Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome back to the show. My name is Noel.
Speaker 3: Our colleague Matt is on adventures and will be returning soon.
Speaker 3: Shut out as always to our super producer Paul Mission
Speaker 3: control decond. Most importantly, you are here. That makes this
Speaker 3: the stuff they don't want you to know, we're addressing.
Speaker 3: I think in a larger sense tonight an old question,
Speaker 3: an old chestnut. Does money make people happy? It's puzzled
Speaker 3: humanity since the dawna currency. No, you know this well, well, I.
Speaker 2: Mean it's kind of kind of easy answer. And then
Speaker 2: I think it's like multi pronged where money can afford
Speaker 2: you the ability to buy things that might potentially make
Speaker 2: you happy, but they will not solve any existential problems.
Speaker 2: In fact, it is more likely to create further existential
Speaker 2: problems if you're not careful and don't keep that I
Speaker 2: need to have as much as the next guy. Impulse
Speaker 2: in check a.
Speaker 3: Yes, keeping up with the evil of the Joneses. It's
Speaker 3: funny because I read a number of years ago an
Speaker 3: excellent study. There's a ted talk about this as well,
Speaker 3: about the idea of a threshold of happiness here in
Speaker 3: the United States. A few years ago. It turns out
Speaker 3: that exhaustive studies had proven after a certain threshold, money
Speaker 3: doesn't buy happiness, but until you get to that threshold,
Speaker 3: money does buy happiness. Some religions call the love of
Speaker 3: money the root of all evil, not money itself, but
Speaker 3: as you said, the love of it. And then some
Speaker 3: obviously some amazing MC's believe an excess of cash creates
Speaker 3: an excess of problems. Do you like I'm dancing around?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it's I mean, I think was it?
Speaker 2: Jay Z said more money, more problems? Didn't he say that? Now?
Speaker 2: He said ninety nine problems? He said more biggie. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's just a thing that's been floating around the hip
Speaker 2: hop community for Yeah, it's also a biggie thing. Yeah
Speaker 2: it's a big but you know, there's some truth to that,
Speaker 2: because every time you you level up, if you continue
Speaker 2: down that road, there is sort of like a I
Speaker 2: don't know, sort of like an always chasing kind of quality,
Speaker 2: and it's always you know, further things you have to service,
Speaker 2: and then further amounts of paranoia, and then the idea
Speaker 2: of like what if everybody's just after me for my money?
Speaker 2: And what if nobody actually likes me and they're just
Speaker 2: hanging around, And then before you know it, you're surrounded
Speaker 2: by people that you exclusively.
Speaker 3: Pay yes inspiration as addiction. That's fascinating. It is an
Speaker 3: open secret here in the United States and indeed across
Speaker 3: the planet that people with a lot of money, a
Speaker 3: lot of financial heft, often end up above justice. At
Speaker 3: the same time, to your point, these individuals can often
Speaker 3: end up being targets of insidious conspiracies. And this is
Speaker 3: what brings us to tonight's episode. A billionaire who one
Speaker 3: day simply disappeared. Not super widely reported in the West,
Speaker 3: but we want to give a special shout out to
Speaker 3: our brother Matt Frederick who suggested this idea. Can you
Speaker 3: know you're better with these accents than I am? Can
Speaker 3: you do the name?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: The Danish is definitely its own thing. I do believe
Speaker 2: it's Karl Eric Bjorkigren. There might be an accent on
Speaker 2: the keg, but I think it's And there's the umlaud
Speaker 2: over the oh, which makes it a buk. It really
Speaker 2: is spelled like the famous Icelandic. You know, it's an
Speaker 2: incredible singer, songwriter, artist, producer Buurke, but most people say Byork,
Speaker 2: so I believe it would be Bjorkki grin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, umloud over the oh.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: Well, dug. This guy became a billionaire, a legend in
Speaker 3: his day. Look upon his works. He mighty and despair
Speaker 3: until he ghosted. Here are the facts. All right, let's
Speaker 3: call him Carl, lest we offend with our accents, Noel,
Speaker 3: can we learn a little bit more about Carl.
Speaker 2: I think he's actually Carl Eric is probably how he
Speaker 2: would be referred to. And if it is a hyphen it,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna prefer to him as
Speaker 2: Carl Eric.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: He was born on October ninth, nineteen twenty in Esluv, Sweden,
Speaker 2: to Karl Byerkigrin and Judith Janssen Hansen. It's a jay.
Speaker 2: I think it's a soft h sound for in Swedish,
Speaker 2: but I think it could be wrong.
Speaker 3: Well, Carl Eric served in the Swedish Army and he
Speaker 3: did pretty well. He ultimately attained the rank of lieutenant
Speaker 3: in nineteen forty four, he leaves the military. So World
Speaker 3: War two is happening. He leaves the military and he
Speaker 3: goes to school. He pursues a degree in economics at
Speaker 3: the Gothenburg School of Business, Economics and Law. He's there
Speaker 3: for quite some time. He graduates in nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 3: And when he graduates, he becomes a sort of starting
Speaker 3: level dare I say, infantry level accountant for an engineering
Speaker 3: company called Sandvik. And this is honestly, this is a
Speaker 3: real started from the bottom story. Carl eric Of eventually
Speaker 3: becomes the CFO of the company in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 3: and just four years later he becomes the CEO. It's
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty five by this point, and he continues as
Speaker 3: the CEO of again this international business, all the way
Speaker 3: up until he retires in nineteen eighty one. Super financially successful,
Speaker 3: not the best guy ethically. He gets convicted on some stuff.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen eighty two he is convicted of the
Speaker 2: all too common financial crime of insider trading. In this case,
Speaker 2: he was the ultimate inside man with the inside info.
