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Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Zeren Sorry I was napping ZN Listen.

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Speaker 3: How you doing today?

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Speaker 2: I am well rested, now are you?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: What about you?

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Speaker 4: How are you doing?

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Speaker 3: I'm good. I'm hanging in there.

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Speaker 2: You seem bright eyed? Bushy tail?

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Speaker 3: Hey, am my tail? Bushy full bush? Yes, bushy. Do

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Speaker 3: you know what's ridiculous?

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Speaker 2: I do?

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Speaker 4: Pinocchio?

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Speaker 3: Sure?

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Speaker 5: No.

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Speaker 2: Do you know the story of the Pinocchio? Like the

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Speaker 2: premiere in New York City of the movie, it was

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Speaker 2: like a big deal. Walt Disney like hired people like

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Speaker 2: little people to play Pinocchio. He hired like what's the

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Speaker 2: opposite of a Baker's dozen, like eleven eleven eleven. He

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Speaker 2: hired eleven little people. This is in nineteen forty, right.

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Speaker 2: He put them up on top of like this marquee,

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Speaker 2: and they're all dancing up there and supposed to like

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Speaker 2: grow stuff and like blow kisses at the people, all

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Speaker 2: dressed as Pinocchio.

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Speaker 3: Right, little people, eleven Pinocchio.

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Speaker 2: But they're gonna be up there for like all day long.

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Speaker 3: There's only one Pinocchio, I.

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Speaker 2: Know when in this case there was eleven. And he

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Speaker 2: gave him lunch and then also bottles of wine, and yeah,

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Speaker 2: I know, white is wild. And it was so hot

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Speaker 2: that day that they ate all the food and by

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Speaker 2: the afternoon they drank all the wine. And then they're

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Speaker 2: so hot did they took off their costumes. They stripped

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Speaker 2: down and got naked. So you had these naked, painted

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Speaker 2: little people on top of this marquis and he started

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Speaker 2: like throwing things at people and shouting provanities at the crowd.

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Speaker 2: It was amazing, but eventually got so bad that the

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Speaker 2: police had to be called in to pull them down

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Speaker 2: off the marquee. And do you know how they did it?

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Speaker 2: They put them in pillowcases and drug them off like

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Speaker 2: a bag of kittens. No, not happen nineteen forty, not

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Speaker 2: that long ago.

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Speaker 3: They put them in pillow grown.

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Speaker 2: Drunk, grown people, drunk, naked and pillow cases and threw

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Speaker 2: them over their sacks like you know, like they're going

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Speaker 2: down to the river to get rid of kittens.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Pinocchio, I don't like this.

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Speaker 3: It's it's ridiculous, right, it's totally Do you know what

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Speaker 3: else is ridiculous?

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Speaker 2: Oh, I got it, I hope so plants.

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Speaker 3: Plants are ridiculously cool. This is ridiculous. Crime, a podcast

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Speaker 3: about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always

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Speaker 3: ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

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Speaker 3: You I'm right, that's right. Today Saren is gardening day

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Speaker 3: here at Ridiculous Crime.

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Speaker 4: Oh, Gardening's my escapism.

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Speaker 3: Yes, Like I'm outside, which I love.

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Speaker 4: That's true.

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Speaker 3: All that matters are the living things I'm assisting.

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Speaker 4: True.

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Speaker 3: I love the entire process and the cycle.

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Speaker 2: And the sun too.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, from like starting seeds, prepping beds, fertilizing, pruning, cultivation, blah.

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Speaker 4: Blah blah, all the stuff.

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Speaker 3: The rest of the world doesn't exist when I'm in

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Speaker 3: the gardens.

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Speaker 2: You got two green thumbs.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes I listen to music, do you. Most of the time,

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Speaker 3: I just listen to what's around me.

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Speaker 4: I what you grow, you eat what I grow.

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Speaker 3: I listen to birds, practicing the clarinet.

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Speaker 2: I used to like doing that as a housepanner, sitting

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Speaker 2: on the roof listening to birds.

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Speaker 3: Listen to birds. It's good stuff. That's how I stay

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Speaker 3: relatively sane, you know almost. I love gardening shows. Let's

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Speaker 3: just talk about me for a little bit. Let's do it.

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Speaker 2: You introduced me to monty Don.

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Speaker 3: That was to say, my dog is named after the

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Speaker 3: host of BBC Gardener's World, Monty Don Gardener's World, best

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Speaker 3: show ever show. It's like Xanax. It's pleasant, relaxing, happy.

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Speaker 3: If you have brit Box and you want to chill

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Speaker 3: out and be spoken to intelligently and quietly, just watch it.

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Speaker 3: Watch Gardener's World. But this is going to be a

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Speaker 3: mellow episode. I'm going to take the temperature down a

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Speaker 3: little bit. Yeah. I follow a bunch of gardening subreddits.

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Speaker 3: Of course you do, and that's where I'm going to

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Speaker 3: start today. Okay, so this is something I read about

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Speaker 3: on Reddit and then I experienced it for my interesting

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Speaker 3: There are indeed gardening crimes. I'm going to start off

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Speaker 3: with one that's more of a scandal, but I suppose

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Speaker 3: you could classify it as fraud.

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Speaker 4: Like stolen It is Peppergate.

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Speaker 3: Peppergate, So this Peppergate was the seed distribution scandal that

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Speaker 3: went down two years ago, twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 4: Seed distribution scandal.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, it's it's hard boiled.

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Speaker 4: Is so different than mine.

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Speaker 3: So it's so Pablo Escobar. It's like, yeah, it's edgy,

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Speaker 3: So that's summer twenty twenty three, gardeners, small agg producers,

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Speaker 3: they started reporting that their pepper plants weren't growing true

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Speaker 3: to type.

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Speaker 4: What does that mean?

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Speaker 3: So seed packets would be labeled as like specific varieties

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Speaker 3: like say sweet bell peppers or very specialized hot peppers,

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Speaker 3: and they were producing either the wrong type of pepper

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Speaker 3: or in some cases no fruit at all.

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Speaker 2: Oh, that's got to be frustrated. Its a while to

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Speaker 2: figure that out.

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Speaker 3: Right, exactly. So the issue started to gain traction on

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Speaker 3: gardening forums, like you know, it was in Reddit TikTok

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Speaker 3: where the name peppergate was coin and.

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Speaker 2: So I missed all of them.

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Speaker 3: I read about it, and then I lived at saren.

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Speaker 2: You lived it. It happened to you.

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Speaker 3: Well, I start my vegetable plants from seed, do you yes?

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Speaker 3: And I use small or heirloom seed suppliers, and I

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Speaker 3: stay away from stuff like Burpie or things at the

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Speaker 3: hardware store because I'm not like really specific.

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Speaker 2: For right, I'm gonna be really dumb. Is Burpie a brand?

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Speaker 3: Berpie's a brand that's like the Big Dog.

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Speaker 2: Garden, like a technique or what?

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Speaker 3: Now Burpie? Well, isn't that like a CrossFit thingye know?

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Speaker 3: I don't do that either, but like that's all I

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Speaker 3: knew it as I knew that's not what you meant.

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Speaker 3: I had some peppers that I started from seed in

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Speaker 3: January of twenty twenty three. Okay, Horno de toro, Italian

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Speaker 3: sweet peppers, zapptec, halapanos, that kind of thing. So I

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Speaker 3: was at home, deskpot right, and I'm picking up some dirt, okay,

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Speaker 3: and I saw peblano pepper seedlings from like a big

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Speaker 3: garden brand, and I was like, you know what, I

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Speaker 3: forgot to start poblanos from seed because if you drive.

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Speaker 2: Them Elizabeth internal dialogue.

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Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna grab

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Speaker 3: two of them and tuck them into my raised beds.

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Speaker 3: You know, No, it's the wiser. And they flourished and

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Speaker 3: then they started producing and producing, and honey, there were

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Speaker 3: no poblanos. What they were shashidos zaren Oh.

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Speaker 2: My gosh, ishetos like the face brush.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I occasionally enjoy some roasted shashitos, but not too bustling.

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Speaker 3: It's like a It's the thing about shashido peppers, is

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Speaker 3: it like one out of ten that you eat is hot.

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Speaker 3: It it's like a Russian roulette of pepper. Okay, otherwise

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Speaker 3: like a regular kind of sweet pepper.

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Speaker 2: This one's this one coolah yeah.

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Speaker 3: And so you you pick them, you roast them in

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Speaker 3: the oven, and then people have them like they'll dip

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Speaker 3: them and stuff. But it's like an appetizers roasted shios.

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Speaker 3: And then every now and then you get a YoY

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Speaker 3: this wild right, So you know I have all these sashidos, right,

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Speaker 3: I'd seen this happen in other people's and now it's happening.

