Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nola.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Alexis Cod named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
Speaker 3: you are you. You are here that makes this the
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. It is the
Speaker 3: top of the week, which means it's time for some
Speaker 3: strange news. Fellow conspiracy realist. We are going to learn
Speaker 3: some disturbing things in Sierra Leone. We're going to learn
Speaker 3: some crazy stuff in South Korea. We're going to have
Speaker 3: a follow up to the Norfolk Southern East Palestine episode. Uh.
Speaker 3: We're gonna talk about Uh. I'm going to talk about
Speaker 3: some worrying stuff with zoonotic infections. Bugs. Baby. We'll get
Speaker 3: to a heist. But before we do any of that,
Speaker 3: have you ever gone by a different name? Fellas? Uh?
Speaker 2: Ben?
Speaker 4: No comment?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: If not so much? I do like with this uh,
Speaker 4: with our little virtual recordings, we get to give ourselves
Speaker 4: fun nicknames every time we log in, so that usually
Speaker 4: is a fun thing to do. But I'm not really
Speaker 4: much of a giving myself a nickname kind of guy.
Speaker 4: It seems like something other people are supposed to do.
Speaker 4: Not the same however, as stealing someone's identity. That's that's very,
Speaker 4: very different. And also, you know, when we think of
Speaker 4: identity theft oftentimes or so inundata these days, with like
Speaker 4: you know, life luck and all of these ways of
Speaker 4: protecting yourself and you know, getting alerts when our passwords
Speaker 4: have appeared and leaked data breach kind of situations, and
Speaker 4: almost to the point where it's like, Okay, it's just
Speaker 4: another thing. It's part for the course. And if you're
Speaker 4: doing your stuff right, nine times out of ten, you've
Speaker 4: got two factor authentication on account or whatever it might be,
Speaker 4: and you're probably gonna even if someone does steal your
Speaker 4: data or steal your credit card or whatever it might be,
Speaker 4: it's going to be mildly inconvenient at best, right. I mean,
Speaker 4: there's certainly escalated versions of that, but overall, I'm not
Speaker 4: really worried about having my life turned upside down by
Speaker 4: somebody swiping my credit card digits, you know, using like
Speaker 4: a skimmer or something like that. It's just probably gonna.
Speaker 2: Well, I just had an experience with a potential skimmer
Speaker 2: at a gas station. It was not fun. But what
Speaker 2: I would say is, I think the thing people are
Speaker 2: most afraid of is that whole like, I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: to contact my bank. Somebody took a lot of money
Speaker 2: out of my bank or my you know, use a
Speaker 2: lot of money in a credit card that I have
Speaker 2: that I haven't looked at in a while, and now
Speaker 2: I've got to deal with this. But it is a
Speaker 2: sliding scale that goes pretty deep, right, Absolutely, there.
Speaker 3: Are protections in you know, Like again, as we always
Speaker 3: say with these stories, the natural default state of your
Speaker 3: credit should be frozen. You should unfreeze it when you
Speaker 3: have to do the big things because it can be
Speaker 3: a huge hassle. The onus is on the consumer. But
Speaker 3: to your point, Noel, a lot of times when we
Speaker 3: are talking about the idea of identity theft, then it's
Speaker 3: something like a skimmer, or it's something like someone has
Speaker 3: used a credit card or stolen that that information, and
Speaker 3: often credit companies have protections for you as the actual
Speaker 3: holder of the card. But this sure is only the beginning.
Speaker 4: It's only the beginning. And you know the FD I see,
Speaker 4: you know ensures your bank deposits up to a certain
Speaker 4: amount and all of that good stuff. I'm not trying
Speaker 4: to dismiss any of those occurrences as being not worth
Speaker 4: worrying about. To your point, Ben, you should absolutely worry
Speaker 4: about it, if anything, more now than ever. But don't
Speaker 4: let it ruin your life. That's the whole point in
Speaker 4: terms of like ruin it with worry, let's talk about
Speaker 4: how it could actually ruin your life. I don't want
Speaker 4: this to be a fear mongering kind of situation where
Speaker 4: people are afraid to live life for fear of having
Speaker 4: something like this happened to them. This is obviously an
Speaker 4: outlier and just a perfect storm of awfulness for one
Speaker 4: William Donald Woods, who it all started back in nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty eight when he was working at a hot dog
Speaker 4: stand with a guy named Matthew David Kieran's. Recently, last week,
Speaker 4: Kieran's pleaded guilty to identity theft, admitting to having used
Speaker 4: Woods's name, identity, social security number in almost every single
Speaker 4: aspect of his life for decades. Essentially, Kieran's who is
Speaker 4: now fifty eight, used woods identity to obtain insurance, to
Speaker 4: obtain a Social Security number, a birth certificate, driver's licenses, credit,
Speaker 4: various jobs, bank accounts, all of this stuff. Apparently he
Speaker 4: even had a child while using Wood's name. All of
Speaker 4: this dating back to that fateful hot dog stand you know,
Speaker 4: coworking situation in nineteen eighty eight. And this is I
Speaker 4: believe it started back in Iowa, Des Moines, Iowa. This
Speaker 4: is where the primary reporting on this comes from. So
Speaker 4: essentially what happened was set a certain point in nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety two, years after they met at the hot Dog,
Speaker 4: Stan Kieran's got a fraudulent Colorado ID with Woods's name
Speaker 4: and date of birth on it, and he continued doing
Speaker 4: this for a couple of years. At the time, Kierans
Speaker 4: lived as Woods in various states, and Woods and you
Speaker 4: know this, completely ignorant of this, went on living his life.
Speaker 4: Kieran's racked up just tens of thousands of dollars in
Speaker 4: debt under Wood's name, again unbeknownst to Woods. And then
Speaker 4: in August of twenty nineteen, Woods, who was living unhoused
Speaker 4: in Los Angeles, and guy, I'm so sorry if I
Speaker 4: have mixed up these two guys' names. You can see
Speaker 4: how that could be easy to do.
Speaker 3: Here it happened here.
Speaker 4: Ins is the one perpetrating the fraud. Woods is the
Speaker 4: victim of the fraud. Woods is living unhoused in Los
Speaker 4: Angeles at this point in twenty nineteen, he goes to
Speaker 4: a bank he realizes something is a miss. We don't
Speaker 4: really know the story of Woods up to this point,
Speaker 4: but one could imagine that having been a victim of
Speaker 4: this identity theft at this point, while maybe things weren't
Speaker 4: going well for him in other ways, you have to
Speaker 4: wonder if some of that stuff couldn't have been what
Speaker 4: maybe led him to being unhoused. But he gets win
Speaker 4: of something being a miss. Whether he had sought help
Speaker 4: prior to this, we don't know. But in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 4: he goes into a bank of a national chain of
Speaker 4: a bank which is not named in the lawsuit. This
Speaker 4: is where a lot of this boarding is coming from
Speaker 4: as well. He says that he believes that someone's been
Speaker 4: using his social Security number to obtain you know, credit,
Speaker 4: and has racked up over one hundred and thirty thousand
Speaker 4: dollars of a debt in his name, and he says
Speaker 4: this to the bank teller, who then asks him to
Speaker 4: answer some security questions you know, which we know are
Speaker 4: great if you're the one who made them and you're
Speaker 4: the only one who can answer them. Doesn't work quite
Speaker 4: so well when the person perpetrating the fraud on you
Speaker 4: is the one who made them. So when he couldn't
Speaker 4: answer them, they called the owner of the accounts, you
Speaker 4: know who the account belonging to, the person they believe
Speaker 4: is in fact William Donald Woods, who answers the phone, this,
Speaker 4: of course is Matthew David Kierance, the perpetrator or the
Speaker 4: fraud who successfully answers the security questions and then says,
Speaker 4: I'm not sure who would be trying to access my
Speaker 4: accounts in Los Angeles. Whoever that person is, is trying
Speaker 4: to commit a fraud on me, trying to perpetrate it,
Speaker 4: a crime on me. You gotta, you know, send that
Speaker 4: person to the to the brig And so what happens
Speaker 4: basically starting at this point is this Perton, you know
Speaker 4: that that Woods is arrested and essentially goes through the
Speaker 4: justice system in such a way that he ultimately ends
Speaker 4: up being institutionalized. He is institutionalized because he is all
Speaker 4: the while, as you would, claiming that someone is stealing
Speaker 4: his identity and has been stealing identity, that he is
Speaker 4: in fact the real uh mister Woods, and he doesn't
Speaker 4: know who this other person is. And you know that's
Speaker 4: I mean, talk about what would you guys call that
Speaker 4: being gas lit? Like when they don't even know they're
Speaker 4: doing it. But I mean it's I don't know, it's.
