Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is not They.
Speaker 3: Call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super
Speaker 3: producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 3: You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 3: want you to know. We are digitally live here in
Speaker 3: our studio at HQ in the fair metropolis of Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 3: It's a nice Friday, nice Friday, energy freezing cold, freezing cold,
Speaker 3: I mean, says we.
Speaker 4: You know, any listeners out there in like New York.
Speaker 3: Of Philadelphia, get out of here. We're the talk of
Speaker 3: a last Yeah.
Speaker 4: We come from the land of the ice and snow,
Speaker 4: you guys, babies, So.
Speaker 3: We also love traveling. We were talking about what we're
Speaker 3: doing this weekend travel plans as we approach the end
Speaker 3: of what humans call the calendar year. Thought experiment. You guys,
Speaker 3: if you had a chance to travel to your dream country,
Speaker 3: just imagine whatever your dream country is. You don't have
Speaker 3: to pay for the ticket. You've got a place to stay.
Speaker 3: You don't even have to pay for food. However, instead
Speaker 3: of asking for financial payment, your benefactors are saying, we
Speaker 3: need you to do a different sort of compensation. We'd
Speaker 3: like a little bit of crime.
Speaker 4: Ooh, crime is the secret ingredient. I do a crime for.
Speaker 3: All of that depends on the crime, right, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm open.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how salacious are we talking?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Like there's a gradient.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: If you were, for instance, offered this Fausti embargain and
Speaker 3: they said you need to kill someone for us, a
Speaker 3: lot of people would say, no, it's just complicated.
Speaker 4: And depends on what kind of food we're talking about,
Speaker 4: you know, I think, is it fancy? Is it fine dining?
Speaker 4: I kill for a Michelin star?
Speaker 3: Oh man, we're on record.
Speaker 4: Yeah no no, no, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 3: Also, I learned Michelin. Why Michelin is arguably corrupt. I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's a future episode, but there are
Speaker 3: no Micheline rated restaurants in New Orleans because New Orleans
Speaker 3: hasn't invited Michelin, and they only go to cities where
Speaker 3: they're vampire rules.
Speaker 4: Interesting, Yeah, we only just got Micheline Guide here in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Really yeah, like this year.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I saw there's a there's a food
Speaker 2: joint over here by our offices, and there's a pizza
Speaker 2: place that has a Michelin starred chef.
Speaker 4: It may well also be there's like this this like
Speaker 4: slightly downgraded demarcation called the bib gormand sort of like
Speaker 4: a consolation prize kind of you don't actually get a star,
Speaker 4: but it's sort of like a recommended kind of situation.
Speaker 3: So we walked down the street to let you know
Speaker 3: a little bit about the inner workings of Michelan.
Speaker 4: We're talking about the Michelin Guide to Crime.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's that's your dream country. That leads us to
Speaker 3: tonight's episode, What would you do in the wide world
Speaker 3: of crime Tourism? Here are the facts. All right, we
Speaker 3: just got out of kind of out of an election
Speaker 3: season here in the United States. You may have read
Speaker 3: about it. It was somewhat of a deal. Yeah, somewhat
Speaker 3: of a deal. And one thing that I think we've
Speaker 3: all noticed is that during election season people start to
Speaker 3: scope in on very specific issues. It's going to be
Speaker 3: stuff like the economy, maybe a culture war, thing of
Speaker 3: some sort and then always the perennial hit the beatles
Speaker 3: of stuff to complain about during an election.
Speaker 4: Crime well, Ben, I mean, you point out here that
Speaker 4: according to the FBI, crime actually up during the Biden administration. I,
Speaker 4: based on the rhetoric, really didn't know what to believe
Speaker 4: because both sides were saying, you know, we made crime
Speaker 4: go down. And it's really, first of all, hard to
Speaker 4: kind of take credit directly for that as the presidents.
Speaker 4: As we know, a lot of things presidents take credit
Speaker 4: for are not things directly. There are things that happened
Speaker 4: four years earlier exactly well, I mean.
Speaker 2: And what the hell does crime is up or crime
Speaker 2: is down? Even me?
Speaker 3: I gotta be honest, it's like the Dow Jones. I
Speaker 3: used to think trying to do positive affirmations. I turn
Speaker 3: on the radio, you know, in the early evening when
Speaker 3: I woke up, and then I would just say, if
Speaker 3: the Dow is up, that means it's going to be.
Speaker 4: A good day, because it's kind of like the spiritual
Speaker 4: doo as well, Buck Satani Phil rules. It's also like
Speaker 4: like are we in a bull or a bear crime market?
Speaker 3: You know, exactly right, are you bullish on crime? Are
Speaker 3: you bearish well? According to a guy named Jeffrey H.
Speaker 3: Anderson writing for the Telegraph, it is correct the FBI
Speaker 3: revised their stats, and crime depends on how you define
Speaker 3: it rose during the Biden administration from five point eight
Speaker 3: million what they call violent victimizations in twenty nineteen to
Speaker 3: six point six million in twenty twenty two. And I
Speaker 3: really appreciate that note where we say, you know, the
Speaker 3: president might take credit for good stuff, they might dodge
Speaker 3: bad things, but often they're not the person in charge
Speaker 3: of all the factors driving crime.
Speaker 4: Not to mention that the rhetoric of a political campaign
Speaker 4: is so fraught that it's really hard to take just
Speaker 4: about anything anyone says.
Speaker 2: At face value. Think about what happened in those years
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, Sure, the giant lockdown COVID nineteen. Everybody is
Speaker 2: not hanging out with everybody.
Speaker 3: Else, the proliferation of protest exactly.
Speaker 2: And then then everybody's hanging out with each other again.
Speaker 4: Hey, let's do some crimes.
Speaker 3: Has forgot all the home training? Just walking in public
Speaker 3: is still like people are still getting their sea legs
Speaker 3: here in twenty twenty four. So just a helpful PSA
Speaker 3: for anybody bud who has is personally struggling with navigating
Speaker 3: public spaces. Don't stop in the middle. Don't stop in
Speaker 3: the middle of anyone. No, walk to the right, pass
Speaker 3: to the left.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do not slow down on the left ever. If
Speaker 2: you're driving a car, if you're walking, h it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: We will find you.
Speaker 2: Oh my, we know your license plate every time.
Speaker 3: And if you stopped while you were listening to this
Speaker 3: and you're in the middle of a hallway, please please
Speaker 3: please just scoot one direction or another, just a scooch.
Speaker 3: Don't make us come way. Okay, I got sorry, So
Speaker 3: we know, do not come what dreams may come. So
Speaker 3: the uh, the idea here is again it's a metric,
Speaker 3: it's a methodology thing. How do you measure it. If
Speaker 3: we say, if we take simple assault out of the equation,
Speaker 3: that's the least serious crime category that still counts as
Speaker 3: violent and really non violent drug related crimes, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 3: If we take out well the stuff that is like
Speaker 3: that that's least likely to be treated as a felony,
Speaker 3: we still notice a thirty seven percent increase in violent
Speaker 3: crime from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty two. It doesn't
Speaker 3: rise in all of the same areas at the same rate.
Speaker 3: We know that there seem to be, at least per
Speaker 3: our buddy Jeffrey, there seemed to be a more pronounced
Speaker 3: rise in urban areas, which is honestly likely just a
Speaker 3: function of more people being in the same place. Yes,
Speaker 3: that's the main thing, you know.
Speaker 2: Especially in the cities where the ratio between have a
Speaker 2: bunch and have almost nothing.
Speaker 4: Is paraded in front of your face all the time
Speaker 4: and you don't have that stuff, but you are forced
Speaker 4: to live elbow to elbow with these folks who are
Speaker 4: way more well off than you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's nuts, and you can It really stands out
Speaker 3: to people who are not from the US when they
Speaker 3: go to one of the big cities here, there's such opulence,
Speaker 3: these amazing buildings, these huge empty skyscrapers. They're empty at night,
Speaker 3: but the people on the streets can't sleep in them,
Speaker 3: even though the heat's on, even though it's a safe
Speaker 3: place away from the you know, the horrors of crime
Speaker 3: visited on the unhoused. Let me get off this soapbox.
