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Speaker 1: If you have your own story of being in a

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Speaker 1: cult or a high control group, or if you've had

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Speaker 1: an experience with manipulation or abuse of power you'd like

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Speaker 1: to share, leave us a message on our hotline number

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Speaker 1: at five one three nine hundred two nine five five.

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Speaker 2: Or shoot us an email at trust Me pod at

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Speaker 2: gmail dot com.

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Speaker 1: Trust Me, trust me, trust Me.

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Speaker 3: I'm like a swat person.

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Speaker 4: I've never lied to.

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Speaker 1: You, and never if you think that one person has

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Speaker 1: all the answers, don't. Welcome to Trust Me the podcast

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Speaker 1: about colts, extreme belief and the abusive power from two

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Speaker 1: mob wives who've actually experienced it. I am low lablanc

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Speaker 1: and I am Megan Elizabeth and guess what, we're not

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Speaker 1: really mobwives, but some say you never know. Today our

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Speaker 1: guests are Sean Williams and Danny Gold, reporters and hosts

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Speaker 1: of the Underworld podcast, which delves into all things organized crime.

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Speaker 1: So these delightful fellas have reported on all kinds of

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Speaker 1: international crime and have done deep dives on mafia's worldwide

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Speaker 1: on their podcast, and they're going to talk to us

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Speaker 1: today about organized crime across the world.

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Speaker 2: We're going to talk about crime groups from Nigeria's Black

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Speaker 2: Exe cult to the Burmese mafia, What organized crime has

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Speaker 2: in common with cults, what groups they've been the most

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Speaker 2: fascinated by, and the reporting and lots more.

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Speaker 1: Alrighty, stay tuned before we get into it. Megan, what's

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Speaker 1: the gold desing? Has happened to you this week?

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Speaker 2: H ooh? Well, I was a little out of it

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Speaker 2: for this interview because I had gotten the vaccine, the

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Speaker 2: second COVID vaccine. Yay, yay. Hey, I've gotten some surprising

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Speaker 2: pushback on it.

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Speaker 4: Really.

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Speaker 2: You know, we've already gotten in trouble on this podcast

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Speaker 2: for being too political, so you know, I know this

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Speaker 2: is a very charged subject, but people that I didn't

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Speaker 2: think would be against it were like, you shouldn't have

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Speaker 2: done that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, there's this like New York Times chatbot

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Speaker 1: where you can and select different answers, like multiple choice

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Speaker 1: answers in a conversation with someone who's having hesitations about

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Speaker 1: the vaccine. And it was really interesting because I think

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Speaker 1: that our default response, as people who are pro vaccine,

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Speaker 1: does tend to be very but what science, you know?

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Speaker 1: And that is very alienating to people totally, But it

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Speaker 1: is really interesting. It was useful for me because I

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Speaker 1: also have had people in my life who I was

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Speaker 1: pretty surprised were having as many hesitations as they were.

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Speaker 1: It's a thing, man, it's spreading. It's a thing. I

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Speaker 1: understand some of the concerns, but some of the literature

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Speaker 1: that's been going around to support those concerns is not

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Speaker 1: coming from actual scientists. It's not coming from the medical

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Speaker 1: community really at all. And anyway, if you are having

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Speaker 1: concerns about the vaccine, I totally understand that it is

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Speaker 1: a you know, it hasn't been around that long. I

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Speaker 1: get why you would be concerned, but just so you know,

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Speaker 1: the coronavirus has been studied for quite some time. Vaccine

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Speaker 1: came out faster than it normally would because there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of red tape that was removed for this process.

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Speaker 1: And anyway, there are lots of reasons to get the vaccine.

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Speaker 1: I would say, feel free to us.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I feel I mean, apparently Lola is like

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Speaker 2: it's her new job to talk to people about this.

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Speaker 4: I did not know.

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Speaker 1: No, I don't know. I feel like it's important because

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Speaker 1: I feel like my knee jerk response would be to

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Speaker 1: be like, what are you talking about? But like, that's

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Speaker 1: not you know, there are a lot of really reasonable

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Speaker 1: people who were having concerns, So I feel like it's

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Speaker 1: an important conversation to have.

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Speaker 2: Totally, Yeah, what about you, what's the coldest thing that

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Speaker 2: happened to you this week?

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Speaker 1: I it's just one YouTube video, really, but I uh, oh,

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Speaker 1: I didn't actually know what mentalist meant. I didn't really

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Speaker 1: understand what that word meant. Okay, I guess I thought it.

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Speaker 1: I guess it seemed like maybe a party.

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Speaker 3: Eh.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I kind of did, but it was vague in

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Speaker 1: my head. Do you know what a mentalist is?

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Speaker 2: Well, you tell me, because I thought I did, but

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Speaker 2: now I don't anymore.

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Speaker 1: No, you probably do.

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Speaker 4: Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's like someone who uses tricks of psychology and priming

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Speaker 1: processes to appear to be psychic, essentially as a party trick.

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Speaker 1: So I watched I was looking up this video.

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Speaker 2: We're saying something about parties in like political parties.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god.

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Speaker 2: I was like, I guess I don't know what a

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Speaker 2: mentalist does it all?

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Speaker 1: Okay, parties? Yes, okay, you know Joe Biden's mentalist, right right? Okay, okay, okay, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I watched this one. This guy who was on

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Speaker 1: James Corden and I'm gonna spoil it for you guys,

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Speaker 1: so if you don't want to know, you should skip

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Speaker 1: this so you can go watch it for yourself. But

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Speaker 1: it's crazy. This Mentalist was on and everyone in the

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Speaker 1: audience had like a little whiteboard to draw something on.

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Speaker 1: Oh you have yes, right, Okay, Well I'm gonna describe

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Speaker 1: it for listeners.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So he has his guests and he has the band,

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Speaker 1: and then there's the audience and the mentalist guy. You know,

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Speaker 1: he holds up his little whiteboard. Everyone's supposed to draw something,

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Speaker 1: and he holds up his little whiteboards and he draws

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Speaker 1: a couple of examples. He's like, here's a mountain and

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Speaker 1: here's a whatever, and you know, you draw anything you want,

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Speaker 1: anything you want, Ready, don't show your neighbor. Here we

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Speaker 1: go go And he asked one person the audience to

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Speaker 1: hold up their whiteboard. It's a star. He asks another

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Speaker 1: person in the audience to hold up their whiteboard, it's

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Speaker 1: a star. He has everyone in the audience, including the

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Speaker 1: band and James Gordon, up their whiteboard and it's all

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Speaker 1: a fucking star everyone, true star. He got everyone to

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Speaker 1: do it, and the way that he did it was

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Speaker 1: he used priming. So his little test example drawings that

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Speaker 1: he was holding up, they were drawings, but they spelled

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Speaker 1: out star. They were all in the shape, so the

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Speaker 1: mountain was an A because it was pointy. I forget

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Speaker 1: what the other ones were, But that is how easy

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Speaker 1: it is to put ideas into people's brains that they

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Speaker 1: think are just coming from their own minds. It's so

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Speaker 1: fascinating to me, especially because my girlfriend and I have

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Speaker 1: been in a debate this whole week about free will.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm like pretty firmly on the side of

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Speaker 1: we have no control over what thoughts come into our brain.

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Speaker 1: Everything is just kind of random, and some people think

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Speaker 1: that randomness means that free will exists. Whatever, I'm not

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Speaker 1: one of those people. I'm like, We're just a collection

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Speaker 1: of impulses and responses and reactions and mentalism one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent makes me think that I have chosen the correct

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Speaker 1: stance on this issue. What was your I mean that

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Speaker 1: video was crazy, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the one I feel like I saw it might

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Speaker 2: have been a different time, but I think it was

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Speaker 2: like an ass that everybody drew, like some weird Superman

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Speaker 2: ass or something like that. But I think about it

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Speaker 2: all the time. It's so fucking weird, and sometimes I'm like,

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Speaker 2: was that faked? Because it's just so crazy that not

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Speaker 2: one person was like I'm gonna draw heart like everyone

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Speaker 2: through a star.

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Speaker 1: I know, it's insane. It's like priming, dude, And that

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Speaker 1: makes me think about all other kinds of ways that

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Speaker 1: you can manipulate people and ways that I can manipulate people.

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Speaker 1: Not that I want to manipulate people, but when I

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Speaker 1: think in terms of career, I'm like, oh, it makes sense.

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Speaker 1: How like your goal should always be to just stay

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Speaker 1: in front of people, like stay in their minds, because

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Speaker 1: then they'll think of you because you're There's that you know,

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Speaker 1: whatever they've seen most recently is what they'll think of

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Speaker 1: right next. Whatever they're primed to think about is what

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Speaker 1: they'll call up in their minds for the next project

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Speaker 1: or whatever. But then also I'm like, how many fucking

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Speaker 1: cult leaders are doing tricks like this and convincing people

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Speaker 1: that it's because of their magical powers.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I feel like a lot of the

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Speaker 2: cult leaders that we've discussed so far are pretty on

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Speaker 2: board thinking that they are magical. So I'm very curious

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Speaker 2: about somebody who's just like full out, like that Steve

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Speaker 2: Martin movie from the eighties where he's just faking it hard.

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Speaker 2: I want to talk to somebody like that.

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Speaker 1: That's an interesting point. And you know, my old cult

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Speaker 1: leader was absolutely just tricking people and was like aware

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Speaker 1: of it and would go back and forth between saying

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Speaker 1: that he was and saying that actually he was lying

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Speaker 1: when he said he was tricking people to test your faith.

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Speaker 2: I can't with them.

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Speaker 1: But then also, like Jim Jones, arguably Jim Jones probably

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Speaker 1: believed his shit at the end because of the extreme

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Speaker 1: measures that he took. But in the beginning, he was

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Speaker 1: faking miracles. He had people faking their healing out of

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Speaker 1: their wheelchair and sit, you know, like they were. So

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Speaker 1: I'm like, how many of them are faking this? But

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Speaker 1: then get so caught up in their own like deception

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Speaker 1: that they begin to believe it, you know? Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. We really need to interview an actual

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Speaker 1: cult leader who's gonna come on and.

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Speaker 2: Gosh, lead us, give us your brain, you crazy person.

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Speaker 1: You realsies speaking of bad behavior. Shall we talk to

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Speaker 1: our guests Sean and Danny. Now, yes, let's do it.

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Speaker 1: Let's do it. Welcome Sean Williams and Danny Gold.

