WEBVTT - Part Two: India's Most Famous Con-Man 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:12.240 What sharining my lonnie unuses? Would I have? I have? 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:14.159 I'm trying to figure out what the plural would be. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.119 Would it be Sharene's Lanna units like attorneys general? I 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.480 think the last name is you and I. You know, 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:29.760 Sharne's Lana and I sharenus Is, I mean accepted. I'm 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.000 literally we're gonna call you sharenus Is from now on. 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:35.960 I'm just letting you know I love it. Grant Taylor 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.880 in middle school coined the nickname Sharnie Weenie. I've embraced 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.000 what was it? What was his name? Sharie Grant Taylor? Oh, 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:45.480 are they're gonna say Brent Taylor, who's the chuttiest cop 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:48.600 in Portland who got removed from the riot team for 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.839 shooting too many people with grenades for no reason? Oh jesus, 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.200 I'm gonna say that would have been amazing, not a 0:00:55.240 --> 0:01:00.680 creative like insult nickname. That right is beneath you. Yeah, 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.720 that person is trash. You know who is also kind 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:05.560 of well, I don't know, we'll decide if he's trash. 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:08.160 You're probably gonna like this guy too. Um, we're gonna 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.200 talk about a very special con artist today. A fellow 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:14.760 named not war Lal, who was India's greatest con man. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.240 Now I want to start this by saying, I can't 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:20.720 tell you how accurate most of this is. There are 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.360 very few English language sources on his life, and I 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.920 couldn't even find a lot of online like Hindi sources 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.600 that I could translate. There's very little about this guy 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.240 that is credible. There's a couple of like India today, 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.360 a couple of like broadly credible websites that have stories 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:36.560 about him on there, but like fuck, it is hard 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:38.840 to find ship about this dude that is not like 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.080 some weird little listical or basically there was a Bollywood 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.640 movie made about his life that is completely inaccurate. Hard 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:47.560 to tell what is true about this guy, but it's 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:49.600 a fun story. So we're gonna, we're gonna, We're gonna. 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:51.480 I did the best job I could and we're going 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:55.400 to it seems like a through fee with some con artists, right, 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.480 like right, it's you don't know what's true. If you 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.280 are someone who spends this guy's case, like literally like 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.560 sixty straight years lying to people and conning people, it's 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:07.760 gonna be hard to tell out what was true about 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:09.839 your life. You're gonna have very little in the way 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.600 of heart details. Um, but all we have about this 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:14.600 dude is fascinating and it's gonna be a fun, short 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:20.400 little story. So Mithilesh Kumar Shrivastava. Srivastava was born in 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.400 the village of Bangarra in a place called Bihar, India, 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:26.480 at some point in between nineteen twelve and nineteen twenty five, 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.399 which is a pretty wide margin to not know exactly 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.680 when this guy was born. Um, it is one of 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.280 those things. He's he's he grows up in a small 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:38.800 village in India in the like more than a century 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:40.600 ago and like to this day. So there's this thing, 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:44.120 this big celebration they do every twelve years called the 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:45.720 kumb Mela. I mean to do it every four years, 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:47.799 but every twelve years it's in Allahabad. And every time 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.160 it's in Allahabad, it's like the largest gathering of human 0:02:50.200 --> 0:02:52.800 beings for any purpose in human history. Like a hundred 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.320 and twenty million people came at the last Mela in 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:57.680 Allahabad which I was at. Um when I was there 0:02:57.760 --> 0:02:59.880 was about thirty or forty million people at a time 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:03.399 in intensity like it's it's incredibly it's just this unbelievably 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.880 massive thing. Sorry, mind dumb. What is it? What is 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.720 what is it for? It's it's a it's a religious celebration. 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.400 It's a it's a it's a Hindu religious celebration. And 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:15.880 it's so many people go that every year about thirty 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.040 thousand or so people disappear. And when I say disappear, 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:21.160 I mean these are people who live in villages so 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.640 isolated and so small that they don't have government documents 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.800 like that. Their only identity is as a part of 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.720 this village, and they get separated from their people and 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.680 they're just like people without like a legal life. Like 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:36.720 that still happens in India. That's why this guy. Part 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.120 of why this guy's like this, Like we don't have 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:41.920 like government documents about this dude's early life, right, Like 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.440 he's born in nineteen twelve and some or or sometime 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:47.560 in between there and some little village. We have very 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.720 little about his actual early life about is like government 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:53.200 identity or whatever, which is part of what enables him 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.120 to do the conning he does. Right, things are very 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:57.720 chaotic and India during the period where he's growing up, 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.520 this is like he kind of comes in his early 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.040 adulthood during the period where like the British government, UM 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.560 gives up controlling India. So like this guy. Part of 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:09.040 why he's able to get away with so much is 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.560 he he lives during a very chaotic time in India 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:14.640 UM and as a result, we know very little about 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:17.520 his early childhood. One version of his story states that 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:19.960 the inciting incident that kind of led to his break 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.279 from mainstream society occurred in nineteen thirty two, when he 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.560 was a ninth grader at Patna High School. Travastava was 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:30.200 not a good student, particularly when it came to mathematics. 