Speaker 1: The shoplifters walk in and walk out like they own
Speaker 1: the place.
Speaker 2: They tell the security guard not to touch them, Carrying
Speaker 2: an armful of clothing, they walk right out of the store.
Speaker 3: I've been watching these brazen shoplifting stories on the news
Speaker 3: every day for the past ten years.
Speaker 4: And Atlanta woman's accused of stealing from four different stores
Speaker 4: in a single day.
Speaker 3: And it just keeps getting worse and worse, especially in California,
Speaker 3: where I live. They stroll in like regular shoppers, then
Speaker 3: scramble out lugging bags filled.
Speaker 5: And arms full of stolen goods.
Speaker 3: Last year, the Americana, a ritzy shopping center in Glendale,
Speaker 3: a place I go to all the time, was hit
Speaker 3: by an actual shoplifting mob.
Speaker 2: And it was a brazen burglary that happened in a
Speaker 2: broad daylight here at the Saint Laurn's store. Glendale police
Speaker 2: is calling it a flash Moberg and says thirty to
Speaker 2: forty people were involved. Now, the suspects escaped in about
Speaker 2: twenty separate cars, getting away with about three hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars worth of merchandise.
Speaker 3: All these crazy instances of retail theft just seem so random, right,
Speaker 3: But they're actually not. They're actually very very planned.
Speaker 4: These ladies would come in, they would immediately select a
Speaker 4: number of items, high value clothing from different retailers Lululemon, Nordstrom, Macy's,
Speaker 4: and then they would immediately exit and leave.
Speaker 3: It turns out all these shoplifters are really just worker
Speaker 3: bees buzzing around all day in search of honey.
Speaker 6: Thousands of dollars worth of cosmetics.
Speaker 3: Lots and lots of honey, nine hundred thousand dollars worth
Speaker 3: of jewelry, and they're bringing all that honey back to
Speaker 3: the hive, back to the shoplifting queen Bee herself.
Speaker 7: California Mom is the alleged ring leader behind an eight
Speaker 7: million dollar retail theft ring. She's accused of operating a
Speaker 7: nationwide shoplifting scheme for more than a decade, according to
Speaker 7: the California Department of.
Speaker 3: Justice, from her Tuscan style mansion in beautiful southern California.
Speaker 3: Investigators say fifty three year old Michelle mack spearheaded a
Speaker 3: team of sophisticated all female shoplifters, deploying them to bring
Speaker 3: her millions in stolen merchandise, and according to authorities, she
Speaker 3: hid it all in plain sight.
Speaker 8: She's the antithesis of what you would expect to be
Speaker 8: the head of an organized retail theft operation.
Speaker 3: And why is that?
Speaker 8: I mean, I'm just gonna address the elephant in the room.
Speaker 8: It's it's her ethnicity, it's her gender.
Speaker 3: She's a blonde, white woman.
Speaker 8: It's it's her socioeconomic status, wealthy, nice neighborhood, big house baller.
Speaker 8: What does your average criminal look like in a Hollywood move?
Speaker 8: It's not Michelle Mack.
Speaker 3: Let's just say that. I'm Jonathan Walton and this is
Speaker 3: Queen of the con Season six, The California Girls, Episode one,
Speaker 3: another bougie woman shopping for makeup.
Speaker 9: Shoplifting was always kind of like a thing. That's just like,
Speaker 9: oh God, my buddy.
Speaker 3: Evan Goldstein is many things, a husband, a father of two,
Speaker 3: a big time showrunner for that History Channel series The
Speaker 3: Unexplained with Me William Shafner. But up until now, I
Speaker 3: had no idea Evan Goldstein is also a reform shoplifter.
Speaker 9: I remember one time in a comic book shop in Union,
Speaker 9: New Jersey.
Speaker 5: I'm sure they're still after me.
Speaker 9: You know, I was big into comics and there was
Speaker 9: a Moonnight comic. I don't know what came over me,
Speaker 9: but I just wanted it and I didn't have enough
Speaker 9: money for it, and I turned kind of my back
Speaker 9: and I put it in my pants, like like kind
Speaker 9: of where the you know, where the waste is?
Speaker 3: Like how old are you at this point?
Speaker 9: Eleven? So wells aren't very big, no, no, And it
Speaker 9: wasn't premeditated. I didn't go in to steal it. I
Speaker 9: didn't go in thinking I was just going into brows
Speaker 9: and I just I just wanted it.
Speaker 5: I just needed to have.