Speaker 2: He essentially purchased stock in his own company and didn't
Speaker 2: tell anybody because he you know, he had advanced knowledge,
Speaker 2: I guess that the company was failing or what like,
Speaker 2: you're you're allowed to purchase stock in your own company,
Speaker 2: But it's what's the inside.
Speaker 3: He was moving money in crooked ways if you look
Speaker 3: at the financial ups and downs of the company, Like
Speaker 3: he knew when improvements were going to happen, or he
Speaker 3: knew he knew before the public knew that that the
Speaker 3: value of the company would increase, and so he's able
Speaker 3: to buy in he might have I don't know. Insider
Speaker 3: trading is tricky, right, yeah, because.
Speaker 2: I mean CEOs have stock in their own companies all
Speaker 2: the time, and in theory, if you're a good CEO,
Speaker 2: you're you're gonna kind of know when improvements are coming
Speaker 2: quote unquote. But the improvements that you might think are
Speaker 2: improvements necessarily always equal. A stock shift is usually something
Speaker 2: catastrophic or like an acquisition or something. But typically, you know,
Speaker 2: an insider trading scandal would involve somebody knowing a company
Speaker 2: was going to tank.
Speaker 3: Right or maybe no, you know, maybe knowing a pandemic
Speaker 3: is going to occur and you are sleeping with a
Speaker 3: congress person and insider trading doesn't apply to them anyway.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting. The laws about it are somewhat murky. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and a boy. Carl Eric also has a rocky personal life.
Speaker 2: He has five children and four ex wives all told,
Speaker 2: that's four marriages. All this news it didn't sink him.
Speaker 2: Quite the opposite. In fact, when he retired in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one, that's when his fortune really took off. Chairman
Speaker 2: of the board at several companies, huge investor in manufacturing
Speaker 2: and real estate. He controlled or owned all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: He was kind of playing monopoly, like you know how
Speaker 2: a monopoly you go across the board. You buy houses,
Speaker 2: then you buy hotels. He owned all these hotels. I
Speaker 2: would say, at a certain level of money, you kind
Speaker 2: of lose your nationality, you become international or globalist. He
Speaker 2: had homes in the United Kingdom. He had home that
Speaker 2: we know about. Really weirdly, he had a nice home
Speaker 2: in Florida. I didn't know that something that people in
Speaker 2: Sweden aspired to. Yeah, almost like to the point of
Speaker 2: that too big to fail kind of situation, like an
Speaker 2: economy of scale in human form, right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: One of his compounds in Sweden was a mansion. He
Speaker 3: lived a very extroverted extravagant lifestyle. At his highest, as
Speaker 3: far as we can tell, his net worth in the
Speaker 3: late nineteen nineties was around two point five billion kroner
Speaker 3: Swedish growner, which is over seven hundred million dollars, and
Speaker 3: he was close to being all told a billionaire at
Speaker 3: this stage. In the money game, people also to collect art.
Speaker 3: I thought of you researching parts of this because we
Speaker 3: talked about Picasso recently in Strange News, and he bought
Speaker 3: a lot of actual Picasso and he once said, this
Speaker 3: is a true story. He once said, you buy art
Speaker 3: with your own money, you make investments with other people's money.
Speaker 3: Very Bernie made off.
Speaker 2: It is a little bit. And you know, Picasso is
Speaker 2: one of those kind of crown jewels of any art collection.
Speaker 2: You got your Picasso, maybe a Warhol or two. He
Speaker 2: also had Shagall, an artist that is very famous and collectible.
Speaker 2: One or Joan Miro, a Spanish artist who I was
Speaker 2: not familiar with until I just was in Barcelona and
Speaker 2: went to the Joan Miro like institute or whatever. It's
Speaker 2: kind of in the really high Castileee part of Barcelona.
Speaker 2: I believe it's called mont Jaique. There's also a Goudy
Speaker 2: Park that's right up there as well, but really cool sculptor.
Speaker 2: I would hazard to guess that Tim Burton was really
Speaker 2: into Joan Miro and his like kind of Beetlejuice esque
Speaker 2: sort of macabre, weird, freestanding sculptures. He also had, Ben,
Speaker 2: you'd love this a fountain filled with mercury. Not an
Speaker 2: actual art installation, but it's it's encased in glass so
Speaker 2: you can't get splattered or going to breathe in the fumes,
Speaker 2: but it is actual mercury and was one of the
Speaker 2: coolest things I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: But shut exactly so I don't think he had that one,
Speaker 3: but definitely had some pieces by some pretty high dollar
Speaker 3: collectible artists.