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:33.360 His teachers noted to his parents that he was extremely intelligent, 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.200 which led Shrivastava's father to the conclusion that his son 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:39.320 was simply refusing to work hard. Lectures from his dad 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.720 turned into yelling and eventually to physical abuse. The first 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.120 time Shravastava's father hit him was also the last. Shravastava 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.200 fled home the very next day, eventually resurfacing in the 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.000 nearby city of Calcutta. This one version of his story, 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:55.160 and it is the version that paints the most sympathetic 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.640 picture of young Trevastava. Another version of the story states 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.479 that as a preteen, he realized he had the ability 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.880 to almost perfectly forge the signature of any person he chose. 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:07.800 One day, a family friend asked him to deposit some 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.080 money in a nearby bank. Sharik copied their signature and 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.000 later used it to withdraw a thousand rupees from their account. 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.040 According to this version of events, Shari's crime was found 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:19.480 out and he was exiled from his village and forced 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.120 to flee his home at any rate. By the time 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:23.960 he was in his late teens, he was a lone 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:27.600 and unsupported in Calcutta, So we don't know exactly how 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:29.359 he gets there. There's kind of two versions of the story. 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.400 One is his dad beats him and he flees. That's 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:33.960 obviously the more sympathetic. One is he steals from a 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.040 family friend and he gets kicked out of the village. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.400 I don't really know which one is true. I mean, 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:42.680 either one I feel like, I don't hate, like it's 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:44.680 not like, yeah, one is more like he's a victim, 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:46.800 but the other one he's desperate and also you know, 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.760 like who cares. Yeah, I mean it's they're both good 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:55.160 con artist origin stories. So uh. At that time, Calcutta 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.280 was the capital of the British raj and it was 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:00.440 a city defined by its almost unbelievable gap between the 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:04.599 colonial rich they're fortunate chosen Indian allies and employees, and 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.400 a seething mass of starving urban poor. It's not for nothing, 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:09.520 that is where Mother Teresa has her like her set up. 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.839 She's a problematic figure, but she's there because there's so 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:16.880 much poverty in Calcutta. Few cities in history have been 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.960 harder places for a young pubescent boy with no money 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:24.159 to survive. And yet somehow Shravastava managed. He enrolled in 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.719 a Bachelor in Commerce to graduate course at Calcutta University, 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.960 presumably after lying about his age. We don't know how 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.800 he supported himself. He had no relatives in the city, 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.640 but somehow he got by long enough to meet and 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:40.840 befriended businessman Seth keshav Ram, who became his first mark. 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:43.800 Seth was in the market for a private tutor for 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.039 his children. Servastava knew he could do the job. He 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:49.640 just needed to convince Seth of that. So he produced 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.839 a series of testimonials from satisfied parents by forging signatures 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:56.599 and different handwriting styles to make them look like genuine 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.160 notes from actual people who actually existed. Seth was only 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.159 impressed by how highly recommended this young man was, and 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.479 he hired Travastova to teach his son and daughter for 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.440 thirty rupees per month. Travastava did this job for several months, 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.320 teaching this rich man's children god only knows what, because 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:14.960 he did not have much of an education himself. After 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.240 he'd been on the job, awhile Shri asked Seth for 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.040 a loan so he could purchase some books. Seth said no. 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.120 Depending on who you believe, this was the inciting incident 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.440 that really turned Shre against all rich people. He quit 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.640 his job and discussed, and he set to work getting revenge. First, 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:31.960 he forged another set of fake credicials and used them 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:34.040 to get a job as the headmaster of a school 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:38.080 that sets kids attended. Seth was impressed. When Srivastava got hired. 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.760 He apologized to his former employee and hired him back 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.560 as a private tutor for much more money. Shri took 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.840 the job, but he had not yet gotten his revenge. 