Welcome back to Cool People Who Did cool stuff, the show in which I declare myself the arbiter of what counts as cool. This is part two of our two part series in Honor of the Steel Day, which is a mediocre prison break about how to get the funk out of prison if you don't want to be in prison. Normally, here's where I tell you where you have to go back and listen to part one. But let's be honest, this week's episodes are basically like a listical and podcast form, so I don't know, go back and listen to part one because it's cool, not because you like me too. For context for today, my guest is the esteemable Christopher Wong, best known, at least on Twitter for having particularly negative feelings about the institution of Ice. How are you doing today? Pretty good? Still extremely don't like ice. It is a it is a bat is a bat is a bad institution. All the other institution that do similar things are also bad. Uh. Please stop telling me that I shouldn't just say abolish ice, and that I should in fact say abolished border. That is my stated position. I have said so multiple times. Please stop. Only Twitter would come up with the idea that someone says I don't like X thing, and then people say we'll do therefore like why things like no, that's my reference. Um and also with us is our esteemable producer Sophie fun Fact, I tried to call the show esteemable persons whose actions were also esteemable, but Sophie said it wasn't allowed. How are you doing to do Sophie, why do you hate the word esteemable? I mean, I just didn't think that a podcast I was producing deserves such a title because I I, you know, my, my, my, my lack of of of of self esteem here on that impostor syndrome. Yeah, I mean, but it is really fun to say. Can you say that one more time? Yes, estimable persons whose actions were also esteemable. I. I do think we should scrap the current title and just switched to that because it is very fun to stay. That's when we do a live show on an airship. There we go. Problem solved. We're saving it for a special occasion. Yeah, so uh something with a transition to about special occasions about breaking out of prison. Anyway, last episode we talked about how sometimes you can just you know, leave prison by walking out the door. Or have friends storm the place. But let's say you you tried that, or just don't have enough friends and for some reason they didn't let you go. What now you can think about most jails is having four layers of security or so you get your physical cell right. Sometimes you're allowed out of it, sometimes you're not. Sometimes you have to start there. Pick the lock, break down the door, break the walls, dig through the floor, get out the window, crawl through the ventilation. Then there's the cell block or pot like the area you're often allowed in as a prisoner, and there are blocked doors throughout the prison to prevent free mobility by prisoners, so similar techniques would apply here. Break the wall, squeeze out through tiny spaces like ventilation, get access to areas you're not allowed in, get smuggled out with the laundry or the trash except round. Then you've got fences, usually multiple concrete walls or chain like fences with razor wire on top, razor wire in the space between, and a guard in the tower watching ready to shoot you. Some people climate, some people cut it. Some people dig under it while the guard has their back turned or is a sleep or got bribed or I guess, just do it really fast and hope for the best. I don't know a lot of Joe break stories involved prisoners picking up really nasty wounds on the way from razor wire or from the movie that stuff I had, I had to. I worked a job where there was like spared like razor wire around and one of the things when the co workers told me is that that stuff has like it's coated in anti clotting agents, so when when it cuts wounds, don't clot because again, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the people who use this stuff are evil, like on a level that he's like just unfathomable. So, yeah, the wire, the wire is trying to murder you. It is not just trying to murder you by the fact that it's sharp, is trying to murder you by making you bleed the death. So yeah, it's careful. Also, I had a bunch of it almost fall on me, which is great and fun and not do I do not sometimes blink my eyes and have images if they raise your wire fence descending towards my head. It's great. I'm glad you don't have that. That would sound really bad if you did know them I'm sorry, but you've got one last layer of security, or just the guards patrolling the outside, usually in a vehicle. And we've all played video games or seeing a crime film, so you know that what you do is you wait until they're not looking and then get at all. And add to all of this surveillance cameras, video analytics systems that automatically look for people, motion detectors, thermal cameras, various alarms whenever doors are open, der fences are cut in some countries, people have to work tracking collars or anklets. There's anti tunneling sensors, all kinds of ship. But all this technology is still controlled by humans, and humans are controlled by emotions and desires, so an awful lot of jail breaks involve help from the outside, usually by bribery or occasionally by ideologically a lot end cards. And then you've got a fifth layer of security, which we talked a bit about before, which is, even though I said there was only four, I'm just adding a fifth one. And the fifth layer is how fucking hard they try to catch you. But some people trying to bypass as much security as possible by digging a tunnel, why go over or through a wall when you can just go under it. Honestly, I'm shocked by how often on this show I've already found myself telling stories about people who dig tunnels. It's like, I never would have thought minecraft would not only be an analogy for crime, but also the practice of crime. I've lost track, this is what I'm saying, Like tunnel count, I've lost track, Like genuinely, yeah, I I honestly don't remember. I feel like a decent number of our episodes have involved tunnels. Should we have named the podcast tunnel Talk because now m M yeah, I feel I feel I feel like that that's that's where you go with like, that's where you go with the shirts. It's cool people who did cool things. Tunnel Talk, which just two people podcasting