Speaker 2: And that that quote you mentioned Ben is peak ostentatious,
Speaker 2: Like what's the word I'm looking for, Well, luxury, you
Speaker 2: know it's that, like, you know, opulence, that's the word.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it. And the issue is fortune has proven ever
Speaker 3: a fickle mistress. In the late nineteen eighties, the Swedish
Speaker 3: housing market collapses. Our buddy Carl Eric is over leveraged.
Speaker 3: He loses everything. Turns out his real estate empire is
Speaker 3: propped up on loans. He's robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Speaker 2: Hmm, there's that more money, more problems there, it is.
Speaker 2: He's rearing its ugly head alright, yes, sir, Because once
Speaker 2: you get to a certain point, if things don't continue
Speaker 2: to sustain themselves, you've painted yourself into a corner, you
Speaker 2: know where in order to continue, right, do you have
Speaker 2: to just keep going up and up and up. It's
Speaker 2: just like a stock price of a publicly traded company.
Speaker 2: If you don't show growth year over year, then that
Speaker 2: like is bad for your brand. That's bad for everything
Speaker 2: about who you are, what you represent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, my personal net worth, it depends on
Speaker 3: how I feel it that day, exactly.
Speaker 2: Your net worth is your network? Ben heard that.
Speaker 3: So uh, he had no money to pay off these
Speaker 3: immediately do loans in the wake of this collapse, and
Speaker 3: so he does something that is pretty dangerous and litigious
Speaker 3: in that country. Bankruptcy is kind of more of a
Speaker 3: big deal in these parts of Europe than it is
Speaker 3: in the United States, And bankruptcy sucks in the US.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3: It?
Speaker 2: Does? It always occurs to me that like tax money
Speaker 2: in other countries much more valuably used, I guess for
Speaker 2: the individual and the system of finance seemed to me
Speaker 2: to be a little more like benefiting the individual, whereas
Speaker 2: over here it just seems like it's only benefiting the
Speaker 2: super rich. And obviously our tax dollars don't really go
Speaker 2: to much that we can see benefiting us. So I'm
Speaker 2: wondering why bankruptcy is such a harsher, you know, I
Speaker 2: guess penalty over.
Speaker 3: There, I would advance to you it's because there is
Speaker 3: a better rule of law.
Speaker 2: I think that's It's what I guess. That's what I'm
Speaker 2: describing overall, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I an accountant friend, I would say that a
Speaker 3: financial enthusiast acquaintance, very well read on US law once
Speaker 3: told me that after a certain threshold, bankruptcy is jazz
Speaker 3: in the United States.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the same with tax loopholes over here.
Speaker 2: I just don't picture those existing quite as prevalently in
Speaker 2: other countries. But also it seems like the tax system
Speaker 2: might already be a little more fair and a little
Speaker 2: more designed to help out individuals. You know, there's money
Speaker 2: put away that helped people retire with dignity, whereas, like
Speaker 2: over here, if you don't have some sort of like
Speaker 2: gold platinum, you know, healthcare plan through like a corporate
Speaker 2: entity or what have you. You're going to be scrapping. You know,
Speaker 2: social Security isn't enough to pay for people's retirement anymore.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just anyway, I'm sorry, I'm not to
Speaker 2: get on a.
Speaker 3: These are these are a political points. These are financial
Speaker 3: observations that you're making. I would argue. The main thing
Speaker 3: you need to walk away with from this part of
Speaker 3: the story, folks, is that the Swedish government after the
Speaker 3: bankruptcy declaration, seized Carl Eric's art collection and then they
Speaker 3: also seized a lot of his real estate properties. We're
Speaker 3: not saying the guy was a knucklehead though. Before he
Speaker 3: declared bankruptcy, he transferred ownership of some of his most
Speaker 3: valuable art, along with a little seaside estate, to one
Speaker 3: of his daughters, and because she owned it, it meant
Speaker 3: the Swedish government couldn't take it. He also started a
Speaker 3: secret Swiss bank account, a numbered Swiss bank account, so
Speaker 3: he was living high on the hog despite being over
Speaker 3: the equivalent of three hundred and fifty million US in
Speaker 3: debt and every so often. Oh he also had a butler,
Speaker 3: which would be weird to anybody who has had to
Speaker 3: deal with bankruptcy in the United States. He also had
Speaker 3: a butler. He had two butlers, but his second butler
Speaker 3: is the guy he hung out with a lot of
Speaker 3: His first butler was in the shop, so he had
Speaker 3: to So, yes, you had another butler. Weirdly to the
Speaker 3: we're pulleyed a lot of sweetish sources here. The translation
Speaker 3: is something like ground service because he was he was
Speaker 3: a little it was a little two hands off to
Speaker 3: do a lot of, uh, you know, around the housework.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you do start describing from some of these sources,
Speaker 2: like some of the things the butler was responsible for.
Speaker 2: One of them included the lawn. I just thought that
Speaker 2: was that. Didn't that seemed outside of the realm of
Speaker 2: the butler, a little more like the groundkeeper. But it
Speaker 2: does seem like to your point, and even that term
Speaker 2: ground does make me think more of groundskeeper. But it
Speaker 2: sounds like this guy was kind of a Swiss army
Speaker 2: knife type character. You know, he did a little of everything.
