WEBVTT - 5 Successful Counterfeiters 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.800 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:07.480 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:14.760 from House Stuff works dot com. This episode of Stuff 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:16.840 you Should Know is brought to you by Go to Meeting. 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:19.040 We all have to meet, but the average cost of 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.680 a single business trip is one thousand dollars. With just 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.000 one click, you can save time and money and have 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.000 your meetings online with affordable and easy to use Go 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:30.880 to Meeting use Go to Meeting for sales presentations, product demos, 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.440 training sessions, collaborating on documents and more, and at forty 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.960 nine dollars per month for unlimited meetings, it saves time, money, 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.840 and travel. Try Go to Meeting free for thirty days. 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:44.080 Visit Go to Meeting dot com slash stuff. That's Go 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:49.199 to meeting dot com slash stuff. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.360 the podcast. This is Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.720 This is Stuff you Should Know. He to Live and 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.360 Die in. Yes, Chuck just did a little Um, I 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:01.960 don't even know. That's foreshadowing. I am really off my 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:07.520 game today, So you're not, Yeah, yeah, I am? Uh 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:11.000 what Chuck brought up? See listen, listen to me what 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.080 Chuck brought up um to live in? I want to 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.880 get through this sentence what Chuck brought up to live in? 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:21.680 Diane l a for is because we're talking about counterfeiting today, 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:24.560 and that's the best counterfeit movie in history. It is. 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:27.240 It is, and we've talked about it before, but I 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:29.600 think it's worth talking about again. Like you just did. 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:35.520 It's great, Thank you, You're welcome. Moving on, So, Chuck, counterfeiting, 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:39.479 as you may or may not know, is a dying crime, 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.760 a lost art. It really is. And actually this is 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:47.120 one of those old school types of criminal activity that, um, 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.640 people who are good at it have the respect of 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.800 law enforcement. I was reading an article about this bust 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:58.280 of some counterfeiting ring and it amounted just some guy 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:02.480 with an inkjet printer who was printing off you know, terrible, 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.440 terrible currency on fiber paper, right, and um, this secret 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.640 service guy, who's like a twenty two year vet was 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.239 just shook his head and discussed and he's like, it's 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.440 a dying art. Like you just you don't see good 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.760 paper any longer. Yeah, it's definitely a lost art. And um, 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:20.360 I kind of I know this sounds goofy, but I 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.799 kind of like the idea of since it doesn't have 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:24.920 that much anymore, I can say this of counterfeiting like 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.120 instead of a thief, anyone can throw a wind a 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:30.680 chair through a window and go like break into a 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.440 cash register at night. But to think like I'll print money, 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.600 that's so believable that you can pass it. Yeah, it's 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:39.880 like it was artistry for sure. It is. And um, 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:44.280 when researching this article, there was a common theme among 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:49.519 these great counterfeitters, these five most successful counterfeitters. Uh that 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:55.320 they all were just they had tremendous guts. They were 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.760 they tried to break out of jail at every turn. Um. 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.400 And they were just really admirable criminals. Yeah, and must 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.359 of them wrote books about it, which is interesting. It's well, 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:07.040 it's a good way to make some money afterwards. You 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.000 don't write a book about my life as a as 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.600 a flat screen TV thief, No, And if you do, 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:16.040 no one reads it. It's self published. So Chuck, let's 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:17.840 get into this all right, all right, Now we're gonna 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.720 talk about some of these successful counterfeiters, and we should 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:23.400 also add a caveat here. Successful doesn't mean that they 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:26.320 never got caught, we don't. We don't know about those 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:30.600 counterfeit exactly right. The ones who got caught but still 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.040 had these tremendous careers are the ones we're going to 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.880 talk about. And we're gonna do it chronologically, buddy, Starting 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:41.480 with a guy named Stephen Burrows Steve. He was born 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.440 in New Hampshire, Josh in the seventeen hundreds, late sept 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:49.800 mid seventeen hundreds, and uh was raised throughout the United States. 