Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zeren Sorry I was napping ZN Listen.
Speaker 3: How you doing today?
Speaker 2: I am well rested, now are you?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What about you?
Speaker 4: How are you doing?
Speaker 3: I'm good. I'm hanging in there.
Speaker 2: You seem bright eyed? Bushy tail?
Speaker 3: Hey, am my tail? Bushy full bush? Yes, bushy. Do
Speaker 3: you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I do?
Speaker 4: Pinocchio?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 2: Do you know the story of the Pinocchio? Like the
Speaker 2: premiere in New York City of the movie, it was
Speaker 2: like a big deal. Walt Disney like hired people like
Speaker 2: little people to play Pinocchio. He hired like what's the
Speaker 2: opposite of a Baker's dozen, like eleven eleven eleven. He
Speaker 2: hired eleven little people. This is in nineteen forty, right.
Speaker 2: He put them up on top of like this marquee,
Speaker 2: and they're all dancing up there and supposed to like
Speaker 2: grow stuff and like blow kisses at the people, all
Speaker 2: dressed as Pinocchio.
Speaker 3: Right, little people, eleven Pinocchio.
Speaker 2: But they're gonna be up there for like all day long.
Speaker 3: There's only one Pinocchio, I.
Speaker 2: Know when in this case there was eleven. And he
Speaker 2: gave him lunch and then also bottles of wine, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I know, white is wild. And it was so hot
Speaker 2: that day that they ate all the food and by
Speaker 2: the afternoon they drank all the wine. And then they're
Speaker 2: so hot did they took off their costumes. They stripped
Speaker 2: down and got naked. So you had these naked, painted
Speaker 2: little people on top of this marquis and he started
Speaker 2: like throwing things at people and shouting provanities at the crowd.
Speaker 2: It was amazing, but eventually got so bad that the
Speaker 2: police had to be called in to pull them down
Speaker 2: off the marquee. And do you know how they did it?
Speaker 2: They put them in pillowcases and drug them off like
Speaker 2: a bag of kittens. No, not happen nineteen forty, not
Speaker 2: that long ago.
Speaker 3: They put them in pillow grown.
Speaker 2: Drunk, grown people, drunk, naked and pillow cases and threw
Speaker 2: them over their sacks like you know, like they're going
Speaker 2: down to the river to get rid of kittens.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Pinocchio, I don't like this.
Speaker 3: It's it's ridiculous, right, it's totally Do you know what
Speaker 3: else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: Oh, I got it, I hope so plants.
Speaker 3: Plants are ridiculously cool. This is ridiculous. Crime, a podcast
Speaker 3: about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always
Speaker 3: ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: You I'm right, that's right. Today Saren is gardening day
Speaker 3: here at Ridiculous Crime.
Speaker 4: Oh, Gardening's my escapism.
Speaker 3: Yes, Like I'm outside, which I love.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 3: All that matters are the living things I'm assisting.
Speaker 4: True.
Speaker 3: I love the entire process and the cycle.
Speaker 2: And the sun too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, from like starting seeds, prepping beds, fertilizing, pruning, cultivation, blah.
Speaker 4: Blah blah, all the stuff.
Speaker 3: The rest of the world doesn't exist when I'm in
Speaker 3: the gardens.
Speaker 2: You got two green thumbs.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I listen to music, do you. Most of the time,
Speaker 3: I just listen to what's around me.
Speaker 4: I what you grow, you eat what I grow.
Speaker 3: I listen to birds, practicing the clarinet.
Speaker 2: I used to like doing that as a housepanner, sitting
Speaker 2: on the roof listening to birds.
Speaker 3: Listen to birds. It's good stuff. That's how I stay
Speaker 3: relatively sane, you know almost. I love gardening shows. Let's
Speaker 3: just talk about me for a little bit. Let's do it.
Speaker 2: You introduced me to monty Don.
Speaker 3: That was to say, my dog is named after the
Speaker 3: host of BBC Gardener's World, Monty Don Gardener's World, best
Speaker 3: show ever show. It's like Xanax. It's pleasant, relaxing, happy.
Speaker 3: If you have brit Box and you want to chill
Speaker 3: out and be spoken to intelligently and quietly, just watch it.
Speaker 3: Watch Gardener's World. But this is going to be a
Speaker 3: mellow episode. I'm going to take the temperature down a
Speaker 3: little bit. Yeah. I follow a bunch of gardening subreddits.
Speaker 3: Of course you do, and that's where I'm going to
Speaker 3: start today. Okay, so this is something I read about
Speaker 3: on Reddit and then I experienced it for my interesting
Speaker 3: There are indeed gardening crimes. I'm going to start off
Speaker 3: with one that's more of a scandal, but I suppose
Speaker 3: you could classify it as fraud.
Speaker 4: Like stolen It is Peppergate.
Speaker 3: Peppergate, So this Peppergate was the seed distribution scandal that
Speaker 3: went down two years ago, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: Seed distribution scandal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, it's it's hard boiled.
Speaker 4: Is so different than mine.
Speaker 3: So it's so Pablo Escobar. It's like, yeah, it's edgy,
Speaker 3: So that's summer twenty twenty three, gardeners, small agg producers,
Speaker 3: they started reporting that their pepper plants weren't growing true
Speaker 3: to type.
Speaker 4: What does that mean?
Speaker 3: So seed packets would be labeled as like specific varieties
Speaker 3: like say sweet bell peppers or very specialized hot peppers,
Speaker 3: and they were producing either the wrong type of pepper
Speaker 3: or in some cases no fruit at all.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's got to be frustrated. Its a while to
Speaker 2: figure that out.
Speaker 3: Right, exactly. So the issue started to gain traction on
Speaker 3: gardening forums, like you know, it was in Reddit TikTok
Speaker 3: where the name peppergate was coin and.
Speaker 2: So I missed all of them.
Speaker 3: I read about it, and then I lived at saren.
Speaker 2: You lived it. It happened to you.
Speaker 3: Well, I start my vegetable plants from seed, do you yes?
Speaker 3: And I use small or heirloom seed suppliers, and I
Speaker 3: stay away from stuff like Burpie or things at the
Speaker 3: hardware store because I'm not like really specific.
Speaker 2: For right, I'm gonna be really dumb. Is Burpie a brand?
Speaker 3: Berpie's a brand that's like the Big Dog.
Speaker 2: Garden, like a technique or what?
Speaker 3: Now Burpie? Well, isn't that like a CrossFit thingye know?
Speaker 3: I don't do that either, but like that's all I
Speaker 3: knew it as I knew that's not what you meant.
Speaker 3: I had some peppers that I started from seed in
Speaker 3: January of twenty twenty three. Okay, Horno de toro, Italian
Speaker 3: sweet peppers, zapptec, halapanos, that kind of thing. So I
Speaker 3: was at home, deskpot right, and I'm picking up some dirt, okay,
Speaker 3: and I saw peblano pepper seedlings from like a big
Speaker 3: garden brand, and I was like, you know what, I
Speaker 3: forgot to start poblanos from seed because if you drive.
Speaker 2: Them Elizabeth internal dialogue.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna grab
Speaker 3: two of them and tuck them into my raised beds.
Speaker 3: You know, No, it's the wiser. And they flourished and
Speaker 3: then they started producing and producing, and honey, there were
Speaker 3: no poblanos. What they were shashidos zaren Oh.
Speaker 2: My gosh, ishetos like the face brush.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I occasionally enjoy some roasted shashitos, but not too bustling.
Speaker 3: It's like a It's the thing about shashido peppers, is
Speaker 3: it like one out of ten that you eat is hot.