Speaker 3: Is kind of a dog, he's a driver, he was
Speaker 3: sort of a valet, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, a second, he.
Speaker 2: Get his hands dirty, you know, he cooked meals, he
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, he would do the housework and then
Speaker 2: he would apparently go hang out with his kid, which
Speaker 2: I think is very interesting, this idea of the life
Speaker 2: of a butler. I always think, like, what do they
Speaker 2: do when they're not buttling?
Speaker 3: You know, we should also do a ridiculous history episode
Speaker 3: on the ridiculous history of buttling.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, even the I just want to know more
Speaker 2: of the origin of the word but to buttle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you also like butt lingon.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, but what how does one buttle? It seems to
Speaker 2: encompass quite quite a lot of different disciplines.
Speaker 3: I have research on this. There is a prestigious school
Speaker 3: of but ling, of butlery. It's in the United Kingdom,
Speaker 3: and it's sort of the feeder school to serve aristocrats,
Speaker 3: to serve the royal family. All right, I'm getting on attention.
Speaker 2: Did mister Belvedere go to that? I have to know
Speaker 2: in the in the no, But I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: the act of service is an art in and of itself,
Speaker 2: and even like a really really good waiter, there is
Speaker 2: a certain art to that. So we're not here to
Speaker 2: mock but butler's or the art of buttling, because it
Speaker 2: is very much a certain set of skills.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't come for us, big buttle. We also, well,
Speaker 3: I love that we're establishing this trust relationship. So a
Speaker 3: lot of times when people have that close familiarity, they
Speaker 3: build rapport and trust. So it came to pass that
Speaker 3: with this secret Swiss bank account, every so often Carl
Speaker 3: Eric and his butler would travel together to Switzerland from
Speaker 3: Sweden to withdraw money from this numbered bank account, and
Speaker 3: some times, nol Carl Eric would just send his butler,
Speaker 3: who has not currently been identified officially due to Swedish law.
Speaker 2: You just send him to do the banking.
Speaker 3: So we know. The first question that we always have,
Speaker 3: and you'll see as we get into it, is the
Speaker 3: name of the butler. On June second, nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 3: Carl Eric disappears vanishes.
Speaker 2: Ben, I have to just go ahead and let it
Speaker 2: out right now. We were talking over text before we
Speaker 2: recorded this episode, and with the whole butler ness and
Speaker 2: sort of foul playness of it all, it's starting to
Speaker 2: feel like a clue scenario, you know. Yeah, So on
Speaker 2: June second, nineteen ninety four, Carl did in fact disappear
Speaker 2: the butler who was on the way back to the
Speaker 2: house after renting a lawn more like you said. Arrived
Speaker 2: of the house. Notice Carl had packed a you know,
Speaker 2: a I guess the overnight bag situation, and laid out
Speaker 2: an overcoat because it was raining events at the time.
Speaker 2: At this time, Carl was his itinerary indicator that he
Speaker 2: was going to fly to Stockholm that afternoon to finalize
Speaker 2: I guess this would be his fourth divorce with his
Speaker 2: lawyer and was going to also be in the company
Speaker 2: of one of his daughters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and he was gonna meet with these folks
Speaker 3: in Stockholm. Carl Eric is very much alive. At this time,
Speaker 3: the butler speaks with Carl Eric, and when the butler
Speaker 3: later talks with Swedish investigators, he says, you know, guys,
Speaker 3: seem fine. I made him breakfast, I mowed the law
Speaker 3: and I told him that I have to go hang
Speaker 3: out with my daughter. I have to keep an eye
Speaker 3: on my daughter basically for two hour time window, and
Speaker 3: I will be back this afternoon to drive you to
Speaker 3: the airport. And so when the button returns, Carl Eric
Speaker 3: has vanished his bag they mentioned earlier, and his overcoat.
Speaker 3: They are still at the house.
Speaker 2: But his passport is no longer there. Now, we can't
Speaker 2: say for sure whether he clocked the passport the first
Speaker 2: time around, but a passport, like you know, I keep
Speaker 2: it in a very specific drawer. I would. It's something
Speaker 2: that you know, if you're traveling in Europe a lot
Speaker 2: where during this time, where you would need a passport,
Speaker 2: even just to you know, go a relatively short distance,
Speaker 2: that's an important piece of paperwork that your butler would
Speaker 2: probably know the whereabouts.
Speaker 3: I would, especially if you knew about your secret Swiss
Speaker 3: bank account.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Probably butler definitely knew where his passport.
Speaker 3: Was, right. It's so uh investigators fight look for these
Speaker 3: kind of relevant documents. Nothing is missing except for the
Speaker 3: passport and the person, Carl Eric. As of tonight's recording,
Speaker 3: Carl Eric has not been seen in any provable way.
Speaker 3: So our question tonight, what happened?
Speaker 2: We'll get right to that after a quick word from
Speaker 2: one of our sponsors.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy. At this point, no one knows, well,
Speaker 3: I don't want to say, no one knows.
Speaker 2: No one's talking, no one's telling right right.