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:52.000 And I think that you have one of the best 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.600 sendences you've ever written in this article, which one from 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:58.480 an early age. He showed distinct signs of a cute chicanery. 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.400 What did you read that like, Anthony Hopkins? Oh that 0:04:02.440 --> 0:04:05.760 was Anthony Hopkins. Yeah, oh, he said, why did I Yeah, 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.040 that wasn't supposed to be anything. That is my news, 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.840 real voice. That was good, thank you? And he was 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.800 He was a little mischievous guy all his life, it 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.440 sounds like, apparently gained a reputation as the worst boy 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:21.360 in town. At a very young age. Um, he stole 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.400 a bunch of watermelons from a local farmer, and he 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.120 joined the search party to find the thief that chause 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:31.039 he's smart and I think at age fourteen he ran away, um, 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.000 joined the merchant navy, ended up basically being the de 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:38.360 facto ship doctor. Well, he deserted, that's right. He went 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.880 to the army, and the army deserted the army, then 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.800 went to college, bailed on college, and then became like 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.440 a de facto doctor on the boat, which led him 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:52.440 to say, you know what, I could probably get away 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.080 posing his stuff. His father was a clergyman, so he 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.359 decided that he was going to pose as the leader 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.000 of a church, which he did successful least first six months, 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:07.000 led the congregation like mass everything. Um. And he probably 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.400 could have done that indefinitely because you know, people aren't 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:13.560 that suspicious of preachers usually. Um. But he got busted 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:19.440 passing some counterfeit money in Concorde, right Springfield, close enough, Yes, 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.640 And then he was sent to jail. And then he thought, 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.200 I bet a good way to escape from jail would 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:29.200 be to set the jail on fire. Yeah, and it worked. 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:33.760 He successfully escaped. Yeah, he fled to Canada actually, and um, 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:38.039 he I think he did. He get caught again. Well, 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.240 that's where he led. The most serious counterfeiting ring was 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:44.440 when he went to Canada, right. So he was in Canada, um, 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.200 and he led this ring for years and then suddenly 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.320 he just decided to reform himself. He gave up crime, 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.719 started supporting himself by tutoring wealthy Canadian children or the 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:57.320 children of wealthy Canadians. I should say. Yes, he founded 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.479 a library and that what he said. Yeah, he became 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:04.239 kind of like got um cultural benefactor up there. Even 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.880 though people were aware of who he was, they still 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.760 respected him because the stuff he did, um, it was 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:15.520 just so respectable. They're like, he printed some funny bills. 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.320 He built us a library. Yeah, he built a library. 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:20.919 And he died in eighteen forty. But before that he 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:22.920 wrote a book, like you said, a lot of them do, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:27.040 called Memoirs of my Own Life. That's the best memoir 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.480 title in memoir history, Memoirs of my Own Life. So 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:33.360 it's still in print. Apparently I haven't read it. I 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:38.880 haven't either. Well. Moving on. Number four is drum roll 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.159 the Lavender Hill Mob, which I found out was a 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.640 movie from nineteen fifty one with Alec Guinness. We try 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:49.520 researching them. I know that's all you see is the movie, 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:55.799 but it's unrelated, not related at all. Instead, the Lavender 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.920 Hill Mob actually are a fairly recent origin. They were 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:03.719 um upper in in the nineties in Great Britain around 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.599 Lavender Hill. I would imagine they were founded by this 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.520 guy named Stephen Jury. And this guy was awesome. He 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.560 was what they call an old school rogue and that's 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:17.720 a quote. And uh another guy named Kenneth Mainstone who's 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.600 a retired printer, and Jury recruited Mainstone to come up 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:26.920 with some counterfeiting plates, right right, and they did very successfully. 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:30.840 And by the way, Jury is widely credited as establishing 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:35.600 the knockoff perfume market. Yeah. I found he um actually 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:40.560 bribed a perfumer to get recipes and by the time 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:42.640 it was all said and done, had bottled five million 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:48.040 phony Chanelle number five. That a factory in Acapulco making 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.800 stuff if you love Georgio or if you like Georgio, 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:57.520 you love La Lah and like the little spray Arissault kid. Yeah. Yeah, 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.800 And when it was the last time you were cologne. 