Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of My Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Dutton, saren my girl. Do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 1: Oh do I you came at it already. I'm what's
Speaker 1: ridiculous is that Applebee's is making a lip gloss. Wait
Speaker 1: what Yeah, they're working with this company called Winky Looks,
Speaker 1: and they've come up with four shades and tastes of
Speaker 1: the thing that they call saucy gloss. And they're the
Speaker 1: different flavors of their chicken wings. So if you want
Speaker 1: me to read you the names of the yes, sorry, sorry, buddy. Um.
Speaker 1: The one is called give Me Hot Buffalo, and it's
Speaker 1: coral colored sweet Chili Kiss and that's gold flakes in
Speaker 1: a deep red color. Then there's one called Bema Honey Pepper.
Speaker 1: That one's golden. Someone got paid to come up with these, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then there's Honey Barbecutie Barbecut, and that's a burgundy color.
Speaker 1: They're eighteen dollars apiece. They taste like the barbecue sauces
Speaker 1: that they're named for. So are you supposed to like
Speaker 1: put this on and make out? And they let the
Speaker 1: taste of chicken wings come between you and the person
Speaker 1: you want to get intimate with um Yeah, sorry, I
Speaker 1: mean that this way instead of like just really going
Speaker 1: to town on a bucket of wings and then making
Speaker 1: out with someone, you can make out and go to
Speaker 1: town on the bucket of wings. They're eighteen dollars a piece.
Speaker 1: If you want a whole set of them, there sixty five.
Speaker 1: They also apparently made a dance music video called Taste
Speaker 1: My Face that goes with them Taste Face. The founder
Speaker 1: of Winky Looks said that she got a message on
Speaker 1: LinkedIn from an Applebee's rep and that's how they started
Speaker 1: all this. This all started on a LinkedIn d m
Speaker 1: y so perfect and so like each loss looks like
Speaker 1: the sauce. Let your m and tell you about some
Speaker 1: lip glosses. It is I have for like a synergy
Speaker 1: between our corporations. I love it. They said that they
Speaker 1: had to use all these like materials so that to
Speaker 1: make it taste like the sauces, and so their labs
Speaker 1: smelled like barbecue sauce for a really long time. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine the taste test for the lip gloss. It
Speaker 1: doesn't taste like chicken. You just got like a guy
Speaker 1: in the corner who dips the one thing and sucks
Speaker 1: on it. Tastes like rubber boots, tastes like my cousin,
Speaker 1: tastes like a tire fire. Next, you don't want to
Speaker 1: taste like berry. Next, Well, that's all very ridiculous. I
Speaker 1: don't even know how to recover from that. You can't,
Speaker 1: but I've got something for you that's it's ridiculous. But
Speaker 1: also it's a crime. Okay, So this one takes place
Speaker 1: in those super sexy, super fun seventies. In July ninety six,
Speaker 1: there was a group of French hard ben and they decided,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's quit messing around. Let's go big.
Speaker 1: Let's robbed the las at the General or the main
Speaker 1: bank in Nice, France. Now that main bank is like, um,
Speaker 1: pretty much a medieval structure, big stone walls like eight
Speaker 1: meters thick, so you're basically a castle. So they're like,
Speaker 1: let's break into a bank that's a castle right now.
Speaker 1: In France, this case became known as le cas d sc,
Speaker 1: which is means the bank robbery of the century. Why
Speaker 1: because they got away with it nice, You're ready, I'm ready.
Speaker 1: This is ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and outrageous
Speaker 1: capers heights and cons it's all always murder free and
Speaker 1: one ridiculous. Don't you forget it? Never? Cow? Could I so, Elizabeth?
Speaker 1: This bank robbery, I'd like to tell you about the
Speaker 1: lecas Do Sack, the bank robberty of the century. It
Speaker 1: was a thirty million euro bank job, which at the
Speaker 1: time this was not euros. It was actually still Frank's
Speaker 1: and in modern dollars. If the currency converters are correct
Speaker 1: and the inflation converters are correct, this is a hundred
Speaker 1: and forty million dollar job they pulled off. Dang, yeah, goal, jewelry,
Speaker 1: bank notes, all the best things that you can hide
Speaker 1: in safety deposit boxes. Now, many folks believe this job
Speaker 1: was an inspiration for the Spanish swiler show, that one
Speaker 1: that we both like, the La casa the papel or
Speaker 1: in English money heist. Yeah, which is not what costa
Speaker 1: the papel means in English. No, it is not at all,
Speaker 1: but you know whatever the paper house is like. But
Speaker 1: that's also a nickname for that specific Spanish bank. So
Speaker 1: actually it's the it's the money printer in Spain, right,
Speaker 1: you know, the mint So it makes sense in that
Speaker 1: I don't think we would be like yes, the mint.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that would work in English, So
Speaker 1: I guess whatever that money simple people. So the stories
Speaker 1: about bank robberies we both enjoy. It's something that we
Speaker 1: will if we see a good and will tell the other. Now,
Speaker 1: do you have a favorite bank job or that's in
Speaker 1: from a movie or a book not reality, Like you
Speaker 1: think of a favorite bank job that's pulled off, You're like, oh, dude,
Speaker 1: the one in the Italian job was pretty good. Whatever
Speaker 1: that sexy beast. I really like that. So now could
Speaker 1: you imagine deciding to take a movie that you love
Speaker 1: and going that's going to be my criminal bible, that's
Speaker 1: going to be my like self help book. You can
Speaker 1: sure you're very open today. I like that. I'll do anything. Now, see, personally,
Speaker 1: I could not. That's you're limiting yourself to one source.
Speaker 1: And so if anything that's not in the scope of that,
Speaker 1: will you run the risk too? If if you're using
Speaker 1: it as a model, then others are going to realize that,
Speaker 1: and it depends on when they when they realize that
Speaker 1: that's a good point. Yeah, they can get a couple
Speaker 1: of chapters ahead. They're like, wait a minute, I've read
Speaker 1: this book, so yeah, much like you know the French
Speaker 1: bank robber, the fictional one or Saint Lupint. We have
Speaker 1: a very charismatic Frenchman for this story. And his name
Speaker 1: was Albert or Speggieri, which is an Italian last name,
Speaker 1: I know, But he's a Frenchman. He's from the Alps,
Speaker 1: the French Alps, so you can see how the name
Speaker 1: might have moved over borders, or borders moved over names.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but he's from the how is that
Speaker 1: the department or the High Alps Department in English, which
Speaker 1: is basically the French Alps region, So in southeast France.
Speaker 1: That's what this dude is raised. Now, as a teenager,
Speaker 1: he gets to crime real quick. He's like, you know
Speaker 1: what this whole like, Hey work a day and it's
Speaker 1: not from me, and I got things I need to do.
Speaker 1: I got this girl I'm trying to impress. So as
Speaker 1: a teenager, he uh pulls off his first robbery to
Speaker 1: impress a girl. He needs to buy a diamond ring.
Speaker 1: He hasn't had that kind of money painting fences and
Speaker 1: delivering newspapers or whatever the French equivalent was for a
Speaker 1: teenage boy. I guess sixties running a crape stand, running
Speaker 1: a crape stand. That hot crepe business wasn't really working.
Speaker 1: So he's like, I'm gonna rob a bag, and he
Speaker 1: pulls off a robbery, gets a diamond, impresses the girl,
Speaker 1: and then after that he's like, you know what if
Speaker 1: you want to make your dreams come true? Crime exactly.
