Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of I Heart Radio. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dutton Zarin Burnett. I got a question for you, girl, Yeah,
Speaker 1: hit me. You know what's ridiculous? I do? Ready for that?
Speaker 1: I do? Um. We have this uh friend on Instagram, Jennifer.
Speaker 1: She's a baker. She um is one of the many,
Speaker 1: many people who have clued us in on weird product mashups.
Speaker 1: I can't help it is all I do know. So um.
Speaker 1: She's one of a couple of people who have mentioned this,
Speaker 1: but her her story is the best about it. Um
Speaker 1: that KFC makes a fule log like a fire log,
Speaker 1: a Derri flame style log, a Christmas ule log, and
Speaker 1: it's it's KFC. It's KFC. So um the somebody like
Speaker 1: I am in the they describe market. KFC is eleven
Speaker 1: herbs and spices, firelog by and viral loog and um.
Speaker 1: They describe it as the comforting, crispy aroma of a
Speaker 1: fried chicken scented firelog wafting from your fireplace fried chicken
Speaker 1: fire Did you hear those words, people, fired fried chicken firelog? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And so I mean you want your whole house to
Speaker 1: smell like rancid greasy. I don't know so anyway, so
Speaker 1: Jennifer doesn't smells like a KFC in here. Basically, oh god,
Speaker 1: your neighbors are just like so. Um, Jennifer got one
Speaker 1: for her sister for Thanksgiving, and um, she promised us
Speaker 1: that she would give us an update, and um, it
Speaker 1: was a big success. Apparently already the update. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: said that it was a big success. Smells like KFC
Speaker 1: and it's kitty approved. She sent a picture of the
Speaker 1: cat sniffing the box, so we got the cat tax photos.
Speaker 1: So cats believed it smelled like chicken. Cats believed it
Speaker 1: smells like chicken. This is just a really cute cat too,
Speaker 1: by the way. But then she sent us a picture
Speaker 1: of the box and a picture of it on fire
Speaker 1: in the firerood. So we have proof. We have absolute
Speaker 1: proof that it actually exists, because some of these things,
Speaker 1: like these weird crossovers, but they don't exist. These exist.
Speaker 1: You can make your whole house stink like fried chicken.
Speaker 1: You know, I've got some family I can send it to.
Speaker 1: Let's let's go around to like vegans houses like we
Speaker 1: live in the Bay Area, both of us, we have
Speaker 1: the like you can imagine your neighbors smelling that you
Speaker 1: burning fried chicken, and like maybe gets so like you'd
Speaker 1: have on the next door. People will be talking about,
Speaker 1: like I got in a fight with my neighbor because
Speaker 1: they tell me. And it's bad enough, like living in
Speaker 1: the East Bay, like in the hills and you have
Speaker 1: the fire danger. People get upset when when their neighbors
Speaker 1: use a fireplace. And then if you're burned, if you're
Speaker 1: like barbecues caused fight? What if you have fire pit
Speaker 1: in your backyard? And yeah, because I've heard, yeah, I've
Speaker 1: heard people who have vegetarian neighbors upset you had that right,
Speaker 1: you had a neighborhood didn't like you a grill and
Speaker 1: chicken super mad about the smell of fried chicken. I'm
Speaker 1: trying barbecue chicken. Who hates the smell barbecue chicken. So
Speaker 1: I think that we should just go around to all
Speaker 1: the fire pits and swap out the logs for KFC logs.
Speaker 1: Let's get this party started so good. So that is
Speaker 1: my contribution this week to what is ridiculous Ho ho
Speaker 1: ho Happy holidays. Well that's make this a December to remember, Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: I just hope that this holiday sales event is one
Speaker 1: that we can all be proud of. Okay, I've got
Speaker 1: a story for you if you got a second I
Speaker 1: do now, my Elizabeth, my partner in crime and storytelling. Today,
Speaker 1: I'd like to tell you the story of the Greek
Speaker 1: robin hood. Yeah, this is ridiculous crime, A podcast about
Speaker 1: absurd and outrageous capers. Heis and cons It's always murder
Speaker 1: free and ridiculous, now, Elizabeth, Yes, I told you, my man,
Speaker 1: the Greek robinode will be the focus of today right now.
Speaker 1: His name is Vasilis Palaeocoustus, right, Vasilus, Paleocoustus, Vassilis, Vasilus.
Speaker 1: I've heard it both ways, and you may hear me
Speaker 1: say it both ways, but be forgiving Pasillis. And he
Speaker 1: arrived on Earth in nineteen sixty six, right like like
Speaker 1: a Beatles record. Now, my man, Vasilus. He grew up
Speaker 1: in the mountains region of central Greece. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if you know Greece. Well I do not, know, only
Speaker 1: the stuff around Athens. And yeah, so this was up
Speaker 1: closer to Macedonia, in the central mountainous region. Very rural.
Speaker 1: Son of a goat hurder, you know. So he's a
Speaker 1: shepherd's boy, raised up in super rural country, living right
Speaker 1: family of Shepherd's childhood home, no electricity, cheaper. His primary
Speaker 1: companions had an older brother, Nicos. Loved Nikos, his brother
Speaker 1: and he would walk to school every day from their
Speaker 1: rural home, and in the winter, because it's in the mountains,
Speaker 1: they would have snow, and when they would walk, Nicos
Speaker 1: about six seven years older, he would put his little brother, Casillas,
Speaker 1: up on his shoulders so that way he didn't have
Speaker 1: to trudge through the snow because it would get like waste.
Speaker 1: It's like chesty. Right. When they would get to their school,
Speaker 1: their school was run by a priest. They get there,
Speaker 1: the priests would take the boys and put them by
Speaker 1: the fire and wouldn't start teaching class until they had
Speaker 1: all thought out like a rural Okay, so that's how
Speaker 1: this is and this Shepherd life, right, it was fine
Speaker 1: for Cecilisy wasn't one of the people who like boxed
Speaker 1: at it. But at the same time, the way it's
Speaker 1: described sounds a little um like I wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: live in. Like there's one quote I found his said,
Speaker 1: and and I there he watched his father yelling at
Speaker 1: goats and grew up idolizing his older brother Nikos. You
Speaker 1: kind of just says it, all right, exactly. So school
Speaker 1: turns out to be a source of inspiration for young Pacillus,
Speaker 1: not in the way that you might expect. It has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with what he learns there. It's not
Speaker 1: the academia, but rather a teacher, specifically one teacher who
Speaker 1: gives him a book. And this book that the teacher
Speaker 1: gives them is about this guy named and Antonis catch Atonis. Alright,
Speaker 1: so Antonis catch Atonis. He also was a shepherd, and
Speaker 1: he grew up to become a clept. Now a clept
Speaker 1: is a Greek term for thieves. Yeah, I knew you
Speaker 1: catch on that one. Now that these clips, these bandit thieves.
Speaker 1: They were also Greek resistance against the Ottoman Turks who
Speaker 1: were the occupying force at the time, and they, you know,
Speaker 1: until basically World War one world War two, Greece was
Speaker 1: like an Ottoman territory essentially, right, and then during World
Speaker 1: or two they're under Nazi Germany. Then there there there's
Speaker 1: a fight with Yugoslavia. Tito wants to take over and
Speaker 1: he helps the communists try to run. There's this huge
Speaker 1: civil war. This is all the backdrop of society that
Speaker 1: young Vasilius is born into. Right, and his hero is
Speaker 1: this guy Antonis Catchytonis who starting all of this fighting,
Speaker 1: was a highwayman bandit, a rogue ish anti hero, right,
Speaker 1: so he sees this as a kind of like an
Speaker 1: anarchist struggle. Yeah, ok Right, So, at age thirteen, Vasilius
Speaker 1: moves from the countryside into town with his family. The
Speaker 1: town is called Tricola, doesn't really matter, but it's a
Speaker 1: little city, right, a little town. So the year at
Speaker 1: this point is nineteen seventy nine, Okay, and his older
Speaker 1: brother Nikos has already left home because he's six seven
Speaker 1: years older, and at this point Vasilius he also wants
Speaker 1: to leave home. Yeah, so he's like by the time
Speaker 1: he's about fourteen fifteen, he's like, I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: He leaves the family. He gets work at a cheese factory. Right.