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:02.600 Oh it's been a long time. Yeah, I work alone. 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:04.800 When I was like seventeen, I think was the last time. 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:06.800 That's it's about it for me. You know. It's funny. 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:08.760 When I lived in you my Arizona. All those dudes 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:12.360 work alone. Yeah, because everybody's sweaty out there. Well, I 0:08:12.400 --> 0:08:14.200 don't know, there's just kind of this there's a different 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:15.800 culture and they're like, you don't work alone, and they're 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.559 like because they have like Gill in there here. Okay, 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.160 I know the culture you're speaking, the Jersey short type 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.240 of thing. Yeah, okay, So the Leavener Hill mob, right, 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.920 they were very successful. They printed about fifty million pounds 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.360 worth of fake notes, and not pounds by weight, but 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:35.079 pound by you know, the currency currency. They also sold 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:38.080 fake stamps, which I thought was sort of ingenious. It is, 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:40.080 but at the same time, it's like, look, you just 0:08:40.120 --> 0:08:43.640 made fifty million pounds of fake currency, and and one 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.240 way to get rid of um, counterfeit money is not 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.640 to just passive, but you can actually sell it for 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.760 you know, pennies on the dollar to people who know 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.280 that it's counterfeit or you're going to go past with themselves. 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.600 But um, even for pennies on the dollar, it's still 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:02.080 many millions of pounds, and these guys are making stamps 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.880 on the side. Yeah, it was a little i'd Apparently 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:08.839 the first bills didn't work out, so great though. You 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.760 hear about that that the Queen of England looked like 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.520 she had a beard, and so that maybe that's why 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.480 they were making stamps until they perfected the note making, 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.199 which they did because they fooled UV detectors. They got 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.360 so good at it. Yeah, and actually they got good 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.720 enough that the um the Bank of England actually changed 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:32.200 their design for their twenty pound note because of the 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.760 Lavender Bob's activities and success. Pretty awesome, it is. And 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.160 he wrote a book Joy did before he died. Just 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:40.800 died a couple of years ago, didn't he two thousand 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.199 six He had center two titles. The first one was 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:48.440 called Funny Money Decent. The second one was great. Second 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.559 one was called loads of Money. And that's one word, 0:09:52.040 --> 0:09:54.680 loads of loads of Money, the true story of the 0:09:54.720 --> 0:10:00.560 world's lawest ever counterfeiting ring Colin and there is. Well, yeah, 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:02.440 it kind of classes up your book when you have 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.520 a colon in there, loads of Money. We should write 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:11.320 a movie about that guy. Alright, chuck onto the Nazis. Yeah, 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.920 I didn't know this. Most people think of the Nazis 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:18.800 as like the worst fascist state to ever emerge in 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:23.040 the history of humanity, not the worst state. Ever, not 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:29.200 first worst because Mussolini wasn't all that successful. Um, you know, 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:38.240 they they directly murdered ten million marginalized people, um, including Jews, 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:44.600 Roman Catholics, homosexuals and others. They invaded Poland and France 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:50.400 and other countries. But they also ran arguably the most 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:54.600 successful counterfeiting ring in the history of humanity. There were 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.120 a lot of in the history of humanities with Nazis, 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.800 almost all of them were horrible. Actually, all of them 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.920 were horrible. This is the least horrible thing they've ever done, probably, 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:06.800 but it was going to pan out pretty bad in 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.000 the end. Yeah. They made about six hundred and fifty 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:14.840 million pound notes, which would be about seven billion bucks today, right, 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.400 which was about of the currency in circulation in Great 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:22.000 Britain at the time. And their brilliant idea was to 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:27.400 fly over England and drop cash money from planes. They 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:31.840 actually figured out and this was called Operation Bernard after Bernard, 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:35.280 who was an s S officer who's in charge of 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:37.320 this operation. The head of the operation named the operation 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.560 after himself. Basically, what they did was they went around 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.520 and figured out what nearly dead people in their camps 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.240 used to be printers in the time before the war, 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.600 and they identified them and drafted them to work in 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.640 what was called the Devil's Workshop, which is like a 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:58.040 secret printing press or printing office. And uh, what is 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:02.720 it you you you speak to Irman? What camp? Uh? 