Speaker 3: It it's like a Russian roulette of pepper. Okay, otherwise
Speaker 3: like a regular kind of sweet pepper.
Speaker 2: This one's this one coolah yeah.
Speaker 3: And so you you pick them, you roast them in
Speaker 3: the oven, and then people have them like they'll dip
Speaker 3: them and stuff. But it's like an appetizers roasted shios.
Speaker 3: And then every now and then you get a YoY
Speaker 3: this wild right, So you know I have all these sashidos, right,
Speaker 3: I'd seen this happen in other people's and now it's happening.
Speaker 4: In mind your garden.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So here's what went down. A large seed distributor,
Speaker 3: a subcontractor for a lot of popular retail seed brands,
Speaker 3: mislabeled pepper seed batches during packaging. So one of the
Speaker 3: things this exposed is that most seed packet brands you
Speaker 3: see are filled by pretty much the same company. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: and so a mistake at the top of the chain
Speaker 3: trickled down to stores everywhere and numerous brands. Yes, there
Speaker 3: are about four companies that control most of the small
Speaker 3: seeds in the world. It's totally monopolized. So like small
Speaker 3: businesses don't always have clear lines to the product origin
Speaker 3: and seeds they're purchased through a broker working under a
Speaker 3: larger broker or distributor, and then that's owned by even larger.
Speaker 2: And this is also true for the airloms.
Speaker 3: You're saying, yes, whoa, Well no, not for the airlooms,
Speaker 3: for the small So like the I only had the
Speaker 3: problem with the seedlings that I got at home.
Speaker 4: Depot ah, so not the airline.
Speaker 3: Like the ones I grew from seed from small places.
Speaker 3: They knew exactly where it was coming from. So a
Speaker 3: lot of the seed. Yeah, the seed packet companies, like
Speaker 3: when you go into like say ACE Hardware, you have
Speaker 3: like that whole rack and they like so they don't
Speaker 3: divulge their sources.
Speaker 4: You can't see on theirs from no Wow, and.
Speaker 3: A lot of times you know, because they'll market themselves
Speaker 3: as like old timey and organic ish and small, but
Speaker 3: they're getting their seeds from like mon Santo.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the seed packet that you buy for ninety
Speaker 3: nine cents at a dollar tree might have the exact
Speaker 3: same seeds as those in a packet for four ninety
Speaker 3: nine at ACE or six point fifty at a specialty store. Wow,
Speaker 3: same supplier. So somewhere along the line, there was a
Speaker 3: lack of quality control and the labeling and the sorting,
Speaker 3: and there also could have been like cross contamination, but
Speaker 3: it looks like it was just a mix up and
Speaker 3: it was massive.
Speaker 2: Sounds like it.
Speaker 3: So sweet peppers were labeled as hot peppers vice versas.
Speaker 3: It was chaos Zarin. The big thing was that a
Speaker 3: lot of people bought more expensive rarer varieties and wound
Speaker 3: up with like cheaper basic stuff like generic Hall of
Speaker 3: Pans or banana.
Speaker 4: Peppers fraud and then like it seemed.
Speaker 3: Like a lot of people wound up with banana peppers.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 3: I know, some like me, they bought seedlings at a store.
Speaker 3: Others started from seed and they didn't get what they wanted.
Speaker 3: Reddit TikTok. Just chock full of people angry.
Speaker 2: Oh I bet your people will drive them nuts.
Speaker 3: So many This was not big Gardner's world energy. This
Speaker 3: is angry. So all of these, like a bunch of
Speaker 3: different major seed brands, they issued public statements, they offered
Speaker 3: refunds or replacements, and there was talk about a class
Speaker 3: action lawsuit based on breech of warranty. Yeah, because small
Speaker 3: scale farmers they sell it like farmers markets and such,
Speaker 3: or they supply the CISA boxes the community supported agriculture. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know you get stuff direct from a collective of
Speaker 3: local farms.
Speaker 2: I've done that. They dropped the food off and you don't.
Speaker 3: Know what's going to be in there in season and
Speaker 3: ripe amazing so CSAs and small farmers' markets. They were
Speaker 3: out of a whole year's worth of peppers, you know,
Speaker 3: And that's sad, like it blew like.
Speaker 2: Also it's going to mess up a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: Not just sad, but I mean that's like it ruined.
Speaker 3: It ruined their their whole business. You know, if you were, like,
Speaker 3: you know, doing a lot of peppers.
Speaker 2: And possibly the next year because how do you trust them?
Speaker 4: Again?
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly So what it did though, it started driving
Speaker 3: business to small seed companies. That's good. Uh. And it
Speaker 3: got people saving their own seeds from year to year
Speaker 3: instead of buying new seed. Thearen It was a cautionary
Speaker 3: tale I'm telling you about supply chain fragility, high steaks
Speaker 3: for something so small. Serious speaking of small seed companies,
Speaker 3: I have an even bigger scandal for you, please, the
Speaker 3: Purple Galaxy tomato scandal.
Speaker 2: What is that a tomato?
Speaker 3: Yes? It all started when the twenty twenty four Baker
Speaker 3: Creek seed catalog came out. I get the catalog.
Speaker 4: I bet you they do.
Speaker 3: I don't usually buy from Baker Creek because apparently they
Speaker 3: had Clive and Bundy speak at some event once, and
Speaker 3: their seeds aren't the best germinators. But I do love
Speaker 3: their catalog.
Speaker 2: Wait, the like BLM Cloud Bundy like steal the land
Speaker 2: from the government.
Speaker 3: Why is he talking to garden'? That's what a lot
Speaker 3: of I guess they just.
Speaker 2: Feed themselves because they're sovereign citizens.
Speaker 3: I guess, so a lot of people don't order from
Speaker 3: them because of that. But also they're just kind of
Speaker 3: they get duds sometimes. But they have an amazing catalog.
Speaker 4: It gives me ideas like pictures, why did you talk?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it comes in like December or January. It
Speaker 3: has all the seeds for the years.
Speaker 2: Now do they have like a J. Peterman catalog where
Speaker 2: there's a character telling you about these seeds?
Speaker 3: Almost really all not a character, but like there's the
Speaker 3: descriptions are really fabulous. Some of them have incredible illustrations.
Speaker 3: So but this is like, you get this catalog in
Speaker 3: the dead of winter, you're dreaming of warm weather, being
Speaker 3: out in the garden, it's garden porn.
Speaker 4: I can see that.
Speaker 3: So the twenty four Baker catalog, it had a stunning
Speaker 3: ever model. Oh my god, the cover model. It was
Speaker 3: the purple galaxy tomato. Is that the man alive? It
Speaker 3: was a liquor. Okay, this is a blackish purple tomato
Speaker 3: with tiny pink dots on the outside and like a
Speaker 3: deep violet fuchia inside. Whoa, yeah, that was the distinction
Speaker 3: because most purple tomatoes they don't hold their color.
Speaker 4: Inside the skin.
Speaker 3: And so it was built so as the quote purplest
Speaker 3: non GMO tomato ever, purple is GMO, being genetically modified organisms.
Speaker 3: So this was either way you slice the tomatoes are.
Speaker 3: It was a great looking to me. And they're also
Speaker 3: supposed to be all these like health benefits because it's
Speaker 3: like when you have a purple skin tomato, high antioxidants,
Speaker 3: high anthi cyanin, so these compounds you know, reduce the
Speaker 3: risk of cancer inflammation, and they're also good source of
Speaker 3: vitamins and minerals.
Speaker 4: Totally fature colors, people, that's right.