Speaker 3: I mean, the point is the United States is becoming
Speaker 3: less safe if you look at these statistics, especially in
Speaker 3: the cities. It's also important for us to say, who
Speaker 3: is this Jeffrey guy? Anyway, why are we listening to
Speaker 3: jeff He was the director of the Bureau of Justice
Speaker 3: Statistics at the US DOJ Department of Justice for several years,
Speaker 3: so he's more likely than the average person to have
Speaker 3: their stats correct. Now he's the president of something called
Speaker 3: the American Main Street Initiative.
Speaker 2: Well, that's cool. I like the idea of that, but
Speaker 2: it does sound pretty generous, it's really vague.
Speaker 4: Well, another related stat is that crime is also up
Speaker 4: in certain parts of the world.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I want to make one more point before
Speaker 2: we blow this up to the world level. Just specific
Speaker 2: for this story, we checked out a press conference that
Speaker 2: was based out of Los Angeles, and I had a
Speaker 2: bunch of different people there speaking, some district attorneys, some
Speaker 2: like sheriffs and things like that. Yeah, and it was
Speaker 2: it was striking to see how the people that are
Speaker 2: just underneath the mayor level talking about how crime is down. Now, everybody,
Speaker 2: crime is down, but it is way up in very
Speaker 2: specific areas. But crime is down.
Speaker 3: Which is why you hear these sort of one hand
Speaker 3: clapping statements from analysts. There's a headline I think that's
Speaker 3: from the Marshall Project or something. They said, Yes, violent
Speaker 3: crime is up, but it's also.
Speaker 2: Downright in very important places, it's down, but it's also
Speaker 2: way way up.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like, how do you want to
Speaker 3: shape the statistics?
Speaker 4: How do I stop my head from spinning?
Speaker 3: Question? Oh yeah, exorcism related crime, yeah, those are on
Speaker 3: the rock. Well, okay, good, Yeah, so this takes us
Speaker 3: to like you're saying the global scale again, we see
Speaker 3: the same paradoxical thing. Crime is skyrocketing in some areas
Speaker 3: and it's actually not as bad in other areas. Often,
Speaker 3: when it's skyrockets in a lot of countries, if we're
Speaker 3: being honest, it's due to war the consequences thereof, or
Speaker 3: government instability.
Speaker 2: Boom shout outs previous episodes recent Yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, meandmar laos Middle East, South America. We discussed these issues.
Speaker 3: We also found even Bhutan got touched and noll. This
Speaker 3: is from our show Ridiculous History sixty minutes just ran
Speaker 3: a piece after us. All right, no happiness on people
Speaker 3: leaving Bhutan for more opportunity.
Speaker 4: Ah, okay, things are a little static. They're based entirely
Speaker 4: on happiness.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, they're worried. They're worried about, you know, larger
Speaker 3: regional instability. It's a huge factor in crime. And of course,
Speaker 3: without sounding too woo wooe about it, we do have
Speaker 3: to point out you're probably going to see more crime
Speaker 3: emerge in parts of the world the next few decades
Speaker 3: as widespread migration is triggered by climate disasters. Might happen
Speaker 3: in the US too. Don't buy a house in Florida
Speaker 3: to day. I mean, it's it's doomy and gloomy, right,
Speaker 3: But some parts of the world seriously have always been
Speaker 3: safer than others, and the study of crime and peace
Speaker 3: becomes a study of waxing and waning patterns. I think
Speaker 3: it's fair for us to say, like we're we're not
Speaker 3: hitting some hard political point. Most of the time, when
Speaker 3: people commit a crime, it's because they don't have another
Speaker 3: opportunity to do something.
Speaker 2: There you go rare, It's true.
Speaker 4: But then on a I guess organizational level, that changes.
Speaker 4: And like the people below the organizers are the top
Speaker 4: tier individuals in those organized crime units, and I guess
Speaker 4: they are being taken advantage of because of their have
Speaker 4: not status.
Speaker 3: Right, what will you do to earn your bones to
Speaker 3: be a made man? What will you do to keep
Speaker 3: your family safe? These are old questions, very sinister ones.
Speaker 3: We could argue they're exacerbated by technology because increased global trade,
Speaker 3: a smaller world, more communications tech, it's paved the way
Speaker 3: for new kinds of crime, or it's really thrown some
Speaker 3: high octane gas on the bonfires of other crime.
Speaker 4: Well, it seems to me too, like with that level
Speaker 4: of exposure to everything that's going on all over the world,
Speaker 4: there's more opportunity for people to feel like they aren't
Speaker 4: living the.
Speaker 3: Lives they would like, right right. And then also to
Speaker 3: the point about halves and have nots Now, with social media,
Speaker 3: you see a lot of halves. You see a lot
Speaker 3: more than you might have ordinarily, So perhaps there's a
Speaker 3: psychological why not me fact.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm getting at for sure. But also we
Speaker 4: do know that a lot of that stuff that you're
Speaker 4: seeing is curated, and just because people have does not
Speaker 4: necessarily mean they're happy.
Speaker 3: No, are you kidding me? Have you seen all the
Speaker 3: This is evil? But I love the compilation clips you
Speaker 3: could see of people in very heavy influencer areas and
Speaker 3: parts of China or in parts of California or New
Speaker 3: England where it's clear they want you to think it's
Speaker 3: their car, but it's just some car that's parked, and
Speaker 3: then they get caught like standing on there with the selfie.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Well in the rental services way back in the day,
Speaker 2: we were trying to figure out how so many people
Speaker 2: that were getting it was even Facebook days. Yeah, how
Speaker 2: are all these young kids in these mansions out in California. Yes,
Speaker 2: and they're literally renting a house for a day or
Speaker 2: something and doing a photo shoot that lasts all day
Speaker 2: long and then it keeps their content going for a year.
Speaker 3: Or also renting a supercar for a few hours, which
Speaker 3: we did on car stuff. And I'm still mad at accounting.
Speaker 3: You should have let us do it.
Speaker 4: I think so few people read past the headline aka research.
Speaker 4: Is this person absolutely full of crap? Or are they
Speaker 4: what they say they are? But it doesn't matter because
Speaker 4: you still get stung by seeing that. That is the reaction.
Speaker 4: It's a visceral, immediate reaction.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. And then we see all these things
Speaker 3: is leading into something we discussed in a previous Strange
Speaker 3: News program. It's been in the headlines a lot in
Speaker 3: the United States lately. What happens when crime goes on
Speaker 3: the road? What is crime tourism?
Speaker 2: Are you not going to do the most death lyric?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, shout out to most Death from his album
Speaker 3: Black on Both Sides, where he noted in his song
Speaker 3: got which is a classic, you should check it out,
Speaker 3: he says, there's a hunger in the streets and it's
Speaker 3: hard to defeat. And some steal for fun, but more
Speaker 3: steel to eat. Cats don't sleep, they'll roll up in
Speaker 3: your passenger seat, right. There's a universal law whether Richard
Speaker 3: poor for some life is a game for more life
Speaker 3: is war?
Speaker 2: Oh dude, Ben, y'all don't even know. Ben put me
Speaker 2: on all the best rap only MC stuff.
Speaker 3: We're in Atlanta. You would have found it.
Speaker 4: No, Yeah, Ben, it's true. You've got really good taste
Speaker 4: in that kind of stuff. But we are going to
Speaker 4: dig into exactly what crime tourism is after a quick break.
Speaker 4: Here's where it gets crazy. What is crime tourism? This
Speaker 4: is not a trick question.
Speaker 3: It's what it sounds like, touring going as in going
Speaker 3: to a different place or a different region or country
Speaker 3: for the purposes of committing crimes. It's not to be
Speaker 3: confused with dark tourism, which is the semi creepy thing
Speaker 3: where you go to places that are known for unclean events.
Speaker 4: Sure, haunted places, war zone, dangerous places, exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, So just from my reference, when I personally first
Speaker 2: encountered this idea of crime tourism, I thought, and maybe
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, I thought about a place like maybe Thailand
Speaker 2: or a place where it's known for and I don't
Speaker 2: know why. I thought about sex work and drugs. That's
Speaker 2: what I thought about. Where it's a little where there's
Speaker 2: you can get away with it more easily or something,
Speaker 2: or it's just more open. There's a culture that's more
Speaker 2: open in one specific place, was.
Speaker 4: It Thailand were talking about recently where there was literally
Speaker 4: like a crime office park of some kinds.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and they kidnapped Thaie and Philippine nationals. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's it's rough, literally.
Speaker 4: A crime office park, I mean, totally untouched by the law.