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:07.960 Saskatchewan now? Uh Shauschenhausen. Nice chuck. So they had some 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:14.440 guys there, all assembled to crack the English currency and 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.679 and they did successfully, leading to the six fifty million 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:20.320 pound notes. Yeah, and they well they didn't drop her 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:22.920 from the plane though they laundered it use some of 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:27.400 that money to like import things. And this isn't factually 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.560 backed up, but there is a rumor that they actually 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.040 used that money to pay for the rescue of Mussolini. 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.080 Did they really? Yeah, well, they apparently made a bunch 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:39.440 of cats. They gave the money to a German businessman 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:41.520 who served as a front form to launder it, and 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.600 he bought anything of value that he could get his 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.920 hands on with this money. And apparently it wasn't a 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.880 secret like Uh. England had known since like nineteen thirty 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.400 nine that this was going on, and they tried to 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.920 close their borders to income and currency, but it didn't 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:00.840 really work. They finally cracked the American hundred dollar bill. 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:05.160 Just as their camp was liberated and they they the 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:07.160 Nazis and these guys were coming. So they took all 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.560 the printing prayer by these guys, the Allies. They took 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:12.920 the printing stuff and threw it in the lakes, blew 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.520 stuff up with explosives. I don't know why they were 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:20.520 trying to cover this aspect of the Holocaust up, you know, um, 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.720 and they were about to execute everybody who was involved, 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:28.120 and the Allies showed up and save the day. Yeah, 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:29.800 And I think we should point out the idea but 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.840 behind all of this was to undermine the economies of 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.440 England and the United States, or do not point that out, 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:38.160 which is that's a pretty important part. That was the plan. 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:40.760 They weren't just like, oh, we'll get English money and 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.240 didn't would buy things because you know, if you have 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.400 a sudden influx of cash, a lot of cash on 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:50.400 the on the market leads to inflation. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Uh. 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.319 There was a BBC TV show Josh about this in 0:13:54.080 --> 0:14:00.760 called Private Shorts. And then one of the Jewish um 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:04.280 prisoners forced to do this was named Adolf Burger, and 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.000 he later wrote a book, and that book was turned 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:09.920 into a movie that won Best Foreign Language Film in 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:14.520 two thousand eight. H The Counterfeiters in English, don't ask me, 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.520 it was in German. Let's check it out. Yeah, moving on, Chuck, 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.960 Moving on to number two. Charles Ulric. Yes, not related 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:27.160 to Robert Urick as far as I know, because there's 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.080 two different names. Now. This guy was another um, kind 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.480 of dashing counterfeitter, filled with daring do and he was 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:39.040 also a ladies man, actually do. I couldn't help There's 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:44.200 no other better way to describe it. A cute chicanery. Yeah, 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.800 he was a ladies man, right, Yeah, it actually led 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.840 to his downfall, right. He was a polygamist, uh, and 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.600 he wasn't shy about it. He was like Bill Paxston 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.360 for goodness, say right. And this was in the eighteen 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:58.680 sixties in New York. He and like most of these 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.800 uh counter fitters, he was a gifted engraver of plates. Right. 