Speaker 3: Those who do know are not saying, and some of
Speaker 3: those people who do know may be dead. We should
Speaker 3: look at the theories. All right, here's what bugs us
Speaker 3: about this. Initially, Carl's family assumes that he just skipped
Speaker 3: down like Lord Lucan after that guy killed I'll say it,
Speaker 3: Lord Lucan killed people and got away with it and vanished.
Speaker 3: They're assuming Carl Eric's family is assuming that he has
Speaker 3: just fled his crushing multi million dollar debt. And they
Speaker 3: waited two weeks before they reported Carl Eric missing. And
Speaker 3: when they reported the guy missing, everybody in Sweeten knew
Speaker 3: about this dude. When they reported him missing, the police said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: he ghosted because he is kished by that guy was
Speaker 3: a dirt.
Speaker 2: Bag kind of money all over town. It's like the
Speaker 2: big lebag he kidnapped himself. He's like the big Lebowski
Speaker 2: kind of situation, owed money all over town. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: is a small community. I mean, you know, he's a
Speaker 2: high profile figure. And there were various I guess versions
Speaker 2: of where he might be.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, more than else.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. He's in a hotel and
Speaker 2: oman getting a hair cut somewhere in Granada perhaps, no way,
Speaker 2: shopping in Stockholm for a new born. No wait, it's
Speaker 2: like a piece, It's like a footstool I'm still getting
Speaker 2: up under waterfall in Paraguay, you know, with some sort
Speaker 2: of backpacker type scenario. There we go.
Speaker 3: I like it. That's a verbatim quote from Swedish investigators. Right.
Speaker 2: The Aeguwazu Falls and Paraguay are beautiful actually that time
Speaker 2: of year, so it's like cooler even than Niagra fall
Speaker 2: something some do.
Speaker 3: The issue is none of these reports have at this
Speaker 3: point been substantiated. We also know that no money seems
Speaker 3: to have been withdrawn from this numbered Swiss bank account
Speaker 3: since Carl Eric disappeared. Nothing again is missing except for
Speaker 3: the guy's passport. To public knowledge, he has not contacted
Speaker 3: anyone in his family since nineteen ninety four. Since the
Speaker 3: moment in June we describe, nobody saw him leave his house.
Speaker 3: His car was still there. His safe, however, did show
Speaker 3: signs of unsuccessful tampering. Someone tried and failed to break in. Interesting, Okay,
Speaker 3: I wonder what that looks like, the tampering. And perhaps
Speaker 3: I don't know, like maybe it was drilled into you know,
Speaker 3: I mean it's scratch marks. Yes, yeah, it's not really
Speaker 3: It's not easy to break into a safe unless you're
Speaker 3: you know, you've got the tools and or the skills
Speaker 3: which you got to have the guy the guy.
Speaker 2: But I would think, you know, it depends. There's the
Speaker 2: integrity of the safe. I guess maybe he dictates exactly
Speaker 2: how intense the process is. I think that it is
Speaker 2: possible to do it just with like the little little stethoscope,
Speaker 2: you know, where you just listen for the clicks or whatever,
Speaker 2: and that though, wouldn't leave any evidence of tampering.
Speaker 3: And that that's also true.
Speaker 2: Some safes also have mechanisms that will show you know,
Speaker 2: someone has has tried to break into them, But in
Speaker 2: any case, we don't have those details. So these little
Speaker 2: bits of evidence do lead us to a couple of theories,
Speaker 2: one of the most popular of which was that he
Speaker 2: was just flying the coup, as we previously suggested, due
Speaker 2: to some serious financial pressures.
Speaker 3: Let's just say, yeah, which makes sense. The best evidence
Speaker 3: for him escaping self disappearing, we could call it, is
Speaker 3: that missing passport, right. He clearly did not commit pseudo side,
Speaker 3: which is the fancy word for faking or death. That's
Speaker 3: very difficult, even I don't know, it's way easier. Back
Speaker 3: in the mid nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2: So much was histories were a lot more fun back then,
Speaker 2: you know, because of the lack of the you know,
Speaker 2: everything being on camera, the degree to which we can
Speaker 2: you know, track people down. It's just there's no more
Speaker 2: mystery in the world.
Speaker 3: Yet he couldn't He would not have needed a passport
Speaker 3: to travel to Stockholm if he left, or if someone
Speaker 3: wanted it to look as though he voluntarily departed, Why
Speaker 3: would he leave his bag and coat? We have to
Speaker 3: keep in mind to your point that the nineteen nineties
Speaker 3: were a long time ago. It was still possible to
Speaker 3: travel in front of international legal notices.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: These are the days when you could get in trouble
Speaker 3: with interpool or something and you would have those intense
Speaker 3: conversations where you would say, we have two hours to
Speaker 3: get to the to get to the airport, Yeah, to Xville.
Speaker 3: And so, with this theory again the primary evidence being
Speaker 3: that the passport disappeared as well as the person, the
Speaker 3: speculative thing we could say here is that he could
Speaker 3: have leveraged various European travel agreements to kind of daisy
Speaker 3: chain a passage through different countries and then only need
Speaker 3: to use the passport when you get to the waterfall
Speaker 3: in Paraguay.