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Speaker 4: In mind your garden.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So here's what went down. A large seed distributor,

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Speaker 3: a subcontractor for a lot of popular retail seed brands,

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Speaker 3: mislabeled pepper seed batches during packaging. So one of the

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Speaker 3: things this exposed is that most seed packet brands you

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Speaker 3: see are filled by pretty much the same company. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 3: and so a mistake at the top of the chain

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Speaker 3: trickled down to stores everywhere and numerous brands. Yes, there

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Speaker 3: are about four companies that control most of the small

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Speaker 3: seeds in the world. It's totally monopolized. So like small

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Speaker 3: businesses don't always have clear lines to the product origin

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Speaker 3: and seeds they're purchased through a broker working under a

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Speaker 3: larger broker or distributor, and then that's owned by even larger.

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Speaker 2: And this is also true for the airloms.

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Speaker 3: You're saying, yes, whoa, Well no, not for the airlooms,

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Speaker 3: for the small So like the I only had the

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Speaker 3: problem with the seedlings that I got at home.

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Speaker 4: Depot ah, so not the airline.

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Speaker 3: Like the ones I grew from seed from small places.

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Speaker 3: They knew exactly where it was coming from. So a

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Speaker 3: lot of the seed. Yeah, the seed packet companies, like

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Speaker 3: when you go into like say ACE Hardware, you have

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Speaker 3: like that whole rack and they like so they don't

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Speaker 3: divulge their sources.

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Speaker 4: You can't see on theirs from no Wow, and.

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Speaker 3: A lot of times you know, because they'll market themselves

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Speaker 3: as like old timey and organic ish and small, but

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Speaker 3: they're getting their seeds from like mon Santo.

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Speaker 4: Okay.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So the seed packet that you buy for ninety

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Speaker 3: nine cents at a dollar tree might have the exact

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Speaker 3: same seeds as those in a packet for four ninety

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Speaker 3: nine at ACE or six point fifty at a specialty store. Wow,

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Speaker 3: same supplier. So somewhere along the line, there was a

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Speaker 3: lack of quality control and the labeling and the sorting,

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Speaker 3: and there also could have been like cross contamination, but

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Speaker 3: it looks like it was just a mix up and

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Speaker 3: it was massive.

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Speaker 2: Sounds like it.

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Speaker 3: So sweet peppers were labeled as hot peppers vice versas.

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Speaker 3: It was chaos Zarin. The big thing was that a

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Speaker 3: lot of people bought more expensive rarer varieties and wound

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Speaker 3: up with like cheaper basic stuff like generic Hall of

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Speaker 3: Pans or banana.

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Speaker 4: Peppers fraud and then like it seemed.

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Speaker 3: Like a lot of people wound up with banana peppers.

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Speaker 4: Huh.

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Speaker 3: I know, some like me, they bought seedlings at a store.

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Speaker 3: Others started from seed and they didn't get what they wanted.

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Speaker 3: Reddit TikTok. Just chock full of people angry.

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Speaker 2: Oh I bet your people will drive them nuts.

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Speaker 3: So many This was not big Gardner's world energy. This

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Speaker 3: is angry. So all of these, like a bunch of

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Speaker 3: different major seed brands, they issued public statements, they offered

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Speaker 3: refunds or replacements, and there was talk about a class

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Speaker 3: action lawsuit based on breech of warranty. Yeah, because small

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Speaker 3: scale farmers they sell it like farmers markets and such,

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Speaker 3: or they supply the CISA boxes the community supported agriculture. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: you know you get stuff direct from a collective of

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Speaker 3: local farms.

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Speaker 2: I've done that. They dropped the food off and you don't.

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Speaker 3: Know what's going to be in there in season and

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Speaker 3: ripe amazing so CSAs and small farmers' markets. They were

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Speaker 3: out of a whole year's worth of peppers, you know,

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Speaker 3: And that's sad, like it blew like.

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Speaker 2: Also it's going to mess up a lot of stuff.

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Speaker 2: Not just sad, but I mean that's like it ruined.

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Speaker 3: It ruined their their whole business. You know, if you were, like,

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Speaker 3: you know, doing a lot of peppers.

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Speaker 2: And possibly the next year because how do you trust them?

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Speaker 4: Again?

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Speaker 3: Exactly exactly So what it did though, it started driving

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Speaker 3: business to small seed companies. That's good. Uh. And it

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Speaker 3: got people saving their own seeds from year to year

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Speaker 3: instead of buying new seed. Thearen It was a cautionary

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Speaker 3: tale I'm telling you about supply chain fragility, high steaks

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Speaker 3: for something so small. Serious speaking of small seed companies,

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Speaker 3: I have an even bigger scandal for you, please, the

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Speaker 3: Purple Galaxy tomato scandal.

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Speaker 2: What is that a tomato?

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Speaker 3: Yes? It all started when the twenty twenty four Baker

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Speaker 3: Creek seed catalog came out. I get the catalog.

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Speaker 4: I bet you they do.

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Speaker 3: I don't usually buy from Baker Creek because apparently they

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Speaker 3: had Clive and Bundy speak at some event once, and

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Speaker 3: their seeds aren't the best germinators. But I do love

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Speaker 3: their catalog.

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Speaker 2: Wait, the like BLM Cloud Bundy like steal the land

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Speaker 2: from the government.

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Speaker 3: Why is he talking to garden'? That's what a lot

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Speaker 3: of I guess they just.

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Speaker 2: Feed themselves because they're sovereign citizens.

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Speaker 3: I guess, so a lot of people don't order from

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Speaker 3: them because of that. But also they're just kind of

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Speaker 3: they get duds sometimes. But they have an amazing catalog.

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Speaker 4: It gives me ideas like pictures, why did you talk?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it comes in like December or January. It

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Speaker 3: has all the seeds for the years.

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Speaker 2: Now do they have like a J. Peterman catalog where

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Speaker 2: there's a character telling you about these seeds?

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Speaker 3: Almost really all not a character, but like there's the

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Speaker 3: descriptions are really fabulous. Some of them have incredible illustrations.

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Speaker 3: So but this is like, you get this catalog in

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Speaker 3: the dead of winter, you're dreaming of warm weather, being

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Speaker 3: out in the garden, it's garden porn.

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Speaker 4: I can see that.

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Speaker 3: So the twenty four Baker catalog, it had a stunning

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Speaker 3: ever model. Oh my god, the cover model. It was

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Speaker 3: the purple galaxy tomato. Is that the man alive? It

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00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:16,520
Speaker 3: was a liquor. Okay, this is a blackish purple tomato

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Speaker 3: with tiny pink dots on the outside and like a

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Speaker 3: deep violet fuchia inside. Whoa, yeah, that was the distinction

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Speaker 3: because most purple tomatoes they don't hold their color.

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Speaker 4: Inside the skin.

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Speaker 3: And so it was built so as the quote purplest

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Speaker 3: non GMO tomato ever, purple is GMO, being genetically modified organisms.

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Speaker 3: So this was either way you slice the tomatoes are.

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Speaker 3: It was a great looking to me. And they're also

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Speaker 3: supposed to be all these like health benefits because it's

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Speaker 3: like when you have a purple skin tomato, high antioxidants,

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Speaker 3: high anthi cyanin, so these compounds you know, reduce the

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Speaker 3: risk of cancer inflammation, and they're also good source of

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Speaker 3: vitamins and minerals.

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Speaker 4: Totally fature colors, people, that's right.

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Speaker 3: So there it is on the cover. Some people noticed

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Speaker 3: that it looked a whole lot like a GMO tomato

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Speaker 3: made by a company called Norfolk Healthy Produce and HP.

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Speaker 3: Now remember Baker Creek is like, we're no GMO, We're heirloom, We're.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, we draw pictures.

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Speaker 3: And HP is a UK company with American operations based

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Speaker 3: in Davis, California, my hometown. You see, Davis, my alma

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Speaker 3: mater from mir ag School. Some me would say it's

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Speaker 3: the best in the planet, and I should know, because

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Speaker 3: I have an English degree from it. I should know.

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Speaker 3: So they've always been on the cutting edge of crop innovation.

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Speaker 2: And the flavorsavor tomato.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's Cultivar VF one, aka the square tomato.

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Speaker 3: There's that one too, Yeah, came out of Davis. It

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Speaker 3: wasn't really a square, it was just less round and

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Speaker 3: it was to keep it from keep the tomatoes from

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Speaker 3: rolling off of conveyor belts. Also had thicker skins so

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Speaker 3: they'd pack in the boxes better wouldn't roll off the

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Speaker 3: top of a truck.

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Speaker 2: Very Japanese.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, fewer losses. So Davis, as you know from growing up,

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Speaker 3: there is smack dab in the middle of commercial tomato country.

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Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.