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.560 So the local mob figures out that this guy is 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.240 a gifted engraver of plates, and the corral um to 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.800 try to get him in well working for them, and 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.600 he does, and he ends up getting in trouble and 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:17.880 ends up forming his own mob, his own gang, and 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.680 with all the women included. Right. Um, he finally gets 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:24.840 caught in eighteen sixty eight and stands trial. He was 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.800 in Cincinnati, and he got twelve years in the federal 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:31.360 pokey uh and by his own estimation, he printed about 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.160 eighty thousand dollars worth of um phony bills a lot 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:37.320 of deb back then, which is equal to about one 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.960 point three million in two thousand eight dollars. Right, but 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:44.440 what was his downfall, Chuck, I said, women, but specifically 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.720 what well like you said, he was a just sort 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.440 of a blatant polygamous, made no bones about it, and 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.400 he engaged, moved all around, engaged in relationships and never 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.440 broke off the old ones. Eventually he moved his wife 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.880 and to live with he and his girlfriend and a 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.240 third woman, and one of them finally said, you know what, 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:07.320 I'm gonna turn you in, jerk. Actually all of them 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.320 turned on him, but interesting, and they turned him in. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.400 And that's that's where the Cincinnati trial came from. Before that, 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.640 he had been um incarcerated, and in the grand tradition 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:22.840 of counterfeiters, he broke out and actually led the cops 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.640 on a chase across the Niagara River. Like right at 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.960 the falls and made it across actually into Canada and 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:32.200 escaped and he was like, who's that lady in the 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.520 barrel as he was going, And if that's not daring do, 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.040 I don't know what that's daring do? My friend, that's 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.560 a cute chickenary. Can you really like that? That's just great? 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.760 All right? The last one, buddy, And this guy's pretty familiar. Yeah, 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:50.760 everyone's probably heard of Frank a Big Nail because the 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:54.600 Stevie Spielberg movie Catch Me if you Can, Yeah, Tommy Hanks. 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:58.240 It was made at a time when Spielberg unwittingly had 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.800 a fake or a stolen Rockefeller in his collection. Yeah, 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.160 I love this movie. Did you like it? I liked 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:05.720 it too. It was just I don't know. It was 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.280 it when spielberget kind of put out some stinkers and 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.520 everything was so serious, and then he just kind of 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:14.320 did a fun, entertaining heist movie, right, And it's one 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:16.240 of those movies you can lay on the couch and watch, 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.440 like for the fiftieth time on like a Sunday. Did 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.919 they never show it on TV? Yeah? That was I 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:24.520 think it ran on like T and T for a 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:28.159 while because I saw it. Yeah, I love this movie. Um. 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:32.880 Leo DiCaprio obviously played Frank and a funny story. When 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.520 abcnail found out DiCaprio is going to portray him, he 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.280 was worried because he didn't know if Leonardo DiCaprio would 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.199 be able to be smooth enough to play him accurately. 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.200 He's like the smoothest dude on the planet. He is smooth. 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:50.600 He's like, oh, Leo, no, I don't think this guy cares. 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.040 I don't think he thinks. Leo DiCaprio holds a candle 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:57.520 to goodness me, you can land Gazelle. And then also 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:02.000 can Tom Brady. Well look at him, dude, stud quarterback. Yeah, 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.159 but I mean chiseled out of stone. He's a quarterback. 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:09.359 Shut up, all right. Uh. He did most of his 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.000 work and his teens and twenties, which is the remarkable 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.480 thing about his story. And he was a check forger, yes, 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.360 as anybody who's seen the movie can tell you. Uh. 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.000 And actually, between the ages of sixteen and twenty one, 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.080 he cash more than two point five million dollars in 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:28.400 fake checks in all fifty states and twenty six countries. Yeah. Yeah, 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.160 that's some serious work. And He was also a confidence 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.600 man because he would not only write fake checks, but 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.840 he would masquerade as as you saw in the film, 0:18:37.920 --> 0:18:41.320 like an airline pilot or a doctor or an attorney professor. 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:44.840 I think he did at one point and fooled everybody. Yeah, 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:48.080 and he just forged whatever documents he needed to prove 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.040 that he had the education or training or resume or 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:54.280 whatever and get hired, which made him a good comment, 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.040 which made him chuck smooth. He said, catch me if 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:02.359 you can. Few things here, Josh, that are similar and 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:04.560 different from real life and in the movie, because they 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:06.240 always beef it up a little bit in the movies. 