4: that we don't need and then selling it to someone
Speaker 4: who's an idiot, and then they make me make money.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't see any value here, right, But
Speaker 4: at the same time, I spend a lot of time
Speaker 4: looking for Mersin prime. So I'm using a big computer
Speaker 4: to do very similar things and I make nothing out
Speaker 4: of it. You know, yeah, I'm gaining nothing. So I'm
Speaker 4: the idiot if you really want to talk about it
Speaker 4: from the economic standpoint. But there's this other guy who
Speaker 4: I was thinking about when you were telling the story.
Speaker 4: When I thought that Manning or rather Win was buying
Speaker 4: the drink and then not enjoying it, and I was
Speaker 4: so hung up on that. There was a guy recently
Speaker 4: who found the next largest Mersen prime, right, which is
Speaker 4: made you think total. But then the guy spent two
Speaker 4: million dollars using cloud computing to find it.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 4: You know, me, I got my one computer, I plug
Speaker 4: in a couple of numbers and I go look for these.
Speaker 4: A month later, I go, oh, not that one, and
Speaker 4: I do it again. Right, this guy has cloud computing
Speaker 4: doing it, all these numbers all the time, twenty four hours.
Speaker 4: He spent two million dollars doing this. You would think, man,
Speaker 4: it paid off, you did it, your planned worked, you
Speaker 4: found the next biggest mercy and prime. And then they're
Speaker 4: like talking to him and he's like, yeah, I did that,
Speaker 4: and he.
Speaker 2: Didn't care excited about it.
Speaker 4: Why did you spend the two million if he doesn't
Speaker 4: give you any joy.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing about like bitcoin and that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: is the environmental impact.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I was trying to side step that make.
Speaker 2: The electricity is.
Speaker 4: Maybe you've prepared that for a lot of the crypto coins.
Speaker 4: So you can't say that anymore about him other than bitcoin.
Speaker 2: AI.
Speaker 4: Sure, definitely pretty much. If you're trying to cool something,
Speaker 4: you're taking water or electricity, either you know, for the
Speaker 4: stand or for the cooling. But shouldn't these things get
Speaker 4: these people joy? If you're gonna be denying my grandchildren
Speaker 4: a future on the planet, shouldn't at least get joy
Speaker 4: out of this?
Speaker 2: Exactly?
Speaker 4: Well, there, that's my ridiculous tahaway. Would people would at
Speaker 4: least get a moment of joy, as I said, of
Speaker 4: like a moment of like I got this. He didn't,
Speaker 4: because that's not joy.
Speaker 2: That's not joy.
Speaker 4: Joy.
Speaker 2: That's my takeaway that was I was watching this thing
Speaker 2: the other day about what joy is, and then it
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be like this amazing like fireworks of
Speaker 2: things it's just simple pleasantries, like simple things in life
Speaker 2: that and it's our tasks to stop and like think
Speaker 2: of that joy. And when you think about this this bartenders,
Speaker 2: I mean the alcohol cost a side of just like
Speaker 2: I can't believe they would charge that amount. Like he
Speaker 2: spends two days preparing all these things, and a lot
Speaker 2: of thought goes into that of layering all these flavors
Speaker 2: and the experience of it, you know, I like, I
Speaker 2: I'm not I make fun of like mixologists, but with
Speaker 2: anything like that, any like food or drink, when you
Speaker 2: think about the entire your experience of it, that you
Speaker 2: would want to have someone enjoy this cocktail and you know,
Speaker 2: experience every sensory element of it, and then to put
Speaker 2: it in front of a dude who like takes a
Speaker 2: sip and is like all right later, that's got to be.
Speaker 4: Like I checked the box.
Speaker 2: There, I did it.
Speaker 4: Saw me do it exact guys, Like that was two
Speaker 4: days of my life you to go there, I did it.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And because it's so expensive, apparently the casino said like
Speaker 2: we're going to be making like twelve more of these
Speaker 2: or something. They'll be available for a certain amount of time.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if they ever made them or
Speaker 2: anyone cared, but.
Speaker 4: Just these like flagrant, gross displays of well and now
Speaker 4: when you google.
Speaker 2: That bartender's name, this is all that comes upon I know, right,
Speaker 2: poor kid. Uh, you know what we need to as
Speaker 2: a palate cleanser. What Elizabeth a talk by?
Speaker 4: Hell yeah, I went cheat.
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Zarin close your eyes. Treasure Island being robbed. I
Speaker 3: was in the floor where the cops repelled down. I'm
Speaker 3: watching the TV to see what's going on. Hurt. All
Speaker 3: the helicopters saw my husband hit the floor with the
Speaker 3: gunfire on the news.
Speaker 2: Thought he was shot.
Speaker 3: He was right next to the security guards and I
Speaker 3: was five months pregnant and about had that baby that night.
Speaker 2: Great episode. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4: So glad everything was fine for you and your family.
Speaker 2: Wow, so you're like witness to history. Yeah, I'm so
Speaker 2: glad everyone wound up. Okay, and the little bibs, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, that's crazy. Thank you for sure. Uh, that's
Speaker 2: it for today. You can find us online at Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime dot com. Go there and check out the merch.
Speaker 2: I think it's hilarious.
Speaker 4: It's dope. There's some great and there.
Speaker 2: We're going to keep putting more stuff in h so
Speaker 2: always keep checking back. We've been remiss, ye there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: They're not like campaigns anymore now, it's just always always.
Speaker 4: There, set it and forget it exactly.
Speaker 2: We're at Ridiculous Crime on Twitter and Instagram. You can
Speaker 2: email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, and
Speaker 2: most importantly, as I always say, leave a talk back
Speaker 2: on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted
Speaker 2: by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by
Speaker 2: world's most expensive VIP services manager, Dave Kusten, starring Annals
Speaker 2: Rutger as Judith Cocktails, conversation and crooning by Rascal Jack.
Speaker 2: Research is by Marissa Remy Martin Black Pearl, Louis the
Speaker 2: Thirteenth Brown and Andrea Bomorph nineteen fifty seven Scotch So
Speaker 2: I'm Sharp and To. The theme song is by Thomas
Speaker 2: the Dalmore sixty two Lee and Travis Passion Azteca Platinum Liqueur.
Speaker 2: Host wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred guests hair
Speaker 2: and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are
Speaker 2: Ben Diva, Vodka Bolan and nol Di Malfi Le Mancello,
Speaker 2: Sobremme Brown.
Speaker 5: Dis Crime, Say It One More Time Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio four more
Speaker 1: podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.