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Speaker 3: Yes, Trucks haul tons of the things from fields to

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Speaker 3: canneries each fall, and the square tomatoes. They were designed

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Speaker 3: for just that commercial use, not you know, around my birthday.

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Speaker 2: Every country road do you turn a corners just littered,

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Speaker 2: but tomatoes where the trucks have made a turn, and tomatoes.

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Speaker 3: Because they weren't using the square. The inventor of the

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Speaker 3: square tomato was this guy, Gordie Jack Hannah. He was

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00:14:34,040 --> 00:14:37,720
Speaker 3: an associate in the Agricultural Experiment Station and a professor

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00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:42,280
Speaker 3: in truck crops, which, like truck cps the greatest at Davis.

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Speaker 3: He was also a plant breeder with this private company

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Speaker 3: petto Seed in Woodland, Califun.

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Speaker 2: Okay shout out Woodland.

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Speaker 3: According to local lore on the Davis Wiki, yes, doctor

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Speaker 3: Hannah would quote stand in the fields, walk among the plants,

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Speaker 3: collecting random tomatoes, and then go and throw them ounta

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Speaker 3: into the road as a test. Captain rebred from the plants,

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Speaker 3: featuring tomatoes hardy enough to survive his test, eventually giving

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Speaker 3: us the hardy tomato that can withstand being picked by

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Speaker 3: machine and transported by truck.

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Speaker 4: And have flavor and have flavor.

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Speaker 3: So NHP based in Davis, they engineered a purple tomato

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Speaker 3: called the Purple Tomato, and that was just like the

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Speaker 3: one from Baker Creek only it was engineered with the

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Speaker 3: jenes from a snap dragonflower in order to achieve purple flesh.

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Speaker 3: So tomatoes they have about thirty five thousand genes, and

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Speaker 3: purple tomato has only two extras from a snapdragon, according

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Speaker 3: to NPR quote. When news of a non GMO purple

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Speaker 3: flesh tomato variety started circulating on social media last fall,

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Speaker 3: some scientists and tomato enthusiasts weren't so sure. I had

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Speaker 3: discussions with colleagues about it, and all of us just

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Speaker 3: looked at it and said, well, that's the GMO tomato,

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Speaker 3: says David Francis, a professor of horticulture and crop science

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Speaker 3: at the Ohio State Universe City who specializes in tomato

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Speaker 3: breeding and genetics. Traditional plant breeders to date have not

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00:16:05,560 --> 00:16:08,760
Speaker 3: been able to create a purple flesh tomato with cross pollination.

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Speaker 3: Purple skin, yes, purple flesh not so much. But using

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00:16:13,320 --> 00:16:18,040
Speaker 3: recombinant DNA technology, scientists in the United Kingdom had developed

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00:16:18,040 --> 00:16:21,720
Speaker 3: a purple flesh tomato high in antioxidants. It was recently

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00:16:21,760 --> 00:16:25,320
Speaker 3: approved for sale and consumption in the United States. So

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00:16:25,720 --> 00:16:28,160
Speaker 3: you can see where it has to be genetically modified

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Speaker 3: to get there exactly. Baker Creek says, we don't do GMO,

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Speaker 3: like they're aggressive about the sounds. NHP very much GMO.

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Speaker 3: So NHP sees the catalog, they get the catalog, they're like, hub,

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Speaker 3: but wait a second, it looks familiar.

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Speaker 4: I recognized that flesh they call foul.

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Speaker 3: So they got some of the seeds, tested them and

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00:16:47,680 --> 00:16:50,760
Speaker 3: found they were actually GMO. They were genetically modified.

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Speaker 4: But that's not hard to test, right.

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Speaker 3: Baker Creek immediately pulled the seeds from the catalog and

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Speaker 3: destroyed all the stock. Ooh yeah, And then they released

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Speaker 3: the statement on Facebook, because that's where if you're serious,

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Speaker 3: you put your seeds. Quote. After repeated testing, we are

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00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:09,359
Speaker 3: unable to conclusively establish that the Purple galaxy does not

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00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:13,879
Speaker 3: contain any genes that have been genetically modified. So they said, well,

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Speaker 3: we got our seeds from this really reputable traditional plant

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Speaker 3: breeder and per PR quote a hobby breeder in France,

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Speaker 3: where growing GMOs is banned. Yeah, they probably blame a

356
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Speaker 3: French guy.

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Speaker 2: Blame the French to blame the front.

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Speaker 3: The problem is that the purple tomato and the technology

359
00:17:29,400 --> 00:17:32,840
Speaker 3: used to breed it patented. So NHP was like, look,

360
00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:35,119
Speaker 3: just take the seeds off the market, but we do

361
00:17:35,200 --> 00:17:37,080
Speaker 3: want to know how did the seeds go from a

362
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Speaker 3: UK lab to some guy in France corporate espionage. So

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Speaker 3: NHP was like, look, GMOs low risk in you know,

364
00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:53,960
Speaker 3: terms of spreading and damaging biodiversity. When it comes to tomatoes, yes,

365
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Speaker 3: I mean they're just like, you know, there's they're just

366
00:17:56,320 --> 00:17:59,320
Speaker 3: trying to explain that, Look, these aren't poisonous tomatoes, gotcha.

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00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:03,840
Speaker 3: And so there were threats of lawsuits, threats of investigations,

368
00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:07,080
Speaker 3: and it kind of stalled out. Those are two plant

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00:18:07,119 --> 00:18:10,040
Speaker 3: scandals to get us warmed up today, Like next up,

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Speaker 3: serious crime. Okay, let's break for some ads and when

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Speaker 3: we get back we'll experience the smugglers.

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Speaker 6: Blues Zaren Elizabeth, Welcome.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I was thinking about Davis and tomatoes right

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Speaker 2: back to the summer that was wild on.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to my garden. The big dog of plant crimes

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Speaker 3: is smuggling. And there are a lot of reasons why

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00:18:51,680 --> 00:18:52,520
Speaker 3: it's illegal.

378
00:18:52,760 --> 00:18:53,200
Speaker 4: Smuggling.

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00:18:53,320 --> 00:18:56,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, because like well smuggling plants. So you know, if

380
00:18:56,800 --> 00:19:01,920
Speaker 3: you take plants from like really fragile ecosystems, disrupting natural processes,

381
00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:06,040
Speaker 3: you you get habitat loss for other species. Uh, you know,

382
00:19:06,040 --> 00:19:09,280
Speaker 3: there's like the over collection of rare and endangered plant

383
00:19:09,320 --> 00:19:15,040
Speaker 3: species that can push them to extinction, reducing biodiversity. If

384
00:19:15,040 --> 00:19:17,600
Speaker 3: you smuggle a plant zarin, there could be pests and

385
00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:24,000
Speaker 3: disease in it. Oh yes, yes, harming native plants, animals, whatever.

386
00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:28,399
Speaker 3: Some smuggled plants pose a health risk to animals humans.

387
00:19:28,440 --> 00:19:30,359
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because if they're the wrong environment, they're like,

388
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:31,680
Speaker 2: we have no natural defenses.

389
00:19:32,119 --> 00:19:34,320
Speaker 3: People like this is a beautiful flower and they smell

390
00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:38,639
Speaker 3: it and they die because they don't know what it is,

391
00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:46,199
Speaker 3: because someone smuggled it somewhere. Anyway. So the plant trade

392
00:19:46,280 --> 00:19:50,680
Speaker 3: is often also linked to organized criminal networks, and that

393
00:19:51,280 --> 00:19:53,840
Speaker 3: is an episode of law and order organized crime. Then

394
00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:57,440
Speaker 3: I want to see, let me give you some example cases,

395
00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:00,840
Speaker 3: and you and I we can pretend that Elliott's Chris

396
00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:04,440
Speaker 3: Maloney detective Juicy Booty is the one investigating all these

397
00:20:04,560 --> 00:20:08,640
Speaker 3: all right, So, succulents and cacti very popular these days.

398
00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:12,320
Speaker 2: Seculents and cacti, Yes, I like them personally because they're

399
00:20:12,359 --> 00:20:13,120
Speaker 2: hard to kill.

400
00:20:13,280 --> 00:20:13,840
Speaker 3: That is true.

401
00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:15,239
Speaker 2: And then you don't have to water them for like

402
00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:17,919
Speaker 2: a week, sometimes two weeks. I can go on to vacation,

403
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:19,520
Speaker 2: come back, and like, oh I should have thought about

404
00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:20,320
Speaker 2: my plants.

405
00:20:20,119 --> 00:20:22,880
Speaker 3: And living in California, we can just leave them outside

406
00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:25,160
Speaker 3: all the time where it's like another climate. They got

407
00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:25,760
Speaker 3: to bring them in.

408
00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:28,080
Speaker 2: Go back, and what zone are we in? I just

409
00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:29,600
Speaker 2: learned that we have zones.