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.840 At the time. In Calcutta, there was a serious shortage 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.520 of high quality cloth. Shri told Seth that he had 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:53.800 a relative who just come from Bombay with two hundred 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:55.600 bales of cloth that he wanted to sell on the 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.200 black market for the low low price of four point 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.520 five lack of rupees or four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.080 The cloth could be sets. A lock is like an 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.840 Indian unit of measurement that means better a hundred thousand 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:13.880 or so l a k h L. There's this cloth 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.680 shortage and Shri is like, hey, I got my guy 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:18.240 coming in. He's got a bunch of this cloth. He's 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.720 gonna sell it to you for four hundred fifty thousand rupees, 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:22.720 which is cheap, and you can sell the cloth back 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:25.720 for much more money. Being a businessman, Seth couldn't pass 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.280 up the opportunity to make some black market bucks. And 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.280 now that Shravastava had proven himself legitimate, Seth was willing 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:33.600 to trust the man with hundreds of thousands of rupees 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:36.120 where he had once been unwilling to trust him with hundreds, 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.440 So he agreed to the deal. Once he did, Trevastava 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.440 informed him that the situation had changed. His relative had 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.120 returned to Bombay, but if Seth, if Seth would send 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:48.520 the cash to that city, he Shravastava would personally guarantee 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:51.400 the delivery of the baals to Calcutta. Seth was willing 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.160 to do this, but he insisted Trevastava would have to 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.440 go to Bombay with the money and one of Seth's 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:58.880 agents in order to make sure the deal with through properly. 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:01.959 Shri agree and he traveled to Bombay with Seth Man 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:03.600 and I'm gonna quote from a write up in India 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.880 today here. On the journey, Shrevastava had cleverly though casually 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.960 regaled the agent with stories of Bombay's tough police force 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:13.120 and the ruthless elements in the underworld who had no 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.200 compunctions about dispatching any outsider who dared to poach on 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:20.199 their preserves. Understandably nervous, the agent begged Shravastava to leave 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:22.840 him behind and take the money himself to purchase the cloth. 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.440 Shravastava agreed and departed, with the route be four hundred 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:30.120 and fifty thousand rupees. He never returned. Instead, he arrived 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:32.440 in Patna a few days later and proudly handed his 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.520 father a hundred thousand rupees as a gift. He told 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:37.440 his father that he had become a major shareholder at 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.680 a big company in Calcutta. Shravastava returned to Calcutta the 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.040 same week, but Seth had heard of his arrival and 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:46.320 sent hired thugs to retrieve the money. Shravastava spun them 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.319 a sob story about being chased by the police and 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:51.240 having to abandon the money, but Seth was unconvinced. He 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:53.760 gave Shravastava four days in which to find the money, 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.480 failing which he threatened to have him murdered. The moment 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.600 Seth left, Shravastova rushed to the police station, where he 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.800 lodged a complaint against Seth, alleging Seth had threatened his 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:05.440 life refusing to become his agent for black market deals. 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:08.400 Servastava also gave the police a detailed count of Seth's 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:13.800 clandestine criminal deals. Steals half a million rupees from this 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:15.800 guy and then turns him into the police when he 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:20.720 threatens to murder him. Um so yeah, yeah, I mean 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:25.760 that's what Yeah, that's what he did. It's also like 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:27.960 who are who are you? Who you gonna trust? Right 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.320 like the this foreigner you know? Yeah, I mean they're both. 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:34.280 I think it's one of those things. This doesn't wind 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:38.040 up working out for him. So snitching worked at first, 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.840 because Seth and his goons get immediately arrested by the 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:43.840 police and taken into custody. Uh. And since Seth was 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.080 not a really nice guy, has men have no loyalty 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.640 to him, so they immediately confessed to planning a murder. 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.680 So now Seth is fucked no matter what, because he's 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:55.040 just been caught attempting to murder somebody, and he decides 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:56.800 to at least take Shri down with him, and he 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:58.880 tells the police that Shar had been trying to set 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.040 up an illegal black market cloth deal. So the cops 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.360 arrest Tree too, and in December eleven seven, he goes 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.400 to jail for the first time. Um, yeah, you know 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.320 that's that's that's that's how this started. Yeah, yeah, you 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:15.600 go to the cops, that's what happens. So he gets 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:18.720 sentenced to a six month imprisonment, young and at that point, 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.040 not as savvy as he would later be. Sri served 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.240 out his whole sentence. He was released and immediately committed 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.760 more fraud. We don't know the precise nature of this crime, 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:28.960 but given the stories it's gone so far, it doesn't 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.040 take a whole lot of imagination to guess what kind 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.240 of ship he got up to. He gets caught a 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.040 second time, almost immediately in a sentence to eight more 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.760 months of hard labor. He serves his time again and 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.640 he decides, after two sentences behind bars, it's time for 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.319 him to move his base of operations away from Calcutta. 