Speaker 9: It, and I put it in my pants and I
Speaker 9: walked out with the comic book, and I remember feeling
Speaker 9: so bad about it afterwards. I remember feeling terrible and
Speaker 9: it was like my dark secret. I was racked with guilt.
Speaker 9: I'm just like, I'm a thief, I'm a criminal. What
Speaker 9: have you done with your life? As you know, eleven
Speaker 9: years old? And honestly, the comic book wasn't the juice
Speaker 9: wasn't worth the squeeze. I felt a lot of guilt
Speaker 9: about it, I really did. But I could see it
Speaker 9: was a hit of adrenaline.
Speaker 3: Wasn't it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Like there was like a certain kind of chemical
Speaker 9: reaction in my body that was just and.
Speaker 3: I get away with this? Are they watching me? Are
Speaker 3: they watching me?
Speaker 10: Run?
Speaker 3: Am I going to the clink?
Speaker 9: And I could see how it could become kind of
Speaker 9: like this addictive kind of dopamine rush where it's just
Speaker 9: like you crave that kind of sense of can I
Speaker 9: get away with it?
Speaker 5: That kind of Bonnie and Clyde of it?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it's dude. From age I don't know ten
Speaker 3: to age eighteen, I was a kleptomaniac. Really, I was
Speaker 3: like a color toe. I stole everything all the time.
Speaker 3: There it is my confession to Evan and to the world.
Speaker 3: I myself am also a reformed shoplifter.
Speaker 5: What were you stealing?
Speaker 3: Nothing of value? Just a little trink I would steal
Speaker 3: little things like keychains.
Speaker 5: Or food, kind of like things that would fit in
Speaker 5: your pocket.
Speaker 3: Things that you could just grab and not pay for
Speaker 3: a night light, like really dumb things. Nothing of value.
Speaker 9: Re And was it that you really wanted it or
Speaker 9: was it just the act of taking it and getting
Speaker 9: away with it?
Speaker 3: Was the act? I didn't know at the time, but
Speaker 3: I was a kleptomania. Yeah, I enjoyed the rush. I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna get caught them. They didn't get away with it.
Speaker 3: They don't know what's happening. Yeah. And when I was
Speaker 3: in Epcot, you know Epcot Center, you know Disney Orlando, Epcot,
Speaker 3: we were in the Mexico pavilion and I put on
Speaker 3: this giant, like sixty dollars sombrero. Took a picture and
Speaker 3: I just kept walking and I went on the ride.
Speaker 3: And my cousins, you know, they were my ages. They
Speaker 3: were like laughing, ha ha, Jonathan stolen sombrero and I
Speaker 3: have that picture. Maybe I'll post that picture at Queen
Speaker 3: of the Con on Instagram. Me in a stolen sombrero. Oh,
Speaker 3: Mexico and Epcot evidence. You're Eisner's after you. Yeah, that listen,
Speaker 3: that's stock price. They need all the help they can get.
Speaker 3: The day I quit shoplifting, I went cold turkey after
Speaker 3: an ill fated trip to the supermarket. I stopped because
Speaker 3: I was at Albertson's and there's like a salad soup bar,
Speaker 3: and I take the potato Leaks soup and I walk
Speaker 3: around the store pretending to be looking at other things,
Speaker 3: and I'm pick up the milk to check the expiration date,
Speaker 3: and I put the soup down that I'm done. With
Speaker 3: put the milk down, and they walk out of the
Speaker 3: store empty handed, and I get that tap on the shoulder,
Speaker 3: excuse me, sir, are you gonna pay for that soup?
Speaker 3: And I just like turned white. I just like freaked out.
Speaker 3: I'm like, crap, I'm busted. And then I never stole again.
Speaker 5: So it was okay for years and years. You get
Speaker 5: away with it.
Speaker 9: It's fine, you're taking these trinkets, these little bit bobbles whatever,
Speaker 9: and then all of a sudden, the kind of reality
Speaker 9: hits you when it's like, hey, are you gonna and
Speaker 9: you're you're caught. I got caught, and so then it's
Speaker 9: just like, oh my god, this is like I don't
Speaker 9: want this.
Speaker 5: The life of crime is not for me.
Speaker 3: No, I don't want it.
Speaker 5: It's like there goes you know. It's just like I
Speaker 5: got a hundred night lights. I want it. I was
Speaker 5: trying to trying to get to one hundred and one.
Speaker 3: But hey, I'm in distinguished company, right, A lot of
Speaker 3: celebrities like Wanona Rider.
Speaker 11: Wana Rider was arragned today charging her with grand theft.