410
00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:30,400
Speaker 3: Of plants can be here.

411
00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:33,520
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Okay, I'm going to keep that for parties.

412
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:36,280
Speaker 3: Don't quote me on that, because you know my brain

413
00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:43,680
Speaker 3: is Anyway. A very popular and highly coveted succulent these

414
00:20:43,800 --> 00:20:47,840
Speaker 3: days is the living rock cactus living cool. It is

415
00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:49,160
Speaker 3: close cousin to peyote.

416
00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:50,480
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, does that.

417
00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:51,320
Speaker 2: Have any properties?

418
00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:51,680
Speaker 7: No?

419
00:20:51,760 --> 00:20:54,040
Speaker 3: People love them because there are no thorns, and they're

420
00:20:54,119 --> 00:20:57,760
Speaker 3: very plush. They're tiny, they're not tall, and the only

421
00:20:57,800 --> 00:21:00,320
Speaker 3: place that it's found is in the Big Bend region

422
00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:01,720
Speaker 3: of the Chihuahuan Desert.

423
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:03,360
Speaker 4: Oh dope, hardy plant.

424
00:21:03,480 --> 00:21:05,919
Speaker 3: It kind of looks like grogu hands. Nice, that's what

425
00:21:05,960 --> 00:21:08,880
Speaker 3: they look like. They aren't endangered, but they are protected

426
00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:11,600
Speaker 3: and they're only found in this very small area and

427
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:13,399
Speaker 3: they take decades to mature.

428
00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:15,400
Speaker 2: If it's not that, then it's a sparkling succulent.

429
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:19,680
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, it's a it's a sparkling rock living rock.

430
00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:23,439
Speaker 3: So back in twenty twelve, US Fish and Wildlife they

431
00:21:23,480 --> 00:21:26,800
Speaker 3: got a tip there was smuggling going on in Texas

432
00:21:27,359 --> 00:21:32,560
Speaker 3: moving living rock cacti, thousands of them. Yeah, so smugglers

433
00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:36,840
Speaker 3: were offering these rare plants online to customers in Asia Europe.

434
00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and they.

435
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:40,880
Speaker 3: Would falsify custom slips to say the plants for something else.

436
00:21:41,400 --> 00:21:44,760
Speaker 3: And this, my friend, is a violation of the Lacy

437
00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:48,800
Speaker 3: Act of nineteen hundred. Okay, okay, so this is that

438
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:51,520
Speaker 3: was the first federal law in the United States to

439
00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:57,400
Speaker 3: address wildlife conservation. Yeah right, thank you Lacey and Cagny.

440
00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:03,920
Speaker 3: It originally went into effect that so you can't eat

441
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:08,080
Speaker 3: things that are made from the part of it. They

442
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:11,119
Speaker 3: go hand in hand. Did you ever told you I

443
00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:15,680
Speaker 3: saw Tyne Daily in person? You have? She's across the

444
00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:16,199
Speaker 3: street from me.

445
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:17,760
Speaker 4: Apparently was really memorable for you.

446
00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:22,800
Speaker 3: Really was. That's like my one celebrity sighting. No, I

447
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:26,879
Speaker 3: didn't even get to Tyne Daily. There she is across Okay.

448
00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:31,560
Speaker 3: So the LASIAC goes into effect to stop illegal commercial

449
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:35,400
Speaker 3: hunting and interstate shipment of wildlife, and it currently prohibits

450
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:40,359
Speaker 3: trade in wildlife, fish, and plants that have been illegally taken, possessed, transported,

451
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:43,920
Speaker 3: or sold. So what's crazy about this is that it

452
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:47,200
Speaker 3: applies to both US and foreign laws. So if a

453
00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:50,600
Speaker 3: plant or animal is taken illegally under another country's law

454
00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:54,840
Speaker 3: and imported to the US, it's still illegal under the late. Yeah,

455
00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 3: and it requires the declaration of plant and timber species

456
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 3: and country of origin when inward certain products. So Fish

457
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:04,879
Speaker 3: and Wildlife they take this seriously as well. They should.

458
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like it's like one of their major

459
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:07,120
Speaker 2: things to do.

460
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:10,920
Speaker 3: The director of their Southwest region amy looters, she said

461
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:15,160
Speaker 3: in a statement. Quote. Those who came before US knew

462
00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:18,920
Speaker 3: the importance of protecting wildlife from unlawful trade. And this

463
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:22,879
Speaker 3: law continues to stay relevant each time a poacher or

464
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 3: wild plants smuggler is charged. So booms erin, Yeah, this

465
00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:29,199
Speaker 3: is the laws to kill the law. So Fish and

466
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 3: Wildlife they got search warrants for six different houses, all

467
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,239
Speaker 3: in West Texas. We don't know how many plants were

468
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 3: smuggled in total, but authorities seized around four thousand in

469
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:39,359
Speaker 3: the raids.

470
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:40,159
Speaker 5: YEA.

471
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 3: One of the plants that they seized was like thirty

472
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:43,640
Speaker 3: years old.

473
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:46,080
Speaker 2: And they're taking them one and at a time in it, right.

474
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 3: No, they're going out in the desert and scooping them

475
00:23:48,119 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 3: up and throwing them into a bag.

476
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:50,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they have to pick each one. They're not

477
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 2: like just taking up like a big section of earth.

478
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:54,560
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, one by what. Some of the plants

479
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:56,639
Speaker 3: were just like stored in plastic bags, so they had

480
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:58,960
Speaker 3: started to rot. Oh gosh, this was not cool, dude,

481
00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 3: Come on, Don would never do that. Oh, Don would faint.

482
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,720
Speaker 3: The surviving seas cacti they were turned over to soul

483
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 3: Ross State University. They have preserved a large number on campus,

484
00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:15,960
Speaker 3: but they also found like permanent homes home. They couldn't

485
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:18,400
Speaker 3: really return most of them to the wild because they

486
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 3: didn't know what subpopulation they were from.

487
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:21,480
Speaker 4: Anyone interrupt.

488
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 3: I mean it's like if you get taken from like

489
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 3: East Oakland and then planted back in West Oakland.

490
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 4: That ain't right. No, you don't know.

491
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 3: You can't just go stick them anywhere. So the big

492
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,120
Speaker 3: dog in the ring that was Harry George Bach the second.

493
00:24:38,080 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 4: Not Harry George Box. Second, Harry Box.

494
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:44,959
Speaker 3: He shipped forty one living rock cactuses that were seized

495
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 3: in an international mail facility in Chicago.

496
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 2: It was like a doctor se Harry box Rock.

497
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:55,439
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bock was shipping rock twenty eighteen in Chicago. In

498
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, he pleaded guilty before a magistrate in Pecos, Texas,

499
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:02,960
Speaker 3: to one count of mislabeling exports in the scheme to

500
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,480
Speaker 3: ship cactuses overseas. As part of a plea agreement. He

501
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 3: faced three years probation, seventy two hundred dollars in restitution,

502
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 3: and he had to forfeit the forty one living rock cactuses,

503
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:14,920
Speaker 3: but no.

504
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 2: Time behind bars. So they threw the plant catalog out.

505
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 3: They busted another dude he got he got like three

506
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 3: years probation, had to pay more than ten grand in restitution.

507
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:27,640
Speaker 3: There's a seventy two year old fell out a study

508
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:31,199
Speaker 3: Butte Texas. Yeah, he got misdemeanor charges going back to

509
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen probation. So that all these guys they get probation.

510
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:39,360
Speaker 3: One dude he got felony, three years probation and sixty

511
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 3: grand in restitution.

512
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:41,200
Speaker 4: Should you imagine.

513
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 2: Losing your voting rights because you were like running hot plants?

514
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:47,679
Speaker 3: Oh that how you go in like you go inside. No,

515
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 3: they're lucky. They didn't go behind bars. What are you

516
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 3: in caractice smuggling? It looked like grogu hand.

517
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 2: Did you say plump smuggling? No, cactus smuggling.

518
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 3: Guy, he had, he got He was busted on the charges,

519
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 3: but he also had to forfeit his firearms.

520
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 4: They seized his colonies.

521
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:05,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, they're like, I know you're a You're a

522
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 3: plant smugg and a gun owner. Can't have the guns now, sir.

523
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,159
Speaker 3: Here are some wise words from US Attorney John Bash

524
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 3: on the matter. Quote, when you miss with protected Texas cacta,

525
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 3: you're missing with Texas Pako's building.

526
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 4: No other way.

527
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:24,439
Speaker 3: So these bad own rays, though, right, they have nothing

528
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 3: on the world's most notorious succulent thief, South Korean national

529
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:30,400
Speaker 3: jongsu Kim.

530
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, this sounds familiar.

531
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 3: Let's talk dude. Leah, okay, hey, let's talk about it.