Speaker 1: The job is fine, work steady, he doesn't have a
Speaker 1: problem with it. But this job is the awakening of
Speaker 1: his political leanings. Right. He has been a form prior
Speaker 1: by the Antonist, Cachetonist, the highway bandit, and then now
Speaker 1: when he's faced with the economic forces of city life,
Speaker 1: he becomes not militant but a true, true anarchist, not
Speaker 1: only in theory but in practice. So one of his
Speaker 1: friends from his time at the Chief factory put it,
Speaker 1: and I quote, Facilius suffered his bosses capitalist exploitation working
Speaker 1: as a wage slave in a factory, so he turned
Speaker 1: against those bosses. So you get the idea. He's inspired
Speaker 1: to become a criminal by capitalism, so he goes hard
Speaker 1: into it. And uh, he also is bothered by the
Speaker 1: hypocritical nature of the crimes of capitalism mass he sees them.
Speaker 1: Because Greece up to this point, you know, there's this
Speaker 1: hard debate. Do we go left and with communism take
Speaker 1: care of the community, do we go with individualism and
Speaker 1: see what you can do in the society on your own,
Speaker 1: which they decide to go with because the UK and
Speaker 1: the Americans helped the the non communist win this fight.
Speaker 1: So the society has gone in the way of individualism.
Speaker 1: But there's still this collectivist impulse in Greece, right. So
Speaker 1: Vacillus aware of an old Greek proverb, and I quote
Speaker 1: the Greek proverb is, if you steal something small, you
Speaker 1: are a petty thief, but if you steal millions, you
Speaker 1: are a gentleman of society. He hates that. He's like
Speaker 1: that ain't right. So he's like, I'm going to become
Speaker 1: a gentleman not of society. And he finds his big brother, Nicos,
Speaker 1: and he's like, you know what, we need to get
Speaker 1: to criming and Nicos is like bet. So the two
Speaker 1: of them they decide, okay, we need to have a
Speaker 1: couple of ground rules that we're going to do the criming.
Speaker 1: They decided they don't want to hurt anyone and they
Speaker 1: want to live for free on someone else's dime. So
Speaker 1: they become bank robbers, right, pretty much straightforward. Now for
Speaker 1: the next seven years from ninety six, there are successful
Speaker 1: robbers who are primarily focused on get this video equipment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't start with banks, they don't. There's going after
Speaker 1: like VCRs saying make cam quarters. It's like yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's not like professional equipment. No, No, they're holding a
Speaker 1: lot of value. These are just newly invented, highly desirous
Speaker 1: pieces of technology. So a VCR increased to go for
Speaker 1: a lot of exactly. So they're they're Robin Rago's radio
Speaker 1: shack and going we can make this work. But you know,
Speaker 1: for criminal education, just like my man Red Fall come
Speaker 1: in in many comparisons with this story my dude Vacillas.
Speaker 1: He turns to the cinema for a further criminal education.
Speaker 1: Right yeah, and we've talked about this. It's a great
Speaker 1: way because the filmmakers they thought about it, and they
Speaker 1: thought and they show you what could go wrong, which
Speaker 1: is exactly so still is. He's keen on eighties action
Speaker 1: movies and he keeps his video rental card Hot Things Popping.
Speaker 1: He's in there. He's renting Clint Eastwood movies, on Schwarzenegger's movies,
Speaker 1: Slice to the all the classics of the eighties. At
Speaker 1: this time, it's big Brother gets popped for a robbery.
Speaker 1: So he's like, I'm gonna have to do something about this.
Speaker 1: I can't have Nicos locked up inside. And he turns
Speaker 1: to his cinematic files of research and he's like, I
Speaker 1: got it. I know what to do. You gotta sneak
Speaker 1: something in there. I don't know if he starts like
Speaker 1: with the nineteen thirties movies and he's like, okay, I
Speaker 1: learned from White Heat. I gotta try to sneak in
Speaker 1: a file. But no, this is what he does. First.
Speaker 1: He tries to smuggle in knives, then he gets to
Speaker 1: metal files, then he gets to other tools. They're always
Speaker 1: being confiscated, stolen by other inmates. Right, it's not working.
Speaker 1: He tries to smuggle in a grenade, like maybe just
Speaker 1: hold this in your hand and walk out. That doesn't
Speaker 1: want Nicos if he's like giving him all these tools
Speaker 1: and they get stolen. Everyone else has a file and
Speaker 1: a knife and Nicos I don't know. He just sorr.
Speaker 1: He was bigger than so at the eighties day end
Speaker 1: right to sell us. He's like, this is not working.
Speaker 1: I gotta get my brother out. So he goes all right,
Speaker 1: I'm going full eighties action movie. He gets himself a
Speaker 1: tank and he drinks the tank. This guy is gone
Speaker 1: from like I just checked the VCR. I go I
Speaker 1: stole thank So he steals the tank from like on
Speaker 1: an army where tanks rus Like, yeah, he could pops
Speaker 1: down the tanks r us. He's like, how much for
Speaker 1: the one in the back. I just need to see
Speaker 1: how it handles on the freeway. Peels out. He gets
Speaker 1: down to the prison in Tricola and he tries to
Speaker 1: crash through the prison walls. He just tries to call right, people,
Speaker 1: this is very heavy handed you you'll be surprised to learn, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: this tank move spectacular failure. Yes, for sure. He gets
Speaker 1: caught and arrested, tank confiscated, loses take. He's like my
Speaker 1: by by by refund. So he's imprisoned, but only in
Speaker 1: jail because apparently that's not like a major crime, trying
Speaker 1: to break into that jail. They're like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: cosmetic damage. So he gets out of jail. His brother
Speaker 1: Nikos is still in prison because you've done some Siah.
Speaker 1: He'd been robbing back. So there. For years, the Silus
Speaker 1: and Nikos have worked out an escape plan. The Silus
Speaker 1: has been going on and visiting his brother once and
Speaker 1: he's like, you know what, I went high tech last time.
Speaker 1: That didn't work. I need to go low tech. I
Speaker 1: should keep it simple, stupid, right, So he's like, chosen
Speaker 1: day arrives, he has tells Nicos the plan of what
Speaker 1: to do. Nikos knows and when the Chosen day rise,
Speaker 1: if Asilus goes to their agreed upon spot just outside
Speaker 1: the prison walls and there he is standing in a
Speaker 1: snowy spot because it's the wintertime break out when it's
Speaker 1: more difficult he waits a rope right without like basically ties.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's like metal into the rope,
Speaker 1: rope around the metal. Either way, it's a weighted knot.
Speaker 1: And he throws that up like the prison walls. There
Speaker 1: you go, the ball of SULOCKI inside the rope. He
Speaker 1: like shot, puts it over the wall. His brother is there,
Speaker 1: grabs the rope, bells like I got it. Vassilis ties
Speaker 1: the other into the lamp post, and Nikos just climbs
Speaker 1: up and over scamps over. It's up boom free. So
Speaker 1: now and this is a time for them to get
Speaker 1: back into criming rope rope. This is also when they
Speaker 1: have a new role model come into the boy's life
Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, we had Antonus catch Tonis
Speaker 1: as our first. Now they have a new one. His
Speaker 1: nickname is the Artist. His government name is Coustus Somatis,
Speaker 1: Costas Coustas Somatis. Now these three young ambitious robbers they
Speaker 1: start a crew and they're like, what's we don't need
Speaker 1: a name, let's just be the street name is the Artist,
Speaker 1: the Artist. Yeah, they all have nicknames ahead, so they
Speaker 1: we'll get to their nicknames for now. His nickname is
Speaker 1: the Artist. Right. So in June I d two they
Speaker 1: pull off their first big bank job, and being who
Speaker 1: they are, it's cinematic as possible. The robbery takes place
Speaker 1: in this town called Columbaca, right or Calabaca has you
Speaker 1: can pronounce it either way. Apparently in central Greece, small
Speaker 1: town up in the mountains, surrounded by monastery has long
Speaker 1: been like a hideout for high women and bandits part
Speaker 1: of the resistance against the Ottomans. So they go out there.