Speaker 1: He's also a flashy, somewhat arrogant criminal, and if you
Speaker 1: know anything about flashy arrogant criminals, they eventually get caught. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why we're talking about him today. Didn't take him
Speaker 1: long to get busted early on because he had not
Speaker 1: yet learned that lesson, and so he gets busted as
Speaker 1: a young man. And for some reason what I was
Speaker 1: reading about him, I couldn't quite get the same answer
Speaker 1: from two different stories on this. He goes to work
Speaker 1: for some anti de Gaul but yet pro French colonial
Speaker 1: paramilitary wing that is against the Algerian independence movement. You
Speaker 1: say so, right, So he's like down there working in
Speaker 1: like a right wing paramilitary like let's hold onto our
Speaker 1: colonial countries, I guess, And uh, that gets him put
Speaker 1: into prison. So I don't know exactly what happened, but
Speaker 1: whatever he was doing as a paramilitary wing person. He
Speaker 1: gets thrown into prison. He says, oh, you know what,
Speaker 1: that's not good. I'm going back to crime. Crime is
Speaker 1: where it works. So by nineteen seventy six he's out
Speaker 1: a freeman, and ostensibly he lets everybody else believe that
Speaker 1: he is a gone legitimate, you know, because he's realized
Speaker 1: I cannot be the flashy criminal because that calls attention
Speaker 1: to myself. So I'm gonna be a comma photographer. He
Speaker 1: gets a photo studio, he lives in Nice, France, and
Speaker 1: he takes pictures of people. Zim Boom Boom is also
Speaker 1: very nice, and he does such a good job. He
Speaker 1: becomes the official photographer of Nice France, so he's noting
Speaker 1: down there. If you've seen a picture from the early
Speaker 1: seventies and it was a tourist photo of Nice France,
Speaker 1: most likely he took me. Yeah. So dudes like any
Speaker 1: comes from friends with the mayor. He ingratiates himself and
Speaker 1: this is a tourist economy. So these people, they're a
Speaker 1: little more easy breezy than others, say parts of France
Speaker 1: very well. Maybe now that he's gone legit friends with
Speaker 1: the mayor, the whole it He's like, I need to
Speaker 1: go first some kind of score. I got everybody looking
Speaker 1: the other way, which, you know, maybe a little room
Speaker 1: to move. He hears from his friend that the bank,
Speaker 1: the Society's days general, has this um issue at the moment,
Speaker 1: they're about to install a bank alarm. Now, for the
Speaker 1: longest time, they never had a bank alarm because, as
Speaker 1: I told you, it's a castle eight eight meter thick walls,
Speaker 1: so they don't need anything like that. If you've got
Speaker 1: twenty four ft walls, you know, alarm huh. But they're
Speaker 1: like huge by the way, right, But they're like, well
Speaker 1: things are times are changing, you know, it's the seventies.
Speaker 1: A lot of banks have alarms. We should get with it.
Speaker 1: So they're going to do that. But it's France, so
Speaker 1: there's all these permits they got to get and construction stalls,
Speaker 1: and so the friends complaining about this and basically lets
Speaker 1: it be known there's no alarm in the bank. He
Speaker 1: was venting to the wrong person and ten percent. So
Speaker 1: the French permitting process that allows us all to occur
Speaker 1: this delay he becomes like almost like a taunt for
Speaker 1: man Albert. Right, So Albert says to himself quote whoever
Speaker 1: herald of a bank with no seismic or ultrasonic alarm,
Speaker 1: no TV system. Right, it's like offensive to him, kind
Speaker 1: of like that's offensive to everyone. So just let's just
Speaker 1: skip past that and let me do it. You're either
Speaker 1: getting inspector Cluso or you're getting Pepe. So which one
Speaker 1: do you want? Do you want to bumbling like the blend,
Speaker 1: I'll just kind of hit the middle. So this dude, Albert,
Speaker 1: he writes a book later on about being a criminal.
Speaker 1: Much later, he writes, and that's where that line comes from.
Speaker 1: Right now, he wasn't just a writer. He was also
Speaker 1: something of a reader. And uh, he's a renaissance man,
Speaker 1: tell you amount of letters. And now this book that
Speaker 1: he reads and becomes, as I said earlier, a criminal bible.
Speaker 1: In this case for him, it was called to or
Speaker 1: Loophole or how to Rob a Bank, and it was
Speaker 1: by Robert Paul. It was a English book, but he
Speaker 1: obviously read it in French. So that's the French title.
Speaker 1: I read. The English title is a buch easier how
Speaker 1: to rob a bank exactly, but it's called Loophole or
Speaker 1: how to Rob a Bank. It's so I will be
Speaker 1: referring to it as loophole because how to rob a bank?
Speaker 1: Make it confusing? Or if I did it exactly this
Speaker 1: book that was published one year before the robbery goes down, right,
Speaker 1: So it's a brand new, fresh, contemporaneous book. And it
Speaker 1: builds itself quote as a fast moving and gripping plot.
Speaker 1: And most importantly, and I quote, loophole provides a shrewd
Speaker 1: and fascinating insight into the preparation execution of a major crime.
Speaker 1: It supposed to be like a novel as blueprint crime
Speaker 1: thriller is about it English bank robber, who's the best?
Speaker 1: Who's ever cracked a safe? Right? And I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: quote from the inside flap of this book because some
Speaker 1: of it is just so deliciously anyway, here's a quote
Speaker 1: of the example of the dialogue ever heard of the
Speaker 1: City Savings Deposits Bank. I know what they got, I
Speaker 1: know every foot of that place. I'm telling you get
Speaker 1: in and get out, and I won't be cut. I
Speaker 1: made him American just because it just sounds like somebody,
Speaker 1: a guy named would say Steve. Now, this guy, he's
Speaker 1: an architect who that's the main character. He gets fired
Speaker 1: three weeks before Christmas. That is such a you know,
Speaker 1: they always have people the architects. It's it's a job
Speaker 1: nobody does except in movies and books. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: there are real architects, but if you never ever see
Speaker 1: it treated as anything other than we need A character
Speaker 1: has a job that will not matter in the plot.
Speaker 1: But yet he's like wealthy and a dresses interesting people
Speaker 1: like him. So it's like, how do you make him
Speaker 1: a doctor? But he didn't have to go to the hospital,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't have super long hours. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: doesn't have any of the complications of morality. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: this architect fired three weeks before Christmas. He doesn't know
Speaker 1: what to do. He's got all his money problems, he
Speaker 1: can't afford his life and because it's apparently he's living
Speaker 1: high on the architect salary, and he's like, what am
Speaker 1: I gonna do? And so and I quote Mike Daniels
Speaker 1: has always been looking for the one big job that
Speaker 1: will enable him to get out of the game, and
Speaker 1: recently he's got his eye on the City Savings Deposits bank.
Speaker 1: With his alarm vault, infrared beams, radio frequency waves, and
Speaker 1: unscheduled patrol vis it's all the thieves in London declared,
Speaker 1: this is the one jug you cannot blow. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I don't come from
Speaker 1: jug blowing people. So for a book to tell me
Speaker 1: this is one jug you can't blow, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: take their word for it. And then like typically, I
Speaker 1: think that's fighting words. I don't know. I've never met
Speaker 1: a jug. I couldn't blow me. I will not be told. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't don't limit me. You don't know the jugs I know. Bro.
Speaker 1: So this fictional man, Mike Daniels, I'm with this dude.
Speaker 1: He takes the bet. He's like, I will blow this jug. Bro.