532
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 3: Commonly known as live forevers, okay, I think so. These

533
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 3: are a type of rosette forming succulent plants that are

534
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 3: in the stone crop family super Desirable. They're native to

535
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 3: California and northern Baja California forty seven species, twenty one subspecies.

536
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:58,840
Speaker 3: As a very popular, very trendy, very like Pinterest, insta esthetic.

537
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 2: Grin, I got you like an airplane, Like people want

538
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:02,160
Speaker 2: these things because they're the thing.

539
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 3: Yes, And it's dawning on me that I think you

540
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,240
Speaker 3: probably heard about it from another place that I heard

541
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 3: about it. Yes, we have a mutual friend. Yes, Kip,

542
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 3: yesse in the California Native Plant Society, and he will

543
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 3: go on a diatribe about it. Oh, totally.

544
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:18,400
Speaker 2: I think he helped some of the detective.

545
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 3: I think he went under cover as a rock.

546
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:25,919
Speaker 2: They cling to the coastline right to get the area.

547
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like if you get Kip started.

548
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 2: About this, oh, he turned red.

549
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:31,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just like this is really upsetting.

550
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 2: You think he was talking about like like orphans, you know,

551
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 2: like children in.

552
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 3: My word, talking about Dudleia.

553
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 2: Yeah.

554
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,960
Speaker 3: Yes, they're a California game warden. He told the USC

555
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 3: Paper quote, it's like having a Fendi bag on rodeo

556
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 3: drive Dulia Farinosa from the wild bluffs of Mendocino, California.

557
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 3: Especially a five headed one is apparently a super cool

558
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 3: thing to have. And I was like, I didn't get

559
00:27:57,640 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 3: the game warden's name, but I wanted to know if

560
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 3: it was Kip. So many of the plants traffic to

561
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 3: South Korea probably ended up being resold elsewhere.

562
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 2: And they sold for a lot. Right, they're really desirable

563
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 2: and because they grow and they look really beautiful when

564
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 2: they sit there.

565
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 3: But right, and so you know these things start getting

566
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 3: popular California Fish and Wildlife, they're like, oh I noticed that.

567
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 3: As they're going through their Pinterest, they're like, that's that's

568
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:23,440
Speaker 3: not a houseplant. But so the truth is that the

569
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 3: hipsters in South Korea, they weren't the ones buying up

570
00:28:25,840 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 3: the plants because like, these plants don't do well in

571
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 3: domestic captivity for the average. So the one that was

572
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 3: both sought after that Pharaonsa. It's, according to The Guardian,

573
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 3: is quote particularly charismatic to humans. Experts say they boast

574
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 3: the precise mix of qualities that Americans demand from crime victims.

575
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 3: They are pretty and small, very fragile and yet curiously resilient.

576
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:53,360
Speaker 2: That's what we demand from crime.

577
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 4: I guess I know.

578
00:28:55,080 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 3: That about that. Yeah, like make them pretty and small. Anyway,

579
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 3: so that's not going to make you a lot of

580
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 3: money with mass consumers. Something that's you know, not going

581
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 3: to live very long. So once well, no, because they

582
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 3: smuggle them to South Korea because there are these high

583
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 3: end greenhouses there and the wild Dudley. It could then

584
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 3: be babied there for a few years in perfect conditions,

585
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 3: and then they're big and beautiful. They're not small and

586
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 3: gragule anymore. They're big and beautiful. These are big mamas,

587
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 3: and they get sold at these astronomical prices to like

588
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 3: elite collectors.

589
00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 2: When he told me, I couldn't believe.

590
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, So how does mister Kim factor intoll? Well, first

591
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 3: of all, I need to let you know that his

592
00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 3: alias was Neo, like like in the Matrix. I love

593
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 3: that movie. But being called Neo while stealing plants is

594
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 3: like big loser. No, I'm not going to He's like

595
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 3: spinning around in a trench stopped.

596
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 2: Stop, bend over, bullet time, stop it throw the plant

597
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 2: at me.

598
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 3: Watch this, mister Kim call me Neo. No. Neo flew

599
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 3: from Mexico into Los Angeles International Airport in October twenty eighteen,

600
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 3: and with them were his two assistants, Young and Back

601
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 3: and Bong Junkin. And they thought they were like slipping in,

602
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:22,000
Speaker 3: but California fish and wildlife were all over them the

603
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 3: moment they set foot watch well. Yeah, so game wardens

604
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 3: tailed the trio. They watched as they went and rented

605
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:32,040
Speaker 3: a minivan, and then they filled up the van with

606
00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 3: like empty backpacks and plastic bins and boxes. They got

607
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 3: all their supplies.

608
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 2: Picturing the game wardens in like a rental car, but

609
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 2: they've got like dirty boots.

610
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 3: In there, like like a tan jeep totally but with

611
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 3: like false nose and glasses on it. So then they

612
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 3: trailed the minivan up as they drive up the coast.

613
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 3: And for a week, the wardens watched and followed as

614
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 3: the guys stopped at state parks all along the northern

615
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 3: California and in each stop they like scramble up to

616
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 3: the rocky shore. Sometimes cliffs snatch up the plants and

617
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:04,120
Speaker 3: like you know how the coast is up there in Mendocine,

618
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 3: Like you said.

619
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 4: It's just like sheer.

620
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 2: They got lucky.

621
00:31:07,080 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 3: It's not sandy flat cliffs craggy and it is dramatic.

622
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 2: Yeah you're hanging.

623
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the three dudes they filled the van chok full,

624
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 3: took the loop van filled the van, took it back

625
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 3: down south to a business called Secret Garden Nursery in Vista, California,

626
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 3: it's kind of halfway between like La and San Diego,

627
00:31:27,920 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 3: so inland from ocean side. And I say that to

628
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 3: those who know the state, and I apologize to the

629
00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 3: rest when who this means absolutely nothing? And yeah, but

630
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,840
Speaker 3: like the inland from ocean side. No, yeah, anyway, so Vista,

631
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 3: California's secret garden nursery. So they drop off the stolen plants,

632
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 3: they get back in the minivan and then they go

633
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 3: up to Mendocino again. They're like Tomndo, another load. And

634
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 3: so you know who was with them, game wardens with

635
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:55,959
Speaker 3: the state watching.

636
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:57,440
Speaker 2: They're in the car.

637
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 3: They're like cleaning to the underside. So they waited and

638
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 3: they watched as Neo hooked up documents to have the

639
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 3: secret garden nursery legally export two hundred and fifty nine

640
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 3: pounds of julio and the manifest said all the plants

641
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 3: had originated in San Diego. And then the wardens watched

642
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 3: while Neo and the crew took scores of boxes of

643
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 3: plants to an export facility in Compton, and then they struck.

644
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 4: Finally, Neo and the boys.

645
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 3: Were driving off when they were intercepted by the plant police. Oh,

646
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 3: they did like a pit move on it totally. And

647
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,120
Speaker 3: it turns out the boxes held more than six hundred

648
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 3: pounds of succulents, three seven hundred and fifteen individual plants.

649
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 4: These are not heavy plants. That's a lot, all of them.

650
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 3: It's like maybe the size of your fists. Yeah, all

651
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:47,239
Speaker 3: of them. More than double what the documentation closed. So,

652
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 3: folks from the California Native Plant Society like people stoked

653
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 3: and so Neo and his little goons, they were charged

654
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 3: with conspiracy and violating a California law against destruction or

655
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 3: removal of plant material on public land. And the wardens

656
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 3: estimated that the total for all of this that they

657
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 3: stole on the South Korean market was six hundred thousand dollars. WHOA, yeah,

658
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 3: So those were state charges. The Feds, specifically the US

659
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 3: Attorney's Environmental Crimes Unit, they wanted in on it too.

660
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 3: They wanted to make an example of these dudes. Whether

661
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 3: that department exists in the US Attorney's office today, who's

662
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 3: to say either way. Neo and the boys they caught

663
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 3: federal charges too. It's like they say, you know, as

664
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 3: California goes, so goes the nation. So May of twenty nineteen,

665
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 3: Kim Neo found out that the Feds were going to

666
00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 3: bring the hammer down, so he ran.

667
00:33:41,520 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 4: Fact.

668
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, well no, they had confiscated his passport when he

669
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 3: got busted, Well, he got busted on the California state charges.

670
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 3: He gets around it by going to the South Korean

671
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 3: Embassy in La and he's like, guys, I lost my passport,

672
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 3: which I mean, technically is not wrong.

673
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 4: So they issued him.

674
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 3: A new one and then he went down Mexico Way.

675
00:33:59,920 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 3: He crossed over to TJ's on Foot Tijuana and from

676
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 3: there he flew to China and from there South Korea.

