Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth and Saron Burnett.
Speaker 3: Girl, Oh you know the sean answer that I got
Speaker 3: another question? Do you know what ridiculous I do?
Speaker 2: I do Mustard? Right?
Speaker 3: It is when you do it?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm like I've always been from the day
Speaker 2: Kenny fan. So I love I love not only is
Speaker 2: he being celebrated for his genius but his pettiness.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, god, I love that.
Speaker 2: But you know he's got this like amazing producer mustard, right,
Speaker 2: and where does he get that? Why do they call
Speaker 2: him Mustard? Do you know?
Speaker 3: So they don't call him ketchup? I do not know.
Speaker 2: His first name is Dijon, Dijon. Isaah MacFarlane. Mama was playing,
Speaker 2: so she's he's Dijon. Everyone calls him Mustard, which I
Speaker 2: think is terribly cute. You know who else thinks that's cute?
Speaker 2: The Heinz Company, Oh yeah, so there that This is
Speaker 2: our crossover today, Our mash up today is Mustard and Mustard.
Speaker 2: So they're making him like a brand ambassad They're calling
Speaker 2: him the Chief Mustard Officer, and he's gonna They're gonna
Speaker 2: drop a brand new limited edition heinz mustard with like
Speaker 2: a new flavor, but they want it's remixed by him,
Speaker 2: but they won't tell us what's in it pretty much.
Speaker 2: And then he also like he's been using it as
Speaker 2: a secret ingredient for his homemade chicken wings and for
Speaker 2: years now heines mustard.
Speaker 3: So they really do have a natural born collapse.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Of course this man, his whole life
Speaker 2: is mustard. You go into his house, everything mustard colored. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and they're gonna be coming out with other stuff there.
Speaker 2: They have a short film. It's up for an oscar
Speaker 2: and then they're doing like, uh, he's gonna have like
Speaker 2: events and mustard tastings, Yes, mustard tasting.
Speaker 3: There's a flight of mustard give an.
Speaker 2: Addition product comes out during the summer. So you can
Speaker 2: go to the Hinest website and sign up and they'll
Speaker 2: just sell your email address to the highest bidder. I
Speaker 2: don't know. Do you like mustard?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Actually I do. I like a lot, like the
Speaker 3: Russian hot, I like the Hawaiian I like the I
Speaker 3: like even gray poop hole. Yeah, like even like.
Speaker 2: The Westst's amazing best mustard, Mendocino mustard.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's good. Oh, yeah, I'm into that.
Speaker 2: Mendo and that's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: How many mustards are sitting in your fridge right now?
Speaker 2: Oh buddy, seventeen, I got like, I don't know, I'd
Speaker 2: put it into like there's at least.
Speaker 3: Double digites, it's eight.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I'd have to go count. But you know
Speaker 2: that like Chinese mustard.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Chinese hot mustards. I'm still in the Chinese
Speaker 3: hot mustard so good. You know what else is ridiculous? Elizabeth? Yes?
Speaker 2: Please?
Speaker 3: Okay, when you go full fast and the furious in
Speaker 3: real life. Oh but not to like steal hundreds of
Speaker 3: millions of dollars from a bank in Brazil that's actually
Speaker 3: in the police headquarters. No imagine if you go full
Speaker 3: fast and the furious but for a box car of
Speaker 3: Air Jordan's.
Speaker 5: My god, this is ridiculous crime.
Speaker 3: The podcast about ab third and outrageous cap us, ice
Speaker 3: and cars, it's all weter free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Hell oh, Elizabeth, Today I want to talk to you
Speaker 3: about highly valuable footwear. Okay, I'm talking about Air Jordans
Speaker 3: of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now you know I love the retro ones. I'm old school,
Speaker 3: of course I do but how about you. Have you
Speaker 3: ever owned a pair of Jordan's. No, I's not you
Speaker 3: ever wanted to own a.
Speaker 2: Pair of jord Not really. They're high tops, right, some are?
Speaker 3: Most are all? Yes? They are?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know it really. I'm not a Nike person.
Speaker 2: I'm an Adidas person.
Speaker 3: Oh, you have brand loyalty.
Speaker 2: I keep them in business Adidas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you and Jonathan Davis from.
Speaker 2: Corn completely sure. But yeah they they fit my feet
Speaker 2: the best and they're the coolest looking shoes. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not really at it.
Speaker 3: Did the Beast boys turn you on to Adidas? So
Speaker 3: you found them on your own day?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 2: I mean I had. There's pictures of me as like
Speaker 2: a three or four year old with the coolest looking
Speaker 2: blue with yellow stripes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know that what they're talking about.
Speaker 2: And it was, you know, lifelong love after that.
Speaker 3: Found foot in happiness and never look back.
Speaker 2: It is preposterous how many pairs of shoes I own,
Speaker 2: and then the percentage that are Adidas, especially cause you
Speaker 2: only have two feet, right?
Speaker 3: Ye?
Speaker 2: Well that you know of.
Speaker 3: Now, are you? You are familiar though with like shoe
Speaker 3: beast culture and the Jordan's.
Speaker 2: I used to live nearby a place that was like
Speaker 2: a shoe imporium, but not like pale as shoe sores.
Speaker 2: It was like a cool guy tennis shoe place. Ah. Okay,
Speaker 2: they had some good stuff, but you'd see like people
Speaker 2: lining up at a supreme store. Yeah pretty much.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well you know this, when a physical object gets
Speaker 3: coveted the way that Jordan's are coveted, as we both know,
Speaker 3: that means crime. Yes, so typically when it comes to
Speaker 3: stolen Jordan's, one might think of say street crime, right,
Speaker 3: like stick up kids. But well, for instance, back in
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, I found a story there was this uh
Speaker 3: in East Flushings in Queens. You can know in New York.
Speaker 3: Huh it was. It was like meltdown May right, seventeen
Speaker 3: year old kids walking along as blocking Queens. He's on
Speaker 3: Quin's Avenue if you are familiar with the area. White
Speaker 3: car pulls up alongside him, sedan, driving slowly because bad
Speaker 3: men inside a clock in this kid seventeen year old
Speaker 3: kids shoes are like, ooh, what's of them? Now? He's
Speaker 3: rocking a pair of Jordan's worth two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Two thousand dollars, Like yeah, those are expenses, like high
Speaker 2: heels digit shoes.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what the two thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Jordan giving like old sex and the city shoes don't
Speaker 3: even right?
Speaker 2: I have no idea. You better be running real fast.
Speaker 3: These kids were not kids. These men in the car,
Speaker 3: they knew those were two thousand dollars Jordan's gold on. No,
Speaker 3: they just recognize the kicks and how valuable they were.
Speaker 3: So the car pulls over. Three men hop out the
Speaker 3: white sedan, which for some reason, I imagine does a
Speaker 3: Nissan Ultima. Anyway, the three men they run up on
Speaker 3: the seventeen year old kid. One of the muggers grabs
Speaker 3: a kid from behind yanks them down to the sidewalk right. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: the other two muggers they come around in front of him.
Speaker 3: They grab his feet and just yank his shoes off
Speaker 3: his feet. They didn't even untie him, just right off
Speaker 3: his feet. Oh no, I had to hurt. So then
Speaker 3: once they got the shoes off, they run back to
Speaker 3: the white sedan, but their stolen booty take off gone right.
Speaker 3: The kids like, what the hell, oh man? And what
Speaker 3: are the muggers doing next to Elizabeth? This is why
Speaker 3: I wanted to tell you this story. Yeah, not even
Speaker 3: a half hour later, these three men, same guys, they
Speaker 3: head into a shoe reseller in the same neighborhood. One
Speaker 3: of the employees at the shoe reseller ended up telling
Speaker 3: the story to The New York Post and they said,
Speaker 3: and I quote, they tried to sell them to us.
Speaker 3: It just seem like a normal transaction. They didn't stutter.
Speaker 3: They just told me they wanted to sell it. They
Speaker 3: asked how much could I get for these?
Speaker 2: Were they still warm?
Speaker 3: Pretty much? Sell it socks in them. So the shoe
Speaker 3: reseller employees, right, they take these stolen Jordan's. They inspect
Speaker 3: them to see what they might be worth. They compare
Speaker 3: them to a similar model. They do the quick shoe check.