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:11.159 He did actually um pose as a federal agent when 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.800 they busted in on him and kind of snuck out 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.520 the back door. Said keep looking. Yeah, he ordered the 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:18.480 fens who were looking for him to keep looking. He 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:20.840 said he was like a treasury agent or something. Absolutely 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.840 and yeah, and he was their first. Um he actually 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.640 did escape from a moving plane taxing on the runway. 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:32.719 That's pretty seriously, that's awesome. That really happened. However, in 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:34.840 real life he never saw his father again after he 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:39.320 left home, and uh, he he had a real problem 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:42.800 with his parents. Divorced. I mean, like more so than 0:19:42.840 --> 0:19:46.560 any kid I've ever heard. Like, he would fantasize about 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.479 meeting his parents again and then being proud of him, 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.560 and then getting back together because they were proud of 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:55.400 his exploits weird. It's kind of like Ralphie dreaming that 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.880 he was going to go blind from having to eat 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:04.480 soap for swearing. You remember it was so poisoning. Uh. 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:06.320 He was one of four kids, and in the movie, 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.520 I think he was an only child. Um Hannity the 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:14.040 character hand Ratty, the character hand Ratty, Tom Hanks character. Yeah, 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:17.840 it was actually got named Joe Shay. They changed his name. Yeah, 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:19.760 I don't know why because they said in the original 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.160 script it was Joe Shay and I could never find 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:23.920 any reason why they changed it to hand Ready. Did 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.760 they say anything about Captain America? Did he use the 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:31.439 Captain America alias? No, I didn't notice. Uh. He was 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:33.840 in the film actually as one of the French policemen 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:37.800 that nabbed him. Yeah, he had a cameo, yeah, because 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:43.000 he did a stint in the French jail, French prison, 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:49.200 French prison. He uh is actually married married a woman 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:51.320 as soon as he went straight. He married a woman, 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:53.919 still married to her today. It's got three sons, and 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.199 one of his sons is a federal agent. And he 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:03.159 did remain friends with Tom Hanks or not, but yeah, 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.639 and he does, uh, he does consulting on like identity 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.600 fraud and you know, bank security and stuff like that. Right. Yeah, 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:11.960 everyone on your list wrote a book except for number 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:16.280 two Charles or yeah, well in the Nazis Yeah, but 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:19.399 the other the guy wrote actually one of the guys involved, 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:22.520 Charles Ulrich was just too too involved with the ladies. 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:24.359 I guess waste time write in a book. You should 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:26.960 write a book about that, Chuck. Do you want to 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.960 finish this? Finish? You want to wrap this turkey up exactly? 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.240 This episode of stuff you should know is brought to 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.280 you by go to Meeting, the affordable way to meet 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.320 with clients and colleagues for your free thirty day trial. 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:44.480 Is it go to meeting dot com slash stuff. Okay, 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.080 So if you want to see some pictures about the 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:50.240 guys that we were just talking about, one I couldn't find, 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.960 so I used a picture of Dartmouth College. It is 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:55.919 the best I could come up with, and I apologize 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.600 for that. Sorry. You can type in counterfeitters CEO you 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.960 A T E R F E I T E R 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:06.439 S in the handy search part how stuff works dot Com, 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:14.400 which leads us to the listener mail Thank the Lord, Josh, 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:18.280 I'm gonna call this sinister, Eats wrote in Yeah, we 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:20.480 got a bunch of them. We did schooled another out 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:26.119 there being all weird. Uh this is uh three quickies. 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:29.960 I edited them down, guys um first ones from Jonathan. 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:33.000 When I hear spoken words, I see the written forms 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.320 of the words in my visual field. I see them 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:39.200 much the same way I see a memory. They don't 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:41.560 scroll across my visual field like a stock ticker, whether 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.160 they appear in flashes and seemingly random positions and sizes. 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:47.560 I see the words most clearly when I'm deeply focused 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:49.960 on the content of speech, like at a lecture or 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.920 when I'm listening to lyricize music. I often see even 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:56.159 see words when I'm dreaming. As for the color, the 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:58.280 best I can do is say that they are a 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:02.879