Speaker 3: So there it is on the cover. Some people noticed
Speaker 3: that it looked a whole lot like a GMO tomato
Speaker 3: made by a company called Norfolk Healthy Produce and HP.
Speaker 3: Now remember Baker Creek is like, we're no GMO, We're heirloom, We're.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we draw pictures.
Speaker 3: And HP is a UK company with American operations based
Speaker 3: in Davis, California, my hometown. You see, Davis, my alma
Speaker 3: mater from mir ag School. Some me would say it's
Speaker 3: the best in the planet, and I should know, because
Speaker 3: I have an English degree from it. I should know.
Speaker 3: So they've always been on the cutting edge of crop innovation.
Speaker 2: And the flavorsavor tomato.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's Cultivar VF one, aka the square tomato.
Speaker 3: There's that one too, Yeah, came out of Davis. It
Speaker 3: wasn't really a square, it was just less round and
Speaker 3: it was to keep it from keep the tomatoes from
Speaker 3: rolling off of conveyor belts. Also had thicker skins so
Speaker 3: they'd pack in the boxes better wouldn't roll off the
Speaker 3: top of a truck.
Speaker 2: Very Japanese.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fewer losses. So Davis, as you know from growing up,
Speaker 3: there is smack dab in the middle of commercial tomato country.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3: Yes, Trucks haul tons of the things from fields to
Speaker 3: canneries each fall, and the square tomatoes. They were designed
Speaker 3: for just that commercial use, not you know, around my birthday.
Speaker 2: Every country road do you turn a corners just littered,
Speaker 2: but tomatoes where the trucks have made a turn, and tomatoes.
Speaker 3: Because they weren't using the square. The inventor of the
Speaker 3: square tomato was this guy, Gordie Jack Hannah. He was
Speaker 3: an associate in the Agricultural Experiment Station and a professor
Speaker 3: in truck crops, which, like truck cps the greatest at Davis.
Speaker 3: He was also a plant breeder with this private company
Speaker 3: petto Seed in Woodland, Califun.
Speaker 2: Okay shout out Woodland.
Speaker 3: According to local lore on the Davis Wiki, yes, doctor
Speaker 3: Hannah would quote stand in the fields, walk among the plants,
Speaker 3: collecting random tomatoes, and then go and throw them ounta
Speaker 3: into the road as a test. Captain rebred from the plants,
Speaker 3: featuring tomatoes hardy enough to survive his test, eventually giving
Speaker 3: us the hardy tomato that can withstand being picked by
Speaker 3: machine and transported by truck.
Speaker 4: And have flavor and have flavor.
Speaker 3: So NHP based in Davis, they engineered a purple tomato
Speaker 3: called the Purple Tomato, and that was just like the
Speaker 3: one from Baker Creek only it was engineered with the
Speaker 3: jenes from a snap dragonflower in order to achieve purple flesh.
Speaker 3: So tomatoes they have about thirty five thousand genes, and
Speaker 3: purple tomato has only two extras from a snapdragon, according
Speaker 3: to NPR quote. When news of a non GMO purple
Speaker 3: flesh tomato variety started circulating on social media last fall,
Speaker 3: some scientists and tomato enthusiasts weren't so sure. I had
Speaker 3: discussions with colleagues about it, and all of us just
Speaker 3: looked at it and said, well, that's the GMO tomato,
Speaker 3: says David Francis, a professor of horticulture and crop science
Speaker 3: at the Ohio State Universe City who specializes in tomato
Speaker 3: breeding and genetics. Traditional plant breeders to date have not
Speaker 3: been able to create a purple flesh tomato with cross pollination.
Speaker 3: Purple skin, yes, purple flesh not so much. But using
Speaker 3: recombinant DNA technology, scientists in the United Kingdom had developed
Speaker 3: a purple flesh tomato high in antioxidants. It was recently
Speaker 3: approved for sale and consumption in the United States. So
Speaker 3: you can see where it has to be genetically modified
Speaker 3: to get there exactly. Baker Creek says, we don't do GMO,
Speaker 3: like they're aggressive about the sounds. NHP very much GMO.
Speaker 3: So NHP sees the catalog, they get the catalog, they're like, hub,
Speaker 3: but wait a second, it looks familiar.
Speaker 4: I recognized that flesh they call foul.
Speaker 3: So they got some of the seeds, tested them and
Speaker 3: found they were actually GMO. They were genetically modified.
Speaker 4: But that's not hard to test, right.
Speaker 3: Baker Creek immediately pulled the seeds from the catalog and
Speaker 3: destroyed all the stock. Ooh yeah, And then they released
Speaker 3: the statement on Facebook, because that's where if you're serious,
Speaker 3: you put your seeds. Quote. After repeated testing, we are
Speaker 3: unable to conclusively establish that the Purple galaxy does not
Speaker 3: contain any genes that have been genetically modified. So they said, well,
Speaker 3: we got our seeds from this really reputable traditional plant
Speaker 3: breeder and per PR quote a hobby breeder in France,
Speaker 3: where growing GMOs is banned. Yeah, they probably blame a
Speaker 3: French guy.
Speaker 2: Blame the French to blame the front.
Speaker 3: The problem is that the purple tomato and the technology
Speaker 3: used to breed it patented. So NHP was like, look,
Speaker 3: just take the seeds off the market, but we do
Speaker 3: want to know how did the seeds go from a
Speaker 3: UK lab to some guy in France corporate espionage. So
Speaker 3: NHP was like, look, GMOs low risk in you know,
Speaker 3: terms of spreading and damaging biodiversity. When it comes to tomatoes, yes,
Speaker 3: I mean they're just like, you know, there's they're just
Speaker 3: trying to explain that, Look, these aren't poisonous tomatoes, gotcha.
Speaker 3: And so there were threats of lawsuits, threats of investigations,
Speaker 3: and it kind of stalled out. Those are two plant
Speaker 3: scandals to get us warmed up today, Like next up,
Speaker 3: serious crime. Okay, let's break for some ads and when
Speaker 3: we get back we'll experience the smugglers.
Speaker 6: Blues Zaren Elizabeth, Welcome.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I was thinking about Davis and tomatoes right
Speaker 2: back to the summer that was wild on.
Speaker 3: Welcome to my garden. The big dog of plant crimes
Speaker 3: is smuggling. And there are a lot of reasons why
Speaker 3: it's illegal.
Speaker 4: Smuggling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because like well smuggling plants. So you know, if
Speaker 3: you take plants from like really fragile ecosystems, disrupting natural processes,
Speaker 3: you you get habitat loss for other species. Uh, you know,
Speaker 3: there's like the over collection of rare and endangered plant
Speaker 3: species that can push them to extinction, reducing biodiversity. If
Speaker 3: you smuggle a plant zarin, there could be pests and
Speaker 3: disease in it. Oh yes, yes, harming native plants, animals, whatever.
Speaker 3: Some smuggled plants pose a health risk to animals humans.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because if they're the wrong environment, they're like,
Speaker 2: we have no natural defenses.
Speaker 3: People like this is a beautiful flower and they smell
Speaker 3: it and they die because they don't know what it is,
Speaker 3: because someone smuggled it somewhere. Anyway. So the plant trade
Speaker 3: is often also linked to organized criminal networks, and that
Speaker 3: is an episode of law and order organized crime. Then
Speaker 3: I want to see, let me give you some example cases,
Speaker 3: and you and I we can pretend that Elliott's Chris
Speaker 3: Maloney detective Juicy Booty is the one investigating all these
Speaker 3: all right, So, succulents and cacti very popular these days.
Speaker 2: Seculents and cacti, Yes, I like them personally because they're
Speaker 2: hard to kill.
Speaker 3: That is true.
