Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Ern So nice to see you, So good to
Speaker 2: see you.
Speaker 3: I got a question for you, sir. And that bright
Speaker 3: eyes and bushy tail smile. Do you know it's ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I do know it's ridiculous. Okay.
Speaker 4: You know how people who've been drinking smell like alcohol, Yeah, totally,
Speaker 4: you know, and.
Speaker 2: Like sometimes it's coming out of their pores.
Speaker 3: Yes, especially the next day. I have friends who definitely
Speaker 3: smell like bar rags.
Speaker 4: And like, if you get pulled over, you know, it's
Speaker 4: not just the police will look at how you're driving,
Speaker 4: is maybe an indication that you've been drinking, but they'll sniff.
Speaker 3: Like, oh yeah, they definitely smell their smell the alcohol
Speaker 3: I've been drinking today, sir.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, so we got a problem here with this
Speaker 4: is a mashup, and so you.
Speaker 3: Take I'm taking it.
Speaker 2: I'm starting with Cores.
Speaker 3: God, and.
Speaker 2: What would you not want to have it.
Speaker 4: Mixed with course course your mouth deodorant? What deodorant? So
Speaker 4: they've teamed up. Cores has teamed up with this company,
Speaker 4: Dura Chill, which is like a deodorant company, and they've
Speaker 4: made this like Dura Chill Cours deodorant's supposed to smell
Speaker 4: like the breeze of the Rocky mountains. It has to
Speaker 4: be refrigerated before it can be properly.
Speaker 3: Applied because it's the coldest beer.
Speaker 4: And you know how like the packaging on the cours
Speaker 4: the mountain changes colorue, Well, that same thing happens with
Speaker 4: the deodorant. Okay, cores Light is all about helping people,
Speaker 4: quote choose chill this summer. We wanted to take that
Speaker 4: to the next level, starting with your armpits. We can
Speaker 4: blame Marcello pascoa vice president of marketing at cors Light,
Speaker 4: in a press release. There, whether you're sweating through a
Speaker 4: heat wave or just trying to stay chill watching a
Speaker 4: Leagues Cup match, Dura Chill is like giving your underarms
Speaker 4: their own ice cold beer.
Speaker 3: Is there a competition we don't know about where these
Speaker 3: companies try to come up with the craziest mashup.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Just the people like us talk about it.
Speaker 2: I think it's the people like us talk about it.
Speaker 4: We got tipped off by I don't know if it's
Speaker 4: Charmie or Charmie Cajun on Instagram, right, you know, but
Speaker 4: the Cajun told us about this.
Speaker 2: This is horrendous way to get me rage and care. Well,
Speaker 2: we got back to.
Speaker 4: The point I'm looking at this, and I got back
Speaker 4: to like, I don't think I want to do these anymore, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like, Lord, I do not ask for much.
Speaker 2: Takes the wind out of me.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you, I've given myself a break, I know,
Speaker 4: and I come back and I'm just like end of
Speaker 4: the Empire stuff.
Speaker 2: I can't take it.
Speaker 4: So anyway, I'm glad I could share my pain course deodorant,
Speaker 4: Corse deodorant. It's also it's limited, of course, of course,
Speaker 4: fourteen ninety nine, limited to tu per household, not subject
Speaker 4: at discounts, and intended for those over the age of
Speaker 4: twenty one.
Speaker 2: But there's no beer in it.
Speaker 3: You've done a lot of these mashups over the years. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I've never heard one that I was like, that's actually
Speaker 3: a kind of a good No. They're always like one
Speaker 3: like mad lips, like, all right, name a product, dealt Okay,
Speaker 3: we're gonna combine that with name another product. Wow, Well
Speaker 3: I'll give you that. It is ridiculous, Yes it is, Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: I got something for you it's straight up ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Is it ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Truly deep levels of ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Like it is it cold armpit ridiculous?
Speaker 3: Not so much.
Speaker 2: It's a better kind.
Speaker 3: Now, if I say to you a couple of words
Speaker 3: like Wu Tang and Shao l in abbots and monks,
Speaker 3: and then I mentioned crime, right, you may think of
Speaker 3: the rappers or the Wu Tang class specifically for the children. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like old dirty bastards mini run ins with the law.
Speaker 3: In that case, you'd be wrong. Oh why is that
Speaker 3: great question? Elizabeth? The reason it's simple, Real Buddhist monks
Speaker 3: keep popping off with legit, wild ass crimes, and I've
Speaker 3: got a compendium for you today.
Speaker 5: This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
Speaker 5: heights and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free
Speaker 5: and what one hundred percent ridiculous?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, first things first, Yeah, let's comeiver any confusion that
Speaker 3: I may have started you off with between Wu Tang
Speaker 3: and Wu Tang clan. Now, if I say Wu Tang,
Speaker 3: that refers to a holy mountain located in the Hubei
Speaker 3: Province in central China. It's also known as Wu Tang,
Speaker 3: which is home to the Daoist and Zen Buddhist traditions.
Speaker 3: It's also where the birthplace of Kung Fu. The Wu
Speaker 3: Tang it refers to the Purple imperial city of Emperor
Speaker 3: yong li Ming, dating back to the fifteenth century. It
Speaker 3: was constructive between fourteen oh four and fourteen twenty. Now
Speaker 3: if I say, w Wu Tang clan that was formed
Speaker 3: in the late eighties early nineties in Staten Island, and
Speaker 3: it's a it's a rap group, right, They were formed
Speaker 3: circa nineteen ninety one. Yeah, the Wu Tang Clan features
Speaker 3: some of the finest lyricists in the history of hip hop. Specifically,
Speaker 3: there's the Rizza, the Jizza, Old Dirty Bastard, Inspected Deck,
Speaker 3: method Man, ghost Face Killer, Ray Kwan, the Chef, You
Speaker 3: God and Mastakilla. So Wu Tang Clan, bunch of sick
Speaker 3: ass rappers from Staten Island. Yeah, Wu Tang Holy Mountain
Speaker 3: in China. You got it?
Speaker 2: Yes? Got it?
Speaker 3: Good? Now let's get down to the nitty gritty and
Speaker 3: the sorry state of criminal Buddhists in Wu Tang and elsewhere. Now,
Speaker 3: if you follow international news like I do, you easily
Speaker 3: see that these days Wu Tang and Shallin and crime
Speaker 3: have become this ongoing news story. It is real a
Speaker 3: steel because real life Buddhist monks are on some real
Speaker 3: crime energy these days. It's truly wild. Like I'm like,
Speaker 3: wait again, Like sometimes I think the story has already
Speaker 3: been reported. I was like, no, this is a different
Speaker 3: version of the same story. They're making Wu Tang clan
Speaker 3: look like a bunch of kiddy cats, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: For instance, we'll start with case one. It's called the
Speaker 3: Sika golf sex scandal. Oh have you heard about this?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, this first story takes place in Thailand, not
Speaker 3: in Wu Tang And obviously, Thailand is a nation in
Speaker 3: South South Asia, and it's a nation where ninety percent
Speaker 3: of the populace are Buddhists. I did not know that
Speaker 3: it's a really high percentage. Now. Earlier this year, just
Speaker 3: before the start of the Asala Bukhah Day, which is
Speaker 3: nicknamed basically Buddhist Lent. Asala Buka Day is a holy
Speaker 3: day meant to commemorate the first sermon of the Lord Buddha.
Speaker 3: It also marks the beginning of the brotherhood of Buddhist monks.