677
00:34:07,120 --> 00:34:10,320
Speaker 3: So he's in the wind until he wasn't. After only

678
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:11,919
Speaker 3: five months, he popped up again.

679
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:13,720
Speaker 4: He couldn't stay away the first time.

680
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:16,839
Speaker 3: In South Africa. What And it was there that South

681
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 3: African investigators busted him as he was illegally harvesting more

682
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 3: than two thousand rare succulents. South African climate is very similar.

683
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:26,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just what I say. Yeah, imagine that they

684
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:28,319
Speaker 2: would have like he's like, okay, I'll go to my

685
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:30,280
Speaker 2: secondary spot the harvesting.

686
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:32,759
Speaker 3: One of the ones that he poached was more than

687
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,880
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty years old, were and like dozens

688
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 3: of them are more than one hundred years old, like tortoises.

689
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 3: Uh huh. So the prosecutor on the case gets a

690
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:44,880
Speaker 3: phone call ring Ring Hello, michel A, I guess what.

691
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,319
Speaker 3: I'm an American Fish and Wildlife officer. I work at

692
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 3: the embassy as an attache. It's a cool job, and

693
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 3: I have crazy news. Your plant smuggler is wanted back

694
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 3: in the US of A. So the South Africans they

695
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 3: were already like heated up about Neo and according to

696
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 3: the Guardian, they quote highlighted the severity and brutality of

697
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 3: Kim's crime against nature and how stealing quote large ancient

698
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:10,080
Speaker 3: mother plants puts the entire species at risk, especially during

699
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 3: times of serious drought. The collection of these plants is

700
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 3: an ecological tragedy, they wrote. They were They're totally right.

701
00:35:18,360 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 3: So Kim pleads guilty to the South African charges, pays

702
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:25,720
Speaker 3: a large fine, does a year in prison there, then

703
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 3: gets extradited to the US. US prosecutors they asked for

704
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 3: three years in prison. They're like, we want to make

705
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 3: an example of him. Neo's attorney it was like, slow down, Joe.

706
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:41,520
Speaker 3: His client had been through the ringer. So yeah, he

707
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 3: got COVID in prison, he got the stuff and beaten

708
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:48,919
Speaker 3: out of him. It was so bad that his jaw

709
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:50,919
Speaker 3: had to be wired shut, which is how he showed

710
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 3: up in court and the attorney was like, you know,

711
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 3: this is what happens when you were locked up and

712
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 3: you don't speak the language. I think it's because he

713
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 3: went in there and was like, call me neo. They're

714
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 3: just like yeah, either way. He gets sentenced to two years.

715
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,320
Speaker 3: Bureau of Prisons gave him credit for South African time served,

716
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 3: and then he gets shipped off again, just like the

717
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 3: plants he stole, this time to the tippy top of

718
00:36:14,560 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 3: California in none other than your favorite place, the Lamb.

719
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 3: That time forgot Crescent City.

720
00:36:19,480 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 2: Oh god.

721
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 3: He had to face the music on the plant theft

722
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:28,600
Speaker 3: and fleeing prosecution charges from the state. So twenty twenty

723
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:31,480
Speaker 3: two he pleads guilty, sentenced to twenty four months. He

724
00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:34,319
Speaker 3: only had to pay like four grand in restitution to

725
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 3: the state of California for expenses related to replanting the

726
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 3: stolen plants after his arrest. So let's take a break.

727
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:44,839
Speaker 3: I gotta go water my plants. When we come back.

728
00:36:45,120 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 7: More smuggling, yeah, Zaren Elizabeth Daren.

729
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:09,840
Speaker 3: Do you remember what.

730
00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 2: I was saying during the break. I've been like translating

731
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:13,400
Speaker 2: what you were telling me because I think this is

732
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 2: a new world to me. So I'm like, let me

733
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 2: put this in smoking the bandit terms, and so I've

734
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 2: been using that as like a way to understand. I'm like,

735
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 2: you can't take cours east of the Mississippi. That's bootlegs.

736
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 3: There it is.

737
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 2: I'm like, now I guess it's clicking.

738
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:25,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, Well, do you remember when I was like

739
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 3: telling you about the Lacey Act time? It was a

740
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 3: good time. We were so young, so fresh, different times. Well,

741
00:37:35,280 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 3: I have what is supposed to be a perfect example

742
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 3: of a Lacy Act violation and battle with the government. Please,

743
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 3: and it involves Gibbson guitars.

744
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:45,399
Speaker 4: Do they grow those?

745
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 3: Yeah? So they're famous for the Les Paul the SG

746
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 3: Gibson Guitar Corporation. They mainly make guitars and basses, Mandolins. Yeah,

747
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:59,760
Speaker 3: Orville Gibson. He started making instrum Gibson eighteen four wow,

748
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 3: And the company was founded in nineteen oh two. As

749
00:38:02,280 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 3: like Gibson Mandolin guitar, Kalamazoom Michigan and as you can

750
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 3: tell by the name. They were very mandolin forward in

751
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 3: the early days. So the company they invented arch top

752
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:18,400
Speaker 3: guitars that had the same principle behind violins, like how

753
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:21,839
Speaker 3: they're kind of that arch face of it. Then they

754
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 3: started making flat top acoustic guitars, and then the first

755
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 3: commercially available hollow body electric guitars all Jangle Jangled soneteen forty.

756
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:37,320
Speaker 3: It's true they do chief dobras. In the nineteen forty

757
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:41,799
Speaker 3: four Gibson got bought by Chicago Musical Instruments, and then

758
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 3: they got bought nineteen sixty nine by Ecuadorian Company Limited,

759
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 3: which was actually a Cannanian firm. Eighty six nineteen eighty six,

760
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:53,239
Speaker 3: the company got scooped up by a group led by

761
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 3: Henry Yuskovic and David Barman, and then in November of

762
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, private equity stepped in and it was bought

763
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 3: by Colberg, Kravitz Roberts.

764
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 2: Sorry, Gibson, it really is.

765
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 3: Throughout its history, Gibson has been involved in a lot

766
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 3: of lawsuits, almost all of which stem from copyright stuff

767
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 3: for design, because people rip off the less Paul design the.

768
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 2: Way, Yeah, because you see the knockoffs. I had friends

769
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 2: when we were They.

770
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 3: Have their own down market version of the epiphone.

771
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but.

772
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 3: Tons of them. But there's another legal issue, and this

773
00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:34,919
Speaker 3: one popped up during the Uskowitz.

774
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:36,920
Speaker 2: Barrim in years towards the end.

775
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, in two thousand and nine, US Fish and Wildlife

776
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 3: Services are heroes today. They raided a Gibson factory where

777
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:49,360
Speaker 3: they grow It seems they were using ebony wood illegally

778
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:53,840
Speaker 3: imported from Madagascar. Oh, this is a big problem. Madagascar

779
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 3: suffers terrible poverty, corrupt government, and the world suffers from

780
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 3: a terrible desire for beautiful at a low cost. And

781
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 3: they've got a lot of them, and they got a

782
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,919
Speaker 3: lot of and one of them is fine green lumber. Yeah,

783
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:09,960
Speaker 3: so stuff like rosewood, ebony, stuff that makes Gibson guitars

784
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:14,279
Speaker 3: so gorgeous. So in its investigation, the US Department of

785
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,360
Speaker 3: Justice found some smoking guns. They got their hands on

786
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 3: emails in which Gibson employees talked about how ebeny wood

787
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,359
Speaker 3: was part of a quote gray market and that they

788
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 3: could get it from a German wood dealer and just

789
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:28,520
Speaker 3: not ask questions about where he got it, and even

790
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 3: though they knew that it was coming from a supplier truck. Yeah,

791
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,359
Speaker 3: so they made plans to buy the wood even though

792
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 3: they knew the sale wasn't on the up and up

793
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 3: violation of the Laciact. In June of twenty eleven, the

794
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:43,359
Speaker 3: DOJ filed a civil proceeding and it was the first

795
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 3: of its kind under the recently amended Lacy Act. So

796
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 3: importing companies had to follow the environmental laws in the

797
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 3: country of origin, even if the place was corrupt and

798
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:54,160
Speaker 3: no one was enforcing those laws.

799
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 4: Okay, so that me and mar Yeah ma a gascar.

800
00:40:57,719 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 3: So Gibson fought the suit. They said that the government

801
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:05,720
Speaker 3: was quote bullying Gibson without filing charges. Then the owners

802
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:08,680
Speaker 3: of Gibson made the whole thing political by getting the

803
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:12,200
Speaker 3: Tea party segment of the GOP the Republicans, to side

804
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 3: against the government on this, saying that it was going

805
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:15,760
Speaker 3: to impact jobs.

806
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 4: What.