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:46.679 They know him too well there, so he moves to 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.240 Madras and he changes his name to not war Lal, 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:51.160 a name under which he would become one of the 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:55.200 most famous people in modern Indian history. Now, the Madras 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:58.080 police record just one crime by nut war Lal in 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.120 their files, another suspected fraud. The fact that they only 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:03.400 caught him once suggest that he'd gotten savvy er after 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:05.480 his second arrest, because if we know one thing about 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:07.559 not war Lala at this point in the story, it's 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.360 that he cannot stop himself from conning people. By ninety nine, 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:13.680 he had returned to northern India and for several years 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.200 he roams from city to city, conning businessmen out of 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.520 there also ill gotten gains. None of his subsequent grifts 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.959 were as ambitious as his staff from seft. He steals 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.239 twenty thousand dollars rupee from a Khan and for Karabad 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.079 forty dollars from a khan and Asamgar. The cases are 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.200 individually smaller, but there's a ton of them. He's just 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.200 constantly scam scamming tens of thousands of rupees out of people, 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:35.960 and it's more than the law can keep up with. 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:39.840 What kind of people is he scamming? Businessman? It's it's 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:41.280 always like, Hey, I've got some sort of a deal. 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:43.040 I've got this black market deal. You give me the cash, 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:44.360 I'll get this thing, I'll get this study and then 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.920 he skips town. You know, that's the way this guy works. 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:49.680 Um and again it's the same kind of thing as 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.040 Victor Lustig, where a lot of it's like, I don't 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:53.600 want you to go to the cops, so I'll make 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.080 sure you're agreeing to break the law first. Yeah, he 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.920 wants to compromise them so they don't. Yeah, they can 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:05.400 ever turn him in, So Sardar, he's he's very fast. 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.200 He's constantly skipping cities. Isn't like dozens of cities at 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.920 this point scamming people, So the cops are always a 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.400 few steps behind him, but he leaves enough of a 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.360 pattern that at least one detective becomes obsessed with him. 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.440 This guy, Sardar Hari Singh, who's the inspector of police 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:23.120 in a city called Luck now like just becomes very 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.240 dedicated to capturing this guy. He's probably the first person 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:28.520 to report on the budding con man's m O in 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:31.640 a concerted way. And I'm gonna quote from India today again. 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.600 His initial operations involved the swindling of goods from jewelry 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:38.320 stores in large department stores in the cities he visited. 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:40.600 He would first open a bank account in a large bank. 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:42.880 He would then win the confidence of the shopkeepers by 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.920 paying for his purchases by checks, which were promptly cashed. 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:48.480 Once he had earned their trust, that Warlow would withdraw 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:50.960 his bank account and on the same day by large 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.400 amounts of jewelry and expensive items from the stores, which 0:13:53.440 --> 0:13:55.800 he could sell later. He was careful, though, to limit 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.240 his purchases to a few thousand rupees so as to 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:01.280 combat any suspicion that might arise. He would then disappear 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:03.200 from the city and another page will be added to 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:07.360 the neat war law legend. So pretty not not super 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.199 ambitious cons here, but very smart. You know, he's it's 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.160 the same thing. You establish a base line of trust, 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.200 you get them to think that your money is good, 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.880 and then you steal right. That's how it works. So 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:22.120 he keeps this up for half a decade, uh and 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:25.080 in nineteen until in nineteen forty four, he is arrested 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.200 for more fraud, this time in a city called Gorekpor. 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.360 Now we don't know how he gets out, but this 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:33.880 arrest marks the first time that he busts himself out 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:35.680 of prison, and it's not going to be his last. 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:39.120 He's re arrested at a metabad in nineteen forty five 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.200 and released on bail this time, and then he's re 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.280 arrested in Varanasi a few weeks later in connection to 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.160 a series of forged receipts issued at a railway station. 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.920 This con represented an evolution for net war law. See. 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:53.720 The idea was that he would book railway wagons, posing 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.320 as a businessman who needed to transport sugar or some 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.680 other commodity. He would actually pay the train company the 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.480 salute minimum he could for the smallest amount of space 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:04.840 he could book in their freight section. Then he would 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:06.960 doctor the receipt that he'd given them and make it 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:09.160 look like he had rented much more space on the 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:11.120 train so that he would be able to claim that 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:13.000 he had a lot more sugar or whatever than he 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.080 actually had. Then he would travel ahead to the destination 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:18.480 city of the train and he would sell the cargo 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.640 to speculators there. So he actually books a tiny amount 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:22.880 of space on the train. He makes it look like 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:24.200 he's booked a lot. He's like, I've got all this 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:26.200 sugar coming in. You want to buy it? You give 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:28.400 me the money. Here's the slit. The train's gonna arrive 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.840 in another day. He would show them the fake receipts 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:32.400 is proof that he had the goods, and when they 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.760 paid him, he would take the money and run. And 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:36.800 when the fires arrived at the train station to pick 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.000 up their commodities, they find only a few bags of 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.600 sand and bricks. He's gotten a lot more ambitious here. 