Speaker 3: Right at first, the jeorde look good, But the closer
Speaker 3: they inspect, the more they noticed little telling details an
Speaker 3: expert would see, as he put it, quote, cheaper material,
Speaker 3: The stitching was different. So the shoe reseller employee, now
Speaker 3: it goes back to the three muggers. It has to
Speaker 3: tell them the bad news quote, they're fake. We can't
Speaker 3: buy them. Now. The street muggers remain optimistic because even
Speaker 3: if the Jordan's are fake, they're like, well, they must
Speaker 3: be worth something. So how much were you guys pay
Speaker 3: for some fake Jordan's. The shoe reseller point now is
Speaker 3: to inform them zero dollars. Yeah, because it's a fake,
Speaker 3: that's a direct quote. Oh No, that kind of Air
Speaker 3: Jordan based crime is the old school version right now,
Speaker 3: these days thieves, muggers, street criminals, they've moved on to
Speaker 3: much bigger shoe crimes. Okay, whoa, yeah, First, since I
Speaker 3: know you're not really a hype beast tuned into the
Speaker 3: latest price trends in.
Speaker 2: Colourway beast, baby, the air Jordan's.
Speaker 3: I know you don't know the market, right, so I
Speaker 3: gotta give you a sense of just how valuable Air
Speaker 3: Jordan's are on the black market and how valuable they
Speaker 3: are on the auction block. So original Air Jordan once
Speaker 3: they were designed by this guy, Peter Moore, famous, right
Speaker 3: they drop in eighty five, nineteen eighty five for sneaker heads.
Speaker 3: They remain a coveted shoe. The originals they were red
Speaker 3: white black high tops.
Speaker 2: I remember that, yeah right, Okay?
Speaker 3: Now, according to Southerby's in twenty twenty three, a pair
Speaker 3: of the Nike Air Jordan one og high Chicago's was
Speaker 3: valued at thirty two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Thirty two thousand. Well, I mean it's the kind of
Speaker 2: the impetus of oh yeah, this whole completely.
Speaker 3: But also you got to like keep those shoes in
Speaker 3: like a climate control and environment because the glues deteriorate
Speaker 3: and then the shoe just lifts off from the sore. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I have a couple of shoes like that that I
Speaker 3: tried to go back to. It was like, oh, this
Speaker 3: is why you can't wear a twenty year old shoit.
Speaker 2: I've totally done that. You put the shoes on, you're like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, and then you take two steps.
Speaker 3: She just gives up.
Speaker 2: Soles are behind exactly. It's all crumbly, that's the thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So these people they're not usually wearing them either. They
Speaker 2: just keep them in a box.
Speaker 3: Some people put them up on their walls like art.
Speaker 3: They're like little shelves and you'll see a shoe, or
Speaker 3: they'll have like glass cases. They have all the shoes
Speaker 3: and in the glass cases. Oh yeah, no for the collectors.
Speaker 3: Back in twenty fifteen, wrapper Eminem did a collab with
Speaker 3: work wear brand car Heart.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: They put out this custom line of air Jordan Force
Speaker 3: they were just a handful of pairs though.
Speaker 2: Wait, than it was with Nike too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's Nike, Carhart and Eminem coming together to make.
Speaker 2: These right tricehup exactly.
Speaker 3: So it's a handful of pairs that they create for
Speaker 3: Eminem and his family. But then he asked them to
Speaker 3: make ten pairs. They were gonna be sold on eBay
Speaker 3: for a benefit for the Marshall Masers Foundation and the
Speaker 3: money would go to a music school at Michigan State. Okay,
Speaker 3: so this pair of Nike Air Jordan four Retro Eminem
Speaker 3: car Hearts that did make it out to the market,
Speaker 3: of these ten, they will run you twenty one thousand
Speaker 3: dollars eight hundred and fifty Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Over on the shoe reseller stock x, they report their
Speaker 3: their most expensive shoes, right you know that place?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got I got a pair of like sticker
Speaker 2: sold sambas from and like the limited edition color release
Speaker 2: that I nice.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe a little shoe best are there but
Speaker 3: free and it.
Speaker 2: Has like a little tag on it they authenticate that
Speaker 2: is true? Have you actually? You and I have a
Speaker 2: mutual friend Abby Lien though, who's an authenticator? This fascinating stuff,
Speaker 2: interesting business.
Speaker 3: And being able to spot a counterfeit from distance.
Speaker 2: Huh so cool.
Speaker 3: So these stock x One of they had. One of
Speaker 3: the second most expensive Jordan's I found that they had
Speaker 3: ever sold, was a pair of Jordan Eleven's, the premium
Speaker 3: Derek Jeters. The Peters, Yeah, the Yankees shortstop. He's a
Speaker 3: Hall of Famer, right, So Nike wanted to celebrate their
Speaker 3: partnership with Jeter, so they made him a pair of shoes,
Speaker 3: not his shoes, because his shoes suck. But no one
Speaker 3: wants a pair of Jeter Eleven's, right, So hell, I'd
Speaker 3: rather have a pair of Costco Kirkland Elevens personally, right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: But Nike was like, hey, Jeter, how about we make
Speaker 3: you your very own Jordan's. And Jeter was like, bet,
Speaker 3: let's do it.
Speaker 2: It's like I wish I were Michael Jordan's pretty much.
Speaker 3: So they made them five pairs of these custom Air
Speaker 3: Jordan Retro Premium Derek Jeters. Now they make them available
Speaker 3: to the public. The shoes were sold out of a
Speaker 3: pop up shop a little ways away from Yankee Stadium
Speaker 3: to celebrate his Hall of Fame induction. They didn't sell
Speaker 3: the shoes directly though. They held a raffle and the
Speaker 3: winners got a pair of these Air Jordan eleven Derek
Speaker 3: Jeter specials. One pair got resold on stock X. I
Speaker 3: want to guess how much they were worth?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, just tell me twenty three thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah. There is also a difference because if you want
Speaker 3: to get your hands on a pair of Air Jordan's
Speaker 3: that Michael Jordan actually wore in a game, Oh stay,
Speaker 3: you can buy those two. Yeah, like he put his
Speaker 3: stank on them in them and you can.
Speaker 2: Have that in owning, you hit the side and all
Speaker 2: the foot the sank juices come up. Now they powder
Speaker 2: them up front.
Speaker 3: Oh, I gotcha.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: Now these are much much more expensive, obviously because Air
Speaker 3: Jordan put his blessed foot inside now Elizabeth. In nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety seven, the Chicago Bulls were in the finals facing
Speaker 3: John Stockton, Cocoll Malone right, and in Utah Jazz. It
Speaker 3: was Game five. Bad news for the Bulls was Jordan
Speaker 3: had the flu. But if you know anything about Michael Jordan,
Speaker 3: you know he's gonna will himself into greatness and threw
Speaker 3: the get a win. Right. They call it the flu
Speaker 3: game because he had thirty eight points. The Bulls won. Right. Now,
Speaker 3: the shoes he was wearing in that legendary Game five
Speaker 3: of the ninety seven finals, he decided to give away.
Speaker 3: He gave the shoes to a ball boy for the
Speaker 3: Utah Jazz. For the Jazz, yeah, because it was in Utah.
Speaker 2: So here's what he is his own.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But he like me and Joe Greendam, He's like, hey, kid,
Speaker 3: here's my shoes.
Speaker 2: Fun for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the kid, Preston Truman, he kept the shoes
Speaker 3: from this legendary game and then eventually, you know, he
Speaker 3: had to I don't know. He went to college. He
Speaker 3: hears the siren call of the market. He resells the shoes.
Speaker 3: I want to guess how much that pair of Air Jordan.
Speaker 2: Twelves went for nine million dollars?
Speaker 3: It was one hundred and four thousand dollars. WHOA, Yes,
Speaker 3: that paid for college. I imagine they were resold again
Speaker 3: at the time. Now they were resold again recently. Now
Speaker 3: we want to guess how much those same shoes were
Speaker 3: worth in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Uh, two hundred thousand, try one point.
Speaker 3: Three eight million dollars?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Who bought that? Who? Has that kind of change.
Speaker 3: I have spent on somebody wealthy that I do not know.
Speaker 3: I did not look up who bought Kennies.
Speaker 2: I wanted over a million dollars for a pair of tennis.