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Speaker 3: Thank you for having us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks for coming. So y'all are both journalists and

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Speaker 1: you have a podcast together called The Underworld Podcast, which

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Speaker 1: is also on our Lovely Home Network podcast one shout out.

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Speaker 1: Can you both say your names so we can tell

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Speaker 1: the difference between your voices? Please?

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Speaker 4: There is no difference, right, I am Sean Williams.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Danny Gold.

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Speaker 1: It sounds too similar, I can't. I can't tell tell

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Speaker 1: us a bit about your backgrounds to start, so people

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Speaker 1: just know who you are, Like, what kinds of stuff

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Speaker 1: have you covered? What kind of what do you do?

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Speaker 1: Give us the rundown, Sean, you want to go.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm a freelance journalist, features writer, part time terrible photographer.

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Speaker 4: I've been all over the place covering organized crime, conflict,

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Speaker 4: human rights kind of stuff from Nigeria, Iceland, Philippines, Somalia,

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Speaker 4: anywhere there's a problem with organized crime or people in trouble.

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Speaker 3: Noble, you're the man.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I've just covered a lot of bad things

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Speaker 4: and chased around a lot of elusive and interesting, not

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Speaker 4: necessarily good people.

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Speaker 1: I guess I can relate Okay.

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Speaker 3: I'm a reporter too.

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Speaker 5: I started off doing your sort of breaking these crime

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Speaker 5: stories around New York, and then transitioned to doing a

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Speaker 5: lot of foreign reporting first print places like you know, Iraq, Syria, Turkey,

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Speaker 5: mianmar and then I switched to documentaries and I worked

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Speaker 5: advice for a while and then yeah, since then, I've

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Speaker 5: just kind of done your running the mill sort of

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Speaker 5: chaos beat, you know, like anywhere e Bowl of stories

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Speaker 5: or stuff on Al Qaida or MS thirteen gangs in

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Speaker 5: Saint Louis, a lot of stuff in El Salvador, Mexico, Trinidad,

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Speaker 5: and just sort of bounced around the world doing fun

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Speaker 5: stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: So you two are the reason that when I open

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Speaker 1: the news, I feel terror and utter horror at everything

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Speaker 1: that happens in the world.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, what do.

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Speaker 4: We say to that? Do we say yes, you should

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Speaker 4: feel terrified, or like, no, we.

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Speaker 3: Don't want to.

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Speaker 5: We just want to go around to these places and

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Speaker 5: kind of like maybe talk a little bit about this terror,

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Speaker 5: but also just like hang out and eat food.

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Speaker 3: But no one's paying us to do that right now.

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Speaker 4: But that book page is still out there, like the

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Speaker 4: Journalist cook book is still out there.

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Speaker 3: If anyone we're ready.

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Speaker 2: I love how Saint Louis got randomly thrown in there.

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Speaker 1: I felt like it was.

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Speaker 3: No Saint Louis. Saint Louis is nar I mean, I

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Speaker 3: love Saint Louis.

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Speaker 5: I have a lot of love for the city, but like,

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Speaker 5: Saint Louis is an incredibly dangerous city.

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Speaker 4: Really.

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Speaker 3: That's why if you.

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Speaker 5: Look at murder rates across the world, like the top

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Speaker 5: ten cities, it's like Mexico, Brazil, Mexico, Brazil, Mexico, Mexico,

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Speaker 5: Saint Louis.

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Speaker 1: Wow, Yeah, I had no idea. Is that gang related?

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Speaker 1: Is there a lot of organized crime there?

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Speaker 5: Like?

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Speaker 1: What is that?

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Speaker 5: Saint Louis is just this giant coming together of every

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Speaker 5: problem in America, whether it's like horrible discrimination and segregation

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Speaker 5: in really poor communities, poverty, loss of jobs, opioids are

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Speaker 5: a big thing there, and there's like no gun laws,

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Speaker 5: so you have a poor population that's kind of closed

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Speaker 5: off with no opportunities and lots of guns running around,

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Speaker 5: and it just kind of adds up into this this

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Speaker 5: terrible situation.

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Speaker 3: But there's a lot of good things there.

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Speaker 5: I don't want to just of course, of course, yeah,

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Speaker 5: lovely lovely city.

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Speaker 3: I hope it bounces back well.

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Speaker 1: So tell us friends, Yeah, you've talked a lot about

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Speaker 1: a variety of different mafias and organized crime groups. Your

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Speaker 1: podcast specifically deals with organized crime. Is how you would

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Speaker 1: describe what your topic is? Right, Yeah, there's some you.

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Speaker 5: Know, we use the word mafia is like a catch

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Speaker 5: all for just like criminal organizations, gangs. Sometimes we'll talk

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Speaker 5: about just you know, I have an episode coming up

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Speaker 5: on just the city of Acapulco how it got so dangerous.

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Speaker 5: So there's some cool historical stuff brought in there, or

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Speaker 5: individuals that have risen up. You know, we're getting into

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Speaker 5: weird bitcoin fraud stuff too.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: I think people prefer like the organized crime mafia stuff

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Speaker 5: as opposed to the other stuff.

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Speaker 1: It's fascinating, Yeah, it is. It's a world that I

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Speaker 1: know nothing about, which is why of the topics that

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Speaker 1: we could have explored with you guys, that's the one

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Speaker 1: that I'm I'm interested in. I just like know nothing

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Speaker 1: about the mafias endlesslie fascinating or mafia's I should say,

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Speaker 1: not that there's only one mafia, and I would love

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Speaker 1: to know, Like, is there a common thread that you've

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Speaker 1: seen on let's just start with how mafias are formed

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Speaker 1: in the first place.

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Speaker 4: Ooh, good question. All right, he's going to get.

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Speaker 3: I think you have a good answer. Man, You're a

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Speaker 3: smart guy.

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Speaker 4: I mean, thank you so much. This is going to

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Speaker 4: go so well. I guess there are certain elements that

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Speaker 4: we always like have every episode we do. There are

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Speaker 4: going to be certain like building blocks on which these

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Speaker 4: kind of like groups have built. So in loads of them,

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Speaker 4: you have poor communities, marginalized communities. They might be minority

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Speaker 4: ethnic communities that are ignored or somehow aligned by state

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Speaker 4: or some powers. And then there's I mean a lot

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Speaker 4: of these places are on kind of like the logistical

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Speaker 4: routes for certain items that people like to do. And

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Speaker 4: then there's kind of like a loss of identity. I

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Speaker 4: guess there's like young usually men, who are kind of

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Speaker 4: looking for structure, purpose, reason in their lives, and they

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Speaker 4: get drawn into these like paternal kind of like circles

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Speaker 4: where they're like, hey, you don't have to be poor,

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Speaker 4: you don't have to like do nothing with your life.

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Speaker 4: You can do something worthwhile, you can join a cause.

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Speaker 4: And that kind of is something that you know, links

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Speaker 4: the line between organized crime and like terror groups and

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Speaker 4: these kind of organizations is like really fine when it

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Speaker 4: comes to that stuff. It like gives young men with

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Speaker 4: no direction and no purpose and no future is something

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Speaker 4: to kind of claw onto, and some of them become

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Speaker 4: more political than others, or some of them become more

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Speaker 4: kind of religiously based or anything like that, because they

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Speaker 4: just kind of wrap themselves around the society that they're in.

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Speaker 1: Everything that you just said completely echoes everything that we

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Speaker 1: talk about in terms of why people join cults, Like

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Speaker 1: it's such a similar thing. It's people who are experiencing

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Speaker 1: some kind of difficult time in their lives or in

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Speaker 1: society and are looking for structure, looking for a meaning,

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Speaker 1: looking for something to sort of make their life better.

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Speaker 1: And it's interesting it is mostly men, right, Like, are

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Speaker 1: you aware of any female run organized crime groups? Is

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Speaker 1: that a thing?

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Speaker 4: Oh? Hey, I mean I think we have an episode

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Speaker 4: coming out. Is it next week or the week after that?

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Speaker 3: On a couple of weeks?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, on a middle aged woman in Chinatown,

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Speaker 4: New York who ended up running this huge smuggling human

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Speaker 4: traffick and we couldn't quite figure it out ring h yeah,

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Speaker 4: I mean it is male vastly and yeah, there is

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Speaker 4: things to do with like the idea of masculinity draws

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Speaker 4: people into this stuff as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a place for them to get a community

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Speaker 2: that isn't really offered anywhere else.

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Speaker 1: Right, And people talk about how like I see people

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Speaker 1: at least often talk about how cults are usually women

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Speaker 1: are usually the ones who join clts, which is a misconception.

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Speaker 1: There are many, many, many many men who join cults,

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Speaker 1: but it is definitely a thing that you see more

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Speaker 1: at least in the media as women who need something

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Speaker 1: in their lives. And I feel like this is sort

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Speaker 1: of the flip side of that. It's just you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of branded differently because they end up doing very

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Speaker 1: different things.

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Speaker 4: I guess in many ways, cults and organized crime outfits

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Speaker 4: are like filling a void, like you're saying, in like

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Speaker 4: people's lives, but they're also boiling identities down to a

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Speaker 4: common denominator. Right, So if you're going to look at

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Speaker 4: like young men in the group, they'll just get boiled

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Speaker 4: down to like raw masculinity. Or they're like loads of

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Speaker 4: these groups that we cover, they're like really nationalists and

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Speaker 4: they're really like religiously zealous, or they're like really extreme.

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Speaker 4: They're like quite extreme missed organizations, and I guess that

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Speaker 4: appeals to people who don't have a lot of prospects

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Speaker 4: or are struggling to cope with things in their private

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Speaker 4: life that are really complex or difficult to do or

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Speaker 4: to get through, and these groups kind of give them

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Speaker 4: easy answers, right that like cults give people easy answers,

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Speaker 4: and so the gangs, I guess in some sense.

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Speaker 5: I think too, it's like, you know, they similar cults.

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Speaker 5: They provide a framework right for seeing the world and

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Speaker 5: for how to succeed in it. You know, when you

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Speaker 5: look at MS thirteen and some of these other groups

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Speaker 5: that come up, a lot of the people that join

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Speaker 5: are lost. You know, they're looking for structure, they're looking

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Speaker 5: for family, or they're young and easily influenced by people

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Speaker 5: who have power who tell them that, like, there's a

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Speaker 5: way to gain power, there's a way to see the

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Speaker 5: world if you come.

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Speaker 3: With me and you do this.