Speaker 1: They go to this town and they decide, we need
Speaker 1: to do our research. We're gonna be serious about this,
Speaker 1: and Nicos scours the scene using a pair of innoculars.
Speaker 1: The artist takes out his pen and it goes to
Speaker 1: pad sketches the town square on scraps of paper, and
Speaker 1: once they have their town blueprint, it's time to cry.
Speaker 1: So after this short break, Elizabeth, we'll be back and
Speaker 1: I will tell you how the Columbaca cinematic robbery goes down.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. Okay, Elizabeth, where were we We're talking
Speaker 1: about columbardist sketching the town. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: scouping something out to I put down the sketch pad Man.
Speaker 1: I don't need the artistic impression of it. We don't
Speaker 1: want to have like the cloude monet rendering of the
Speaker 1: church that we're gonna like an abstract artist. I don't
Speaker 1: know what these what is this? This is how the
Speaker 1: city feels. Okay, Elizabeth, I set it up. We're in Calibaka,
Speaker 1: central Grecian town, surrounded bay monastery. But they have beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful bank perfect So I would like you close your
Speaker 1: eyes and picture. Okay. You happen to be in the
Speaker 1: small town of Calabaca, Greece, and you're there for one
Speaker 1: very Elizabeth reason. Trains Specifically, Calibaka is the terminal point
Speaker 1: of the old Thessaly railways, and you want to see
Speaker 1: some of the old rail cars that they have in
Speaker 1: the Thessaly railways because it was some of the most
Speaker 1: beautiful rail cars in Europe. And you're like, I gotta
Speaker 1: come see these trains. So you've arrived in Calibaka and
Speaker 1: you want to go to the old rail yards and
Speaker 1: you've arranged to talk trains with some of the locals,
Speaker 1: some of who worked on the trains building them, others
Speaker 1: who appointed them. You just can't wait and there You
Speaker 1: are seated on a park bench waiting to meet somebody
Speaker 1: later that afternoon, when all of a sudden boom, serious
Speaker 1: entertainment arrives in your lap in the form of two
Speaker 1: men driving up in front of the local police station,
Speaker 1: which you can see from your park bench, and they
Speaker 1: place a huge industrial oven in front of the door
Speaker 1: to the cops shop. You're like, that's odd. Things that
Speaker 1: in Greece are different than I know. Then you're like,
Speaker 1: maybe this is like a little yes, it's a peda party.
Speaker 1: Maybe they orders like they're gonna be cooking stuff later. Anyway,
Speaker 1: moments later, you hear gunfire. You're like, well, that's interesting,
Speaker 1: but you don't know it. But little brother Vassilis has
Speaker 1: hiked up a hill with a rifle and he has
Speaker 1: been firing his gun at the police station. The cops
Speaker 1: inside are convinced that they're under attack, so they attempt
Speaker 1: to full leave the cop shop, but they can't because
Speaker 1: of the huge industrial oven in front of the cops shop,
Speaker 1: and you're watching. You're watching is the cops fight against
Speaker 1: the door, and You're like, this seems really odd. Why
Speaker 1: are they trying to run out into the gunfire? What
Speaker 1: is how danger, am I Now as you sit there
Speaker 1: on your park bench, sipping your Turkish coffee, asking yourself
Speaker 1: these questions. Do you hear the bullets hanging off the
Speaker 1: cops off and you see them trying to fight through
Speaker 1: the door, and you're waiting for your fellow train of
Speaker 1: fish unados and you notice more here and I'm not
Speaker 1: ducking for cover. There's your momentarily very brave, so you're
Speaker 1: you're busybodiness takes over for I don't know what happens,
Speaker 1: and they're not firing at you, so you don't feel
Speaker 1: like immediately dangerous. So you're sitting there and you spot
Speaker 1: this young man Facillus with the rifle. He goes and
Speaker 1: he meets up with his older brother, who don't notice
Speaker 1: his older brother. But this guy Nikos, the artist cost
Speaker 1: is some artists. The three walk into a bank, but
Speaker 1: you notice from afar that they look clean. They're wearing
Speaker 1: business suits. They got on sunglasses, like they mean business.
Speaker 1: That is not how it was in my head before
Speaker 1: you said they were carrying automatic weaponry like they mean business.
Speaker 1: So the front door is opened to the bank. They're
Speaker 1: kicked open. The vacilla's barks, which I will translate for
Speaker 1: you it means this is a stick up in Greek.
Speaker 1: They apparently do only need one word to say this.
Speaker 1: As you sit there on your park bench waiting for
Speaker 1: all this to go down, the three men rob a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five million drachmas and they stuffed and
Speaker 1: stolen loot into duffel bags and they cut You're like, whoa,
Speaker 1: how much would that be worth today? Good question? Dollars
Speaker 1: Three push out of the bank, they hop into their
Speaker 1: whip and they escape in the stolen outie. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that thing looks super clean, just like their suits. And
Speaker 1: then you hear sirens approaching. You're wondering, how did the
Speaker 1: cops get out of the shop. Turns out they went
Speaker 1: around the back. They got their cars, and now they're
Speaker 1: gonna go chasing after them. So like, only forgot we
Speaker 1: have a back door. We should have thought those earlier.
Speaker 1: So they rushed to their cop cars and they attempt
Speaker 1: to chase the robbers. But the robbers, what's again, cinematic
Speaker 1: ready for them? What have they done? But left spike
Speaker 1: strips across the road. So when the cops roar past you,
Speaker 1: they don't get far because they hit those spike strips
Speaker 1: and tires go flat, and uh, they rolled to an
Speaker 1: embarrassing stop. So you're like wave at them. Now the cops,
Speaker 1: after they've limped to their embarrassing stop, they make their way,
Speaker 1: you know, out of the cop cars and they watches
Speaker 1: the Audie stolen Atie disappears out of town, headed for
Speaker 1: the mountains, and they're like, rank kind of catch them.
Speaker 1: And before they go, you watch a flurry of Drachmas
Speaker 1: rain over the town's people like a weather system of
Speaker 1: good fortune. It is amazing. Vasilus is tossing bills from
Speaker 1: the stolen out until the car disappears in the distance,
Speaker 1: and just like that, Vasillius, Nicos and the Artist they
Speaker 1: all head into the mountains of central Greece, not to
Speaker 1: be seen for much time and witness their first big job.
Speaker 1: And they just sprinkled it on their way out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they sprinkled a ton of it. You've got one hell
Speaker 1: of a story to tell your train. And yeah, they're
Speaker 1: not showing up to time. Not after that. So after
Speaker 1: the spectacular start as a crew, for whatever reason, Facilius
Speaker 1: and Nikos suicide. You know what, we're gonna quit robbing banks.
Speaker 1: And they stopped pulling stick up moose. They lay low
Speaker 1: for years. Some people they speculate the Pasillus he went
Speaker 1: back to his former career in the cheese industry. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Their story was he escaped to Bulgaria and started running
Speaker 1: a cheese factory there. This sounds like I made it
Speaker 1: all up. The others claimed that he was working a
Speaker 1: cheese shop in the Netherlands. But whatever story you hear,
Speaker 1: the Silus is pushing cheese. I'll tell you one thing
Speaker 1: I know about the Silla. He's a real cheesemonger. So,
Speaker 1: just as mysteriously as they disappeared, the Sillus Paleocoustus returns
Speaker 1: to Criming and I cannot tell you why. He just
Speaker 1: decides he now's the time. So after he left behind
Speaker 1: his Bulgarian cheese factory or his Dutch cheese shop or whatever,
Speaker 1: who's to say, it doesn't matter which it was. What
Speaker 1: we do know is that in December, the Silus and
Speaker 1: his big brother Nikos they get back to work as
Speaker 1: high women bandits. They're like, we need to get back
Speaker 1: to the catchytonis lifestyle. Right. So at this point they've also,
Speaker 1: as I told you, earned nicknames, right. So we had
Speaker 1: the artist, but We also now have a nickname for
Speaker 1: Vascilla's He's called Uncatchable and his brother is called the Phantom.