Speaker 3: Dude, that's nothing. The Air Jordan thirteen's nicknamed bread The
Speaker 3: Jordan wore those in the next year in the ninety
Speaker 3: eight NBA Finals in Game two, which is one of
Speaker 3: the last games he ever played for the Chicago Bulls.
Speaker 3: They get resold they're the most money ever to exchange
Speaker 3: hands for a pair of Jordan because everybody loves the breads,
Speaker 3: and then he wears them on this like last season,
Speaker 3: right right, So in twenty as a Bull. In twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three, the ninety eight game worn Air Jordan thirteen
Speaker 3: sold for two point two million dollars.
Speaker 2: Who bought those?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Chancellor Rapper, I have no idea.
Speaker 3: No, he's from Chicago, so but these are wild, right,
Speaker 3: And Elizabeth, this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 3: I wanted you to understand how coveted these shoes are
Speaker 3: before we get to the crime.
Speaker 2: So I'm starting to understand this is wild. I had
Speaker 2: no idea they were that valuable.
Speaker 3: Oh, and it's just only a skyrocket. In the last
Speaker 3: ten years, I've.
Speaker 2: Seen pictures of like the knockoff ones from Timu or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the Air Jordan guy isn't really like Air Jordan's. This
Speaker 2: is just someone who's walking.
Speaker 3: Not holding up a basketball. He just has his hand raised.
Speaker 3: Totally a class.
Speaker 2: I love knockoffs, I know you really do you?
Speaker 3: Also you love that guy does the TEAMO shoe reviews.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, he's a little like the first ones. First
Speaker 2: couple of times, I like that's good. Then after that
Speaker 2: you're like, there's gotta be other stuffing for you to
Speaker 2: branch out.
Speaker 3: Let's take a little break, well, ice off our shoulders
Speaker 3: and get back. Will dive into the Air Jordan based
Speaker 3: crimes and trust they get a hell ridiculous nice or
Speaker 3: back Elizabeth, get ready for more Air Jordan's based crimes.
Speaker 3: Totally okay. This year, earlier this year, earlier this month,
Speaker 3: February twenty twenty five, a business in Massachusetts was investigated
Speaker 3: for Air Jordan related crimes. The shop is called Family
Speaker 3: Sneaker House Love It Yes, located in wonderful Milford, Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: The local cops I's already getting these tips at Family
Speaker 3: sneaker house was selling counterfeit Jordan's. So the cops investigated,
Speaker 3: and what do they find, Elizabeth, twelve hundred counterfeit items
Speaker 3: in the family sneaker house.
Speaker 2: That's a lot. That's heavy inventor.
Speaker 3: Total value two hundred thousand dollars of counterfeit goods. The
Speaker 3: shop owner had eight hundred and ninety five pairs of
Speaker 3: fake air Jordan's.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's a lot.
Speaker 3: That's a lot. Eight nine. I had eighty nine pairs
Speaker 3: of counterfeit yeasies, oh, the Kanye shoes, Yeah, made by
Speaker 3: Adidas formally, and he also had forty eight pairs of
Speaker 3: phony Adidas and nine pairs of fake as Pumasuma. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like nine pairs, Like I don't know who they were,
Speaker 3: probably me named at me. Then, So it turns out
Speaker 3: this shop owner had no idea the merchandise was fake,
Speaker 3: or so he claimed, but he was selling it as legit.
Speaker 3: He was buying his products from a Chinese distributor who
Speaker 3: sold him the fake sneakers. So I did a little
Speaker 3: digging into this counterfeit sneaker market to see how big
Speaker 3: this reportedly billion dollar business is. Yeah, Elizabeth, let me
Speaker 3: tell you the knockoff game is a booman?
Speaker 2: Is it now?
Speaker 3: Back in twenty eighteen, also in New York, five men
Speaker 3: busted for running a counterfeit sneaker operation running knockoffs from
Speaker 3: China into the Port of Newark between January twenty sixteen
Speaker 3: and July twenty eighteen. They shipped forty two containers filled
Speaker 3: with fake air Jordans when they.
Speaker 2: Were busted containers.
Speaker 3: Yes, the men had almost a half million dollars of
Speaker 3: goods sitting around, all fake Jordan's cooling in a warehouse.
Speaker 3: Half million just when they got busted. So they've been
Speaker 3: going through this, right, that was not their whole stash.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The authorities estimated that the three hundred and eighty thousand
Speaker 3: pairs of counterfeit Jordan's were worth seventy million dollars on
Speaker 3: the black market, Oh my god, and the gray market
Speaker 3: like family Sneaker House in.
Speaker 2: Milford, Family sneaker House, love them.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So if you track the counterfeit air Jordans back to China,
Speaker 3: you end up in the Fujan province, and which is
Speaker 3: the beating heart of the phony sneaker market. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: fake air Jordans made there are constructed in legitimate factories
Speaker 3: then sold in bulk. Next, they are transported in miss
Speaker 3: labeled boxes, so nobody knows transported to the middleman, because
Speaker 3: who knows what's inside these.
Speaker 2: Mislabel box the same factory as the real.
Speaker 3: One, No, no other factories. They're not made in Nike factories.
Speaker 3: They're made in a factory that makes shoes, and so
Speaker 3: they may the Nike blanks that they've reversed.
Speaker 2: Engineer, got it, got it? Because you know, if it's
Speaker 2: not from the Fujon province, it's just sparkling Jordan's.
Speaker 3: Exactly sparkling footwear. Now, the middlemen they amassed these shoe
Speaker 3: boxes until they have enough for a shipment of fake sneakers.
Speaker 3: Then they load all of the phony Nikes into a
Speaker 3: shipping container and they send that to the Port of Newark,
Speaker 3: or the Port of Long Beach, the Port of Oakland,
Speaker 3: the Port of Seattle, Port of New Orleans, Port of Charleston.
Speaker 2: You get the idea, Yeah.
Speaker 3: All the major ports of the United States, where they
Speaker 3: then get handled and distributed to middleman. Here that's where
Speaker 3: the counterfeit Nike labels are now added to the knockoff
Speaker 3: shoes so that they can't be picked up in translate.
Speaker 3: Then once these blanks have the fake Air Jordan labels,
Speaker 3: they're pushed into the US market for big, big money. Now,
Speaker 3: you know, Chinese knockoffs are very much a thing. They have.
Speaker 3: As I said, the folks who reverse engineer legit products,
Speaker 3: they figure out way to make the knockoffs fake air Jordans.
Speaker 3: That's one thing, right, yeah, but you know they're also
Speaker 3: making things like fake bike.
Speaker 2: Helmets, fake bike helmets, make baby.
Speaker 3: Carriers, Like, it sucks for you if you learn that
Speaker 3: you bought a phony bike helmet when your cranium is
Speaker 3: bouncing off the blacktop and it's split. Yeah, or like
Speaker 3: imagine you saved money the wrong way when your baby
Speaker 3: slips out of the carrier and they are like, you know,
Speaker 3: bouncing off the sidewalk. That sucks.
Speaker 2: So what is just yeah, it has no safety features.
Speaker 3: Well, it's just basically they don't care. It's just it's not.
Speaker 2: Up to standard. Looks like a hell.
Speaker 3: That's all it is. It's supposed to resemble the product
Speaker 3: you want.
Speaker 2: Cotton balls inside.
Speaker 3: Pretty much this huge industrial counterfeit sneaker market is still
Speaker 3: just one big aspect. All of the hundreds of millions
Speaker 3: of dollars that are made off of Air Jordan crime,
Speaker 3: not the brand Air Jordan, just crime. For instance, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: have you ever been have you been reading about these
Speaker 3: great train hests of the twenty twenties, No train robberies
Speaker 3: are back. Yeah, the crime wave of the nineteenth century
Speaker 3: is new again.
Speaker 2: I ain robbery.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the thieves are focused on Air Jordan's yeah. Wow, yeah,
Speaker 3: into this for you, and I learned that railroads are
Speaker 3: ripe target. Like take Union Pacific freight lines right in California.
Speaker 3: Union Pacific maintains about thirty two hundred miles of track.