Speaker 1: So Daniels and I quote thinks he's found a loophole
Speaker 1: in the bank security. You damn right he did. Brothers,
Speaker 1: He's gonna exploit that because it is a loophole. So
Speaker 1: he has this loophole. And I quote, if you are
Speaker 1: Mike Daniels, ambitious professional thief and master safecracker, you plan
Speaker 1: for months, in minute detail. You hire three hard bitten
Speaker 1: colleagues whose working respect, and you find yourself Stephen Booker,
Speaker 1: out of work architect and civil engineer, whose comfortable suburban
Speaker 1: life is coming apart. You pick his brain, get him involved,
Speaker 1: where down his moral resistance and hire him. Then you
Speaker 1: enter the London sewer and bore from within the safe
Speaker 1: as a timelock. And you have a weekend in which
Speaker 1: to dig a tunnel under the vault and blast it open.
Speaker 1: If you throw the alarm, half the police force will
Speaker 1: be on your tail. The timing must be split second.
Speaker 1: Nerves are stretched. One of your men is claustrophobic. There
Speaker 1: is constant danger of lethal gas. A rainstorm can wipe
Speaker 1: you out. But if you pull it off, the prize
Speaker 1: is several million pounds and pride and having done the biggest,
Speaker 1: most daring and ingenious job in history. If you pull
Speaker 1: it off, that is it sounds like a you're advertising
Speaker 1: a monster truck rally, right, chicken wings. I could not myself.
Speaker 1: That's all from the flat of the inside of the book.
Speaker 1: I want to read this book now, Mike Daniels jugg blower,
Speaker 1: I can blow that jug brother so our real wife
Speaker 1: criminal Albert Speghiari he takes from this book Loophole and
Speaker 1: he's like, you know what, this author nailed everything. I'm
Speaker 1: going to follow this to the t I'm gonna find
Speaker 1: a sewer. I'm gonna find a bank. I'm gonna rob it,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bore a tunnel. I'm not gonna get an architect.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I were get an architect. But
Speaker 1: other than that, I'm gonna follow this to the letter.
Speaker 1: He's gonna blow jug. So he's like, you know, if
Speaker 1: this guy wrote the perfect blueprint, what could go wrong
Speaker 1: if I follow it? And he's on this show? So
Speaker 1: something went wrong. Well, after this short little break, we'll
Speaker 1: get into Albert throwing the wheels of this crime into motion.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth ready for Albert to set the wheels in motion. Okay,
Speaker 1: so my brother, my dude, my fulk hero criminal about
Speaker 1: to be. He's eyeing what's going to be a career
Speaker 1: making crime. He's like, this could be the biggest job.
Speaker 1: I need to be smart about this. So he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna map the sewers because that was in the book.
Speaker 1: So he goes and he maps the sewers. He starts
Speaker 1: figuring out, he gets blueprints, He walks the sewers, so
Speaker 1: he knows every left and right turn, every dead end,
Speaker 1: so forth right. He's like, that's step one. Now for
Speaker 1: step two, he's like, okay, I need to test the
Speaker 1: system to see what I'm dealing with. So he gets
Speaker 1: a safety security deposit box. He rents one of those,
Speaker 1: and he goes in and they when they leave him alone, next,
Speaker 1: we will leave you to your privacy so you can
Speaker 1: inspect you all the little pictures and jewels to whatever
Speaker 1: you bring. And he's like, may wee thank you all right,
Speaker 1: So he pulls out an alarm clock, winds it up,
Speaker 1: sets it to midnight, throws it in a box, puts
Speaker 1: the box in, closes it, locks it up, and he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm good, and then knocks on the door, let me out.
Speaker 1: I'm good. They're like, that was fast, So he's like
Speaker 1: it's fine, and so check and see if it was yep, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. He sets the alarm from midnight. And he
Speaker 1: has a reason for this because he wants enough to
Speaker 1: vault has an alarm and it will be tripped by
Speaker 1: noise or by shaking. So he figures this alarm clock,
Speaker 1: there's like an old rattley kind will do enough to
Speaker 1: trigger the alarm because if if it, he can keep
Speaker 1: the sensitivity of what he plans to do underneath that
Speaker 1: level of shaking is essentially his idea. Yea sets it off.
Speaker 1: The bank does not report, oh we've been broken into.
Speaker 1: He's like, so I think I've got it, and we
Speaker 1: got a good measure of what I can get away with.
Speaker 1: So now he's like, okay, sticking to the plot of loophole,
Speaker 1: what do I need to do next, he goes like, okay, now,
Speaker 1: hire a crew of hard men. So he's done his mapping,
Speaker 1: he's got a safety deposit, and he's checked with the alarm.
Speaker 1: Go hire some bad men. So he's like, where can
Speaker 1: I get bad men around here? So he goes down
Speaker 1: to the port town of Marseille. He goes up and
Speaker 1: he's like, a good crime town. You smell the crime
Speaker 1: in the air, right, mars is the kind of place
Speaker 1: like if you imagine a Guy Ritchie movie, but a
Speaker 1: Guy Ritchie movie that has been running for centuries, like
Speaker 1: that's Marseille. Okay. So he's at this, uh, this inspiration
Speaker 1: loophole and he's like going, you know what, in the book,
Speaker 1: there's this many criminals. I'm gonna go a little bit bigger.
Speaker 1: So he hires fifteen veteran Marseille hardman. Oh that's a
Speaker 1: that's that's that's worries big more. The more people, the
Speaker 1: more trouble. Totally, you got a lot of mouse to
Speaker 1: keep quiet. So but he picks them and he goes
Speaker 1: and he doesn't just hire them off the street, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you look like you have a strong back. If you
Speaker 1: ever held a shovel, you know. He goes to a
Speaker 1: crime family and he's like, hey, I get some guys.
Speaker 1: He's like, they're the OMERTA part will come from them,
Speaker 1: their their coat of silence will be to their boss.
Speaker 1: And if I get their boss, then I get their silence.
Speaker 1: So he's like, this should be fun. That makes way
Speaker 1: more sense than I was thinking, Like sit outside of
Speaker 1: a cafe reading loophole and then kind of give people
Speaker 1: knowing looks when they walk by. And if anyone know,
Speaker 1: you're like over here, I want to talk about a book,
Speaker 1: or you hold additions, here, hold this shovel. Does that
Speaker 1: feel natural? So he he gets his fifth team, Marc
Speaker 1: hard Men, and he's like, Okay, now back to the book.
Speaker 1: What do I do now? And so he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I've got to drill a hole in the bank fault
Speaker 1: from the sewers. Okay, check, check, all right, I've got
Speaker 1: my map. Okay, it's time to get the equipment. So
Speaker 1: he's like, okay, hard Men come to nice France, I'll
Speaker 1: put you up. Okay, here's the deal. He had them
Speaker 1: take their own little scooters there, like twelve little tiny
Speaker 1: citron No. No, I'm imagining them all in vespas, like
Speaker 1: in a row, fifteen hard men on vespas. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Leather jack hits, mean glares and shiny light
Speaker 1: blue vespas, lots of chrome. Now that everything's set up
Speaker 1: in the hard men are in town, he's like, we
Speaker 1: need to get equipment. So he's like, look, guys, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get all this stuff that is, like you know,
Speaker 1: the filters and the power cables. I'm gonna need you
Speaker 1: to get the drills, but do not go buy them.
Speaker 1: They like, what do you mean? And don't buy them?