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Speaker 5: I mean brainwashing might be too strong a word, but

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Speaker 5: there is a way of winning them over into this

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Speaker 5: group and making it seem like this is the only

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Speaker 5: thing that matters. It is belonging to this group and

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Speaker 5: this is what you need to do to keep belonging

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Speaker 5: and it just like it's a cycle that keeps going

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Speaker 5: and going and going.

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Speaker 1: Earlier before you were recording, what have you mentioned for

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Speaker 1: fruitment methods? And I would love to know about some

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Speaker 1: of the recruitment methods that you guys have seen.

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Speaker 4: I mean, something that I was reporting a couple of

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Speaker 4: years ago was the Nigerian these cult gangs that have

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Speaker 4: become like really really sort of darkly powerful in Nigerian

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Speaker 4: society and they've spread all over the world. It's like

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Speaker 4: arguably one of the biggest mafias however you want to

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Speaker 4: describe it in the world. And one of the things

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Speaker 4: they do, which kind of leads on from what we

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Speaker 4: were saying, is they recruit young men and increasingly now

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Speaker 4: young women straight out of college like fresh You know,

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Speaker 4: there's a lot of joblessness and it's a lot of

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Speaker 4: croneous problem there. So if you don't know the right people,

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Speaker 4: you don't go to the right college. That does sound

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Speaker 4: quite similar to our own countries, but you've got no chance,

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Speaker 4: right so they'll say, look, we've got this gang. I

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Speaker 4: don't think most of them make any kind of bones

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Speaker 4: about what they do. They're like, hey, there's a bad side,

390
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Speaker 4: but hey, there's a good side. You know, you've got prospects.

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Speaker 4: You're going to be around people that can help you out.

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Speaker 4: And they would just like recruit people in the first

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Speaker 4: year of the university degree and then you go through

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Speaker 4: this like quite grueling, embarrassing initiation ceremony. I mean, in

395
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Speaker 4: the case of the guy that I focused on for

396
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Speaker 4: my story, they kind of like burn you with an

397
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Speaker 4: aerosol can and they like beat you up and they

398
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Speaker 4: like get you really high on various drugs and stuff

399
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Speaker 4: like this, and then like once you're in it's kind

400
00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:28,639
Speaker 4: of like, I guess, really cultish and that they Okay,

401
00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:31,320
Speaker 4: you go in like layer one and you're like an

402
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Speaker 4: inductee and you go through this process and then you

403
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Speaker 4: go through layer two. You've got another year and then

404
00:19:36,240 --> 00:19:38,399
Speaker 4: you maybe getting into the violence or the drugs and

405
00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:40,639
Speaker 4: things like this. Then you go to level three and

406
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Speaker 4: you get more respect and kind of trust from your peers.

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Speaker 3: Sounds like scientology right now.

408
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Speaker 4: I couldn't stop thinking of scientology.

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Speaker 5: Can we talk about scientegic, Like, are you guys in

410
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Speaker 5: LA like, are we safe to talk about that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, scholarship.

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Speaker 4: Because that was exactly what that was.

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Speaker 5: Like the whole time, I never thought about. But the

414
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Speaker 5: way you're describing it, it's like, this is the way

415
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Speaker 5: you succeed.

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Speaker 3: Here are the different levels you have to reach doing

417
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Speaker 3: like super weird stuff.

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Speaker 1: And it's outlined like that, Like it is that structured

419
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Speaker 1: and hierarchical.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, like that level where you learn about that alien

421
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:13,800
Speaker 4: in the volcano where everyone's patons or whatever flying out

422
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Speaker 4: like that is for them. That would be like the

423
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Speaker 4: international level of the group. Right, So you stop just

424
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Speaker 4: being someone who's like an ex student in Nigeria and

425
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Speaker 4: you start to talk to people in other parts of

426
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Speaker 4: the world, and then you do these scams that make

427
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Speaker 4: people billions of dollars each year. Now, these like I'm

428
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Speaker 4: a Vietnam vet and I've buried like money in a

429
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Speaker 4: desert somewhere like that. That kind of email scam is

430
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Speaker 4: what makes them billions and billions of dollars.

431
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Speaker 1: Really that works, Yeah, it does.

432
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Speaker 4: I mean you get one mark in like ten thousand,

433
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Speaker 4: you've made your whole year's money. So yeah, it's really

434
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Speaker 4: really popular. But then you get inducted into that like

435
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Speaker 4: international level, and then it becomes a different kind of deal.

436
00:20:52,560 --> 00:20:54,399
Speaker 1: Well, then what happens then.

437
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:57,679
Speaker 4: And then you start making dollar so you then you

438
00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:02,320
Speaker 4: start getting involved in like these financial scams. Increasingly they're

439
00:21:02,320 --> 00:21:04,879
Speaker 4: doing these like scams where you can kind of like

440
00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:07,560
Speaker 4: take on a company email and you're like, hey, I'm

441
00:21:07,600 --> 00:21:11,159
Speaker 4: Bob from Accounts, Bob at Microsoft dot com. And then

442
00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:13,239
Speaker 4: you're like, hey, we need that money right now for

443
00:21:13,280 --> 00:21:16,359
Speaker 4: the next transfer. And then someone from another part transfers

444
00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:18,359
Speaker 4: your money, but you're not Bob from Accounts, You're like

445
00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:23,600
Speaker 4: a Nigerian scammer. And then they do like romance scams

446
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:25,920
Speaker 4: as well. With these like old men and women are

447
00:21:26,160 --> 00:21:30,159
Speaker 4: like condout of thousands of bucks from some guy pretending

448
00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:32,600
Speaker 4: to be someone they've fallen in love with online, and

449
00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 4: it's like it's all really grim.

450
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:35,840
Speaker 1: Someone's mother I can't remember who it is, but I

451
00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:38,280
Speaker 1: know someone who's mother got scammed by it, someone who's

452
00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:40,320
Speaker 1: pretending to be her lover and lost allar money and

453
00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:41,880
Speaker 1: it was like the saddest thing in the entire world.

454
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:43,320
Speaker 4: I mean, who hasn't been there?

455
00:21:43,720 --> 00:21:46,160
Speaker 3: Make a podcast about it. That's that's the ticket right there.

456
00:21:46,640 --> 00:21:49,560
Speaker 2: I have a neighbor who thinks she's in love with

457
00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:51,639
Speaker 2: John Mayer and he's in love with her as well,

458
00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:54,200
Speaker 2: and nothing.

459
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:56,600
Speaker 1: I also doesn't think that you know, yeah, that's true.

460
00:21:56,840 --> 00:21:58,640
Speaker 4: Are we sure that he doesn't love her?

461
00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:04,880
Speaker 1: We are, yes, we are positive. So it's pretty so sad. Yeah,

462
00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:07,480
Speaker 1: I don't know. When I think of like organized crime,

463
00:22:07,520 --> 00:22:11,520
Speaker 1: I think of like an Italian mobsters, like selling physical

464
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:13,480
Speaker 1: things and showing up at your door if you don't

465
00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 1: do the thing, and I guess online. It makes sense

466
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:18,520
Speaker 1: that so much of it would be just email scams.

467
00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 4: Well, actually, it's interesting that you say when you think

468
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:23,600
Speaker 4: of the math, you think of like Italian crime families, right,

469
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:27,520
Speaker 4: because a massive, massive reason that these Nigerian groups have

470
00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:31,320
Speaker 4: been able to get so big is because cops in

471
00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:35,360
Speaker 4: predominantly white countries just have not clocked the fact that

472
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 4: some guys from Africa would be out of condom. And

473
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:41,159
Speaker 4: that's like one massive thing that was running through everything

474
00:22:41,200 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 4: that was looking at in like Europe and North America

475
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:46,640
Speaker 4: was that these cops are like, oh, these just these

476
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:50,960
Speaker 4: like African guys, like they can't do anything clever and

477
00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 4: like ten fifteen, twenty years they were just like rinsing

478
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:54,160
Speaker 4: everyone dry.

479
00:22:55,000 --> 00:23:00,359
Speaker 1: Whoa fascinating is the NIA?

480
00:23:00,560 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 2: The Italian mafia is still like going strong in New

481
00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 2: York or is it kind of past it's heyday.

482
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:09,120
Speaker 3: It's past, it's heyday. I mean they're still out there.

483
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:11,640
Speaker 5: We have a couple episodes two about various other gangs

484
00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:12,919
Speaker 5: that have come up in New York in like the

485
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:15,879
Speaker 5: eighties and nineties, the Feds really started cracking down, and

486
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:18,200
Speaker 5: you have the situation where you have newer immigrant groups

487
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:21,320
Speaker 5: that are coming in, like the Albanians, like the Vietnamese

488
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:23,919
Speaker 5: in the eighties, and we always give this qualifier, like,

489
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 5: you know, we do a story about this Vietnamese gang

490
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:28,159
Speaker 5: or this Russian mafia gang or this Albanian gang, and

491
00:23:28,160 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 5: we're like, most the immigrants that come in here, like

492
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:34,439
Speaker 5: over ninety five percent are law abiding, amazing seasons, but

493
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:37,200
Speaker 5: those people would be boring to do a podcast about,

494
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 5: So we talk about the ones that are the criminals

495
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 5: that are doing all this stuff. So New York's fascinating

496
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:43,639
Speaker 5: and I want to do more on it because you know,

497
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:46,320
Speaker 5: it's like this ever changing pattern of immigration and ethnic

498
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:52,320
Speaker 5: enclaves and every group that comes over, it doesn't matter Jewish, Irish, Italian, Vietnamese, Jamaican,

499
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 5: every group is marginalized when they first get here. And

500
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 5: because of that they have criminal organizations that rise up

501
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 5: because it's a product of of poverty. It's a product

502
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:03,639
Speaker 5: of lack of opportunities and just sort of them being

503
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:06,919
Speaker 5: left defend for themselves. So you know, some people want

504
00:24:06,920 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 5: they left defend for themselves. They're gonna handle things in

505
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 5: a different way.

506
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:13,679
Speaker 1: Do you think if if societally we took care of

507
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: everyone and made sure everyone was doing okay and had

508
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: their health care provided for and had enough money to

509
00:24:20,280 --> 00:24:21,960
Speaker 1: eat and the place to live, do you think that

510
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:23,840
Speaker 1: there would be less of this stuff?

511
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm actually giving them these guys that a

512
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 5: lot of them that get involved in the life like

513
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 5: aren't doing it for the basics. You know, they're not

514
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:37,560
Speaker 5: doing it to like drive a Kia. They want a

515
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 5: little bit more than that. If we give everyone a Kia,

516
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 5: I think there might be a lot more people that.