Speaker 1: So Uncatchable the Phantom of the Artist are once again
Speaker 1: reunited as a crew, and they need a pair of wheels.
Speaker 1: Did the Phantom name himself? No, people call me the Phantom.
Speaker 1: Who calls you the Phantom? Nobody? But guys, I want
Speaker 1: you from now on call me the Phantom. I was
Speaker 1: trying to get myself a nickname like that. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got people call me this, and oh, you want
Speaker 1: to know, it's embarrassing. But I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: like I had like a boy's camera and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the people call me dizzy. Go last week, what do
Speaker 1: you know? Okay, you gonna be okay over there? Joking.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be an old jazz man alright, So
Speaker 1: I was like it could have been matter otis I
Speaker 1: either went soul man or jazz man? Is there really
Speaker 1: nothing else? Does? He sounds like such a rejected seven
Speaker 1: Dwarfs were a little kid like, call me dizzy. Are
Speaker 1: you feeling you fall off the slide? So this is
Speaker 1: my sister Daffy, and I love it. They called me
Speaker 1: dizzy and people are like nobody. It didn't work all right.
Speaker 1: So anyway, nicos when a window. Sorry, when the Phantom
Speaker 1: and Uncatchable needed a car, they popped down the mountain
Speaker 1: and they stole this dude's Niecean And this is like
Speaker 1: a story from their return to Criming and uh. When
Speaker 1: they steal the Nissan, they used it to escape because
Speaker 1: like you know, they go and they robbed somebody and
Speaker 1: then they have to escape. They then return the Nissan
Speaker 1: to the man they stole it from, and they actually
Speaker 1: left a hundred and fifty drachmas underneath like the the
Speaker 1: foot well, which is like farnderbox. He's like he goes
Speaker 1: out and it's gone, my niece on and then like
Speaker 1: the next thing, he goes out. But not only that
Speaker 1: they had polished the car for him, they detailed his knees.
Speaker 1: I thought you'd like that. The villagers of this little
Speaker 1: town that which was closest to the hide up which
Speaker 1: where they had been hiding out. Essentially, there was an
Speaker 1: old lady there that told the local press that she
Speaker 1: used to see him all the time. He never said
Speaker 1: very much, and I quote, but he always had a
Speaker 1: mischievous smile which seemed to like like that Roague. Now,
Speaker 1: after hiding up for a few years with Stillisame's brother
Speaker 1: nicos Ak the Phantom, they come back to the city
Speaker 1: and it's time for a big payday. You know they've
Speaker 1: depleted their money. Uncatchable in the Phantom, like, we need
Speaker 1: to score call the artist right, so back together December.
Speaker 1: These are all self declared nicknames. You can't self declare nicknames,
Speaker 1: and no one on this earth is gonna be like
Speaker 1: you know what, asked the Phantom, Like that's just the
Speaker 1: best name for that guy. Phantom get here at five
Speaker 1: o'clock or six o'clock. I don't know. He's that with
Speaker 1: the artists. Well, he's uncatchable with him. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: one so uncatchable, the Phantom of the Artists. On December
Speaker 1: fift they decided to make their big move. Now, this
Speaker 1: dude named Alexander hid to glow. He was him alex
Speaker 1: He's on his way to work at the Halva factory
Speaker 1: that he owned, and he'd already dropped off his kids
Speaker 1: at the school. No euphemism, the literally dropped off his
Speaker 1: skill to the school assist a typical work taper. Old
Speaker 1: Alexander had to glow Now along the way to his
Speaker 1: Hallva factory, a Toyota rav For raced up next to
Speaker 1: Alexander's car forces him off the road. He's like, oh,
Speaker 1: skids to a stop and before he can properly react
Speaker 1: to brothers hop out of the Toyota rev For. They
Speaker 1: grab Alexander, yanked him from his car, nice Mercedes sedan,
Speaker 1: and they forced the Halva factory owner into the back
Speaker 1: of their compact suv and the speed off. Right now,
Speaker 1: what this has been was a kidnapping of one of
Speaker 1: the leading industrial lists of Greece. Now, as a kidnapping victim,
Speaker 1: Alexander later recalled and I quote, it was a well
Speaker 1: thought out kidnapping. My kidnappers behavior was not bad at all.
Speaker 1: It was not scared for myself. Actually, I enjoyed some
Speaker 1: wide ranging discussions with the kidnappers. He was honest, he Wanders.
Speaker 1: He's a traveler, all right. He's a very busy man.
Speaker 1: He is an owner, citizen of the earth and industrialist.
Speaker 1: He has he knows all the corners of this clube.
Speaker 1: The three men, they discussed business corruption in a sense,
Speaker 1: they basically talked crime. They're like, what do you know?
Speaker 1: I know? Crime? Crime? So weird. So Vasilus would later
Speaker 1: explain what I remember most vividly from that free lesson
Speaker 1: is the blunt blackmail attempted by the owners of large
Speaker 1: supermarket chains. For instance, a prepacketed product with a new
Speaker 1: label Alexander wished to circulate through a large supermarket chain,
Speaker 1: he'd have to give its boss large sums of black
Speaker 1: money just for the product to reach the shelves. The
Speaker 1: specific amount required dependent on the place display inside the shops.
Speaker 1: So he's basically describing the corruption habits and most of
Speaker 1: the major business interests of Greece. Right now, This shakedown
Speaker 1: by the supermarket chains at the time considered legal. Now
Speaker 1: you know, he's like, hey, you want a prime position
Speaker 1: to my shop? What are you gonna pay? You know
Speaker 1: this that's mafia talk as far as Vasilius is thinking
Speaker 1: of it. Say, He's like, you know, we're in the
Speaker 1: same business. Yeah, you just get people Halibu and I
Speaker 1: I take it. So the three men they stay at
Speaker 1: a mountain hide up for three days. They talk shop,
Speaker 1: they talk crime, and they get along. They famously have
Speaker 1: a great time. Right after four days, an exchange of
Speaker 1: money has arranged. Facilius and Nicos they take the Halva
Speaker 1: factory owner back to his family. He's been unharmed. They
Speaker 1: get a one point five million dollars in today's money,
Speaker 1: told us success and in fact, Alexander he basically gives
Speaker 1: his kidnappers a glowing Yelp review. He says, and I
Speaker 1: quote guys, if only it didn't cost that much, I
Speaker 1: would very much like to have another adventure with you.
Speaker 1: He's like, they called me the world pool now and
Speaker 1: the best part. And by the best part, I mean
Speaker 1: not the best part at all. Alexander tried to get
Speaker 1: his ransom money back because for his family to spend
Speaker 1: the one point five millions, How don't think he tried
Speaker 1: to do that, Elizabeth. He sued the government. He's like,
Speaker 1: let me sue agreed, the government tried to get the
Speaker 1: taxpayers to pay for his kidnapping. Now, how could you
Speaker 1: sue the government for being kidnapped? Question? His legal argument
Speaker 1: was that the Greek government failed him by not rescuing
Speaker 1: him from his kidnappers, and aig should have to pay
Speaker 1: and he shouldn't have been kidnapped in the first place
Speaker 1: because of the economic situation it is. It's the government.
Speaker 1: Everything can be traced back. He lost his lawsuit. Yes,
Speaker 1: And meanwhile Vassilus and Nikos, after the successful job, the
Speaker 1: brothers decide to split up for a while. They're like, hey,
Speaker 1: we should lay low, we should people might recognize us.