Speaker 3: Lindsay Lohan low and pled not guilty to felony grand
Speaker 3: theft stemming from her alleged shoplifting of a necklace from
Speaker 3: a Venice jewelry store and James Franco, Like.
Speaker 4: In eighth grade, we started stealing cologne. We had like
Speaker 4: thirty bottles of Colone each.
Speaker 9: When most people think about shoplifters, it's kind of like
Speaker 9: this low rent kind of crime.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: That's the reason celebrities can get away with it for
Speaker 3: a while is because they're the last person you would
Speaker 3: expect to be a shoplifter. Yeah, and that seems to
Speaker 3: be the key to this season's Queen of the Cohn.
Speaker 3: This woman is literally the last person on Earth you
Speaker 3: would suspect of running a shoplifting empire. But that empire
Speaker 3: all comes crashing down around Michelle Mack In the wee
Speaker 3: hours of the morning on December sixth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: in the Bucolic community of Bonzol just north of San Diego.
Speaker 3: The sun's coming up, illuminating that big California sky, casting
Speaker 3: a morning haze on dozens of hilltop mansions framed by
Speaker 3: rolling fields and green pastures. It's abundantly obvious that wealthy
Speaker 3: people live here, really wealthy people, some of whom allegedly
Speaker 3: have nefarious sources of income, because all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: a squadron of investigators from the California Highway Patrol and
Speaker 3: from Homeland Security pull up in a fleet of SUVs
Speaker 3: and they start assembling outside one of these big mansions.
Speaker 3: So you guys all we got the outplan correct, yea?
Speaker 3: And what happens next stuns every homeowner on the block.
Speaker 3: After the break, Welcome back to Queen of the Cohn.
Speaker 3: Tactical teams from the California Highway Patrol and Homeland Security
Speaker 3: are now surrounding a Tuscan style mansion just north of
Speaker 3: San Diego, and they're ready to pounce and working diligently.
Speaker 3: Amongst all those law enforcement agents.
Speaker 12: We have all our entrying tools, so everybody bring them.
Speaker 3: Is a team of investigative journalists from CNBC. How the
Speaker 3: hell did you guys get the access like you were
Speaker 3: embedded with the California Highway Patrol. How'd that happen?
Speaker 13: So it was a lot of work.
Speaker 3: Gabrielle von Rouge is CNBC's award winning retail reporter.
Speaker 13: We had started this project and we wanted to get
Speaker 13: an up close look at what organized retail crime actually
Speaker 13: looked like.
Speaker 3: And Gabrielle poured months of her blood, sweat, and tears
Speaker 3: into this investigation because getting frontline access with law enforcement
Speaker 3: can be impossible. A lot of these guys won't even
Speaker 3: return my phone calls, much less allow me to embed
Speaker 3: with them and record their early morning busts.
Speaker 13: It's kind of hard to convince the cops to let
Speaker 13: you in bed with them sometimes, especially when you've got
Speaker 13: a TV crew and numerous cameras and a sound guy
Speaker 13: and all this kind of stuff, and they are in
Speaker 13: the midst of an actual police operation. But at the
Speaker 13: end of the day, these are public agencies and they
Speaker 13: are required to be transparent with the public, and in beds,
Speaker 13: you know, police departments, all kinds of public agencies. The
Speaker 13: military have a long history of allowing journalists to inbed
Speaker 13: with them, to be able to see their work up
Speaker 13: close and personal firsthand, and be able to share that
Speaker 13: information with the public so that the public understands what
Speaker 13: law enforcement is doing, how their tax dollars are being used.
Speaker 13: So it does help a little bit that before I
Speaker 13: started business, I was a crime reporter for ten years.
Speaker 13: I have a lot of experience in betting with police
Speaker 13: departments and with other law enforcement agencies.
Speaker 3: Back outside in bonseil. Now, in a matter of moments,
Speaker 3: CNBC reporter Gabrielle von Rouge steps out of the way
Speaker 3: and a pelax of CHP and Homeland Security agents rush
Speaker 3: in wearing bulletproof vests with guns drawn, and they storm
Speaker 3: that three million dollar mansion, and in minutes, a blonde
Speaker 3: woman in her early fifties, looking dazed, hair disheveled, wearing
Speaker 3: pink pajamas and fuzzy slippers is led out in handcuffs.
Speaker 13: There is a mother in California who is running an
Speaker 13: online makeup store on Amazon, and police suspect that all
Speaker 13: of the goods that are being sold are stolen, and
Speaker 13: she is working with a network of professional thieves who
Speaker 13: she is deploying across the country to rob makeup stores
Speaker 13: in order to fill her online make it store.