807
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:21,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, So then there was another Gibson factory. Rate zaren

808
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 3: close your eyes. I want you to picture it. You

809
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:35,399
Speaker 3: are a nineteen year old guy named Colby. You are

810
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 3: forklift certified, and you work at the Gibson Electric Division

811
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 3: rough Mill facility in Nashville, Tennessee. When you tell people

812
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:45,879
Speaker 3: where you work, they think it's the coolest job ever,

813
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 3: and it sort of is. But you aren't surrounded by

814
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,759
Speaker 3: cool guitars all day. You move palettes of wood to

815
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:55,440
Speaker 3: and from the kilns. You don't ever really see guitars,

816
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 3: and certainly no rock stars or anything. You got this

817
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:01,879
Speaker 3: job through your cousin who works repair and restoration next door.

818
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:05,400
Speaker 3: Now she gets to see a cool stuff. She processes

819
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 3: all the guitars that come in and sometimes meets some

820
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:11,239
Speaker 3: musicians come to check the place out. But you you're

821
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 3: in the mill. It's a warm late summer day. More

822
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 3: than warm, it's sweltering. This is when it's pretty bogus

823
00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:20,840
Speaker 3: working in the rough mill. You are at the wheel

824
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 3: of a forklift, backing out of the storage area of

825
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 3: the warehouse with a palletful of raw rosewood, headed for

826
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 3: the kiln to be dried. After that it'll be plain

827
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 3: and then headed to the manufacturing building. And that's where

828
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 3: the magic happens. Baby, You've spent the morning moving bundles

829
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 3: of Indian ebony wood. The manifest ticket on these reads

830
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,520
Speaker 3: Indian ebony fingerboards, but there's another slip of paper that

831
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 3: says they're veneers for the body of guitars. You know

832
00:42:47,640 --> 00:42:50,399
Speaker 3: that's not true, but whatever must be a paperwork mix up.

833
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 3: Just as you're moving your load of new rosewood toward

834
00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 3: the kiln, the warehouse doors open to get some sort

835
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 3: of air circulation, are crowded with guys in mid breakers.

836
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 3: They look like FBI guys, but their jackets read us

837
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:07,239
Speaker 3: Fish and Wildlife. You've heard something about this before. But

838
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:09,279
Speaker 3: the building was rated a few years ago and the

839
00:43:09,280 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 3: FEDS were looking for wood from Madagascar. But this stuff's

840
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 3: from India. You don't know what the big deal is.

841
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 3: Over the crackle of their walkie talkies, an agent yells

842
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 3: at you to turn off the forklift and step aside.

843
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 3: You do as you're told. There's a slam of an

844
00:43:22,640 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 3: office door. You know what that means. It's Eugene. Eugene Nix.

845
00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 3: He's in charge of all the wood that comes in.

846
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 3: He inspects it and then okays it for the killed.

847
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:34,799
Speaker 3: Then he sends it for milling and then off to

848
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:38,920
Speaker 3: the factory. He's pissed. He marches up to the agents,

849
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:42,760
Speaker 3: a tiny radio playing classic rock in the background. Yeah, brother,

850
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:46,399
Speaker 3: you tell him you think Eugene grabs some papers from

851
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 3: the hand of the agent out front. It's a warrant.

852
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 3: The agent tells him, I can see that. Eugene says, listen.

853
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 3: The agent says, I know you're a craftsman, an expert,

854
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:58,800
Speaker 3: but we have to do our jobs here. Eugene scans

855
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:01,200
Speaker 3: the papers as agents fan out and shut the rest

856
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:04,840
Speaker 3: of the operation down. Your coworkers slowly emerge and gather

857
00:44:04,960 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 3: around watching the standoff. Eugene size folds up the warrant paperwork,

858
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 3: tucks it into the front pocket of his thin, worn,

859
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 3: short sleeve button down shirt, and then whips his cell

860
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:18,440
Speaker 3: phone from his belt holster. He pushes some buttons and weights.

861
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 3: After a moment, he barks, feds are here. It's the

862
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 3: Indian Wood. Yeah, call the lawyers into the phone and

863
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:28,279
Speaker 3: hangs up. You and your coworkers look at each other,

864
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 3: then at Eugene. He looks at all of you and

865
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:32,360
Speaker 3: tells you it looks like you have the rest of

866
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 3: the day off. You'll get paid out for the hours,

867
00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:37,560
Speaker 3: head on home and he'll see you tomorrow. And this

868
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:40,800
Speaker 3: Zarin was the raid that ground everything to a halt.

869
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:44,920
Speaker 3: So they hit a bunch of locations, including headquarters where

870
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 3: they seize computers, oh and fish and wildlife found that

871
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 3: Gibson had been importing lumber from India, which is fine, sure,

872
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:54,359
Speaker 3: but what they were importing wasn't legal because here's the thing.

873
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 3: The International Tariff Code, also known as the Harmonized Schedule

874
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 3: GRISS items shipped all over the globe and it's standardized

875
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 3: across nations in order to smooth out trade, true globalization.

876
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:12,439
Speaker 3: So India forbids export of items categorized under the Code

877
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 3: forty four oh seven quote wood sawn or chipped, lengthwise,

878
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:21,759
Speaker 3: sliced or peeled, whether or not planed, sanded or enjointed,

879
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 3: of a thickness exceeding six millimeters. So basically, you can't

880
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 3: export lumber from India unless it's already been worked on

881
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:31,480
Speaker 3: by Indian workers.

882
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:33,000
Speaker 4: Smart so they.

883
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:33,920
Speaker 3: Want to protect their jobs.

884
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 4: That makes sense, like everyone's.

885
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:37,279
Speaker 3: Got to look out for their own. Every country does

886
00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:39,360
Speaker 3: this sort of thing. We do it got to protect

887
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 3: your industries. So Gibson, though, was importing unprocessed wood, just

888
00:45:43,640 --> 00:45:46,360
Speaker 3: bundles of the wood, and they knew they weren't supposed to,

889
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 3: And all those shipping documents that were supposed to keep

890
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 3: this in line to be transparent about sourcing and destination,

891
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 3: they were all off full of discrepancy. Yeah, and so

892
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:57,719
Speaker 3: the bundles of wood that you were moving at the

893
00:45:57,719 --> 00:46:00,239
Speaker 3: Gibson rough Mill, they weren't supposed to be there. They're

894
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 3: remarked for destination Germany. This company called Luthier's Mercantile International

895
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 3: in California was the importer of record, but they had

896
00:46:08,239 --> 00:46:10,040
Speaker 3: nothing to do with this. The stuff was just being

897
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:13,839
Speaker 3: sent straight to Gibson in Tennessee, and so US Fish

898
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 3: and Wildlife they showed up seized the wood. They'd been

899
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:19,240
Speaker 3: watching this at customs and they'd seized some other shipments,

900
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,360
Speaker 3: the tracking shipments, and so they took all the wood

901
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 3: at the kiln, at the factory, at the storage facility.

902
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:29,480
Speaker 3: And like Gibson pitched a fit, they were caught red handed.

903
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:31,240
Speaker 3: And so they went politically.

904
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 2: How did they pitch a fit based on what?

905
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:38,840
Speaker 3: They blamed President Obama? They thanks Obama, all right, So,

906
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:45,279
Speaker 3: despite despite evidence that they willfully flouted the law, they

907
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,320
Speaker 3: said that Obama had it out for them and specifically

908
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:52,960
Speaker 3: targeted them. Okay, so usk of its right. He said

909
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,400
Speaker 3: that Martin Guitars did the same thing and they didn't

910
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 3: get raised. He said it's because Martin were donors to

911
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 3: the Democratic National committee.

912
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 4: Oh god.

913
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 3: But here's the thing. Martin Guitars had all their paperwork

914
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 3: in line, and they could prove they hadn't violated the

915
00:47:07,160 --> 00:47:09,880
Speaker 3: Lacy Act, an act that went into effect more than

916
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 3: one hundred years before Obama was elected. So of course.

917
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 2: They made classic guitars like Willie Nelson's is a Martin.

918
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:20,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's like the og. According to NPR, quote, Chris Martin,

919
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 3: chairman and CEO of the C. F. Martin Guitar Company

920
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:27,280
Speaker 3: in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, said that when he first heard guitars

921
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 3: built from Madagascar rosewood, he dreamed it might be the

922
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 3: long sought substitute for Brazilian rosewood, whose trade was banned

923
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:37,279
Speaker 3: in the nineteen nineties due to over harvest. Then the

924
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 3: situation in Madagascar changed. There was a coup. Martin says.