Speaker 1: So around the same time, Vasilius goes off and he
Speaker 1: starts doing his you know Greek robin Hood thing. You know,
Speaker 1: he's always doing it. But there's a very particular story.
Speaker 1: There's an orphan girl he meets, and uh, the story goes,
Speaker 1: this orphan wished to marry, but she had no family
Speaker 1: because she's an orphan, and she lived in a very
Speaker 1: rural place, which means she still needed to have a
Speaker 1: dowry if she wanted to get married, but she had
Speaker 1: no one to help over a dowery until Greek robin
Speaker 1: Hood shows up and being an agent of love and
Speaker 1: rebellion and chaos, Vassilus he gives the orphan a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dropbod, which is enough for her to go and
Speaker 1: the two were able to wed. So he's like, here
Speaker 1: you go. This is just one of many stories of
Speaker 1: him doing kinds of things. Right, Like, for instance, there's
Speaker 1: another one between nine Vasilius is living on the lamb
Speaker 1: in the mountains, right and uh, he'd be spotted driving
Speaker 1: like a stolen car through the mountains, and the locals
Speaker 1: just love seeing them because every time they saw him,
Speaker 1: he'd be bumping really loud, like Greek guitar tracks out
Speaker 1: of the open windows and passed like this a fun guy,
Speaker 1: just like a finger picking Greek flamenco music pouring out
Speaker 1: of the windows. And if not, there'll be money coming
Speaker 1: out of the windows. So in December, in his luck
Speaker 1: ends and Vassillus is driving near a maximum security prison
Speaker 1: and he had planned to blow up the prison. He's
Speaker 1: wearing a disguise at the time. Does he know anyone
Speaker 1: in this prison? He's trying to get out the art
Speaker 1: He's like, I got the artists in there, as far
Speaker 1: as I understand, I'm just like he sees a prison,
Speaker 1: He's like, let's just blow it. Need to blow that.
Speaker 1: Let's let him all out, free everybody. So he's wearing
Speaker 1: a disguise driving and also he's high, so he's yeah,
Speaker 1: the reports are he was smoking something. I took that
Speaker 1: to mean jazz cigarettes. Yeah, I don't think it's pipe
Speaker 1: or anything. So anyway, he's driving high in disguise, crashes
Speaker 1: his car right gets into a car accident, various witnesses
Speaker 1: and onlookers. They phone the authorities because you know, they
Speaker 1: have nine one one at this point in the nineties.
Speaker 1: So Vacillus is injured, he can't escape the car wreck,
Speaker 1: and he tells the onlookers, don't tell them who I am.
Speaker 1: I am Vassilus Paleogoustus. It's like, that's not the way
Speaker 1: to do that. So whoever phones it in they did
Speaker 1: the exact opposite from what he requests. And so there's
Speaker 1: this great like quote from the emergency call center operator
Speaker 1: informing the police that they're headed to the scene of
Speaker 1: this accident. We got a man here who told uh
Speaker 1: he must have a head injury. He thinks he's the
Speaker 1: most wanted man in Greece. That's like in all the
Speaker 1: paper reports. Anyway, it turns out he was both the
Speaker 1: most wanted man in Greece and at end injury. So
Speaker 1: the cops are rest Vassilus. He stands trial, he's convicted.
Speaker 1: He gets sentenced to twenty five years bank robberies and
Speaker 1: the kidnapping of the fat Cat industrialist. The Solous is
Speaker 1: sent to a prison on the island of Corfu, where
Speaker 1: he immediately begins to work on an escape plan, but
Speaker 1: the guards discover his hand made blueprint that he is
Speaker 1: once again doing artist style. He's like drawing a blueprint,
Speaker 1: he figures they guess what he's up to. They tell
Speaker 1: the warden. Warden's like, don't worry about it, right, So
Speaker 1: they're like like, well, no, you have to. He's like, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: transfer him. So they transfer him to an Athens prison.
Speaker 1: So there he's added Athens prison. He makes a new
Speaker 1: plan to escape, draws up a new blueprint, just like
Speaker 1: the artist would want him to this. Somehow he's able
Speaker 1: to get a metal file snuck into him. He uses
Speaker 1: his metal file to start loosening the bar. She's saw
Speaker 1: him through the bars every day, working a little bit,
Speaker 1: and uh, he's like being a model prisoner. Everything's to
Speaker 1: be fine. Now. Turns out he got this metal file
Speaker 1: snuck into him in a package of spaghetti. I didn't
Speaker 1: know you could get packages water Amazon order. How does
Speaker 1: this work? Did they not check packages of spaghetti? How
Speaker 1: do they away? The guards? They were aware that there
Speaker 1: was a middle file, and for their own little amusement,
Speaker 1: they told the warden about it. Warden's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: let him, let him work on it, so they let
Speaker 1: him get kidding. They let him try to file his
Speaker 1: way out, and then the warden for a little bitten
Speaker 1: mouse game. He goes in every stones off and checks
Speaker 1: to see how he's doing. He looks to see how
Speaker 1: far he is, and they trying to estimate when he's
Speaker 1: gonna get it in the world. The day that he's
Speaker 1: convinced of silica is gonna get out. He's like, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: go let's go down in yard and wait for him.
Speaker 1: So they go down and wait for miss gets He
Speaker 1: finally saw us through the last bar, lifts out. He's
Speaker 1: got a hole, pushes through the hole of his window,
Speaker 1: drops down and there are a bunch of waiting for him,
Speaker 1: and the guards start pointing guns out of the Wards
Speaker 1: like no, no, put the guns downe Hey, you want
Speaker 1: out of here, You're gonna have to fight me for it.
Speaker 1: So the two girds. The warden tells him, if you
Speaker 1: can beat me, I'll let you out of the prison,
Speaker 1: and the Wards is like, they call me the traffic jam.
Speaker 1: Like who's thing call the traffic jam? So the traffic
Speaker 1: jam he takes on uncatch your bowl uncatchable. He catches
Speaker 1: a couple to the face and h he gets beat
Speaker 1: bad by the warden. Right, so the silisa sent back
Speaker 1: inside and after this short break, I will tell you
Speaker 1: how he gets back to criming, because he definitely does.
Speaker 1: All right, Elizabeth, where were we? You were telling me
Speaker 1: about a bare knuckle fight between a warden and an inmate.
Speaker 1: That's right, Greek prison. So my man pasilis Paleocostus. He's
Speaker 1: been sent from one prison another and he went from
Speaker 1: car food and I was back in Athens. The warden
Speaker 1: has been taunting him. He's been beaten up after he
Speaker 1: tried to escape. He's after he sent back inside, he's
Speaker 1: given a new cell mate. Turns out the new sellmate
Speaker 1: will play a big hand in the future of everything
Speaker 1: he does. His new cellmate's name is al kitt Rose.
Speaker 1: He is an Albanian hit man. For whatever it's worth,
Speaker 1: al kitt Rose. He swears he was no hit man
Speaker 1: and that he was wrongfully arrested. So the papers all
Speaker 1: say he was a hit man. He swears he was
Speaker 1: not a hit man, and that guy just happened to
Speaker 1: be dead and they call him the Thunderclu. His name
Speaker 1: was Thunderbunny him. The two men get to know each
Speaker 1: other in the sale. Just like Jero dreamed of sushi,
Speaker 1: they dream of escape right and the Stills dreams about
Speaker 1: calling down quote a missile strike on the prison walls.
Speaker 1: He's like, he's still an eighties action movie. And it's
Speaker 1: like someone will still a helicopter for little do you.
Speaker 1: It takes the twenty days together before they decide on
Speaker 1: a plan, and they put it into action on the
Speaker 1: twenties day together June four, two thousand six, they have
Speaker 1: contact your brother Nikos, he's their point man on the outside.