for it and definitely isn't a sex podcast. Okay anyway, Okay, So sometimes prisoners or their outside help dig tunnels. And let me tell you about a tunnel guy, Yeah, Moises texts. Arena da Silva is a tunnel guy in Brazil. In two thousand one, he was serving a twenty five years sentence for robbery in Crandiro Penitentiary and South Paulo, Brazil and Karen Dierro wasn't a nice place. It's actually been destroyed now because of how not nice it was. Probably before Moises was there, but I'm not sure. Actually have no way of knowing. They could. I tried finding out, but I think it's before he got there. There was a prison riot. Cops stormed the place and gunned down a hundred and eleven prisoners. Jesus, yeah, that was That was a lot of people's reaction. Mascrow was so bad that some of the cops involved even eventually got convicted of murder, although it took twenty years and they still haven't gone to prison for it was was that tring thegittatorship or was that just like after the dictatorship? Because I do not know enough about the history of Brazil to a pine on this. I'm sorry. It's the kind of thing I don't want to be wrong about, and someone knows the answer and it's not me. So it's so bad that the cops even eventually get convicted twenty years later. And then the guy in charge of it, Uberaton Gimmas, his conviction was overturned though, because and I quote he was just following orders. He was so completely just following orders that he used the motto A hundred and eleven when he ran for political office Jesus Christ, and he won, so some anti prison activists just murdered him. Fair Yeah, that rules. You didn't have to run for office on the basis of the fact that you murdered a bunch of prisoners. In two thousands six, he gets shot to death in his own apartment. Anyway. I don't know if Moyses was there during the massacre, but either way, he didn't like being there, so he and literally more than a hundred other prisoners just tunneled out. Uh, there's frustratingly a little information about this tunnel. I want to know more about this tunnel, but there's more information about his later tunnels because he's a tunnel guy. Yes, I like how often during this research I end up with like this guy is just like I'm a tunnel guy. I do crime with tunnels, and the other people are like, I'm a helicopter gal. I do crime with helicopters. Like people pick a stick and they stick with it, you know. Yeah, look look you when you when you when you start a life of crime, you get assigned to class totally yeah, helicopter tunnel. What's up? Oh, I'm I'm probably a helicopter gal. What about you? I mean, yeah, helicopter gal the way, how about you? I'm definitely tunnels, Like frying doesn't get along with me. Great, alright, tunnel er, you're a level We probably all gouts started level one. We don't want to know a whole a long time. Margaret and I are just just like jumping out of helicopters with like nothing but like one rope. That's where we're at. But yeah, my dad was a pilot, and he would always say this thing that I think it supposed to be from like world were two bombers or something about like people who drop out of helicopters or people trobut of planes, which is like, why would you jump out of a perfectly good aircraft. It's always been my line on parach shooting, like I'm going to be one of those, like I'm gonna wait till I'm like seventy and then I'm gonna parachute because I'm like at the moment that it's not that I think I would die if I did it. I think that I would have so much anxiety around doing it that it would not necessarily be worth it, but not nearly as much as anxiety as I would have in a very small tunnel helicopter. So Moises gets out in two thousand one with his tunnel, and he likes crime, so he goes back to doing it. In October two four eight robbers broke through into the bathroom of a money transport business out of a four d foot tunnel from a nearby They stormed into the main room wearing monkey and clown masks. Wielding a K forty seven. They forced seventy five workers who were in their Italian money for a t m S to instead of putting the money into the a t m S, to put it into bags, and then they made their way out with one point six million dollars worth of reis, which is the Brazilian currency that well, I guess, I don't know. I guess it's exchange of that feels like that feels like an amount of money that is like not large enough. Well you know who else thought it wasn't enough money? Moises? It's right, what're you gonna say? Just because for all the work, is what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, because like today you you can still you can still like thirty million dollars by like editing a jpeg and trading for a money like they they dug like a four ft tunnel. They had end well, last had a case. They get like one point six million dollars like that is oh we turned on that. I'm sad, but uh they go back out to the tunnel. They only spend ten minutes inside the building. Considered a warm up, considered a test, okay, a proof of concept. For his next trick, he performs the largest bank robbery in the Western Hemisphere has ever seen, and it's the fourth or so largest bank robbery in world history. Most of the larger ones come later. Actually, this guy was in the Guinness Book of World Records for a while for this next one, the two thousand five Banco Central burglary and Fortlas Brazil. I've heard of this, this guy with this guy, I thought he was that's awesome. Yeah, this is a massive fucking conspiracy and that a ton of people are involved. Not like hush hush, but like actually the problem is not very hush hush anyway. It's both how they managed to steal so much money and probably why most of the bank robbers did so poorly as a result. But we'll get to that. Two different gangs from two different cities work together on this job. First, they secured investment from a fucking mayor. Of course. Former Mayor Antonio Arguay noon as Vieira was sorry, don't speak Portuguese, was the former mayor of the municipality of Boa Viegam, Recife, which is a rich beachfront neighborhood in the city of Recife. He invested a hundred thousand riya's in exchange for a promise of four million riyays. They rented a house and they set up a fake landscaping business. Their theoretically selling plants, grass and fake grass, but they didn't actually sell anything. They