Speaker 3: And I learned a lot about Buddhism, and so I
Speaker 3: wanted to share it with you. There's coming called the
Speaker 3: three gems. Now there's the Buddha, and then Dama or
Speaker 3: what was what we call it dharma, and then the Sanga. Now,
Speaker 3: dama or dharma is a Sanskrit word that refers to
Speaker 3: the law of nature or quote, the truth of life. Now,
Speaker 3: the law of nature is simple enough. It determines that quote,
Speaker 3: all beings face death, illness, and old age while life
Speaker 3: is suffering kind of thing. Now, the sanga is a
Speaker 3: word that refers to the monks and the nuns who
Speaker 3: practice Buddhism, and then obviously the Buddhas, the Buddha. So
Speaker 3: these are the three gems of Buddhism. They form like
Speaker 3: a trinity, if you will. The Buddha, the Dharma, and
Speaker 3: the Sanga. Got it, got it okay? So today we'll
Speaker 3: be focusing on the sanga, the specifically the monk side
Speaker 3: of things, because I didn't find a lot of the
Speaker 3: nuns doing crime. Surprise, surprise. So back to the news
Speaker 3: that I'd mentioned earlier this year, Elizabeth, the sanga is
Speaker 3: a shaking because of this major sex scandal that came
Speaker 3: to lights the Sika Golf scandal burst onto the scene
Speaker 3: with this woman nicknamed Sika Golf was arrested for sex
Speaker 3: stortion of multiple high ranking Buddhist monks.
Speaker 2: See when you said.
Speaker 4: It was the golf scan, I thought it was like
Speaker 4: a golf club, like a posh resort where they all
Speaker 4: played golf.
Speaker 3: I wish it was that simple. It's more of a nickname.
Speaker 3: But here Sika it means devotee of a monk okay right,
Speaker 3: and golf is like her street name.
Speaker 7: I guess.
Speaker 3: So just like these club there, you know. Now, just
Speaker 3: like Catholic priests, Buddhist monks are also supposed to maintain
Speaker 3: a vow of celibacy chastity, but there's a treasure trove
Speaker 3: of evidence that they often don't, And in this case,
Speaker 3: it was found in this one woman's cell phone. So
Speaker 3: police found some eighty thousand photos, videos, and chat logs
Speaker 3: that made it self evident these Buddhist monks had been
Speaker 3: not taking their vows very seriously.
Speaker 2: Eighty thousands.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm talking like a boatload of Buddhist monks
Speaker 3: that she was hitting. There were fifteen different temples that
Speaker 3: were embarrassed by this scandal. Oh, it went all the
Speaker 3: way to the top echelon. Yeah, not that matter. It
Speaker 3: was focused more on Tai Buddhism. For instance, there was
Speaker 3: evidence that implicated the abbot of the pra Buddha Chai Temple,
Speaker 3: the deputy abbot of the Wattsthearn Temple, and the deputy
Speaker 3: abbot of the paknam Psi Chaaron Temple. So that's basically
Speaker 3: like the abbot runs the temper. So each one of
Speaker 3: them is these powerful, wealthy, deeply respected and review temple.
Speaker 3: So it was very embarrassing. Yeah, and all told, there
Speaker 3: were nine abbots, that's the leaders of the temples who
Speaker 3: were implicated in this sex scandal. So what's the story.
Speaker 3: How did this all come about? And then how did
Speaker 3: it just pop into the being? Everyone's like, oh, fully
Speaker 3: formed sex scandal?
Speaker 4: But were there like eighty thousand items like videos or
Speaker 4: videos and photos and they're nice, so they're under just
Speaker 4: under like ten thousand photos apiece. Oh yeah, however much
Speaker 4: I can't do math, but I'm rounding down the eight
Speaker 4: of them.
Speaker 3: She got a lot. Oh, it's a ton. She she
Speaker 3: was a documentarian, sounds like it. So it all started
Speaker 3: when this high ranking abbot abruptly left his temple and
Speaker 3: the monk hould that he led, and that was suspicious,
Speaker 3: and so it triggered an investigation by the Central Investigation Bureau,
Speaker 3: which is like the Taie version of the FBI. So
Speaker 3: the lead investigators they get assigned to this case and
Speaker 3: they go out and they discover the reason why he
Speaker 3: suddenly and abruptly left the temple. Turns out, this sixty
Speaker 3: seven year old app it was being blackmailed by a
Speaker 3: thirty five year old woman named Willowan Golf mswat.
Speaker 2: Right golf Golf is her.
Speaker 3: Nickname, so Willowan mswat Aka Golf. Now, not only that
Speaker 3: she was also pregnant.
Speaker 4: She probably drove a VW golf That would be hilarious, right,
Speaker 4: she's a name for her car. Now.
Speaker 3: When she informed the abbot that she was with child,
Speaker 3: she demanded he pay her some big money to keep
Speaker 3: quiet about it because it would be embarrassing to Buddhism,
Speaker 3: his temple, ham everything. So she's like, you're going to
Speaker 3: have to pay from a love child son now. According
Speaker 3: to the Bangkok Coast, this now former abbot transferred thirteen
Speaker 3: million tie Bot to Sika Golf as hush money slash
Speaker 3: childcare funds okay, and that I know you're curious about this.
Speaker 3: That works out to be three hundred and ninety seven.
Speaker 2: Eight nine dollars. He's just sitting on that money.
Speaker 3: Well, we'll get to whose money that is. So the
Speaker 3: investigators they take a trip out to the temple to
Speaker 3: question the abbot, and they learn he's already bounced out,
Speaker 3: like he's gone, man, you ain't gonna find him here.
Speaker 3: So they locate him and then he's like, oh, I'll
Speaker 3: be happy to help with his case. Maybe you can
Speaker 3: get me justice. Yeah, get to you justice. What do
Speaker 3: you mean? So this is the first crack in the
Speaker 3: sex scandal all told, The investigators determined that this now
Speaker 3: former abbot had transferred about twelve point eight million bot
Speaker 3: from his personal bank accounts and an additional three hundred
Speaker 3: and eighty thousand bought from the temple's bank accounts. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: he transferred the cash through mobile banking apps between January
Speaker 3: and July of twenty twenty four. The investigators learned that
Speaker 3: initially Sika Golf approached the now former abbot by posing
Speaker 3: as this wealthy socialite. She just bounces around in circles,
Speaker 3: hangs out with the abbots, and she claimed to be
Speaker 3: connected to other powerful and illustrious abbots from other temples
Speaker 3: that he knew. So once she earns his trust by going, oh,
Speaker 3: I was hanging out with you, folks, the pair began
Speaker 3: this relationship which eventually turned intimate and then it turned
Speaker 3: into baby making. Now, the monk claimed he sent the
Speaker 3: money to Sika Golf for a ceramics business.
Speaker 2: Despite the huge.
Speaker 3: Sums of money he'd transferred, he had no written receipts
Speaker 3: or business agreement for this.
Speaker 2: So much in his personal accounts. He'd been skimming already.
Speaker 3: I'm at one would suspect, We'll just say allegedly. So
Speaker 3: the now former abbot said he'd contacted another former abbot,
Speaker 3: one of the Watt Tree thoughts to Tep Monastery. He
Speaker 3: was a fellow temple leader and he'd already fled the
Speaker 3: country to Laos after he was a target for a
Speaker 3: corruption probe of his own.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 3: That led the former abbot to pra Paron that's the
Speaker 3: original dude, to try to get back the funds from
Speaker 3: Sicco Golf. He's like, oh, wow, you're shady. So he
Speaker 3: contacts her via DMS on social media. Of course, she
Speaker 3: ghosts him. So when he couldn't get the temple's money
Speaker 3: back that he'd transferred to her, and then left a
Speaker 3: paper trail and a huge hole in the temple's finances.
Speaker 3: It gets discovered by others, he gets kicked out of
Speaker 3: the monastery, so then the investigators they start to get
Speaker 3: a handle on his portion of the story. But this
Speaker 3: leads to other high ranking and powerful monks because he's
Speaker 3: remember like, oh, yeah, she told me he hung out
Speaker 3: with this guy and this abbot. So they go around,
Speaker 3: they start asking questions, and then this all leads to
Speaker 3: the arrest of Sika Golf. She gets caught at her house,
Speaker 3: and this house is in this luxurious housing estate r
Speaker 3: she's living large. When she gets busted, the investigators discover
Speaker 3: evidence that confirms the now former abbot story that he
Speaker 3: transferred the three hundred and eighty thousand bought from his
Speaker 3: temple that was in February of twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 3: then the authorities they start questioning Sika Golf and she
Speaker 3: admits that she knew the money was from the temple's
Speaker 3: bank accounts, but that's the former abbot's problem, not hers.