Speaker 3: It's institutionally gaslight. Yeah, I mean there's this thing that
Speaker 3: happens sometimes where unfortunately, there have been cases where people
Speaker 3: have been declared legally dead and are very much alive
Speaker 3: and they have to try to prove that they are alive.
Speaker 3: And I mean we have to exercise some empathy for
Speaker 3: just how frustrating this must be. No, you're saying, I
Speaker 3: don't I can't answer these questions because I'm the me.
Speaker 3: But I didn't make the question how.
Speaker 4: Am I not myself? It reminds me of that thing
Speaker 4: and I believe it was Oh gosh, I heard huckabees
Speaker 4: or there's Jason Swartzman's character that keeps repeating how am
Speaker 4: I not myself? I would feel like I was losing
Speaker 4: my mind. Not to mention things have been going poorly
Speaker 4: up to this point, it would seem Matt, what do
Speaker 4: you think?
Speaker 2: Well, I just I think this is an impossible situation
Speaker 2: to go through. Imagine all of the legal and careful
Speaker 2: steps you would have to go through to prove your
Speaker 2: identity to someone, and if that or in some institution,
Speaker 2: and that institution makes the decision, oh, no, you're not
Speaker 2: actually the person that you say.
Speaker 4: You are based on this criteria. This is our gold standard.
Speaker 4: You have failed the test. Therefore you are not you
Speaker 4: and you are so in a non grata at this point.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, but then imagine that they say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: actually the thing that you were doing and saying the
Speaker 2: person that you say you are is actually a major crime,
Speaker 2: and we need to incarcerate you for that. And then
Speaker 2: you continue to say that, and do we get to
Speaker 2: the point where they put him in a mental health facility?
Speaker 4: I said it led to that he was incarcerated for
Speaker 4: a year, roughly more than a year actually, and then,
Speaker 4: through various occurrences likely related to him refusing to just
Speaker 4: give up, he spent nearly one hundred and fifty days
Speaker 4: in a psychiatric institution, and I believe was even medicated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like psychotropic medication.
Speaker 4: God, dude, can you imagine? This is like, I mean,
Speaker 4: there's going to make a movie out of this. This
Speaker 4: is like, you know, an absolute hellish experience. From the
Speaker 4: perspective of the dude who's just on a mission to
Speaker 4: get his life back but doesn't even know who did
Speaker 4: this to him. It's like old boy level maliciousness.
Speaker 3: In a way. It reminds me of what was that
Speaker 3: film I think the actor was Angelina Jolie The Changeling
Speaker 3: or something where she knew the kid was not her own,
Speaker 3: but society did not believe her, and she was also
Speaker 3: I think ultimately institutionalized. It's tough when you go against
Speaker 3: any bureaucracy, right, And and you know, if we walk
Speaker 3: through the mechanisms of proving one's actual identity, then we
Speaker 3: do see there is this there's this sort of feedback
Speaker 3: loop or snowball effect that occurs when someone has perpetrated
Speaker 3: this kind of fraud over time, because every single time
Speaker 3: you successfully steal an identity or take one that is
Speaker 3: not yours, every single time you get a little more
Speaker 3: support for the next time you try something like that. Right,
Speaker 3: that's so like from the days of the hot Dog stand.
Speaker 3: Fast forward a few years, and now this person who
Speaker 3: has stolen the identity can easily appear to back up
Speaker 3: all of their claims. It's it's insidious, it's tough man,
Speaker 3: and hopefully is there a happy ending here North?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, no, please Matt, real quick.
Speaker 2: Well, I just wonder how you go through all this
Speaker 2: stuff and you can't prove you are who you say
Speaker 2: you are with documentation? Isn't it possible nowadays to like
Speaker 2: take a sample from somebody improve Well.
Speaker 4: That's where it goes. Yeah, that's where we're getting there.
Speaker 4: Oh okay, that is ultimately what what was able to
Speaker 4: kind of, you know, be the aha moment in this.
Speaker 4: So I really do feel like in many ways, this
Speaker 4: is there's a lot of ins and outs here, and
Speaker 4: it relates to a lot of the kind of things
Speaker 4: we talk about. Could well be worth an episode on
Speaker 4: its own. But you know, Kieran's is institutionalized all the
Speaker 4: while his own counsel in the trial for when he's arrested,
Speaker 4: and a lot of this stuff is what happens in
Speaker 4: the interim before he goes on trial for identity theft
Speaker 4: of this other guy who he doesn't even know who
Speaker 4: he is at this point. He does at a certain
Speaker 4: one the charges are filed. He now knows who he's
Speaker 4: up against, right because he knows whoever's on the other
Speaker 4: end of that phone, that's his ever green If you
Speaker 4: guys have seen old Boy, you know again, Sorry I
Speaker 4: keep referencing that, but it is just a pretty such
Speaker 4: a perfect nemesis example of someone just absolutely screwing you over.
Speaker 4: You can't see, you don't have access to you can't
Speaker 4: ask them, why did you do this to me and
Speaker 4: an old boy? There's a reason. The reason here is
Speaker 4: that this guy's basically a sociopath. He just did it
Speaker 4: because it was easy, And all we know is that
Speaker 4: he continued to do it almost because it was just well,
Speaker 4: I'm already doing it, you know, might as well just
Speaker 4: keep the grift going. We really don't know.
Speaker 3: Do we know whether the thief maintained their previous identity?
Speaker 4: That we don't know. Again, a lot of this stuff
Speaker 4: is very new information, and I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 4: getting more details trickling out as things progress. It is
Speaker 4: not clear from anything that I have read why this
Speaker 4: guy did this in the first place, Like it just
Speaker 4: seems like it was like one of those what is
Speaker 4: it the banality of evil kind of scenarios where it's like,
Speaker 4: why did you do it? Why did you do this
Speaker 4: to me? It's because I could and because I yeah.
Speaker 3: Made money, right, guess one hundred and thirty thousand, that's true.
Speaker 4: But that's also one hundred and thirty thousand in He's
Speaker 4: he's maintaining this identity so that that debt is on him.
Speaker 4: He's not just trundling that debt off to somebody else
Speaker 4: and then disappearing into the shadows. He's living as this person.
Speaker 4: So so presumably that debt is also is kind of
Speaker 4: on him, even though this other guy is being affected
Speaker 4: by it, because it appears that that Kiaran's you know,
Speaker 4: who perpetrated the fraud was a pretty successful data analyst
Speaker 4: at least you know, as of the time of when
Speaker 4: he was caught. So essentially what happened is in March
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one, Woods is convicted plenty no contests, meaning
Speaker 4: that he basically acknowledges the dire nature of a situation,
Speaker 4: refuses to admit that he did anything wrong, and in
Speaker 4: May later that year, the court order wouldst enough to
Speaker 4: even use his real name anymore. Then several months later,
Speaker 4: Woods contacted police in Heartland, Wisconsin, which is where Kieran's
Speaker 4: was living at the time, and Kieran's found out and
Speaker 4: wrote to an LAPD detective saying that he felt that
Speaker 4: this individual who contacted his employers and was convicted of
Speaker 4: stealing his ID was trying to like stalk him or something.
Speaker 4: So he's once again like doubling down on the gas lighting,
Speaker 4: and he's concerned that he's going to alter his bank accounts,
Speaker 4: knows where he lives.
Speaker 2: Wait, so this is the bad guy that guy saying.
Speaker 4: Is coming out from me? Yeah, because he won. He
Speaker 4: won the court case. The perpetrator won the court case,
Speaker 4: and the other guy had to give up ever using
Speaker 4: that name again. It was basically granted for all in
Speaker 4: goods and purposes to Kieran's. But Woods kept fight even
Speaker 4: after the police didn't do anything about it because fake
Speaker 4: Woods aka Kieran's is able to give them just enough
Speaker 4: information to get them to back off. Woods continued, as
Speaker 4: you would have to or just I don't know an
Speaker 4: end your life, man. I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 4: I would handle this if I just felt constantly like
Speaker 4: I was beating my head against the wall. I think
Speaker 4: you could follow into despair very very easily, you know,
Speaker 4: I just I can't imagine. So this guy really had
Speaker 4: some real perseverance, he continues. He files a second identity
Speaker 4: theft complaint. In September of twenty twenty one. Kieran's in responds,
Speaker 4: calling Woods Matthew Kieran's and saying that his identity is
Speaker 4: still being threatened to this point. In January of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three, Woods, the real was the victim here, reaches
Speaker 4: out to Kieran's employer again, saying, your employee is using
Speaker 4: my identity and has been a perpetrator of this for
Speaker 4: many years, and I need to look into it for
Speaker 4: whatever reason. This time there is an internal investigation launched.
Speaker 4: Kieran's then continues to double down on his story.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting here that the University of Iowa, you know,
Speaker 2: has its own police force. I didn't know that that
Speaker 2: police force for a university would have detectives working for them.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating. It's always something that I assumed would go
Speaker 2: to a different jurisdiction, right, like a state police or
Speaker 2: a local I guess it is a local police force.
Speaker 4: You know, I think you're right, Matt. Just to clarify,
Speaker 4: I believe there is an internal investigation launch and then
Speaker 4: the Iowa police were involved, and it was a signed
Speaker 4: the detective to help, you know, kind of look into
Speaker 4: this potential identity theft.
Speaker 2: But that detective is the one that actually made headways.
Speaker 4: But that's exactly right. So the detective then is able
Speaker 4: to actually match Woods DNA, the real Woods DNA with
Speaker 4: his fathers living in Kentucky, thanks to you know, I
Speaker 4: mean again, we've got all kinds of issues with these
Speaker 4: twenty three and meter things and these DNA databases, but
Speaker 4: here's an example of where it was actually, you know,
Speaker 4: a positive. So that match takes place, and what would
Speaker 4: have happened if Woods, his father had not been living
Speaker 4: probably would have been another brick wall, and I don't
Speaker 4: know if the investigation would have been able to continue.
Speaker 4: So the Iowa detective then reaches out and asks Kieran's
Speaker 4: what his father's name was?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 4: Oh right, Finally he's being asked a question that he
Speaker 4: doesn't have the answer to, at which point the detective
Speaker 4: does the big reveal, showing him the DNA evidence, to
Speaker 4: which Kieran's responds my life is over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, after sending a dude to jail for over four
Speaker 2: hundred something days and then a psychiatric facility for another
Speaker 2: one hundred something days, Yeah, your life is over.
Speaker 4: Pell He's got another quote just saying everything is gone.
Speaker 4: This guy just seems like a This is the kind
Speaker 4: of stuff that to me is just tanam ount to
Speaker 4: the sort of urges that drive serial killers. Well, you know,
Speaker 4: I said this the other day actually, when we were
Speaker 4: talking about the fertility fraud, the kind of urge that
Speaker 4: would drive a doctor to an impregnated one with their
Speaker 4: own genetic material, or just you know, perpetrate some sort
Speaker 4: of fraud around people that are in the most vulnerable
Speaker 4: stage of a marriage or relationship desperately wanted to have kids.
Speaker 4: I think I said something like, that's the kind of
Speaker 4: urge that seems to me very akin to what drives
Speaker 4: serial killers. Same thing here. This guy absolute absolute monster.
Speaker 4: And I really look forward to hearing more about this.
Speaker 4: I think it is something that has more information comes out,
Speaker 4: maybe we sit on in a while. It could well
Speaker 4: be a full episode and I can't wait for the
Speaker 4: mini series. It really this is just too much. It
Speaker 4: almost sounds stranger than fiction. Do you guys have anything
Speaker 4: else to add? I think that's about all for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just have to change the ending. It needs
Speaker 2: to be a Quentin Tarantino movie and it needs to
Speaker 2: have like that kill Bill revenge thing like at the end.
Speaker 2: Just rewrite the ending to where the real Woods gets
Speaker 2: a nice little revenge.
Speaker 3: Do we know the real identity of the detective never mind?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: DNA tests all around.
Speaker 4: DNA tests, you get a NA test, that you get
Speaker 4: a DNA oh test.
Speaker 2: But that was that was the thing I wanted to
Speaker 2: say my whole point earlier talking about DNA. Yeah, if
Speaker 2: we can prove a serial killer is you know, this
Speaker 2: serial killer from the nineteen seventies or sixties by taking
Speaker 2: a tiny sample from a cup, then if there's ever
Speaker 2: an identity issue like this in the future, this should
Speaker 2: be standard practice. Oh my god, just take a DNA test.
Speaker 2: You're done, and now we can prove everybody is who
Speaker 2: they say they are. But bending, I guess do you have.
Speaker 4: Any thoughts on do you think he was treated that
Speaker 4: way because he was unhoused and because and there were
Speaker 4: like do you think they were just people didn't take
Speaker 4: him seriously From the start because of socioeconomic things, like
Speaker 4: are these the kinds of options that are only going
Speaker 4: to be available to someone making a claim like this
Speaker 4: that they seem like they're part of society in a
Speaker 4: way that is acceptable to the person. I don't know,
Speaker 4: like what broke down? Why didn't that happen?
Speaker 3: What Matt is proposing, absolutely, the serial killer think is
Speaker 3: a good comparison, because serial killers who get away for
Speaker 3: a long time to pray on disadvantaged or discriminated groups
Speaker 3: of in society. So this is part of the problem,
Speaker 3: the fact that this person was unhoused. This doesn't really
Speaker 3: happen as often to people who are better prepared or
Speaker 3: have the means to protect themselves. Again, as you said, Nol,
Speaker 3: this is probably an episode in the future. You know.
Speaker 4: It's interesting because we don't know much about what happened
Speaker 4: between when the two met the Hot Dogs stand in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty eight and twenty nineteen. That's a long time.
Speaker 4: We know that the real Woods was unhoused in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 4: but what happened, what transpired between nineteen eighty eight and
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen, and how did he go all of that
Speaker 4: time without realizing his life had been secretly kind of
Speaker 4: co opted by this other person, and is that what
Speaker 4: led to him becoming unhoused. It's a lot of questions
Speaker 4: and then been last thing, I guess. Another one of
Speaker 4: my questions was why isn't there a procedure in place
Speaker 4: like what mattison and where there's instantly DNA tests we
Speaker 4: don't need to let let's just go ahead and do it.
Speaker 4: Is it just because there's just no it hasn't been
Speaker 4: established as a stand operating procedure. Yeah.
Speaker 3: As I said earlier, the techniques DNA gathering did not
Speaker 3: exist at the time of the original identity theft, and
Speaker 3: the feedback loop is created by the paperwork, which further
Speaker 3: reinforces the crime.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Yes, I agree with you, and excellent points
Speaker 4: from both of you. I think we'll put a pin
Speaker 4: in this one for now, take a quick break here,
Speaker 4: a word from our sponsor, and then come back with
Speaker 4: more strange news.
Speaker 3: We have returned, guys, if it's all right. There are
Speaker 3: a couple of short stories that I would like to
Speaker 3: share because I'm not sure how much news they're making
Speaker 3: out in the West. The first is a solid update
Speaker 3: good news in the continuing story of East Palestine, which
Speaker 3: we covered in an episode in the past. Remember the
Speaker 3: train derailment.
Speaker 2: Absolutely and you travel out there.
Speaker 3: Ben, That's true, man, that's true. Norfolk Southern has agreed
Speaker 3: to pay six hundred million dollars in a class action
Speaker 3: lawsuit for the train derailment in Ohio. This comes to
Speaker 3: us by Josh Funk, writing for AP News just yesterday
Speaker 3: as we we're recording April tenth. At first, this sounds
Speaker 3: like good news, right, Like Norfolk Southern is a huge company.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of sound and fury about this
Speaker 3: when it occurred, and everyone sort of took as a
Speaker 3: given that there would not be serious consequences, I guess,
Speaker 3: because remember the it sort of faded from the news
Speaker 3: for a while. We were we were one of the
Speaker 3: few groups outside of Ohio that was still talking about
Speaker 3: outside of Ohio and outside of a courtroom, I should say, right,
Speaker 3: we're not in court yet.
Speaker 2: Well, in the houses of everybody who was affected, I'm
Speaker 2: sure they were talking about it plenty, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's a great pointment. And what you need to know, folks,
Speaker 3: is that there was a freight train with almost one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty like one hundred and forty nine cars
Speaker 3: that derailed and just riddled the area with toxic chemicals
Speaker 3: vinyl chloride in particular, there were mass evacuations of a
Speaker 3: relatively small town and much later. Still right now in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, people are suffering from respiratory problems, unexplained rashes,
Speaker 3: nose bleeds, And think about that. How scary it is
Speaker 3: to just have nose bleeds and you go to a
Speaker 3: doctor and the doctor says, I can write you a
Speaker 3: prescription for Kleenex. I don't know if there's a difference
Speaker 3: between over the counter Cleenex.
Speaker 4: I want to know. I want, I want to get out.
Speaker 4: That's what's I guarantee.
Speaker 3: Want too good? Yeah, yeah, the money's using it's like, uh,
Speaker 3: it's like quintuple ply or something. Right, So this agreement
Speaker 3: is something that Norfolk Southern came to on its own.
Speaker 3: And if the quarter proves, what they're going to do
Speaker 3: is why it may not be all good news. Is
Speaker 3: they're going to wipe out all the class action claims
Speaker 3: within a twenty mile radius of the derailment. And six
Speaker 3: undred million dollars is a lot to us. It's not
Speaker 3: a ton to it's not a ton to a train company. Right,
Speaker 3: They already spent one point one billion in response to
Speaker 3: this derailment. They have sent like one hundred and four
Speaker 3: million in direct aid to residents of this town. And
Speaker 3: they made it. I feel like they kind of made
Speaker 3: a deal with US government because the Biden administration never
Speaker 3: declared it a disaster at all.
Speaker 2: Wow, and it was very much was it means hard
Speaker 2: to believe that it wasable.
Speaker 4: We saw the pictures. I mean, if that's not a disaster,
Speaker 4: what is right exactly?
Speaker 3: And this is something you know, This is again just
Speaker 3: a brief follow up in our sort of interim cavalcade
Speaker 3: of strange news. We do hope that the residents of
Speaker 3: East Palestine and all those affected do get justice. We
Speaker 3: know again, if you listen back to our previous episode,
Speaker 3: we were very careful to say the bad guys here
Speaker 3: are not the people who are operating the trains. There's
Speaker 3: still a huge debate right now over whether or not
Speaker 3: train companies should be required to have a decent amount
Speaker 3: of staff on a train, which is bizarro land crazy.
Speaker 3: I don't really have a segue other than saying, you know,
Speaker 3: we do keep an eye on stories, folks, and we
Speaker 3: do we we do want to share the updates when
Speaker 3: they are obstinative, and here's hoping this will lead to
Speaker 3: I don't know, greater justice. It just seems weird to
Speaker 3: basically bribe you pay your way out of class action
Speaker 3: lawsuits and we'll see whether the courts approved.
Speaker 4: Is it just kind of like that's the implication there,
Speaker 4: or I guess, I mean anyone can pay themselves out
Speaker 4: of an a lawsuit by just like you know, settle settling,
Speaker 4: And I guess I've always found that to be a
Speaker 4: little troubling because it allows people to not be held accountable,
Speaker 4: especially when there are large corporations whose actions affect not
Speaker 4: only the people who are part of a class action,
Speaker 4: but actions moving forward. And it doesn't really ever seem
Speaker 4: there are any substantive regulatory what's the word I'm looking for,
Speaker 4: I guess consequences outside of just them paying a bunch
Speaker 4: of money that they really have to burn.
Speaker 3: Lobbies and companies often have more money than victims. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: not just in the US, but in the world. There
Speaker 3: is another national emergency, not in the United States. But
Speaker 3: this story is so crazy, I just wanted to I
Speaker 3: wanted to bring it to like, because I'm not sure
Speaker 3: how much attention it's getting in the West. Did you
Speaker 3: guys hear about the drug crisis in Sierra Leone? No?
Speaker 3: I have not. All right, Well, apparently there is a
Speaker 3: huge national panic because people with drug addiction issues have
Speaker 3: resorted to becoming resurrection men. They are digging up graves
Speaker 3: to quote get high on drugs made from human bones.
Speaker 4: WHOA, this reminds me of some of that crazy There
Speaker 4: are some like really gnarly drugs in Russia, like crocodile
Speaker 4: and like jenkam and things like that that were made
Speaker 4: from human excrement or something like that. How do you
Speaker 4: how does one make drugs out of human bones?
Speaker 3: It's a good question. So this goes to let's start
Speaker 3: with let's start with the contact. A little while back,
Speaker 3: earlier this year, Tommy Trenchard, a journalist for MPR, wrote
Speaker 3: a good piece of primer about the drug that was
Speaker 3: taking over as Sierra Leone, which is called cush with
Speaker 3: a K. It's a synthetic cannabinoid. It also can contain acetone, tramadol, formulin,
Speaker 3: and even fittanol, a couple of nasty, nasty substances all
Speaker 3: mixed together. And it was a hit because it was
Speaker 3: very accessible, and it was very cheap in comparison to
Speaker 3: other things. And I think when we name some of
Speaker 3: those drugs, that sounds like a wallop, right, Like, why
Speaker 3: would you take all of that at once?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just want to just not feel anything.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: I imagine if you took it one time. I'm assuming
Speaker 2: there's a very specific series of effects that all of
Speaker 2: those in a concoction would give you. It would be
Speaker 2: something you probably chase overall.
Speaker 3: It appears to be a depressant. This is something folks,
Speaker 3: if you live on the West coast right in because
Speaker 3: you love your first hand experiences, you can sometimes see
Speaker 3: the lean that people have in San Francisco and places
Speaker 3: like that when they are under the influence of very
Speaker 3: very powerful drugs.
Speaker 2: I thought you were at first thing. I thought you're
Speaker 2: talking about Lean as in the Yeah, like.
Speaker 3: Lean is also a problem?
Speaker 4: Is that leans slight?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: But lean is itself. I think the name probably derives
Speaker 4: from that very thing that you're talking about, because it
Speaker 4: does make you like, have these nods anything that's got
Speaker 4: opioid content. And I believe this is what lean is,
Speaker 4: like a mixture of I believe sprite and like codeine
Speaker 4: or something along those lines. So, yeahthe get that lean
Speaker 4: you're talking about for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so we know that kush has this depressive effect.
Speaker 3: It's similar to how sometimes people resort to opioids or
Speaker 3: heroin right to feel a little bit of relief, to
Speaker 3: fill that float. Cush, however, can have really bad effects
Speaker 3: on your immune system. You'll get sores. People say their
Speaker 3: feet will swell, their lower legs will swell. They often
Speaker 3: get a pounding sensation in their head, pain in their
Speaker 3: necks and joints. And that's not even getting into the liver,
Speaker 3: kidney and respiratory consequences of this. It's tough, right and
Speaker 3: a lot of people in Sierra Leone already struggle with poverty,
Speaker 3: with corruption, all this other stuff. Here is where we
Speaker 3: get to the very strange, i mean, still heartbreaking, even weirder,
Speaker 3: more grulish story. If we go to int n DTV World,
Speaker 3: we'll see an article by Bavia Sukja just from yesterday,
Speaker 3: April eleventh. This psychoactive depressant also according to the streets,
Speaker 3: contains parts from human bones and by this point it's
Speaker 3: been around for about six years.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 3: The drug itself can give you a high that lasts
Speaker 3: several hours and they're cutting the drug with human bones.
Speaker 3: So drug dealers who are running out of the actual
Speaker 3: cush supply are putting this into their product. And the
Speaker 3: thing is maybe the most heartbreaking thing. This doesn't actually
Speaker 3: do anything. The human bone ingredient is essentially a placebo.
Speaker 4: Yeah, where are they getting all this from? Are they
Speaker 4: robbing crematoriums? Like are there? You said, they're like digging
Speaker 4: this up? Or why? But why this versus baby laxative?
Speaker 4: It doesn't seem very tenable or or or functional.
Speaker 3: Well, you can get the bones for free instead of
Speaker 3: buying the baby lax Oh jeesus.
Speaker 4: That's once again the banality of evil is just that
Speaker 4: dirt simple, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say, I would say it's grave dirt simple.
Speaker 3: It's a it's again the motive involved and looking into this.
Speaker 3: You know, oftentimes we know that in the West stories
Speaker 3: about countries in the African continent they have a weird perspective.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they can feel like fear mongering or condescending. But
Speaker 3: we looked into this and it is real. There are
Speaker 3: very few opportunities or institutions for drug rehab services in
Speaker 3: this part of the world, and according to the few
Speaker 3: we can find, like the National Psychiatric Teaching Hospital. They're
Speaker 3: in Freetown. They are inundated with push users, like there
Speaker 3: is money to be made for the drug dealers, and
Speaker 3: we don't know how far this goes. I mean, what
Speaker 3: are you going to do? Set up security guards for
Speaker 3: every graveyard? What's the answer?
Speaker 2: Could be a job creator if you wanted to be,
Speaker 2: if you have.
Speaker 3: So so, we don't want to leave you like that.
Speaker 3: We have we have enough time for one more, which
Speaker 3: is a little bit weirder, which I think will be
Speaker 3: interesting to you. Guys, you're both parents. What would you
Speaker 3: do if iHeart came to you and said, hey, we'll
Speaker 3: give you an extra thirty grand to have another kid.
Speaker 2: I would start the process immediately, find someone, say do
Speaker 2: you want a baby in you?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Okay, do you want a baby in you?
Speaker 4: Bro? Do you know how? Do not recall how? I mean,
Speaker 4: maybe you're just a little younger, but fifteen years of
Speaker 4: paying for stuff, that thirty thousand they're going to cover it? Man,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I don't I don't think it's.
Speaker 3: Oh it's twenty two thousand for the first one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for the first one. I'm good.
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, I'll take it, and I just like being
Speaker 2: a dad.
Speaker 4: That's great, but we want to and I just feel like
Speaker 4: that's quite the low ball offer, is all I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So here's why I'm asking. In some nations, as we know,
Speaker 3: birth rates are in sharp decline, a lot of what
Speaker 3: we'll call developed nations, especially in the East Asian sphere
Speaker 3: right Japan. Our story here takes place in South Korea.
Speaker 3: There are South Korean companies, private industry, to be clear,
Speaker 3: not the government, that are offering their employees up to
Speaker 3: seventy five grand US equivalent to have babies because the
Speaker 3: birth rate decline in South Korea is reaching a crisis point. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: one of them's an underwear company.
Speaker 2: So how hard is it to become a South Korean citizen?
Speaker 3: Oh it's a game of rock paper scissors. Three out
Speaker 3: of five.
Speaker 4: Dang.
Speaker 2: I guess I wouldn't count either.
Speaker 3: So here's the announcement. And this is just one example
Speaker 3: of one company. On Thursday, a company named Song Bungle
Speaker 3: Underwear Manufacturers said, look, if you work for us, we'll
Speaker 3: give you twenty two four hundred dollars for your first child.
Speaker 3: We'll give you another twenty two four hundred dollars for
Speaker 3: a second child, and if you have a third child,
Speaker 3: we'll give you thirty grand pulling a lot of this
Speaker 3: from the Korea Herald. So all told, all told, that's
Speaker 3: nothing to sneeze at. That's that's a pretty hefty amount
Speaker 3: of money. But to your point, Noel, children can be
Speaker 3: expensive right anywhere in the world.
Speaker 4: I guess that is understand Okay, So it's about raising
Speaker 4: the population, don't we typically want to lower the population.
Speaker 2: Well generally in some places, yes, But maybe.
Speaker 4: I'm not proposing you know what I'm saying. Just you know,
Speaker 4: population tends to be out of control in a lot
Speaker 4: of parts of the world.
Speaker 2: Well, we are all economic batteries, right, and ultimately we
Speaker 2: are workers, right, individual human being. Each child becomes a worker,
Speaker 2: a cog in the economy, which is why countries individually
Speaker 2: are probably interested in keeping their populations up, which is
Speaker 2: I think what we're dealing with here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the decline in birth rate, which again is becoming
Speaker 3: increasingly common in what we would call developed countries, is
Speaker 3: an economic danger, especially when you confront things like the
Speaker 3: cyclical aging of generations. Right there, are going the US
Speaker 3: is going to deal with this problem as well as
Speaker 3: a massive amount of people retire, there are fewer children
Speaker 3: being born. It's society is kind of a Ponzi scheme
Speaker 3: to be honest, Like, you have to have more people
Speaker 3: created to maintain the institutions, laws and mores that sustain
Speaker 3: the previous or existing population.
Speaker 2: So if the military has been you've got to maintain
Speaker 2: the military.
Speaker 3: You got to maintain the military's map. And so in
Speaker 3: South Korea this is part of a larger issue. Fewer
Speaker 3: people are getting married in general or even co parenting
Speaker 3: because they feel that the environment in which they live
Speaker 3: is so hyper competitive, so unwelcoming, Like they're asking with
Speaker 3: a lot of validity, have a child in this.
Speaker 2: Economy idiocracy, idiocracy and intuocracy exactly.
Speaker 3: And there was another previous previous statement. The actual seventy
Speaker 3: five grand per child comes from a Buyoung group, which
Speaker 3: is a construction firm and soul and part of our
Speaker 3: pronunciation here, folks, it appears that they'll give you a
Speaker 3: seventy grand per kid.
Speaker 4: That's more like it.
Speaker 3: So you know, if you're done manufacturing underwear, go have
Speaker 3: kids with the construction firm.
Speaker 2: Right, I just got a vision. Sorry to take it
Speaker 2: back to the military because construction thing is really interesting,
Speaker 2: like that company specifically wanting babies that in eighteen years
Speaker 2: or whatever, it can work for them, just thinking about
Speaker 2: militaries in the future that will give you money to
Speaker 2: have a child that and sign a contract that when
Speaker 2: that child reaches a certain age, he or she signs
Speaker 2: up to military service or whatever. You know. PMC it
Speaker 2: is private military company and they even they even as
Speaker 2: part of the deal, you get certain like gene therapies,
Speaker 2: right and drug therapies, super soldiers.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, uh take care, take
Speaker 3: care of the kid until it's eighteen. It's a fairytale level.
Speaker 4: There was a sketch on I want to say it
Speaker 4: was Mister Show in like a later season where Bob
Speaker 4: Oden Kirk Ye had to be Kirk. He plays like
Speaker 4: a like a basketball recruiter, but he's going to like
Speaker 4: elementary schools and even like kindergartens and stuff, and he
Speaker 4: like starting them real young.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: And he's he always brings his famous potato soup to
Speaker 4: give to the parent. I brought you some potato soup.
Speaker 4: And he's just talking about watching these little kids on
Speaker 4: the playground and yeah, that one right there, is going
Speaker 4: to be a bruiser.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry. That just made me giggle. It's what you're describing.
Speaker 4: Mat is horrifying and dystopian, af and plausible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially as the future, especially as time when's odd,
Speaker 3: last player I want to make before a move odd
Speaker 3: this kind of stuff, some sort of support system is necessary.
Speaker 3: National fertility rates are a subject of intensive study. If
Speaker 3: you are for any entire country tuning in if you are,
Speaker 3: if you are trying to maintain your population, not grow it,
Speaker 3: just not have a population collapse. You need a fertility
Speaker 3: rate of about two point one right now, right now,
Speaker 3: the national as of a few years ago, excuse me,
Speaker 3: a national fertility rate of South Korea was zero point
Speaker 3: seven eight. Over time, this can lead to population collapse,
Speaker 3: which is dangerous. This is an existential crisis for a
Speaker 3: country when it dips below a certain point. But the
Speaker 3: question is, and folks, let us know your thoughts. The
Speaker 3: question is, how do you fix this stuff? Do you
Speaker 3: try to give people a lump sum per child that
Speaker 3: doesn't seem economically feasible. Do you crack some faustian bargain?
Speaker 3: What sort of incentives should there be? Do you increase
Speaker 3: immigration right. Let us know. Can't we hear your thoughts? Conspiracy?
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio dot Com one eight three three std WYTK. We're
Speaker 3: going to pause for word from our sponsor. We'll be
Speaker 3: back with a little bit more strange news.
Speaker 2: And we are back. Guys. You in for a little heist.
Speaker 2: I'm always enterial heist, all right. We are headed to
Speaker 2: San Fernando Valley in California, and we're going to the
Speaker 2: Garda World to take the five.
Speaker 4: You take the five to the four five?
Speaker 2: Oh shoot, I don't know what would I take. I
Speaker 2: would take four or five, I think let's see, yeah,
Speaker 2: I would definitely. No, I would get on the five,
Speaker 2: I think probably, and then heads straight up to uh
Speaker 2: Silmar and to the guard World. I'd definitely get off
Speaker 2: on San Fernando Road my brother and take it right
Speaker 2: on Roxford Street because that's where this Guard World cash
Speaker 2: vault facility is that we're headed to.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: This is one of, if not the largest cash heist
Speaker 2: ever in Los Angeles, guys, as much as thirty million
Speaker 2: dollars we're stolen on Easter Sunday. Now, when I tell you,
Speaker 2: guys that a hole was punched in this concrete stone,
Speaker 2: if you will facility, and thirty million dollars of cash
Speaker 2: was emerged from that hole in the wall on Easter Sunday.
Speaker 2: That's feeling a little religious, don't you think a little biblical?
Speaker 2: A little like on the third day this cash emerged. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm getting a little weird with it, but no, I
Speaker 2: like it. A thirty million, there's a three in there.
Speaker 2: Two whatever numerology, let's let's do it. Okay. So so
Speaker 2: this was Sunday, March thirty first, twenty twenty four. This
Speaker 2: is an overnight heist and it occurred on that Sunday
Speaker 2: night and then it wasn't discovered until the next Monday
Speaker 2: morning when workers at the facility entered in their facility
Speaker 2: and opened the vault and found that it was empty.
Speaker 2: Now here's why it's crazy, guys. This is this is
Speaker 2: Garda World.
Speaker 4: This is a.
Speaker 2: Huge company that handles I mean, thirty million dollars there alone.
Speaker 2: Should let you know that they handle a ton of money.
Speaker 2: But that was just one vault where the cash was
Speaker 2: taken from. This is a huge facility that holds all
Speaker 2: kinds of valuables in cash, and somebody got in there
Speaker 2: without tripping an alarm. That alerted anyone like think about
Speaker 2: that that.
Speaker 4: Should be they must have lowered themselves down from the
Speaker 4: ceiling and had those sweet, you know, little smoke things
Speaker 4: that show where all the laser trip wires are. I
Speaker 4: don't how do you do this outside?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we know the step by steps or.
Speaker 2: Do we don't know the steps? We don't know the
Speaker 2: step by steps. We know will rebelieve at least according
Speaker 2: to some people, you know, it's that whole Like a
Speaker 2: person was quoted that was familiar with the investigation, but
Speaker 2: it was not unable to say anything publicly, so you
Speaker 2: can't name who they are. But allegedly, according to the
Speaker 2: information we have, this facility was entered from the ceiling
Speaker 2: from the roof and they did kind of maybe what
Speaker 2: you're talking about, No, lowered down into the vault. And
Speaker 2: then there was another hole that was discovered by a
Speaker 2: local chopper that was going around for news and looking
Speaker 2: at it. There's a hole on the side of the
Speaker 2: facility that it is currently unknown if it had anything
Speaker 2: to do with the heist.
Speaker 3: Did you see what Sorry, I don't want to be
Speaker 3: tough on the people here unfairly, but did you see
Speaker 3: that kind of slap dash job of fixing the hole
Speaker 3: on the ground.
Speaker 2: It puts a flyboard on that sucker and then like
Speaker 2: shoved it in with a lip too. By form, it
Speaker 2: looks like.
Speaker 3: My drunk uncle just said, well, I'm not paying somebody
Speaker 3: to fix this hole.
Speaker 2: Well, it's an active investigation with the FBI involved in
Speaker 2: the LAPD, so I'm assuming they're not really worried about
Speaker 2: anybody coming back into the vault.
Speaker 3: Like all of my drunk uncle's YARDWORKI the LAPD is there,
Speaker 3: So okay, So this is this is insane. I think
Speaker 3: we were all reading about this separately. First off, check
Speaker 3: out our earlier brain Stuff episode on why you should
Speaker 3: never rob a bank. You will not get as much
Speaker 3: money as you think this.
Speaker 2: As you get thirty million dollars.
Speaker 3: And it's not a bank. This is Hollywood level heisting.
Speaker 3: Part of why Matt, I would imagine I was talking
Speaker 3: with some folks about this, I would imagine that part
Speaker 3: of the reason there is not more detail yet is
Speaker 3: because everybody who works for this institution is getting looked
Speaker 3: into pretty diligently.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. The first comment I wrote in my
Speaker 2: notes here was it's a terrible time to be an
Speaker 2: employee of the Garda World Cash Vault in Silmar, California.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I imagine the scrutiny turning people's lives upside down. Probably.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. There are so few individuals that would have
Speaker 2: known exactly how much money or even remotely how much
Speaker 2: money was in that vault at that time. Because this
Speaker 2: Garda World facility they offer cash vault services, which generally
Speaker 2: means you can go to their website, by the way,
Speaker 2: cash dot g ar da dot com to read all
Speaker 2: about their services. Get it and and this is money
Speaker 2: that in and out of this facility, right, This is
Speaker 2: for companies often that have to keep cash on hand
Speaker 2: to operate, banks that have to have a bunch of
Speaker 2: money on hand to operate all kinds of organizations that
Speaker 2: will have, you know, let's say a couple maybe one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars at your local banks branch. So this
Speaker 2: facility has a bunch of cash at times, but not
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Somebody knew when it was going to be in that
Speaker 2: vault overnight.
Speaker 3: And they knew the staffing cycles too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they knew staffing cycles, and they knew how
Speaker 2: to get in through the roof. Is somebody had access
Speaker 2: to lightar. I guess if they weren't, if it wasn't
Speaker 2: an inside job, somebody like saw through the facility or
Speaker 2: got a hold of a blueprint Hollywood style and made
Speaker 2: this thing happen to it.
Speaker 3: You just don't break Look, with a facility like this,
Speaker 3: you don't improvise, you don't just bring in you know.
Speaker 3: These guys were not and it was more than one person.
Speaker 3: They were not just driving by and said, hey, man,
Speaker 3: when's the last time we did something fun and spontaneous activity?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, everyone is saying that it was some kind
Speaker 2: of sophisticated crew Ocean's eleven style, if you will. There
Speaker 2: were probably individual intros for each of the characters, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a mortage. There were several twists. Also, if
Speaker 3: you're a fan of sketch comedy, this reminds me of
Speaker 3: a group called Chris and Jack. I say, a group.
Speaker 3: It's these two guys, Chris and Jack doing an amazing
Speaker 3: sketch comedy. I think they're gonna blow up pretty soon.
Speaker 3: They have this run of heist sketches, Matt that you
Speaker 3: would love. I'm I'm gonna send some to the group
Speaker 3: after this. But yes, I'm picturing a cartoonish level agglomeration
Speaker 3: of heist. I hope that they got people who are
Speaker 3: each part of the crew because of one specific speciality,
Speaker 3: you know, and that's I want one guy who's like, man,
Speaker 3: I'll know a lot about heist, but I've worked in
Speaker 3: roofing for you know, fifty years.
Speaker 2: You're the perfect man for the job. Come on in,
Speaker 2: all right, Freddy, let's go. But they're the one of
Speaker 2: the craziest things here, guys. There was a single alarm
Speaker 2: that was tripped in the facility when they entered. In
Speaker 2: the way they did. That alarm, though, was not connected
Speaker 2: up to reach the LAPD or the local sheriff's office
Speaker 2: or you know, the county police the way most do.
Speaker 2: When you when you get an alarm system in your house,
Speaker 2: like if let's say you use simply Safe, which is
Speaker 2: you know, an organization that has sponsored us before you.
Speaker 2: If you have that system active in your home, you're
Speaker 2: not required to, I guess, but it is highly encouraged
Speaker 2: to connect that system up directly to your local police
Speaker 2: department so that if that alarm goes off, they're immediately alerted.
Speaker 2: You don't even have to be there, and they will
Speaker 2: send somebody out to your house to like check up,
Speaker 2: make sure everything's okay.
Speaker 3: Because otherwise it's reduced to like a neighborhood alert or
Speaker 3: a or your audible disincentive.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you might get an alert on your phone
Speaker 2: that says, hey, someone's broken into your house. Congratulations, it
Speaker 2: finally happens. Uh sorry, but you know.
Speaker 3: Hartle World doesn't answer their emails or check their text
Speaker 3: on Easter right.
Speaker 2: Well, well yeah, but it makes me think again when
Speaker 2: you're talking about an inside job kind of thing. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you could maybe disconnect that specific alarm
Speaker 2: from that, you know, that larger system.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean tough, but if you have some sort
Speaker 4: of hacking capabilities and are able to infiltrate the system,
Speaker 4: I bet you there would be some way you could
Speaker 4: do it by rerouting something within the software. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm just kind of talking out loud. Usually when they
Speaker 4: do it in movies, somebody snips something, you know, outside,
Speaker 4: usually in like a breaker box as or a panel
Speaker 4: or something. But as far as like we've talked about
Speaker 4: the dangers of being in a smart home situation where
Speaker 4: everything is Internet connected, because if it's connected to the Internet,
Speaker 4: then people can access it as well. So I just
Speaker 4: got to wonder if there's a way of doing that virtually.
Speaker 3: Like this is okay, if I understand this correctly, Matt,
Speaker 3: this is right now the largest full cash heist right
Speaker 3: in the history of Los Angeles, which is saying something
Speaker 3: because there have been other other folks who heild that
Speaker 3: record before.
Speaker 2: But yes, nineteen ninety seven, nineteen point nine million dollars
Speaker 2: from another like armored cash facility, this time a dunbar
Speaker 2: armored facility.
Speaker 3: The question is, at this point, it's pretty likely that
Speaker 3: someone's going to get caught or at least implicated in this,
Speaker 3: because even to the point about using system admin privileges
Speaker 3: to like re route something or snipping snipping a cable
Speaker 3: seems easier or seems smarter, because I feel like if
Speaker 3: you are working at the if you're working in it
Speaker 3: or any software affiliated thing, you just lost a month
Speaker 3: of work. You're going to be hanging out with the
Speaker 3: LAPD for a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a messy situation there. So our hearts go
Speaker 2: out to all of the Garter World cash employees there
Speaker 2: in Silmar, all the ones who were not involved in
Speaker 2: the cash hes. Yeah, but there's a whole other thing
Speaker 2: in here I wanted to talk about, but we don't
Speaker 2: have to. It was something that I think we mentioned,
Speaker 2: at least to ourselves. I don't think we ever put
Speaker 2: it on Mike. But there was a there was a
Speaker 2: heist of a truck. No, we did talk about it,
Speaker 2: the heist of a truck that was carrying a bunch
Speaker 2: of jewels. Do you remember we talked about this from
Speaker 2: the Gem Show?
Speaker 4: Wasn't it from a Gem sactly exactly? And while the
Speaker 4: guys were going in to take a leak at a
Speaker 4: truck stop, which did kind of make it feel like
Speaker 4: a crime of opportunity as opposed to this one that
Speaker 4: you're talking about today.
Speaker 3: You guys, when is the last time we did something
Speaker 3: spontitious and fun? That's my favorite. I what a heartwork. Also,
Speaker 3: there were no injuries, none that we know of. There
Speaker 3: were no fatalities.
Speaker 2: But that one occurred a while back. You guys are
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, and that case is still open. Nobody
Speaker 2: has been charged, nothing has been found. It's just like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I guess that one hundred million dollars worth of jewels
Speaker 2: is gone now. But in this case there's still you know,
Speaker 2: It's only been what ten or eleven days since this
Speaker 2: heist as the day were recording on Wednesday, April tenth,
Speaker 2: So who knows, But I guess weirdly, like, nice work, guys,
Speaker 2: because you were you've pulled it off.
Speaker 3: So far that there were no known injuries or fatalities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, nobody got hurt. And then the insurance companies
Speaker 2: get involved, I guess.
Speaker 3: Which is weird because there's a story we didn't get to.
Speaker 3: I had learned recently that there is a growing trend
Speaker 3: of private insurance companies seen drones to keep an eye
Speaker 3: on like property values and assessments and stuff. So maybe
Speaker 3: maybe the I mean the insurance companies will be left
Speaker 3: holding the bag on this one, right, they have to
Speaker 3: pay the piper here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, did you have you guys noticed the Afflect drones?
Speaker 2: Have you seen the Afflect drones yet? No, the ones
Speaker 2: that follow your car as they like fly above your
Speaker 2: car as the highway.
Speaker 4: Like the duck.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, the insurance companies will follow your car to
Speaker 2: ensure that you are you are driving safely and maintaining
Speaker 2: correct speed and all this stuff. That don't that just guys, Hey,
Speaker 2: everyone listening, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3: I really believe you. If you are weird enough, if
Speaker 3: you don't look closely enough, you can mistake them for birds,
Speaker 3: because those AFFLEC drones do have feathers ducks. And look,
Speaker 3: we're not ornithologists, but some stuff is just true.
Speaker 4: I'm quite the contrary. I am whatever the opposite of
Speaker 4: an ornithologist is, That's what I am.