Speaker 2: And then you don't have to water them for like
Speaker 2: a week, sometimes two weeks. I can go on to vacation,
Speaker 2: come back, and like, oh I should have thought about
Speaker 2: my plants.
Speaker 3: And living in California, we can just leave them outside
Speaker 3: all the time where it's like another climate. They got
Speaker 3: to bring them in.
Speaker 2: Go back, and what zone are we in? I just
Speaker 2: learned that we have zones.
Speaker 3: Of plants can be here.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Okay, I'm going to keep that for parties.
Speaker 3: Don't quote me on that, because you know my brain
Speaker 3: is Anyway. A very popular and highly coveted succulent these
Speaker 3: days is the living rock cactus living cool. It is
Speaker 3: close cousin to peyote.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, does that.
Speaker 2: Have any properties?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 3: People love them because there are no thorns, and they're
Speaker 3: very plush. They're tiny, they're not tall, and the only
Speaker 3: place that it's found is in the Big Bend region
Speaker 3: of the Chihuahuan Desert.
Speaker 4: Oh dope, hardy plant.
Speaker 3: It kind of looks like grogu hands. Nice, that's what
Speaker 3: they look like. They aren't endangered, but they are protected
Speaker 3: and they're only found in this very small area and
Speaker 3: they take decades to mature.
Speaker 2: If it's not that, then it's a sparkling succulent.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, it's a it's a sparkling rock living rock.
Speaker 3: So back in twenty twelve, US Fish and Wildlife they
Speaker 3: got a tip there was smuggling going on in Texas
Speaker 3: moving living rock cacti, thousands of them. Yeah, so smugglers
Speaker 3: were offering these rare plants online to customers in Asia Europe.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and they.
Speaker 3: Would falsify custom slips to say the plants for something else.
Speaker 3: And this, my friend, is a violation of the Lacy
Speaker 3: Act of nineteen hundred. Okay, okay, so this is that
Speaker 3: was the first federal law in the United States to
Speaker 3: address wildlife conservation. Yeah right, thank you Lacey and Cagny.
Speaker 3: It originally went into effect that so you can't eat
Speaker 3: things that are made from the part of it. They
Speaker 3: go hand in hand. Did you ever told you I
Speaker 3: saw Tyne Daily in person? You have? She's across the
Speaker 3: street from me.
Speaker 4: Apparently was really memorable for you.
Speaker 3: Really was. That's like my one celebrity sighting. No, I
Speaker 3: didn't even get to Tyne Daily. There she is across Okay.
Speaker 3: So the LASIAC goes into effect to stop illegal commercial
Speaker 3: hunting and interstate shipment of wildlife, and it currently prohibits
Speaker 3: trade in wildlife, fish, and plants that have been illegally taken, possessed, transported,
Speaker 3: or sold. So what's crazy about this is that it
Speaker 3: applies to both US and foreign laws. So if a
Speaker 3: plant or animal is taken illegally under another country's law
Speaker 3: and imported to the US, it's still illegal under the late. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it requires the declaration of plant and timber species
Speaker 3: and country of origin when inward certain products. So Fish
Speaker 3: and Wildlife they take this seriously as well. They should.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like it's like one of their major
Speaker 2: things to do.
Speaker 3: The director of their Southwest region amy looters, she said
Speaker 3: in a statement. Quote. Those who came before US knew
Speaker 3: the importance of protecting wildlife from unlawful trade. And this
Speaker 3: law continues to stay relevant each time a poacher or
Speaker 3: wild plants smuggler is charged. So booms erin, Yeah, this
Speaker 3: is the laws to kill the law. So Fish and
Speaker 3: Wildlife they got search warrants for six different houses, all
Speaker 3: in West Texas. We don't know how many plants were
Speaker 3: smuggled in total, but authorities seized around four thousand in
Speaker 3: the raids.
Speaker 5: YEA.
Speaker 3: One of the plants that they seized was like thirty
Speaker 3: years old.
Speaker 2: And they're taking them one and at a time in it, right.
Speaker 3: No, they're going out in the desert and scooping them
Speaker 3: up and throwing them into a bag.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they have to pick each one. They're not
Speaker 2: like just taking up like a big section of earth.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, one by what. Some of the plants
Speaker 3: were just like stored in plastic bags, so they had
Speaker 3: started to rot. Oh gosh, this was not cool, dude,
Speaker 3: Come on, Don would never do that. Oh, Don would faint.
Speaker 3: The surviving seas cacti they were turned over to soul
Speaker 3: Ross State University. They have preserved a large number on campus,
Speaker 3: but they also found like permanent homes home. They couldn't
Speaker 3: really return most of them to the wild because they
Speaker 3: didn't know what subpopulation they were from.
Speaker 4: Anyone interrupt.
Speaker 3: I mean it's like if you get taken from like
Speaker 3: East Oakland and then planted back in West Oakland.
Speaker 4: That ain't right. No, you don't know.
Speaker 3: You can't just go stick them anywhere. So the big
Speaker 3: dog in the ring that was Harry George Bach the second.
Speaker 4: Not Harry George Box. Second, Harry Box.
Speaker 3: He shipped forty one living rock cactuses that were seized
Speaker 3: in an international mail facility in Chicago.
Speaker 2: It was like a doctor se Harry box Rock.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bock was shipping rock twenty eighteen in Chicago. In
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, he pleaded guilty before a magistrate in Pecos, Texas,
Speaker 3: to one count of mislabeling exports in the scheme to
Speaker 3: ship cactuses overseas. As part of a plea agreement. He
Speaker 3: faced three years probation, seventy two hundred dollars in restitution,
Speaker 3: and he had to forfeit the forty one living rock cactuses,
Speaker 3: but no.
Speaker 2: Time behind bars. So they threw the plant catalog out.
Speaker 3: They busted another dude he got he got like three
Speaker 3: years probation, had to pay more than ten grand in restitution.
Speaker 3: There's a seventy two year old fell out a study
Speaker 3: Butte Texas. Yeah, he got misdemeanor charges going back to
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen probation. So that all these guys they get probation.
Speaker 3: One dude he got felony, three years probation and sixty
Speaker 3: grand in restitution.
Speaker 4: Should you imagine.
Speaker 2: Losing your voting rights because you were like running hot plants?
Speaker 3: Oh that how you go in like you go inside. No,
Speaker 3: they're lucky. They didn't go behind bars. What are you
Speaker 3: in caractice smuggling? It looked like grogu hand.
Speaker 2: Did you say plump smuggling? No, cactus smuggling.
Speaker 3: Guy, he had, he got He was busted on the charges,
Speaker 3: but he also had to forfeit his firearms.
Speaker 4: They seized his colonies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, they're like, I know you're a You're a
Speaker 3: plant smugg and a gun owner. Can't have the guns now, sir.
Speaker 3: Here are some wise words from US Attorney John Bash
Speaker 3: on the matter. Quote, when you miss with protected Texas cacta,
Speaker 3: you're missing with Texas Pako's building.
Speaker 4: No other way.
Speaker 3: So these bad own rays, though, right, they have nothing
Speaker 3: on the world's most notorious succulent thief, South Korean national
Speaker 3: jongsu Kim.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, this sounds familiar.
Speaker 3: Let's talk dude. Leah, okay, hey, let's talk about it.
Speaker 3: Commonly known as live forevers, okay, I think so. These
Speaker 3: are a type of rosette forming succulent plants that are
Speaker 3: in the stone crop family super Desirable. They're native to
Speaker 3: California and northern Baja California forty seven species, twenty one subspecies.
Speaker 3: As a very popular, very trendy, very like Pinterest, insta esthetic.