Speaker 3: She didn't say take it from the temple. She just
Speaker 3: said run me my check. So yeah, so she doesn't care.
Speaker 3: So the police authorities are like, well, that's kind of callous.
Speaker 3: So she then tells the investigators, Oh, that's just the
Speaker 3: tip of this little dirty iceberg. Because she also says
Speaker 3: I had sex with at least nine high ranking abbots
Speaker 3: and other Buddhist monks. They're like, do you have names? Now?
Speaker 3: I remind you they swore vows of chastity salada forbidden
Speaker 3: from having sex. So just that alone would be you're
Speaker 3: getting kicked out of Buddhasm, right, and that's why they,
Speaker 3: to keep their secrets safe, had been paying her. All
Speaker 3: in all, she had blackmailed the monks and the abbots
Speaker 3: to the tune of roughly eleven point nine million dollars US.
Speaker 3: What that's a period over three years. Wow, she was
Speaker 3: just going through abbot after abbot after abbot and just
Speaker 3: run in checks.
Speaker 2: None of these people believe in karma.
Speaker 3: One would think it's kind of their bag. Yeah, right,
Speaker 3: So what did she do with all this money? I
Speaker 3: mean other than her having like the nice house and
Speaker 3: like her her VW golf? What is she doing with that.
Speaker 2: Cool ceramics business?
Speaker 3: Of course? Well, apparently investigators learned that Sika Golf had
Speaker 3: been spending the money on online gambling.
Speaker 2: Oh no, you know, that's the devil's work.
Speaker 3: And she was not good at online gambling because nearly
Speaker 3: all of the money, all twelve or eleven point nine million,
Speaker 3: was gone.
Speaker 2: I think most people aren't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, some people, you would hope if they're running
Speaker 3: like through eleven point nine million, they'd win some when
Speaker 3: they get to her, Like she was betting, Like her
Speaker 3: biggest single bet was a five hundred thousand BOT, which
Speaker 3: is about fifteen grand in US, So she was putting
Speaker 3: down big bets. So when the investigators catch up to
Speaker 3: her and they like go through her bank accounts, they
Speaker 3: find that there is eight thousand BOT left in her
Speaker 3: bank account, which works out to be two hundred and
Speaker 3: forty four dollars America. Out of eleven point nine all
Speaker 3: she has left is two hundred and forty four dollars.
Speaker 4: I wonder if she was playing something that she heard
Speaker 4: an ad about during a podcast.
Speaker 2: It's not really a casino.
Speaker 3: It took a fake casino. She doesn't understand. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: she runs through this twelve million dollars in three years.
Speaker 3: The whole kit and kaboodle was gone, right, So that's
Speaker 3: probably why she was blackmailing her latest ABBT for you know,
Speaker 3: child support payments. Yeah, she asked him. She said she
Speaker 3: wanted thirty thousand bought every month for the next twenty years. Now,
Speaker 3: that may sound like a lot of money. That's actually
Speaker 3: nine hundred and sixteen dollars a month. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 3: or eleven thousand dollars a year eas. So that's really
Speaker 3: not a big score. So she'd have to get up
Speaker 3: with another apple.
Speaker 2: She's, yeah, exactly, she's gonna have a lot of the
Speaker 2: scores they add up, you get ten. Those dudes totally
Speaker 2: keep a couple on a line rand a month.
Speaker 3: So when the investigators first visit Seeker Golf's home and
Speaker 3: they're investigating that first abbot sudden dismissal, that's where they
Speaker 3: find all the evidence of all how she's been blackmailing
Speaker 3: all of these monks. So the investigators find on five
Speaker 3: different cell phones the eighty thousand pictures, the videos, and
Speaker 3: they're all with different very powerful monks. Okay, so Elizabeth,
Speaker 3: just to put that into perspective, eighty thousand pictures in videos.
Speaker 3: You know me, you're an inbox zero person. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: am not I have form like years, like more than
Speaker 3: a decade of emails is one hundred and seventy thousand
Speaker 3: unread emails. She's got eighty thousand picks just in three
Speaker 3: years time.
Speaker 4: Think about the number of pictures that we have in
Speaker 4: our phones in the iCloud, I think I eighty. No,
Speaker 4: I don't, And all I do is take pictures of
Speaker 4: dogs and tomato plants and the bread click.
Speaker 2: Click click click.
Speaker 3: I mean it was she was going off.
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So of the nine different abbits.
Speaker 2: I mean, I take a lot of pictures.
Speaker 3: Oh totally, But I don't think you're anywhere near eighty thousans.
Speaker 3: So of the nine different abbits in monks that she'd
Speaker 3: sexed up and blackmailed, eight of them had been now
Speaker 3: been kicked out, and they have left her straight up
Speaker 3: fled their temples and monasteries. So far as he could,
Speaker 3: Golf has largely avoided making any public statements about her
Speaker 3: sex stortion ring. Yeah, which, honestly, I don't blame her,
Speaker 3: you know, like because honestly, in the tie press, she's
Speaker 3: the one who's getting blamed for the abbots and the
Speaker 3: monk's bad behavior. She's the one everyone's focusing on. Now,
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to defend the blackmailer, but I'm saying,
Speaker 3: is that in this case, you know, it takes two
Speaker 3: to tango or to break one's chastity valuce. Sure, of course,
Speaker 3: a walking honey trap.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but she's she's not like this, you know, magical seductress.
Speaker 4: But she is a criminal, she's.
Speaker 3: Exactly, And they're doing crimes with other people's money, you know,
Speaker 3: And everyone's like, well, just look past that and focus
Speaker 3: on her.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, before she was formally arrested, she did deny the
Speaker 3: charges against her, and then she admitted she had an
Speaker 3: intimate relationship with one monk and he gave her money.
Speaker 3: And then her story soon grew and she's like, okay,
Speaker 3: there may have been like two or three monks. Okay,
Speaker 3: there's this also, this professor or a religious professor. They're like,
Speaker 3: what were you getting? She's like, well, there was that
Speaker 3: brand new Mercedes SLK two hundred they got me what
Speaker 3: So they were getting her things that weren't just cash.
Speaker 3: She was getting gifts, you know, I'm thinking maybe the
Speaker 3: house payments. Anyway, I agree with there's this Thai op
Speaker 3: ed writer Sonnet suda Ekachai. She wrote in the Bangkok
Speaker 3: Post that quote, when the clergy's moral decay is in
Speaker 3: full view, it's the woman who takes the fall, while
Speaker 3: the monks are cast as victims. She also later added
Speaker 3: about the abbots and monks, they live in privilege, surrounded
Speaker 3: by wealth and deference. And that's kind of the problem
Speaker 3: because if you go back to the beginning, the Buddha
Speaker 3: was a wealthy prince. He renounced and walked away from
Speaker 3: his life of privilege and had fantastical wealth for a
Speaker 3: life of devotion and you know, quiet contemplation, and he
Speaker 3: expressly forbade his followers from these types of earth temptations.
Speaker 3: There's no equivocation on this. He's like, avoid money and lust.
Speaker 3: These are the big ones.
Speaker 2: And they're like, I believe I will.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they're like, well he didn't really mean it,
Speaker 3: Like no, he specifically said this one.
Speaker 2: They went back for seconds on both.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they doubled it for one hundred percent for real. Now.
Speaker 3: One abbot I found, who reported that a large fortune
Speaker 3: of gold had been stolen from him, joked with reporters
Speaker 3: about his unbelievable wealth and said, quote, I get ten
Speaker 3: thousand bought per invitation five ceremonies. That's fifty thousand bought.
Speaker 3: Can you give me that I only socialize with the rich.
Speaker 3: I don't mix with the krajuk nuguck nogoi people, which
Speaker 3: means poor people.