didn't really do the homework for a really good fake front. But the proprietor, you gotta sell some crash to the community. I know, what if someone was like, I need my need my lawn. Um. But the proprietor of the business was a decent enough guy. Everyone knew he wasn't a local. His accent was from somewhere south, but he hung out the local bar and he would ocasionally buy everyone around, so people liked him and the gang spent three months tunneling. Finally we get some details about the tunnel. It was a crawler. That's how I'm going to classify this type of tunnel, because even though I'm a helicopter gal, I still care about the type of tunnels. It was twenty eight inches high. This is why I'm a helicopter gal. Oh yeah, that's that's that's a small tunnel. Yeah. It is twenty eight inches high, and it is thirteen ft below the bank vault, and it's two and sixty two ft long. There's wood panels and plastic sheeting and claud in the walls, and there's electric lights. And no one heard them tunneling because it went right under a busy road. Nice. I know. The whole thing is so claustrophobic. Yeah, Like, how how are they doing with air? I'm not sure because almost every other escape tunnel that I've ever read about they specifically talk about the ventilation. Yeah, this seems like I don't know. Yeah, it's you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I guess I'm really not trying to make any statement about how you should. I'm not a I'm a level zero tunnel learned. What would I know I guess. I guess I can advance a level one by saying, don't suffocate the death in your tunnel. Excellent, excellent, everyone gets XP on this show. I appreciate this, okay. So they they pop up under the floor of the vault and then they cut their way through fucking three point five feet of concrete and steel. Oh my god, which again, how do they do that without oxygen? There must have been ventilation. Maybe they're wearing oxygens. Well where you can't fit an oxygen tank like in that spot, carry it after you. I don't know. They probably ventilated it. Nothing sounds fun here um, And they're probably an inside person in the bank. Because the cameras and the motion detectors in the vault weren't operating. So they broke into five containers holding me as notes for inspection and basically these were the the used bills that the inspectors were going to go through and put some of them back into circulation and destroy the damaged ones. Then they go back out the way they came, no shots fired, none the wiser. They made off with around million dollars worth of you that that's a respectable hole. Yeah, is a perfect crime. Except really really not. The heist went great, the rest did not go great. Someone left a prepaid phone card in the rented house by accident. Oh no, and the person who opened the landscaping business, I guess did it under his real name. Why guys, come on. In the end, a hundred and nineteen people get convicted something like that. Every again, every article is different. And also they kept catching people over and overgund even after fell out of the news cycle. And the whole thing is just swimming in corruption. The civil police force, which are like the regional FBI basically um is the best analogy. They skimmed off millions and kickbacks. Probably they took the majority of the money are still because the conspiracy was so large and so many people knew who was involved, other criminals started kidnapping the bank robbers and their families and held them for like huge ransoms basically like, oh, you got one point five million dollars, I got your kid. I would like one point five million dollars please. People started talking about the money like it was cursed, and I don't know many it was. But my my personal theory is that too many crooks spoil the broth. Yeah, that's a hundred that that is that is too large conspiracy, Like, yeah, you gotta you gotta keep your numbers down. There's just too many people, you know. So Moises was the last get caught. He spent four years on the run. He had surgery to thin his neck to change his appearance, and he has about hair transplants right amazing, you know, and he kind of does most things right. He changes his sim card constantly, he moves all the time. But basically being on the run is wearing him down, and he was actually considering turning himself in just like the week before he gets finally caught. I think in two thousand nine. I didn't write it down, but I think it was two thousand nine. And when he was finally coughed, he said, quote, you took too long. I thought you guys had given up on me. Of the two point five million reas he had taken his payment, around one point five million of it had been extorted away by the civil police. He actually tried to I know, yeah, he'll rob your own bank. Come on, yeah, totally, this is my robbed this first. So he tried to retire from crime, saying he was focusing on raising his son with socially relevant values whatever that means. I couldn't figure out exactly what values he was he was going for. I liked because I kind of like this guy. I like to imagine the best possible values, you know. And his sentence was reduced to fourteen years and so he should be getting out any year now unless he gets himself out sooner. Yeah, we never know. I know that that is a man who loves his tunnels. I know, and you and else likes being underground potatoes. That's true. Potatoes like being underground, well known product that I is. Also, it can't really be a service. I was trying to figure out how to make it a service. But no, just a product, but one of the things that supports to show. I like when people feed me French fries. Yeah, I was gonna say, somebody mashing a potato for you, slicing seasoning, Yeah, beating potatoes yours. Ads, we're back from those ads that were all for potatoes. And if you heard any ads for anything else, you should complain. You can find me on Twitter to complain at at I right, okay, yes, so let's move on to the best form of escape. Helicopters. Yes, The first time I researched this topic was like fifteen years ago. For reasons. It was for a zine I was going to make gazine, and then I didn't make a scene because I figured it would look really bad in court. Um, and here I am making this podcast episode. But in the end I decided, Okay, basically this is fifteen years ago. I was looking at it. I was