Speaker 2: There you go, yeah, and he would have made a
Speaker 2: stop off at that Swiss bank in advance of that,
Speaker 2: you know, which you know, he wouldn't have needed to
Speaker 2: show a passport for that action, right, and just some
Speaker 2: account number exactly. But it was really quickly been. We
Speaker 2: have this notion that the butler could have been sent
Speaker 2: in his stead, you know, to get money from this account,
Speaker 2: don't I mean, maybe I'm watching too many like Jason
Speaker 2: Bourne movies, but typically when you go to withdraw money
Speaker 2: from these types of accounts, don't you have to like
Speaker 2: be the person or have like an ID that matches
Speaker 2: your face or it almost feels like it would have
Speaker 2: had to have been a special arrangement or something, you know.
Speaker 3: Interesting to my knowledge, at that point in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 3: before Switzerland's laws really changed in regards to banking, you
Speaker 3: just needed the account number.
Speaker 2: That's you know what, Now that you mentioned I'm thinking
Speaker 2: back on more movies. There certainly are also examples where
Speaker 2: they just write it down on a piece of paper
Speaker 2: and handed to somebody and then that's no questions asked
Speaker 2: kind of situation, which I guess is the feature, not
Speaker 2: the bug, of these types of accounts, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And this leads us to our second theory. What if
Speaker 3: the guy did not disappear himself. What if someone wanted
Speaker 3: Carl Eric dead. If we're looking at suspects number one
Speaker 3: with a bullet is the butler, we're still trying to
Speaker 3: find his name. Turns out this guy kind of a
Speaker 3: shady character, no offense to anybody else who rents lawnmowers.
Speaker 3: But in addition to that, he had previously been convicted
Speaker 3: of frauds and scams in the past. He's also the
Speaker 3: last person to have provably or allegedly seeing Carl Eric alive, which.
Speaker 2: Is usually the first person that people look at. No
Speaker 2: one else that we know of so far actually spoke
Speaker 2: to Carl on June. Second, if he was killed, it's
Speaker 2: possible that he was killed before or after that disappearance
Speaker 2: or when this disappearance was reported, and that the butler would
Speaker 2: have used his daughter the two hour window of going
Speaker 2: to check on his daughter, which again to me, always
Speaker 2: seemed a little suss for a butler. I just think
Speaker 2: of a butler as like being like living or whatever.
Speaker 2: Maybe this was not unusual, but just to say it
Speaker 2: out loud, it almost does feel like, see look at
Speaker 2: my ear's my alibi. Check it out. It's what we
Speaker 2: don't particularly like about this guy is that he apparently
Speaker 2: used one of Carl's watches and a painting to settle
Speaker 2: one of his own debts. Though this is, if I'm
Speaker 2: not mistaken ben unproven. It's just sort of.
Speaker 3: Hearsaying, yeah, it's a rumor. There are a lot of
Speaker 3: rumors with this because no one can prove what happened
Speaker 3: to Carl Eric. We do know to your earlier point,
Speaker 3: this butler had provably withdrawn money for Carl Eric from
Speaker 3: that Swiss bank account in the past. Another rumor, locals
Speaker 3: familiar with the situation say this butler seemed to be
Speaker 3: living extravagantly after his employer disappeared. However, in defense of
Speaker 3: the butler, we do have to say there was no
Speaker 3: money withdrawn from Carl's Swiss account in the two weeks
Speaker 3: before he was reported missing, even though the butler could
Speaker 3: make withdrawals. If money was a motive, why not get
Speaker 3: in front of that and withdraw, withdraw the cash, withdraw
Speaker 3: the funds while your employer is alive. Keep in mind,
Speaker 3: this is a secret Swiss account. These are the glory
Speaker 3: days of financial o Shenanigan's. So Carl Eric could not
Speaker 3: report a crime if someone emptied his bank account, he
Speaker 3: could not go to the authorities because he is not
Speaker 3: supposed to have this money. It should have gone all
Speaker 3: to his debts, that's right, So.
Speaker 2: That there wouldn't have even it would have been so
Speaker 2: under the radar that it's not like the authorities could
Speaker 2: even have monitored the secret account as a as a
Speaker 2: red flag situation.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's the idea that he squirreled away a
Speaker 3: secret horde of treasure essentially. And if the problem with
Speaker 3: criminal funds is again that it's like anybody who's been
Speaker 3: in a local drug deal got wrong. What are you
Speaker 3: going to call the cops and tell them someone sold
Speaker 3: you fake weed?
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, exactly. You're telling on yourself at that point,
Speaker 2: right well, speaking of telling on ourselves, at this point,
Speaker 2: we've got to tell you about a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 2: which we're going to do right now, and then come
Speaker 2: back with some more conspiracies about the disappearance of Carl Eric.
Speaker 3: And we've returned. I wanted to take a moment and
Speaker 3: tell you what a beautiful segue.
Speaker 2: You know it. It was a reach, but it needed
Speaker 2: to be done.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just like bankruptcy in America for the wealthy.
Speaker 2: Like jazz, you just did it, You just did it.
Speaker 2: It's like a cosmic gumbo. It does move to the
Speaker 2: beat of jazz.