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, go steal them. So he hasn't go
Speaker 1: to construction site, so there's no purchase records of any
Speaker 1: of this stuff, and so he just they've spend a
Speaker 1: couple of months stealing all the pneumatic drills, the industrial pumps,
Speaker 1: anything that they think they need, right, and now they're
Speaker 1: like a thermal lance. One might need a thermal lance
Speaker 1: or a powerful jack. It's a good dry run to
Speaker 1: like if any of them kind of balk at the idea, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can see how good they are priming. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: once they have everything set up, they set up their
Speaker 1: work site and the okay, let's run some filters. So,
Speaker 1: because we got to deal with all the toxic smells
Speaker 1: and we're gonna have in the sewer system, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get our industrial drills down there is we're
Speaker 1: gonna need electrical So they run electricity through the street lights.
Speaker 1: So they just plug into the street lights and they
Speaker 1: would drop cords down. They're super serious. So they only
Speaker 1: work on alternating nights. And then this allows them to
Speaker 1: want sleep for ten hours, which he insists that they do.
Speaker 1: He's like, you have to sleep for ten hours and
Speaker 1: that you get your good night's sleep. He's like, your crew, Yeah,
Speaker 1: not only that there only does the demand ten hours asleep,
Speaker 1: which I knew you would love. You will be so
Speaker 1: impressed with his just wherewithal he doesn't allow them to
Speaker 1: drink while they're working. They cannot bring in caffeine. They're
Speaker 1: not allowed to do anything. They have to run clean
Speaker 1: and they gotta run natural, right, So he has them.
Speaker 1: So it's like a sports season has just begun. But
Speaker 1: when you say they had to be really serious, I
Speaker 1: imagine they're all working away and one guy cracks a
Speaker 1: joke and everyone just stares at him in silent shaking
Speaker 1: their heads. No, we don't do that, mean bug until
Speaker 1: you stop that funny business. So they're sitting there working
Speaker 1: every other night, and they're so thorough about this that
Speaker 1: they knock a hole into this like sewer system and
Speaker 1: they go and they work on their tunnel and they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, creating the walls. They dig a little, they're goingly,
Speaker 1: going a few inches each night. They then brick back
Speaker 1: up the wall covering where they've penetrated from the sewer.
Speaker 1: So every night they also have to add a couple
Speaker 1: hours in to remake the wall. And this way, any
Speaker 1: sewer people are going to cruise down the sewer worker
Speaker 1: wouldn't notice because so know the wall. So the tunnel
Speaker 1: is being hidden behind this false wall that they rebuild
Speaker 1: every other day. Now takes them about two months to
Speaker 1: get to the edge of the walls, right, But these
Speaker 1: are Marseille hard men. They work and they work, and
Speaker 1: they do exactly as told. They get through ten hours.
Speaker 1: They don't snitch, they don't speak out, and they don't
Speaker 1: go to bars and get drunk on their day off.
Speaker 1: They're really good about it. And they get to the
Speaker 1: walls and it's just before Bastille Day, which was his
Speaker 1: plan because that is a huge day in France. It's
Speaker 1: basically like the fourth of July is and it in
Speaker 1: essence it's a celebration to freedom and independence, but also
Speaker 1: it's a big party weekend everybody. So they wanted to
Speaker 1: get there on Friday. And they get to the walls
Speaker 1: on Friday, and how do they know because they can
Speaker 1: hear the alarm clocks shaking at midnight and they know
Speaker 1: it's right there in the safety deposit box wall and
Speaker 1: that's where they are. So now they've also used it
Speaker 1: as a homing signal. That's perfect, right, pretty brilliant. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. So now that we have reached the walls,
Speaker 1: the tunnel is dug, they're on the other side of
Speaker 1: safety deposit box. All it is left for them to
Speaker 1: do is to break in. Elizabeth, I'd like you to
Speaker 1: close your eyes and picture it. I'm picturing it it's
Speaker 1: best deal day weekend. I don't know what it is yet.
Speaker 1: It's furry, it's warm, it's in your hand. In France
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, it's the Friday night of a long weekend.
Speaker 1: One hell of a bell bottom, good time going down
Speaker 1: to Nice right now, al right, each night, drunken rebblers
Speaker 1: in the street. They've got the mayor out there with
Speaker 1: him prows and everyone's having fun. The fireworks overhead. It's
Speaker 1: a perfect cover if you want to break into a
Speaker 1: bank fault. So Albert and the Marseille hardman, they are
Speaker 1: busy in their workspace, just banging away, swinging hammers, knocking
Speaker 1: chisels and the two months of hard, sweaty, stinky work.
Speaker 1: Because remember they are working in a sewer essentially, like
Speaker 1: sometimes they're waist deep and filth. Sometimes they're in rubber rafts.
Speaker 1: It's just been a hard so a few fuse. It's
Speaker 1: so funny of them just sitting there working on damnits.
Speaker 1: Jacques or a few enthusiastic swings of the sledge hammer.
Speaker 1: Chisels breakthrough and all of a sudden there's a shaft
Speaker 1: of light. They can see into the vault. They're there.
Speaker 1: They knocked through the wall, and then they realize actually
Speaker 1: in the safety deposit wall, so they have to push
Speaker 1: their way through, and they pry open the safety deposit
Speaker 1: boxes from the backside, which is yeah, extra difficult, and
Speaker 1: now boom they're inside. So they knock a hole. They
Speaker 1: have a workspace. They take the as settling torches and
Speaker 1: stuff and start getting to business. Now they're able to
Speaker 1: open three hundred and seventy one safety deposit boxes. Jug
Speaker 1: blown fully blown. So this jug, now that it's fully
Speaker 1: blown and tooting away, is giving up gold bars, jewelry collections, diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds,
Speaker 1: you name it. Dude, niece has got real wealth down
Speaker 1: There's that's im like. And then also there is the
Speaker 1: as you I've noted in other bank robbers we discussed
Speaker 1: there's always a potential of the blackmail photo in the
Speaker 1: safety deposit box. This one comes very much true. They
Speaker 1: take out the blackmail photos and they're all these lurid,
Speaker 1: naked photos of the rich, famous and powerful doing things
Speaker 1: to each other that are dirty and naked, and they
Speaker 1: throw them up on the walls of the vault, plastering
Speaker 1: them so that while they're working they're just staring at
Speaker 1: all these naked people. Yeah, right, exactly, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's a little fun for the guys, exactly, they get
Speaker 1: some fun and then also keeping things French. Albert is
Speaker 1: very good to his men. He brings in the picnic
Speaker 1: lunch and the picnic lunch, what do you think is
Speaker 1: in it? Very good? Also for gras, he brings in
Speaker 1: red wine. They eat a meal of coke and potatoes
Speaker 1: that he cooks with a reportable stove for their meals.
Speaker 1: By the way, they're eating on these solid silver utensils
Speaker 1: that they're pulling out of the safety deposit box exactly,
Speaker 1: using all the rich people's stuff for like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're using it appropriately or not,
Speaker 1: but they're just using it having fun. They're using the
Speaker 1: right utensils for each I don't mean, like do they
Speaker 1: have the right fork in the right hand. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're just like stabbing the knife
Speaker 1: into the wall for fun too, and then also using
Speaker 1: it to like spread the Yeah, exactly. So there's these
Speaker 1: huge silver toureens, like you know, like soup containers for
Speaker 1: like now they're silver. They were using those for the commodes.
Speaker 1: So they're just like crapping in these rich people in
Speaker 1: that fancy buckets, making soup, making the new soup. So
Speaker 1: this is like how the how these fifteen Marseille hard
Speaker 1: men entertaining themselves over this long weekend while they break
Speaker 1: into all of the safety deposit boxes and it takes
Speaker 1: a while. Did not just like popping each one open.