Speaker 3: Now in La County, the company has two hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy five miles of track with sixteen hundred employees. That's
Speaker 3: just La County. Now. La County happens to be obviously
Speaker 3: a hub for a railroad based Air Jordan crimes. For instance,
Speaker 3: recently in twenty twenty one, La County saw this rail
Speaker 3: theft shooting up by about one hundred and sixty percent
Speaker 3: in one year. Then came twenty twenty two, and you
Speaker 3: remember there was this viral story that showed rail lines
Speaker 3: leading out of La and the ground is just covered
Speaker 3: with cardboard boxes and stuff pulled from the box cars. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and there's like the thieves of like it. Basically it's
Speaker 3: like a miles long mess.
Speaker 2: It looks like this, right, oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, So that really got attention to people of
Speaker 3: like how bad this problem has gotten. Otherwise it's just
Speaker 3: like insurance companies and the freight lines complaining about it exactly.
Speaker 3: California is Governor Gavin Newsom. Now he's got to address
Speaker 3: the train robbery. So Newsom goes out to the rail yard.
Speaker 3: He goes out to pick up some trash, which, from
Speaker 3: what I can tell, is his favorite photo op is.
Speaker 2: Picking up trash. I applaud him.
Speaker 3: Got his technique down and everything.
Speaker 2: You know, he's just not free to get his hands during.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Coming to Newsome, he tells the Gathered reporters that
Speaker 3: the viral images of the trash strewn rail lines just
Speaker 3: outside the raiyard are quote images look like a third
Speaker 3: world country. What you saw here in the last week
Speaker 3: is just not acceptable. So I took off the suit
Speaker 3: and tide and said I'm coming because I couldn't take it.
Speaker 3: I can't turn on the news anymore. What the hell
Speaker 3: is going on?
Speaker 2: Yeah, gathering or you're governor, So he jumps in there,
Speaker 2: He's like, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can get the answers if any one of
Speaker 3: us can get the answer. Now, if you're wondering like
Speaker 3: I was, from what I remember from history class way
Speaker 3: back in high school, I thought railroads were allowed to
Speaker 3: hire their own police force. Turns out they are, yeah,
Speaker 3: But as you often hear these days, there were budgetary cutbacks,
Speaker 3: which means although Union Pacific is legally allowed to have
Speaker 3: their own police force, they cut costs and don't have
Speaker 3: the railroad cops necessary to protect their box cars, and
Speaker 3: so they have to call in the like you know,
Speaker 3: the La County Sheriffs LAPD to help them. So LA
Speaker 3: Police Captain Herman Urtado he told the La Times that quote,
Speaker 3: Union Pacific from Yuma, Arizona to La has six people
Speaker 3: patrolling six people. Sixteen hundred people are in LA County work.
Speaker 3: So they ask the local La County Police, the California
Speaker 3: Highway Patrol, the La Sheriff's Apartment, anybody they can to
Speaker 3: help out with patrols of the rail lines, the rail yards.
Speaker 3: But LA cops they got a lot of other priorities,
Speaker 3: all right. So what happens is the LAPD sets up
Speaker 3: temporary task force until the headlines go away, and Captain
Speaker 3: Hurtado said, quote, it's like digging sand at the beach.
Speaker 3: We set up a task force, we are making an arrest,
Speaker 3: and then we see a quarter of a mile down
Speaker 3: the track someone else taking merchandise.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: These days, Oh yeah, I'll get to that in a second.
Speaker 3: These days they've added drones to their task force. The
Speaker 3: police have, yeah, not stop the train robbers, not one bit.
Speaker 3: It's like waving, Yeah, what are now? The train burglary
Speaker 3: Task Force of LAPD keeps getting called back to into action,
Speaker 3: as I said, right. So, in twenty twenty four, The
Speaker 3: New York Times starts covering this growing trend of train
Speaker 3: robberies in the Southwest. The Times they speak with Joe Chavez.
Speaker 3: He's now in charge of detectives working the latest task force. Right, yeah,
Speaker 3: So he tells The New York Times about this one
Speaker 3: particular land pirate named Victor Lamas. Oh Lamas no relation
Speaker 3: to Fernando or.
Speaker 2: Lorenzo, Lorenzo's brother.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, he's just a train robber. It's just no
Speaker 3: stranger to the police. Now, is Joe Chavez we call
Speaker 3: quote he said that that was the best feeling he'd
Speaker 3: ever had jumping on the train while it was moving.
Speaker 3: It was euphoric for him. Now, what he means by
Speaker 3: that is, obviously train's going slow enough for you to
Speaker 3: run alongside, or you're right till the train's gone fast
Speaker 3: and you just jump on it. Huh Okay, so you know,
Speaker 3: relatively fast.
Speaker 2: So dangerous, Yeah, so dangerous trains?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you think. During one of his mini arrests
Speaker 3: Lamas told the cops how it was that he knew
Speaker 3: which box cars were the good ones to break into
Speaker 3: because they all look alike to the untrained eye pretty much.
Speaker 3: I got were very trained to nose, Like, look at
Speaker 3: this thing. Do you know how many detectors I got?
Speaker 3: The say, exactly, so, he tells him though, he'd actually
Speaker 3: studied the placards that the rail lines used, right those
Speaker 3: diamond cars, and then he learned about the various locking
Speaker 3: devices that they used. He researched the locks, and he
Speaker 3: learned that they had upgraded the locks, which usually meant
Speaker 3: like that's where the high dollar cargo is. And then
Speaker 3: he researched how to break the upgraded locks, which turned
Speaker 3: out he just needed a pair of bowl cutters. So
Speaker 3: so much for security upgrade. So Lamis though he had
Speaker 3: a partner for his train robberies, he worked with his girlfriend.
Speaker 3: They would their modus operandi was to get up and
Speaker 3: get out of La get set up in the Inland
Speaker 3: Empire South that's like southeast of La Proper. They'd find
Speaker 3: a motel located near the railroad tracks. Then when night came,
Speaker 3: they'd go to work. So what they would do is
Speaker 3: they'd break into railcars and they just take the stole
Speaker 3: and booty back to their budget motel room, divvy it up,
Speaker 3: and then go this goes to the fence, this goes
Speaker 3: to me or whatever. Right, it was such an easy
Speaker 3: way to earn a living that Lamas told the cops.
Speaker 3: As Detective Shavis recalls, and I quote he straight out
Speaker 3: told me, he goes Detective Shavist, I'm never gonna stop
Speaker 3: doing it.
Speaker 2: Why shouldn't did he? Was he wearing Jordan's when he's
Speaker 2: like I can just I can afford it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just like has throw away like Jordan's. He wears
Speaker 3: once and then that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got like shoes that are like my gardening
Speaker 2: shoes that are by the back door, and just I
Speaker 2: wouldn't wear them in public. Beat.
Speaker 3: He has the opposite of that.
Speaker 2: He's got like he's got shoes are so clean that
Speaker 2: you well, you know what the reason they're so expensive.
Speaker 2: They make you.
Speaker 3: Run so fast and play so well.
Speaker 2: You just someone and then they're like here. His girlfriend
Speaker 2: was like, run for me and let me see how
Speaker 2: fast you're going to Oh my goodness, you run so
Speaker 2: much faster than the other shoes. You got to wear those.
Speaker 3: You're hanging out with your nephew a bunch of probably
Speaker 3: in late twenty twenty two, my man Lamas, he gets caught,
Speaker 3: of course, his girlfriend caught. Now while his girlfriend, she
Speaker 3: gets tried, convicted, sentence and is now serving her sentence
Speaker 3: in prison, Lamas still on the lamb. Male, Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: so he did it. Was facing eight felony charges. He
Speaker 3: goes He's like, oh yeah, yeah, whatever, man. Because he's
Speaker 3: not a non violent offender, he's able to post a bail.
Speaker 3: He stops showing up for his court dates.
Speaker 5: Him.
Speaker 3: Man, he's in the wind. He's caught, right, the cop said,
Speaker 3: like a detective. Shavez, for one, is convinced that he
Speaker 3: will see his train hopping Moriarty again in the future.
Speaker 3: He's all like, I have a feeling I will see
Speaker 3: him again a direct quote. Oh yeah, yeah, perhaps, bro. Now,
Speaker 3: if you readlove Me on this new wave of train robberies,
Speaker 3: you can easily see why some folks wouldn't want to
Speaker 3: stop pulling off this land piracy, right, And he's just amazing.