Speaker 1: They have arranged a plan and everything's go. Nicos chartered
Speaker 1: a helicopter from a sightseeing company. Tom I just think
Speaker 1: eighties action movie and they think helico exactly as did they.
Speaker 1: So Nikos were like, according to the Elizabeth plan, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry the phantom. Sorry, you're right not to state. As
Speaker 1: soon as Nicos the phantom is in the air with
Speaker 1: the sight seeing helicopter pilot, they go up on the
Speaker 1: charted helicopter. The pilots like, oh, what do you want
Speaker 1: to see here in Athens? And Nikos pulls out a
Speaker 1: gun and goes take me to the prison. He's like,
Speaker 1: that's not people want to see, Soos Nikos has a
Speaker 1: grenade just in case the guy tries to get clever.
Speaker 1: He's like, I got a gun and a grenade to
Speaker 1: be good for you. So he yanks out the radio
Speaker 1: so now that the guy can't call the cops, he
Speaker 1: orders the pilot to fly to the prison. The pilots like, okay,
Speaker 1: you got the guns. So that's a persuader. I'm doing it.
Speaker 1: Are the Phantom? Yeah, I got to the phantom. So
Speaker 1: Mr the Phantom tell me where should I be landing?
Speaker 1: And so the phantom tells in the prison exercise yard,
Speaker 1: and he's like, Okay, it's gonna be difficult, but I
Speaker 1: can do that. Vasilus and cell mate there in the
Speaker 1: yard waiting, and they have snapped a lockdown on the
Speaker 1: gate so that the guards can't chase them. It's like
Speaker 1: an improvised lock that they've created. They pull out a
Speaker 1: red Chego Vara flag that he had been on his
Speaker 1: prison wall. This is why the two of them got
Speaker 1: along so well. When al Kit sees his new cell
Speaker 1: mate has a cheg Wavara flag and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get along great. So the two of them,
Speaker 1: as soon as they got they got spaghetti, they got
Speaker 1: they got movie nights, so they're like waving the Cheguavara
Speaker 1: flag on the prison exercise yard. The helicopter lowers enough
Speaker 1: that the two men can reach the landing skids, but
Speaker 1: then the prison guards are fully aware this is actually
Speaker 1: a prison break. This is not like a prison officials
Speaker 1: coming for an inspection, which is what they think Originally,
Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, exactly right. So the guards they point
Speaker 1: their guns at the men, but then like wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: because they realized the prison is located in the residential
Speaker 1: neighborhood and all the prison guards know that on the
Speaker 1: other side of the prison walls are a bunch of
Speaker 1: neighborhood kids who always kicks soccer balls, and they don't
Speaker 1: want to shoot the kids, so they're like, let him go.
Speaker 1: The kids bring upside. The prisons agreed, Yeah, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you like that. So they watched the helicopter lift up
Speaker 1: into the sky, Bye bye, and they're gone after a
Speaker 1: short flights, and the kids all cheer yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1: The chopper lands in the cemetery on the north side
Speaker 1: of Athens. The pilis hops out, hugs his brother, says
Speaker 1: wear it right, and they did, and then he attends
Speaker 1: to the helicopter pilot and he's like, here man, he
Speaker 1: gives him worry beats and he says, you will be okay.
Speaker 1: You guys like, yeah, I'm a little more worried about
Speaker 1: how much this oh doo's gonna get arrested by the
Speaker 1: police in on it. He's got, he's got a tough
Speaker 1: few days in front of him. Anyway, after they give
Speaker 1: the worry beats to the helicopter and tell me he's okay,
Speaker 1: here's a chokers, stay hop on stolen dirt bikes and
Speaker 1: zoom off from room right. Yeah, exactly, scoot alkitt rise,
Speaker 1: he later recalled, and I quote I will full of
Speaker 1: drugs and adrenaline. I could barely show on the emotion.
Speaker 1: I just sat there stunned. But when we eventually switched
Speaker 1: in the cars, I drove as fast as I could,
Speaker 1: knowing that I didn't have to think about prison anymore.
Speaker 1: It felt like a paradise. He's Russian. Everybody's rushing to it.
Speaker 1: You know, what, what do you want from me? Everyone's
Speaker 1: Russian here in Greece, in the world, everyone's rushing. Increase accent,
Speaker 1: like I don't know how to do a Greek accent
Speaker 1: without being just straight up offensive, like I don't want
Speaker 1: to do anything like I'm just going like a rough
Speaker 1: slot like it. So he said of their escape, it
Speaker 1: was a picture perfect or in his words, and forgive
Speaker 1: the accent. The ultimate aim and a jailbreak is to
Speaker 1: leave nice and pretty and to say cheers and bravo
Speaker 1: as you leave, cheers, which is exactly apparently what they did.
Speaker 1: They were waiting to get check with horror flags cheers
Speaker 1: and as they flew away. So Greek Robin Hood is
Speaker 1: once again free and on the lamb and reunited with
Speaker 1: his brother Nikos. And so what goes down next for
Speaker 1: Greek Robin Hood. Well, three months after their daring escape,
Speaker 1: al kitt Rose gets caught and return into prisons because
Speaker 1: they're not good at freedom, Elizabeth. And months later, in
Speaker 1: that same year, two thousand and six, big brother Nicos
Speaker 1: He is also caught and apprehended by police. He gets
Speaker 1: nabbed in after a high speed car chase. Meanwhile, these
Speaker 1: guys are always in high speed car chase. There's so
Speaker 1: many high speed car chases, I'm not even gonna tell
Speaker 1: you about all them. They caught the Phantom but Uncatchable,
Speaker 1: true to his nickname, stayed free. He and so at
Speaker 1: this point he's like got a new focus. He's like,
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta get my my big my big
Speaker 1: brother out of prison. And he's also a little bothered
Speaker 1: because his baby brother, the Phantom, is now known as
Speaker 1: the most wanted outlaw in the land. He's like, his
Speaker 1: nickname is better than mine. I need to do something
Speaker 1: about this. So big baby brother of the list, he decides,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna needs some money to break my
Speaker 1: my brother out. So he goes and he kidnaps another
Speaker 1: Greek industrialists. You know, go back to what you know there.
Speaker 1: You can't walk anywhere in Greece without just tripping over
Speaker 1: shipping magnets. Yeah, is just lousy with magnets and industrialists.
Speaker 1: So June nine and eight, he and two men they
Speaker 1: kidnapped George Milonas and he's an aluminum magnet, so mixing
Speaker 1: it up, So he grabbed a gun point by the
Speaker 1: silus and two men wearing hoods arm with shot guns,
Speaker 1: which is always a good look. Two weeks later, the
Speaker 1: fat cat Industrious gets released once again unharmed, after his
Speaker 1: family paid how much nineteen million dollars American in ransom
Speaker 1: today's dollars, by the way, because what was at one
Speaker 1: point one point five first good memory. Now, the police
Speaker 1: tracked the ransom money because it had been marked and
Speaker 1: they were able to locate the hideout of the Scillus.
Speaker 1: So two months after the kidnapping in August, as he's
Speaker 1: laying about his mountain hide out with an anarchist friend
Speaker 1: watching a DVD of Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Speaker 1: and the Anti Terror yea truly, the anti terrorism squad
Speaker 1: busted into the door and arrested Huge exactly. Fails Is
Speaker 1: re arrested and returned to prison. For some reason, the
Speaker 1: Greene authorities, they decided to put the Sillus and his
Speaker 1: old cell mate, I'll kit Ris back together in the
Speaker 1: same cell. Like that's like yeah, like they're saving space.
Speaker 1: We're like, well, we already have the number system work, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So as they prepare for their new trial, he and
Speaker 1: al Kitt they prepare a new escape plan. Let's go
Speaker 1: back to what we know, get out the sketch pad
Speaker 1: outside of the court for his new trial and Athens,
Speaker 1: the local villagers come in from all those surrounding towns
Speaker 1: that he's been like basically hiding out in and they
Speaker 1: come into the city and they gathered to protest his arrest.