Speaker 2: Grin, I got you like an airplane, Like people want
Speaker 2: these things because they're the thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, And it's dawning on me that I think you
Speaker 3: probably heard about it from another place that I heard
Speaker 3: about it. Yes, we have a mutual friend. Yes, Kip,
Speaker 3: yesse in the California Native Plant Society, and he will
Speaker 3: go on a diatribe about it. Oh, totally.
Speaker 2: I think he helped some of the detective.
Speaker 3: I think he went under cover as a rock.
Speaker 2: They cling to the coastline right to get the area.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like if you get Kip started.
Speaker 2: About this, oh, he turned red.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's just like this is really upsetting.
Speaker 2: You think he was talking about like like orphans, you know,
Speaker 2: like children in.
Speaker 3: My word, talking about Dudleia.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yes, they're a California game warden. He told the USC
Speaker 3: Paper quote, it's like having a Fendi bag on rodeo
Speaker 3: drive Dulia Farinosa from the wild bluffs of Mendocino, California.
Speaker 3: Especially a five headed one is apparently a super cool
Speaker 3: thing to have. And I was like, I didn't get
Speaker 3: the game warden's name, but I wanted to know if
Speaker 3: it was Kip. So many of the plants traffic to
Speaker 3: South Korea probably ended up being resold elsewhere.
Speaker 2: And they sold for a lot. Right, they're really desirable
Speaker 2: and because they grow and they look really beautiful when
Speaker 2: they sit there.
Speaker 3: But right, and so you know these things start getting
Speaker 3: popular California Fish and Wildlife, they're like, oh I noticed that.
Speaker 3: As they're going through their Pinterest, they're like, that's that's
Speaker 3: not a houseplant. But so the truth is that the
Speaker 3: hipsters in South Korea, they weren't the ones buying up
Speaker 3: the plants because like, these plants don't do well in
Speaker 3: domestic captivity for the average. So the one that was
Speaker 3: both sought after that Pharaonsa. It's, according to The Guardian,
Speaker 3: is quote particularly charismatic to humans. Experts say they boast
Speaker 3: the precise mix of qualities that Americans demand from crime victims.
Speaker 3: They are pretty and small, very fragile and yet curiously resilient.
Speaker 2: That's what we demand from crime.
Speaker 4: I guess I know.
Speaker 3: That about that. Yeah, like make them pretty and small. Anyway,
Speaker 3: so that's not going to make you a lot of
Speaker 3: money with mass consumers. Something that's you know, not going
Speaker 3: to live very long. So once well, no, because they
Speaker 3: smuggle them to South Korea because there are these high
Speaker 3: end greenhouses there and the wild Dudley. It could then
Speaker 3: be babied there for a few years in perfect conditions,
Speaker 3: and then they're big and beautiful. They're not small and
Speaker 3: gragule anymore. They're big and beautiful. These are big mamas,
Speaker 3: and they get sold at these astronomical prices to like
Speaker 3: elite collectors.
Speaker 2: When he told me, I couldn't believe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So how does mister Kim factor intoll? Well, first
Speaker 3: of all, I need to let you know that his
Speaker 3: alias was Neo, like like in the Matrix. I love
Speaker 3: that movie. But being called Neo while stealing plants is
Speaker 3: like big loser. No, I'm not going to He's like
Speaker 3: spinning around in a trench stopped.
Speaker 2: Stop, bend over, bullet time, stop it throw the plant
Speaker 2: at me.
Speaker 3: Watch this, mister Kim call me Neo. No. Neo flew
Speaker 3: from Mexico into Los Angeles International Airport in October twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: and with them were his two assistants, Young and Back
Speaker 3: and Bong Junkin. And they thought they were like slipping in,
Speaker 3: but California fish and wildlife were all over them the
Speaker 3: moment they set foot watch well. Yeah, so game wardens
Speaker 3: tailed the trio. They watched as they went and rented
Speaker 3: a minivan, and then they filled up the van with
Speaker 3: like empty backpacks and plastic bins and boxes. They got
Speaker 3: all their supplies.
Speaker 2: Picturing the game wardens in like a rental car, but
Speaker 2: they've got like dirty boots.
Speaker 3: In there, like like a tan jeep totally but with
Speaker 3: like false nose and glasses on it. So then they
Speaker 3: trailed the minivan up as they drive up the coast.
Speaker 3: And for a week, the wardens watched and followed as
Speaker 3: the guys stopped at state parks all along the northern
Speaker 3: California and in each stop they like scramble up to
Speaker 3: the rocky shore. Sometimes cliffs snatch up the plants and
Speaker 3: like you know how the coast is up there in Mendocine,
Speaker 3: Like you said.
Speaker 4: It's just like sheer.
Speaker 2: They got lucky.
Speaker 3: It's not sandy flat cliffs craggy and it is dramatic.
Speaker 2: Yeah you're hanging.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the three dudes they filled the van chok full,
Speaker 3: took the loop van filled the van, took it back
Speaker 3: down south to a business called Secret Garden Nursery in Vista, California,
Speaker 3: it's kind of halfway between like La and San Diego,
Speaker 3: so inland from ocean side. And I say that to
Speaker 3: those who know the state, and I apologize to the
Speaker 3: rest when who this means absolutely nothing? And yeah, but
Speaker 3: like the inland from ocean side. No, yeah, anyway, so Vista,
Speaker 3: California's secret garden nursery. So they drop off the stolen plants,
Speaker 3: they get back in the minivan and then they go
Speaker 3: up to Mendocino again. They're like Tomndo, another load. And
Speaker 3: so you know who was with them, game wardens with
Speaker 3: the state watching.
Speaker 2: They're in the car.
Speaker 3: They're like cleaning to the underside. So they waited and
Speaker 3: they watched as Neo hooked up documents to have the
Speaker 3: secret garden nursery legally export two hundred and fifty nine
Speaker 3: pounds of julio and the manifest said all the plants
Speaker 3: had originated in San Diego. And then the wardens watched
Speaker 3: while Neo and the crew took scores of boxes of
Speaker 3: plants to an export facility in Compton, and then they struck.
Speaker 4: Finally, Neo and the boys.
Speaker 3: Were driving off when they were intercepted by the plant police. Oh,
Speaker 3: they did like a pit move on it totally. And
Speaker 3: it turns out the boxes held more than six hundred
Speaker 3: pounds of succulents, three seven hundred and fifteen individual plants.
Speaker 4: These are not heavy plants. That's a lot, all of them.
Speaker 3: It's like maybe the size of your fists. Yeah, all
Speaker 3: of them. More than double what the documentation closed. So,
Speaker 3: folks from the California Native Plant Society like people stoked
Speaker 3: and so Neo and his little goons, they were charged
Speaker 3: with conspiracy and violating a California law against destruction or
Speaker 3: removal of plant material on public land. And the wardens
Speaker 3: estimated that the total for all of this that they
Speaker 3: stole on the South Korean market was six hundred thousand dollars. WHOA, yeah,
Speaker 3: So those were state charges. The Feds, specifically the US
Speaker 3: Attorney's Environmental Crimes Unit, they wanted in on it too.
Speaker 3: They wanted to make an example of these dudes. Whether
Speaker 3: that department exists in the US Attorney's office today, who's
Speaker 3: to say either way. Neo and the boys they caught
Speaker 3: federal charges too. It's like they say, you know, as
Speaker 3: California goes, so goes the nation. So May of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: Kim Neo found out that the Feds were going to
Speaker 3: bring the hammer down, so he ran.