Speaker 2: What what?
Speaker 3: This is why I'm not castigating Sika Golf. She went
Speaker 3: after these guys because you got a bunch of corrupt
Speaker 3: monks in abbits. She's like, well, I'm gonna get my
Speaker 3: taste too, right, right. So, the one bit of good
Speaker 3: news is the Thai police have opened a phone line
Speaker 3: up to report any quote misbehaving monks. Yeah, so, I
Speaker 3: suspect and expect that this is just the beginning of
Speaker 3: the stories of the bad monks acting badly. Let's take
Speaker 3: a little break and we'll be back with more Buddhist
Speaker 3: monks attcking badly. And we'll also dip over to China
Speaker 3: and visit the home of Kung Fu Zen Buddhism and
Speaker 3: check in on their inspiration for the Wu Tang clan
Speaker 3: back in too.
Speaker 7: Yeah too, Elizabeth, We're back, Yes, we are.
Speaker 3: Now I've got another question for you. Uh huh, what
Speaker 3: do you know about Shaolin?
Speaker 4: I have a friend who does like that shaolin like
Speaker 4: martial arts stuff like kung fu. No, you know how
Speaker 4: like they balance out and kick.
Speaker 2: And spin around. Sure, I think he was trained by
Speaker 2: shaolin monks.
Speaker 3: Okay, cool. I'm suspecting he as a form of kung
Speaker 3: fu or I guess.
Speaker 2: I don't know. But he's a musician and when he's warming.
Speaker 3: Up maybe Taoism, not that, but the tai chi No.
Speaker 4: It's not taichi. It's before he gets on stage. She
Speaker 4: does this like whole routine. It's pretty cool to work.
Speaker 3: That's cool. Yeah, I should have been.
Speaker 4: It's the same one that the monks do, okay with
Speaker 4: like sticks kicking.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing that's gongo, but yeah, who knows. Going back
Speaker 3: to Shaolin and earlier I said that, uh you know
Speaker 3: Shaolin is also Staten Island. Yeah, you remember talking about
Speaker 3: the Wu Tang Clan. On their first album, Enter the
Speaker 3: thirty six Chambers, all nine mcs of the Wu Tang
Speaker 3: Clan rhymed about how their home on Strong Island aka
Speaker 3: Staten Island was their spiritual chaolin right, and this was
Speaker 3: intended to connect them to the ways of kung fu.
Speaker 3: Films the seventies and the early eighties and the Shaolin
Speaker 3: Temple and of Central China and his long story traditions
Speaker 3: of Zen Buddhism in the kung fu masters. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: So keep that in mind, that inspiration that they hold
Speaker 3: and revere and like are inspired by. That's where this
Speaker 3: next story takes place. And just keep the Wu Tang
Speaker 3: and all their reverence for that in mind and measure
Speaker 3: it on the scales of justice against what I'm about
Speaker 3: to tell you of the actual real deal Shaolin Temple
Speaker 3: Boom to three thousand monks and the Central Theater for
Speaker 3: their next crimetale. Now, Elizabeth, I'd like you to meet
Speaker 3: the abbot Shi yong Xin. This cat is no stranger
Speaker 3: to controversy. In the late eighties, he was kicked out
Speaker 3: of the Shaolin Temple by his own master. You're alleged
Speaker 3: bad behavior, but somehow over time he managed to finesse
Speaker 3: his way back in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you talked to him into putting out a calendar
Speaker 4: of like bad boys of Sin pretty much.
Speaker 3: You have no idea how close you are. No, Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I think like his master may have passed away
Speaker 3: and he was able to get back in, because eventually
Speaker 3: he became the self dubbed quote CEO of the Shaolin Temple.
Speaker 2: Wait, that's what he calls himself. So that is the
Speaker 2: worst buddhen right.
Speaker 3: That is up until this year, when allegations on Chinese
Speaker 3: social media unseated him from his throne of power. He
Speaker 3: now stands accused of being a womanizer, a father of
Speaker 3: multiple illegitimate children, an embezzler of mad money from the
Speaker 3: Shaowin Temple. Now his main accuser who took the Chinese
Speaker 3: social media. They call themselves she Jiangxi, which means interpreting justice.
Speaker 3: And once again I would like to apologize her if
Speaker 3: I getting these names wrong in terms of my pronunciation.
Speaker 3: I looked up how to say them, but I still
Speaker 3: may not get them exactly correct, So please be generous
Speaker 3: with me. So interpreting justice she Jiangxi is a fitting
Speaker 3: self applied nickname because he's taking on the most high
Speaker 3: of the temple and is literally trying to interpret justice.
Speaker 3: Now old interpreting justice, he came with the receipts when
Speaker 3: he posted. He posted photos of one of the women
Speaker 3: who hit the disgraced child and master had been sleeping with.
Speaker 3: He posted pictures of their love child. He posted the
Speaker 3: birth certificate. I mean he had receipts.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So now this is not the CEO of Shaolin's
Speaker 3: first brush with infamy, not only in the eighties when
Speaker 3: he first got kicked out, but before that allegedly. You know,
Speaker 3: he'd been the recipient of all kinds of ill god
Speaker 3: in gifts over the years, such as luxury cars. One
Speaker 3: town gave him a twenty five thousand dollars like gilded robe.
Speaker 3: There has always been these rumors of women and mistresses
Speaker 3: from local women, also professional sex workers. I mean, he's
Speaker 3: dipping his wick everywhere and all this made headlines dating back,
Speaker 3: as I said, to the early eighties. But then he
Speaker 3: kept sidestepping these controversies. Somehow he was able to avoid
Speaker 3: it all. Old Shi Xiang Xin became the abbot of
Speaker 3: the Shaolin Temple in nineteen ninety nine. That's why I
Speaker 3: think his master may have passed away.
Speaker 2: It had been long enough.
Speaker 3: So this then makes him a powerful member of the
Speaker 3: Chinese Parliament as a representative of the Zen Buddhist monastery.
Speaker 3: So he's up in the high ash lines of power.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so before he was a monk, he was
Speaker 3: known as lu Ying Sheng and in eighty one, that's
Speaker 3: when he first joined the Shaolin Temple, it becomes a
Speaker 3: novice monk, and as I said earlier, his master kicks
Speaker 3: him out for bad behavior. He finesses his way back in.
Speaker 3: By nineteen ninety nine, he's now in the halls of power.
Speaker 3: He wins admirers for how committed he is to reviving
Speaker 3: the long neglected Shaolin Temple. He basically had it fallen
Speaker 3: into disrepair. Yeah, so the temple complex, which is this
Speaker 3: vast complex, was in desperate need of not just paint job,
Speaker 3: but I mean like real attention, like repair the wood,
Speaker 3: all sorts of stuffah, which he does. He leads this,
Speaker 3: he brings it back to its former glory of the
Speaker 3: ancient days of the past. Now it's like, oh, this
Speaker 3: is how it would have looked, you know, hundreds of
Speaker 3: years ago. That wins in all sorts of social currency
Speaker 3: in the party, and later that turns into power. So
Speaker 3: guess what he did with that power, Elizabeth. That's right,
Speaker 3: he got to criming God. Of course. So these days
Speaker 3: the Shaolin Temple, it's this major money maker. It's a
Speaker 3: home of tourism. It's like the Disneyland of Zen Buddhism.
Speaker 3: And it's not like that's a shot. That was the
Speaker 3: abbot's own words.
Speaker 2: That's what you're he can't.
Speaker 3: Back in twenty fifteen, he was attempting to export the
Speaker 3: successes of the Shaolin Temple to Australia, and he said
Speaker 3: to the state news agency in China, Xinhua, and I quote,
Speaker 3: if China can import Disney resorts, why can't other countries
Speaker 3: import the Shaolin Monastery.