Speaker 3: It's like and also hot. Damn do they make a
Speaker 3: mess doing it? Like I was reading about the trash
Speaker 3: not just from the outside of the rail yards in
Speaker 3: La County, but there's one train conductor was telling New
Speaker 3: York Times about how in southeast Arizona, in the middle
Speaker 3: of nowhere and just desert, he once drove his train
Speaker 3: through like a quarter mile long trash heap. It was
Speaker 3: just strewn in the middle of nowhere. It was nothing
Speaker 3: but hundreds and hundreds of boxes of Nike sneakers and
Speaker 3: shoe boxes.
Speaker 2: So they don't even keep the box.
Speaker 3: They just throw it out.
Speaker 2: I mean, wouldn't she wouldn't it be easier to sell
Speaker 2: them if you have the box.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm not.
Speaker 2: I mean, and I gotta tell you something.
Speaker 3: Also, I think it's pretty easy to get a box.
Speaker 2: And really chaps my hide. G littering, I.
Speaker 3: Know it does why I brought it up.
Speaker 2: Makes it would make cheeses me off. This littering. No,
Speaker 2: but I mean for real though, the boxes. Is it
Speaker 2: just because it's cumbersome?
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically it's a unnecessary space. You can get a
Speaker 3: bunch of shoes in the back of a truck and
Speaker 3: you're throwing them into like usually vans, and trust that's
Speaker 3: going to.
Speaker 2: Get them all scratched up and dirty. Well, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like in the desert.
Speaker 3: It's like if you're doing this, it's like dealing with grain.
Speaker 3: You just want the bulk of them to be cleaned outside,
Speaker 3: a little dirt.
Speaker 2: On them, then.
Speaker 3: Agriculture, they're just harvesting it like grain. They got a
Speaker 3: isle of shoes, right, But.
Speaker 2: Is are you going to get like some generic fruit
Speaker 2: or are you going to get like top you're.
Speaker 3: Too used to shopping? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Place let's say wait, yeah, yes, let's let's say they
Speaker 4: had one of those Costco vacuum sealers in the truck.
Speaker 4: Oh that's good, chuck the box. Someone else was like
Speaker 4: each thing in a vacuum.
Speaker 2: I like that someone who has a Costco vacuum seeler.
Speaker 2: I can tell you it's not that quick. Of a process.
Speaker 3: That's something you can do on the go.
Speaker 2: Is the sound of me really?
Speaker 3: Okay? Good to know? So I call you. That's what
Speaker 3: that sound is. I always wondered.
Speaker 2: I'm sucking up some rubas. That's how I talked about
Speaker 2: sealing my meat, vacuum sealing some ars.
Speaker 3: Who, Elizabeth, you have a very like whiskey stained voice
Speaker 3: when you're on the phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's only on the phone.
Speaker 3: No, Elizabeth. The Great Air Jordan train heightt of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, Yeah, are the ones I wanted to tell
Speaker 3: you about. That's why we're here today. So as you know,
Speaker 3: there are all all sorts of train lines. There's the
Speaker 3: Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, the CSX. There's a
Speaker 3: bunch of freight train lines.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: One of the freight train lines is BNSF. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: that sounds for Burlington Northern Santa Fe. Yeah, now, which
Speaker 3: means it's the parent company of the Santa Fe Railroad,
Speaker 3: which you'll probably remember the locomotives red yellow very much.
Speaker 3: So Okay, Anyway, these days, BNSF has become the ready
Speaker 3: target for Jordan thieves. They are the go to one
Speaker 3: to hit apparently in twenty twenty four, there were ten
Speaker 3: railroad heights over a one year long period and train
Speaker 3: robbers stole away with Nike sneakers. In all but one robbery,
Speaker 3: they were all against BNSF. The value for these ten
Speaker 3: train heights was two million dollars wow. In January, in
Speaker 3: a town called paren, Arizona, robbers struck a BNSF freight train.
Speaker 3: They stole nineteen hundred and eighty five pairs of Nike sneakers.
Speaker 3: I have to assume the nineteen hundred and eighty five
Speaker 3: pairs issues was just a coincidence and not like a
Speaker 3: whole Jordan sh They always ship Jordan's in lots of
Speaker 3: one nineteen eighty five, well, which is the first year
Speaker 3: of the shoes, right like that silly.
Speaker 2: They ran out of room in the van. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: they had to leave some behind.
Speaker 3: Oh maybe that's it.
Speaker 2: They left behind the really thieves.
Speaker 3: Are really in deluxuly really big one the size eighteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the size eighteens and the size fours they left, Okay,
Speaker 2: And because you can't sell you can move those. Well.
Speaker 3: The one Jordan one Jordan train heightst was worth four
Speaker 3: hundred and forty thousand dollars day yeah. Yeah, so you
Speaker 3: see why they do it right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, the way these modern train robbers know which trains
Speaker 3: and which box cars can contain the highly valuable Jordans
Speaker 3: is rather simple. They also use lots of insider info
Speaker 3: because obviously they have the money to pay sure and
Speaker 3: then and obviously there's experience you can get to recognized patterns. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but sometimes they have friends who work at the ports,
Speaker 3: who work at the warehouses the trucking companies, and they
Speaker 3: tell them I got a lot of Jordan's coming in,
Speaker 3: and then they get tipped out right, and they tell
Speaker 3: the thieves and boom right. Once the thieves identify a
Speaker 3: train they want to hit, they follow the train out
Speaker 3: of La East, deep into the desert where lonesome, old,
Speaker 3: forgotten towns roll past out there, where no one can
Speaker 3: quickly respond to a train icet. The land pirates track
Speaker 3: a train down when it baby slows down for a
Speaker 3: scheduled stop in one of these small towns, or when
Speaker 3: it passes through a section of town where it has
Speaker 3: to slow down just to get through the town. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they also rely on sabotage. They'll break a switchbox so
Speaker 3: the train has to stop.
Speaker 2: You're just like this Sepi tone robberies now the most
Speaker 2: daring among them will board the train while it's still rolling.
Speaker 3: As I've told you earlier, they'll jump on while it's
Speaker 3: still rolling. And that's what it got it difficult because
Speaker 3: you gott to match speed and so forth. Now, regardless
Speaker 3: of how they climb aboard, though the goal is typically
Speaker 3: the same. The train robbers cut a brake hose, again,
Speaker 3: forcing the train to stop, and once it does, the
Speaker 3: thieves make their moves. They board the train like pirates
Speaker 3: of yore, and once aboard the train they get to work.
Speaker 3: They break the locks, they peel open the box cars.
Speaker 3: Then they go shopping. They toss the boxes out of
Speaker 3: the train cars onto the desert floor or to the
Speaker 3: more likely to their criminal partners to load into the truck.
Speaker 3: Huh yeah wow yeah no. Also, as you asked before,
Speaker 3: you have to understand, freight trains in America are insanely long.
Speaker 3: Like there's no laws for tailing how long trains can be.
Speaker 3: So the company is looking to cut costs have made
Speaker 3: them longer and longer stuck. On the other side of
Speaker 3: they have less and less staff now to run them,
Speaker 3: and this results in freight trains that can be up
Speaker 3: to three miles long. Oh yeah, So that means that
Speaker 3: the thieves time it right and they pick a car
Speaker 3: far enough back. Yeah, they could be two miles behind
Speaker 3: the train crew that is supposed to go out and
Speaker 3: find them.
Speaker 2: And in the movie of this, I'm imagining it's Michael
Speaker 2: Jordan as the conductor of the train and he gets
Speaker 2: the alert that the brake's been Oh man.
Speaker 3: Kids, this is basically happy hunting for land pirates out
Speaker 3: there in the desert. And also these crews don't really
Speaker 3: want to get out because a lot of these guys
Speaker 3: are junior members of Mexican cartel.
Speaker 2: Oh that's good point, that's who they're doing it.
Speaker 3: They have sometimes like assault rifles, you know, they're not
Speaker 3: just like and sometimes they're just seventeen year olds with
Speaker 3: no weapons whatsoever. They do not know what they're gonna
Speaker 3: be getting, right, But.
Speaker 2: If you want to move a lot of products like that,
Speaker 2: then like having a cartel connection is oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you say, you need a good fence, right exactly. Now,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, there were sixty five thousand railroad robberies
Speaker 3: and thefts. Sixty three thousand, Yes, and that was a
Speaker 3: forty percent increase over the year twenty twenty three. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so now you've got a full scale take a little break,
Speaker 3: and when we get back, I will dazzle and amaze
Speaker 3: you with more Jordan Crimezle Elizabeth zaren, you haven't fun
Speaker 3: in the lonesome wild West Jordan.