Speaker 3: I just free watched that sketch. All right, here's the idea.
Speaker 3: Another theory. Theory three. The cartel or a cartel, a
Speaker 3: criminal cartel, killed our buddy Carl Eric, because the rumor
Speaker 3: has it. God, I'm reminded of the Adel song. The
Speaker 3: rumor is it?
Speaker 2: I don't think I know that one.
Speaker 3: Wait, no, it's a different rumor, has it? A someone
Speaker 3: right in? Please help us conspiracydiheartradio dot com. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to try to sing the melody, but all right,
Speaker 3: we'll get to it. The idea is that, aside from
Speaker 3: owing a lot of money to business partners and banks
Speaker 3: and swindled investors, it seems that Carl Eric had personal
Speaker 3: loans to the sum of two hundred million kroner. The
Speaker 3: idea is that he may have had these personal loans
Speaker 3: to criminal organizations. So one of the going theories is
Speaker 3: that people showed up to his house while the butler
Speaker 3: was gone, and they demanded money. They tried to break
Speaker 3: into a safe. They probably tried to rough them up
Speaker 3: and they accidentally killed him. And this is based on
Speaker 3: witness testimony of a guy who has provable ties to
Speaker 3: a cartel. However, other than that one guy's testimony, there
Speaker 3: is no corroberating evidence that this is true. The only
Speaker 3: thing we know that is true is that Carl Eric
Speaker 3: pissed off a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, like you know, he clearly was overextended.
Speaker 2: There comes a point where you can no longer get
Speaker 2: legitimate loans, and therefore you're either dealing with loan shark types,
Speaker 2: you know, with the higher viig or dealing with illegal
Speaker 2: you know, drugs or laundering or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2: And presumably we're talking about like you know, European drug syndicates.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I don't want to speak for anybody
Speaker 2: else who's less dim than me, but when I hear cartel,
Speaker 2: I often think of South American or like you know,
Speaker 2: Pablo Escobar, that part of the world. But of course
Speaker 2: a cartel is just a syndicates, a conspiratorial organization that
Speaker 2: involves the sale of illegal materials, whether it be weapons, guns,
Speaker 2: what have you.
Speaker 3: People, And of course fine art shout out to freeports,
Speaker 3: so always, always, that's one of our main things.
Speaker 2: His pieces or any collections now or if they're still
Speaker 2: kind of being held somewhere privately, it would be interesting
Speaker 2: to do a little follow up and see because that's exciting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we also know, okay, we also know. An alternate
Speaker 3: murder theory would be the legitimate business partners. Would you know,
Speaker 3: at a certain level, at a certain financial threshold, the
Speaker 3: difference between criminal and legitimate becomes a little muddy. Would
Speaker 3: you agree with that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, absolutely, I think that's sort of the crux
Speaker 2: of this whole story in many ways, Like it's just
Speaker 2: the the the abundance of money past a certain point
Speaker 2: can just create, you know, kind of an avalanche of complications.
Speaker 3: And this is where we get to one of the
Speaker 3: fascinating claims. There's a journalist who publishes an article on
Speaker 3: her blog in August of twenty twenties, so not too
Speaker 3: long ago. Her name Elizabeth Holgland. She says, years ago,
Speaker 3: an acquaintance of hers told her the truth about Karl
Speaker 3: Eric's disappearance. However, she was not able to share that
Speaker 3: information because it would result in that guy's death. So
Speaker 3: when she publishes this stuff, in twenty twenty. She essentially argues,
Speaker 3: the guy is on death's door. He's on the way
Speaker 3: out like hospice level. He's riddled with Alzheimer's, so she
Speaker 3: would not be endangering him if she shared his story.
Speaker 3: And let's imagine this story, Paul, can you throw some
Speaker 3: helicopter noises in here?
Speaker 2: Perfect. She was told that Carl owed money to former
Speaker 2: business partners, which I think we made it clear isn't
Speaker 2: really that much of a surprise, and that they had him.
Speaker 2: They paid to have him kidnapped on June second and
Speaker 2: brought by car to Stockholm, Sweden. Once he was there,
Speaker 2: he was maridered most foul y and then flown by
Speaker 2: Choppa equipped with pontoon boats for making a water landing
Speaker 2: over Stockholm's scared. Scared? Is that like a body of water?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. It's also a fabulous acting dynasty starsgard.
Speaker 3: So according to the story, this helicopter, we're not familiar
Speaker 3: with helicopters. Let's picture puddle jumping aircraft. Like if you've
Speaker 3: ever seen the aircraft that can land on the water,
Speaker 3: These pontoons are generally cylindrical things.
Speaker 2: That will float.
Speaker 3: Airplane nailed it. We didn't even need me to say
Speaker 3: all that you should like, Yes, floating skis so the
Speaker 3: according to this story is reported by this journalist, Uh,
Speaker 3: Carl Eric's body was placed upon one of those pontoons,
Speaker 3: and when the helicopter reached a certain distance in the water,
Speaker 3: they maneuvered sideways, so they kind of shrugged and they
Speaker 3: dropped the body into the water, never to be seen again.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: That's a lot for a legitimate business partner to do.