517
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:43,880
Speaker 4: Were happy one mom drives a Kia. Good.

518
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 3: I don't want to I don't want to bad mouth Kias,

519
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:48,199
Speaker 3: but you know what.

520
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 4: I'm saying, we need that Kia money flowing in.

521
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 3: Yeah.

522
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:55,199
Speaker 4: I guess something that I find and I think we

523
00:24:55,280 --> 00:24:58,120
Speaker 4: both find, like really fascinated about organized crime is that

524
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,879
Speaker 4: it's not a subject that lends itself to easy answers, right, Like,

525
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:08,199
Speaker 4: there's so many different overlapping reasons and motivations and like

526
00:25:08,480 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 4: all kinds of different stuff that's that's piled into this

527
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:14,679
Speaker 4: one topic. And it's not really something you can just

528
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 4: stick a kind of easy band aid over either. It's

529
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 4: like there's loads and loads of different things that you're

530
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 4: going to have to figure out before you stop the mob.

531
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 1: Right. Well, when we were talking to Harado, a former

532
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: MS thirteen member, I was surprised. I guess I was

533
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:32,239
Speaker 1: expecting the sort of after school special answer, which is

534
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 1: that like he struggled, and if people weren't struggling, then

535
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 1: they wouldn't join gangs. And that was definitely an element

536
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: that was definitely something we talked about. But he also

537
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, wanting respect, power and pride and

538
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: like wanting to be the big man and like sort

539
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: of own the streets, which it's like partially uh protective mechanism,

540
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:55,040
Speaker 1: but it partially is this other thing that's just yeah,

541
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: it's just more complicated than that.

542
00:25:56,600 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 2: I guess it's the cult of toxic masculinity.

543
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:02,919
Speaker 5: You know, there is like you know, I've spoke to

544
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 5: some young gang members about this people that have left

545
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:07,919
Speaker 5: the gangs. And I remember this sixteen year old. He

546
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 5: was sixteen when he really got involved. He was a

547
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 5: crip in Saint Louis, and he said one of the

548
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 5: big reasons he got involved was because girls like the

549
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,240
Speaker 5: gang members like it to like wearing a you know,

550
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 5: a varsity jacket in like the fifties. Right, there's a

551
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 5: cool factor there, you know, like in a lot of places,

552
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 5: a lot. It's not just the US thing, right, It's

553
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 5: not just like a crips and blood thing. There is

554
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 5: a cool factor to getting involved with organized crime and

555
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:30,119
Speaker 5: crime in general.

556
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 3: And like those dudes, you know what, they get the girls.

557
00:26:32,480 --> 00:26:39,440
Speaker 1: Right, And movies contribute to this mystique. But I love it.

558
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:42,159
Speaker 1: I love movies about organized crime. It can't help it.

559
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,119
Speaker 1: I think it's cool. What are we gonna make movies

560
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:47,120
Speaker 1: about kind people who.

561
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:50,640
Speaker 4: Follow the Why would we make movies about crime?

562
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 3: They don't make for good podcasts? Like, that's just the truth.

563
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:58,159
Speaker 1: That's true, it's true. What do you think, both of you,

564
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: what is the most fascinating to you fascinating group that

565
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: you've covered.

566
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 5: That's a really good question. I don't think many people

567
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:05,640
Speaker 5: have asked that hmm.

568
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:10,880
Speaker 4: Ever, oh God, that's a good question. Okay, I'm gonna

569
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 4: go with the Burmese stuff that I did recently. So

570
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 4: I was out in Myanmar Burma about I was there

571
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 4: like a year and a half ago, covering like what

572
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:23,919
Speaker 4: is the world's biggest drug kingpin by some distance? This

573
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 4: guy actually, and he was recently like arrested. But I

574
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 4: think what makes these groups interesting I guess I probably

575
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:33,159
Speaker 4: could say the Nigerians for this as well, is that

576
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:35,440
Speaker 4: if you dig into their history and you dig into

577
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:37,919
Speaker 4: like what made them big or what made them like

578
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 4: so toxic, you're going to find out just by default,

579
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 4: almost everything you need to know about the country's recent past.

580
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 4: Because this guy had come up, like his four bears

581
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 4: had like fought Chinese anti communists in the jungle. And

582
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 4: then the reason that he carved out this drug empire

583
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:00,640
Speaker 4: was because there were loads of like ethnic rebels groups

584
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 4: in Myanmar that were finding each other at the time,

585
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 4: and then the generals took over. Like you can kind

586
00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:10,159
Speaker 4: of like go through the country's history through this one organization.

587
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:15,439
Speaker 5: You're telling the story so boringly. No one went to

588
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 5: the jungle for like six weeks multiple times in Burma

589
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 5: to like track down this kingpin drug lord who's estimated

590
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 5: to have like made billions of dollars. He's gone like

591
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 5: illegal casinos and there there's like endangered animals for sale

592
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 5: and yeah crazy and he's like, well, you know, the

593
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 5: logistics of it all are due the people.

594
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 3: What they want to hear.

595
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 4: He was like, Kingpin, Yeah, I did end up like

596
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 4: sailing down the Mekong with some random drug dealer and

597
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 4: sleeping on a beach and then, uh, I've got to

598
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 4: give a big shout to my photographer because he literally

599
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 4: got like attacked by a tiger in a cage and

600
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 4: then he died.

601
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 3: With that story, now, yeah I should.

602
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got I've got a league with the good stuff. Yeah,

603
00:28:57,800 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 4: it was pretty mad. It's like all of this stuff

604
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 4: is trying through this one casino and it's like a

605
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 4: tiny island of China in the middle of Lao on

606
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 4: the side of the Mekong River, and it's like crazy

607
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 4: stuff like loads of drugs. They eat, snake meat, crocodile meat,

608
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 4: tiger meat, there's all horrible stuff, underage prostitutes, illegal gambling.

609
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:18,479
Speaker 4: It's like it's pretty dark. And from there I was like,

610
00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 4: okay when I went out there. My editor was like,

611
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 4: all right, that's the story obviously, the casino with all

612
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 4: this like crazy sodom and Gomora stuff, And then me

613
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 4: and my photographer just got obsessed with the idea of

614
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,480
Speaker 4: this gigantic meth lab that this guy had, and that

615
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 4: took us into the jungle, and that took us to

616
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 4: these like ethnic rebel groups, and by the end of it,

617
00:29:39,200 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 4: I don't I don't think either of us gave a

618
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 4: toss about the casino in any way. We just wanted

619
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 4: to see, like this thing wow, And we never did.

620
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 4: And I went back out there and I didn't see

621
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 4: at that time either, But I like to think it

622
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 4: was worth it when I go to bed at night. Yeah,

623
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 4: it was pretty crazy, but like it was allowed to

624
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 4: flourish because of all these historical stuff. So yeah, I

625
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 4: guess that was like, why am I so obsessed with

626
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 4: telling this the history of this stuff? God stuff?

627
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 3: Yeah.

628
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 2: Have you ever felt like, oh shit, I'm about to

629
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 2: be killed right now?

630
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:15,280
Speaker 3: Yeah?

631
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 5: Yeah. Most of that was more more war stuff than

632
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 5: anything else. Just being in the wrong place at the

633
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,320
Speaker 5: wrong time and things happening around you. Generally, though, I'm

634
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 5: more stressed out dealing with whether or not I can

635
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 5: trust someone that is like a dangerous person, uh, because

636
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 5: that's just like, you know, you're going to sleep at

637
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 5: night and you know this person knows where you are

638
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 5: and what they're capable of, but you've kind of got

639
00:30:41,680 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 5: to be dependent on the fact that they're you know,

640
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 5: telling you the truth when they're saying that you're okay

641
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 5: to be there and everything like that.

642
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 3: Right, So, yeah, I had, uh you know, I had

643
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 3: a situation.

644
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 5: I was reporting Syria early on in the war, and

645
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 5: I was essentially living with this rebel group, these that

646
00:30:57,520 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 5: young kids in the FSA, and it was it was

647
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 5: fascinating because you know, you hang out with these kids,

648
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 5: I felt like I was back in college, like these

649
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 5: kids were. Obviously there was a lot of chaos going around,

650
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 5: but they were you know, smoking cigarettes and staying up

651
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 5: all night and making fun of each other and everyone

652
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 5: had inside jokes and they'd be playing music on their

653
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 5: phones and all that, and you kind of come to

654
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 5: this realization that like this could be me and my

655
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 5: friends if we were born into different circumstances. Right, Like,

656
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 5: these kids didn't will the situation into existence, they just

657
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 5: kind of dealt with the situation they were in but

658
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 5: at the same time, like this, this al Qaeda faction

659
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 5: was nearby, and I got these kids to kind of

660
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 5: go with us to be my protection while we interviewed them,

661
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 5: and then we left. But they kind of knew where

662
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 5: we were and if they wanted to come for us, Like,

663
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 5: I don't know if the guys that I was with

664
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 5: would have risked their lives to protect me. So that's

665
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:47,479
Speaker 5: the kind of stuff that keeps you up at night

666
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 5: that any bola, Like I was doing an ebola for

667
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 5: a while and you just don't know, Like you don't

668
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:54,560
Speaker 5: want to be the asshole who comes back to New York. Yeah,

669
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:57,760
Speaker 5: because there was that guy and that happened right when

670
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 5: I had gotten back, and I was like, I want

671
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 5: to be undercovered in your post as like you know,

672
00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 5: schmuck reporters.

673
00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like peace sign.

674
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, just some like.

675
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,000
Speaker 5: Idiot photo of me from Instagram where I'm like chugging

676
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 5: three beers at the same time.

677
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:12,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, just menace to society.

678
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:15,280
Speaker 1: In fifth grade, they made us read The Hot Zone.

679
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: Did they do that to you?

680
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 2: Guys?

681
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 3: Know that a book about all traumatizing.

682
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: It's really fucked up anyway, it's good either it's a

683
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 1: really good book.

684
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 2: It's about a ball out spreading and basically how it

685
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 2: could kill the entire planet.

686
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 3: That's Evans.

687
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:35,680
Speaker 1: I wish that they had made everyone I know read that,

688
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: because maybe my family would have insisted on wearing masks

689
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 1: sooner in the pandemic.

690
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 4: I don't know. Yeah, I think in those situations, I

691
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 4: feel like, and I'm definitely not saying it's a big

692
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 4: myself up at all, Like I'm clearly it's stupidity, but like,

693
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 4: if you're in the moment where you in like a

694
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 4: lot of danger, I don't think you realize it in

695
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 4: that second necessarily and then get like a second out

696
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 4: of it and you're like, holy shit, that was pretty stupid.