Speaker 2: Nextaposition of the Air Jordans in the.
Speaker 3: Isn't that great?
Speaker 2: It's a great image.
Speaker 3: It's is such a fun like very American image. The
Speaker 3: Jordan's the train robbery out in the wild West. And
Speaker 3: then the time juxtaposition.
Speaker 2: Is just like, are you going to write the screen flip.
Speaker 3: Book where you put the different tops and bottoms on?
Speaker 2: Totally?
Speaker 3: I would actually wouldn't make a good screenplay.
Speaker 2: You mentioned, right, Dibbs for you.
Speaker 3: Well, Elizabeth, for you, I would say I was going
Speaker 3: to continue telling you facts and stats about these great
Speaker 3: Air Jordan train robberies, but I'd like you to experience. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so I'd like you to close your eyes and I'd
Speaker 3: like you.
Speaker 2: To close to picture it.
Speaker 3: It is around five in the afternoon into desert, and
Speaker 3: you feel a hot breeze against your face because Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: you are a foam jack in the box head shove
Speaker 3: down on the end of an antenna of a stolen
Speaker 3: white van. You bob and sway around in the wind,
Speaker 3: the wind generated by the speeding white van. It's going
Speaker 3: around seventy five, maybe eighty, I don't know. You don't
Speaker 3: know because you can't see the odometer as the unmarked
Speaker 3: white van trails after what looks to be a miles
Speaker 3: long train. But you are not one of the primary
Speaker 3: chase cars. You're there with the van that's there to
Speaker 3: catch the halt, which means you have a perfect vantage
Speaker 3: to watch the whole train robbery go down. You watch
Speaker 3: as two of the chase cars pull alongside the train.
Speaker 3: The dust clouds they leave are tremendous. They paint the
Speaker 3: desert sky with a dull brown haze. As the dust
Speaker 3: spreads out above you, one of the land pirates leaps
Speaker 3: from a chase vehicle. It's like a scene from Fast
Speaker 3: and the Furious, which you've never seen. The bandit lands
Speaker 3: his leap of fate, and with a well practiced hand,
Speaker 3: he draws a knife from its sheath and slices the
Speaker 3: air brake. The break is found. With the air pressure
Speaker 3: escaping the severed line, you see the train lurch and
Speaker 3: begin to slow the conductors following the emergency protocol for
Speaker 3: loss of air pressure in the breaking system. The chase
Speaker 3: vehicle stay alongside the train until it comes to a
Speaker 3: slow and final stop. Your antenna whips around as the
Speaker 3: white van moves into position along the stopped train. If
Speaker 3: you could, you would choke on all the dust. But
Speaker 3: you don't because you're an inanimate jack in the box bobblehead. Instead,
Speaker 3: you watch the land Pirates with awe as they move
Speaker 3: with a timed precision. One train robber identifies the box
Speaker 3: cars of interest. Another leapfrost up and breaks open the
Speaker 3: lock with a slide of the heavy door. The box
Speaker 3: car reveals its treasures. The thieves duck inside. When they emerge,
Speaker 3: they come out with handfuls of boxes with that familiar
Speaker 3: swoosh logo, The boxes of Nike they loaded into the
Speaker 3: white van. You're a white van. You watch the team
Speaker 3: empty the box car of its Jordan's, and then onto another,
Speaker 3: and then another. When the land Pirates are convinced they've
Speaker 3: stolen all the best booty, they load back up into
Speaker 3: their stolen chase vehicles to go tearing off into the
Speaker 3: Mohave desert. Not a bad day's work. You think to yourself,
Speaker 3: maybe this outlaw life is for you now. Elizabeth, as
Speaker 3: one retired sheriff's deputy described as growing trend of train robberies,
Speaker 3: it's just like the old wild West. It's crazy.
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: He's always wanted to say stuff like that, so I'll
Speaker 3: just add in it's crazy, but with a heavy splash
Speaker 3: of piracy, which I love. Yeah, but this is like
Speaker 3: in a desert instead of a vast sea.
Speaker 2: It's very mad.
Speaker 5: Max.
Speaker 3: Well, they say, yeah, definitely, but like with the Sahara,
Speaker 3: they say, it's just a sea of sand. Like I'm
Speaker 3: seeing this. I'm dude, I'm in it.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth, you've been to theave a bunch it stops camped there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's insane. We're actually about a hang out there.
Speaker 3: So uh oh yeah. Because five days after that great
Speaker 3: desert train robbery that I just told you about, the
Speaker 3: freight train line BNSF phoned the police again and were like,
Speaker 3: you're not gonna believe this. And cops were like, did
Speaker 3: it happen again? And BNSF was like, it happened again.
Speaker 3: It happened again, Elizabeth, this time in Amboy, California, now
Speaker 3: you may recognize that.
Speaker 2: Name, do you slightly.
Speaker 3: It's one of those picturesque abandoned towns in the Mahabi Desert.
Speaker 3: Right along the route of Root sixty six, A boy
Speaker 3: was home to a very famous diner with a crazy
Speaker 3: neon sign. The place is called Roy's. I'm sure you've
Speaker 3: seen pictures of it, the Roy's Motel and cafe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, So that place was It's
Speaker 2: no boy.
Speaker 3: Pet place was the anchor of Amboy but unfortunately it closed. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and when the owner, the original owner, sold it. And
Speaker 3: then despite valiant efforts and investments from this dude, Albert Oukura,
Speaker 3: the guy who bought the original McDonald's and turned it
Speaker 3: into a museum, he tried to save this charming mid
Speaker 3: century ghost town located there on Root sixty six, but
Speaker 3: he found there was just not enough accessible potable.
Speaker 2: Water to run to issue out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Aboys located in the Mohave Desert. And there's a
Speaker 3: reason why we don't build in the Mohabi Desert. I mean,
Speaker 3: by its name, you should know it's a desert, but
Speaker 3: it's one of the most extreme in America. The Hovey
Speaker 3: Desert is where Death Valley is with that one. They
Speaker 3: just put it right there in the name. This place
Speaker 3: will kill.
Speaker 2: Your valley, Yeah, exactly, and you've.
Speaker 3: Been there, Oh my god, a bunch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's dope.
Speaker 3: I do. I love it, but I guess because I
Speaker 3: have a car and air conditioning, I can leave it easily.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: They always have those like kind of stunt photos in
Speaker 2: the middle of the heat waves, the rangers out there
Speaker 2: looking like they're going to die and like it's one
Speaker 2: hundred and.
Speaker 3: Thirty people do legitimately time when they get out of
Speaker 3: their cars because it also they don't have enough salt,
Speaker 3: you know. Then they get out there drinking a bunch
Speaker 3: of water, and.
Speaker 2: People don't understand how much water you need because it's
Speaker 2: so they're not just to sweating that much. It's a
Speaker 2: dry heat.
Speaker 3: It's a dry heat to kill.
Speaker 2: It if you have all this evaporative cooling that your
Speaker 2: body's trying to keep up with, so you just any
Speaker 2: water you take in, you're giving out like twice as much.
Speaker 2: It's alchemy.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, it's science.
Speaker 2: It's science, or what you said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Now, five days after that train robbery I told
Speaker 3: you about in Little Amboy, population zero land pirates struck again,
Speaker 3: likely the same crew. Sheriff deputies from San Bernardino County
Speaker 3: were called to the tracks after reports of a train
Speaker 3: robbery were going down right. The responding deputies, they spot
Speaker 3: the unmarked white van out there in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 3: looking suspicious as all hell, just driving through a section
Speaker 3: of the Mohave Basin. It was called like wonder Valley.
Speaker 3: There's nothing there, right, So the sheriff's deputies they throw
Speaker 3: on their lights. The blues and twos chase after this
Speaker 3: white van, and of course the white van accelerates, chases
Speaker 3: on Elizabeth. The sheriff's deputies they go nuts. They're like,
Speaker 3: we got nothing to do out here, so they give chase.
Speaker 3: There were a high speed chase across the desert floor.