Speaker 2: So he put them franchises.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like Disneyland, Shaldon Monastery, these are kind of the
Speaker 3: same thing. So in order to win favor for that
Speaker 3: idea of importing Shaolin Monastery to Australia, the quote CEO
Speaker 3: of Shaolin Temple, he wrote a three million dollar check
Speaker 3: to a town in Australia to basically bribe them into
Speaker 3: building a branch of the Shaolin Temple there. Now, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's his attitude. Yeah, but these days, if you visit
Speaker 3: the Shaolin Temple, the major takeaway you would come away
Speaker 3: with is how dedicated they are to monetizing the home.
Speaker 2: Of kung Fu and gift shop.
Speaker 3: Oh girl, there's not only will they sell you all
Speaker 3: kinds of trinkets and souvenirs, but just like a museum,
Speaker 3: when you leave the temple complex. You exit through the
Speaker 3: gift shop stop Swear to God, and inside the complex
Speaker 3: you're pitched all kinds of crap. There's refrigerator magnets, there's
Speaker 3: Buddhist Kung Fu action figures and statuettes. You can get hats,
Speaker 3: t shirts, sneakers. They now sell La Boo boo dolls.
Speaker 4: What this is crazy and I want some of this.
Speaker 4: You know my friend who's been doing that, he's been
Speaker 4: doing this since like their early nineties.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm sure he's dedicated.
Speaker 6: Eighties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it wasn't something that was on everyone's radar.
Speaker 2: Wow, but now my star.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now it's the Disneyland of Buddhism.
Speaker 2: I want a truck her hat, Dude.
Speaker 3: I recommend going to there and you can be a
Speaker 3: truck her hat and then you also you can you
Speaker 3: can buy a ticket for the calligraphy demonstration.
Speaker 2: Well I do.
Speaker 3: You can also hit up the food court of snacks, dolls.
Speaker 2: It's all vegetarian. I pray I would.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You can rent an electric cart and tour the
Speaker 3: complex and be given a tour. Yeah, you can pay
Speaker 3: for a tour guide. They will share the history of
Speaker 3: the ancient home of Zen Buddhism with you. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: basically Disneyland.
Speaker 4: That's totally something I would do on like a vacation
Speaker 4: and be like that'd be really interesting, and then like
Speaker 4: halfway through, I'm like, I've got to get it.
Speaker 3: Remember, Yeah, you're also going to be sitting with like
Speaker 3: German tourist, Canadian tourists, like some Mexican family. There are
Speaker 3: everybody's going, oh yes, loud American. Yeah, definitely loud Americans.
Speaker 3: You know you would be one of them, or maybe
Speaker 3: not you, but I would be one of them. I'm no,
Speaker 3: not generally. Now, obviously when you're there, they still have
Speaker 3: monks like in meditation in the halls because you got to.
Speaker 3: And you also have kung fu demos like what you're
Speaker 3: talking about the Flying Kicks, because yeah, you gotta have
Speaker 3: something to sell the people. You gotta have a show
Speaker 3: for the folks to come. So now, over the years,
Speaker 3: this place has been home to many famous visitors. The
Speaker 3: late Queen of England, Elizabeth II, she went there. Stevie
Speaker 3: Wonder went there. I don't I guess you just wanted
Speaker 3: to hear how it all was. Mike Tyson went there,
Speaker 3: Nelson Mandela went there, Tim cook of Apple. He's definitely
Speaker 3: been there.
Speaker 2: Tim Apple was there.
Speaker 3: Henry Kissinger was up in there. He's like, I never
Speaker 3: bummed this. No, then there was Robert Robert Downey Jo regrets.
Speaker 3: Now all these famous names I know about because they're
Speaker 3: prominently displayed on tab Let's see. You know famous people
Speaker 3: have been here.
Speaker 2: When you go into like a deli and there's all.
Speaker 3: That's exactly like the picture frames picture. Now, this gross
Speaker 3: commercialization of the Shaolin brand, it doesn't sit well with
Speaker 3: many of the monks and other abbots. You Yeah, they
Speaker 3: don't really like the quote ceo of the challintel.
Speaker 2: Their little secret girlfriends look at that and they're like,
Speaker 2: this is look at this is gross.
Speaker 3: Isn't that right?
Speaker 2: Sweetheart?
Speaker 3: Love child? This picture? So the CEO of the Shaolin Temple,
Speaker 3: he is the first Chinese abbot to hold an MBA degree,
Speaker 3: So he wants everyone to know like I'm good at this, okay,
Speaker 3: like I've been trained. He's also equally proud how under
Speaker 3: his leadership, the Shaolin Temple has basically come the shen
Speaker 3: Yun of kung food. Right. He now has monks traveling
Speaker 3: the world putting on kung fu.
Speaker 2: Demonstration wires everywhere, commercials.
Speaker 3: Everywhere, and they come around every three months.
Speaker 4: It seems like I was in France last year and
Speaker 4: there were shen Yun on the streets.
Speaker 2: There's multiple crews.
Speaker 3: There's not just like one.
Speaker 4: But I thought it was just for a while. I'm
Speaker 4: so self centered, bear are you a thing? Then I find
Speaker 4: out it's all over the country. Now I find out Zeron,
Speaker 4: it's global.
Speaker 3: It's worldwide.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: So Also because he's trying to, you know, do all
Speaker 3: this commercialization of the Shaolin brand, he's also approved video games, movies, cartoons.
Speaker 3: He will rent out the name for traditional Chinese medicine companies,
Speaker 3: for book deals, real estate deals like.
Speaker 2: Real estate deals, say the hotel.
Speaker 3: Totally brought to you a boy Shaolin temple, this new
Speaker 3: tract of condos, yeah, homes. When asked about it, as
Speaker 3: he put a quote, cultural promotion is a very dignified undertaking.
Speaker 3: Well sure if you says so now in Chinese state media.
Speaker 3: As for any benefit that he may receive for his
Speaker 3: works selling kung Fu and Buddhism all around the world,
Speaker 3: such as perhaps luxury cars or money, he has said,
Speaker 3: and I quote monks are also citizens. We have fulfilled
Speaker 3: our duties and made contributions to society, so it is
Speaker 3: only right that we receive rewards.
Speaker 2: It seems like a very capitalist venture.
Speaker 3: I don't think that Lord Budda would be too in now.
Speaker 3: In twenty fifteen, that was the first time he was
Speaker 3: credibly accused of misdeeds. Allegedly. This was for embezzling from
Speaker 3: all the vast wealth that he's generating as rewards. An
Speaker 3: anonymous letter accused him of not only embezzlement, but that
Speaker 3: he'd been siphoning off big, big money to pay off
Speaker 3: his several mistresses and pay for his love children. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this anonymous letter caused an uproar in China. Right, so
Speaker 3: the claims now have to be investigated. Everyone's talking about it.
Speaker 3: So the Shaolin Temple says we'll look into the matter,
Speaker 3: and as did some local authorities. Now in his own defense,
Speaker 3: Shi Jong Xin, he said to the BBC in China, quote,
Speaker 3: if there were a problem, it would have surfaced long ago.
Speaker 2: That's a great way to address in any accusations.
Speaker 3: Totally, this new one couldn't be because there's no.
Speaker 2: Old one now.
Speaker 3: Ultimately, both investigations by the local authorities and by the
Speaker 3: Shaolin Temple itself determined that, surprise, surprise, he was innocent
Speaker 3: of all charges. Of course, in fact, the Shaolin Temple
Speaker 3: not only defended him, but they did so with this
Speaker 3: like angry vigor investigations that were all dropped in twenty
Speaker 3: seventeen based on quote, insufficient evidence. And then he was
Speaker 3: later re elected as the Deputy head of the Buddhist
Speaker 3: Association of China, which is the state aligned like supervisory
Speaker 3: board for all policing of misdeeds by Buddhists. Oh so
Speaker 3: they put the wolf in charge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the fox in charge of the him.