925
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:43,920
Speaker 3: What we heard was the international community has come to

926
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:47,799
Speaker 3: the conclusion that the coup created an illegitimate government. That's

927
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:50,239
Speaker 3: when we said, Okay, we cannot buy any more of

928
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 3: this would Yeah. And while some say the Lacy Act

929
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 3: is burdensome, Martin supports it. Quote, I think it's a

930
00:47:56,719 --> 00:47:59,720
Speaker 3: wonderful thing. I think illegal logging is appalling. It should

931
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:02,400
Speaker 3: stop up and if this is what it takes, unfortunately

932
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:05,920
Speaker 3: to stop unscrupulous operators, I'm all for it. It's tedious,

933
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:07,040
Speaker 3: but we're getting through it.

934
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 2: That's the way, that's the approach, that's reasonable and responsible business.

935
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 3: So after all the bluster, all the victimhood and moaning

936
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:20,880
Speaker 3: a development, after one year Gibson yusk of it admitted

937
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 3: to violating the Lacy Act. Good because like if they

938
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 3: kept trying to fight it, they knew criminal charges for

939
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:31,239
Speaker 3: the ownership was on the horizon. And so there's like

940
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 3: a major digital paper trail proving they knew what they

941
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 3: were doing.

942
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 2: They it was bad and a lot of musicians are ethically,

943
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:38,280
Speaker 2: you're going to start to these customers.

944
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 3: Well that was the thing too, is that online Like

945
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 3: the response apparently it was just like burning up Facebook

946
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 3: with all this like these are American heroes and the

947
00:48:47,640 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 3: Obama governments trying to go after them, right, But it

948
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:53,840
Speaker 3: was not. Guitar folks. Guitar folks and forums were like,

949
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 3: this is actually I don't want to play something that

950
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 3: came from totally. So Gibson had to pay a three

951
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars far and they forfeited the majority of

952
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:05,320
Speaker 3: the wood that was seized, but they did get some back,

953
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:08,799
Speaker 3: and what happened with it is the question.

954
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 2: What happened with Elizabeth?

955
00:49:09,600 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 3: Thank you? In twenty fourteen, they released the Government Series

956
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 3: Les Paul SG three point thirty five and Flying V

957
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 3: guitars the color Government Tan, and so the guitar featured

958
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:26,320
Speaker 3: that rosewood seized by the Feds in the Nashville raids.

959
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:29,839
Speaker 3: They made one thousand, seven and fifty guitars, and they

960
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:33,120
Speaker 3: started out at around eleven hundred dollars retail. They sold

961
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 3: out all of them. Of course, company officials said the

962
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 3: guitars quote suitably marks this infamous time in Gibson's history.

963
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 2: Did they go to Cabo Wabbos? People liked?

964
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,359
Speaker 3: Well, it gets better. So each guitar features a pit

965
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:52,160
Speaker 3: guard quote hot stamped in gold with the Government series

966
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:56,359
Speaker 3: graphic a bald eagle hoisting a Gibson guitar neck. Are

967
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:57,000
Speaker 3: you kidding me?

968
00:49:57,640 --> 00:49:59,279
Speaker 2: That's no Willie Nelson's IRS tape?

969
00:49:59,640 --> 00:50:02,520
Speaker 3: I'm gonna not at all. So the company gave pad

970
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:05,759
Speaker 3: a press release quote when the Powers the Beat confiscated

971
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:08,680
Speaker 3: stocks of tone woods from the Gibson factory in Nashville,

972
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,320
Speaker 3: only to return them once there was a resolution and

973
00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 3: the investigation ended. It was an event worth celebrating. Well, yeah,

974
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:18,400
Speaker 3: it was. The investigation ended because you were guilty and

975
00:50:18,400 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 3: you paid for it. So they didn't really become the

976
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 3: collector's item that Gibson thought they were going to be.

977
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:26,960
Speaker 3: I saw them online for maybe like twenty five hundred

978
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 3: thirty two hundred dollars according to Ultimate Guitar dot com.

979
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 2: Okay, amazing, one of my favorite reads every morning.

980
00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 3: Quote. Seven years after the raids, Yuskowitz had run the

981
00:50:37,640 --> 00:50:41,759
Speaker 3: company five hundred million dollars into debt since his departure.

982
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:44,920
Speaker 3: He insisted to Guitarist magazine that any notion that he

983
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 3: had anything to do with Gibson guitars dwindling reputation is

984
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:52,120
Speaker 3: quote fake news. A company, now under new management is

985
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 3: committed itself to making guitars without critically endangered lumber, and

986
00:50:56,120 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 3: the article continues. A report in the Nashville Business Journal

987
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:02,640
Speaker 3: in October of twenty twenty claim that Yuskovitz is now

988
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 3: starting up his own healthcare company in Nashville. Apparently he

989
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 3: found a business with bigger ethical loopholes to be exploited. Anyways,

990
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:12,400
Speaker 3: we look forward to what the future will hold for

991
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 3: Gibson under new management, and we wish them the very best.

992
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:20,840
Speaker 3: Ultimate Guitar dot com Zaren was your ridiculous takeaway.

993
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:24,839
Speaker 2: I knew so little about any of this, but after

994
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 2: hearing it all, I'm not surprised that the people involved

995
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 2: are doing the stuff, like the smugglers and then the

996
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 2: businessmen with the unethical like yeah, we'll take what from whatever?

997
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like why are people like this?

998
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 3: Like why do need to respect exactly? I know, I

999
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:43,239
Speaker 3: know what about you, Elizabeth, but my takeaway is that

1000
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:47,280
Speaker 3: I still manage to get all heated talking about plants.

1001
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:48,560
Speaker 3: It's supposed to be chilled.

1002
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 4: You worked it in.

1003
00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:54,239
Speaker 3: That's not the xanax I promised. But I he's going

1004
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 3: to go watch some gardener's world and cool out, Dave.

1005
00:51:58,480 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 3: I think we should have a talk back.

1006
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:14,280
Speaker 8: God, I went, Elizabeth.

1007
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 1: I'm very, very sick right now and I'm listening.

1008
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 2: To you guys.

1009
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:22,720
Speaker 8: This is actually is the vocal range of my voice

1010
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 8: at the moment, and I've just add to the introductions

1011
00:52:27,280 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 8: of the pac Man Fever episode and the chicken lozenges.

1012
00:52:34,440 --> 00:52:38,760
Speaker 8: Ridiculous do not want We love you, but you're a sick, lady.

1013
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:41,600
Speaker 8: This is creepier than it sounds.

1014
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:49,399
Speaker 4: Save your voice, My goodness made me have a chicken lost.

1015
00:52:50,040 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 3: You know you laugh chicken.

1016
00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:56,320
Speaker 2: By the way, if you're ever sick, chicken soup, orange juice,

1017
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:58,799
Speaker 2: shout out. Tequila will heal you every time. But not

1018
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:01,719
Speaker 2: for that. We were just works every time.

1019
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, but just like what about like generalized malaise.

1020
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:08,480
Speaker 2: Like just on a Monday. I'll probably.

1021
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:13,279
Speaker 3: That's it for today. You can find us online at

1022
00:53:13,320 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 3: ridiculous Crime dot com. The website just won the Outstanding

1023
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:20,360
Speaker 3: Act of Bravery Metal from the Elko, Nevada Police Department.

1024
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:21,799
Speaker 4: Wow, finally, I know.

1025
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 3: I'm so proud. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue

1026
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:28,720
Speaker 3: Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod,

1027
00:53:29,280 --> 00:53:31,560
Speaker 3: and you can email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail

1028
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:34,279
Speaker 3: dot com. But most importantly, as you know, I love

1029
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:37,359
Speaker 3: these leave it talk back, save your voices, do it

1030
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:40,400
Speaker 3: with robust. I don't want to hear anyone hurting themselves.

1031
00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:43,439
Speaker 3: Get the free iHeart app. Go through that reach out.

1032
00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:51,840
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette,

1033
00:53:51,840 --> 00:53:56,320
Speaker 3: produced and edited by Fugitive Luther Dave coustm starring Annals

1034
00:53:56,480 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 3: Rutger as Judith. Research is by GMO Truth Marissa Brown

1035
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:05,160
Speaker 3: and Keen Observation Quality Assurance Skills by Gray Witten. The

1036
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:07,680
Speaker 3: theme song is by Poor Dirt Farmers Just Trying to

1037
00:54:07,680 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 3: make a Live and Grow and hollow Body guitars Thomas

1038
00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 3: Lee and Travis Dutton. Host wardrobe is provided by Body

1039
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:17,080
Speaker 3: five hundred. Guest hair and makeup provided by Sparkleshot and

1040
00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:21,319
Speaker 3: Mister Andre. Executive producers are Dandelion Smuggler, Ben Bollen and

1041
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:23,680
Speaker 3: Rogue Fish and Game Warden Noel.

1042
00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:34,680
Speaker 5: Broun, Gus Crime Say It One More Time, Geequeous Crime.

1043
00:54:35,800 --> 00:54:39,160
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.

1044
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:42,440
Speaker 1: My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1045
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:44,240
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows,