Episode 226 - Speaking of Socialism...

They say there’s honor among thieves, but these heists prove that’s mostly just a myth. From botched getaways and amateur slip-ups to the chilling, unintended consequences of a "simple" job, we’re cracking open the files on crimes that went sideways.

Research links below!

Argon - "The Goiânia Incident: Lessons from a Radiological Disaster"
History - "The True Story Behind Brazil's Radioactive Emergency"
Britannica - "Goiânia accident"
PubMed - "The Goiânia incident, the semiotics of danger, and the next 10,000 years"
IAEA - "Goiânia's Legacy Two Decades On"
Hibakusha Worldwide - "Goiânia, Brazil"

All That's Interesting - "Inside David Ghantt's Infamous Loomis Fargo Heist In October 1997"
Levine Museum of the New South - "Loomis Fargo and Company"
WCNC Charlotte - "25 years later: The Loomis Fargo heist"
CNN - "Suspect in $22 million armored-car heist arrested"

Speaker 1: Why they died upon their arrivals unspeakable.

Speaker 2: I'm not doing.

Speaker 1: They didn't want bother. It's the living.

Speaker 2: You gotta worry about.

Speaker 3: Something.

Speaker 1: If I couldn't keep them there with me whole, at

least I felt that.

Speaker 2: I could keep their skeletons. Hello and welcome to the

Bad Taste Crime Podcast. I'm Rachel, I'm Vicky h We're

back again, back again.

Speaker 1: We went over this in the last episode. But I

have allergies. So that's why I like ship every I

look at my weather app because I actually have a

decent weather and the pollen levels, oh my high, it's

so bad. And we're in that weird like six or

seventh season in Illinois where it's like, uh, fall spring,

ratual spring. You have fall spring and you have actual spring,

which we've done, and now we're in this period where

we are there's like a new tornado season. I guess, yeah,

there's like six tornadoes in Illinois the other and it

will be eighty degrees and then the next day you'll

get a freeze warning, Like you get a freeze warning

last night, me too. And I know people who.

Speaker 2: Have started like planting, I'm like, ye, go too early.

It's way too early. I totally agree, but I was like,

you wouldn't think so because it's been so nice. Well

kind of, it's just like, well, it's just people who

are locals and.

Speaker 1: People who aren't. Anyway, you either know where you don't. Yeah,

it's been crazy, super crazy.

Speaker 2: It's a wild time for weather and I sound like shit.

Speaker 1: Yeah, this is their first time listening a special hello

to you. Hi, are going to head over to the newsroom.

Speaker 3: Let's go there, food, watching local news, dress and knows

us to day we had fifty.

Speaker 1: So this week our news is actually from a Department

of Justice release. Oh are you familiar with Santa Con?

Have you heard of Santa Con? That sounds like some

white people ship. It's it's essentially a convention Santa like

a Christmas Santa Con. It's an event grounded and charitable giving.

Oh that's nice. I thought it was a christ Christmas

themed event.

Speaker 2: That is.

Speaker 1: Ticketed as a bar crawl that takes in takes place

annually in December and New York City. It's proximately twenty

five thousand attendees that dresses Santa Claus and other holiday

characters and travel to participating bars and restaurants throughout the day.

That's cute. So it's like him. It's like a it's

like a charitable little bar crawl. Everybody gets dressed as

Stanta so that's pretty great. Well, oh dear, here's the thing.

Oh no, it is run by a guy named Stefan

piled Us. He has been charged with wire fraud. Oh

oh no, and has been as of let me see,

this is as of April fifteenth, twenty twenty six. So

he's just been arrested and they are alleging that says

quote Stefan piled Us, the president of Santacon, allegedly pocketed

over half of the proceeds generated by his nonprofit to

make personal purchases, allegedly still Christmas. He's well, he's the Grinch.

Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I haven't read this part yet.

Speaker 1: Allegedly stole Christmas from tens of thousands of victims and

deprived local charities of more than one million dollars. The

FBI continues to root out scrooges that greedily exploit the

goodwill of New Yorkers. That is actually a quote from

FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle, Junior, Barnacle

Juice out of the Southern District of New York. So

having fun with this one for sure. Yeah. So they

generate proceeds primarily through uh tickets and then sales commissions

from the bars and restaurants. And let's see what else.

He used a website to promote Santa con That is

part of the indictment.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's going to get coal this Christmas, like

only coal.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Probably. He characterized the charitable contribution as typically between

ten twenty five percent of sales and yeah, so Santakan

events from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty four generated approximately

two point seven million in proceeds, including over two million

in ticket sales and over six hundred and seventy five

thousand charitable commissions from venues, and he donated only a

small fraction of the million dollars he raised for charity. Instead,

his siphoned off more than half of the charitable proceeds

to an entity that pilled Us controlled Creative Opportunities Group, Incorporated,

that had no public connection to Santa Khan, where he

used these funds freely to finance various personal ventures. What

a prick.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's like so like comically like evil.

Speaker 1: It says they're a legend, that he spent the money

on extensive renovations to a lakefront property in New Jersey,

concert tickets, luxury vacations, extravagant meals, and a luxury vehicle.

Whoa and did so, claiming that he did not receive

any compensation from santaclon or PSI.

Speaker 2: Is his mansion like a big like scary mountain above Whoville?

Speaker 1: Who knows? Who knows? That's gross?

Speaker 2: That sounds like so cute, like a bunch of Santa

Clauses and elves.

Speaker 1: Like, sounds great if the money is going where they

say it's going, right. Yeah, So he has been charged, Okay,

obviously he's not going to trial, so these are just

all allegations, right, but if found guilty, the maximum sentence

for one count of wirefraud is twenty years in prison.

He's until proven naughty. Yeah, So just be careful which

Santa you're trusting.

Speaker 2: Chimney you climbed down here, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: We are going to move on to Netflix and kill

which this week, and I'm very excited for me personally. Oh,

we were talking about this earlier before we started recording

that Netflix recently dropped some new additions to their Untold feres. Yes,

and for those who are unaware, Netflix has a series

of documentaries called Untold that typically focus on something sports

related that is a controversy or a lot of times

they're like true crime adjacent. Interesting. We've previously talked about

the Breath FARV documentary. I watched that one after you

talked about it. We talked about I forget which one

it is, but it's the one about the basketball player

who brought the gun into the lack of Rocker room.

Forget what it's called, but we've talked about that one. Yes,

they have some very interesting ones that are non crime related,

but just like scandal related. So one of the recent

editions is Untold Chess Masters and it's about we were

talking about this earlier on All Life Conniversity between Magnus

Carlson and oh, I forget what his name was, the

bub a no his Yeah, it talks about that. Very interesting.

So you're probably gonna hear we talk about a couple

of these in the next few episodes. But this week

I wanted to start with Untold Jail Blazers, right, which the.

Speaker 2: Title is like, okay, because I don't know what that is.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So there is an NBA team called trailblazerskay that

is out of Portland, Portland's professional basketball team. Cool. There

was an era in Trailblazer's history that is referred to

as the jail Blazers, and it is the period period

between nineteen ninety six and two thousand and four, including

their infamous two thousand playoff run where specifically it talks about.

The people in the documentary that are discussing this are

Rashid Wallace, Bonzie Wells, and Damon Studemeyer. We were like

three of the central figures in this. But and general

manager at the time Bob wits It, who was known

as I think they called him Trader Bob oh yeah,

because he would like trade for people on the teams.

He was really good about doing this. I thought you

said trader, You no like trader, trader a trade one

who trades. So this was a crazy time for the

Trailblazers because they were bringing in these players that were

sort of considered uh, unpredictable and more controversial and like

very on the wild side of things. This is basketball basketball, okay. Yeah,

so they brought them in there were all of these

things that happened with them, like getting caught smoking weed. Oops.

They but it's all. The reason is so interesting to

me is because it is very controversial, and they do

talk about potentially raised playing a factor because it was

I was primarily black men in Portland, Oregon, right, which

is a very white, white white bird. Yeah, right, And

they were living in like the richer neighborhoods, making a

lot of money, and they always felt like The one

guy even was like, I did not necessarily attribute it

to race because he was from there. He grew up there,

so he was like, this is just where I'm from.

But there was an incident that he has where he

comes home. This was the craziest thing. He comes home

and he goes into his house and is like, it

seems like somebody has been here, Like there were things

moved what and like things were kind of out of place.

And he was like, it seems like somebody's been in

the house. And then the police come back and they

basically tell him him that your security system he had

like adp okay securious system or whatever whatever the thing is,

they your security system went off. So we came to

see what was going on. You weren't home, so we

just let ourselves in and while we were looking around

your house to see what was happening, we found like

a pound of marijuana in the attic. Oh this guy. Yeah,

and they arrested him for like marijuana possessions and it

goes to court and the judges like, yeah, that's fucking illegal. Yeah,

because they didn't have a warrant, they didn't have permission

under his home. They weren't there executing a warrant. Todn't

find anything.

Speaker 2: Walking through his house, probably all his trophies, but by that.

Speaker 1: Time the damage was done. Yeah, he like because because

at the time, this is you gotta remember, this is

a time where marijuana was illegal and in most places,

at all places, it was not as socially acceptable. So

like people were like, he used to be a role

model and now he's not a role model anymore. Because yeah, yeah,

So there was stuff like that. There was a player

that was traded onto the team that they had got

they'd gotten and he previously had been convicted of sexual assault.

Oh no, and trade him back. But the guy was like,

he got convicted, he's done his time, Like he's a

good player. Oh my God got him over right. So

and there's this guy who's just not media friendly. He

doesn't like to do media interviews. He had like a

record for the most technical files because he would get

into it with the refs. But some of them were

kind of bullshit because he would just look at him

and they'd be like technical. So this is like a

whole cast of careacter.

Speaker 2: Yes, it is a wild time. That sounds so interesting. Yeah,

I would highly recommend it.

Speaker 1: Like I said, these I love because you don't necessarily

have to be invested in sports. Yeah to watch That's

what I was like.

Speaker 2: I am not a sports girly at all. I have

like the most rudimentary understanding of sports, Like and you've

watched a couple of these, and I've watched these, and

they're really good at explaining, Like there was only like

one or two things I had to like Google, like

for context. They're really good at providing context. They are

so you do not have to know sports ball to

watch these. Yes, it's closely about rich people doing bad

stuff or just I mean.

Speaker 1: Just like crazy shit, yeah, just crazy shit.

Speaker 2: Yeah, really good. So I highly recommend this.

Speaker 1: And they're also most of them are only like an

hour and ten minutes.

Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like good for like if you're on your

lunch or whatever. Yeah, like good little lunch. Watch this

one was great.

Speaker 1: Like I again, like I am not really a basketball watcher,

so I don't know a ton of the history of

like even the big things that happened in basketball, no

idea because I just don't just don't watch it. So

I had no idea about any of this. It is

just wild. And then they do, Actually, they just did

a twenty twenty five reunion of this. These three guys specifically,

they're like this kind of team wow at the Motor Center.

I'm sorry one of them, Wallace did not attend the reunion,

but Zach Randof, Rubin Patterson in Sean Kemp and some

of the other guys I think went to the reunion

at the Trailblazers Stadium where everyone's like cheering them on

and so like it's I don't know. It's just a

very interesting because you also have the dynamics of Portland,

which is, Yeah, they talk a lot about how there

was this was a time period where you had people

like Michael Jackson and Shaquille O'Neil showing up to games

and like suits, and these guys were just like showing

up in what the fuck ever? And they talk about

how part of it was Portland was like this counterculture center,

so like of course they weren't going to do things

the way the rest of the NBA did things, you know.

So I don't know, it's just very interesting. It's a

little snippet into some sports controversy. I also suggest the

chess Master's one that one's not really true crime related

to me about crazy also because I feel like these

chess people are kind of just assholes. Yeah, but it's

very interesting. You don't you wouldn't think the world of

chess is like that competitive, but it's crazy. It is. Yeah,

And the landscape of like professional chess has changed a

lot because of the Internet and digital games. They have

a this is total aside. They have a like chess

dot com Digital Chess crypto tournament, so like what, Yeah,

it's like when you win, you win x amount of

dollars in like crypto, Oh my god, yeah ew yeah,

but it's like digital chess. Oh, but it's it's just

like the video game, like professional video game. Yeah tournaments

sometime where they there sitting in front of computers in

their big chairs on like a stage playing.

Speaker 2: I'm surprised at how like how like sports it is, which,

like I understand it's esports, but like some sport. He'll

think you like listening to it like on his phone,

and I'll think that he's watching like football, and I'm like, oh,

this is like rocket League. Like it's really interesting. You

can like major in esports. Now, Oh, people get so

rich if you're good. If you're good, yeah, if you're good.

I'm not good enough to do that anyway.

Speaker 1: Check it out. It's called Untold Jail Blazers is on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah,

this is that part of the show where you say

content might not be appropriate for our listeners. Mine is

actually not terrible.

Speaker 2: It's not terrible either. There's a little bit of child death, which.

Speaker 1: Is very sad. Yeah. No, mine doesn't have any Mine

has some some. Mine is not bad. I'm just gonna

say that up front. It is not bad at all.

Mine's a little bit. Mine's not We'll see. Don't worry.

I'll bring it home with something not such a downer.

Oh great, love it? You love it. What are we

talking about this week, Rachel?

Speaker 2: We are going to talk about robberies.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: I don't know why that was so drawn out, but

that's what you get. Yeah, I'm going to start this

with a quote from Bender Bending Rodriguez.

Speaker 1: I love stealing. I like taking things. I like stealing.

I like taking things.

Speaker 2: Here at the Bad Taste Crime Podcast, we pride ourselves

in covering some of the most interesting cases for you guys. Yeah,

we don't want the same three stories you've already been

hearing on the news. Like, I'm sure you'll all notice

that there's this is a very interesting time in this country,

and there's a lot of shit going on, and we

are not really talking about it.

Speaker 1: We just pretend this is our little bubble of like

it is. Nothing outside of here is happening right now.

Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a normal president and everything's going well.

Oh yeah, and gas is under three dollars. Yeah, and

it's because under what are you talking about? Guesses under

two dollars here? You know, this is the nineties the night. Yeah, No,

we don't want we don't want none of that. You

want ooky, spooky and freaky deeky. That's actually in my contract,

along with not yelling about socialism. We don't have any

contract speaking of socialism. One crime contracted by socialism. Speaking

of socialism, one crime that I usually like, don't care

much about morally speaking, is robbery. Like obviously I'm not

a fan of stealing from ordinary people, Like when people

talk about ripping off like mom and pop shops, ordinary people,

breaking into somebody's house fun Like, yeah, you know, I don't.

I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about like

more like kind of your niche. Like the white collar crime.

I find it very interesting. But for me, it's not

like a big moral thing because it's just money, it's

just things.

Speaker 1: It's gonna be replaced white collar as everybody knows. White

collar crime is my sweet spots. But it's it is

also not because of what they're taking. It's no totally

I was getting away with it. No, no, no, I know

what you're saying. I'm agreeing with you. It's like the

how did they do this? Like how did they get

away with it? Yeah, and all of the like legal intricacies.

Totally totally totally, But it's not like a real tear jerker.

You're not saying it like Walmart gets ripped off exactly

a bunch of fucking diapers from Walmart, and I didn't

see that ship. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did it.

Speaker 2: The thing about robbery is when it's isolated to the

act itself, it's usually kind of on the lower end

of super violent crime. When it's by itself, the act itself,

like you, you can get into more like personal more

like armed robbery.

Speaker 1: But that was that's the only thing that I was like,

that's like the exception to this. No, totally, yeah, because

that also, in I think most places, is like the

we were talking about aggravating factors and sat we talked

about arm robbery versus robbery.

Speaker 2: Absolutely, but when it comes into like people say, breaking

into a factory and trying to like just find things,

especially in this sort of like impoverished area that I'm

going to go over, it's like.

Speaker 1: Who cares. I don't care, Yeah, take that stuff. I

don't care.

Speaker 2: Normally, But this is not an I don't care case. Okay,

it's pretty crazy, okay, okay, Like sorry, your stuff got stolen,

but at least nobody got hurt is mostly the thing.

Speaker 1: But this is not one of those cases. Oh geez.

Speaker 2: But not because our robbers in question really intended to

hurt anyone.

Speaker 1: Hmmm. Because they didn't.

Speaker 2: Okay, the ripple effect of today's supposedly simple robbery likely

has lasting consequences to this very day in ways.

Speaker 1: That will horrify you. It sure horrifies me.

Speaker 2: This episode actually goes over one of my biggest and

most lifelong fears, not horses. The other wise Okay, it's

not stealing horses, it's not horses. And then the horses

going rogue and attacking everybody.

Speaker 1: Oh my god.

Speaker 2: One time at my cowboy job, so they had like

a little pony ride. It was separate from the rest

of the park, so I never had to go over

there or like cross it, and like, ponies are small,

not so big a deal. But I'm so scared of horses.

Speaker 1: I don't like them.

Speaker 2: One time I was in the show and I came

out and like stuff was, like I could tell something

had happened. I'm like, what happened? Like everything's like a miss.

The horse girl had like had a breakdown and quit

and had left and had left all the horses there,

and they had escaped the enclosure and like ran through

the park. Oh god, literally, and I had I had

been managing the like the theater part of it, and

when I was asking the kid, one of the kids

who worked there, because they had gotten it all sorted out.

Everyone who worked there was like a farm kid, right.

Speaker 1: I'm like, at least they have people who can like

lasso horses.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they had all just kind of guided them.

They had gotten figured out by the time I got out. Yeah,

but I was like, oh my god, you should have

come and gotten me, Like I would have helped you.

He's like, you would have passed cold out.

Speaker 1: Yeah, literally, you would have thrown it.

Speaker 2: I appreciate the intention, but yeah, I was like, no,

you're right, Yeah, you want to get the matter resolved,

not have Rachel literally Chao. I would have had a

full panic attack thinking about that. My hands are shaking.

That's like so scary. So many horses everywhere. So today

we are covering the case of the Guyana incident.

Speaker 1: Guyana incident.

Speaker 2: Okay, so this is in Guyana, Brazil. Okay, this is

in uh. The incident itself happened on September thirteenth, nineteen

eighty seven. So this is in Brazil. This was in

sort of an impoverished area of Brazil. A lot of

people there were having a lot of trouble. There was

a lot of economic trouble there. There was a lot

of poverty and a few previously there had been a

successful business there that was a private radiotherapy institute.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: So what that is is they provide services for like

chemotherapy okay. So they had clients who would come there

and receive it, and they would lend their machines to

like hospitals, so they're this like sort of medical hub.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: There was this whole crazy thing that happened because obviously,

when you're a business and you have radioactive materials in

the building, this has to be treated very very carefully.

There's all kinds of statutes and limitations and like how

you're going to move the machine because you don't want

anybody to get contaminated, right, right, So there was this

big crazy You would find this part super interesting, but

I don't go into it a lot. There was this

big giant legal battle because the business they were moving

to a new premises and they were trying to transport

all of their materials. For some reason, they were not

able to transport a certain unit. It's a casium one

thirty seven based radiotherapy unit.

Speaker 1: Okay. For some reason, they were not able.

Speaker 2: It was like something to do with zoning and something

to do with the new owners and something to do

with transport, and they were trying. They kept going to

the court and being like this is very important because

this is radioactive material, this is a biohazard, Like we

need to make sure, yeah, because this building at this

point is like abandoned.

Speaker 1: They got on that. Part of it too, was the

fact that it was hazardous material, and there's certain regulations

about transporting hazardous materials exactly depending on like the age

of the machine, like if it's not necessarily the most

up to date and like it's right on the machine. Okay.

I was like I could see I could see that

being a thing. If it like was antiquated technology, they're like, yeah, no,

this is no longer safe to move correct, oh fuck okay.

Speaker 2: But this was and you're right, this was a machine

that was like given to the building in like nineteen

seventy seven, okay, so it was older in terms of

like radioactive stuff. They do like improve pretty quickly, So

it was considering animal like the materials happened and exactly,

you're exactly right with that, and that was a big thing.

But this honestly is more of a case of the

court just being like nah, nah whatever. So the people who,

like the scientists who had operated in that building kept

having to petition to like environmental groups, to radioactivity groups,

being like, you have to tell the court we cannot

leave that there, we need to do something with it,

and the court kept blowing them off.

Speaker 1: Okay, interesting choice.

Speaker 2: So there was even it seemed like there was like

I don't even really know why, like why this was

all going on, Like what the point of it was,

Like it just seemed like a bunch of red tape bullshit.

But there was even an instance of the courts using

a police forced to prevent them from like removing the

radioactive material. And he was like I was gonna take

like I know what I'm gonna do, and he was like, well,

you need to take responsibility because if it went off,

it would be like a bomb, like but it's like

they're like, well, we need to remove So it was

this big hole, annoying thing, half of which I don't understand.

The meantime, the owners of the facility or writing letters

to the CNN, the National Nuclear Energy Commissions, They're taking

it all the way to the top, being like help us.

We cannot leave this bomb in this neighborhood. And they're like, well, okay,

so what we're gonna do because we were trying to

figure out how to remove it and they're like, well,

you have to put signs up or something. They're like,

we don't want to freak people out. This was like

both an area that was impoverished and they had a

pretty low level of education of like standard education. Yeah,

so they were afraid that the locals would move away.

They'd be like, oh my god, this is like a

nuclear site because like if you leave it alone, it's fine,

but people get scared with things like that.

Speaker 1: Still when you see warning signs right popping up and

caution whatever whatever is. Yeah.

Speaker 2: So what they did was they appointed like a like

a night guard. Okay, so they were like, that's not

too weird. It's this abandoned building with a night guard.

Yeah whatever, that won't raise alarm, right, sure, and that

should be pretty effective as long as he comes to work.

But on September thirteenth, nineteen eighty seven, he did not

show up for work. Okay, but who did show up

was two gentlemen, Wagner Moda Perinea and Roberto dos Santos Alvas.

Apologies for my white voice whatever. So Roberto, you are

Roberto and Wagner were like, oh, that guard's not here,

Well we are here, are ready? Okay, because they're like

this was a medical site, so clearly they'll have some

like cool.

Speaker 1: Scrap for uh oh okay.

Speaker 2: These were not These were not exactly like career criminals.

Speaker 1: Yes, we're not.

Speaker 2: These were just kind of two guys who were like,

they're leaving all of this expensive stuff here. Sure, let's

take it. Logically it sound right, okay, right, So by

this time the site was quote partially demolished and crumbling. Okay,

So they didn't think anything of like they've left.

Speaker 1: It was was the process of them like moving out

and getting into this legal battle. Was that like over

a number of years.

Speaker 2: Yes, okay, this was drawn out and they were that's why,

like at this point they were so stressed trying to

remove it, and they were like, no, we're not going

to do it.

Speaker 1: Are we saying like more than five years? More than

ten years? No?

Speaker 2: I think it was about three or four okay, under

five yes, okay, okay, okay, got it, got it, got it.

But they they were like starting to put pressure on

like the nuclear commission and.

Speaker 1: Everything like that, like dude, we sorry, I'm just trying

so totally, Like how long the building's been sitting there

and you're saying it's like sort of delaight is it

demolished or is it just like falling apart both.

Speaker 2: They had started to demolish part of the building, the

part that had not housed the remains of nuclear unit, okay,

and then they were like, oh, there's actually radioactive material here,

and then the whole process.

Speaker 1: Sorry, I don't think I okay, I got it. I

got it. But there's all trying to build a you know.

Speaker 2: No totally, and they are trying to destroy mental picture. Yeah,

all my pictures are mental. So they went in. They

found this super crazy looking unit. They had no idea

what it was. Oh it says two years. It had

only been two years.

Speaker 1: Two years O. Yes, okay, Yes, I knew I had

that written down somewhere. Yes.

Speaker 2: So they went in. They it was like this big.

It doesn't look scary, and it didn't have warnings all

over it like caution inside, contains horrible death, didn't have

none of that.

Speaker 1: So they.

Speaker 2: With like like a crowbar like ripped open the machine,

exposing the unit inside that is the actual radioactive As

soon as they opened it, like even just opening it

before they took it out, they both got like really

dizzy and one of the men started to get like

diarrhea immediately.

Speaker 1: Yeah, radiation will do that too, Radiation will do that.

Speaker 2: This was so radio especially if you get a direct

hit of the Yeah, this thing has just been baking

in this unit for so long doing nothing, probably like

accumulating more yuckiness, and you just blusted it open. But

again they had no idea. Neither of them were even

familiar with the concept of radiation. Why would they be,

you know, they had no clue. So when they prized

it open, immediately they get sick. But they had just

eaten and when and they were like, this must have been.

Speaker 1: Something we ate. Of course they didn't know any better sure, so.

Speaker 2: They were like, oh man, we're not feeling good. Let's

just take this and go. So as they took it,

one of the men got burns on his fingers that

were like exactly where he had touched the machine. But

again he wasn't he wasn't sure. He was like, did

I just like scrape my hand on something? Like, I

don't understand. He got kind of scared, and when he's like,

I don't, I don't know. I think there's something wrong

with that canister because like it.

Speaker 1: It burned me.

Speaker 2: Now because of the location, I don't want to imply

that these men were like stupid. They legitimately didn't know.

They had no access to this kind of information. There

are several reports that they considered it possibly supernatural origin.

Speaker 1: Which makes sense.

Speaker 2: It's this metal thing that's like glowing and burning you.

Speaker 1: Sure well, And there's a lot of areas in Brazil

that are very spiritual of those yeah yeah, yeah, they

have that sort of traditional ideology of like yes, yeah,

yeah exactly.

Speaker 2: So he went home and the other guy was like,

I'm just gonna take this in my garage and like

continue to tinker with it. Because he's like I'm not,

I'm I don't think. I think you're being so silly.

Speaker 1: So I feel really bad for these guys.

Speaker 2: I feel very I feel like I'm like a very

harsh person with people. A lot of the times, I'm

like an idiot, but with these guys, like how would

they know? They had no clue and this is this

is this is kind.

Speaker 3: Of a bummer.

Speaker 1: This is a number one.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So this dude banged it with the screwdriver and opened

it and reportedly saw a dark blue light and was.

Speaker 1: Like, neat, that's so neat. That is very neat.

Speaker 2: He's like it glowing. That is so cool and so oh.

I mistakenly said that he had gone home. They had

gone to a local scrap yard where they like knew

people and like obviously no one was going to check

in on them. So he was friends with the owner

of the scrap yard and he was like, look at this,

this is so cool. The owner of the scrap heard's

like hell yeah, cool glowing sick uh And he was

like yeah. He's like, I would like to buy that

cool glowing thing from you. I want some of the

glowing part. And he's like sure, Pelle, I will sell

it to you for money. Absolutely, this would be a

huge and long lasting mistake.

Speaker 1: Yeah. All of this, literally every single piece of this

is like from the point that they popped open the

machine is like, what a disaster, because even just having

that open and the surrounding area to the building is

not great. I gotta say so. Chernobyl is one of

my special interests too, so I'm like listening to all

of this and I'm just like, oh no, oh, no, okay,

it's so interesting, but it's like horrible.

Speaker 2: Just the idea of like, and I watched Chernobyl kind

of interest, like recently, and like the idea of this

guy being like, look at this contake here, well, I

think I'll bang on it with a screwdriver.

Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, dude, I really wanted to go see

Chernobyl because they were you can get like tours of

it and stuff. Not anymore anymore Russia. Yeah, they went

in like literally this is not meant to be anything

but literally the Russian army walking through the area of

Chernobyl like radiation dust and stuff. That's gonna be a

horror movie in like two years. Like just like for

the rest of us, I just wanted to see.

Speaker 2: Yeah, God damn it, I want to just go to

this abandoned Yeah they ruined our vaca anyway, yep, stupid,

total aside. This is another thing where it's like if

you understand radiation or even if you don't, and you're

like bad substance.

Speaker 1: Yuck.

Speaker 2: So when he saw the blue light when he was

like cracking it open, he poured it out and it

was like blue like powder, blue glowing powder, and he

thought he was like, what the hell is this? He

thought it was gunpow and tried to ignite it with

the lighter. Nothing happened, like he was unsuccessful, and he

was like.

Speaker 1: Oh, I guess it's not gunpowder. I don't know what

the hold is.

Speaker 2: I know, doesn't that just make your like teeth set

like oh no, oh no. So he sold I think

most if not all of it to the owner of

the scrapyard, who seemed like he was kind of like.

Speaker 1: A fence uh, and he was like, okay, cool. Cool.

Speaker 2: He went in like at night because he had just

left it in the building. He went in and saw

it glowing and was like, oh, this is really cool.

I'm gonna bring it home to show my family because

it's so cool. And then when it's home at my

family's house, I'm gonna invite all my neighbors in friends.

Speaker 1: Such a bummer because minus the like robbery, the initial robbery, right,

I feel like the intentions are good. Right, It's like,

look at it, I got let me families.

Speaker 2: They were trying to show their families, like you just

thought it was this cool mechanical thing.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: Again, a lot of them thought that it was possibly

supernatural in nature, which is understandable. So they were I said,

some of the blue stuff was in like kind of powder,

it was all powdery, and then some of it was

in sort of like granules, like rice like granules. So

when people came, like his friends and neighbors were like,

let's come see this glowing thing, he'd be like, take one.

Speaker 1: Take some of the rice. Yeah, take that.

Speaker 2: So this man Ferrera was his name, the owner of

the scrapyard who had this material, his wife Maria Ferrera.

Immediately as soon as they brought it home, she started

to get sick.

Speaker 1: Yeah, she was like, I don't know, I don't feel good.

Speaker 2: I will say from the beginning, as much as I

am not calling these people stupid at all, I'm not

looking down on them at all. She was the smartest one. Yeah,

from the start, who was like, get that thing out

of my house. There is something wrong with it. I

do not like it, and I don't feel good. Something's wrong.

You need to get it out.

Speaker 1: He didn't.

Speaker 2: But yeah, so this substance, a lot of people wanted

their hands on it. So he was kind of selling

it to other people. So he sold it to another scrapyard,

who sold it to another scrapyard. And the whole time

these granules were being distributed.

Speaker 1: Everybody's just getting their own little piece of radiation. Correct.

Speaker 2: Love that we're coming up to a sad thing. So

the day before the sale to like the third scrapyard,

what that scrapyard owner's brother kind.

Speaker 1: Of like took some.

Speaker 2: He's like, I'm gonna take some of these cool little

granules because I have a six year old daughter at

home that I would love to show.

Speaker 1: This took She loves glittering again and verys Yeah.

Speaker 2: So the girl, six year old light A d Neves Fierra,

took the granules and was playing with them. They spread

very easily on the skin, like leaving residue.

Speaker 1: Yeah, so she was she's a kid, She's rubbing it

on her arms. Yep.

Speaker 2: She had put it on the floor and was kind

of playing with it, and then when she ate her lunch,

she had eaten it off of the floor. Oh the

powder had been on.

Speaker 1: Yeah, dude, I've been waiting this whole time for you

to tell me somebody ingested it. Honestly, I'm like surprised

that nobody was because they didn't know what it was

to be like, oh can you eat it?

Speaker 2: Like, oh, this is the thing with this case, and

I'm going to continue to go into it. But that

probably did happen, but there just wasn't a huge investigation.

Sure that probably did happen. I bet a lot of

people died, but they were able to trace it because

later when they did, like their meager investigation, they found

the powder on the floor and were like, oh, yeah,

she ate a hard boiled egg that had been she

had had it on the floor. She absorbed poor absorbed

one point oh GBq and like just for eating it,

and received a total dose of like six point zero,

which is beyond fatal. Any medical intervention would have been

completely ineffective. There was this horrible I read about how

they had hospitalized her, and it made me really upset

because they her mother, who also got sick. Her mother

also got sick, noticed she was ill, took her to

the hospital. The hospital figured out pretty quickly that everyone

around her would get sick. So this poor little six

year old girl who was sick and dying and hurting

was sequestered in a far end of the hospital and

no one would bring her.

Speaker 1: Probably in like area yep, yep, very very which is

sad but also necessary.

Speaker 2: It is necessary. But I'm like, she probably had no

idea what was going. That just breaks my heart, right.

So they attributed her death to septoceemia and generalized infection, okay,

but it was radiation poison. She experienced swelling in the

upper body, kidney and lung damage, massive internal bleeding, and

hair loss. She ended up dying. It took about two

weeks okay for her to pass away. When she passed away,

this is all like kind of eventual. They buried her

in a fiberglass coffin lined with lead. But because the

people of Guyana didn't really understand her funeral was like

the source of a lot of riots. They were like,

don't bury her here because she's going to poison the earth.

So people were like throwing rocks at like her family itself.

I think they ended up at some point like putting

concrete like where her tomb is, And to this day

it's not like considered an effective really, yeah, the way

they did it was not gotcha. So she was the

first to be like hospitalized and she passed away and

then eighteen year old employee of her father, Admilson alvas Desoza.

He was her dad's employee and he had also come

in contact with the powder. He developed internal bleeding, lung

and heart damage and at actually the same week that

Liide died, he died as well.

Speaker 1: Okay, So he was eighteen, okay.

Speaker 2: And then there was another employee of his, Israel Batista

dos Santos, who was twenty two. Again like these poor

they're also young. Same thing, had worked on it with

him and was like, let's distribute these exciting granules. Perhaps

he developed severe respiratory and lymphatic complications and died again

the same week, the day before the other guy.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And then the guy's wife, Maria, who would eventually be

the one she would have eventually pass away as well.

But she was the one who was like, you need

to take this to the police. Like I understand, you

didn't get it legally. Something is deeply wrong. All of

these people are getting sick. You need to take you

need to take this to the police. But by that

time she was already losing her hair. She went into

a cute renal failure and died on the same day

as light day. They had all consumed I mean not consumed,

but had been exposed to massive amounts of even by

today's standards, I don't really think they would have been

able to do any probably to help them. This obviously

caused a huge media frenzy in the area, not as

much as it should have, but it did cause an

investigation to happen. They ended up examining about one hundred

and twelve thousand people, of which two hundred and forty

nine were found to have significant radioactive wow exposure like

in or on their body.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I realize of that group that's not like a

huge percentage, but that's still a lot of people, and

it was a lot of radiation. Yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 2: About a thousand people were identified as having suffered like

like a dose as well, like.

Speaker 1: Like just had some sort of exposure. Yes.

Speaker 2: Wow, it is thought this is a direct quote that

ninety seven percent of these people had a dose between

ten and two hundred mSv, which is directly like you're

in like a one in fifty excess risk of developing cancer. Wow,

that's like a thousand extra people. That's not even all

of those people that they just were like ugh, yeah, yeah,

Now they say so this is a little bit of

a sexy little government cover up, okay, because they're doing

like very chernobyli where they're like everything is like so fine. Okay,

everything's like so good. They handled it the best they could. Yeah,

nothing's wrong. There's a foundation called called the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation,

and in two thousand and seven they determined that the

rate of like radioactive exposure and radioactive related deaths, so

like it's actually no more in this area than it

is anywhere else. So it's it's fine. But in fact,

if you look at like the hospital records of Guayana,

the cancer rates are enormous.

Speaker 1: Yeah, they have, but they're now looking for cancer rates.

Speaker 2: Right because half of these people wouldn't even know what

exposed them. Everybody gets cancer, you know, you can get

cancer from anything, so sometimes they can't determine the source

of why you have cancer, but they're not really bothering

to do that. Their rate of like especially like pancreatic cancer,

which is pretty common.

Speaker 1: Is huge.

Speaker 2: They're for not fertility fatality, the opposite of fertility rates

are enormous. So obviously this caused a lot of outrage

because people were not doing what they were supposed to do,

let's just leave, like essentially like a nuclear bomb in

the middle of this neighborhood, who has no idea, you know,

don't don't educate the masses at all, and just leave it.

Like I believe that this was this was like their fault,

This was the government's fault. Like at least the medical

facility was trying to move the materials out of the way,

and it seemed like they were being blocked because of

they were like afraid to like make people afraid.

Speaker 1: Yeah that's dumb. Yeah, that's dumb.

Speaker 2: So on March seventeenth, two thousand, which this all happened

in the late eighties.

Speaker 1: Okay, So in two.

Speaker 2: Thousand, the Federal Court of Guayana ordered the defendants to

pay a compensation of around one point three million US

like seven hundred and fifty thousand to the Defense of

the Diffused Rights Fund, which is a like a compensation

fund which would have compensated the families. Yeah, so they

were eventually ordered to pay that. It ended up being

about closer to one million, and then the Social Security

Institute for Civil Servants was ordered to pay a fine

of like one hundred thousand dollars. So it's like they

some people were held accountable, but I don't think that

they've done the research to prevent like continued exposure in

the area. There is a clean up effort, but it

has been right because again this was all in like

eighty seven. It has been since like people are like

it's not effective. There is still radiation in that area.

I think it's important to announce that the two thieves

who guess what, both survived. They were not two of

the guys who died, which like I think is crazy.

One of them ended up the one who had burns

on his hand, Wagner. He had some of his fingers

amputated and eventually part of his arm was amputated as well.

They both would have lifelong sicknesses, but they.

Speaker 1: Were never They weren't charged with anything.

Speaker 2: The court found them directly responsible, but they didn't get

in trouble.

Speaker 1: Okay, I mean they lost limbs and shits, so like, right,

part of me is like there is a little justice

in that.

Speaker 2: I guess that's what I think too, And like what

like you're in trouble for like stealing so what they

didn't know what they were doing. They were found respect like, hey,

you did take that out yea, but it wasn't really

your fault because you didn't know what it was, so

they did not face.

Speaker 1: Conversation.

Speaker 2: When people go to that area, there are still official

warnings there to be like careful how you handle it. Unfortunately, culturally,

people from that area are shunned from other surrounding areas

because the townspeople are like those people are like contaminated.

These people are poisonous. So it's been pretty devastating to

their economy and a lot of businesses won't do business

with them because they have to do all of this,

like you know extra.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean, you have to wear.

Speaker 2: This and you have to and they're like I don't.

I just don't want to go there. So it's been yeah, wild.

So four deaths later, only four attributed, which I feel

like there's no way that there have not been more deaths.

And even to this day, how do you know that

you've recovered all of it?

Speaker 1: You don't.

Speaker 2: So that is the very freaky case of Guyana.

Speaker 1: That is wild. I have never heard of. Isn't that crazy?

That's wild?

Speaker 2: Yeah, So this week I have a two firs for you,

actually for you, for you as most people, I'm sure

are familiar with Wells Fargo. Yeah, uh, the multi national

financial services company and the company that holds the oldest

continuously operating national bank charter.

Speaker 1: Why it's not originally theirs. It's been acquired through mergers and.

Speaker 2: Acquisitions of things, but it is they hold the the

cool oldest continuously operating national bank old money.

Speaker 1: Yeah. But everybody knows Wells Fargo. And also I think

everybody knows Wells Fargo, Uh, specifically in relation to robberies

because even back in the daye of days of like

stage coaches. Yeah, when Wells Fargo was active as like

a shipping company, they had all the good stuff they

were being robbed by, like you know, men on horseback yeah, cowboys. Yeah, yes,

I was thinking there is a word for like cowboy, uh, robbers,

like like like a bandit bandits. Yeah, that's the word.

I thank you, that's the word I'm going for bandits.

Speaker 2: I was trying to think of of that, like of

like the most famous of those, and I kept thinking

James Brown, Like that's the singer.

Speaker 1: You know, the cowboy bandit, James Brown. So because they're

the oldest, like we said, this also means they are

frequent targets of people looking to rab large sums of money. Yes,

I did actually look to see if maybe I was

curious if they had statistics on like the number of

times that they've been hit or robbed or whatever. Unfortunately,

they do not keep such statistic. Smart you know, I

probably wouldn't keep that either. I did think about that.

I was like, yeah, I mean you probably don't want people.

It would have been interesting to read. Yeah, like how

much money? You know what that means? That means it's yeah, oh, yes,

I can say. The one that I did find was

that in nineteen ninety one they accounted for over sixty

percent of the robberies in LA alone. Oh my god,

get it together. Well, that is like the only solid

one I could find statistic.

Speaker 2: I'm like, how much they have? That's just LA in

United Security. Hire some more security.

Speaker 1: So this brings me to March twenty ninth, nineteen ninety seven,

and a man named Philip Noel Johnson. Okay, Now, Johnson

had been employed as an armored car driver with Loomis

Fargo and Company for ten years. And so at some

point you have Wells Fargo, who is like an armored

truck service, right, and you had Loomis Limited or something

Chartered Unlimited, who was also an armored trunk company truck company,

and they merged. They were like bought all merged and

became Loomis Fargo and Company. There you go. But it's

like part of Wells Fargo. Got it? Yeah, okay, so

he transport thing correct, got it. He had been working

there for ten years and at some point he becomes disgruntled, okay,

and he's like, I'm going to steal a bunch of money,

all right, my employer, Ellie, see, I told you I

was going to pick it up at the end of

the show. Here on love a disgruntled former employee. On

that day in March. In March twenty ninth, in Jacksonville, Florida,

while they were on a routine delivery, Johnson overpowers two

of his coworkers and steals the money that they have

been transporting. Oh my god, old eighteen point eight million dollars.

What geez? Later, one of his coworkers was found chained

to a tree and the other was handcuffed to a

pipe in his home. Oh no, And it didn't take,

obviously take long for authorities to be notified that, like right,

and armored literally an armored truck was it's a low

key crime, so they immediately start searching when they found out,

I mean, it didn't take long for them to like

figure out who it was, like which truck was missing,

who was missing. They find these co workers, the coworkers

are like, yeah, it was Johnson. Like so they're trying

to track in the beginning, they're like, Okay, it's just

this amateur guy, Like give it a couple of days.

We'll find him, no problem. Like he got to slip

up pretty easily. We'll find him, no problem whatever. Sure.

What they didn't know is that Johnson had meticulously planned

this heist for years, oh no before he had actually

gone through it. So Johnson had prepped a number of

fake IDs and passports that he used in an attempt

to flee the country. Most of the money that he

had stolen was stashed in a storage shed in his

home in Carolina before he fled to Mexico. Wow. As

police were investigating, they were led to Johnson's home where

they found the van that had been stolen. And while

they were investigating his home, like doing search of his home,

they found a brochure for Brazil so they were like, oh, okay,

maybe he's he's row fled the country. Yeah, yep, he

honestly he might have gotten away with it. Yeah. I

was gonna say, he seems really smart. Yeah. But on

August thirtieth, nineteen ninety seven, Johnson decided to return to

the US. Why I think it was because he needed money. Well,

he was like coming back to the US to pull

money out of his storage shed. Oh, because he had

just stashed it. Got it. So on August thirtieth, nineteen

ninety seven, he comes back. While going through customs at

the border, a customs agent pulled passengers off of a

bus as just like part of a routine chuck. During questioning,

Johnson gave some suspicious answers that caused the agent to

do like a more in depth identification check. Ooh, Johnson

gave the name Roger D. Latter and they ran it

through the system and it immediately got flagged as an

alias that Johnson had been using. Whoops. And so this

combined with the fact that he was carrying ten thousand

dollars in cash, gave them enough to arrest Johnson at

the border. Yeah, he was charged and convicted for stealing

this money and received twenty five years in prison. Wow,

most of the money was recovered and at the time

it was the largest heist ever, Oh my god, eighteen

point eight million. And he totally beefed it.

Speaker 2: Totally beefed it, completely beefed.

Speaker 1: It, dude. Because here's the thing is he did he

pulled it off alone, which is the best way to

absolutely you know, this is not criminal advice, but the

best way to pull off heist is by yourself.

Speaker 2: Two can keep a secret if one of them is

done exactly.

Speaker 1: So switching gears just a little bit. We're going to

talk about another Loomis Fargo employee. Okay, a man named

David Gant. Now Gant had been working for the company

as a vault supervisor, and he'd actually been working at

a company at the time that Johnson's heist happened. Oh okay,

I would not be surprised if they may have known

each other. He definitely heard about it. Despite being married,

Gant sort of enters a we'll call it a sort

of relationship with a coworker named Kelly Campbell. He has

always claimed that this was not a romantic relationship, that

they are just friends, but they were like really close,

which I could see, like I am that way with

some of my male coworkers.

Speaker 2: You know.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's nothing weird, Yeah, totally, Why like that? Why

are you saying it like that slut a little? No,

I mean it can't happen, but like, I don't know.

They he always said that it was not romantic, So

I'll just say they were had a friendship or some

sort of relationship whatever. They're like not sure, yeah, interesting,

but they continue to be close after she leaves the company.

Oh okay, Now, one day, Campbell is talking to another

friend of hers named Steve Chambers, okay, and he sort

of like floats this idea of robbing Louis Fargo. What

if we did it? He They talk about Chambers a

lot as like a small time like petty criminal, okay,

and obviously they're friends. He knows that she used to

work for this company, where he's like, what did we

you know it'd be really funny? Is that we stole

from your exit player? Yeah? And she was like, actually

that's like not a bad idea, that's great. She was like,

this is kind of a good plan, and they decide

to approach current employee David Gant who was like, I'm

on board with that, let's fucking do it. He would

later talk about his life like sort of prior to

all of this, and he says, quote prior to I

would have never even considered it. But one day life

kind of slapped me in the face. I was working

sometimes seventy five to eighty hours a week for eight

dollars and fifteen an hour. I didn't even have a

real home life because I was never there. I was

working all the time and unhappy, which is understandable considering

how old I was at the time. I felt cornered,

and one day the joking in the breakroom about robbing

the place suddenly didn't seem so far fetched. That's really sad. Yeah,

that kind of bums me out. I know, I know

now this say is from all that's interesting quote. Gant, Chambers,

and Campbell came up with the following plan. Would remain

in the vault after his shift on the night of

the heist October fourth, nineteen ninety seven, and then let

his co conspirators into the vault. They would then load

as much cast cash as they could carry into a van. Meanwhile,

Gant would take fifty thousand dollars as much as could

legally be carried across the border without questions, and would

flee to Mexico. Chambers would hold on to most of

the remaining cash and why are it to Gant? As needed?

Once the heat was off, Gant would return and they

would split the hall evenly. End quote.

Speaker 2: Okay, well proof right, there is nothing wrong with that,

p Yeah, not at all nothing. What do you see

as the glaring issue that they're all dependent on each other?

It's stupid. Why are you doing that? Just take all

the money, put it in your buttthole and go to Mexico.

Speaker 1: I don't understand. Yeah. Well and why, well, we'll get

to it. Yeah, I mean they talk about why would

Chambers have any reason to send him any money once

he's That's what.

Speaker 2: I mean, Like for what that's stupid. That's really stupid.

Speaker 1: So when October ooked the words, when October fourth rolled around,

it was time to execute their plan. Okay, Gamp, who

had been training an employee that day, sends the employee

home for the day and then disables two security cameras,

completely unaware that there is a third camera. Oh my god, idiot,

not here's that, Rachel. We know at least stressing me out.

Not long after, Campbell and Campbell and Chambers showed up

to do their part, and the trio begins loading up

as much cash as they can carry into the company van,

making off with about seventeen point three million in cash.

It was less than they wanted to make off with,

but they did not. The thing again, this is like

something they just didn't consider beforehand. The thing was, most

of the money they grabbed were like stacks of twenties,

which takes up more physical space, like more volume. Yeah,

you should have been grabbing hondos. And all of a sudden,

the van was filled with like twenties, so it was less,

I mean, still seventeen point three It wasn't all twenties obviously,

but it was still seventeen point three million in cash.

But they were hoping for more. But they didn't grab

the fucking hundreds. They just grabed twenties.

Speaker 2: So, like, I think they're ready for Congress. They're like

so smart.

Speaker 1: Yeah, uh So they load up, they load the van

up with this money. They go to a second location

where they dished the van. They loaded cash into private vehicles.

Give Gant his fifty thousand, and they part ways, Grant

heads to Mexico. He lands in Cosmo, and Campbell and

Chambers sort of take their split, go their separate ways. Yeah,

that's it. Okay. The following morning, so far, so good,

so far, so good. Foolproof, Yeah, foolproof the following minus

the fucking camera. Though later they ask him about it,

he's like, yeah, I didn't even realize there was a kid.

I had no idea, didn't know, didn't know was there.

And they tag it. There's like stills of him loading

money into bags and putting it into Yeah. So the

following morning, when employees arrive for work, they aren't able

to open the vault for some reason, so they immediately

call police in the FBI. The FBI is called in

because what this is is like a warehouse of money

that belongs to banks in general, and stealing from a

bank is a federal crime. Yes, so this is immediately FBI. Yes,

total sense. Yes. When Gant was the only employee who

failed to show up to work the next day, he

pretty much immediately became a suspect. Wow, They're like, oh,

only one guy is missing. How weird he didn't call

in even weirder. Yeah, because of course, it was no call,

no show. That's so many points. Yeah yeah. And then

they reviewed the security tapes and they see gantloading the money. Oh,

which pretty much seals his face.

Speaker 3: Right.

Speaker 1: The company van was discovered no, because he thought he

disabled all the cameras. Oh okay, yeah. The company van

was discovered two days later, still containing around two point

two million in cash. Again, it seems like they didn't

account for the volume the cash would take up and

the fact that they took mostly stacks of twenties stupid

couldn't load anymore into their private vehicles, and they just

left what they couldn't fit in the van in this

like warehouse.

Speaker 2: I'm poor, I would be literally, no, I'm taking it.

I'm not leaving any money.

Speaker 1: It's all traceable, dude, it's my very bit of it.

So I'm going to launder it. Don't want anybody to

clip that audio. I'm laundering money. Oh god, Oh my god.

That's when you clean it, right. They also discovered Gants

truck a band in an a warehouse with his wedding

ring inside. Oh my god, and they're like, we think

this was his Like, hay, I'm breaking up with my wife, right,

which is wild because even she was making please, I

was like, please, just come home, don't worry. We still

love you. Like later, when they're searching for him, Yeah,

that's sad. Yeah, girl, you deserve butter. Pretty quickly, they

were also able to discover the relationship between Gant and Chambers.

Uh huh, and after a few tips, the FBI began

or I'm sorry, between Gant and Campbell afder. A few tips,

the FBI began surveillance on Chambers, tapping into phones following

him around. Eventually they were able to record a call

from Gant in Mexico to Chambers, which gave him this

sort of solid tie directly to the heist. They're like, okay,

for sure, this guy's evolved. Yeah. At some point during

their investigation, there is all and we'll talk about this

a little bit. There's also a murder for higher plot.

Oh I'm covered, Oh my god, which had to do

with Chambers hiring a man named Michael McKinney to put

out a hit on Gant in Mexico so she didn't

have to pay him anymore. It's the guy.

Speaker 2: But yes, Steven Chambers, oh sorry, so he didn't have

to pay him a correct, got it? Correct, right, that

would be the problem with the plan that we discovered

early exactly why are you depending on other So part

of the surveillance in this case also included watching Campbell

and Chambers bank accounts. During the planning, the trio had

sort of agreed like, Okay, we're not gonna.

Speaker 1: This is what always happens. Don't go out and spend

money on extravagant things too soon. You have to wait

a few years, otherwise you'll tip off these people. They

never do, no, of course not. They never sick that rule.

Chambers moved with his wife from a trailer park to

a luxury home, which included some high end furnishings and

artwork from the prior owner, including a painting of Elvis

Presley on black velvet. What they bought a BMW Z

three using cash a six hundred dollars cigar Indian. Have

you seen uh huh. Yeah. Those they're like the old

roadside like huge statues. Yeah, there's not so many of

them left in the world, right, But that is the

exact type of thing that Tiff and I go to see.