Speaker 3: Her name is Michelle Mack, and she and her husband,
Speaker 3: Kenneth are charged with a bonch of felonies, including conspiracy
Speaker 3: to commit organized retail theft and multiple counts of receipt
Speaker 3: of stolen property. This entire bust, caught on CNBC's cameras
Speaker 3: is just insane. I'm posting a clip of it at
Speaker 3: Queen of the Cohn on Instagram, but I highly recommend
Speaker 3: you watch the entire seventeen minute investigative piece on CNBC's website.
Speaker 4: I want a map drawn of the house, separated into
Speaker 4: two groups, and then we can start loading.
Speaker 3: If you google how the shadowy world of organized retail
Speaker 3: crime works, the entire video of that CNBC investigation will
Speaker 3: pop right up. My god, the footage you guys captured
Speaker 3: in that investigative piece stunning. You know, you see Michelle
Speaker 3: Mack getting handcuffed, getting walked to the CHP vehicle. You
Speaker 3: see all the crap they found, and by crap, I
Speaker 3: mean stolen loot they found in her place, and you
Speaker 3: got just phenomenal job. It really paints a picture of
Speaker 3: what we are dealing with. It's eye opening.
Speaker 13: It was an incredible story and it got a lot
Speaker 13: of attention, and it really I think we accomplished the
Speaker 13: job that we had set out to do, which is
Speaker 13: what does organized retail crime actually look like? And Michelle
Speaker 13: Mack is a perfect case for that.
Speaker 3: According to the felony complaint filed by the California Attorney
Speaker 3: General's Office, it's alleged that Michelle Mack hired twelve women
Speaker 3: to steal millions of dollars worth of merchandise from hundreds
Speaker 3: of stores. She'd then sell all that stolen merch on
Speaker 3: Amazon to make a fortune. According to California Attorney General
Speaker 3: Rob Bonta.
Speaker 10: This is a multimillion dollar criminal scheme. It was complex,
Speaker 10: it was orchestrated.
Speaker 7: The crimes occurred from the West coast to the East
Speaker 7: coast in this country.
Speaker 3: During the bust, law enforcement agents are seeing removing boxes
Speaker 3: and boxes from Michelle max ball or for car garage,
Speaker 3: which on the inside looks more like an Amazon fulfillment center.
Speaker 3: I mean, her neighbors had no idea. Those boxes being
Speaker 3: carted out by law enforcement all contain cosmetics from Alta
Speaker 3: and Sophora and merchandise from stores like Bloomingdale's, Sunglass Hut
Speaker 3: and Lens Crafters. In all, the CHP confiscates nearly four
Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars worth of merchandise from Michelle Max's garage
Speaker 3: on that one day alone.
Speaker 13: What I am surprised at is the level of sophistication.
Speaker 3: CNBC's Gabrielle Fonrouge again.
Speaker 13: The extent that police alleged Michelle Mack went to to
Speaker 13: run this retail crime organization at that point. I mean
Speaker 13: she has like technically employees, She's sending them all across
Speaker 13: the country. She's paying for their rental cars, for their flights,
Speaker 13: for their hotel. She's directing them, you know what, to steal,
Speaker 13: sending in the shopping list. She's keeping an eye on
Speaker 13: market dynamics as well. She has to set the price appropriately,
Speaker 13: so that's requiring a lot of research at that point,
Speaker 13: why not just run a legitimate business, you know what
Speaker 13: I mean? Like people get into crime the idea of
Speaker 13: it is because it's easy money. But this doesn't feel
Speaker 13: like easy money. The effort and time that goes into
Speaker 13: it and the risk that's involved.
Speaker 3: Oh, I have an answer for you. And this is
Speaker 3: why Michelle Mack is the subject of this season of
Speaker 3: Queen of the Con because at her heart she is
Speaker 3: a con artist, and every con artist the money is
Speaker 3: only secondary. And you make a great point. This is
Speaker 3: so much work in planning and expertise and execution, and
Speaker 3: she's hiring and firing people and setting up schedules and
Speaker 3: you know, buying and shipping, and she could run a
Speaker 3: real business and not run a foul of the law
Speaker 3: and make a lot of money and do well. But
Speaker 3: the thrill for Michelle Mack is the same threat for
Speaker 3: every con artist. They love getting away with stuff. They
Speaker 3: love lying and cheating, they love manipulating people. I guarantee
Speaker 3: you she gets off on tricking her customers. They think
Speaker 3: these are legitimate products. I'm selling them stolen stuff. They
Speaker 3: have no idea. She gets off that her neighbors think
Speaker 3: one thing and she's really doing another. It's just like
Speaker 3: this hurricane of cues that thrill her that have nothing
Speaker 3: to do with the money. I mean, the money is important,
Speaker 3: but with Michelle Mack and a lot of con artists,
Speaker 3: I believe the money is secondary. The thrill is the lie,
Speaker 3: the cheat, the con, the swindle. They get a thrill
Speaker 3: from it. And according to authorities, Michelle Mack is extremely
Speaker 3: organized and detailed. The team of twelve women she allegedly
Speaker 3: had working for her. Law enforcement euphemistically dubs.