Speaker 3: We got to get in front of the email here. Yes,
Speaker 3: there have been experiments that are true where people are
Speaker 3: taking dead bird bodies and using them as drones. They're
Speaker 3: putting drone technology. That is true.
Speaker 2: Oh birds and their you know realness. That's it's been
Speaker 2: an age old thing.
Speaker 3: Give me a bird anytime over the sinastagia pokes out, man,
Speaker 3: anytime over a truckloaded jewels. Count me out for that one.
Speaker 3: I'll be I'll do the keyboard stuff for that one.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think you should have been. Hey, guys,
Speaker 2: have we done a full Cicadas episode? I know we
Speaker 2: did three three o one, but did we deal a
Speaker 2: full episode on Cicadas?
Speaker 4: We have not.
Speaker 3: Cicada thirty three oh one. Is it was an online
Speaker 3: cryptic kind of possibly ar game. We talked in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one. I think about another brood of cicadas, and
Speaker 3: just recently there was something making the news and it's
Speaker 3: sad hilarious.
Speaker 4: He's talking about those horny dead mofos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hyper sexual quote zombie cicadas. I don't think we
Speaker 2: have time to really unpack this. This is why I'm
Speaker 2: saying I kind of want to just talk about hyper
Speaker 2: sexual zombie cicadas for a full forty five minutes with y'all,
Speaker 2: but just because I think it would be fun. Sure,
Speaker 2: But you know, I guess let's just put this out there.
Speaker 2: You can find articles on this right now. CBS News
Speaker 2: is Kaitlin o'caine wrote about this specifically on April fifth,
Speaker 2: and it's talking about these weird std fungus layden cicadas
Speaker 2: that are going to be emerging as part of these
Speaker 2: two major broods, Brood nineteen and Brewed thirteen. They're coming
Speaker 2: out in like the southeast here in Georgia, and then
Speaker 2: I think the other one is coming out in like
Speaker 2: a bit north from here. But these are two massive
Speaker 2: broods of cicadas that come out every thirteen or seventeen years,
Speaker 2: and unfortunately, when they go into the ground, they burrow
Speaker 2: down there for all that time, thirteen or seventeen years.
Speaker 2: They they get infected with this fungus and it's on
Speaker 2: the back like the sexual parts of the cicadas, and
Speaker 2: it basically it basically takes off a piece of their
Speaker 2: body and then a plug, what is called a fungal
Speaker 2: plug emerges. This white looking, nasty, mushroom like thing comes out.
Speaker 2: And this fungus has amphetamines that get released into the
Speaker 2: cicada system, which make it, I guess. According to this article,
Speaker 2: it says it gives them stamina, which you know, we're
Speaker 2: not talking sexual here. It just means they're excited about
Speaker 2: life in a weird way.
Speaker 3: It does make them hypersexual. That's the reason they're getting
Speaker 3: up in the first place. Massive Papora cicadena I think
Speaker 3: it's called.
Speaker 2: Yes, massive propora cicadeena, which as a baby but yeah,
Speaker 2: massive masso po massospora.
Speaker 3: Sic adina. Yeah. Shout out to Miles jack Over on
Speaker 3: Daily's Eeichgeist. Miles hit me to this. The last time
Speaker 3: these two broods emerged at once, it was the year
Speaker 3: of the Louisiana purchase. So this is like a big deal,
Speaker 3: like a total total eclipse of the suden. But it's
Speaker 3: like a fungus. But I don't know, man, it's gonna
Speaker 3: be weird. We live in Georgia, so should we stay
Speaker 3: inside or what do you think?
Speaker 2: Well, just so the cicada's emerging is one thing on
Speaker 2: its own, right, and that is one like, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be loud. These things can hurt your hearing.
Speaker 2: They are so loud, which is already horrifying. And they're
Speaker 2: going to be in your backyard if you live in
Speaker 2: the southeast, and a lot of them just bad. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because they're they're going to It is mating times. They
Speaker 2: come out, they emerge to mate, and then they go
Speaker 2: back in the earth and they hang out for a while.
Speaker 2: They come back and they just get it on again.
Speaker 2: But with this STD like fungus, and it's STD like
Speaker 2: because it's spread in the same way because they don't
Speaker 2: actually have sexual organs anymore if they are infected, so
Speaker 2: they cannot mate, but they rub the fungal plugs what
Speaker 2: once were their mating bits on each other and it
Speaker 2: spreads the fungus and now more and more of them
Speaker 2: have it. It is really it's messed up too. It
Speaker 2: makes the males that are infected do the mating rituals
Speaker 2: that the females do in order to get other males
Speaker 2: to come down and again just rub up against the fungus.
Speaker 2: So it is like it's it reminds me of some
Speaker 2: of these minds controlling other funguses that we've talked about
Speaker 2: in the past, Like.
Speaker 4: Last of Us Man is exactly that's what Last of
Speaker 4: a Zombies were based on.
Speaker 2: But like, yeah, it's really creepy. The scariest thing is
Speaker 2: something that has not been proven yet but is a possibility.
Speaker 2: In the same way when we talked about the zombie
Speaker 2: deer disease pretty recently on the show. It is not zoonotic.
Speaker 2: It is not jumped from cicada to other things yet,
Speaker 2: specifically humans, not jumped to us yet. But there are
Speaker 2: there are a ton of other species of various shapes
Speaker 2: and sizes and forms that eat these cicadas, like as
Speaker 2: a oh my gosh, it is buffet time, y'all, let's
Speaker 2: eat cicadas. Look how many there are. They are going
Speaker 2: to be ingesting this fungus, and it is unknown how
Speaker 2: it is going to affect certain species.
Speaker 3: We could say it's a non zero chance technically true,
Speaker 3: but that's always The risk with so fungus is amazing.
Speaker 3: You've heard of previous episodes on it. Humans still have
Speaker 3: a lot to learn about fungus and the question of
Speaker 3: whether these so this thing probably will not will not
Speaker 3: traverse the zoonotic gap just because it is so specifically
Speaker 3: adapted to the cicada. How Ever, there's always a chance.
Speaker 2: Oh agreed that this whole concept of spending thirteen or
Speaker 2: seventeen years underground in the soil is what I think
Speaker 2: you're talking about, so specific to that life cycle of
Speaker 2: being underground, dormant, away from basically everything but the soil
Speaker 2: and the biological material of that cicada. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's going to It won't work well on a creature
Speaker 2: that's in the sunlight, you know, most of the time.
Speaker 2: All Right, Well, hey, that's all I have. Guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you are a cicada hearing this, check your
Speaker 3: check your back end. How's your butt? Yeah, let us know,
Speaker 3: check your butts. And we also want to know, want
Speaker 3: to know your reaction to these high stories. Unfortunately speak
Speaker 3: of a heist. A lot of people have encountered identity
Speaker 3: theft in some way. Last, but not least, please don't
Speaker 3: dig up people to do to use their bodies in drugs.
Speaker 2: For the moment.
Speaker 4: God where I think we're agreed on at least that, folks,
Speaker 4: and don't steal people's identities and ruin their lives just
Speaker 4: for yucks. It's a jerk move.
Speaker 3: Or for profit, you know what I mean. It's okay
Speaker 3: to be yourself, is what we're saying, and we can't
Speaker 3: wait to hear from you. Folks. Join us, give us
Speaker 3: leads for new episodes in the future. Join the show
Speaker 3: every week where we do a listener mail program. How
Speaker 3: can I find you? You might be asking. Well, unlike
Speaker 3: the people who pulled an amazing heist in Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: we try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 4: That's right. You can find us in the handle Conspiracy Stuff,
Speaker 4: where we exist on YouTube, where our video content exists,
Speaker 4: rolling out every single week. Where's George Washington going this week?
Speaker 4: Find out soon? We've got another one coming that might
Speaker 4: be I think one of my favorites. You can also
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Speaker 4: and on x FKA, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. We're
Speaker 4: Conspiracy Stuff Show.
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