like, well, the only way that people break out of prison anymore is helicopter, and that's that's actually a bit of an exaggeration, but it's definitely true that, especially in Europe, helicopters are one of the main ways to go. The classic technique is that your spouse or partner or whoever else rents a helicopter tour and then hijacks the pilot or takes flying lessons and hijacks the instructor or. And this one's putting in the most work, but it levels you up faster, uh straight up learns how to fly a helicopter, and then steals a helicopter. These are the main ways that people go. And then you land and you know, let your your person on the helicopter in the way you fly and then you usually both get caught and now you're both in prison. Although I will get to a successful helicopter escape he who's still on the run today. So the most prolific helicopter escape guy is a French robber named Pascal Payer, who I'm reasonably sure is tied in with organized crime, though of course newspapers tend to only hint at that kind of thing. He was born in nineteen sixty three. His pastimes included robbing and getting arrested. Ah he was convicted of assault in conspiracy and in n seven he robbed an armored car and killed a guard. Or maybe someone else in his crew killed a guard. Either way, the robbery didn't go so well. He got caught about a year later and he was sent to prison. So two and a half years later, some of his friends showed up with a hijacked helicopter and he and another prisoner climbed aboard and went off to freedom. But our man Pascal, he was not content to just stay free himself because some of his his buddies, probably mafia buddies, were in jail. So in two thousand three, after two years as a fugitive, he organizes another helicopter break. This time it's not for himself, it's for three other prisoners. He hovered over the roof and the three prisoners climbed aboard. They all got caught three weeks later, while staying at some like super fancy law pretending to be athletes training for a bathlon, they were like, Oh, where can we go hide out in the mountains or whatever and like just like be bougie for a while, and they do, and then they all get caught. So now he's in jail and he's Mr. Helicopter escaped guy. So they start transferring him constantly. That's the thing I guess about being known for prison breaks. He gets transferred nine times in thirty months. Wow. And he spends most of his time in solitary confinement under particular scrutiny because like, hey, Mr helicopter escape guy, we're onto you. And he's like, what, I'm not trying to escape by helicopter. That would just be wild. But he's got friends and he has a classy sense of timing, so he waits for but steal day. On this but still day in two thousands seven, three masked people show up at a helicopter tours place with guns, they grab a pilot. They don't even bother like rent the place first. I think I think they just like walk in. They're like, wow, yeah, that's kind of mean, Like at least at least give at least give the poor, the poor helicopter tour guide some money. Yeah, I mean, like, honestly, I don't want to conjecture about this particular helicopter escape guy, but I sometimes think that they're like, Okay, we are a quote you can't see my air quotes. We are quote kid snapping you. But whatever. So within five minutes they show up at the fucking maximum security prison, showing up just during shift change while the guards are distracted. That's how clockwork. They are nice. That's that's that's impressive, I know. And since the pilot was a hostage, the guards couldn't like just shoot at the helicopter, which is this sort of unfortunate advantage of that particular method. So Pascal's friends use gas powered saws to solve the hinges off all the steel doors. That's sweet. And they break Pascal out out of like solitary confinement with and he's barefoot and in his underwear. He runs out into the helicopter and off they go, the whole thing five minutes. Wow. Yeah, I guess, I guess they found a crew of of of professional of professional jailbreakers. Like that is some There's a well oiled machine. Yeah, anything is possible if you set your mind to it, except staying free. That's apparently very hard. Yeah. Um, they land on the coast, the pilot was released unharmed, and Pascal gets caught a few months later in Spain, just north of Barcelona, and he's in prison again now, and for some weird reason, the state won't disclose exactly which prison. Yeah, you know, like, yeah, but he's not the best helicopter jail breaker. He has done it the most at three times, twice for himself and once for someone else. He's at three. But organized crime is not actually very cool. Thank you mafia for taking something that should be cool, like crime and making something just just another shitty power structure. Yeah, it's very sad, like it's crime. How how do you make crime bad? You know, I mean, you know, there's lots of ways to do it, but yeah, but it turns out crying legality is entirely divorced for morality, so crime is not inherently good and following the law is not it anyway. But the coolest helicopter jailbreaker is named Vasilius Paleokostas. Like most people aren't even in this guy's league. He has two nicknames. One is Greek robin Hood and one is the Uncatchable Yeah, because he's still Greece's most wanted criminal free and he's a fucking anarchist. Yeah. So he was born in nineteen sixty six in a tiny village in central Greece called mostro fielt Though, which I do not know to pronounce, and I actually get really annoyed when host like story, I don't know to pronounce that, and here I am doing it. But I'm genuinely sorry. And if you have an issue with that, you can complain on Twitter at I write, okay. Yeah. And so he was poor. He was like, I we don't own shoes level poor. His older brother Nikos used to carry him on his back to get to school when the snow is too deep for like the little kid to get there. And in that part of the country, banditry was sort of socially acceptable, like if you were stilling to feed the people you loved because Greece is kind of awesome. And when he was thirteen, his family moved to a nearby town, Tracla, and he worked at a cheese factory for two years. Not a cheesecake factory. At cheese factory. Oh good to know, very big, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, I know that's what you were thinking. Um. And so he hated making his bosses rich for some weird reason, so he fucked off and he and his older brother started doing petty crime. Like Originally they were just like stealing video recorders, but soon they met a mentor and they moved up in the world and they were really freaking smart about it. Their mentor was a guy with a nickname The Artist, who I think maybe once broke out of prison by making a fake gun in the prison wood shop that was quote loaded with batteries so it looked like it was loaded when he pointed at guard spaces amazing. Yeah. I couldn't find a ton of details about that one. Um. The Sylist has probably got in a whole episode at some point. Um. Anyway, their first robbery Vasilus and Nicos and the Artist. They they put a giant industrial elevant in front of the doors of the police station so that the cops can't get out of the police station. And then Vassilla's climbs on top a nearby hill and fires a rifle into the air to get the cops attention while his brother and friend were robbing the jewelry store. And so the cops are trying to break out of prison, I mean, sorry, not break out prison, trying to break out of their own police station. And they finally do they get in their cars, but whoops, someone left all these spikes all over the road and all the cops blow their tires, and so begins their spree. And the cops couldn't catch them because the brothers gave all their money to the poor, so everyone fucking loved them, so no one would help the cops. The first prison break that I found was okay. So so older brother Nikos was in jail, and Silius was like, there's a wall that's got to come down. What kind of thing can I use to bring down a wall? Christopher, if you had to bring down a prison wall, what sort of object would you use? The thing that I beat he left to mind, is one of those craze of the wrecking ball on it. Okay, Okay, that's a good that's a good choice, Sophie. What would you pick machete? Okay, um, Vasilias didn't either of these things. Vascilla stole a fucking tank. Yeah wow, I'm like, what are rookies? We are? You know, well, if you're if you're if you're dropping out of a helicopter, machette looks good in your teeth, So I like where you're going, Oh, fair enough. Whereas like helicopter tank, It's like I've seen it in movies. But yeah, it's a little overdone, you know. Okay, So so he steals a tank and he drives it through the wall. Unfortunately, this is not one of his successful escape attempts. He gets caught, and he spends nearly a year in prison until he ties bed sheets together into a rope and climbs over the prison wall and gets out. Oh my god, that's such a classic. I know, it's a classic for a reason. Yeah. The brothers stage the largest bank robbery in Greek history up until that point, and while the cops were on their way, the brothers threw money into the street to cause havoc. While they like both caused havoc and redistributed wealth, so cool. And then they stole someone's car to get away, and then later they polished the car and returned it to the owner with a hundred fifty thousand drachmas, which is like seven or something under the carpet. So this is why everyone loves them. Later, someone interviews the artist when he's in jail and they're like, did they really do all that Robin hood ship that people say? And the artist is like, no, seriously, Like I'm paraphrasing very badly here, but like, no, seriously. Sometimes we would be in a car chase running from the cops and they'd stopped to give money to people on the street. People. Ever, I am not aware of people who are cooler than them. Um okay, So I don't wanna tell you everything got up to because seriously, I want to do a whole episode. And also I have read his autobiography yet, because he just came out with an autobiography because he's still free and on the run. How how did he I guess, I guess it's grease, Like that's that's that's the thing you can do. Increase. It's like talk to people and be like, yo, here's my autobiography. Yeah. Well, actually everyone loves him, so I'm sure there's people who know where he is, but the anarchists increase. They don't like talking to the police much. Yeah, who what do I guess? I know? Um? Okay, So I'm mostly working off I haven't read his autography, and I'm mostly working off a bunch of different articles, including a rather good article that I would recommend from the BBC by Jeff mash. So they kidnapped a couple of industrialists. They redistribute millions of dollars. The facilisk gets caught after he crashes his car high out of his mind. Uh. He starts planning an escape and in two thousand three, the guards realize he's got a detailed plan of the jail in his cell, so off he goes to maximum security. In maximum security, gets a cell mate, an Albanian hitman named al qutt Rose, and they take a couple of weeks to plan an escape. When he was free, Vassillas spurged, splurged on only one item for himself with all of his riches, like he had only one like fancy thing for himself, which is a gold crucifix, And they didn't take it from him in jail. I guess, I guess because it was a religious symbol. It was also a handcuff key. Um. But the warden of the jail, who went by the nickname, check this out. It's super original. The warden, Wow, I know. The warden knew about the crucifix and the escape plans, and he also knew about the hidden file that Vassilius had squirreled away in a packet of spaghetti. So the warden, because I swear to God, reality better fiction than fiction, decides to let Vassilus file his way through the bars and into the hallway and then personally confronts him and beats the ship out of him. Oh no, because he's basically like, fuck this fake robin hood fucker who thinks he's better than us, or, for a non paraphrased quote, as quoted in that PBC article, he used poverty as an excuse to become a criminal. He started to believe this robin hood myth, and for that reason he like personally jumped him, says another failed Joe break from Basilus. But the thing is his brother wasn't in prison, and Vasilius had once driven a tank into prison to free Nikos. So Nikos wasn't going to leave him to languish. So in June two thousand six, Nicos rented a helicopter tour then he hijacked it with a handgun and a grenade, and he made the pilot fly to the maximum security prison the Siluss so mate al Quette later