Speaker 13: The California Girls.
Speaker 3: They call them the California Girls. Scott. That's just sexy
Speaker 3: and exciting, and I can't believe that's the term they're
Speaker 3: using at the CHP, like we're on the Calibirls case.
Speaker 3: And according to investigators, Michelle Mack would furnish her team
Speaker 3: of California Girls with detailed shopping lists, stipulating exactly what
Speaker 3: they need to steal and from where, and she'd instruct
Speaker 3: them to use large Louis Vauton bags to smuggle out
Speaker 3: the stolen merchandise.
Speaker 13: It might have helped them blending a little bit. It
Speaker 13: could have very well been to just be like, just
Speaker 13: look like another boogie woman shopping for makeup, and then
Speaker 13: no one's going to pay attention to you. And then
Speaker 13: when you clean out an entire shelf, sorry it's too late.
Speaker 3: She directed them to do that. That's the costume you
Speaker 3: need to wear for this con. You need to drink
Speaker 3: a shopkeeper into thinking you're this wealthy, well healed woman,
Speaker 3: and the Louis Vuitton goes a long way in doing that.
Speaker 8: It's a disguise. It's all part of the disguise. That's
Speaker 8: why they're calling them the California Girls. The Louis Vaton
Speaker 8: bag it's designed to throw off your lost prevention officer.
Speaker 3: Seal Beach Police Sergeant Morakian has spent more than twenty
Speaker 3: years in law enforcement, busting shoplifters on the daily. He
Speaker 3: even worked as a lost Prevention officer in San Diego
Speaker 3: that stores would hire specifically to catch shoplifters, and Sergeant
Speaker 3: Murrakian learned firsthand policing criminals that things aren't always what
Speaker 3: they appear to be.
Speaker 8: I mean, early on in my career, I pulled over
Speaker 8: an elderly couple that had bricks of cocaine in the
Speaker 8: trunk of their car, you know, and.
Speaker 3: Then you guys partied. We look for.
Speaker 8: Certain patterns, right, Someone wearing a mask and a hoodie
Speaker 8: walking into a store in twenty twenty four is the
Speaker 8: typical profile of someone who's about to steel on a
Speaker 8: hot summer day.
Speaker 3: You know, why are they wearing a hoodie on a
Speaker 3: hot summer day? Right?
Speaker 8: Yeah, So these are things that we look for. So
Speaker 8: if you just think about the lost Prevention officer or
Speaker 8: the employee at any of these retail stores, you know,
Speaker 8: you see a fairly attractive girl with a Louis Vaton bag.
Speaker 8: That's not who you're gonna follow or look at. Now
Speaker 8: a season lost prevention officer, will you know, they'll see that.
Speaker 3: Oh, decoy distraction, and you pay attention.
Speaker 8: We look at it. Not we because I'm no longer
Speaker 8: Lost Prevention, but we look at it through a different lens.
Speaker 3: And investigators alleged that those California girls were so next
Speaker 3: level good and they stole so much stuff from Michelle Mack.
Speaker 3: She had nearly eight million dollars in sales on Amazon,
Speaker 3: where she sold high end cosmetics and beauty products for
Speaker 3: half the price they were selling for everywhere else. I mean,
Speaker 3: who wouldn't buy from her? A bottle of Coco Chanel
Speaker 3: perfume can cost one hundred and seventy dollars at alta,
Speaker 3: So if you saw that same bottle selling for eighty
Speaker 3: five dollars on Amazon, it's a no brainer. And it's
Speaker 3: probably still land says California Highly Patrol Commissioner Sean Dori.
Speaker 11: It's tough, and I don't know if anybody expects the
Speaker 11: consumers to do due diligence on every product that they're
Speaker 11: buying online. But I'll tell you, if it seems too
Speaker 11: good to be true, it probably is, and it's probably
Speaker 11: coming from some nefarious activity.