Speaker 1: They have to like pry and work on to get
Speaker 1: three one of the thousands that are there. Is like
Speaker 1: a real accomplishment. Now, over the time of the weekend,
Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon, uh starts to come to be and the
Speaker 1: rains start to gather and there's hard rain that's falling
Speaker 1: on nice. Hard rain is going to fall on this
Speaker 1: hard rain starts to hit the sewers, it starts to flood.
Speaker 1: So the guys are like, oh man, we got to
Speaker 1: get at the show on the road. So they gather
Speaker 1: up everything that they can and then they managed to
Speaker 1: unlike some of the other robbers we've covered, they removed
Speaker 1: most everything they brought with them. They get all on
Speaker 1: the rubber boats and they're like go go right. So
Speaker 1: like these guys are all like launching down the sewer
Speaker 1: with all the stolen stuff. And then right before they
Speaker 1: leave Alberts like un moment, and then he like takes
Speaker 1: the piece of chalk and he writes a message on
Speaker 1: the inside of the bank fault and in in chalk
Speaker 1: he writes arms knee violence, So which that means in
Speaker 1: English and not my bad accent, he means without guns,
Speaker 1: nor violence nor hate. So he was basically saying, is
Speaker 1: they were bragging, we pulled this off and we're not
Speaker 1: like these other terrorists bank robbers of the seventies, because
Speaker 1: like the PLO was a getting into bank robbery at
Speaker 1: this time, so they really wanted to stinguish themselves. The
Speaker 1: i RA was in bank robbery. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of like people, They're like, look, we did this without guns,
Speaker 1: without hate in our heart. We just did it for
Speaker 1: the rush. She just basically put a piece symbol on
Speaker 1: the wall exactly two fingers and then swam off in
Speaker 1: the wastewater. Yeah, well that's the other thing. So then
Speaker 1: this is also part of the possibly illegal strategy. So
Speaker 1: it's like, look, we didn't mean any harts establish it
Speaker 1: that it's the seventies. Relax. A lot of stuff happened.
Speaker 1: It was more than just regrettable men's fashions. There was
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff happening. Do you think back to
Speaker 1: how wild the seventies were when you read these news stories, Like,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine explaining to someone who's like under the
Speaker 1: age of what the seventies like. You could just take
Speaker 1: any week of the newspaper and just take the headlines
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, are you for real right now?
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, look at that, and here's the next day,
Speaker 1: and here's the next day, and it's just the headlines.
Speaker 1: But don't you think that applies now to butt Well,
Speaker 1: they get hung up on the idea of like it's
Speaker 1: so it's so unique now, and I'm like, oh, people
Speaker 1: who are a little older, like you know, like my
Speaker 1: mother has a sense of this which she talks to
Speaker 1: me about like the repetition of repetition of history. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, if you go back the seventies, it wasn't
Speaker 1: all like people were just like everything was cool and
Speaker 1: we're growing our launch and trying to get over the
Speaker 1: sixties and trying to buy back into America. No, it
Speaker 1: was turbulent as hell, especially internationally. That decade needs more
Speaker 1: look back. It totally does. But also you and I
Speaker 1: love newspapers dot com. Yes, this is not a paid advertisement.
Speaker 1: They don't they don't even know we exists. They just
Speaker 1: take my money. But anytime you go back and you
Speaker 1: look at headlines on a in like the thirties and
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties, you look at these headlines and it's nuts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because constantly and it's all on one newspaper, like that's
Speaker 1: all happening. Everyone thinks they're living at the end of
Speaker 1: the world, I guess. And also, no times are unique
Speaker 1: in terms of it being insane, is essentially my point,
Speaker 1: just different flavors of insane. Yeah, so, okay, Monday rolls around.
Speaker 1: Bank employees show up. There's a hole in the vault,
Speaker 1: but they don't know it because these robbers were so
Speaker 1: smart they welded the bank vault shut from the inside
Speaker 1: so they can't get into the bank. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: so they don't even know it's been robbed yet, but
Speaker 1: they know something's wrong because the bank is welded shut.
Speaker 1: Their jugs been blown fully blown, so they have to
Speaker 1: go and get a drill of their own and reblow
Speaker 1: the jug and they knock a hole in the wall,
Speaker 1: and then they find out when they look inside the
Speaker 1: whole of the vault they they've knocked into, They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we've been robbed Sacar Blue. So yeah, so then they
Speaker 1: have to go and tell the police. The police come
Speaker 1: out to investigate. Word gets out and all the rich
Speaker 1: and famous and powerful they come running down there, like
Speaker 1: my secret stuff, and they're all in a panic. And
Speaker 1: so the banks meant a bunch of time keeping its
Speaker 1: customers out of the bank while they're like waving their
Speaker 1: rich risks with bobbles of jewels knocking about. And so
Speaker 1: the bank's like, look, calm down, we'll get you all
Speaker 1: your stuff. We're not gonna just throw it in a pile,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna we're gonna have it all like sorted out.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. We'll let you know if it was your
Speaker 1: stuff we're stolen or not. We have a list, and
Speaker 1: everyone's like and the police were like, okay, um, you
Speaker 1: deal with the angry customers. We're gonna start trying to
Speaker 1: investigate stuff, right, So they go and get the list
Speaker 1: on their own of like witch box has been broken into,
Speaker 1: they figure out who it is and they go to
Speaker 1: the individual people because once again the bank isn't really
Speaker 1: being helpful. They're like, okay, so we understand that you
Speaker 1: had a box and you had box number seven four three,
Speaker 1: would you like to tell what was in it? And
Speaker 1: the person It's like, no, I did not. That is
Speaker 1: important to just finds this stuff. You photos? Yeah, why
Speaker 1: do you want to look at toto? Do you want
Speaker 1: to see that? I show you do? Not shaming me
Speaker 1: as they've gotten away with his stolen loot. Albert Spagghieri
Speaker 1: has done it. He's pulled off the crime of the century,
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars. All these rich and powerful
Speaker 1: people are embarrassed. The newspapers are talking about it. There
Speaker 1: is no reason for people to not know his name
Speaker 1: at this point. Everyone. All he has to do is
Speaker 1: make himself known and everyone would be like, that's the guy.
Speaker 1: So it's tempting him. But he's like, hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars, why would you want? Who cares if everyone
Speaker 1: knows you're the guy? But he wants the fame. He
Speaker 1: wants the crowd. He wants people to know he was
Speaker 1: the mastermind he because remember he used his book and
Speaker 1: he's so perfect plan. Yeah, so let's take a quick
Speaker 1: little break and I'll get into how this all goes
Speaker 1: oh so wrong. So now we have the robbery as occurred.
Speaker 1: They've gotten away, Albert and his Marseille hard Man are
Speaker 1: on the lamb and the police have to spring into action.
Speaker 1: Right So they've interviewed the rich people and they don't
Speaker 1: have a clue to go on. They got nothing. Meanwhile, Albert,
Speaker 1: he's gone home. He's taking a bubble bath, he's gonna
Speaker 1: can espresso. He's cleaned himself up, he's wiped the sewer off,
Speaker 1: he's counting his money, and he's like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm out of here. He bounces, he leaves. They're not
Speaker 1: going to catch him because this mastermind of the sewer gang,
Speaker 1: he knows that, you know, eventually he will not be
Speaker 1: able to resist the acclaim. So he knows, I gotta
Speaker 1: get myself out of here. He bounces, Where's he go?
Speaker 1: I have no United States of America there not, just that.
Speaker 1: He goes to c I A headquarters. Yes, right up
Speaker 1: to CIA headquarters, knocks on the front door and knock knock.