Speaker 4: Fact.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well no, they had confiscated his passport when he
Speaker 3: got busted, Well, he got busted on the California state charges.
Speaker 3: He gets around it by going to the South Korean
Speaker 3: Embassy in La and he's like, guys, I lost my passport,
Speaker 3: which I mean, technically is not wrong.
Speaker 4: So they issued him.
Speaker 3: A new one and then he went down Mexico Way.
Speaker 3: He crossed over to TJ's on Foot Tijuana and from
Speaker 3: there he flew to China and from there South Korea.
Speaker 3: So he's in the wind until he wasn't. After only
Speaker 3: five months, he popped up again.
Speaker 4: He couldn't stay away the first time.
Speaker 3: In South Africa. What And it was there that South
Speaker 3: African investigators busted him as he was illegally harvesting more
Speaker 3: than two thousand rare succulents. South African climate is very similar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just what I say. Yeah, imagine that they
Speaker 2: would have like he's like, okay, I'll go to my
Speaker 2: secondary spot the harvesting.
Speaker 3: One of the ones that he poached was more than
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty years old, were and like dozens
Speaker 3: of them are more than one hundred years old, like tortoises.
Speaker 3: Uh huh. So the prosecutor on the case gets a
Speaker 3: phone call ring Ring Hello, michel A, I guess what.
Speaker 3: I'm an American Fish and Wildlife officer. I work at
Speaker 3: the embassy as an attache. It's a cool job, and
Speaker 3: I have crazy news. Your plant smuggler is wanted back
Speaker 3: in the US of A. So the South Africans they
Speaker 3: were already like heated up about Neo and according to
Speaker 3: the Guardian, they quote highlighted the severity and brutality of
Speaker 3: Kim's crime against nature and how stealing quote large ancient
Speaker 3: mother plants puts the entire species at risk, especially during
Speaker 3: times of serious drought. The collection of these plants is
Speaker 3: an ecological tragedy, they wrote. They were They're totally right.
Speaker 3: So Kim pleads guilty to the South African charges, pays
Speaker 3: a large fine, does a year in prison there, then
Speaker 3: gets extradited to the US. US prosecutors they asked for
Speaker 3: three years in prison. They're like, we want to make
Speaker 3: an example of him. Neo's attorney it was like, slow down, Joe.
Speaker 3: His client had been through the ringer. So yeah, he
Speaker 3: got COVID in prison, he got the stuff and beaten
Speaker 3: out of him. It was so bad that his jaw
Speaker 3: had to be wired shut, which is how he showed
Speaker 3: up in court and the attorney was like, you know,
Speaker 3: this is what happens when you were locked up and
Speaker 3: you don't speak the language. I think it's because he
Speaker 3: went in there and was like, call me neo. They're
Speaker 3: just like yeah, either way. He gets sentenced to two years.
Speaker 3: Bureau of Prisons gave him credit for South African time served,
Speaker 3: and then he gets shipped off again, just like the
Speaker 3: plants he stole, this time to the tippy top of
Speaker 3: California in none other than your favorite place, the Lamb.
Speaker 3: That time forgot Crescent City.
Speaker 2: Oh god.
Speaker 3: He had to face the music on the plant theft
Speaker 3: and fleeing prosecution charges from the state. So twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two he pleads guilty, sentenced to twenty four months. He
Speaker 3: only had to pay like four grand in restitution to
Speaker 3: the state of California for expenses related to replanting the
Speaker 3: stolen plants after his arrest. So let's take a break.
Speaker 3: I gotta go water my plants. When we come back.
Speaker 7: More smuggling, yeah, Zaren Elizabeth Daren.
Speaker 3: Do you remember what.
Speaker 2: I was saying during the break. I've been like translating
Speaker 2: what you were telling me because I think this is
Speaker 2: a new world to me. So I'm like, let me
Speaker 2: put this in smoking the bandit terms, and so I've
Speaker 2: been using that as like a way to understand. I'm like,
Speaker 2: you can't take cours east of the Mississippi. That's bootlegs.
Speaker 3: There it is.
Speaker 2: I'm like, now I guess it's clicking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, Well, do you remember when I was like
Speaker 3: telling you about the Lacey Act time? It was a
Speaker 3: good time. We were so young, so fresh, different times. Well,
Speaker 3: I have what is supposed to be a perfect example
Speaker 3: of a Lacy Act violation and battle with the government. Please,
Speaker 3: and it involves Gibbson guitars.
Speaker 4: Do they grow those?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So they're famous for the Les Paul the SG
Speaker 3: Gibson Guitar Corporation. They mainly make guitars and basses, Mandolins. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Orville Gibson. He started making instrum Gibson eighteen four wow,
Speaker 3: And the company was founded in nineteen oh two. As
Speaker 3: like Gibson Mandolin guitar, Kalamazoom Michigan and as you can
Speaker 3: tell by the name. They were very mandolin forward in
Speaker 3: the early days. So the company they invented arch top
Speaker 3: guitars that had the same principle behind violins, like how
Speaker 3: they're kind of that arch face of it. Then they
Speaker 3: started making flat top acoustic guitars, and then the first
Speaker 3: commercially available hollow body electric guitars all Jangle Jangled soneteen forty.
Speaker 3: It's true they do chief dobras. In the nineteen forty
Speaker 3: four Gibson got bought by Chicago Musical Instruments, and then
Speaker 3: they got bought nineteen sixty nine by Ecuadorian Company Limited,
Speaker 3: which was actually a Cannanian firm. Eighty six nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 3: the company got scooped up by a group led by
Speaker 3: Henry Yuskovic and David Barman, and then in November of
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, private equity stepped in and it was bought
Speaker 3: by Colberg, Kravitz Roberts.
Speaker 2: Sorry, Gibson, it really is.
Speaker 3: Throughout its history, Gibson has been involved in a lot
Speaker 3: of lawsuits, almost all of which stem from copyright stuff
Speaker 3: for design, because people rip off the less Paul design the.
Speaker 2: Way, Yeah, because you see the knockoffs. I had friends
Speaker 2: when we were They.
Speaker 3: Have their own down market version of the epiphone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 3: Tons of them. But there's another legal issue, and this
Speaker 3: one popped up during the Uskowitz.
Speaker 2: Barrim in years towards the end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in two thousand and nine, US Fish and Wildlife
Speaker 3: Services are heroes today. They raided a Gibson factory where
Speaker 3: they grow It seems they were using ebony wood illegally
Speaker 3: imported from Madagascar. Oh, this is a big problem. Madagascar
Speaker 3: suffers terrible poverty, corrupt government, and the world suffers from
Speaker 3: a terrible desire for beautiful at a low cost. And
Speaker 3: they've got a lot of them, and they got a
Speaker 3: lot of and one of them is fine green lumber. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so stuff like rosewood, ebony, stuff that makes Gibson guitars
Speaker 3: so gorgeous. So in its investigation, the US Department of
Speaker 3: Justice found some smoking guns. They got their hands on
Speaker 3: emails in which Gibson employees talked about how ebeny wood
Speaker 3: was part of a quote gray market and that they
Speaker 3: could get it from a German wood dealer and just
Speaker 3: not ask questions about where he got it, and even
Speaker 3: though they knew that it was coming from a supplier truck. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so they made plans to buy the wood even though
Speaker 3: they knew the sale wasn't on the up and up
Speaker 3: violation of the Laciact. In June of twenty eleven, the
Speaker 3: DOJ filed a civil proceeding and it was the first
Speaker 3: of its kind under the recently amended Lacy Act. So
Speaker 3: importing companies had to follow the environmental laws in the
Speaker 3: country of origin, even if the place was corrupt and
Speaker 3: no one was enforcing those laws.