697
00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 4: There's been a few incidents like that in my reporting.

698
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:08,840
Speaker 4: But I don't know. I don't have to get stuff

699
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 4: on film, so I'm all right, I can just sit

700
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,640
Speaker 4: in the corner and like, right, right, right right, I'm like,

701
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 4: oh my god, I'm so I'm so traumatized.

702
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 1: Danny. What group is the most fascinating for you?

703
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 5: So I was gonna say, actually, I mean, Sean kind

704
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:26,719
Speaker 5: of low with it, but I did. I think it's

705
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 5: one of our earlier episodes and I did documentary about

706
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 5: these like human trafficking organizations in Southeast Asia that operate

707
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 5: in like Burma and Thailand and wherever else, because I

708
00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 5: think we think of organized crime and it's you know,

709
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 5: guys in suits sometimes or people that are you know,

710
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 5: just living within society but functioning on like a different level.

711
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 5: These situations there, I mean what Sean talked about and

712
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 5: the group that I was people that I was talking about,

713
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 5: like it's really lawless, like there are still places in

714
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 5: this world that are you know, ruled by warlords where

715
00:33:56,560 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 5: people get sold off into slavery, and these groups are

716
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:04,120
Speaker 5: really really gnarly and scary. And I spent weeks running

717
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 5: around Thailand and the border and Burma trying to track

718
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 5: these guys. And then we had an interview and not

719
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 5: an interview like I sit down schedule with the one

720
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 5: who was supposed to be this like head honcho, and

721
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 5: we were trying to secretly record it just as a

722
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 5: conversation because they pretend that they're smugglers, which you know,

723
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:21,879
Speaker 5: smugglers can be decent people.

724
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 3: They get people out of bad situations.

725
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 5: But the recording device that we were using fell apart

726
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 5: as we were trying to secretly record this guy and.

727
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 3: He was like, what are you doing? You're recording?

728
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: Oh okay, and then he.

729
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 5: Left and we had to We ran through the streets

730
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 5: of Bangkok like looking over our shoulders switch hotel. I mean,

731
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 5: the thing is that we were, you know, two white

732
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 5: guys in the middle of Thailand doing this. So there

733
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 5: is a certain level there where like they don't want

734
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 5: the attention that would come from murdering us.

735
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 3: That's what we tell ourselves.

736
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 5: But it was a yeah, I mean, these these places

737
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:57,320
Speaker 5: where there isn't like a framework for legality there. In general,

738
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,399
Speaker 5: it's just like the most powerful person rules I think

739
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 5: are endlessly fascinating, and especially the people who rise up

740
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 5: to the top of those places.

741
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:06,320
Speaker 1: The people who do rise up to the top, Like,

742
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:08,919
Speaker 1: what are the sort of common qualities that you've seen.

743
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 4: They're usually very intellectual. They usually speak a bunch of languages,

744
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 4: like they're really from my reporting it, yeah, they come

745
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 4: from like multicultural backgrounds is quite common as well, that

746
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 4: they straddle different worlds and they kind of feel comfortable

747
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:28,479
Speaker 4: being like wearing a suit or wearing camo gear or whatever.

748
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 4: Like they seem to be able to straddle a lot

749
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 4: of different worlds, and they're quite comedian like in that sense.

750
00:35:34,960 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 4: They're like acutely aware of people's incentives all the time

751
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 4: at all times, like they know who's out to get them,

752
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 4: who they can butter up. They kind of have this

753
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 4: like innate ability to like figure out people's motivations. But

754
00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 4: I don't want to make them sound like preternatural sychs,

755
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,479
Speaker 4: but they're like right, they're usually like super clever.

756
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:03,279
Speaker 5: Basically, I think there's a polessness there that thankfully most

757
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 5: people don't have, where they can easily compartmentalize things that

758
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 5: they do to people that aren't their people, and how

759
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 5: they treat their people.

760
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 3: Because a lot of these guys are family men.

761
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 5: You know, they have kids, they have wives, and I'm

762
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 5: sure they're lovely, well not all of them, but to

763
00:36:16,160 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 5: their kids and their wives. But the things that they're

764
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 5: willing to put other people through, maybe not they themselves,

765
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 5: but their organizations. Like there's got to be something there

766
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 5: where you can just turn off a part of your

767
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 5: brain or your conscience. I would also say, like, I mean,

768
00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 5: this is another boring answer, but like logistics, like some

769
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 5: of these guys like what they're able to organize, you know,

770
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 5: it's like they're they're like the CEO of like ups,

771
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:40,319
Speaker 5: like the guy we just did an episode on organized

772
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 5: you know, the Hell's Angels, taking giant amounts of weed

773
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:47,800
Speaker 5: from Western Canada to eastern Canada, then organize Native American

774
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 5: smugglers and reservations that straddle the border of the US

775
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 5: and Canada to take the same weed into the US,

776
00:36:53,280 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 5: and then organized all these like storage units and dealers

777
00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:59,319
Speaker 5: in New York. Got the money shipp out to California,

778
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 5: where they used it to buy cocaine from the Cinealoa cartel,

779
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 5: which was then shipped back to Canada where he worked

780
00:37:05,040 --> 00:37:07,239
Speaker 5: with like the Italian mafia's there. And this guy was

781
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 5: doing this before he was thirty, And that's that is

782
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 5: like a level of genius that like you're the CEO

783
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 5: of a fortune five hundred company. If things shake out differently,

784
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 5: do they want.

785
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:19,880
Speaker 1: To produce my movies? Because those would be really useful skills.

786
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 5: They got to want like launder their money somehow. I mean,

787
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 5: we joke about that a lot on the podcast, but

788
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 5: we're also serious, like we will take your money and

789
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:30,359
Speaker 5: do things with it and make fake receipts, and I'm

790
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:31,359
Speaker 5: sure Lolo will too.

791
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:34,839
Speaker 1: I mean the ability to compartmentalize and to like care

792
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: about your particular group and care less about your outgroup.

793
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 1: It sounds sociopathic, but it's not actually that sociopathic because

794
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:45,799
Speaker 1: that's kind of what we're all doing all of the time.

795
00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: So that's something I'm really interested in. I mean, obviously,

796
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:53,840
Speaker 1: like you know, we're probably not ordering hits on our outgroup,

797
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 1: but it is very easy to sort of see them

798
00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 1: as not human. Yeah, so I don't know, I don't know.

799
00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: I feel like so much of this is bread by circumstances.

800
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 4: It's like, are we predisposed to this kind of stuff

801
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:09,840
Speaker 4: or is it just nurture? Right, Like so much of

802
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:16,880
Speaker 4: what we report is the peak of like identity in

803
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 4: some way that like, all right, I'm with my five guys.

804
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 4: I'm going to kill you five guys. Why because you

805
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 4: know you're not my guys, And like that's like the

806
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 4: almost ridiculous like end of that argument. But like everything

807
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:34,719
Speaker 4: that we cover is the true identity politics, Like it's

808
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 4: actually it's people from usually they can identify them as

809
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 4: a single themselves, as a single group, whether it's like

810
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:46,879
Speaker 4: ethnic based, but usually like marginalized. I don't know, there's

811
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:50,000
Speaker 4: always like a sense that you are being victimized in

812
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 4: some way. There's always, I mean, there's almost always a

813
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:56,319
Speaker 4: line in these groups that someone is screwing us over,

814
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 4: and that's why we do it. I think we're doing

815
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,880
Speaker 4: an episode we're recording yesterday, and we were talking about

816
00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 4: like these guys in former Yugoslavia, and there was like

817
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:10,319
Speaker 4: a line that they were doing it because Western Europeans

818
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:13,440
Speaker 4: were like coming down on them for so many years. Right,

819
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:15,879
Speaker 4: that was the pink Panthers line. You should talk about

820
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 4: the Pink Panthers.

821
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 1: Was that something that was true?

822
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 5: And then just like yes and no, right, their country

823
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:22,719
Speaker 5: had gone or their area had gone through a hard

824
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 5: time because of various situations. But the reason they got

825
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:28,560
Speaker 5: cracked down on by like Western Europe and NATO was

826
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 5: because you know, their leader was ordering ethnic cleansing and

827
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 5: horrific war crimes and all that. So the whole thing

828
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,319
Speaker 5: was that there was a narrative out there that they

829
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 5: were doing this to like stripe back and get revenge

830
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:41,360
Speaker 5: and all that. But the real narrative is that now

831
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 5: they wanted BMW's and like diamonds and chains and to

832
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 5: have a really nice life and jet skis and all that, Like,

833
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:49,840
Speaker 5: that's really what the motivation was.

834
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 3: You can dress it up however you want.

835
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 5: It's like, you know when these sort of militant leftist

836
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:58,240
Speaker 5: groups sometimes commit bank robberies and they're like these are reappropriations,

837
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 5: but a lot of the time money just goes to

838
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:04,279
Speaker 5: you know, supporting a lifestyle or drugs or guns or

839
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:05,759
Speaker 5: things like that, and it's like, you know, you're not

840
00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:06,919
Speaker 5: robin hood, you're just robbing.

841
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 4: Actually, there's a group that me and Danny have both

842
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 4: covered that we've barely ever talked about even between ourselves,

843
00:40:13,040 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 4: and that's in Burundi, and that's in Bunerakura, and that

844
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 4: that is like one of the most cult shaped organizations

845
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:22,879
Speaker 4: that I've ever covered as a journalist in the sense

846
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 4: that they have this like the leader kind of thing

847
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:29,359
Speaker 4: going on with their with their president and they will

848
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 4: like hack people up in his name. And I don't know, like,

849
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 4: when you were out there, did you did you kind

850
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:34,720
Speaker 4: of see.

851
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 1: That as well?

852
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that's also another thing too, where that's

853
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 5: based off ethnic divisions.

854
00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 4: Right.

855
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:42,919
Speaker 5: A lot of the times in these situations, it's people

856
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:45,880
Speaker 5: in power that play off those things to give themselves

857
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 5: more power and that was the situation that that I

858
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:49,200
Speaker 5: was seeing in Burundi.

859
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 3: We're just going in all sorts of directions.

860
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 2: Here right now.

861
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I like it.

862
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 5: Yeah, there was that element, but it's kind of like

863
00:40:54,200 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 5: we're talking about how like it's your group and everyone

864
00:40:57,560 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 5: else like can get it if they have to.

865
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:01,360
Speaker 3: And I agree with you lot of that like that

866
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 3: is that's a very human thing, right.