Speaker 1: Did he give notice in niece about like I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be here. I'm taking photography break now he
Speaker 1: just you know, disappears. He's a flight tr He shows
Speaker 1: up at CIA headquarters. He tells the CIA, hey, you
Speaker 1: guys want to take a meeting with me. They're like, bro,
Speaker 1: who are you? Because you have to remember, this is
Speaker 1: the CIA in the seventies, one year before the Church
Speaker 1: Committee hearings will renew to the world what the CIA
Speaker 1: has been doing. So this is the last year of
Speaker 1: the shameless. We will kill your leader CIA. Exactly. We
Speaker 1: tried to kill Fidel cast eight thirty eight times. Do
Speaker 1: you think we will not embarrass and disappear you? So
Speaker 1: that CIA is the CIA we're talking about, right, So
Speaker 1: Albert turns up at the CIA crowd quarters like, you
Speaker 1: guys should totally hire me because like I'm kind of
Speaker 1: a mastermind. In case you didn't know this, you don't
Speaker 1: keep up on French crime. I've come to tell you
Speaker 1: personally that is like again, who are you? And he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll lay out my bona feedes and he's
Speaker 1: like telling him all this stuff, all the jobs he's pulled,
Speaker 1: and he's like, then, by the way, I just kind
Speaker 1: of pulled off the bank robbery of the century. He
Speaker 1: tells the c I A just to get a job there.
Speaker 1: Then he pulled off the bank robbery and he's like,
Speaker 1: hey guys. So he's like, oh, you do know what
Speaker 1: we do here? Right? We don't. Okay, look, we don't
Speaker 1: need a HIGST team, not right now. So we're good,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming in, but we'll take your resume if
Speaker 1: you want to leave it at the front door. And
Speaker 1: he's like or like, you know, I don't know, leave
Speaker 1: a card or something whatever, Just please go away. We
Speaker 1: don't have time for this. And he's like, oh. They're like,
Speaker 1: but oh, one more thing. What was your name again?
Speaker 1: You could you? Like? Where are you from? You said
Speaker 1: he pulled off the bank robbery, the centry, I was
Speaker 1: in France and nice And he's like, yeah, I got
Speaker 1: to gout. Are not interested, right, And they're like, no, seriously,
Speaker 1: that was you. You're absolutely certain that was you. Do
Speaker 1: you have any evidence that we could know this was you?
Speaker 1: And he's like maybe we do, right, which means uh,
Speaker 1: you know, but yes, of course right, And they're like okay, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we could have a home number, maybe your your address,
Speaker 1: you could just give that to us. We could get
Speaker 1: in contact with you later. And he's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: I got to go because it's of course, the CIA
Speaker 1: is an investigative agency, has allies and been France, so
Speaker 1: they call their French counterparts like as soon as he's
Speaker 1: out of the building, and they're like a French CIA,
Speaker 1: which I'm sorry I do not know is called French CIA.
Speaker 1: Do you know who's just in our office? And they're like, no,
Speaker 1: for all, neither do. We wouldn't give us his name.
Speaker 1: He goes in there and he's like, I did these crimes, big,
Speaker 1: not gonna tell you my name's interested they're not really okay.
Speaker 1: He tells him his name, but he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: They're like, is that really your name? They were like,
Speaker 1: we have some evidence that you did this crime because
Speaker 1: they're gonna immediately turned it over the front name Mr
Speaker 1: corn Towers. Yes exactly, Regina, you say okay. So a
Speaker 1: few months later, the French authorities get another tip about
Speaker 1: this crime, but this time not from the CIA. This
Speaker 1: time the tip is from an angry X. Yeah. So actually, well,
Speaker 1: the French authorities got a couple of tips they got
Speaker 1: and one tip was from two of the lookouts for
Speaker 1: the crew. They had been paid in gold bars and
Speaker 1: they've been going around town going cash would you like
Speaker 1: to buy these gold bars? How much would you buy
Speaker 1: these gold bars for? So they make a name for
Speaker 1: themselves that these two guys with gold bars for sales.
Speaker 1: So the cops just go and arrest him. And so
Speaker 1: then what's one story that they then turn on the crew.
Speaker 1: The other story is that an X gets in a
Speaker 1: fight with one of the members of the crew, he
Speaker 1: like jilts her. She then goes immediately to the cops
Speaker 1: and says, you know who my ex boyfriend is, and
Speaker 1: then lays out he wasn't he did the bank robberate
Speaker 1: this entry and his buddies are Albert Spickery and it
Speaker 1: just runs down the crew. And so then that guy
Speaker 1: gets arrested. The cops bring him in, they interrogate him
Speaker 1: for hours and hours and hours. He's like, no, I
Speaker 1: was not there. I don't think are you're talking about
Speaker 1: like four hours later. I don't know if he just
Speaker 1: he just really needed a smoke or what, but he
Speaker 1: was like, how about the smoke break. They're like, tell
Speaker 1: us the name of the crew. He's like, I can't
Speaker 1: have a smoke break. And then they're like, if you
Speaker 1: tell his name of the crew, will give you a
Speaker 1: two galos or whatever, and he's like, yeah, okay, he
Speaker 1: gives up the whole crew, all right, so some a
Speaker 1: few hours of interrogation, he's done. Right. So now it's
Speaker 1: October seventies six, basically the end of the year, and
Speaker 1: the whole gang is getting arrested. But Albert once again
Speaker 1: is luckily out of the country because he just has
Speaker 1: luck like that. He happens to be in Japan. So
Speaker 1: he's like, hey, Japan, Yeah, I'm just hanging out. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you about me. He's there with the mayor
Speaker 1: of Nice and they're on like a buddy's tour of Japan.
Speaker 1: They're doing like a whole like sister city thing or
Speaker 1: guess I don't know what they're doing, but anyway, they're
Speaker 1: hanging out. When they get back to Nice, there's all
Speaker 1: these police at the airport and they're like, oh, for
Speaker 1: the mayor, this is obviously part of our security. And
Speaker 1: instead they're like, oh, he's like me, I mean, and
Speaker 1: so then they arrest him in front of the mayor
Speaker 1: and then he gets taken in so he gets interrogated
Speaker 1: by the police. He last two full days, doesn't say
Speaker 1: a word. Finally, after two days he's like, okay, it
Speaker 1: was me, can you can you alert the press? So so,
Speaker 1: but he refuses the name names. He is a real criminal,
Speaker 1: he doesn't he didn't say any other members of the crew.
Speaker 1: He won't say anything about how he got the money,
Speaker 1: who was the money man to pay for all this anything.
Speaker 1: He's like, I was the mastermind. Please tell the press
Speaker 1: this and everything should be fine, and they're like, uh sir.
Speaker 1: He's like, yes, just tell them famous folk hero bank
Speaker 1: Robert Albert Speggieri was been arrested. You need help. I
Speaker 1: can write this for you. The press release. What's is
Speaker 1: the problem? They're like, no, we need to know. I
Speaker 1: don't know anything else. This is all I know. So
Speaker 1: they have gone. They follow his request. The press becomes known,
Speaker 1: and he then has one problem. This means he has
Speaker 1: now go to prisons. He's like, that does not to
Speaker 1: work for Albert. So he's like, you know what, I've
Speaker 1: got the plan. So he gets to work. He's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this other part comes from the book.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was in loophole. But his
Speaker 1: plan is is he invents documents and he fakes these documents,
Speaker 1: and then when his trial comes up, he's like, I
Speaker 1: have these documents that they will need to be decoded
Speaker 1: for the judge that they will tell you the full
Speaker 1: plan and all of the people in the crew. And
Speaker 1: they're like really okay, yeah, yeah here and he's like,
Speaker 1: but I cannot do it in the open court room.