Speaker 3: The cops chasing this unmarked white van must look like
Speaker 3: something out of like a movie about the Cartels, or
Speaker 3: like an episode of Breaking Bad. So the pursuit at
Speaker 3: last a while. The only trouble is the unmarked white
Speaker 3: van is in San Bernardino County. Yeah, it's the largest
Speaker 3: county in the United Stage if you leave out of Alaska.
Speaker 3: Now point is this white van. It ain't escaping the
Speaker 3: sheriff's deputies in the Mojave Desert. There's just nowhere to go.
Speaker 3: So the train robbers, though they try, Oh boy did
Speaker 3: they try, right up until they had a sand burm
Speaker 3: and got stuck.
Speaker 2: Right those deputies are driving like super charged total.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they're made for that environment. It's like eighthp.
Speaker 2: Trucks and the van. I mean.
Speaker 3: So at this point, even if you're driving like a crackhead,
Speaker 3: it's still no business. They will not do what you
Speaker 3: needed to do.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: At this point, though, the two men are like, we're
Speaker 3: not giving up. So they flee the van on foot,
Speaker 3: trying to run across the desert Elizabeth, and.
Speaker 2: Then they just turned into skeleton.
Speaker 3: I don't know, hoping to run where I don't know,
Speaker 3: to their deaths.
Speaker 2: They had to jump over the skeletons of the cartoons,
Speaker 2: skeletons like cattle that they had to jump over a tumbleweed.
Speaker 3: It was it was nuts. It's a text avery at that.
Speaker 2: It was a lot for them.
Speaker 3: Now, don't think that they knew that they were going
Speaker 3: to be able to go anywhere, Like, I don't know
Speaker 3: if they had a plan, but running from cops at
Speaker 3: this point was probably just instinct, so they're just doing
Speaker 3: it right. They made it pretty far because the cops,
Speaker 3: the Sheriff's deputies, they had to call out a chopper
Speaker 3: to run them down, and the helicopter did that.
Speaker 2: And mat about short orders, so they.
Speaker 3: Get caught in the dead. It turns out the purpse
Speaker 3: were kids, just two boys, sixteen and seventeen years old. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so apparently going in with the unmarked white panel van
Speaker 3: is the move for land pirates because they go down,
Speaker 3: they steal one of those, they steal a couple chase cars,
Speaker 3: have at it. Right, They keep going basically across Arizona
Speaker 3: and California estate lines in the Mahabi Desert, right because
Speaker 3: it stretches over both. Now in a town called Hackberry,
Speaker 3: a train had to execute this emergency stop after the
Speaker 3: sensors reported a loss of air pressure in the brake lines.
Speaker 3: And you know what that means, train robbers. So the
Speaker 3: bandits they strike the stopped train. They load their booty
Speaker 3: into the traditional unmarked white panel van. They flee the area,
Speaker 3: but yet again, sheriff's deputies spot them fleeing because they
Speaker 3: don't have anything to do and there's no cars out there,
Speaker 3: and they just see this white van driving and they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: let's go, just see what that guy's up to. And
Speaker 3: when they do, as I have made it clear to you,
Speaker 3: the Mahabi there's nothing out there, so they're like giving
Speaker 3: chase and then they eventually they try to flee. They
Speaker 3: catch up to the robbers and they discovered that these
Speaker 3: guys had stolen one hundred and eighty pairs of brand
Speaker 3: new Unreleaf Air Jordan Retro Legend blues. Oh yeah, the
Speaker 3: stolen hall Worth forty one thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Wow, one hundred and eighty of them.
Speaker 3: Can you believe that's so? Another robbery of a BNSF
Speaker 3: train once again in yamp By Yampy, Arizona, which is
Speaker 3: a near Prescott, Arizona in the middle of the state,
Speaker 3: right smack in the middle of that. You know, the
Speaker 3: desert basin is basically a drained ocean floor right there, right,
Speaker 3: so just like left to dry out for millions of year.
Speaker 3: Arizona is so bleak to drive across. You know, I've complained.
Speaker 2: About it because you go from like either like if
Speaker 2: you're going east, you'd have that bleakness, and then you
Speaker 2: get to New Mexico, you're like, oh, look at this,
Speaker 2: that is something so beautiful.
Speaker 3: The land of enchantment. I get it.
Speaker 2: And then because like it's the quality of the sky is,
Speaker 2: don't when you're driving west, like this is so beautiful Arizona.
Speaker 2: Wait what happens?
Speaker 3: You got to get through Arizona to get to California.
Speaker 3: And if you're driving west anytime near sunset or the
Speaker 3: suns in your eyes, just pull over and shoot yourself.
Speaker 3: Not really good, but you know, dude, I have my
Speaker 3: eyes burned so bad one time. It just it's terrible.
Speaker 2: They make these things glasses.
Speaker 3: I've heard about it, you and my sister all right now,
Speaker 3: the place to be, Elizabeth, if you're looking to boost
Speaker 3: Jordan's from a box car is Arizona. That's the spot,
Speaker 3: even more than California because there's less of everything there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3: So these four men they get busted after they robbed
Speaker 3: a train and they tried to get away with forty
Speaker 3: eight thousand dollars worth of Nikes. But in this case,
Speaker 3: the shoes weren't Jordan's thought. To mix it up a
Speaker 3: little bit for you, the band it stole a load
Speaker 3: of unreleased Nike dunk Low's Midnight navies. So there you go.
Speaker 3: According to court documents from a case filed in a
Speaker 3: federal court in Phoenix, there was this string of robberies
Speaker 3: of the BNSF trains in Arizona between April and June
Speaker 3: that netted the land Pirates a stolen booty worth three
Speaker 3: hundred and forty six thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: But the big daddy score in Arizona has to be
Speaker 3: the pair two BNSF trains that were hit outside of
Speaker 3: the towns of Kingmen and Seligmann. Yes. Now, those two
Speaker 3: train robberies were worth a combined six hundred and twelve
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. Two train robberies, all of it. Nike sneakers,
Speaker 3: no diamonds, no oil, They're not like no gold shipments. Yeah.
Speaker 3: That pair of that pair of train robberies, though, did
Speaker 3: eventually result in eight arrests. Now, there's this one Cato
Speaker 3: I've been waiting to tell you about. The authorities consider
Speaker 3: him a mastermind, a OG of the trained robbery game.
Speaker 3: His street name boyle Chicken in Spanish. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 3: the best boil. It's not the best street name, right,
Speaker 3: totally the crazy Chicken. But then again, if your street
Speaker 3: name is chicken like Boyo. It might have nothing to
Speaker 3: do with your character. It might just be the like,
Speaker 3: you know, you got named Boyo like a long time
Speaker 3: ago by somebody else, and it's because you were like
Speaker 3: as tall as a chicken. And now you can just
Speaker 3: go toe to toe with anybody. So like, just because
Speaker 3: someone's named chicken, oh, do not mess with them, especially
Speaker 3: if they're a street criminal named Boyle.
Speaker 2: Well if I think anyone with a street criminal names.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean. If you when you're keeping it
Speaker 3: and it's like a weird whack one, like it's like,
Speaker 3: oh man, you're gonna get your you.
Speaker 2: Know anyway, Yeah, they're like meat muffin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you were ready to get your card pulled, so muffin.
Speaker 3: This is meat love Muffin and Muffin. They're twins. That's
Speaker 3: how we know them. Anyway. The government name of this dude,
Speaker 3: his name is Felipe Artro AVOs Mahiaa Avolosa. Now, the
Speaker 3: reasons that the cops consider him a mastermind is because
Speaker 3: Boyo employs a team of scouts to target trains. He
Speaker 3: also coordinates vehicles for his train ride.
Speaker 2: Little chicks, No, you're just gonna.
Speaker 3: Run with this sooo, he hires and he pays out
Speaker 3: his crew based on their stolen halls, and you can
Speaker 3: tell that he's been in the game a while because
Speaker 3: he's good. He also arranges a whole network offences, so
Speaker 3: he gets the stolen cars. He's paying his guys. He
Speaker 3: pretty much. I mean, if he gave him health insurance.
Speaker 3: This is like a good gig. So it also this way,
Speaker 3: as I said, we always want to get it. You
Speaker 3: want to have your fence locked down. You gotta be
Speaker 3: able to sell off your stolen goods. He's got a
Speaker 3: whole network, so he's golden. Right. But this is how
Speaker 3: you can last eleven years as a ringle. I said,
Speaker 3: eleven years because I know when it ends.
Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Are my favorite land pirate, our pirate captain. If you
Speaker 3: will up these land pirates. Boyo so Poil lasted until
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, but he lasted right up until the
Speaker 3: California State law enforcements of HP Everybody and Homeland Security
Speaker 3: teamed up to bring down Poyo and so on Joan
Speaker 3: twentieth of last year. Agents from Homeland Security and California
Speaker 3: Law Enforcement Task forces. Right they executed search warrants on
Speaker 3: eleven different residents, is sixteen different storage units, and the authorities.
Speaker 3: They end up arresting forty three suspects into his Dude's network. Right,
Speaker 3: they recovered three million dollars of stolen goods that were
Speaker 3: intransit between fences and whatever, and they were obviously from
Speaker 3: the BNSF train robberies, all stolen nikes and so forth.
Speaker 3: Most of the boxes are Jordan's, but Poyo I would
Speaker 3: also Mahia, He Stombaf, stayed out of the drag net.
Speaker 3: He laid low, he hit out, He managed to evade
Speaker 3: the cops that were and the FEDS are hunting him down.
Speaker 3: When the cops executed a search warrant at the residence,
Speaker 3: but they believed he was located. They found no Boyo,
Speaker 3: but they did find seventy four cases of stolen nikes,
Speaker 3: one hundred and eight packs of socks, thirty five sock,
Speaker 3: thirty five pairs of shoes worth about ninety four thousand dollars,
Speaker 3: as well as ten stolen vehicles which were believed to
Speaker 3: have been used in prior train burglaries. In Yeah, my
Speaker 3: buddy style always wanted to have He's tell me if
Speaker 3: you ever got rich, the first thing he would do
Speaker 3: is he'd buy enough socks. He could always wear a
Speaker 3: fresh pair of socks each day and then throw them
Speaker 3: out the end of the day. That was that to him,
Speaker 3: was like, that's the that's it. Yeah, okay. So I
Speaker 3: think my man Poo He's had a similar view. He's like,
Speaker 3: I can afford a hundred eight socks, why not give
Speaker 3: that to me?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's enough for two a week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fifty two.
Speaker 3: Weeks, right, you know, one hundred and eight Sure. Anyway,
Speaker 3: despite all his slipperiness, the Mastermind Boyo was eventually tracked down.
Speaker 3: Cops got up to Poyo at a restaurant in Huntington Park, California.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: At the time of his arrest, he was dining with
Speaker 3: another man. He had on him a Louis Vautone very nice,
Speaker 3: and the Louis Vuton handbag was one hundred and twenty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in cash along with a ledger. The ledger
Speaker 3: contained a list of Nike products that had recently been
Speaker 3: stolen from BNSF trains. The kicker was the item I
Speaker 3: list had estimated dollar amounts right next to the stolen goods.
Speaker 2: Oh Wow, the cops had caught.
Speaker 3: The mastermind with his fence and all the evidence they
Speaker 3: would ever need to bust both of them.
Speaker 2: I hope it was a fake, Louis.
Speaker 3: Dude, that's how my man Boyle got fried.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's for you.
Speaker 3: Hey. I should point out he's currently in the system
Speaker 3: awaiting trial, and thus he remains innocent of all charges
Speaker 3: until proven guilty. Good luck, Captain Boyle.
Speaker 2: So when they when they interviewed him, he was pyoto,
Speaker 2: he was grilled.
Speaker 3: Oh would double backed on me?
Speaker 2: Do you think any of the stolen nikes were those ones,
Speaker 2: the all white ones that Jax wore on Sons of Vanage.
Speaker 3: Oh, the prison specials?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the prison special Yeah, I don't know if.
Speaker 3: They make the prison twos.
Speaker 2: He'd always they were always like perfectly right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you want anybody wants Liz, if I got
Speaker 3: a question for you, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 2: My ridiculous takeaway is that it still baffles me, like
Speaker 2: how much people will pay for a pair of shoes
Speaker 2: running shoes basketball.
Speaker 3: So if they were leather shoes, would that make more sense?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 2: Their leather, aren't they?
Speaker 3: So that's where you're going by materials.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, what I'm just saying like it just
Speaker 2: seems like outsized, like you know, thousand dollars sneakers, seems
Speaker 2: like there's a.
Speaker 3: Lot of attached cachet you're you're paying for. Jordan changed
Speaker 3: all this. He started making people feel like if I
Speaker 3: had these shoes, I can be like the bad boy
Speaker 3: Jordan who took a fine every day to be able
Speaker 3: to wear his own shoes. I mean that starts his
Speaker 3: legend as a rebel. Well no, but it's just it's
Speaker 3: this psychologist like you said about little kids, like you
Speaker 3: put them on, I'm so fast. It's that for grown
Speaker 3: men and grown women, grown everybody, anybody wants to grown. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they were like, hey, I feel like I'm so fast
Speaker 3: to my Jordan's.
Speaker 2: What what's your ridiculous takeaways there?
Speaker 3: That you had to even ask that my ridiculous takeaway
Speaker 3: crime is actually that No matter how much I read
Speaker 3: about this, I'm like, man, I want to do it.
Speaker 3: I know that's wrong, I know it's wrong. I know
Speaker 3: Darren don't do it, But I was like, man, I
Speaker 3: want just like once, just one one I can get
Speaker 3: away if I get away with just a treat. Yeah,
Speaker 3: just like, come on, tell the guys like, hey, they
Speaker 3: kidnapped me.
Speaker 2: They made me do this and then the cops catch you.
Speaker 2: You go just kidding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like, hey, like a one times the snow.
Speaker 2: You just tell him I wasn't standing there with a
Speaker 2: box of I did not do that.
Speaker 3: I tell him I'm a security expert and I was
Speaker 3: doing it as undercover.
Speaker 2: A white hat free lance expert.
Speaker 3: Desert lampid, Well, Elizabeth, should we wash away the desert
Speaker 3: with a talkback? Yes, producer d can you favor us
Speaker 3: with one?
Speaker 6: Oh my god, I went, hey, I'm a huge fan
Speaker 6: of the show and I was so excited to hear
Speaker 6: Darren mentioned flat track role derby the other week.
Speaker 7: It is an amazing sport. Oh yeah, derby in Canada.
Speaker 7: My derby name is Princess Leia, and it's also an
Speaker 7: expensive sport. So make sure you get out there and
Speaker 7: you support your local roller derby, whether you follow them
Speaker 7: on social media or you check out their games. I
Speaker 7: know there's lots of teams all over California, even the
Speaker 7: Oakland Outlaws, so check them out.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, we will definitely do that. Oakland Outlaws, We're
Speaker 3: coming your way.
Speaker 2: Mine. Do support it those sports that's so cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Roller Derby's the I can't say what it is
Speaker 3: on the air, but you know it. That's what it is.
Speaker 3: It's also you can find us online always a Ridiculous
Speaker 3: Crime on the social media. Mostly that's a Twitter. No,
Speaker 3: it's Blue Sky and his Instagram and that's about it,
Speaker 3: I think, right. Okay, Well, we have our website, Ridiculous
Speaker 3: Crime dot com. It is a seven time Newberry Award
Speaker 3: winner and uh to check it out. Also, we love
Speaker 3: your talkback, so go to the iHeart app download it,
Speaker 3: leave us a talk back. Maybe you'll hear your voice. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we'd like to hear it. And as always, thank you
Speaker 3: for listening. We will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime
Speaker 3: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Brenette, produced and
Speaker 3: edited by the Felix Gallardo of the Mexican cartel train
Speaker 3: robbery game Mister Dave Christi and starring Annali's Rucker as Judith.
Speaker 3: Research is by Ocean Lobbing Desert Pirates, Marissa Brown and
Speaker 3: Alex French. Our theme song is by Thomas Captain Bob
Speaker 3: Lee and Brownbeard ak Travis. The Terror of the Spanish
Speaker 3: main dot the host. Wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred
Speaker 3: guest Harah, makeup by Spoutacle Shot and mister Andre. Executive
Speaker 3: producers are Sailors of the Seven Seas of Sand, Captain
Speaker 3: Ben Bowman and Commodore No Round.
Speaker 2: Why Say It One More Time? Crime?
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
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