867
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 5: You're gonna care more about your what happens to your

868
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 5: family and then your neighbor and then your neighborhood than

869
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 5: you are about something that happens to somebody five thousand

870
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 5: miles away.

871
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:12,760
Speaker 3: That's just natural.

872
00:41:13,239 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 5: I think the people that we deal with just take that,

873
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,719
Speaker 5: like to the extreme extreme, where like they really don't

874
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 5: care and they don't care if they do things that

875
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 5: are harmful to those people as long as they're people

876
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:25,319
Speaker 5: and they themselves are taken care of. Another thing too.

877
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 5: I forgot to add this, A lot of these guys

878
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 5: at the top are just like charming.

879
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:30,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, not all of them.

880
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:32,240
Speaker 5: Some of them are just like kind of sloppy messages,

881
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 5: but they're like charming guys, like they know and they

882
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 5: know how to problem solve, Like it really is a

883
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:38,920
Speaker 5: really important leadership quality, Like they can handle things. I

884
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 5: wouldn't say they're calm under pressure, but they know what

885
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 5: to do. They're decisive, they know what to do under pressure.

886
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 5: It's like Tony, Like everyone knows Tony was like a

887
00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:49,759
Speaker 5: you know, Silvio tried to be Moss like a minute

888
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:50,800
Speaker 5: and had like a heart attack.

889
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they sound a lot like cult leaders.

890
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:57,799
Speaker 2: And then it's also interesting how a lot of cult

891
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,320
Speaker 2: leaders get started and kind of a positive way and

892
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:04,279
Speaker 2: then greed and everything takes over, and then a couple

893
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 2: of years later they have a giant cult.

894
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 1: It's pretty weird.

895
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, And like the amount of the amount of cult

896
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:13,440
Speaker 4: leaders that start off doing like petty crime and they

897
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 4: want to like do something that's just just for their

898
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 4: own benefit, and then they end up realizing they can

899
00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 4: drag other people along with them and turn it into

900
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:24,799
Speaker 4: something for the other people that is more meaningful than

901
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 4: it is for them. I think that is something that

902
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:30,200
Speaker 4: like combines these two worlds a little bit. Yeah.

903
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just endlessly fascinated by the idea the perceived victimization.

904
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 1: There is truth in it, and it makes set like

905
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:41,320
Speaker 1: we all it is natural to want to fight against

906
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:44,840
Speaker 1: whatever victimization you've been you've been experiencing. But then at

907
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 1: what point are you just now victimizing other people and no.

908
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:52,799
Speaker 4: Longer the I mean, that's where the morality becomes really hard, right,

909
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 4: because like I live in Berlin, right, and the and

910
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:57,520
Speaker 4: the and a lot of the organized crime is kind

911
00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:03,359
Speaker 4: of run by these Turkish curve Lebanese families and it's

912
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:07,080
Speaker 4: almost entirely run by these guys, right, So that lends

913
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 4: a sort of voice to the sort of far right

914
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 4: who say, oh, hey, these guys are bringing over organized crime,

915
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:16,719
Speaker 4: they're causing problems. But actually when you dig into it,

916
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 4: obviously it's a lot more like complex than that. And

917
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 4: these families that came over at the end of the war,

918
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 4: they were never given the citizenship, they couldn't send their

919
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:29,319
Speaker 4: kids through the proper like schooling systems, they didn't really

920
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:32,040
Speaker 4: have a future, Like why would you play ball with

921
00:43:32,120 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 4: a society that doesn't give you the same rights as

922
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:38,959
Speaker 4: other people? Right. And the addition to that is like, well,

923
00:43:39,560 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 4: that doesn't really justify them bringing heroin over from Turkey,

924
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:46,920
Speaker 4: But you know, like it's it's how do you want

925
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 4: to stop this stuff? And you have to realize that

926
00:43:49,800 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 4: the origins of this stuff might be identity and like

927
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:58,040
Speaker 4: gang related, but the solutions are not. The solutions are systemic,

928
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:01,200
Speaker 4: and if you give everyone an even play afield, you know,

929
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:04,320
Speaker 4: maybe you will give people a chance to play a

930
00:44:04,400 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 4: part in your society. I'm getting up in my soapbox now, quick.

931
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:09,719
Speaker 1: Stoping, No, I stay up there.

932
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:14,520
Speaker 4: I mean, we've we've looked at countless groups that are

933
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 4: like this, that have the same background. I mean, Danny

934
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 4: did an episode on Russian gangsters in Brighton Beach, New York.

935
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:23,680
Speaker 4: It's the same thing, right, I mean, they've been chased

936
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:26,320
Speaker 4: out of their own country, whether they're whether they're Jewish,

937
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 4: or whether they whether they're standing up to the government

938
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 4: in some way they've been They've they've left the Soviet Union,

939
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 4: they come over to the US, they can't speak the language.

940
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:38,320
Speaker 4: They're not they're not like getting the same help, and

941
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 4: like this stuff is gonna happen, Like it's that's going

942
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 4: to be the outcome of that. So you don't have

943
00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 4: to give the solution an identity. You just have to

944
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 4: give it a systemic like answer in some way. You

945
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 4: have to improve the.

946
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:52,919
Speaker 1: System, right, all Right, If you had to choose which

947
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: group to join yourself.

948
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:59,359
Speaker 3: That's a good one. The Pink Panther seems like they're

949
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 3: having a lot of one.

950
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, they don't.

951
00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:03,479
Speaker 5: They don't really hurt anyone besides maybe punching a fuel

952
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:07,320
Speaker 5: jewel clerks or the Pink Panthers are this group of

953
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:11,359
Speaker 5: like guys from the former Yugoslavia that do really high

954
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 5: level heists.

955
00:45:13,239 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 4: Now you're burying the Laite because they robbed Kim Kardashian

956
00:45:16,440 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 4: at gunpoint.

957
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 3: You know, they didn't rob Kim Kardashian. They thought that

958
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 3: it was them who robbed.

959
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,760
Speaker 5: It was a bunch of old guys that the ages

960
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:29,399
Speaker 5: of sixty and seventy called the Grandpa Robbers. And one

961
00:45:29,480 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 5: guy wrote a book before he went on trial called

962
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:33,280
Speaker 5: I Robbed Kim Kardashian.

963
00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:33,839
Speaker 3: That was the title.

964
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:36,800
Speaker 1: So I don't Grandpa robbers?

965
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:38,439
Speaker 3: Is that true? This is true.

966
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 5: There was a she got robbed I think in Paris

967
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 5: in twenty sixteen. It was during fashion week. Yeah, and

968
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 5: they had like terrible security. We always say, like one

969
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 5: of our catchphrases is don't instagram your crimes, right, because

970
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 5: a lot of people get caught literally by instagramming the

971
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:58,440
Speaker 5: crimes that they've committed or the things they've gotten from

972
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,359
Speaker 5: committing those crimes, and like law enforcement knows that now.

973
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 5: So that's a big that's a big thing that we

974
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 5: always remind our listeners. If they're committing crimes, don't instagram them.

975
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 5: But you know, people like Kim Kay and others, really

976
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 5: popular rappers will instagram like their locations and the large

977
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:15,359
Speaker 5: amounts of money and jewelry that they have on them.

978
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 5: So Kim did that and these guys were like, well,

979
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 5: she's got ten million dollars with the jewelry, why don't

980
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 5: we take it from her? You know, knew the hotel

981
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:25,919
Speaker 5: she was in, they had no security, and they tied

982
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 5: her up and took all her jewelry. People thought it

983
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:29,719
Speaker 5: was the Pink Panthers, but it was really this group

984
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,800
Speaker 5: of old men that the French press termed the Grandpa Robbers.

985
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:36,839
Speaker 5: And they went and they took everything that you had,

986
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 5: and I don't think maybe a few got away, but

987
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 5: they escaped. They literally escaped on bicycles.

988
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 3: It's like the thing, the European thing ever adorable. There

989
00:46:46,080 --> 00:46:48,239
Speaker 3: needs to be a movie. Tony Shaloub like cast them

990
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 3: in the Starring World.

991
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 4: One of the reasons. I found out a lot of

992
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:55,720
Speaker 4: information when I was in the Mma. I literally searched

993
00:46:55,719 --> 00:47:00,120
Speaker 4: for the hashtags of this casino in like IG and

994
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 4: found loads of like random drug dealers and like weird

995
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 4: casino dwellers. And that was how like we found a

996
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 4: bunch of the people with this casino that were doingous stuff.

997
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 4: And there was this Chinese word that was that meant

998
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 4: like forbidden meat or something that basically meant you go

999
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:19,960
Speaker 4: to the store and order like a lion. And then

1000
00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 4: we just like typed that into IG in English, and

1001
00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 4: it came up with like these restaurants that were pretending

1002
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 4: they weren't.

1003
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:30,160
Speaker 1: Doing well, So do not instagram amazing.

1004
00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 4: The journalist will find you.

1005
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 5: Everyone has those friends that are like a little massy

1006
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:35,279
Speaker 5: on Instagram and put too much of their life out there.

1007
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:38,160
Speaker 5: But there's people doing that with like the like enormous

1008
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 5: amount of felonies that they're committing and then getting arrested

1009
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 5: for it.

1010
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:43,320
Speaker 3: Like people people are messy on Instagram.

1011
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:47,120
Speaker 1: On the much milder side, height of the pandemic, people

1012
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:52,319
Speaker 1: instagramming being at crowded parties without masks was wild. Yeah,

1013
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 1: why are you putting that on display? My friends. But

1014
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 1: the pink Panthers, you were joint because they.

1015
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:00,399
Speaker 3: Just seem like they're having a lot of fun.

1016
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 5: You know, they're they're like robbing jewelry stores in Monaco

1017
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 5: or like in Saint Tropez.

1018
00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 3: You know, they don't really hurt people that much.

1019
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 5: They're said to be like, you know, guys who wear

1020
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 5: suits and speak five languages and they're kind of slick,

1021
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:16,600
Speaker 5: and you know, they're they're they're robbing.

1022
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:20,359
Speaker 2: Jewelry store, like high level jewelry stores like Ocean's right,

1023
00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 2: that's I'm saying.

1024
00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:23,720
Speaker 5: It's a victimless crime. But it's not like you're hurting

1025
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 5: average people. I don't know, they seem like they're having.

1026
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:26,839
Speaker 3: A good time.

1027
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 1: Maybe the business owners they did.