Speaker 1: We have to do it in judges chambers. No. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he's like, I will decode it with the judge.
Speaker 1: That way the judge can see for themselves, like, I
Speaker 1: will give you the code and the judge can do it,
Speaker 1: not the prosecutor. I don't want anybody. I want the
Speaker 1: judge to decode it. So he's like they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: but not here. We have to do it in the
Speaker 1: judges chambers. So they're like all right, dude, let's go
Speaker 1: up there. So they go to the third floor and
Speaker 1: that's so they're in the palais do Justice and the
Speaker 1: third floor and the judges chambers and he's he pulls
Speaker 1: out his paper to work and he's like all right, judge,
Speaker 1: here you go. And so the judges like, okay, so
Speaker 1: what is this And it's like, okay, well, this is
Speaker 1: the coded document I told you about, and here is
Speaker 1: the code. And the prosecutors like le let me see
Speaker 1: the key. Only no, no, no, just the judges of
Speaker 1: those both looks, so they they're both like really focused
Speaker 1: on this document. Meanwhile, Albert for the window that has
Speaker 1: been left open after he complained about the heat. So
Speaker 1: the moment of distraction, he jumps out of the window.
Speaker 1: He lands on top of a portico above the entrance
Speaker 1: to the Palais Do Justice, bounces off the portico, lands
Speaker 1: on a park car, hops off the park car and
Speaker 1: it is perfectly fine. Three story fall to the charge
Speaker 1: and the prosecutor run to the window to look down
Speaker 1: at the ground floor and there he is Outbert is
Speaker 1: perfectly fine, and he waves up to him and goes
Speaker 1: Then he hops on the back of a waiting motorbike
Speaker 1: and takes off and disappears, never to be seen again
Speaker 1: by anyone in French justice. Oh and then the judge
Speaker 1: goes back and the decodes it and it tells him
Speaker 1: to remember to drink his oval teeth like a secret coder.
Speaker 1: Very good, so he okay, So he successfully jumps out
Speaker 1: of a third story window onto like a portico roof,
Speaker 1: like a little roof that's like over the entry way
Speaker 1: Do Justice. And then from there he hops onto a park,
Speaker 1: car rolls off the park, car lands on the street,
Speaker 1: and he had a motorbike waiting part of his plan,
Speaker 1: and then Alvoir and then bounces out. So once they
Speaker 1: tootle off, he's gone to judge pissed right, the judge
Speaker 1: is demanding of justice. So the judge then continues the
Speaker 1: trial and he convicts Albert in absentia gives him life
Speaker 1: in prison. Meanwhile, Albert has decided I'm out brothers. He
Speaker 1: goes to South America and he gets some plastic surgery
Speaker 1: and he falls in love. He meets a young heiress
Speaker 1: named Audie, and then she forsakes her fortune for his,
Speaker 1: and then the two of them live happily ever after
Speaker 1: on the Lamb. Now, he still, though likes to mess
Speaker 1: with the French police in the French justice is um
Speaker 1: so every so and so often he sends in a
Speaker 1: photo of him in some outrageous get up, like him
Speaker 1: on the lap of Santa Claus or him with the
Speaker 1: giant afro on, and it says hello from Albert. And
Speaker 1: then he also sends photos of himself to the newspapers
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to be forgotten, so he also
Speaker 1: sends them like I am still alive and so be
Speaker 1: like you know, ho ho, and which means like you know,
Speaker 1: my little cabbage is and so he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: taunting everybody. Finally, years after his triumphant bank robbery of
Speaker 1: the century, Albert passes away from cancer on the lamb
Speaker 1: in Argentine, Argentina. Rather, his loving wife Audi's still there
Speaker 1: by his side. She arranged for the body to be
Speaker 1: sent back home to his mother in France. The l
Speaker 1: A Times reported on his death right and this is
Speaker 1: a quote from the l A Times. Albert Spencer seven,
Speaker 1: mastermind of the spectacular Sewer Gang bank heist in on
Speaker 1: the run for twelve years, died and his body was
Speaker 1: left outside his mother's house on Saturday. Police said Speieri's
Speaker 1: body was brought to his mother's home in this Riviera
Speaker 1: city early Saturday by two men who fled. Now please
Speaker 1: tell me it was like a confident at least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just like on the street now. It was
Speaker 1: like it wasn't like he was in a bag marked Albert.
Speaker 1: So if if you can imagine, his mother is like
Speaker 1: happy that he's been returned to her because you can
Speaker 1: bury him in France. Now, if you can also keep
Speaker 1: up with this, and I know you can. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: lay this one right down in your feet. This is
Speaker 1: not the end this story. Yeah, I know that he
Speaker 1: was dead. The bank robbery's done. How could it possibly be?
Speaker 1: Well before he died back in when he was living
Speaker 1: on the lamb and he just wanted that acclaim. He's
Speaker 1: down in Argentine and he writes a book about the
Speaker 1: niece robbery, right, and he was inspired by the novel Loophole.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if he's like wanting to pay
Speaker 1: it back, like I'm going to inspire some criminal in
Speaker 1: the future too, right, So anyway, he decides to do this,
Speaker 1: and he in his version of the account of the
Speaker 1: niece robbery, there is this smooth and savvy criminal contractor
Speaker 1: who explores the sewers by night and he then goes
Speaker 1: on to higher two men from Marseilles and they put
Speaker 1: together a crew and they pull off this wonderful bank job.
Speaker 1: And there's a brilliant right, he's super handsome. So he
Speaker 1: publishes his book and everybody knows about it, and the
Speaker 1: French police read it and then they dismiss it as
Speaker 1: mere fiction. They like, we expect better realism from someone
Speaker 1: who's actually successfully robbed a bank. I do not believe it.
Speaker 1: They call him out on his literary and he's successfully
Speaker 1: exactly so, but they're like all focused on book, Like
Speaker 1: I did not believe the realism. The dialogue so bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have questions, so many questions. The French, so howbvert
Speaker 1: he wasn't the only member of his crew to write
Speaker 1: a novel about this bank job to other dudes from
Speaker 1: also write books. And they're also wanting to be known
Speaker 1: that Albert was not the mastermind. So they said he
Speaker 1: was definitely not the mastermind, even if he thinks he was,
Speaker 1: And they're like, m, that's an interesting way of phrasing it.
Speaker 1: It turns out in Tighten, the apparently true mastermind of
Speaker 1: this nineteen seventy six bank robbery finally comes to brought
Speaker 1: forward to justice. Right, the real mastermind was a Marseilles
Speaker 1: kingpin named Jacques Cassandri who was the head of the
Speaker 1: Zampa crime family in the lawless port town of Marseilles.
Speaker 1: So can you guess how this head of the Zampa
Speaker 1: crime family gets caught as the true mastermind? Oh my god?
Speaker 1: Did he posted on Facebook? He wrote a book? A
Speaker 1: novel about so he wanted credit to so he's public
Speaker 1: is the way to do it, and he's so he's
Speaker 1: like absolutely convinced that the statue of limitations is up
Speaker 1: and he's like, Oh, I'm not going to talk to
Speaker 1: a lawyer about this. I'm just gonna write a novel
Speaker 1: and publish it. Turns out, in France there's a statue
Speaker 1: of limitations on bank robbery. He was right about that,
Speaker 1: but there is no statue of limitations on money laundring.