Speaker 3: There you go, Yes, this irony is not small. So
Speaker 3: he remained CEO of the Shaolin Temple until now a
Speaker 3: decade later, when Homie showed up with not an anonymous letter,
Speaker 3: but the photo, the birth certificate, the pictures. Now people
Speaker 3: were like, oh, that's gonna be harder to deny the
Speaker 3: new campaign to expose his misdeeds. You know, it points
Speaker 3: out the same improper relationships, It points out the love child,
Speaker 3: and now if he's violating his vows of celibacy, that's
Speaker 3: a serious deal. So at this point, the now fifty
Speaker 3: nine year old abbot Shi Yong xin aka the CEO
Speaker 3: Monk of Shaolin. He's in hot water with Chinese authorities
Speaker 3: because he's making all of Buddhism look bad. And they're like,
Speaker 3: we can't have that man. You gotta be cool. And
Speaker 3: the Shaolin Temple leadership took the same view. They're like,
Speaker 3: we're now a money maker. You're risking like our our
Speaker 3: you know our check, right, you can't be doing this.
Speaker 3: So they accused him of quote suspected criminal offenses, including embezzlement,
Speaker 3: misappropriation of project funds and temple assets. You're messing with
Speaker 3: the money, you messing with my mind smoking. The official
Speaker 3: statement in Chinese stated that quote she is currently under
Speaker 3: joint investigation by multiple departments. Further information will be released
Speaker 3: to the public in due course. Now a lot of
Speaker 3: people thought this means, oh, they're going to sweep it
Speaker 3: under the rug once people forget about it. But there's
Speaker 3: a big change. The President of China, Jijiingping, has launched
Speaker 3: this nationwide crackdown on corruption and abuses of power. Yeah.
Speaker 3: He stated repeatedly that his campaign is aimed to root
Speaker 3: out corruption. That is both quote the tigers and the flies.
Speaker 3: That means from the lowest public service to the most
Speaker 3: powerful ministers, religious leaders, like our CEO of Shaolin Temple. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So far under Jijiingping, thousands of people have been arrested
Speaker 3: and they faced corruption charges. Looks like the CEO of
Speaker 3: the Shaolin Temple is next. Because in July late July
Speaker 3: this year, the Buddhist Association of China released a statement
Speaker 3: about old shi jiang Xin, and they said that he's
Speaker 3: been decertified of his ordination, meaning he's lost his official
Speaker 3: certificate and he's no longer a monk. Yeah, so he's
Speaker 3: been basically kicked out of the temple and the order
Speaker 3: of Monks. As the Buddhist Association of China put it, quote,
Speaker 3: she yong Xin's actions are of an extremely egregious nature,
Speaker 3: severely tarnishing the reputation of the Buddhist community and damaging
Speaker 3: the image of monastics. And they later added, and I
Speaker 3: quote the Buddhist Association of China firmly supports and endorses
Speaker 3: the decision to handle Shei juang Xin's case in accordance
Speaker 3: with the law. So they're basically like, we're gonna let
Speaker 3: Jijingping break them down something. Now, if you ask she
Speaker 3: Jiang Xin what he's thinking and feeling about these statements
Speaker 3: and his tenuous future these days, he told state media,
Speaker 3: and I quote, I haven't done anything guilty, so I'm
Speaker 3: not afraid of devil's knocking on the door. Now, that
Speaker 3: may not sound like mighty thing, but that references an
Speaker 3: old Chinese and I don't know enough old Chinese sangs
Speaker 3: to make sense of that. But I do know about
Speaker 3: the words of the Taoist masters Lausu and Shuangsu, which
Speaker 3: I will not quote here today specifically. So does sound
Speaker 3: like I'm pulling some like oh ancient Chinese? Probably right. Instead,
Speaker 3: I'll go with the much more level headed statement, you
Speaker 3: better watch it because yijingpang don't play right. There you go.
Speaker 3: That's my ancient Chinese proverb now basically temporary.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 3: When it comes to like a devil's knocking on the door,
Speaker 3: it did call to mind something that Bob Dylan sang
Speaker 3: in Highway sixty one. Yeah, Abe says man, you must
Speaker 3: be putting me on sun And God said no. Abe
Speaker 3: said what God said? You can do what you want
Speaker 3: a but the next time you see me coming, you
Speaker 3: better runs. So bang on that note, Let's take another break,
Speaker 3: and when we get back, I got one more tale
Speaker 3: Buddhist monks behaving badly, and this one's wildly.
Speaker 8: Can't wait, Elizabeth, We're back, Hi, you're ready to get
Speaker 8: freaky again with some more badly.
Speaker 2: Baby Burists is ready to get freaky now.
Speaker 3: I could tell you about Fra Komb, the Buddhist monk
Speaker 3: down in Thailand who got popped in April of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three when investigators got to work and they found
Speaker 3: that the monk head quote buried gold bars in the
Speaker 3: hills outside of his monastery and also transferred two point
Speaker 3: two million dollars to bank accounts in his sister's name, right,
Speaker 3: and also he and his fellow monks conspired to embezzle
Speaker 3: about twelve million from their loyal and faithful followers, who
Speaker 3: largely live in near poverty.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, my favorite part of that story is how he
Speaker 3: ultimately got caught. Right, He was busted by local police,
Speaker 3: but they didn't have much evidence against him, so Fracom,
Speaker 3: being like abundantly overconfident, he phoned his monastery from the
Speaker 3: police station where he was being questioned, and he ordered
Speaker 3: his fellow monks to go and hide their loot. I
Speaker 3: don't know if the cops were listening in or if
Speaker 3: he was just loud talking on the phone. Either way,
Speaker 3: the cops drove out there and they watched the monks
Speaker 3: hide the stuff, so they knew where all of it was.
Speaker 3: As one of the officers told local media quote, some
Speaker 3: had hidden it in the bell tower, some had buried
Speaker 3: in the hills behind the temple, and they covered it
Speaker 3: with monks robes. Our investigation team was stunned. It was
Speaker 3: a huge amount. But these people, they took it for themselves.
Speaker 3: This is going to be an ongoing theme, right So
Speaker 3: after he and the other six monks were busted, they
Speaker 3: caught serious charges because Thailand is in a grip of
Speaker 3: this problem right now with bad Buddhist monks. So they
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty eight years behind bars. Wow, sixty eight
Speaker 3: that'll get your attention if you think you're untouchable.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now I can also tell you about the monk Fracado,
Speaker 3: who was apparently this very handsome monk. He was a
Speaker 3: social media influencer, and he got caught in a sexual
Speaker 3: relationship with his forbidden. His date was a really attractive
Speaker 3: model that everybody was also very familiar with. So obviously
Speaker 3: he's violating the valve celibacy with this other famous influencer.
Speaker 2: And an influencer has to have like ego. Oh yeah, wait,
Speaker 2: how does that work?
Speaker 3: Right? Well, that's kind of how he got caught because
Speaker 3: once the news was tightening, he tried to bribe both
Speaker 3: his lover, the model and the journalist who was writing
Speaker 3: about their affair. No way, and he tried to do
Speaker 3: it with money he'd embezzled from the monastery. And then
Speaker 3: he got caught in a secret audio recording which doomed
Speaker 3: his planet hush money.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yes, So both of those feel vaguely similar to the
Speaker 3: stories I've already told you. So I've got a whole
Speaker 3: different story to tell you. Yes, And I think, actually,
Speaker 3: I've got a couple stories, And I think these next
Speaker 3: tales are my favorite from the genre of Buddhist monks
Speaker 3: behaving badly. Yeah, because first up, we have the story
Speaker 3: of a senior Buddhist monk who was caught at a
Speaker 3: tie resort by local authorities are investigating a major drug
Speaker 3: smuggling operation in the area. They were not investigating him. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the local police busted the senior monk after they discovered
Speaker 3: four point eight million methan fetamine pills he was smuggling
Speaker 3: in his minivan.
Speaker 2: Okay, wait, stop, stop, we have to stop and take
Speaker 2: take inventory here. Okay, so four point eight million.
Speaker 3: Million meth pills meth pills, and they are just happened
Speaker 3: to be there. They're already investigating. They're trying to figure
Speaker 3: out how this drug cartel's moving pills, and then they
Speaker 3: see this mini van.