Speaker 3: But perhaps the most unbelievable revelation to come to light
Speaker 3: is that, according to the CHP investigation, this went on
Speaker 3: for more than ten years, right under the noses of
Speaker 3: Michelle Max's wealthy neighbors, Her customers and even Amazon itself,
Speaker 3: much to the exasperation of California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
Speaker 7: This Amazon marketplace site called the Online Makeup Store that
Speaker 7: was stelling the soul and goods year after year and
Speaker 7: it wasn't detected. You have to ask yourself, what more
Speaker 7: can we do should we do to make sure that
Speaker 7: incidents like this don't occur in the future.
Speaker 10: That's the right thing to ask. I think they have
Speaker 10: the ability to root out more sales of stolen goods
Speaker 10: on their platform, And she'd asked themselves what work could
Speaker 10: they have done here and what more can they do
Speaker 10: going forward?
Speaker 3: But like most professional con artists, Michelle Mack had a
Speaker 3: really good cover after the break Welcome Back to Queen
Speaker 3: of the Con. So while Michelle Mack was selling millions
Speaker 3: in stolen beauty products out of her four car garage
Speaker 3: in Bonzol, she had a day job. She was in
Speaker 3: the wedding business, renting out her Tuscan style mansion that
Speaker 3: actually had its own chapel and a vineyard, a truly
Speaker 3: picturesque setting for any couple looking to tie the knot.
Speaker 12: That looks like the wedding setup that me and my husband.
Speaker 5: Had Ooh, would you guys get married San Diego?
Speaker 3: Did you get married at Michelle Mack's house?
Speaker 12: It looks like it that looks like the exact same setup.
Speaker 12: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Shelleyleggett is a local TV reporter in San Diego at
Speaker 3: the NBC station. She didn't actually have her wedding at
Speaker 3: Michelle Max's house, just someplace that looked very similar. But
Speaker 3: Shelley was one of the first reporters in San Diego
Speaker 3: to cover the Michelle Max story.
Speaker 14: The woman they've identified as the head of the operation
Speaker 14: was recruiting young women to go into stores like Alta,
Speaker 14: Bath and Bodyworks and Sephora to steal items and bring
Speaker 14: them back to her so she could resell them for profit.
Speaker 3: And how did you get involved in this case? What
Speaker 3: happened to cause you to be at that Rob Bonta
Speaker 3: press conference.
Speaker 1: This was one of those stories where I felt like
Speaker 1: I knew what I was getting into and it was
Speaker 1: completely different. Me and my photographer that day. I guess
Speaker 1: you can call us the breaking news crew. That means
Speaker 1: our story was not that important. It wasn't an a
Speaker 1: block story. It was one of those evergreen stories that
Speaker 1: could be dropped if something bigger and better comes up.
Speaker 3: And for listeners who don't know, when you say we
Speaker 3: weren't an A block story, that means you weren't at
Speaker 3: the top of the newscast. You're like one of the
Speaker 3: big important lead stories the A block You were like BCD.
Speaker 1: Yes, And we got the word maybe around twelve thirty
Speaker 1: that there was a one thirty.
Speaker 12: Press conference for We had no clue what it was.
Speaker 1: We were just going into it thinking, Okay, he's going
Speaker 1: to announce something.
Speaker 12: We did not know what he was going to announce.
Speaker 3: But your editor, your boss, your assignment DEESK managers like
Speaker 3: you got to go to this presser.
Speaker 1: Yes, They're like he's going to announce something and we
Speaker 1: have to be there, and we're like okay.
Speaker 3: And that press conference, well, good afternoon everyone.
Speaker 7: Rob Bonte, California Attorney General, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: Today is held February sixteenth, twenty twenty four, two months
Speaker 3: after that crazy raid on Michelle Max's mansion.
Speaker 1: It was interesting when this happened. I expected this to
Speaker 1: be like a younger woman doing this.
Speaker 3: Because this is like internet savvy Internet. Do you know
Speaker 3: how to like the Amazon marketplace?
Speaker 12: I don't even know how to do all that.
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, somebody that's doing this has to
Speaker 1: be like real young in their twenties.
Speaker 12: They're recruiting other young women to do this, and she's
Speaker 12: like a housewife that's just hanging out at home having
Speaker 12: everyone else do her dirty work.
Speaker 3: And you cover these stories where twelve twenty people running
Speaker 3: a store grab and steal like they're bringing it.
Speaker 12: Back to her, and you never hear about them.