said that they thought about hiring a pilot instead, but they realized that a scared pilot was prepared to take more risks than a hired pilot. Anyway, the prison guards assumed it was some higher up showing up to do a spot inspection when they saw the helicopter landing. So it wasn't until the helicopter lands and the pilot screams they have guns and grenades that the guards realized what was happening in the dust kicked up by the spinning blaze of a Silus and al Quett climbed aboard the helicopter and off they go. They land in a quiet cemetery north of town. They give the higlot some worry beads for his trouble, uh, and then they funk off on stolen motorcycles. Nice if he had retired at this point, right he'd already have done enough and maybe a fucking legend he did not retire. Oh my god, alct Nikos. They get caught pretty quick, So actually the escape is kind of a wash. Alcotts stays in prison and one brother swaps out with the other. Vasillis goes back to criming. He kidnapped a billionaire named George Malona's and was super nice to him and then ransom him for twelve million euros. And then after the kidnapping, for whatever reason, Vasillias didn't like move out of the house that he kept Georgia, so he gets caught. Mm hmmm. I don't know, I know, although I will say I feel like it's impressive that he was able to do because I feel like that there's like a point in history where it gets way harder to do like both hijackings and like ransoming people. Yeah, and so I'm really impressive he's doing this in like the two thousand's because that's like that's postline eleven. That's like that that that that's post like hyper militarization of everything. This is this is impressed. This is like, this is this is this is even more impressive than he would have been him doing the same stuff like the sixties. Totally, this is amazing, totally, and I my my personal guess is that it's like the large, very strong social movement that is allowing him to get away with it. But I'm not I'm not sure. So he gets caught, he gets sent back to jail, and the cops gloated about it in the press and they're like, hey, we have had the last laugh. Spoiler alert, they do not have the last laugh. Knock on wood. So okay. He has this highly publicized trial in two thousand nine and farmers and peasants and anarchists are like chanting outside, like on the verge of rioty in the entire time. When Vasilius is sentenced, al Quett's girlfriend Seula Mitropia sobs like theatrically and then gives him a huge hug and then slips a watch into his pocket and in proper spy movie form, it's a cell phone watch. And then to the court, Vassilius is like, oh no, you got me with an imaginary hand the forehead, uh, or his direct quote, I played and lost. The police are victorious, which was all in act, uh, And he's he's in jail, and then I think the day before sentencing, he gets a call on his like super cool spy watch from Sula saying it's time. Then she fucking hijacks a helicopter by getting on board once she'd rented, pulling out a grenade and saying, and I fucking quote, we're going to pick up the kids, Cora Dallas prison or you die. So a helicopter hovers over the yard and throws down a ladder vassiliusent Alqutt climb aboard al Quette, you know, like saved by his girlfriend. Al Qett fights back a guard with a kebab skewer at some point because the cops are not falling. I know, the cops are not falling for the like, oh, it might be an inspection thing this time, they're like they're like on the fucking lookout. It's like that sign. It's like, have you seen this man and it's a helicopter. If you see this man, shoot at it with guns, please, So they do. They shoot at it with MP five machine guns, even even with the hostage in it. Cops gonna cop I don't know, I mean yeah, yeah, like I it's eternally haunted by that picture of the cops trying to stop the guy in the FedEx truck and they have twelve human shields. Oh god, I haven't seen that. Oh, it's really bad. They're just like like they're just they're they're they're standing behind like a bunch of people who are in their cars, and they're using they're using like the people in the cars as cover. Wait, it's the cops, are yeah, the cops are yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think they shot the hostages too, because it's the police. Yeah, that's great. Great people. Yeah, So cops fire on the helicopter with their MP five sub machine guns and they sever the fuel line and the gas tank. There's a fucking YouTube video of it because the neighbor films it from a rooftop and you can hear the inmates cheering, and you can hear the guards firing and the robbers. Actually, I forgot to mention this earlier. The robbers take pride in the fact that through all of this they've never shot anybody, Like, no one ever gets hurt in their fucking bank robberies. And so even though they're heavily armed during this and they're being fired upon, they don't fire back. Yeah, that's like that's wild. Like I feel like, I don't know, like because like there are a lot of sort of like like revolutionary groups throughout like the seventies in particular in the eighties who like do this kind of stuff and they always shoot people. They almost always like shoot civilians too, And it's like that is that is incredibly impressive? Yeah, yeah, they they they fucking take it seriously. They're like, you know, they're not just like, wouldn't it be fun to do some crime? I guess we should throw some politics in, you know. I think they're like, all right, Robin Hood. Now it's Robin Hood. Yeah. So the three of them they get away and they rob a bank shortly after that, and al Cat and Suler caught thirteen years later, a Solus still free. At least three more bank robberies have been attributed to him, and there were three bank robberies that netted about half a million euros, and since no one was harmed in any of the actions, the police assume it was him. That's the best. Yeah, So there's the best helicopter folks. And all three of them are are honorary helicopter people as far as I'm concerned. Yeah, if you. And it's also he's a tank guy, the only tank. He's not a tank. He's a tank guy. Yeah, you know, we're we're look, we're we're taking the term tanky back. None of you are cool enough for it. You could only be a tanking. Now if if you personally rem a tank into a prison and break your friend out or