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.800 He's diversified. As all con men need to do um 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:48.800 and not. Marlow had a few different schemes that one 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:50.720 had to. He had to run a bunch of different 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.040 scams and given time to stay solving because all of 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.000 these cons require that he have upfront money in order 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.200 to make more money later. One of his scams was 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.640 to open multiple bank accounts in a city under the 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.520 name of a fake company. He would lease office space, 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.440 purchase expensive looking furniture, and hire attractive secretaries to staff it. 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:11.400 He would then befriend several bank managers in the city 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:13.560 and wine and dine them, making sure to show off 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.800 both his offices and his sexy employees. Once they trusted 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:19.280 him and believed his business was genuine, he would request 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:21.520 to be able to make a large overdraft, so like 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:23.440 basically like, hey, I don't have the money now, I 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:25.520 need you guys to give me a loan and it'll 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:27.760 like you've seen how successful my businesses. I'll have the 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.480 cash for you soon. Uh. And the bankers would always 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.720 say yes. They would allow him to withdraw huge sums 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:36.000 of money on credit once he had because he's he's 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.120 done business with them before he sets up accounts. He 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.040 puts money in their banks. It makes it look like 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.680 it's a real business. He winds and dines them. You 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:47.040 get there like you give them a little and you 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.760 take a long. He has the basic amount of credibility 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.640 to get away with. And it's the same thing why 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.080 Trump works, right. Trump is is like its like seven 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:58.200 million dollars or something right, because rich guys trust other 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:00.480 rich guys, and that's the way being rich works. You 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:02.360 don't put your own money up for risk. You get 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.399 the banks money and like, yeah, so, but he just 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:07.720 takes the money and runs and he abandons the city, 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.520 his employees and whatever office he'd rented in the process. 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:13.480 He was caught for one of these schemes in nineteen 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:16.439 fifty three. The Punjab National Bank is the bank that 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.480 he conned. In that instance, he was arrested, but he 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.199 escaped custody. He was later locked up in Delhi for 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:26.119 the same crime, but disappeared mysteriously again. Details are thin 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:28.320 on a lot of his escapes, but it's generally accepted 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:29.920 that he would just bribe the ship out of all 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.879 of his guards. He continued in this vein for more 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:35.800 than a decade, carrying out countless, count countless cons in 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.960 more cities than most people ever visit in their lifetimes. 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.920 He was arrested again in March of nineteen fifty six 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:43.919 in the city of Mirut, and once the cops who 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.439 caught him realized who they had, they started reaching out 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.280 to other police agencies across India. After a few days 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:51.320 of phone calls, they realized the man in their charge 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.280 was wanted by no fewer than thirty five police departments 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.199 and different cities for different schemes. So this is his 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:00.760 first big bust. And he serves ten months in prison 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:03.119 in the rout before being transferred to luck Now to 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.640 begin serving time for his crimes in that city. Wait, 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:08.280 so ten months and then what was the rest of 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:10.800 the sentence. I think he's got like another year or 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.320 something that he's got to do, But he doesn't do 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.200 that year, So he gets transferred to luck Now. Um, 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.320 and one of the cops started saying, the detective who 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:20.240 obsessed with him works in luck Now and he gets 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:22.560 to know this guy he's been following during the time 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.719 when not Warlal is in jail there, and Sardar claims 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.800 that not war Laal immediately established himself as a kingpin 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.720 in the jail. He kept access somehow to a huge 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.760 amount of grifted cash, and he was able to hire 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:35.720 a special cook who made him all of his meals, 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.960 so he has his own private chef in prison. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.639 that's Alex. That's a solid plack, Robert. You know what 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:48.240 else is a solid plex? Uh? That was beautiful that 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:55.840 the RN x knife missile mean my heart melted. Well, 0:18:56.200 --> 0:19:00.720 check out these products and services that probably go to 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:11.600 jail in India. Ah, we're back. So that Warlow's in jail. 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.639 He's a kingpin there. He's got a special cook his 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:16.760 He convinces his guards to give him the right to 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.080 move freely anywhere in the jail he wants to go. 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:23.000 Bottles of liquor were noted to appeariod appear mysteriously at 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.320 his dining table in the private cell that the guards 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:27.960