Speaker 4: Okay, so that me and mar Yeah ma a gascar.
Speaker 3: So Gibson fought the suit. They said that the government
Speaker 3: was quote bullying Gibson without filing charges. Then the owners
Speaker 3: of Gibson made the whole thing political by getting the
Speaker 3: Tea party segment of the GOP the Republicans, to side
Speaker 3: against the government on this, saying that it was going
Speaker 3: to impact jobs.
Speaker 4: What.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So then there was another Gibson factory. Rate zaren
Speaker 3: close your eyes. I want you to picture it. You
Speaker 3: are a nineteen year old guy named Colby. You are
Speaker 3: forklift certified, and you work at the Gibson Electric Division
Speaker 3: rough Mill facility in Nashville, Tennessee. When you tell people
Speaker 3: where you work, they think it's the coolest job ever,
Speaker 3: and it sort of is. But you aren't surrounded by
Speaker 3: cool guitars all day. You move palettes of wood to
Speaker 3: and from the kilns. You don't ever really see guitars,
Speaker 3: and certainly no rock stars or anything. You got this
Speaker 3: job through your cousin who works repair and restoration next door.
Speaker 3: Now she gets to see a cool stuff. She processes
Speaker 3: all the guitars that come in and sometimes meets some
Speaker 3: musicians come to check the place out. But you you're
Speaker 3: in the mill. It's a warm late summer day. More
Speaker 3: than warm, it's sweltering. This is when it's pretty bogus
Speaker 3: working in the rough mill. You are at the wheel
Speaker 3: of a forklift, backing out of the storage area of
Speaker 3: the warehouse with a palletful of raw rosewood, headed for
Speaker 3: the kiln to be dried. After that it'll be plain
Speaker 3: and then headed to the manufacturing building. And that's where
Speaker 3: the magic happens. Baby, You've spent the morning moving bundles
Speaker 3: of Indian ebony wood. The manifest ticket on these reads
Speaker 3: Indian ebony fingerboards, but there's another slip of paper that
Speaker 3: says they're veneers for the body of guitars. You know
Speaker 3: that's not true, but whatever must be a paperwork mix up.
Speaker 3: Just as you're moving your load of new rosewood toward
Speaker 3: the kiln, the warehouse doors open to get some sort
Speaker 3: of air circulation, are crowded with guys in mid breakers.
Speaker 3: They look like FBI guys, but their jackets read us
Speaker 3: Fish and Wildlife. You've heard something about this before. But
Speaker 3: the building was rated a few years ago and the
Speaker 3: FEDS were looking for wood from Madagascar. But this stuff's
Speaker 3: from India. You don't know what the big deal is.
Speaker 3: Over the crackle of their walkie talkies, an agent yells
Speaker 3: at you to turn off the forklift and step aside.
Speaker 3: You do as you're told. There's a slam of an
Speaker 3: office door. You know what that means. It's Eugene. Eugene Nix.
Speaker 3: He's in charge of all the wood that comes in.
Speaker 3: He inspects it and then okays it for the killed.
Speaker 3: Then he sends it for milling and then off to
Speaker 3: the factory. He's pissed. He marches up to the agents,
Speaker 3: a tiny radio playing classic rock in the background. Yeah, brother,
Speaker 3: you tell him you think Eugene grabs some papers from
Speaker 3: the hand of the agent out front. It's a warrant.
Speaker 3: The agent tells him, I can see that. Eugene says, listen.
Speaker 3: The agent says, I know you're a craftsman, an expert,
Speaker 3: but we have to do our jobs here. Eugene scans
Speaker 3: the papers as agents fan out and shut the rest
Speaker 3: of the operation down. Your coworkers slowly emerge and gather
Speaker 3: around watching the standoff. Eugene size folds up the warrant paperwork,
Speaker 3: tucks it into the front pocket of his thin, worn,
Speaker 3: short sleeve button down shirt, and then whips his cell
Speaker 3: phone from his belt holster. He pushes some buttons and weights.
Speaker 3: After a moment, he barks, feds are here. It's the
Speaker 3: Indian Wood. Yeah, call the lawyers into the phone and
Speaker 3: hangs up. You and your coworkers look at each other,
Speaker 3: then at Eugene. He looks at all of you and
Speaker 3: tells you it looks like you have the rest of
Speaker 3: the day off. You'll get paid out for the hours,
Speaker 3: head on home and he'll see you tomorrow. And this
Speaker 3: Zarin was the raid that ground everything to a halt.
Speaker 3: So they hit a bunch of locations, including headquarters where
Speaker 3: they seize computers, oh and fish and wildlife found that
Speaker 3: Gibson had been importing lumber from India, which is fine, sure,
Speaker 3: but what they were importing wasn't legal because here's the thing.
Speaker 3: The International Tariff Code, also known as the Harmonized Schedule
Speaker 3: GRISS items shipped all over the globe and it's standardized
Speaker 3: across nations in order to smooth out trade, true globalization.
Speaker 3: So India forbids export of items categorized under the Code
Speaker 3: forty four oh seven quote wood sawn or chipped, lengthwise,
Speaker 3: sliced or peeled, whether or not planed, sanded or enjointed,
Speaker 3: of a thickness exceeding six millimeters. So basically, you can't
Speaker 3: export lumber from India unless it's already been worked on
Speaker 3: by Indian workers.
Speaker 4: Smart so they.
Speaker 3: Want to protect their jobs.
Speaker 4: That makes sense, like everyone's.
Speaker 3: Got to look out for their own. Every country does
Speaker 3: this sort of thing. We do it got to protect
Speaker 3: your industries. So Gibson, though, was importing unprocessed wood, just
Speaker 3: bundles of the wood, and they knew they weren't supposed to,
Speaker 3: And all those shipping documents that were supposed to keep
Speaker 3: this in line to be transparent about sourcing and destination,
Speaker 3: they were all off full of discrepancy. Yeah, and so
Speaker 3: the bundles of wood that you were moving at the
Speaker 3: Gibson rough Mill, they weren't supposed to be there. They're
Speaker 3: remarked for destination Germany. This company called Luthier's Mercantile International
Speaker 3: in California was the importer of record, but they had
Speaker 3: nothing to do with this. The stuff was just being
Speaker 3: sent straight to Gibson in Tennessee, and so US Fish
Speaker 3: and Wildlife they showed up seized the wood. They'd been
Speaker 3: watching this at customs and they'd seized some other shipments,
Speaker 3: the tracking shipments, and so they took all the wood
Speaker 3: at the kiln, at the factory, at the storage facility.
Speaker 3: And like Gibson pitched a fit, they were caught red handed.
Speaker 3: And so they went politically.
Speaker 2: How did they pitch a fit based on what?
Speaker 3: They blamed President Obama? They thanks Obama, all right, So,
Speaker 3: despite despite evidence that they willfully flouted the law, they
Speaker 3: said that Obama had it out for them and specifically
Speaker 3: targeted them. Okay, so usk of its right. He said
Speaker 3: that Martin Guitars did the same thing and they didn't
Speaker 3: get raised. He said it's because Martin were donors to
Speaker 3: the Democratic National committee.
Speaker 4: Oh god.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing. Martin Guitars had all their paperwork
Speaker 3: in line, and they could prove they hadn't violated the
Speaker 3: Lacy Act, an act that went into effect more than
Speaker 3: one hundred years before Obama was elected. So of course.