Speaker 2: But I'll tell you I think about that though, guys.
Speaker 2: It's because of popular culture, like things like the Hangover
Speaker 2: movies and stuff like that that I know when I
Speaker 2: encountered those movies, I had already heard about that stuff.
Speaker 2: But going to a different country for crime. And I'm
Speaker 2: putting that in quotes, but like it's other stuff.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, and we're going to talk about like some
Speaker 4: of the different groups. But I was talking to you
Speaker 4: guys off air about the Albanians that has become kind
Speaker 4: of this new stand in or replacement for like the
Speaker 4: Mob in shows like what would you say, movies like Taken,
Speaker 4: Take Barry Hank and those guys, Like the Albanian organized
Speaker 4: crime depictions have really kind of skyrocketed in pop culture
Speaker 4: for good reason. They are serious business.
Speaker 3: And we'd love to go to Albania one day, but
Speaker 3: will we'll be careful. We might have to go in
Speaker 3: a group, get some muscle.
Speaker 4: I'm good.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well that's because you'll be doing crime touring in
Speaker 3: other places. Sure I suppose. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We did the Me and Myar episode. Betty. You were like,
Speaker 2: I don't know if they'll let us in anymore. I
Speaker 2: was like, you want to go to me and Mary,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: And we're going to talk about several different groups. We
Speaker 4: are going to focus a little bit on South America.
Speaker 4: But I do want to just say that you mentioned
Speaker 4: the rhetoric around this kind of stuff, the idea they're
Speaker 4: bringing crime, they're rapist blah.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: We do not want to support that notion. It is
Speaker 4: not the goal here, and that is not I think
Speaker 4: what the stats bear out. We're just talking about some
Speaker 4: examples that have been written about pretty extensively, but there
Speaker 4: are all kinds of groups doing this sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Well said, Well said, because crime tourism is a tactic
Speaker 3: or it's a tool kit. And when you hear law
Speaker 3: enforcement say, you know, specifically the South American or this
Speaker 3: Albanian group, they're talking about what affects their jurisdiction directly
Speaker 3: crime tourism. The differentiation here between visiting say a place
Speaker 3: with less rule of law to commit sexual crimes or
Speaker 3: to engage in drug trafficking. Stuff like that, Oh tails
Speaker 3: all the time, right. The difference here between the crime
Speaker 3: tourism we're talking about and that kind of stuff is
Speaker 3: level of organization. So these guys are amateur.
Speaker 4: You're also talking about individuals going to a country so
Speaker 4: they can get a child bride or whatever, you know,
Speaker 4: disgusting terms, sorry, just you know what it means, or
Speaker 4: a place where sex work is more accessible. You know,
Speaker 4: that's its own kind of crime tourism, but not what
Speaker 4: we're talking about. They were talking about the flip side
Speaker 4: of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is crime is a job. Yeah, not crime
Speaker 3: is a vacation. Maybe that's the that's brutal, but that's
Speaker 3: probably the best way to put it right exactly. Okay,
Speaker 3: we know the score. A group of criminals arrives in
Speaker 3: a foreign country as tourists also different from any kind
Speaker 3: of like they don't fall under the Espionage Act. They're
Speaker 3: not doing crime for a government or anything like that,
Speaker 3: but they are working for something that's kind of like
Speaker 3: almost a government in its own home country.
Speaker 2: Well, and they're also individuals who are not on the
Speaker 2: radar of any organization that would be monitoring for people
Speaker 2: coming in or out of a country.
Speaker 4: And the more we look into things like cartels like
Speaker 4: in Mexico, for example, they practically are the government.
Speaker 3: And many at a certain levels. Yeah, unfortunately, that is correct,
Speaker 3: and that's why a lot of the recent reporting here
Speaker 3: in the United States orbits around the idea of criminals
Speaker 3: from South America, even though, as we pointed out, the
Speaker 3: phenomenon is not isolated to a single cohesive group nor region.
Speaker 4: I mentioned the show that I just started watching the
Speaker 4: Taylor Sheridan show starring Sylvester Stallone called I Believe King
Speaker 4: of Tulsa, where Stallone plays a mobster who gets out
Speaker 4: of prison. There isn't a place for him within the
Speaker 4: organization in New York, so they send him to Tulsa, Oklahoma,
Speaker 4: where there is very little organized if any organized crime presence,
Speaker 4: to set up shop. That is another example of kind
Speaker 4: of what this could look.
Speaker 3: Like, right, yeah, to expand the brand, to franchise out
Speaker 3: in the world of crime. And also to that point
Speaker 3: about the arguments or the really the racism raised about
Speaker 3: immigration here, We've got to remember some of the most
Speaker 3: dangerous South and Central American immigrants were sucking created by
Speaker 3: the United States. What is often the case MS thirteen,
Speaker 3: you know, is the most prominent example. But these are
Speaker 3: kids who grew up sometimes undocumented in parts of California,
Speaker 3: and they were in very bad neighborhoods. They had to
Speaker 3: protect themselves. We talked about this in the previous episode.
Speaker 3: So they become gangs, and then the US deports or
Speaker 3: in this case, exports gang culture back to these places,
Speaker 3: and then they come back as well. It's the cycle
Speaker 3: that Uncle Sam created.
Speaker 4: Another example, it would be killing terrorist leaders whose followers
Speaker 4: or children then take up that cause and it's like
Speaker 4: a kill bill type situation.
Speaker 2: It's one big school of the Americas.
Speaker 3: There, it is. I like that. Let's expand the franchise.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, like we said, the Mafia has
Speaker 3: sent people abroad, the Yaquaza have, triads have and all
Speaker 3: three of those are still doing it to some extent.
Speaker 3: But if we look at South American groups from crime tourism,
Speaker 3: what we're looking at is something called South American Theft
Speaker 3: Groups or SADIG, which is I think not as cool
Speaker 3: of a name as they could have picked.
Speaker 4: No, Yeah, we get SATIG before GTA six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Well, and this is fairly new, a fairly new term
Speaker 2: I guess that has come around since roughly well like
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. But the SATG is specifically referring
Speaker 2: to one group that they discovered, right that was found
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about. It was actually prosecuted and functioning,
Speaker 2: and now they've got this name that is essentially a
Speaker 2: generic term for anything that would function like the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so jewel thieves, grand theft, auto enthusiast, art thieves,
Speaker 3: just straight up you know, be an.
Speaker 4: E guys home invasion like professional like home invasion at scale.
Speaker 2: But not violent at least from what we've seen. It's
Speaker 2: not breaking into the repeat.
Speaker 3: They do their homework.
Speaker 4: They do their homework, and that they make sure that
Speaker 4: the crimes are under like ten k as well. We'll
Speaker 4: get to that. It's a thing to make sure they're
Speaker 4: not triggering certain you know, red flags within the Department
Speaker 4: of Treasure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a stealth mission for any gamers out there.
Speaker 4: But add up enough of them. You know, each individual
Speaker 4: one might not be that, but add enough of them
Speaker 4: and then send all that stuff back home.
Speaker 3: You're talking serious money. And they're a morphous These groups
Speaker 3: can pop up and disappear pretty easily. They're not all
Speaker 3: created equal. There are different levels of expertise and especially
Speaker 3: primarily due to how they set up their business model
Speaker 3: and frankly, what their fences are willing to mess with. So,
Speaker 3: for example, the FEDS were for a time and still
Speaker 3: are intensely concerned with jewel thieves from Ecuador, Colombia and Peru.
Speaker 4: Because they're small and they're valuably it's incredibly dense. It's
Speaker 4: a literal good bang for your buck, right, Yeah, the
Speaker 4: FBI talks about it. You can read about on their website.
Speaker 4: Special Agent Noel gill gil Hey shout out fellinol.
Speaker 3: There you go. He says. He's speaking from Miami, where
Speaker 3: he runs the South American Theft Group Task Force, and
Speaker 3: he says, look, these guys do their homework. This isn't
Speaker 3: a convenience store robbery or a corner store robbery. They
Speaker 3: know to your point, Now, these guys are walking around
Speaker 3: with a quarter million dollars, they're potential victims a half million,
Speaker 3: even one million dollars in gems and jewelry because you
Speaker 3: know what, like we said in the Epstein stuff, having
Speaker 3: a bag of loose dime is just entering the wrong
Speaker 3: kind of life. Absolutely, it really is. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean it's like it's like you got the loose
Speaker 4: diamonds and the different fake passports all on the secret drawer,
Speaker 4: right right.
Speaker 2: I always imagine if I've got, like, especially back in
Speaker 2: the day, if I was walking around with like above
Speaker 2: one hundred dollars, oh, I felt like I was a target.
Speaker 3: You're gonna say, felt like a real big shot.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, oh it's both. So like I was scared
Speaker 2: to carry around one hundred bucks for a long especially
Speaker 2: when I was young, like first starting out with a
Speaker 2: job and now like I'm imagining that the loose diamonds.
Speaker 3: Back, it transforms your perspective. I could see young Matt
Speaker 3: Frederick walking around with one hundred dollars bill and going,
Speaker 3: I cannot trust the peasants.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 4: And to that point, I'm always a little blown away
Speaker 4: by some of these folks who just have the blingiest
Speaker 4: of blings, you know, massive carrot in their ears. It's insane,
Speaker 4: you know, and they do get got sometimes, yes, yikes.
Speaker 3: I mean also, I don't know, you guys know, I
Speaker 3: have a very trouble stance with jewelry in general. But
Speaker 3: it's a physical revulsion, I believe. Yes, yeah, it's very
Speaker 3: it's very serious. But uh but yeah, I always always
Speaker 3: wonder that too, you know. And I hate to say it,
Speaker 3: but when I hear a story of a prominent celebrity
Speaker 3: who went to a wild party by themselves without security,
Speaker 3: knowing they would run into someone that they either performatively
Speaker 3: or sincerely have a problem with, and they managed to
Speaker 3: act surprised, like, oh no, the guy I already hated
Speaker 3: showed up with a gang and they robbed me God.
Speaker 2: I just saw some videos an interview. I think I
Speaker 2: may have been on the Breakfast Clubs, an interview with
Speaker 2: some like ty Reese or somebody that's super famous and popular,
Speaker 2: and he was just talking about how he never buys
Speaker 2: actual jewelry anymore, like real diamonds. He buys it all
Speaker 2: online for like one hundred bucks and it looks like
Speaker 2: an iced out things real and it's because it kept
Speaker 2: getting lost stolen, and he was just losing hundreds of
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars in jewelry every year because it just disappears.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so it's just like I go on, and
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 3: And again, arguably you could say the same thing about
Speaker 3: other status symbols like really fancy wriskwatch exactly right, it's
Speaker 3: just a different kind of jewelry. So this task group,
Speaker 3: this FBI group hunting these jewel thieves, they've met with
Speaker 3: some success, and it's mainly because they were doing things
Speaker 3: that some nonprofit groups would have a big problem with.
Speaker 3: They're getting informants, and their informants are saying, Okay, I
Speaker 3: think it's you know, this guy might know something, and
Speaker 3: then they say, all right, well, let's just find a
Speaker 3: reason to arrest him. We don't have anything, any hard
Speaker 3: evidence that will allow us to arrest them on suspicion
Speaker 3: of being part of this international jewel heist crew. But
Speaker 3: let's see if their visa is still current.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: It's kind of I don't know, it's controversial, but they
Speaker 3: are getting results, and.
Speaker 4: They're doing this in an effort to like have a
Speaker 4: fishing expedition kind of the whole on them. They're leveraging
Speaker 4: that hopes that maybe they can make a deal and
Speaker 4: get some intel on the bigger picture one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: But there is a serious visa loophole that we're going
Speaker 2: to get into later in this episode that ends up throwing.
Speaker 2: It puts a hamper on this tactic specifically because a
Speaker 2: lot of times they were here fully illegally, yes, within
Speaker 2: a very specific window.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they catch them on they might even wait
Speaker 3: until day ninety one, right, go, That's what I don't do.
Speaker 3: But so we know. Also, it's not a new practice,
Speaker 3: like you were saying, Matt, We've got the new term
Speaker 3: for it. But the FBI believe some form of this tactic,
Speaker 3: especially from South America, has been active since back in
Speaker 3: the nineteen eighties, and they have they say, okay, here
Speaker 3: are the four broad categories that help us or observations
Speaker 3: that help us define what SATG is right.
Speaker 4: They've been operating in the US for more than thirty
Speaker 4: years and most members are here in the country illegally.
Speaker 2: Many of the groups are made up of people from
Speaker 2: the same place, not the same country, guys like the
Speaker 2: same town, the same part of town.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the same neighborhood. And this is an advantage because
Speaker 3: it means they have deep bonds, the very close knit
Speaker 3: you know, the word for it would be clickish in
Speaker 3: another in another way, which makes them extremely difficult to infiltrate.
Speaker 3: That's where you start seeing kind of honeypot tactics being deployed.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the friend the spouse enter into an amorous
Speaker 3: situationship with day use that correctly. I think you did
Speaker 3: okay with you know, with a mistress, a partner, a girlfriend,
Speaker 3: a boyfriend, whatever it takes. That's how they bust in.
Speaker 3: But even when they do get that infiltration, they get
Speaker 3: that visibility and that information. The cruis are extremely mobile,
Speaker 3: which means they can just ghost stuff's bad in Nassau
Speaker 3: County Boom, hello, Birmingham. I think they look for the
Speaker 3: most the wealthiest cities, so I don't if Birmingham makes
Speaker 3: the list. Sorry.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing about America, man, you go to
Speaker 2: any city, there's at least a few there's going to
Speaker 2: be a couple of little pockets of people that are
Speaker 2: way too wealthy for that area. I mean, here in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: well what we want to get into. But there's just
Speaker 2: some places where you're just driving, everything feels normal and
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, you go, where the hell
Speaker 2: am I.
Speaker 4: Same in Birmingham. Actually, there's some parts of Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 4: I lived there for a bit up in the hills
Speaker 4: that looks like in like Alabama, Hollywood Hills.
Speaker 3: Oh, very affluent area, even oh gosh, more rural areas.
Speaker 3: When I was driving, I always try to drive back roads,
Speaker 3: and it was heading up and back from Knoxville. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to say where, but there were a couple
Speaker 3: places in rural Tennessee where I thought, oh, this is
Speaker 3: just a compound in the woods and it's opulent, and
Speaker 3: I don't I'm sure that I am on camera driving
Speaker 3: by this bro.
Speaker 4: We did an episode on The Amish recently. We had
Speaker 4: a great email from a listener talking about how they
Speaker 4: are all about that money and they probably are hoarding
Speaker 4: cash and have all of this crazy property and real
Speaker 4: estate and livestock and stuff. I mean, even like the
Speaker 4: homage are could be considered affluent af you know, by
Speaker 4: some of these organizations. I wonder if there's been any
Speaker 4: crime tourism into the Amish communities that we should look into.
Speaker 3: The talk about tight knit.
Speaker 2: Though, Yeah, not a lot of ps fives to loot
Speaker 2: though a good point.
Speaker 3: I don't know, man. I would go for the I
Speaker 3: would go for the live stock. I would go for
Speaker 3: the horses. You get the right horse. Do you guys
Speaker 3: know how much horse semen sells for?
Speaker 2: Dude?
Speaker 4: I think I maybe mentioned on the show once I
Speaker 4: covered when I was working for public radio. I went
Speaker 4: to a horse auction and it wasn't for actual horses,
Speaker 4: it was for horse semen, and they went. I don't
Speaker 4: even remember what it got.
Speaker 1: It got.
Speaker 2: It's just so much work to get it out of there.
Speaker 3: You know you're doing it at the wrong way. Then
Speaker 3: strengthen your wrist, buddy, Yeah, it's all about how you
Speaker 3: get into the play. Like whatever the horse version of
Speaker 3: Shahda is. You know, lights and candles so that's advice
Speaker 3: from us. Yeah, there's also a lot of horse related
Speaker 3: crime anyway, So we know that these groups have been
Speaker 3: honing their game for decades now. The FBI has been
Speaker 3: honing their game as well. There's a very complicated cat
Speaker 3: and mouse situation afoot. If you do infiltrate these gangs,
Speaker 3: you're gonna be using asymmetric means, and if they notice
Speaker 3: that they got made, then they'll vanish to a different city.
Speaker 3: And the entire time they're highly skilled. Shout out to
Speaker 3: Operation Cut and Run, which is where the FBI had
Speaker 3: to bust some of these jewel thieves were talking about earlier.
Speaker 4: Right, And another case is you'll see automobile theft, violent assaults,
Speaker 4: all the hits. The patterns do seem to really be
Speaker 4: quite similar across various groups. You might have someone breach
Speaker 4: the border without documentation, but a lot of times you'll
Speaker 4: see someone else entering legally with a visa just to
Speaker 4: overstay it until they get apprehended. But to your point, Matt,
Speaker 4: sometimes there are also examples of people taking advantage of
Speaker 4: legal loopholes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do we want to talk about the visa thing
Speaker 3: for a little bit.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, let's get into that. This is something we
Speaker 2: learned when we talked about a very specific crime tourism
Speaker 2: ring that was broken up back in August of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Four, the car rental guys.
Speaker 2: And it's the car rental guys. Okay, well, let's get
Speaker 2: into this really quickly. The FBI, in partnership with a
Speaker 2: huge task force out in California, made a pretty massive
Speaker 2: bust back in August of twenty twenty four of a
Speaker 2: crime ring that included sixty two criminal cases, one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty defendants who got named in those cases, and
Speaker 2: six hundred search warrants that ended up getting acted upon.
Speaker 2: And so it's a pretty big network they get. And
Speaker 2: it was all based around this car rental company ran
Speaker 2: by this guy named Juan Carlos Sola Duran and it
Speaker 2: was called the Drive Power Network.
Speaker 3: Okay, and his girlfriend was the partner.
Speaker 2: Yes, like ten years younger than him at the time.
Speaker 2: They were the ring leaders essentially, is what was thought
Speaker 2: at least through that time, and all.
Speaker 4: The perfect term, by the way, because when you think
Speaker 4: of like a ring leader, this is a criminal kind
Speaker 4: of ring, like a small close knit group that are
Speaker 4: infiltrating a larger system and taking advantage of it.
Speaker 3: Even the financial and criminal passage is a ring because yeh,
Speaker 3: he goes back to Chile, the people go back to Chiles,
Speaker 3: and a lot of these guys are from Chile.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's actually something we should point out.
Speaker 1: This.
Speaker 2: A lot of this reporting that at least we did
Speaker 2: in that Strange News episode was about this Chilean group
Speaker 2: and that's where some of the terminology came from. And
Speaker 2: so this car rental company existed right in the United States,
Speaker 2: run by a group of people. What would happen is
Speaker 2: they would scout homes like individual homes, and they would
Speaker 2: find out when people are on vacation, when people's schedules
Speaker 2: are basically them away from the house, and they would
Speaker 2: send in folks would come from Chile on a special
Speaker 2: type of visa. Yes, this is the loophole that we
Speaker 2: were talking about before, and Ben, this is the e
Speaker 2: s TA visa or the Electronics System for Travel Authorization visa,
Speaker 2: which allows anybody to come into the United States for
Speaker 2: ninety days if you are from specific countries.
Speaker 3: And a really Latin America.
Speaker 4: Well, and I would imagine given the temperature of policy
Speaker 4: where things are headed right now, things like this are
Speaker 4: likely going to be attempted at least to be phased out. Well,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I wonder, I just want it's because
Speaker 4: it's tough. It's tough to figure out a fair way
Speaker 4: to stop that, like to plug that loophole without punishing
Speaker 4: innocent people. Right, it's true, but it does seem like
Speaker 4: the incoming administration doesn't care so much about punishing innocent
Speaker 4: people if they're not from here in the first place.
Speaker 4: It just seems like the attitude is all.
Speaker 3: It's going to be interesting to listen back to this
Speaker 3: in a year.
Speaker 2: Yes, So just to finish this out, guys, this this
Speaker 2: specialized program which is a part of the visa waiver program.
Speaker 3: Right, so you're not actually getting a visa.
Speaker 2: Exactly right, It's not really a visa. It is this
Speaker 2: specialized esta automated system where you can come in for
Speaker 2: business or travel for ninety days. You don't actually get
Speaker 2: a visa. It's almost like, I mean, you do have
Speaker 2: to fill out paperwork.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have to. You have to be in the
Speaker 3: system somehow. But a lot of other countries also do this.
Speaker 3: Their main thing is that time limit. Yes, after ninety
Speaker 3: days a government will start to say so what are we.
Speaker 2: What is what are we doing here?
Speaker 4: I mentioned the whole you know, attitude towards this kind
Speaker 4: of stuff because I seem to remember when there was
Speaker 4: a conversation about the Haitian immigrant population, right, a lot
Speaker 4: of them work here on some sort of special you know,
Speaker 4: kind of visa, short term visa like this, and there
Speaker 4: was a lot of talk from the right, you know,
Speaker 4: saying this, they shouldn't have been here in the first place,
Speaker 4: et cetera. These types of loopholes need to be closed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just how do you close them in a
Speaker 3: fair and equitable way. We also know, just for like
Speaker 3: more global comparison before you get back to the United States,
Speaker 3: the United States is notoriously difficult to immigrate to in
Speaker 3: the first place. The lottery system is just kind of
Speaker 3: whack it do, to be honest. But the but the
Speaker 3: thing we have to remember is that other countries, we're
Speaker 3: in a glass planet situation. Other countries are very difficult too.
Speaker 3: If you land in the United Kingdom, I think they
Speaker 3: still do this, Like you fly into Heathrow and they
Speaker 3: don't just want you to prove who you are and
Speaker 3: to pass customs and all that you have to give
Speaker 3: them a specific address of where you're staying, so they
Speaker 3: know that you just.
Speaker 4: Don't win, because then it's like, how can they even
Speaker 4: track you down anyone?
Speaker 2: Right? Uh, oh, he's at a red roof in somewhere. Now,
Speaker 2: red roof in, that's my address.
Speaker 3: Do you guys remember the dude who wrote on his
Speaker 3: application that he's here to steal jewels and maseratis. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but no worries. He's at the red roof Now he's one.
Speaker 2: It's cool school, it's cooled. So just to finish that
Speaker 2: part up, they come in through this specialized visa program.
Speaker 2: Once they're in, they if they are like a part
Speaker 2: of this group or if they know about this specific
Speaker 2: car rental place, they would go there, get a luxury
Speaker 2: vehicle and it may be a little older, but it's
Speaker 2: still a Mercedes, like an eight Mercedes or something. So
Speaker 2: they can take that vehicle into the upscale neighborhoods and
Speaker 2: blend in right, park that vehicle on a side street.
Speaker 2: They've got well, they don't have to scope anything out,
Speaker 2: and they've got a target that they're going for.
Speaker 3: Correct, It's like what would you do for a free trip? Exactly?
Speaker 2: So they go in, they toss the house, get the
Speaker 2: important things, and in best case scenario, they get out
Speaker 2: before the homeowner or anyone even knows they were there.
Speaker 3: Best case scenario for them.
Speaker 2: That's what I mean. But so for this thing to
Speaker 2: function the way it is supposed to according to everyone
Speaker 2: in that's how it works. But the way that they
Speaker 2: actually end up getting caught is several homeowners like this
Speaker 2: one guy that they describe in the press conference, came
Speaker 2: home and he as he's arriving back home from the
Speaker 2: grocery store, he sees an idling like luxury suv right
Speaker 2: outside his home, walks into his house. As soon as
Speaker 2: he looks at it, he realizes his whole house has
Speaker 2: been tossed and two guys are coming out just trying
Speaker 2: to leave through the front door where he's standing.
Speaker 3: Yeah whoa.
Speaker 2: He manages to tackle one of the guys and subdue him.
Speaker 2: That guy gets arrested, the other guy gets away in
Speaker 2: the suv. But through interrogation of the guy that he stopped,
Speaker 2: they put some of these pieces together and they realized, oh,
Speaker 2: this is this isn't just a one off.
Speaker 4: This is like a thing I would imagine. It's probably
Speaker 4: a bit of a no no as well for them
Speaker 4: to like murder the homeowners.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not good for business, like the and the
Speaker 3: reason too. Before it sounds like we're just picking on
Speaker 3: Chilean nationals, because they did find the vast majority of
Speaker 3: the folks in this situation in Ventura County were Chilean
Speaker 3: at least the operators. They had a great system, nice car,
Speaker 3: but not too nice so you can blend in with
Speaker 3: the fancy neighborhood doing too much violence. First off, it's
Speaker 3: a trigger right for local law and then also the
Speaker 3: federalies when somebody does get caught. That gives law enforcement
Speaker 3: the opportunity to go back and look at seemingly unrelated
Speaker 3: crimes and notice the commonalities in terms of mo and
Speaker 3: in terms of how wait do you guys notice the
Speaker 3: same car rental company is popping up and all of
Speaker 3: these things just in the footnotes of the investigation.
Speaker 2: I know. Well, then they sent undercover agents into that
Speaker 2: rental place to try and get cars, and they were
Speaker 2: turned away and they're like, oh no, you're not on
Speaker 2: the list based special lists.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Then we talked about in our Strange News segment.
Speaker 3: Then we talked about how similar it is when you
Speaker 3: walk into a restaurant that's clearly a front and they're
Speaker 3: just sort of surprised that you want a pizza from
Speaker 3: the pizza place.
Speaker 2: You're gonna order the lobster.
Speaker 3: Right, And you never know if it's a code, like
Speaker 3: have you just asked to be disappeared out to the
Speaker 3: remote Pacific Northwest? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Like the vacuum cleaner stay exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And with this we're seeing, we're seeing this bigger
Speaker 3: pattern at play. What do you think should we take
Speaker 3: a break for a word from our sponsors and find
Speaker 3: out more about these Chile and grime rings? I think
Speaker 3: we might Okay, good because if you said no, I
Speaker 3: don't know what we would have done. And we have
Speaker 3: returned all right. So why Chile? Why is Chile often
Speaker 3: the origin point for a lot of these grifts. Well,
Speaker 3: it's because Chile is the only country in Latin America
Speaker 3: where you might not even need an ESTA. If you're
Speaker 3: from Chile, you automatically get a ninety day tourist visa.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, is that? Though? What's our coziness with Chile?
Speaker 3: Have you ever been? No? It's cool, man, sure.
Speaker 4: But why do we care like as a country, like,
Speaker 4: why are we giving them a pass in this way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it might go back to the Pinochet regime, right,
Speaker 3: the US was in bed with that. Yeah, it's it's difficult.
Speaker 3: That's a really good question. But they have this, they
Speaker 3: have this exception. And again, this is not a dang
Speaker 3: on the good people of Chile. If you've been there,
Speaker 3: it's it's a beautiful place. The capital is amazing. It's
Speaker 3: a weird looking country too, because you know you're trying
Speaker 3: to strip. It's just that one side of the mountain range.
Speaker 3: We should go to Chile after this episode.
Speaker 2: I don't have a picture of Peru in my head.
Speaker 2: Is Peru similar along the side or is that? Is
Speaker 2: that just Chile? Am I just completely?
Speaker 3: Chile is the one that's deaf, the one Chili is
Speaker 3: so weirdly thin and long that you might not even
Speaker 3: clock it on map. Yeah, let's see, let's you zoom in.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I just I have to blow my map because
Speaker 2: I like my brain. You guys have. I don't know, Ben,
Speaker 2: I know you have a mind for geography.
Speaker 4: I do not just fake credit there.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, dude, totally yep, Okay, I see what you're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 3: Ben, Chile will stretch across like if we laid it
Speaker 3: across the Atlantic. It would connect Europe and the US.
Speaker 2: That's insane.
Speaker 3: I mean it's so narrow, but it's so narrow. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So anyway, we know there are multiple factors leading to
Speaker 3: this exception, and the US has a lot of bilateral,
Speaker 3: one to one kind of relationships with countries. We were
Speaker 3: talking about that brief time for about a year when
Speaker 3: the US was temporarily okay.
Speaker 4: With Cuba, right and then not again?
Speaker 3: Did not another another toxic relationship, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Cuba needs to have an alert on their phone that says,
Speaker 3: don't text the US back.
Speaker 4: It's complicated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even if you've had a couple of drinks, don't worry.
Speaker 4: I think I mentioned that my kid and their mom
Speaker 4: during that very brief window got to bop over to
Speaker 4: Cuba for a minute, and that you.
Speaker 2: Almost went yeah yeah. Uh. We were just looking at
Speaker 2: that because we were trying to figure out just in
Speaker 2: talking without looking it up, like how long was Cuba opened?
Speaker 4: Because months?
Speaker 2: Right, But it made such an impact the moment that
Speaker 2: it was open and we were all everybody was like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, it's open again, and it was what do
Speaker 2: we say? It was like May to June. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: May and then wrapped around the year to June.
Speaker 3: Okay, so a little over comparatively very short when those
Speaker 3: kind of decisions get made, and even stranger for it
Speaker 3: to be rescinded.
Speaker 4: What led to the rescending They just weren't playing nice
Speaker 4: with the I mean like, I just like it's just
Speaker 4: just in such a big move and then to walk
Speaker 4: it back they had been done something.
Speaker 2: The Trump administration.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, that makes a little bit of sense. There
Speaker 4: was sort of a xenophobic mentality maybe would lead to
Speaker 4: walking those kinds of things back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe security concerns too, but it's yeah, Havana syndrome
Speaker 3: as well. Shout out to O'Brien's still number one person
Speaker 3: to talk to you with that. We should ask him
Speaker 3: about that, And if you hang out with Jackie Miles,
Speaker 3: ask them as well.
Speaker 4: Havana Nana and Jonathan Strickland, which and Jonathan Strickland from
Speaker 4: Tech Stuff and brain Stuff.
Speaker 2: We might talk to him about it soon.
Speaker 3: Forward thinking and ridiculous history, ridiculous history. Oh yeah, we're
Speaker 3: big fans of the quist are there? So anyway, because
Speaker 3: of this, it's not that criminals in Chile are necessarily
Speaker 3: super villains or any smarter than the average cad than
Speaker 3: the Americas. It's because they have the opportunity to exercise
Speaker 3: this kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: Oh and these are a they're very nature crimes of opportunity,
Speaker 4: even outside of this right, Yeah, crimes of outside of
Speaker 4: this loophole.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well prepared opportunity. There's a great article in Vanity
Speaker 3: Fair came out just a couple of years back. A
Speaker 3: journalist named Mark Wartman starts tracing out another example of
Speaker 3: this complex cat and mouse game when he goes to
Speaker 3: Nassau County and speaks with Detective Jeseus Baniya, who is,
Speaker 3: as this journalist interviews him, he is in media arrests
Speaker 3: in the middle of a multi month attempt to catch
Speaker 3: this master burglar crew for a person for people strong.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this seems I mean wow, talk about insulated.
Speaker 3: That's where it feels like everyone has their speciality. There's
Speaker 3: a bagman, the back man, yeah, of course, and and
Speaker 3: there's the there's the getaway driver. There's probably like.
Speaker 4: I think it's got you gotta lead foot, buddy, what
Speaker 4: in a good way? In a good way. It's a complement.
Speaker 4: You're a badass driver.
Speaker 3: I think it means is.
Speaker 4: Bobbin and weaving.
Speaker 3: Bro, We'll get you some fingerless gloves I'm in and
Speaker 3: a badass scorpion jacket, yes, which I do have. Uh,
Speaker 3: And then we need a face, and then we would
Speaker 3: need Dylan.
Speaker 2: You're the face.
Speaker 4: Well, Dalan, give me the face as well. Dylan's well,
Speaker 4: that's true, but I could totally see you. You know what,
Speaker 4: you can rochambo for him?
Speaker 3: So what's better than one face too?
Speaker 2: So the face?
Speaker 3: They called him the Janics crew. So anyway, this guy,
Speaker 3: but he he has identified the leader of this high screw,
Speaker 3: a guy named Brian Herrera Maldonado. And this person is
Speaker 3: a kid. He's twenty four years old.
Speaker 4: Crazy, twenty four years old. He is one of the
Speaker 4: most wanted burglars in the New York City metro area.
Speaker 2: We're talking about Nasau County, guys. This is Maldonado.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's also kaching right, average incomes so high
Speaker 3: that no one's going to correct their pronunciations.
Speaker 4: Well, and Mania told the writer from Vanity Fair that
Speaker 4: the gang came from South America specifically to commit crime,
Speaker 4: and they did a real good job. They were very
Speaker 4: good at doing crimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, breaking into at least one hundred homes across the country,
Speaker 3: not the county. The gang made off with cash, jewelry, electronics, wristwatches,
Speaker 3: designer clothes, handbags, you know, red bottom shoes, whatever, from
Speaker 3: straight up mansions, the kind of places that are known
Speaker 3: to have their own like private security or the kind
Speaker 3: of places where I will be sensitive about saying this,
Speaker 3: the kind of places where nine to one one shows
Speaker 3: up on time.