Speaker 2: And more point eight million pills is a lot.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh yeah, and in a mini hidden in cardboard
Speaker 3: boxes along with like a handgun.
Speaker 2: He had to be jam packed. He could not see
Speaker 2: out the back windows totally.
Speaker 3: It's not safe.
Speaker 4: It was definitely overloaded minivan and the bottom screeping.
Speaker 2: He can't go over speedbump.
Speaker 3: No, he's going at an angle over the speed bump.
Speaker 3: So also, by the way, he had a handgun with
Speaker 3: fourteen bullets in the magazine and yeah, one in the chamber.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, sure.
Speaker 3: The monk didn't deny any of this. Instead he goes,
Speaker 3: I am the victim here. Yes, the senior monk told
Speaker 3: the police that, yes, he was a courier for the
Speaker 3: local drug kingpins. That was true, and all told he'd
Speaker 3: been paid about three hundred thousand tie bot, which is
Speaker 3: a roughly equivalent to ten thousand dollars US. Okay, The
Speaker 3: deal was he would drive the van through checkpoints, knowing
Speaker 3: that the local police would never question a minivan driven
Speaker 3: by a high ranking monk.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, So he's like, what's in the back, uh, books, prayer, rugs,
Speaker 3: and the rod. Yeah. So this wasn't his first run.
Speaker 3: He'd done it twice before he got caught. So he
Speaker 3: pleads poverty when the cops bust him, He's like, I
Speaker 3: need the money, man, I got my studies and they're expensive,
Speaker 3: and so they worked me over and I said I'll
Speaker 3: take the money.
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 3: So his story isn't my favorite though, yet, because I've
Speaker 3: got more. There was the story of a flashy monk
Speaker 3: who drove around at a brand new BMW while he
Speaker 3: ran meth. I don't know how he thought he wouldn't
Speaker 3: get caught. There's a lot of meth in Thailand apparently. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's like I used to hear about the goal like
Speaker 3: Thai speed whiskey. They've moved on to just mess thills.
Speaker 3: So it's twenty eighteen right and up in the northeastern
Speaker 3: province of Colisne, Thailand. This dude is roaming around and
Speaker 3: is like flashy BMW ferrying meth for the local drug card.
Speaker 3: When the police busted him, he had eight thousand red
Speaker 3: speed pills and plastic baggies, along with some pot, some
Speaker 3: crystal meth, not one, not two, but three handguns because
Speaker 3: I guess he was a bad shot and he needed
Speaker 3: a couple times.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He confesses that it wasn't just him, but his fellow
Speaker 3: monks were all doing meth together, and I guess that
Speaker 3: was like there what, Yeah, there was their secret to
Speaker 3: reaching Nirvana speed meditation. Yeah. So also, by the way,
Speaker 3: it turns out he wasn't really a monk so much
Speaker 3: because he'd been a street criminal. First he thought, you know,
Speaker 3: if I posed as a monk, that would be good cover.
Speaker 3: So he joined up, put on the saffron robes and
Speaker 3: then he started running met for the crew. Then now
Speaker 3: he gets popped, He gets defrocked and expelled from the
Speaker 3: order on that totally pulled down the whole order. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: as one police officer put it, quote, the suspect enjoyed
Speaker 3: a luxury lifestyle with over ten million bots circulating his
Speaker 3: bank accounts. He drove his BMW to deliver speed pills
Speaker 3: and crystal meth to his clients, mostly nightclubbers. Now we
Speaker 3: get to my favorite of these Buddhists behaving badly. This
Speaker 3: one comes to us from twenty twenty one. Now, rather
Speaker 3: than me tell you about this one, Elizabeth, I'd like
Speaker 3: you to close your eyes my eyes, and I'd like
Speaker 3: you to picture it. It's November twenty twenty one and
Speaker 3: you are in the southern Thai province of Chumpong. You're
Speaker 3: riding shotgun in a police truck. No sirens. There's just
Speaker 3: the sound of the steady hum of the engine, the
Speaker 3: wheels as they splash through shallow puddles that gather in
Speaker 3: the ruts of the jungle road. There's also the speed
Speaker 3: of the wind as it whips passed your open windows.
Speaker 3: At the moment, your eyes are trained on the softly
Speaker 3: swaying trees from a plantation of palm trees. It's a
Speaker 3: rather idyllic scene. And you're working as an international journalist
Speaker 3: for the BBC. You're on a ride along with a
Speaker 3: squad of Thai police. They've decided to give you an
Speaker 3: exclusive story to cover, one that maybe the local press
Speaker 3: wouldn't do fair justice. At the moment You're headed towards
Speaker 3: a Buddhist temple that's nestled in the lush southern jungle.
Speaker 3: The officer you're riding with says very little to you,
Speaker 3: which is fine with you. You're busy jotting down notes from
Speaker 3: what you recall earlier of the police briefing. So far,
Speaker 3: this day has felt like a rare adventure. And then
Speaker 3: you spot it, the spire of the central pagoda of
Speaker 3: the temple complex. It competes with the jungle trees and
Speaker 3: the palm tree plantation. The officer driving the police truck
Speaker 3: smiles at you and points and says that's it. You
Speaker 3: smile and nod back. The truck draws closer and closer,
Speaker 3: until finally the line of police trucks drives right through
Speaker 3: the open gates, and one by one, the truck's pull
Speaker 3: to a stop. Cops spring from their vehicles and you
Speaker 3: follow them, taking notes on everything you see. You even
Speaker 3: lift your camera, the one dangling against your chest, and
Speaker 3: you snap a few photos. Meanwhile, the police are all business.
Speaker 3: They rush into the temple hall and they round up
Speaker 3: the monks, who are deep in meditative prayer. The abbot
Speaker 3: of the temple stands up and greets the police. He's
Speaker 3: all smiles and offers a warm welcome. With his hands
Speaker 3: pressed together, he approaches them. The monk's saffron robes are spotless.
Speaker 3: The police are all business. They tell the abbot why
Speaker 3: they've come. One cop lifts up a plastic container for
Speaker 3: a urine sample, and he shakes it. The Abbot's warm
Speaker 3: smile falls. You scribble more notes. After a quick exchange
Speaker 3: between the police and the abbot, he and the other
Speaker 3: meditating monks are led out of the temple hall and
Speaker 3: brought outside, where they are lined up. Each monk is
Speaker 3: handed a plastic container and told to fill it. The
Speaker 3: monks look annoyed, dismayed, irritated, but they do as instructive
Speaker 3: there before the watching eyes of the police. One by one,
Speaker 3: the monks lift their saffron robes and fill the plastic
Speaker 3: container with fresh, warm urine. Then they hamm the container
Speaker 3: over to the waiting officers. The urine samples normally would
Speaker 3: be sent to a lab technician, but instead the cops
Speaker 3: place them on the hood of their police trucks, and
Speaker 3: one by one the urine samples are opened. A chemical
Speaker 3: is added. You ask the lead officer what they're testing for.
Speaker 3: He nods and says methamphetamy, and then you watch as,
Speaker 3: one by one the one the urine samples turn purple.
Speaker 3: It's the telltale marker that the urine samples contain meth.
Speaker 3: The lead officer gives the sign to a squad of cops.
Speaker 3: They handcuffs the monks and the abbot, since even his
Speaker 3: urine samples showed signs of met After the urine tester completed,
Speaker 3: you follow the officers as they investigate the compound. You
Speaker 3: snap photos as the officers scour their sleeping quarters. The
Speaker 3: cops find meth pipes, You snap a photo of vat
Speaker 3: The cops pull out of baggies of meth pills. You
Speaker 3: snap pictures of that. The cops also find bottles of
Speaker 3: urine from underneath the monk's beds. Who knows why those
Speaker 3: are there? You dutifully snap photos of that too. The
Speaker 3: evidence is all gathered up, bagged, tagged, and loaded into
Speaker 3: the police trucks. At the gate of the compound, you
Speaker 3: see locals watching the progress of this police raid. You
Speaker 3: wander over to get quotes from the locals. You find
Speaker 3: a man who speaks English. He tells you quote finally
Speaker 3: the police have come. These monks are not good people.