your brother out. Sorry, them's the rules, all right. So there's more ways to break people out of prison. One is that okay, so if you plant a bunch of potatoes around the whole edge of the prison and then they break the walls down, that would slowly and ineffectively. Yeah no, no, that's a that's not a very good method. Hey, so sometimes you gotta play the long game. Yeah that's true. That's true. Well regardless, here are some advertisers, and we are back. Another way to break people out of prison is to start when they're not in prison, that is to say, while they're off at some work detail or being transported like to another prison, or to and from court, or to and from the hospital. So I've got two stories for you here, and first we'll start back in the day with one of the most important musicians in history. Blues and folk musician known named Huddy William lad Better far better known by his prison nickname Lead Belly. Like a lot of people, especially poor black people, born in the nineteenth century, There's some dispute about his actual date of birth, but probably January, probably eight or eighty nine. He's born in Louisiana and he grows up in Texas. He's a traveling musician in the auts and the teens, and in nineteen fifteen he gets into a bar fight and pistol whips some guy and he was sentenced to thirty days hard labor on chain gang. The thing as though led Belly didn't really want to do it for some odd reason. Yeah who who who would object to being forced to be on a chain gang? Inconceivable? I know? And so uh. Instead of being on the chain gang, he just ran, like he just outran the dogs that were chasing him somehow threw them off his scent and just got cleaned the funk away, changed his name, laid low, and paused his music career. Nice His freedom only lasted two years because in nineteen seventeen he was arguing with some relative named will Stafford about something probably a woman, and Stafford pulled a gun on him, so led Belly shot him in the head and killed him. Oh my god. Whether this is murder or not, it seems like a reasonable case for self defense here. But he gets convicted and sentenced to thirty years. So but but they don't they don't get they don't get him for the original crime though. Oh the thing, the chain gang escape or whatever. I'm not sure. I think it's chain gang. Um, he only got sence the thirty days, so it might be that just like the prison. Maybe it's just like the murder thing so far eclipses that, like you ran away from the chain gang. Yeah, I don't know. But his next escape from prison was more poetic, and I guess in a literal sense. In prison, Lead Belly wrote a song called Please Pardon Me, and he started singing it every time Governor pat Neff visited the prison. The chorus was quote, if I had you, Governor Nef, like you got me, I'd wake up in the morning and I'd set you free. Oh and it worked. Wait, that's incredible. Governor pardoned him. So five years later he's back in jail. No, no, this time, the story goes he came up on some men singing a black spiritual incorrectly. It was like, I think it was both black and white people and they were singing a black spiritual incorrectly. So he joins in and corrects them, and a white singer kicked him. So it letally pulled a knife and cut the dude up. I don't know if he killed him or not. I think not. He gets four years in jail, That's why I think not. Or he's in jail for four years. That's not what he gets sentenced to. He's in jail for four years. And then a musicologist is like, this guy is the most important repository of music in the US right now, Like he is the knowledge of folk music in this country. You actually have to let him go, and it worked. Look, the music is an incredibly powerful force, and I I have previously not believed this, but I have now seen this guy get out of prison twice by the power of music, and I now believe in it. Yeah, totally. But the problem is lead belly. The thing about lead belly and stabbing dudes. So no. So now it's nine years later, it's nine lead belly is fifty one years old and he goes back to prison for a maybe self defense stabbing, Like, just don't fucking cross Lead Belly. Yeah, I didn't even include the time. I forgot to mention this earlier. The first time he's in prison, besides the Shane Gang, some guy stabs him in the neck. So Lead Belly takes the guy's knife away and then stabs the guy right back. That's the hardest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, don't funk with lead Belly is where the blues come from. No one else getting sucking anyway. So this time it's his last stint in jail, and he served six months of his year since and his released for good behavior, and he fucking ruled. In his fifties, he tried to sign up in World War Two because he hated the Nazis and loved like he wanted to defend Jewish people. Uh, they didn't take him. I think he wrote a song against Hitler and in defensive Jews. He died at a round sixty. Again, no one really knows when he was born, so no one really knows how old he was when he died. He dies of lou Garrig's disease. After completely revolutionizing music and stabbing multiple people, some of whom deserved it and some of whom I couldn't promise you, And his count is hard to figure out. His prison break count Okay, so he definitely it definitely counts when he ran away. I think it counts when he sang his way out. Yeah that if that counts? Okay. Does famousing your way out count? Ah? I don't know. I don't. I I'm inclined to say no because I think, like, well, I mean, okay, I would say the specific aspect of the musicologist makes me more inclined to count it that it would be if it was just like a famous person being released because they're famous, Because this is like, this is like he has developed the key, he has such like a power mastery of the deep lure of folk music that that that that they had to let him go. All right. It's basically like, my skill level is so high. I put so many points into this that like, yeah, okay, okay, um, so he's at least two and a half and then his final one, his good behavior in his way out I believe does not count. But I would I would argue most of the time, the smartest way to get out of prison. Yeah, all right, So I'm gonna tell you about another prisoner who decided to get the funk out, well technically not in prison. And this guy is a Puerto Rican independence