Speaker 2: That's true, yep.
Speaker 3: And they still they got away with it because, like
Speaker 3: you were saying, there, they've got great observation skills. They
Speaker 3: case a joint just like you would see in a
Speaker 3: crime film. They don't just know when someone's away from
Speaker 3: their domicile, you know, for how long? Yeah, how far
Speaker 3: away have they traveled? Where they're at?
Speaker 4: That's exactly right. What is their window? You always say, Ben,
Speaker 4: and I completely agree. Don't be a dumb dumb don't
Speaker 4: post about where you are on vacation. No, and for
Speaker 4: how you know what I mean? That's that's privileged information
Speaker 4: that can absolutely be actionable by people trying to.
Speaker 3: Do you harm. Yeah, that's why. And you see it
Speaker 3: with celebrities too, That's why. Usually what a or often
Speaker 3: when a celebrities social media manager posts something it's after
Speaker 3: it is after exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I tend to do that as well, you know, save
Speaker 4: up some things and then post it when I get home.
Speaker 4: But I do. Sometimes I'll post a little story if
Speaker 4: I'm on a trip, but it's usually there's someone home still.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there we go, people sitting right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you guys remember the story we did in
Speaker 2: Strange News about the hidden camera across the street. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was found. It was they just put it down
Speaker 2: some leaves. Basically, somebody riding a bike just dropped it
Speaker 2: and then left.
Speaker 4: And then that was for casing of joints.
Speaker 2: Right, it appears that that's what it was. Casing a
Speaker 2: joint to find out that information you're talking about when
Speaker 2: they leave, when they come back, all that stuffes.
Speaker 4: That requires a long game of observation. Yes, to have
Speaker 4: good data that is actually able, and it's so easy
Speaker 4: to do that.
Speaker 3: You could drop a camera with a pedestrian, with someone
Speaker 3: on a bike, that's a little tougher depending on how
Speaker 3: public the thoroughfare is, like how likely a stranger is
Speaker 3: to be there. That's what makes the cult is actifficult,
Speaker 3: for instance, Boom. But another way around that is just
Speaker 3: something that looks like a work van. Another thing that's
Speaker 3: very easy, just get some kind of pizza company's brand
Speaker 3: and just temporarily affix it to a car. It's like, no,
Speaker 3: he's supposed.
Speaker 2: To be here.
Speaker 4: It is funny too, because these are very similar tactics
Speaker 4: to what might be used by the FBI in case
Speaker 4: like a Rico type situation, you know, like in the Sopranos.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, these folks learn from each other, They
Speaker 3: take the methods that the other sides using that works,
Speaker 3: and then they do it.
Speaker 4: Dude.
Speaker 2: And speaking of that, one other thing, just connecting these
Speaker 2: strange news stories, the other one about the robbery crew
Speaker 2: that was going through or the burglary crew that was
Speaker 2: going through with devices that can disable the Wi Fi cameras.
Speaker 2: So like if you did have sophisticated folks like Maldonado's
Speaker 2: gang that had some kind of tech where just wherever
Speaker 2: they roam, they're gonna you know, none of the cameras
Speaker 2: are gonna function properly. That's pretty dangerous.
Speaker 4: Because your home camera system is on your Wi Fi
Speaker 4: and if it's not protected, you know, in a pretty
Speaker 4: robust way, someone can very easily get access to all
Speaker 4: of that stuff.
Speaker 3: And it's also not to scare anyone, but check on
Speaker 3: your your internet security because it's also stupid easy. It
Speaker 3: is trivial to find those devices or even make them
Speaker 3: on your own if you like cool weekend projects.
Speaker 2: Exactly what's that little tiny device called the flipper flippers zero.
Speaker 4: Which is like a thing that you can buy.
Speaker 2: I get ads for that everywhere I go online. Now
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, hey, don't you want a couple of weeks?
Speaker 3: Well, also, that's an all in one toolkit, but it is.
Speaker 4: What's the legal justification for the existence or something like
Speaker 4: that as a project?
Speaker 3: Penetration testing testing, That's exactly what it.
Speaker 4: Was, thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's also anybody in that kind of field
Speaker 3: or an enthusiast for that stuff will point out the
Speaker 3: Flipper is someone overpriced and it doesn't do any It
Speaker 3: has more toys than usual in the same device, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't do anything you couldn't well.
Speaker 4: You couldn't do just with a little bit of know
Speaker 4: how in a laptop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, with the right equipment, Yeah, with the right
Speaker 3: radio equipment. So anyway, check out our episodes on that stuff.
Speaker 3: Bania says. Maldonado's gang is bigger than this one county.
Speaker 3: He says. The activities are bigger than even Maldonado's gang.
Speaker 3: They go, yeah, these four guys go around the country,
Speaker 3: but then this crew is just one of dozens that
Speaker 3: he's chasing every year because it works like selling. Yeah,
Speaker 3: or you could, you know, you could even do a
Speaker 3: kind of three card monte of internet travel and say, Okay,
Speaker 3: I don't want to come, yeah, I don't want to
Speaker 3: get clocked for some reason going straight from Chile to
Speaker 3: the US. So maybe I go to a second country
Speaker 3: for a second, and then I come in from there,
Speaker 3: and I'm just on the way back to Chile, you know,
Speaker 3: and thought I might stop out and see the Statue
Speaker 3: of Liberty or maybe upstate New.
Speaker 2: York, because you're still a Chilean citizen, right, so you
Speaker 2: come on right in.
Speaker 3: And now you just happen to be walking by the street.
Speaker 4: And surely they're not traveling with this ill gotten booty
Speaker 4: on their persons. They're shipping it, they're smuggling it in
Speaker 4: some other ways, or they're like fencing it even in
Speaker 4: the country before they.
Speaker 3: Get back, fencing in the country. Sending the money, because
Speaker 3: sending the money below certain thresholds, Like we're talking about,
Speaker 3: sending the money is usually going to be easier than
Speaker 3: sending the tangible object. Absolutely, you steal the Lamberg declaire
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff, right, They are going to ask you, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you can't just have loose Lamborghinis.
Speaker 4: They sink ships.
Speaker 3: Apparently, yes, so loose diamonds, loose Lamborghini And he's that's
Speaker 3: the kind of stuff customs will look twice at. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, not that we've been in that situation, but
Speaker 3: you can find similar stories in cities across the United States.
Speaker 3: There's the story from twenty twenty two when San Diego
Speaker 3: neighborhoods were rocked by this proliferation of pro level, high
Speaker 3: end burglaries. And the weird thing is the detective in
Speaker 3: that case, Justin Cole, is pretty much saying the same
Speaker 3: stuff that Detective Bonia is saying. A continent away.
Speaker 4: Yep, hmm, he had this to say. The intelligence says
Speaker 4: they're primarily Chilean nationals. They're coming here on a tourist
Speaker 4: visa program. They're involved in all types of crimes, not
Speaker 4: just residential burglaries. They do pickpocket crime, break into vehicles,
Speaker 4: steal credit cards, anything. They can do to make as
Speaker 4: much money as possible before they go back. And again,
Speaker 4: it's quotes like this that would make it really easy
Speaker 4: for someone to be like, they're exporting their criminals, they're
Speaker 4: coming into our country, all of that, and interpret this
Speaker 4: in some sort of xenophobic kind of way. But I
Speaker 4: think it's important to remember that the reporting and the
Speaker 4: people who have been caught, that's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 4: But we do know, as you mentioned, Ben, this is
Speaker 4: coming from all kinds of parts of the world. This
Speaker 4: is an old tactic, more than thirty years old. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: it very much is. And look, there were more than
Speaker 4: sixty burglaries in the San Diego County alone by twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two. They were all linked to a single group,
Speaker 4: and they all happen in the fancy pants neighborhoods. And
Speaker 4: just like the other detectives, Detective Cole sees a larger
Speaker 4: pattern at play and is starting to say, hold on,
Speaker 4: why does this match similar burglaries in southern California? Hang on,
Speaker 4: why does this match stuff in the Midwest. Imagine that
Speaker 4: stomach dropping moment when you keep going east and you
Speaker 4: keep seeing this. It's this matching m right, like the
Speaker 4: types of victims being selected, the types of the way
Speaker 4: that they're casing the joints, etc.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, we saw in here it's den for Colorado, Houston, Texas,
Speaker 2: like literally all across the United States.