What are on our road trips?

Speaker 2: I love like roadside of track, Yes, I love that

kind of stuff. They also bought a statue of a

bulldog dressed like George Patton.

Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sure, yeah, you know the old man by

Oh my god. Campbell also spent some of her money,

I would say slightly less extravagantly. She bought a modest

mini van, but she paid for it in like two

lump sums of cash.

Speaker 2: Everyone's so stupid, Yeah, so stupid.

Speaker 1: The final p that fell into place was when Stephen

Chambers Steven chit is part so funny but Stevin Chambers's wife, Michelle,

went to the bank to make a deposit, because at

this point they'd been making small deposits. Right to not

like flag anybody, right again from all this interesting quotes,

she wondered how much she could deposit without attraction attracting

the attention of the FBI question, So she decided to

just ask the teller, how much can I deposit before

you have to report it to the FEDS? Are you

actually serious? She asked, don't worry, it's not drug money,

and you dumb bitch, which is like, okay, so either

it is it is exactly drug money. Orry, you got

this from some other nefarious jail for life. Yeah, you

can't be very excited anymore. You're stupid.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So these weird statements.

Speaker 2: Uh, combined with the fact that the cash she was

depositing still had the Loomis Fargo.

Speaker 1: Bands on them. Oh my god. Uh, sort of made

the teller suspicious and they alerted authorities. Oh yeah, yeah,

yeah yes. Meanwhile, Gant is like living it up in Mexico.

He's spending money on luxury hotels and scuba diving and clothing.

But when his money is starting to dry up, he

starts calling Chambers and is like, Hey, I need you

to send me more money. I need you to send

me more money. Chambers is getting very fucking annoyed by this.

Uh huh okay, and that's that's the point where he's like, Okay,

I'm just gonna hire somebody to go kill him. That's cool,

so that he doesn't call me to send more money anymore.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: The hitman goes all the way down to Mexico what,

but he does not have it in his heart to

kill Gant, and the two of them instead become buddies

and just started hanging out on the beach in Mexico.

Speaker 2: He was like, his vibes were so he got down there.

Speaker 1: He's like, I can't do this. How about he's such

a cool bro. Yeah. They just hanging out of the

beach and party and get Mexico together.

Speaker 2: He's like about to take the shot. He's zoomed in

on his machine gun.

Speaker 1: He's like set a Panterra shirt. I love. Oh my god.

He opens his jacket. It's like the same hand Tarish shirt. Yeah,

single tier. Yeah. No, they just they become buddies. They

just start hanging out on the beach. Yep. Oh my god,

that's so cute. Uh so. Gant was finally arrested by

Mexican authorities on March first, nineteen ninety eight, at Plia

del Carmen. The following day, on March second, Stephen and

Michelle Chambers, Kelly Campbell, and four other co conspirators were

all arrested. All eight were charged with bank larceny and

money laundering. There were thirteen other friends, relatives, and associates

that were also charged for money line. Oh my god,

what a mess. Well, they had like gotten a bunch

of friends and relatives to take small sums and put

them into safe deposits. R I'm sure yeah, uh, And

I don't know how many of them were aware, right,

at least a portion of them. It's for sure. I'm sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,

they all they all straight up got charged with money laundering,

an accessory or conspiracy to or whatever with money. If

someone gives you a bunch of money, is like just

you know, do the say no yeah, or give you

a back box and say deliver this. Don't open it,

absolutely no, don't do that. Uh yeah.

Speaker 2: So the people involved with the safe deposit box, I

will say, everybody except one person pled guilty, okay, and

the one person was like Chambers lawyer. Oh okay, yeah. Uh.

Speaker 1: All the people involved with the safe deposit boxes, they

mostly got probation, okay. Steve Chambers got eleven years and

three months in federal prison and a three point five

million dollar fine. Can't received seven years in prison in

a twenty six thousand dollars fine. Both Yan and Chambers

were released in two thousand and six. Wow, so they're out.

What Chambers has done interviews where he says he's a

changed man. I haven't heard of any big heists from them.

So you know, eighty eight percent of the cash has

been recovered, okay, but approximately two million of it still

remains missing. I would not be surprised if most of

that is spent. Yeah, probably, that's what I would say.

I feel like, of the amount of money that they got,

it's not a huge percentage, no, you know, so like

it's only what twelve percent? And I feel like they

could spend twelve percent of what they got between the

three of them, like, oh yeah, you know, especially when

you're talking about buying houses and cars and wisy to

extended hotel stays. Now, obviously when they go to recover

stuff like this, they also recover the assets. So like

they probably sold those cars and stuff.

Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, you know, So where's the other two million?

Who knows what to say? Yeah, it's in somebody's butt.

Speaker 1: This case has been featured on numerous true crime shows,

including America's Most Wanted, FBI Files and super HICs. Most notably,

and I have not seen this yet, but I do

want to watch it now. I've never even heard of it,

to be honest with you. Most notably, the crime was

the inspiration for the twenty six twenty sixteen film Masterminds,

starring Zach Galifanakis as gat Gant, Kristen Wigg as Campbell,

Owen Wilson as Chambers. Oh my god, Jason Sidaikis as McKinney,

stop it. We have to watch that.

Speaker 3: I know.

Speaker 1: It looks so hilarious. It looks super super good, and

that cast incredible, really good people so much. I love

Zach Galifanakis and Jason sadagas Owen Wilson's all right, but yeah,

I don't care. He tends to be in a lot

of movies with people that I like.

Speaker 2: Yeah, totally they I'll just you just do with Yeah,

he's on him and his nose are there?

Speaker 1: I hate that guy. So yeah, So that is the

story of I just thought it was really interesting that

there were two good Miss Fargo robberies back like back

to within months of each other. They probably knew each other.

That's crazy. I wonder, you know they do say like

that sort of Campbell and Chambers like brought this to

gant As like a hey, let's do this. But part

of me wonders, like how much of this was inspired

by this guy who just tried to do that before?

What a good idea, but that idiot didn't bad We're

going to do it so much and the amount of

money the seventeen point two or million or ever, seventeen

whatever they got away with is the second largest at

the time, was the second largest heist in history, second

to Johnson, who had just storn those like months earlier. Ooh,

that's ooky, spooky. Yeah, that's a good one. Thank you.

Speaker 2: I don't have to tell you things are bad.

Speaker 3: Everybody knows things about.

Speaker 2: It's a depression.

Speaker 3: Everybody not.

Speaker 2: Losing their job.

Speaker 1: Well, that has been our show. Yeah, we just robbed

your time. Do you have any final.

Speaker 2: Thoughts before before we Uh, I can't wait to watch

that movie.

Speaker 1: I would watch Kristen wigg like receiving. I know, she's

so funny. So yeah, it's it looks pretty good. I

do not remember at all this coming out. I don't

remember seeing a trailer for it til sixteen, so you

know there was a lot going on that year. But yeah,

sure was. But yeah, I do want to check that

movie out. I got to see where it's at and

if not, I'll get it on Plex. Yes please? Yeah? Anyway,

all right, that has been our episode. Our sound and

editing is by Tiffolman. Our music is by Jason Zakschewski.

The Endigma. This has been the Bad Taste Crime podcast.

We will see you in two weeks. Goodbye. On the

Millow rides along the Highway Rose sea Way out Wearing

it was as if a wave of people washed over

was town wedge. All here wear it in some form

or another