Speaker 1: There's a group of rural farmers and along with them
Speaker 1: are urban anarchists. And then it also swelling into this
Speaker 1: crowd or peasants and shepherds who were all shouting death
Speaker 1: through the pigs, freedom, the paleocaustus, death, the pigs fed
Speaker 1: exactly goats in the streets. People are there, but they're
Speaker 1: buying in protests. So at one point during all this
Speaker 1: media circus trial, alcott Ri's girlfriend swans into the courtroom.
Speaker 1: She makes a big scene. Everyone's like, oh, look at her.
Speaker 1: She's so dramatic and beautiful, and she's allowed to hug
Speaker 1: her incarcerated boyfriend. I don't know how this play is
Speaker 1: out in Greece, but she uses the opportunity to slip
Speaker 1: something in his pocket. It's a watch with a tiny radio.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Scond two thousand nine, Alcott's girlfriend phones
Speaker 1: him on this little dick Tracy prison watched and she
Speaker 1: lets him know, baby, it's on. And so Alkett and
Speaker 1: Vassilis were led out into the prison yard for their
Speaker 1: daily exercise, and around the size of the palm of
Speaker 1: his hand he's got and so thirty three forty five
Speaker 1: in the afternoon, a helicopter is spotted approaching the prison.
Speaker 1: The helicopter is yet another hijacked chopper, and this time
Speaker 1: it's Alcott's girlfriend who's holding the automatic rifle, and Nko
Speaker 1: says instead of Nikos, it's this time it's Alcott's girlfriend
Speaker 1: and she's kidnapped to pilot at gun point and forced
Speaker 1: him to fly to the prison yard. She pulls on
Speaker 1: the gun on the pilot and tells him we're going
Speaker 1: to pick up the kids. Cordilo's prison. When you die,
Speaker 1: always with the kids, dropping kids off, picking kids up.
Speaker 1: And by the way, they call me the specter. No
Speaker 1: they don't, they don't. You do so he the pilot
Speaker 1: does as instructed. The chopper arrives at the desired landing zone.
Speaker 1: Helicopter hovered over the prison yard, the rope ladders tossed
Speaker 1: down the side, and his girlfriend brandishing a machine gun,
Speaker 1: provides cover for the two men as they climb the
Speaker 1: rope ladder. This time there's no kids playing soccer and
Speaker 1: other side of the prison wall, so the guards open fire.
Speaker 1: The two get in like an open gunfight, and she's
Speaker 1: gunning from the open helicopter doors like it's a Vietnam
Speaker 1: War movie. Guys are climbing and just scrambling as fast
Speaker 1: as they can up this rope ladder and uh, they
Speaker 1: managed to basically tell him we're on the ladder, take
Speaker 1: off and she turns. The guy left off and he does,
Speaker 1: and they take off and managed to escape. And they're
Speaker 1: just dangling on the rope ladder. Yeah. We At one
Speaker 1: point the prison guard tries to grab al Catt. He
Speaker 1: sees he's reaching for the ladder. Alcat turns and he's
Speaker 1: got a kebab skewer in his hand. Topic right now,
Speaker 1: that's not like an offensive. The pilot obligern And by
Speaker 1: the way, all this is on YouTube if you want
Speaker 1: to now the prison cards. After they had unloaded their
Speaker 1: clips in the under side of this helicopter, they pierced
Speaker 1: the gas tank, they severed the fuel line. This helicopter
Speaker 1: is not making but it does make it to the
Speaker 1: side of a highway in the suburbs of Athens where
Speaker 1: they land. The pilot is fine, he's left bounding, gagged
Speaker 1: and hooded. Vasilus Alquette and his girl, they all they're
Speaker 1: gone like the wind. Yeah. So the Greek news interrupts
Speaker 1: all the daily soap propers with the brand news of
Speaker 1: the daring prison escape of Acoustus. This is the beginning
Speaker 1: of the largest man hunt in Greek history. Now a
Speaker 1: month later, two men and a woman storm into a
Speaker 1: bank in the hometown of Vacillus and rob it. The
Speaker 1: robbers are reported to be quote the fugitive Vassilus Paleocoustus
Speaker 1: alquet Rose and their female accomplice, a blonde Laura Croft. No,
Speaker 1: that's how they described in the press. All three escape
Speaker 1: unharmed and with a small fortune. But not long after
Speaker 1: that Alquette and his girlfriend they get nabbed by the
Speaker 1: Greek police, like we've got the specter Like these two,
Speaker 1: there's just too foxy, unstatchable. True to his nickname, he
Speaker 1: stays free on the lamb, and he gets spotted by
Speaker 1: rural villagers who they say they always notice him in
Speaker 1: the VW Torres Apparently he just likes stealing torregs, so
Speaker 1: he would like steal torreg get some cash in his
Speaker 1: hand and go for a drive, just throw money as
Speaker 1: he was driving around, listening to get like Greek guitar.
Speaker 1: And also there's another All these tales of his acts
Speaker 1: of charity. But there's one I thought you would like
Speaker 1: as his poor family. Right, it's the middle of the
Speaker 1: night and they hear a knock at their door, and
Speaker 1: when they open it, all they find waiting for them
Speaker 1: is an envelope. Inside the envelope is ten thousand euros,
Speaker 1: the exact amount of money they need for medical treatment
Speaker 1: for the father whom the whole family depended on. So
Speaker 1: he just comes in basically drops off the money, and
Speaker 1: he isn't even there for them to say, how does
Speaker 1: he find these things out? Is just like windows at night, Yes,
Speaker 1: just like that. He gathers at the window. He's got
Speaker 1: a big earhorns in now. He basically as an underground guy.
Speaker 1: He keeps his his ear to the wind, and when
Speaker 1: he hears some of these things, he's like, m I
Speaker 1: can go do something about this. So stories like this
Speaker 1: proliferate through the mountains of grease, and everybody's always hoping
Speaker 1: that the Greek robin Hood will be so kind as
Speaker 1: to roll into their town with his his Greek music
Speaker 1: coming out of the windows, and people start planting like
Speaker 1: stories like you know, I really just need twenty thousand
Speaker 1: euros and then I'll have my dream of getting a
Speaker 1: new fake leg. You don't have a well, like if
Speaker 1: I had to have, let's just say I need one. Yes,
Speaker 1: a Greek queen for a day has become like the thing, right,
Speaker 1: everyone's like all these sob stories, but the still us,
Speaker 1: you know, and he's not spotting his toy egg listening
Speaker 1: to his Greek guitar pick music. The authorities are convinced
Speaker 1: that they can't find him because he must have had
Speaker 1: cosmetic surgery, which turns out he had. He had had
Speaker 1: multiple cosmetic surgeries, and it works. It allows him to
Speaker 1: stay free and he remains so to this day. Do
Speaker 1: you think he looks like one of the Real Housewives? Now,
Speaker 1: probably got that immovable math. He's got that special new
Speaker 1: face that all of those people have. Yeah, the cheek
Speaker 1: bones and the west side of that. He just looks
Speaker 1: like Santa Monica. Everyone keep your eyes open. Now. There
Speaker 1: have been numerous run ins with him, most notably, he
Speaker 1: still loves movies, so his love of video rental stores
Speaker 1: almost cost him his freedom. In two thousand nine, he
Speaker 1: left his hide out to go rent some movies. He
Speaker 1: went down to the pop down to the video rental store,
Speaker 1: and there's a team of fifteen undercover police who had
Speaker 1: set up a sting operation because they are aware of
Speaker 1: his video rental habit. And they were just waiting there
Speaker 1: and like he's got to return, just waiting to hear
Speaker 1: the music coming down the hill exactly. They hear the
Speaker 1: Greek guitar music. So before he gets out of his
Speaker 1: stolen tareg, he spots the cops and the Highwayman bandit.