1028
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 3: Get away on speedboats. Like that's just that's kind of

1029
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:31,520
Speaker 3: cool that.

1030
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 4: I just go with any of the guys like dating,

1031
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:40,080
Speaker 4: because who gives a ship about part anyway, And it's

1032
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 4: probably all going to be legal all over the whole

1033
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 4: world in a few short years, so I'll go with that.

1034
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:48,759
Speaker 4: But the pink panthers are they have a good time.

1035
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 5: Just imagine them like wearing a lot of linen, you know, yeah,

1036
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 5: really nice sunglasses, sitting at a cafe somewhere in the.

1037
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: Mountains, so good. I can smell them and that's so young.

1038
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:05,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would join the most dangerous, awful one.

1039
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:06,720
Speaker 1: Just kidding.

1040
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 3: We joke about that too.

1041
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 5: If like things with journalism don't pan out, the next

1042
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 5: thing you do is go into pr and cartels, Like

1043
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 5: cartels need you know, they're always they're always leaving those

1044
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 5: misspelled banners over highway overpasses, trying to make an impression,

1045
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:24,440
Speaker 5: cutting off people's heads, and it's like, why has no

1046
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:26,839
Speaker 5: one thought to cut off someone's feet, Like that'll help

1047
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:28,719
Speaker 5: you stand off, you know, stand out right.

1048
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:38,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, what has your experience been or whatever with people

1049
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 1: who try to leave? And like are they not allowed

1050
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:42,560
Speaker 1: to leave? Is a very difficult thing.

1051
00:49:42,680 --> 00:49:44,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's a good question.

1052
00:49:44,920 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 5: I mean, you guys had the I forget his name,

1053
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 5: but the MS thirteen I talk about that a lot,

1054
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 5: and that's a really that's a really scary one. I

1055
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:54,960
Speaker 5: actually did a documentary about people trying to leave these

1056
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:57,840
Speaker 5: groups in El Salvador MS thirteen and eighteenth Street. And

1057
00:49:57,960 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 5: the only way that you're actually allowed to do it

1058
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:03,919
Speaker 5: it is by becoming born again in the Evangelical Church.

1059
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 3: For some reason, that's like the one. So you have

1060
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 3: a lot of people, you know.

1061
00:50:07,800 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 5: I was hanging out with these guys who live in

1062
00:50:09,840 --> 00:50:12,799
Speaker 5: like a sort of like a halfway home where they

1063
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:14,359
Speaker 5: have a church in the home, and there's a guy

1064
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 5: who's a former Eighteenth Street member there who oversees everything.

1065
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 5: And it's kind of like the gang leaders accept this

1066
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 5: because Evangelical Christianity has such a big presence there and

1067
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 5: there's some sort of deal there there. There's always been

1068
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 5: a respect for religious figures in that world, which is weird.

1069
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 5: But the gang members that leave have to really abide

1070
00:50:30,520 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 5: by it. Like if they see you out at night,

1071
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 5: if you say you left the gang to become a

1072
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:35,680
Speaker 5: born again and they see you out at night and

1073
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:37,800
Speaker 5: you're smoking lead and drinking beers and hanging on a woman, like,

1074
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:38,760
Speaker 5: they'll kill you. Wow.

1075
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 1: Fascinating.

1076
00:50:40,040 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 3: But there are these.

1077
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 5: Organizations now of evangelical leaders that work to pull gang

1078
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:45,359
Speaker 5: members out that want to leave.

1079
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, the guy that was my main contact with the

1080
00:50:47,520 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 4: Nigerian groups was like he was in fear of his

1081
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:53,719
Speaker 4: life all the time. You don't leave. It's like apocryphal

1082
00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:55,839
Speaker 4: tale that if you leave, they have to cut off

1083
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 4: your thumb with like a pocket knife or something. But

1084
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,919
Speaker 4: even that's just like bs and basically you can't leave.

1085
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 4: So anyone that gets out of the group, I mean

1086
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:07,440
Speaker 4: they don't so yeah, it's like so ingrained.

1087
00:51:07,520 --> 00:51:10,520
Speaker 1: Wow, so you don't leave. But if someone did try

1088
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:11,719
Speaker 1: to leave, what would happen?

1089
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 4: Oh they're dead. Yeah, they would get killed industry for sure.

1090
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 1: And if they made it out of the country, would

1091
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:21,000
Speaker 1: someone follow them or would they be sife if they

1092
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 1: would be followed, Yeah.

1093
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:24,440
Speaker 4: Especially in the case especially in the case of them.

1094
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 4: I mean it's just like there's been so many incidents

1095
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:32,359
Speaker 4: of guys getting whacked on foreign soil from the Nigerian mob.

1096
00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 4: They'll find you. They're in every country. There's like a

1097
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:38,560
Speaker 4: cell of this, the Black Acts. The one main group

1098
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:41,239
Speaker 4: that I followed that was like they had a Venezuela cell.

1099
00:51:41,840 --> 00:51:44,719
Speaker 4: They have like a Zambia cell. Like they're everywhere, like

1100
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:45,840
Speaker 4: absolutely everywhere.

1101
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:49,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, they'll find that's so terrifying and sad.

1102
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:52,239
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, don't get don't get involved in the first

1103
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:52,840
Speaker 4: pe Yeah.

1104
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 1: No, ideally, no, can you not join the group if

1105
00:51:57,040 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 1: you're sort of in their territory.

1106
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:03,719
Speaker 4: Or it depends, it kind of depends who you speak to, right,

1107
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:07,319
Speaker 4: So you'll speak to someone. This is the thing about

1108
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:09,840
Speaker 4: these groups that some people say they're nothing right and

1109
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:11,839
Speaker 4: they're just kind of like street thugs who are going

1110
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 4: around making doing petty crimes. And there are others who

1111
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:19,160
Speaker 4: say they run the country and they run every level

1112
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:23,920
Speaker 4: of the country, from your like your corner boys in

1113
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:28,000
Speaker 4: Lagos to the president. And it's like, I would actually

1114
00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:30,320
Speaker 4: believe the latter because they've had loads of people who've

1115
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 4: had affiliations with these groups, so you cannot get out

1116
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:37,399
Speaker 4: of them. And they just have turf wars the same

1117
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:39,440
Speaker 4: as any other gang, so like they'll kind of run

1118
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 4: different cities from one day to the next. There's like

1119
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 4: six or seven big groups like this in Nigeria, and

1120
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:48,320
Speaker 4: I mean it's a gigantic country actually not compared to

1121
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 4: the States, but like I think it's like two hundred

1122
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:54,799
Speaker 4: million people. Like one in every sixth African is a Nigerian,

1123
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:58,759
Speaker 4: So this is a huge country. I mean, Lagos is

1124
00:52:58,800 --> 00:53:02,400
Speaker 4: like twenty million people and these gangs are like everywhere,

1125
00:53:02,719 --> 00:53:04,959
Speaker 4: and they used to be they used to be done

1126
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:07,359
Speaker 4: only by students coming out of the university that would

1127
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:10,880
Speaker 4: be young men, and now it's young women, young boys,

1128
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,200
Speaker 4: some guys I was speaking to a university in south

1129
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:16,800
Speaker 4: of the country. They said they were getting like stuck

1130
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:20,239
Speaker 4: up by boys who were like ten. I think it was.

1131
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:24,560
Speaker 4: So there's like just everyone's involved in this. There's no

1132
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:27,960
Speaker 4: kind of a direction to stop it, because the politicians

1133
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:30,239
Speaker 4: are involved and they use them as high muscle. So

1134
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:32,960
Speaker 4: it's kind of like where do you even begin dismantling it?

1135
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:35,879
Speaker 4: So it's a very long way of saying, yeah, you're

1136
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:37,880
Speaker 4: pretty much screwed. And they do a lot of the

1137
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 4: stuff there. And now there's whole cities in Europe that

1138
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 4: are pretty much run by the group, as well as

1139
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:45,799
Speaker 4: in Palermo, Sicily, they've like outrun the mob, like they've

1140
00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:50,319
Speaker 4: outrun the Sicilian mafia in Sicily, which is crazy wow. Yeah,

1141
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:55,399
Speaker 4: and they're all over like Germany, Spain. Yeah, it's crazy wow.

1142
00:53:55,520 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 1: It's just so doubly devastating when it's kids. I mean,

1143
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I'm always surprised at how young

1144
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:05,239
Speaker 1: people are who end up in gangs, like because in

1145
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:08,759
Speaker 1: my head it's grown ups, but it's like so often teenagers.

1146
00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:11,760
Speaker 1: But especially when they're that young, I'm like, what option

1147
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 1: Like that is not a person who's able to make

1148
00:54:15,640 --> 00:54:18,239
Speaker 1: decisions for themselves, and there's just not a lot of

1149
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 1: freedom there, and it's the last childhood and it makes me,

1150
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:21,479
Speaker 1: it makes me really sad.

1151
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 4: That's the callousness, right, Yeah, they don't care.

1152
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:29,440
Speaker 1: So do you guys have any final thoughts? I know

1153
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 1: we specifically said that there is no simple answer, but

1154
00:54:32,800 --> 00:54:36,520
Speaker 1: if you could sort of, you know, crystallize like a

1155
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 1: very very oversimplified idea of what a solution could be,

1156
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:44,439
Speaker 1: do you have one? Is that just too ridiculous an ask?

1157
00:54:45,520 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 4: I would say that always bear in mind that however

1158
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:54,839
Speaker 4: you run your society, people will look for the best

1159
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 4: way to give themselves a better life. So if you

1160
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 4: don't give it to them, do it themselves. Is that

1161
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:09,480
Speaker 4: too threatening? That sound sounds especially as Americas at that

1162
00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:10,279
Speaker 4: line back, I don't.

1163
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:12,759
Speaker 5: I don't have a solution in mind, but I would

1164
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:13,840
Speaker 5: just say that, you know, one of the things we

1165
00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:17,000
Speaker 5: try to stress, because we focus on different groups from

1166
00:55:17,080 --> 00:55:19,800
Speaker 5: different places and different ethnicities, is that there's really no

1167
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:23,400
Speaker 5: It's not like one ethnicity or culture or whatever is

1168
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 5: more drawn to this, right. Everyone is just a product

1169
00:55:25,480 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 5: of their environment and their circumstances. And we go into

1170
00:55:28,080 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 5: a lot of actually historical stuff about why you know,

1171
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:33,880
Speaker 5: these sort of groups and and people rise up in

1172
00:55:34,040 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 5: certain areas. And that's kind of the takeaway that I

1173
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 5: think we try to drive home is that, like, you know,

1174
00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 5: you see a lot of we put our stuff off

1175
00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:43,080
Speaker 5: on YouTube and there's a lot of you know, YouTubers

1176
00:55:43,120 --> 00:55:45,919
Speaker 5: and their comments. It's not the nicest way of viewing

1177
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:48,520
Speaker 5: the world or people that are different from them. And

1178
00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:50,400
Speaker 5: I think one thing we always try to stress is

1179
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:52,759
Speaker 5: that like that's really not the case. Like, no one

1180
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 5: is no culture, no people, no race is predisposed to

1181
00:55:56,600 --> 00:55:59,360
Speaker 5: this sort of thing. People are products of their environment.