Speaker 3: That's more a cartel move.
Speaker 2: I was absolutely no business or or business partners hiring
Speaker 2: somebody from you know, a criminal enterprise because hid in hand.
Speaker 2: I think that might be it. And honestly, Ben, I
Speaker 2: mean this certainly feels a lot more plausible than the
Speaker 2: butler did it, as much as I love saying that
Speaker 2: out loud, like perhaps in the drawing room with the candlestick,
Speaker 2: even it seems like the amount the butler would have
Speaker 2: been more like the maid stealing the silverware type situation,
Speaker 2: Like his level of like using this individual for money
Speaker 2: would have been more I think relegated to that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff.
Speaker 3: Several Swedish investigators call into question the butler's alibi. However,
Speaker 3: I think it's safe to say were a conviction possible,
Speaker 3: the butler's name would be published, it would have been convicted. Again,
Speaker 3: Sweden does have rule.
Speaker 2: Of law, absolutely, yeah, and it seems like whatever they
Speaker 2: had was flimsy at best, or otherwise we probably would
Speaker 2: have heard that part conclusively added to the story.
Speaker 3: Also, yeah, this is interesting because we were texting each
Speaker 3: other a lot about this. Carl Eric was nothing if
Speaker 3: not a planner, and we've been circling around.
Speaker 2: You don't stack that many ducats unless you're relatively good
Speaker 2: at planning at the very least.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, planning and prevarication. So if we admit that,
Speaker 3: even back in the nineteen nineties, most people are trained
Speaker 3: already to keep their passport on their person such that
Speaker 3: when you move, your passport moves, it is entirely possible
Speaker 3: that our buddy Carl Eric planned his own disappearance in advance.
Speaker 3: It is also, unfortunately, entirely possible that he was kidnapped
Speaker 3: and murdered. One thing we can say with near certitude
Speaker 3: he is probably dead at the time of this recording.
Speaker 3: He would have been as of this year, one hundred
Speaker 3: and four years old, which is old fruit even in Sweden.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, yeah, where they you know. Oh that SNA
Speaker 2: really does tend to be good for the skin and
Speaker 2: the lifespan, but not if you're doing business with bad people.
Speaker 3: He was declared dead official legal purpose, Yeah, officially November eleventh,
Speaker 3: two thousand and five. At that time, were he's still alive,
Speaker 3: he would have been eighty five years old, which is possible.
Speaker 3: His seaside house was sold by a bank at about.
Speaker 2: The art band that he sold the seaside villa. The
Speaker 2: seaside villa went to his daughter along with the art.
Speaker 2: I want to know what happened to the art. Maybe
Speaker 2: she still got it, I mean, certainly, you know, we
Speaker 2: know that historically art is a great way of holding
Speaker 2: value in a very relatively small package, much more so
Speaker 2: than real estate, or you can move it around. No
Speaker 2: shade on the unnamed daughter here. But if it were
Speaker 2: me and I saw the walls closing in, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and I want to protect myself, I might just keep
Speaker 2: one Picasso just as an insurance policy.
Speaker 3: And just what you could have one Picasso as a treat.
Speaker 3: So here's the deal, folks. Right now, as we record
Speaker 3: the case of Carl Eric Buyorck Grenn, the disappearance remains unsolved.
Speaker 3: The one thing we can say with absolute certitude is
Speaker 3: there was something they don't want you to know. And
Speaker 3: we would love to hear your thoughts about this right
Speaker 3: in tell us, especially if you are from Sweden or
Speaker 3: familiar with this story, familiar maybe with Denol's earlier point
Speaker 3: some of the art. Where did that end up? That
Speaker 3: might be a good lead.
Speaker 2: The funny thing is, but I googled this guy's name,
Speaker 2: and like you, I like to look. I'm a visual learner.
Speaker 2: I like to watch documentaries and try to find thing
Speaker 2: on YouTube, and there was nothing in English language about
Speaker 2: this case at all on YouTube. I did find a
Speaker 2: podcast episode of a show called Mysterious Circumstances that I
Speaker 2: wasn't thus far familiar with, but there's a pretty decent
Speaker 2: little kind of episode about the disappearance of Carl Eric
Speaker 2: bjorka grin.
Speaker 3: But yeah, precious a little out there about it. And
Speaker 3: thus we pass the torch to you. Be it yours
Speaker 3: to hold it high if ye break faith with those
Speaker 3: who die. Oh gosh, I'm not going to quote any
Speaker 3: more World War poetry.
Speaker 2: You may all out, oh not to me, but you
Speaker 2: know it's.
Speaker 3: Called flanders Field. It's a really good pull up anyway,
Speaker 3: find us online, tell us your thoughts.
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Speaker 3: Hey, also, Noel, Are the rumors true? What if someone
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Speaker 2: between the crosses row on row that mark our police,
Speaker 2: and in the sky the larks still bravely singing fly
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Speaker 2: short days ago we lived, felt down, saw sunset glow,
Speaker 2: loved and were loved. And now we lie in Flanders fields.
Speaker 2: Take up our quarrel with the foe to you. From
Speaker 2: failing hands. We throw the torch be yours to hold
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