Speaker 4: Would you guys agree with when of course we're talking
Speaker 4: about like if you're rich like this, maybe you have
Speaker 4: private security and all that, but there is sort of
Speaker 4: in certain parts of the country there's maybe a little
Speaker 4: bit of blissful ignorance around these types of situations where
Speaker 4: it's like, oh, we're untouchable because we're in the safe neighborhood.
Speaker 4: So that's why I kept saying these feel like crimes
Speaker 4: of opportunity because there are people who maybe aren't expecting
Speaker 4: to get robbed, or there isn't that crime element that
Speaker 4: already exists in these parts of the country.
Speaker 3: And then there are the other questions about level of sophistication.
Speaker 3: Have these crime rings, like other crime rings, evolved to
Speaker 3: the point where they can take request which can happen
Speaker 3: right if you have the right defense.
Speaker 2: Some celebrities got hit and I think and we oh
Speaker 2: when we talked about before it was footballers.
Speaker 3: In the UK. Yes, there's some great articles about that.
Speaker 3: Those in some cases those maybe South American nationals suspected,
Speaker 3: but then are also the Eastern Europeans.
Speaker 4: M hmmm, yeah, and Abanians.
Speaker 2: But it's so true. It is that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: You notice somebody that has a lot of wealth or
Speaker 2: flaunts wealth a little bit, and they just get on
Speaker 2: a bunch of different radars. You just have to get
Speaker 2: on the wrong radar.
Speaker 3: And yeah, and the other, which is why I never
Speaker 3: tell anybody your financial stuff ever, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: There's always someone out there waiting to take you down
Speaker 4: a peg, you know, and you just don't want to
Speaker 4: be a mark.
Speaker 3: Don't be a mark. Don't make yourself a mark. Don't
Speaker 3: mark yourself. Another question about the sophistication and the capabilities
Speaker 3: here would be have they have these rings? Some of
Speaker 3: them evolved to the point where they have their own
Speaker 3: internal rubric, like have they case something and then stepped
Speaker 3: away because they thought, yeah, yeah, which I think is
Speaker 3: I think that speaks to intelligence.
Speaker 4: Intelligence patience, right, Yeah, it is a high level of
Speaker 4: long game kind of cons right.
Speaker 3: And you know, if anybody listening who's in law enforcement
Speaker 3: related fields, obviously this is a high level of view.
Speaker 3: But you'll already see how tricky this becomes. Even once
Speaker 3: someone is apprehended. As we like to say, down here,
Speaker 3: one monkey doesn't stop the show, right, the complex interactions,
Speaker 3: the laws from multiple countries along with deportation or extradition policies.
Speaker 3: This is a mountain of paperwork, right, and people are
Speaker 3: already overworked, especially going back to that bilateral thing. The
Speaker 3: US has different bilateral agreements with all kinds of countries
Speaker 3: extradition type stuff, right, right, right, you know it's there's
Speaker 3: a case recently. I don't know if we'll get to
Speaker 3: it next week. This this guy had been discovered. Like
Speaker 3: we're talking about faking your death or pseudo side. This
Speaker 3: guy had been discovered after faking his death entirely to
Speaker 3: ghost his family. He manufactured a kayak accident. He's living
Speaker 3: in Uzbekistan and there's no way they're going to get him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, I won't tell you exactly where I
Speaker 2: am and I'm not coming home.
Speaker 3: But it's definitely beist. By the way, Like, the US
Speaker 3: is very good at finding people across the world, but
Speaker 3: usually we'll play by international norms unless they think someone's
Speaker 3: a high value target and they're willing to take the
Speaker 3: geopolitical hit.
Speaker 4: As soon as Bekistan, the who Borat hates.
Speaker 3: Because he's from Kazakhstan.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and then talking trash about thebex potassium.
Speaker 3: I would love to go to Zbekistan. The stands are
Speaker 3: tough though, seriously, But anyway, and you know, we see
Speaker 3: how it's difficult to stamp this out. You're playing whack
Speaker 3: a mole, right with people who can disappear, with moles
Speaker 3: that can disappear at any time. So I gotta tell you,
Speaker 3: I don't know about you, guys, but I think it's
Speaker 3: pretty unlikely that this grift will end anytime soon due
Speaker 3: to the difficulty of plugging that loophole.
Speaker 4: We'll just change it up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, they'll just change it up. They'll just modify
Speaker 3: the tactics. And you know, I love the point we
Speaker 3: made earlier when we talked about how this can be
Speaker 3: red meat for maybe bad faith actors, but immigration. We've
Speaker 3: got to remember the vast number of immigrants, not just
Speaker 3: in the US but everywhere in the US, in particular,
Speaker 3: documented or undocumented. They're not criminals. They're moving because not
Speaker 3: necessarily because they want it to, because they have to, right,
Speaker 3: And I think that's important. Please keep that mind in
Speaker 3: our future episode on the Darien Gap. We are going
Speaker 3: to do that right, yes, okay, hopefully, And there's no
Speaker 3: proof that immigration creates crime. Sorry, that's just that's part
Speaker 3: of it, at least here in the US.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the people we're talking about here are on a
Speaker 2: mission to do crime right. It is not These are
Speaker 2: not tourists. Actually, these are not actually people who are
Speaker 2: coming over for work. They're literally coming over for the crimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the crime is their work, right, and then they
Speaker 3: don't necessarily have long time plans to settle down and
Speaker 3: live in the US. They're getting the bag and then
Speaker 3: they're going back and its shift change and someone else
Speaker 3: comes in.
Speaker 2: It just goes straight into one of those international banks
Speaker 2: we've talked about that is really good at looking the
Speaker 2: other words.
Speaker 4: Criminal friendly, yes, non judgment whomever those banks may be.
Speaker 3: Folks. Also, before we end, you know, this is usually
Speaker 3: when we say we want to hear your thoughts. We
Speaker 3: know there's a very sensitive issue to a lot of people.
Speaker 3: We know this touch is on deep conspiracy and crime,
Speaker 3: and we know that people have probably had personal interactions
Speaker 3: with some level of this, whether via law enforcement or
Speaker 3: someone diasper. You know, before you do any of that
Speaker 3: before we close tonight, we wanted to take a moment
Speaker 3: and remember our our leader for a long time, the
Speaker 3: founder of How Stuff Works, Marshall bringing the Third.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just got news that he passed away this
Speaker 2: week as we're recording, and we had not we had
Speaker 2: not heard that our boss, who also you know who
Speaker 2: has been our boss, gosh since two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. She just texted us as we're recording.
Speaker 2: It's just really sad.
Speaker 4: Well, and I never met the guy, but I mean
Speaker 4: from the moment that I walked in the door at
Speaker 4: How Stuff Works, the guy I just absolutely loomed large.
Speaker 4: And we did have him on an episode one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a part of the future of life
Speaker 3: on Mars.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right. But I know for y'all, I mean,
Speaker 4: he was a staple in the office for for a
Speaker 4: long time.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, we have I appreciate that. We have so
Speaker 3: many stories which just absolutely adored and looked up to
Speaker 3: mister Brain. As a matter of fact, the only problem
Speaker 3: I ever had with uh with Marshall Brain was that
Speaker 3: he didn't he didn't officially get the PhD to be
Speaker 3: doctor Brain. And I spent years in this opportunity. I
Speaker 3: spent years trying to convince him how cool that would be.
Speaker 3: But brilliant man, renaissance man, so much about everything and
Speaker 3: will be will be sorely missed. He's the reason we're
Speaker 3: doing this now.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I'm sure a lot of people who met
Speaker 2: him through he's a professor at North Carolina University.
Speaker 3: In North Carolina State.
Speaker 2: North Carolina State, And yeah, I'm sure his students. Anybody
Speaker 2: who's somehow interacting with him probably remembers.
Speaker 3: That dude, he's the one who taught us the world
Speaker 3: is both understandable and worth understanding.
Speaker 2: Yeap.
Speaker 4: Hats off to you, Marshall brain.
Speaker 3: And hats off to you fellow listeners, fellow conspiracy realists.
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