1182
00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:04,560
Speaker 1: Agree, And you know, we've talked a little bit about

1183
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,200
Speaker 1: how there's an element of just like wanting to be cool,

1184
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 1: but the historical element is a really really huge part

1185
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:12,240
Speaker 1: of the story that I feel.

1186
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:13,799
Speaker 4: Like it's like a massive part of what we want

1187
00:56:13,840 --> 00:56:15,840
Speaker 4: to get across in our podcast as well, because like,

1188
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:18,360
Speaker 4: I think one thing that drove us at the beginning

1189
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:20,960
Speaker 4: was that there's so many shows that like, hey, look

1190
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:23,759
Speaker 4: at this drug kingpin, and then they just don't really

1191
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 4: go into like the reason why these people even exist.

1192
00:56:26,960 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 4: And I think because we're so used to doing documentaries

1193
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:31,680
Speaker 4: and feature writing and stuff like this where you like

1194
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:34,439
Speaker 4: you have to tell that story. There's no point telling

1195
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:37,240
Speaker 4: the story if you don't learn the kind of building

1196
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:41,279
Speaker 4: blocks behind these phenomenon. So we really want to get

1197
00:56:41,320 --> 00:56:43,239
Speaker 4: that across and I think it's like super important too.

1198
00:56:43,560 --> 00:56:48,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. We are all there are all products

1199
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:51,080
Speaker 1: of our environment, and as we always say on this podcast,

1200
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:53,520
Speaker 1: nobody is exempt. We like to think that we are

1201
00:56:53,520 --> 00:56:55,880
Speaker 1: because it makes us feel safe, but we are not.

1202
00:56:57,040 --> 00:56:59,879
Speaker 1: All Right, any final thoughts that you guys have your

1203
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:01,439
Speaker 1: social media you want to share.

1204
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:05,160
Speaker 5: Yeah, The Underworld Podcast is our podcast. You can search

1205
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:08,760
Speaker 5: for it anywhere on iTunes, Spotify. We have like an Instagram,

1206
00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:11,680
Speaker 5: kau on a Twitter. I think we have a Patreon

1207
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:14,520
Speaker 5: to where we do bonus interviews, which is patreon dot

1208
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:17,280
Speaker 5: com slash The Underworld Podcast. We want to thank you

1209
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:19,080
Speaker 5: guys too, because this was great, and thank you so

1210
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:21,240
Speaker 5: much for for helping us get the word out there

1211
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 5: and talking to us and everything like that.

1212
00:57:22,720 --> 00:57:23,320
Speaker 3: It was really fun.

1213
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks, thank you, thanks for coming on. All right, Megan, alrighty,

1214
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:32,880
Speaker 1: so here's the question today. All Right, I'm ready. I

1215
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:36,840
Speaker 1: don't have a specific group, but I'm gonna just generally

1216
00:57:36,920 --> 00:57:39,280
Speaker 1: ask you do you think that you would join the mafia.

1217
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:41,400
Speaker 1: A mafia oh man?

1218
00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:45,120
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, yeah, for sure.

1219
00:57:46,680 --> 00:57:49,800
Speaker 1: Why for sure?

1220
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:54,480
Speaker 2: If I was raised in a place where it was

1221
00:57:54,640 --> 00:57:57,560
Speaker 2: dangerous and it was like this is this will protect you,

1222
00:57:57,800 --> 00:58:01,040
Speaker 2: this is loyal family thing to do, I'd be like, yeah,

1223
00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:04,200
Speaker 2: heck yeah, especially if I was younger when that happened.

1224
00:58:04,240 --> 00:58:07,040
Speaker 2: And then I just think, you know, being born into

1225
00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:11,920
Speaker 2: things are needing the protection are two very primal things

1226
00:58:12,040 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 2: that I'm just not I'm not one of those people

1227
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:16,240
Speaker 2: who's willing to like.

1228
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 1: Fight, You're not a rebel, she's she's not a rebel fighter.

1229
00:58:25,640 --> 00:58:28,120
Speaker 2: I guess I'm just saying like, I wouldn't want to

1230
00:58:28,280 --> 00:58:31,720
Speaker 2: die some horrific mob death. So if they're like, you're

1231
00:58:31,760 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 2: in the mom now, I'd be.

1232
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:40,040
Speaker 1: Like, cool, let's have some mob meetings. Then I guess, yeah, wow,

1233
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:46,520
Speaker 1: you don't want to die weird so unusual? Uh yeah,

1234
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:48,720
Speaker 1: I mean I've joined the fucking mob. I joined the mob.

1235
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:52,080
Speaker 1: If I was, you know, in a situation where that

1236
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:54,440
Speaker 1: seemed like the way to be safe, of course I

1237
00:58:54,480 --> 00:58:55,120
Speaker 1: would join the mob.

1238
00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:55,760
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1239
00:58:56,040 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 1: The other point that I would make here is I

1240
00:58:59,360 --> 00:59:02,320
Speaker 1: going to go back to the women mob thing because

1241
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 1: they mentioned that there's a female mob leader, but like,

1242
00:59:05,440 --> 00:59:08,240
Speaker 1: can you even it's funny, like you can't even imagine

1243
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:10,760
Speaker 1: or at least I can't even imagine a mafia that

1244
00:59:10,920 --> 00:59:12,880
Speaker 1: is not run by like one woman, but is like

1245
00:59:13,240 --> 00:59:16,640
Speaker 1: fully women the way that mafias are like fully men.

1246
00:59:17,840 --> 00:59:18,360
Speaker 1: Imagine that.

1247
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:19,240
Speaker 2: I'm trying.

1248
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:20,360
Speaker 1: What would happen?

1249
00:59:20,720 --> 00:59:23,040
Speaker 2: What is the difference between the mafia and a gang?

1250
00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:25,800
Speaker 1: I feel like there isn't one. I feel like it's

1251
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:30,080
Speaker 1: just higher, bigger crimes, like okay, right, gangs are more

1252
00:59:30,200 --> 00:59:33,560
Speaker 1: like street crimes and mafias are more like international or

1253
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:35,040
Speaker 1: like more organized crimes.

1254
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:35,320
Speaker 4: Right.

1255
00:59:36,560 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: This is my guess that someone could tell me. I'm

1256
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:40,160
Speaker 1: that this is not the way they're defined, but that's

1257
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:40,720
Speaker 1: my impression.

1258
00:59:40,920 --> 00:59:44,960
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, the all women mafia, all women gangs, those

1259
00:59:44,960 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 2: are so fascinating to me. I would love to talk

1260
00:59:47,120 --> 00:59:48,920
Speaker 2: to somebody that was in one of those.

1261
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:51,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think that they exist, but I

1262
00:59:51,320 --> 00:59:56,439
Speaker 1: would also love I know, well it right now, all

1263
00:59:56,760 --> 01:00:02,880
Speaker 1: women mafia, No, these are just like what it's like

1264
01:00:03,040 --> 01:00:07,960
Speaker 1: one cocaine trafficker or someone's mafia wife. Men just love

1265
01:00:08,080 --> 01:00:12,280
Speaker 1: to be committing crimes. Really, what it comes down to.

1266
01:00:12,600 --> 01:00:15,400
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen Mickey Blue Eyes. Oh my god,

1267
01:00:15,640 --> 01:00:18,280
Speaker 1: can I tell you I that was literally I called

1268
01:00:18,320 --> 01:00:20,680
Speaker 1: that movie my favorite movie. When I was thirteen years old.

1269
01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:26,120
Speaker 2: I loved that.

1270
01:00:27,040 --> 01:00:30,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, you Grant everyone. I remember when.

1271
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:33,320
Speaker 2: She's like ninety years old and she's like, my father

1272
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:36,920
Speaker 2: recently died and left me a lot of money, and he's.

1273
01:00:37,560 --> 01:00:41,600
Speaker 1: No, I don't remember anything from that movie, but I

1274
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:43,360
Speaker 1: loved it. I fuckingly loved it.

1275
01:00:43,600 --> 01:00:43,920
Speaker 2: Funny.

1276
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was my like, that's my main Mafia reference.

1277
01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 1: So I'm probably a little behind.

1278
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:56,000
Speaker 4: I have not.

1279
01:00:56,240 --> 01:01:00,320
Speaker 1: I actually have not seen The Godfather or Smartface or

1280
01:01:00,520 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 1: any of the Gang Mafia movies. So I'm with you.

1281
01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 4: That is no.

1282
01:01:05,240 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 1: I've seen the Sopranos. I've seen the Sopranos. Okay, you're safe.

1283
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:08,520
Speaker 4: I haven't.

1284
01:01:08,680 --> 01:01:12,000
Speaker 2: So if anybody out there would love to see a delightful,

1285
01:01:12,160 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 2: nodding hill ask Hugh Grant movie. Mickey Blue Eyes is

1286
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 2: hilarious and yeah.

1287
01:01:18,800 --> 01:01:22,760
Speaker 1: Great work everyone. We did it. So you can follow

1288
01:01:22,840 --> 01:01:25,560
Speaker 1: me Lola on Instagram at Ula Lola oh O h

1289
01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:27,560
Speaker 1: l A l O l A, and on Twitter at

1290
01:01:27,600 --> 01:01:30,000
Speaker 1: Ola Lola oh h l A l O l A.

1291
01:01:30,440 --> 01:01:33,200
Speaker 2: And you can follow me at five Higher Bitch, and you.

1292
01:01:33,200 --> 01:01:36,200
Speaker 1: Can follow trust me on Instagram at trust Me Podcast

1293
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:38,280
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at trust me Cultpod, and our website

1294
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:42,400
Speaker 1: is trust me pod dot com. Okay, everybody that is right.

1295
01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:45,960
Speaker 2: So remember this week, oh your gut, watch up for on.

1296
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:51,560
Speaker 1: Flag and then never ever trust me. Bye.