Speaker 2: They made classic guitars like Willie Nelson's is a Martin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's like the og. According to NPR, quote, Chris Martin,
Speaker 3: chairman and CEO of the C. F. Martin Guitar Company
Speaker 3: in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, said that when he first heard guitars
Speaker 3: built from Madagascar rosewood, he dreamed it might be the
Speaker 3: long sought substitute for Brazilian rosewood, whose trade was banned
Speaker 3: in the nineteen nineties due to over harvest. Then the
Speaker 3: situation in Madagascar changed. There was a coup. Martin says.
Speaker 3: What we heard was the international community has come to
Speaker 3: the conclusion that the coup created an illegitimate government. That's
Speaker 3: when we said, Okay, we cannot buy any more of
Speaker 3: this would Yeah. And while some say the Lacy Act
Speaker 3: is burdensome, Martin supports it. Quote, I think it's a
Speaker 3: wonderful thing. I think illegal logging is appalling. It should
Speaker 3: stop up and if this is what it takes, unfortunately
Speaker 3: to stop unscrupulous operators, I'm all for it. It's tedious,
Speaker 3: but we're getting through it.
Speaker 2: That's the way, that's the approach, that's reasonable and responsible business.
Speaker 3: So after all the bluster, all the victimhood and moaning
Speaker 3: a development, after one year Gibson yusk of it admitted
Speaker 3: to violating the Lacy Act. Good because like if they
Speaker 3: kept trying to fight it, they knew criminal charges for
Speaker 3: the ownership was on the horizon. And so there's like
Speaker 3: a major digital paper trail proving they knew what they
Speaker 3: were doing.
Speaker 2: They it was bad and a lot of musicians are ethically,
Speaker 2: you're going to start to these customers.
Speaker 3: Well that was the thing too, is that online Like
Speaker 3: the response apparently it was just like burning up Facebook
Speaker 3: with all this like these are American heroes and the
Speaker 3: Obama governments trying to go after them, right, But it
Speaker 3: was not. Guitar folks. Guitar folks and forums were like,
Speaker 3: this is actually I don't want to play something that
Speaker 3: came from totally. So Gibson had to pay a three
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars far and they forfeited the majority of
Speaker 3: the wood that was seized, but they did get some back,
Speaker 3: and what happened with it is the question.
Speaker 2: What happened with Elizabeth?
Speaker 3: Thank you? In twenty fourteen, they released the Government Series
Speaker 3: Les Paul SG three point thirty five and Flying V
Speaker 3: guitars the color Government Tan, and so the guitar featured
Speaker 3: that rosewood seized by the Feds in the Nashville raids.
Speaker 3: They made one thousand, seven and fifty guitars, and they
Speaker 3: started out at around eleven hundred dollars retail. They sold
Speaker 3: out all of them. Of course, company officials said the
Speaker 3: guitars quote suitably marks this infamous time in Gibson's history.
Speaker 2: Did they go to Cabo Wabbos? People liked?
Speaker 3: Well, it gets better. So each guitar features a pit
Speaker 3: guard quote hot stamped in gold with the Government series
Speaker 3: graphic a bald eagle hoisting a Gibson guitar neck. Are
Speaker 3: you kidding me?
Speaker 2: That's no Willie Nelson's IRS tape?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna not at all. So the company gave pad
Speaker 3: a press release quote when the Powers the Beat confiscated
Speaker 3: stocks of tone woods from the Gibson factory in Nashville,
Speaker 3: only to return them once there was a resolution and
Speaker 3: the investigation ended. It was an event worth celebrating. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was. The investigation ended because you were guilty and
Speaker 3: you paid for it. So they didn't really become the
Speaker 3: collector's item that Gibson thought they were going to be.
Speaker 3: I saw them online for maybe like twenty five hundred
Speaker 3: thirty two hundred dollars according to Ultimate Guitar dot com.
Speaker 2: Okay, amazing, one of my favorite reads every morning.
Speaker 3: Quote. Seven years after the raids, Yuskowitz had run the
Speaker 3: company five hundred million dollars into debt since his departure.
Speaker 3: He insisted to Guitarist magazine that any notion that he
Speaker 3: had anything to do with Gibson guitars dwindling reputation is
Speaker 3: quote fake news. A company, now under new management is
Speaker 3: committed itself to making guitars without critically endangered lumber, and
Speaker 3: the article continues. A report in the Nashville Business Journal
Speaker 3: in October of twenty twenty claim that Yuskovitz is now
Speaker 3: starting up his own healthcare company in Nashville. Apparently he
Speaker 3: found a business with bigger ethical loopholes to be exploited. Anyways,
Speaker 3: we look forward to what the future will hold for
Speaker 3: Gibson under new management, and we wish them the very best.
Speaker 3: Ultimate Guitar dot com Zaren was your ridiculous takeaway.
Speaker 2: I knew so little about any of this, but after
Speaker 2: hearing it all, I'm not surprised that the people involved
Speaker 2: are doing the stuff, like the smugglers and then the
Speaker 2: businessmen with the unethical like yeah, we'll take what from whatever?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like why are people like this?
Speaker 3: Like why do need to respect exactly? I know, I
Speaker 3: know what about you, Elizabeth, but my takeaway is that
Speaker 3: I still manage to get all heated talking about plants.
Speaker 3: It's supposed to be chilled.
Speaker 4: You worked it in.
Speaker 3: That's not the xanax I promised. But I he's going
Speaker 3: to go watch some gardener's world and cool out, Dave.
Speaker 3: I think we should have a talk back.
Speaker 8: God, I went, Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: I'm very, very sick right now and I'm listening.
Speaker 2: To you guys.
Speaker 8: This is actually is the vocal range of my voice
Speaker 8: at the moment, and I've just add to the introductions
Speaker 8: of the pac Man Fever episode and the chicken lozenges.
Speaker 8: Ridiculous do not want We love you, but you're a sick, lady.
Speaker 8: This is creepier than it sounds.
Speaker 4: Save your voice, My goodness made me have a chicken lost.
Speaker 3: You know you laugh chicken.
Speaker 2: By the way, if you're ever sick, chicken soup, orange juice,
Speaker 2: shout out. Tequila will heal you every time. But not
Speaker 2: for that. We were just works every time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but just like what about like generalized malaise.
Speaker 2: Like just on a Monday. I'll probably.
Speaker 3: That's it for today. You can find us online at
Speaker 3: ridiculous Crime dot com. The website just won the Outstanding
Speaker 3: Act of Bravery Metal from the Elko, Nevada Police Department.
Speaker 4: Wow, finally, I know.
Speaker 3: I'm so proud. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue
Speaker 3: Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod,
Speaker 3: and you can email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail
Speaker 3: dot com. But most importantly, as you know, I love
Speaker 3: these leave it talk back, save your voices, do it
Speaker 3: with robust. I don't want to hear anyone hurting themselves.
Speaker 3: Get the free iHeart app. Go through that reach out.
Speaker 3: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette,
Speaker 3: produced and edited by Fugitive Luther Dave coustm starring Annals
Speaker 3: Rutger as Judith. Research is by GMO Truth Marissa Brown
Speaker 3: and Keen Observation Quality Assurance Skills by Gray Witten. The
Speaker 3: theme song is by Poor Dirt Farmers Just Trying to
Speaker 3: make a Live and Grow and hollow Body guitars Thomas
Speaker 3: Lee and Travis Dutton. Host wardrobe is provided by Body
Speaker 3: five hundred. Guest hair and makeup provided by Sparkleshot and
Speaker 3: Mister Andre. Executive producers are Dandelion Smuggler, Ben Bollen and
Speaker 3: Rogue Fish and Game Warden Noel.
Speaker 5: Broun, Gus Crime Say It One More Time, Geequeous Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
Speaker 1: My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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