Speaker 3: No, they never get caught. They disappear into the night,
Speaker 3: into the day, into the ether, and we move on
Speaker 3: with our lives. And according to investigators, Michelle Mack had
Speaker 3: perfected the art of blending into her surroundings, and that
Speaker 3: camouflage allegedly enabled her to run this multi million dollar
Speaker 3: shoplifting ring undetected by law enforcement for more than ten
Speaker 3: long years.
Speaker 8: If I'm a police officer and I see Michelle Mack
Speaker 8: driving down the street in her Land Road, I'm not
Speaker 8: going to think she's got a crew of people out
Speaker 8: nationwide stealing items so she can sell them in her
Speaker 8: Amazon store.
Speaker 3: Sergeant Jordan Morakian, who policed shoplifters in San Diego, Michelle
Speaker 3: Mack's stomping ground for the first fourteen years of his
Speaker 3: career freely admits that Michelle Mack is an anomaly.
Speaker 8: You know, she has kids. I mean, there's nothing about
Speaker 8: her that would stand out to an investigator other than
Speaker 8: the fact that she and her husband live in a
Speaker 8: multimillion dollar property in Bonsaw. A winery. On that property
Speaker 8: they rented out for parties. You know, well, me being me,
Speaker 8: and this is just how my cop brain works. The
Speaker 8: first thing I'm going to say is, how did you
Speaker 8: afford that. You're not going to be able to convince
Speaker 8: me that you afford it by selling things on Amazon?
Speaker 3: Right, So you would have suspected her if you knew
Speaker 3: the details, if you were her neighbor, if you were
Speaker 3: a friend and acquaintance, it would have struck you as huh.
Speaker 8: One thousand percent Wow. I would have started me just
Speaker 8: how I operate. I would have started asking questions like, oh,
Speaker 8: how much do you And this is a former fraud
Speaker 8: detective and this is what I do to people, and
Speaker 8: it drives my friends crazy. You have this nice house,
Speaker 8: Like what do you what do you do? Oh? I
Speaker 8: sell things on Amazon? How much do you make annually
Speaker 8: from that? Oh? I make this? Where do you get
Speaker 8: your products from right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's suspicious to you if she came across your
Speaker 3: pat in a social situation, or you were her new neighbor,
Speaker 3: or it would raise a red flag.
Speaker 8: Her neighbors probably weren't questioning her because.
Speaker 3: No, she was hiding successfully in plain sight.
Speaker 8: In plain sight. And and me just being me. I mean,
Speaker 8: I've gone to dinner parties before and nice homes, and
Speaker 8: the first thing I do is I whisper to whoever
Speaker 8: I'm there with, is what does she do for or
Speaker 8: what does he do for me?
Speaker 3: Because you're suspicious, you come in suspicious, right. The other
Speaker 3: thing that strikes Sergeant Morakian is very deliberate and very planned,
Speaker 3: is where Michelle Mack chose to live and allegedly run
Speaker 3: her shoplifting ring out of the exclusive community of Bonzol.
Speaker 8: Depending on who you talk to, they'll pronounce it Bonsoal
Speaker 8: or Bonsel. It's like a piece of Italy in San
Speaker 8: Diego County. It's like one minute you're in the city
Speaker 8: of San Diego, you're looking at buildings, you're looking at
Speaker 8: you know, the coastline, and the next minute you're driving
Speaker 8: through the hills of Bonsel and you're seeing wineries and big, big,
Speaker 8: huge mansions with Spanish tile and stamped concrete driveways.
Speaker 1: This looks like something out of like maybe like Beverly Hills,
Speaker 1: like a celebrities house way up on the hill, hidden
Speaker 1: away landscaping is beautiful.
Speaker 3: Local San dieporter Shelley like it again, if you've lived
Speaker 3: in a lot of other states, you're a TV reporter,
Speaker 3: you work in all these other markets. Now you're in
Speaker 3: San Diego. What have you noticed is different in regards
Speaker 3: to shoplifting in California versus other states.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't know that that weird law in California
Speaker 1: where it's like a certain amount of money it really
Speaker 1: doesn't matter.
Speaker 12: I've never heard of anything like that anywhere.
Speaker 3: Right, it's under one thousand dollars. It's a misdemeanor.
Speaker 1: Other states it's like you steal, you get arrested, and
Speaker 1: you go to jail and they give you papers and.
Speaker 12: You go to court.
Speaker 1: And it was just mind boggling when I got here
Speaker 1: and I was like, that's a law.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And we see it again and again on
Speaker 3: television and TV news. They allow them to walk out
Speaker 3: with like nine hundred dollars in merchandise because it's under
Speaker 3: the limit and no one doesn't even But since Michelle
Speaker 3: Mack and her team of California girls stand accused of
Speaker 3: stealing millions of dollars in merchandise, the land of misdemeanors
Speaker 3: is well behind them.