Speaker 1: He gives the cops to the eye. The cops give
Speaker 1: him the eye, and at one point they've now they've
Speaker 1: cornered the most wanted man in Greece. And Vacillus would
Speaker 1: later recount and I quote, so I lead to the rip,
Speaker 1: I sped down an alley to escape, and bullets were
Speaker 1: dancing inside my car's cabin. These guys opened fire and
Speaker 1: shot more than a hundred fifty bullets in fifteen seconds.
Speaker 1: He's like that nothing, This just a Tuesday for men.
Speaker 1: So he he's telling this story because he survived and
Speaker 1: he didn't fire back. I'll tell you that in a second, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I'm like, how are we okay? So he survives.
Speaker 1: At my point, they yeah, and he didn't fire back.
Speaker 1: So he gets always fifteen cops, fire and whatever due
Speaker 1: because all of these years as a bandit, he never
Speaker 1: once used a gun. He was very much against hurting,
Speaker 1: and that his original code he came up with. So
Speaker 1: he escapes that day and he remains on the lamb,
Speaker 1: occasually robbing banks and then disappearing into the mountains. He
Speaker 1: calls home and this has just been what he's been doing.
Speaker 1: And now clearly you can tell I like the Greek
Speaker 1: robin Hood. He's my dude. And because mostly I think
Speaker 1: this is my favorite part about him, the Greek robin Hood.
Speaker 1: His existence implies the existence of like the Greenland robin
Speaker 1: Hood and the zimbabwe and robin Hood. Robin we need
Speaker 1: all the robin hoods we can get. I want to
Speaker 1: go to the convention. So it was a quick question.
Speaker 1: Although he's not currently in prison, as I find it out,
Speaker 1: the stillis did spend plenty of time inside. So what
Speaker 1: does that mean for his career aspects? No, it's actually
Speaker 1: very good in one particular field, entrepreneur. He's now a
Speaker 1: qualified author, is wow the publishing world with his memoirs
Speaker 1: on the run, and he writes me and it's a
Speaker 1: best seller hit. Of course that one allow me a
Speaker 1: review of the memoir, Autobiography and Quote. In its pages,
Speaker 1: you can find explanations about the correct choice of a
Speaker 1: hostage for ransom, no women or children, the most important
Speaker 1: thing in planning an escape from prison to have someone
Speaker 1: willing to sacrifice his life for you, and warnings about
Speaker 1: the many obstacles that stand in the way of those
Speaker 1: who choose illegality as a way of life. Now, there's
Speaker 1: one other passage in the review that kind of highlights
Speaker 1: all of his many little side quests that he went
Speaker 1: on that I didn't have time to cover in this,
Speaker 1: but it kind of gives you an idea what he
Speaker 1: was doing when I said he was on the lamb
Speaker 1: and I quote. One of the most beautiful chapters in
Speaker 1: the book, however, takes place away from Greece and from
Speaker 1: all of the Silus's illegal entanglements. In the early nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: when the authorities dropped a series of robbery cases on him,
Speaker 1: Paliocostus was in the midst of a long bicycle trip
Speaker 1: with a fake Brazilian passport and a friend. The journey,
Speaker 1: which began in Germany and ended in China, provides the
Speaker 1: reader with a magical moment of the rest from the
Speaker 1: stressful life in the shadow of Illegalism. Wow, he rode
Speaker 1: on a bike trip from China with a fake Brazilian buddy.
Speaker 1: As you're getting ready to read that, I'm thinking, like
Speaker 1: writers across the globe, heave a heavy sigh of another.
Speaker 1: But this guy sounds he's got a story. Okay, he's
Speaker 1: learned the book deal and okay, And in case you
Speaker 1: want to know, like, what is his writing voice sound like?
Speaker 1: There was a translated version of his book In case
Speaker 1: you wanted to read Elizabeth. It's available on Amazon also
Speaker 1: other fine booksellers who don't want support a corporate giant.
Speaker 1: Basilis writes about his criminal ethos as the Greek robin
Speaker 1: head and a quote, my conscience prohibits me from selling guns,
Speaker 1: protection of small businesses, drugs. They also forbid me from
Speaker 1: entering a house to steal, to kill an old lady,
Speaker 1: to become a snitch, to cooperate with a cop of politician.
Speaker 1: What do they allow me? Only bank robberies, abducting a
Speaker 1: rich people, and being part of a revolution towards a
Speaker 1: more just world. That's his story. That's what I think
Speaker 1: my conscience allows me to do. Being Yeah, I'll take
Speaker 1: someone and make them think they're not going to live. Well, No,
Speaker 1: he never, he never does that. He lets them know, look,
Speaker 1: I'm only here for the cash. You're worth this moment.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they just walk off? There has to be
Speaker 1: some threat to their life. There's a threat to they
Speaker 1: can't escape, like you know, like if I've staying you up,
Speaker 1: I don't need to tell you I'm going to kill you.
Speaker 1: I can just tell you good luck getting away from
Speaker 1: the chains, right, But what if I do? Then? What
Speaker 1: are you gonna just let me walk off? Then I've
Speaker 1: lost my prey and I'm better go get another fat cat.
Speaker 1: There's implicit violence in that. There can be, but there's
Speaker 1: not a nest is sary violence you can do this
Speaker 1: with just like look, hey, sit down, relaxed, watch some TV.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring you some microwave dinners and we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about supermarkets. What well, as I said before, vasiliuskali
Speaker 1: Acostus is still out there robbing banks for a more
Speaker 1: just world there And if you hear this, hit us up, Pasilus,
Speaker 1: because we'd love to have you come on the show
Speaker 1: and be the first guest for our ridiculous crime book club.
Speaker 1: That would be amazing. Well, Elizabeth, it's a ridiculous takeaway
Speaker 1: for this one. Um, you know what, I don't ever
Speaker 1: make your own nicknames. You're making fun of me my
Speaker 1: ridiculous takeaway. Once again, thank you for asking. It is simple. Look,
Speaker 1: if you don't hurt anyone, I'm probably gonna root for
Speaker 1: you over the fat cat industrialists every time, especially once
Speaker 1: you're engaging crimes of their own, like the dude with
Speaker 1: the corruption and the and the supermarket everybody, right, and
Speaker 1: definitely I'm going to root for the Greek robin hood
Speaker 1: over the kinds of villains who say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I got a and some I'm gonna make all the
Speaker 1: taxpayers pay. I mean like that to me is just
Speaker 1: as whack as somebody going in and robbing a bank.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's worse. Well, ordinary people, we get screwed
Speaker 1: over all day every day, so you know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: got to get your on back. I guess yeah. And also,
Speaker 1: I mean, how can you not root for a Greek
Speaker 1: robin hood nicknamed Uncatchable who bumps guitar music from the
Speaker 1: windows of stolen cars as he tells his money out
Speaker 1: the window. They call him. That's all I got for you,
Speaker 1: beaut Well. You can find us online a Ridiculous Trauma
Speaker 1: about Twitter and Instagram. Twitters for the updates, the dump stuff,
Speaker 1: the shout outs, interactions Instagram. That's where we put the
Speaker 1: photos for each episode, and also we give peaks at
Speaker 1: the shows to come. The stories offer you some laughs
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, you can speak pick some both, but
Speaker 1: either way, if you'd like to contact us, you can
Speaker 1: tweet at us or email us if you want a
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening. Ridiculous
Speaker 1: Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zoan Burnett, produced
Speaker 1: and edited by the Providence Robin Hood Dave Houston. Researches
Speaker 1: by Rogue Bandit of the Archives Marissa Brown. Our theme
Speaker 1: song is by the artist Thomas Lee and the fingerpicking
Speaker 1: guitar man Travis Dutton. Executive producers are Ben It's all
Speaker 1: Greek to Me Boland and No I'm a Creek on
Speaker 1: a leash Crowd We Die say It one more time
Speaker 1: We Dequeous Crew. Ridiculous Crime is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heeart Radio four more podcasts, my Heart Radio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,