Speaker 1: So they come after him not for the original crime,
Speaker 1: but the commission of getting rid of the crime. Two tens,
Speaker 1: Cassandra published his novel, which he flatteringly described there was
Speaker 1: a man very much like himself who was secretly the
Speaker 1: real mastermind of the Nie bank robbery, right, and in
Speaker 1: this novel he goes on to describe it. And apparently
Speaker 1: the French police were much more convinced by the realism
Speaker 1: of his book because I took it seriously. And even
Speaker 1: though he publishes this book anonymously as d Amigo, all right,
Speaker 1: that's his pen name, damiegal sod Amigo, because Jacques Cassandri
Speaker 1: head of the Zampa crime family. When he publishes his book.
Speaker 1: The French police were like, I will take two copies,
Speaker 1: and so they go and they investigate the book and
Speaker 1: they're like, de realism is amazing. I believe him, you know.
Speaker 1: So then they decided let's make a case, and so
Speaker 1: they start to investigate. Cassandre is like, whoa, whoa, whoa mess?
Speaker 1: Just a novel man? Who's this d amigo guy? Not me?
Speaker 1: My name is Jaux Cassandres. The police were like, m sir,
Speaker 1: we went to the signing and you're the one. He's
Speaker 1: right there. You signed our book. So the French police
Speaker 1: continued their investigation. And although this guy had waited thirty
Speaker 1: six years to get his credit, he had not talked
Speaker 1: to a lawyer. So he doomed himself by using this novel.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that he had also left a
Speaker 1: manuscript on his home computer. So if the police found
Speaker 1: the manuscript of the book on his own computer, he
Speaker 1: didn't use a ghostwriter. He said that Jacques Cassandred his
Speaker 1: way right through this novel. He did like no, like
Speaker 1: was it November national novel writing? Yeah? Yeah, no right mo.
Speaker 1: So he throws his his hat in that ring and
Speaker 1: proms out of the book. Publish it, and it's all
Speaker 1: about these people, and uh it tells the story if
Speaker 1: six Marseille hard men, which is this is apparently the
Speaker 1: most accurate account. Six Marseille hard Man and Albert Spezieri.
Speaker 1: They break into a bank vault. They welld it shut.
Speaker 1: They probably opened the boxes. They didn't Zeve do this
Speaker 1: on Bastill day with the picnic party the cultiv all
Speaker 1: that was true. They crapped in the antique silver soup tureens.
Speaker 1: All that's true. The party lasts the whole weekend and
Speaker 1: they get away for it for the next few decades
Speaker 1: until he writes his book. So Cassandri apparently got two
Speaker 1: billion euros for his part of the job, and he
Speaker 1: eventually through the trial that he gets clear to the
Speaker 1: money laundering charges. So he's out on that. But the
Speaker 1: defense was hinged on the question of whether a novel
Speaker 1: can be considered evidence of a crime. So the court
Speaker 1: sides with him. They go, nah, this is France. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a book of fiction that can not be
Speaker 1: real if it says right there. So the judge, though,
Speaker 1: is like, but I still want justice. So he goes
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, Cassandra, you are now guilty
Speaker 1: of fraud, embezzlement, bribery and just got not a list
Speaker 1: of petty crimes that he get him on. This is
Speaker 1: basically just all criminal cron r is um and nepotism
Speaker 1: because he also then the judge buss his wife, his son,
Speaker 1: his daughter, and just threw some extra humiliation he bust
Speaker 1: the daughter in law. In total, eleven members of the
Speaker 1: Zappa crime family all go down because the boss wanted
Speaker 1: to write a novel ticket credit for the bank Robbery
Speaker 1: of the Century. So from book to book to book,
Speaker 1: this it comes around full circle. It goes they pull
Speaker 1: it off because of book, and they get doomed because
Speaker 1: of a book. That's amazing. So there you go. That
Speaker 1: is the story of Albert Spaggieri and Jacques Cassandri and
Speaker 1: the bank Robbery of the Century and the mini mini
Speaker 1: novels about it, available at any fun book publishing stories
Speaker 1: near you. Boy, Elizabeth, what's our ridiculous takeaway? Well, for me,
Speaker 1: I would have to say that you know it's that
Speaker 1: vanity like that's right. Just I don't understand if you
Speaker 1: pull this thing off and you have the money, which
Speaker 1: should be like your original goal and you have the
Speaker 1: ability that you know you've got a good cover. No
Speaker 1: one wants to read your writing criminals or write something else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in the standard lane and this one,
Speaker 1: which is you're a criminal, you're good at that. Do that?
Speaker 1: Is that your takeaway, I'd love to hear your take away. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you for asking, Elizabeth, that was so genuine. My
Speaker 1: takeaway is basically, writers, what are you gonna do with
Speaker 1: the But I'm honestly, they constantly do themselves. They either
Speaker 1: become the monster of their own creation or they imprison
Speaker 1: themselves inside their stories. Like writers just constantly can't figure
Speaker 1: this stuff out. And like I'm I'm fully aware of
Speaker 1: this that these are the dangers in the perils of
Speaker 1: the path. You're a writer, I'm a writer. Our stories
Speaker 1: will prison us or we ourselves become the monsters in
Speaker 1: our stories if we come a persona or a character.
Speaker 1: And this is all you know, can be made so
Speaker 1: much worse when you also add into the mix the
Speaker 1: male ego, because i mean, let's be real about this
Speaker 1: for a second. There is a reason why most of
Speaker 1: the criminals that we cover in the story are men,
Speaker 1: because they do things like women and fems, they would
Speaker 1: seem to understand that there is an importance to the crime.
Speaker 1: You wanted the crime, you got away with the crime.
Speaker 1: You want credit for the crime too, Like that's too much.
Speaker 1: You're now asking to ride the same horse twice with
Speaker 1: just your one. But you can't do that right, Like
Speaker 1: you can't blow that jug. That jug has been blown.
Speaker 1: So having people know you got away with it, that
Speaker 1: that's that is the the unreachable goal. And women seem
Speaker 1: to understand, and women, fems and people who are do
Speaker 1: not suffer from the male ego seem to understand that
Speaker 1: this is if you want to get crested credit, you're
Speaker 1: gonna get busted. That's just how crime works. Because we
Speaker 1: know you did the crime. Now you have to do
Speaker 1: the time. So if you want to get away with
Speaker 1: the crime, don't let anyone know about it. That's the
Speaker 1: secret to crime. Thanks for joining us. I'm Elizabeth Dutton,
Speaker 1: I'm Saren Burnett. Is my damn right. So you can
Speaker 1: find us online at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: You gotta tip for us about a ridiculous crime you'd
Speaker 1: like to hear about. Hit us up. Do you want
Speaker 1: to confess to Ridiculous Crime. We don't recommend it, but
Speaker 1: if that jug needs blown, send it this way. Email
Speaker 1: us at Ridiculous Cry I'm at gmail dot com. Ridiculous
Speaker 1: Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett, produced
Speaker 1: and edited by head of the Couston Crime Family Dave Coust.
Speaker 1: Researches by Chief Inspector of the French Riviera, Merissa brown.
Speaker 1: Our theme song is by Monshoeur, Thomas v and Freer
Speaker 1: Travis Dutton. Executive producers are Ben Scargo or Scard. Don't
Speaker 1: It's all delicious to me? Boland and nol Sap Corrupt
Speaker 1: Browne say it one more time? We dequeous Crew. Ridiculous
Speaker 1: Crime is a production of iHeart Radio. Four more podcasts
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