Speaker 3: You both watch as all of the monks and the
Speaker 3: abbot are arrested and loaded into the police trucks, and
Speaker 3: then he says something that staves with you. If all
Speaker 3: monks were arrested and taken away along with the abbot,
Speaker 3: who will do merit making? Now you ask what he means,
Speaker 3: and he explains that the locals donate food and what
Speaker 3: little money they have to these monks so that they
Speaker 3: will spiritually protect the villagers. But now, who will do
Speaker 3: spiritual battle for the locals? He says, these monks on
Speaker 3: the meth are better than no monks at all. Oh no,
Speaker 3: So there you go, Elizabeth, you just covered the story
Speaker 3: of a whole Buddhist temple getting busted for being high
Speaker 3: on even the abbot. A reporter for the Agency French
Speaker 3: Press also covered this drug raid and they interviewed a
Speaker 3: local village chief named turdsack Pudwana, who spoke of the
Speaker 3: surprise of this drug bust as he told the AFP quote,
Speaker 3: if you ask me, was I shocked? I could not
Speaker 3: imagine all the monks in this temple were addicted. And
Speaker 3: he later added, and I quote when those monks were
Speaker 3: arrested for using narcotics, the villagers who still had faith
Speaker 3: felt like they've been betrayed. And that's key, the ones
Speaker 3: who still had faith. Yeah, these monks are eroding the
Speaker 3: faith of the ninety percent of Buddhist population.
Speaker 2: Like, look, it's either meth monks or no monks. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe this time for no monks. Yes, that's the
Speaker 2: best you can do.
Speaker 3: How about the nuns? Can we give the nuns a shot?
Speaker 5: Uns?
Speaker 3: I haven't heard a single story but the nuns doing
Speaker 3: the meth with the monks. So the punishments, by the way,
Speaker 3: we're all swift. All of the monks and the abbot
Speaker 3: were disrobed and kicked out of the monk could they're
Speaker 3: losing monks as fast as they can. The locals chiefs
Speaker 3: point though, those who still had faith, right, and they
Speaker 3: felt like they had been betrayed. That's because you have
Speaker 3: to understand how big a business Buddhism is in Thailand.
Speaker 3: There are roughly forty three thousand temples which raise an
Speaker 3: estimated four billion dollars each year from donations. What from
Speaker 3: donations from poor poverished people. The government tosses in some
Speaker 3: coins too, to the tune of about one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy million a year. But the four billion comes from
Speaker 3: people who were like, they could really use this money,
Speaker 3: just like.
Speaker 4: The flashier ones get a lot of tourist money too,
Speaker 4: like people who are like, oh, we want to do it,
Speaker 4: but yeah, the port's mostly the locals like what they
Speaker 4: can't afford to get exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's giving big time medieval Catholic church energy here,
Speaker 3: so you know, like me buy an indulgence, but they're
Speaker 3: getting no indulgence.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 3: So when you have mets smuggling, meth pill popping monks,
Speaker 3: and monks paying off blackmail to keep their bad behavior
Speaker 3: secret and their love child behind doors, the people in
Speaker 3: the government they start feeling like fools essentially, right. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So the cops, they sure, they're trying to root out
Speaker 3: these bad monks, but the number of news stories I found,
Speaker 3: and the number of news stories that appear every year
Speaker 3: is really having an impact on the faith of these people. Sure,
Speaker 3: And so that means at this point a lot of
Speaker 3: the bad behavior gets overlooke because they don't want to
Speaker 3: keep growing the story and further embarrass the Buddhist monks
Speaker 3: it's the exact opposite of what you would hope they
Speaker 3: would do.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Like, for instance, I found some claim that cops will
Speaker 3: often work with the National Office of Buddhism to allow
Speaker 3: cover ups. Allegedly, the director of the nob he recently said, quote,
Speaker 3: right now, if monks commit wrongdoing, the National Office of
Speaker 3: Buddhism can only report that information and evidence to administrative
Speaker 3: monks to review. The monk process is slow, I must admit, right.
Speaker 3: So this is how I found the Serpico of Thailand.
Speaker 3: There is a true believer in both Buddhism and the
Speaker 3: law right, and he launches his one man undercover operation
Speaker 3: to run out bad.
Speaker 2: Monks totally right.
Speaker 3: So he entered the police. Lieutenant Colonel Sayumpu Kalu jichis
Speaker 3: radom okay right, He went and got himself ordained, and
Speaker 3: then he went undercover as a monk. No, yes, he
Speaker 3: put it quote being a police officer one has to
Speaker 3: be ready in both body and mind. The best thing
Speaker 3: for me was to try to become a monk.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: So, hiding out at the temple, he waited for the
Speaker 3: drugs to arrive and then he would bust everyone involved.
Speaker 3: I love it, as he tells a quote, I just
Speaker 3: covered myself with the rope. That way a weapon and
Speaker 3: camera could be hidden. Oh no, and hidden behind his
Speaker 3: saffron robes. He was able to bust two monks, two
Speaker 3: math dealers, and a bunch of drug smugglers. His one
Speaker 3: man operation lasted a few weeks, and he recounted the
Speaker 3: quote generally, the public appreciated what we did and admired
Speaker 3: us for eliminating an enemy of religion. So there you go,
Speaker 3: our little hope.
Speaker 2: Is this one man, one guy? He's the one man army.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the mini stories of badly behaving Buddhist monks.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: It's like they always say, the last refuge for the
Speaker 3: scoundrel is the church or in this case, the Buddhist temple. Yes,
Speaker 3: So what's so ridiculous takeaway here? Elizabeth?
Speaker 4: You know, I am just personally, this is just my
Speaker 4: own personal take my takeaway. I am distrustful. I do
Speaker 4: not trust people who broadcast their belief system. Yes, it's
Speaker 4: in such an in an aggressive way. And you've listed
Speaker 4: all these bad Buddhists. They are not good at being Buddhists.
Speaker 9: Yes.
Speaker 4: And I used to have a neighbor who was like
Speaker 4: that who all he did was like broadcast out that
Speaker 4: he was this Buddhist and it was like his business
Speaker 4: was part of that everything. Sure, and he was the
Speaker 4: most selfish, manipulative, like he had zero compassion. He's with
Speaker 4: you know, nasty gossip about.
Speaker 2: Other people in the building. Yure, horrible person.
Speaker 4: But yet it was such a part of like his
Speaker 4: broadcast identity. And so I think, if you really have
Speaker 4: a faith system and you believe in it and you
Speaker 4: think other people should have it and share it, if
Speaker 4: you just live the right way, and people be like.
Speaker 2: Oh, what's your secret?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, and then ask, But if
Speaker 4: you go around and so you craft this identity.
Speaker 2: All these bad monks they had.
Speaker 4: This identity that got them all all power, all sorts
Speaker 4: of other stuff. But in the they're rotten at the core.
Speaker 4: They're just bad at it was there And what's your
Speaker 4: ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: Thank you Elizabeth for asking, I actually have one. It's
Speaker 3: it's kind of ridiculous, But you know me, I side
Speaker 3: with the Taoists. That's like out of all the spiritual
Speaker 3: religious traditions on the planet. I was raised Catholic, but
Speaker 3: I really ultimately side with the Taoist, and it comes
Speaker 3: down to a very simple Dawist saying, there is those
Speaker 3: who know, don't say, and those who say don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I believe.
Speaker 3: So if I hear somebody telling me about their faith,
Speaker 3: I usually don't believe them, but if I see the
Speaker 3: acts of their faith, I totally believe them. Correct. So
Speaker 3: in this case, we saw no acts of face zero
Speaker 3: crow zero. Now you in the mood of for a
Speaker 3: talkback to wash this all down? Oh God.
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