Speaker 12: Gosh, why was one of those California girls? I'd be sweating.
Speaker 3: I know, the life of crime.
Speaker 12: I'm sweating just talking about it.
Speaker 3: But who are these professional shoplifting women who spend all day,
Speaker 3: every day driving from store to store stealing hundreds of
Speaker 3: thousands of dollars worth of stuff in plain sights every
Speaker 3: week for the Michelle Max of the world. Were you
Speaker 3: worried at all that I might be a cop?
Speaker 4: Not really, because I mean, like I've never heard of
Speaker 4: like an undercover cop like doing like like a bud
Speaker 4: for shoplifters.
Speaker 3: They would have to catch you in the store stealing. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Coming up this season on Queen of the Con, I'm
Speaker 3: trying to find professional shoplifters. I don't know, man, how
Speaker 3: did you get into shoplifting?
Speaker 8: We were homeless for a while.
Speaker 5: That's how we got, you know, like in the crowd.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you can make a thousand dollars a day
Speaker 3: shoplifting yeah, But.
Speaker 8: What Michelle Mack was doing was human trafficking. What Yeah,
Speaker 8: if you really think about it, right, the definition of
Speaker 8: human trafficking is you're basically exploiting a human being and
Speaker 8: forcing them, coercing them, or paying them to do a
Speaker 8: service for ill gotten games, for illegal activity.
Speaker 3: Human trafficking.
Speaker 6: She approached me, she was a little bit over the
Speaker 6: top about this, this florified mansion, and I had this feeling,
Speaker 6: and had I gone with the feeling that I normally would,
Speaker 6: I would have politely turned her down.
Speaker 13: She may have stolen half of my wedding cake.
Speaker 15: What she had a huge garage, like she had so
Speaker 15: much stuff.
Speaker 13: She told me like she had storage units with more things.
Speaker 8: Because she said her husband was telling her.
Speaker 12: She was getting out of control, like getting.
Speaker 6: So much stuff.
Speaker 9: Who the hell was buying handpainted nail files from the
Speaker 9: Czech Republic?
Speaker 3: What if the Czech Republic nail files? What if those
Speaker 3: were never meant to succeed, those were just meant to
Speaker 3: provide her cover.
Speaker 10: I'm not ceiling regular, I'm going to start feeling up
Speaker 10: my bag.
Speaker 1: Couiic so I want to know stuff that I can
Speaker 1: grab a bulk.
Speaker 4: That's a great text.
Speaker 3: Message.
Speaker 4: So these overt acts really kind of flesh out how
Speaker 4: the conspiracy operated.
Speaker 8: They're going to minimize what she did. She was trying
Speaker 8: to send her kids to college, right, she was operating
Speaker 8: a side business and it got a little out of control.
Speaker 9: Like, why the hell would you think Michelle Mack would
Speaker 9: talk to your.
Speaker 3: Good I'm looking for to pey, like realistic, Oh.
Speaker 9: My god, good morning.
Speaker 8: When you get to a gated property, bypass that gate.
Speaker 8: Even when you bypass that gate, you're not trespassing until
Speaker 8: somebody says you are.
Speaker 5: Is that her mineyard?
Speaker 3: Look at this pouse? Jesus, What the hell do these
Speaker 3: people do for a living? Well, we know one of
Speaker 3: them stolen stuff on Amazon's.
Speaker 15: Hey Michelle, my name's Jonathan. I'm with the Queen of
Speaker 15: the Con podcast. I just wanted to see if you'd
Speaker 15: be interested in talking to me. So I hear the
Speaker 15: I hear the cops. Did I think we should go?
Speaker 3: Let's roll run on the cops. If you're enjoying Queen
Speaker 3: of the Con, tell someone click that share button and
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Speaker 3: The California Girls is a production of AYR Media and iHeartMedia,
Speaker 3: Hosted by Me Jonathan Walton. Executive producers Jonathan Walton for
Speaker 3: Jonathan Walton Productions and Elisa Rosen for AYR Media. Consulting
Speaker 3: producer Evan Goldstein. Written by Jonathan Walton, Sound design by
Speaker 3: Zack Hirsch, Edited and mixed by Zach Hirsch, Audio engineer
Speaker 3: Justin Longerbean. Mastered by Justin Longerbean. Legal counsel for AYR Media,
Speaker 3: Johnny Douglas, Executive producer for iHeartMedia, Maya Howard