activist named William Morales. And when I say activist, I mean bomb maker. But what the funk you want when someone you know, when you're when your country is under ford occupation, do you want? So? William Morales is born in nineteen fifty and he grew up in East East Harlem. He went to the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. He got a degree in film studies, and then in nineteen seventy he was part of the f a l N. The Where's Armadest de Libery on this you know? Puerto ric Kanya an underground paramilitary group that blew ship up and occasionally people and then takes credit for it. That's their basic strategy. They wanted independence and communism for Puerto Rico. They were active from three They set off more than thirty bombs. I'm not really convinced that the seventies movements were right in their hypothesis. If we said a bunch of bombs, the results will be good. Yeah, I don't think it ever worked. Anywhere, like at least not in the US. Yeah. Um, but you can't say they didn't give it their whole, that's true. They did set off a lot of bombs. So William Morales he's a bomb guy. He's also a joint liberal organizations and sliphing off money to support clandestine's actions kind of guy. And he worked with a charity called the National Commission on Hispanic Affairs, which was funded by the Episcopalian Church, and he helped siphon off their money to fund the f A l NDS actions, which is kind of genius. But he's mostly a bomb guy. And the thing about being a bomb guy is that bombs are kind of volatile. Yeah. One day he's hanging out in his flatting Queens, just doing his thing, and you know, by doing his thing, I mean building a bomb. July twelve, he's working on the timer and he sucks it up, like he shaves down the minute hand on the clock instead of the hour hand. So instead of the bomb going off in several hours, where you know, would blow up what he wants to blow up, it blows up in several minutes while he's holding it, blows up in his hands, which he loses both of his hands and an I and his jaws all fractured and fucked up. It doesn't go well for him. He comes to and he starts trying to destroy all the evidence in the apartment, and he figures, all right, look, I'm I'm fucked. So he decides to set a trap for the cops who are coming, and he tries to fill his apartment with gas from the stove, but the firefighters show up first. They noticed the gas. They break out the windows to ventilate the room. And no one else gets blown up that day besides him, and he goes off to Joel, well, actually goes off to the hospital, because this guy is seriously fucked up by the explosion. But his attorneys are all movement lawyers. One day, I'm gonna do a whole episode about movement lawyers in the seventies because they were just fucking hardcore. One of them files a lawsuit about how the police had illegally confiscated their client's fingers. He gets found guilty, which fair, I mean, you know he was doing the thing. He gets senced to ninety nine years. He makes some statement, I'm not really sure to whom too, Maybe to the court or to the press or I don't know, maybe it's apocryphal, but he says, they're not going to hold me forever. He gets sent to the prison ward of Bellevue General Hospital on the third floor. But the cool thing about being part of a movement is you're not alone. So probably one of the physicians in the hospital is a communist, and that communist helps her buddy out, and an f a l and fugitive rents an apartment across from the hospital to do surveillance on the place and draw maps. And there's rumors that his movement lawyer uh smuggled him in some wire cutters by strapping them to her thigh under her skirt. But since she has one never been charged of this to denies it, and three is still alive, I will go ahead and say she did not do it. So he somehow ends up with wire cutters or bowlt cutters or whatever, fourteen inch bowl cutters. They're kind of in between two sizes, and he fucking cuts through the grate over the window even though he has no hands. That's incredibly impressive, how like, So he lashes the bolt cutters to his arms. Oh my god, he then makes a rope out of elastic medical bandages. Below the window, there's a waiting crowd from the F A l N and their buddies in the May nineteen Communist Organization and the Black Liberation Army the ladder. One of them stole a cherry picker from their work to help with the escape. Amazing, Yeah, which is is honestly about as cool as a tank in its own way, you know. So out the window he goes down the rope. One story says he felt twenty ft in the process onto an air Could I promised you an air conditioner? Yeah, so either way, he gets out. His buddies help him get to Mexico, where he lives safely for years. Then the Mexican police catch up with him. There's a firefight. Some of his friends as well as an arresting officer are killed. He's captured. Mexico refuses to extradite him to the US, even though they have an extradition treaty with US, and after five years in prison, he's released in Mexico lets him head off to Cuba, where he lives free to this day, having married and started a family. Oh good for him, you know, he's still in the FBI's most want a Terrorist list, but Cuba doesn't give a shit about that. Yeah, well, I feel like that he's a fusion of two different kinds of guys who don't exist anymore. The leftist bomb guy, he's like not a thing anymore. And then also like the dud fleece to Cuba. Yeah, like we kind of stopped doing both of those, and it's I don't know. I mean, we're probably better off without the leftist bomb guy, but probably the dud too, flee to Cuba like that, that was that was a better time for most of the people who fled to Cuba. Thought it didn't go great for people. Yeah, Cubo is not actually like Paradise at this point. But yeah, they turned they turned people cops, which is not great. Yeah, but this isn't a show about bad people. This is a show about mostly good people who are at least cool, if not morally good. There's actually a painting of him at the MET done by David Wojan. Now it's called William Moralice, Patron Saint of prison Breaks. Incredible. Yeah, I think it's not currently on display at the MET. I like looked it up. It's like in the collection, it's a cool painting. So there's so many fucking cool jail breaks in history. Obviously these are only some tiny portion of them. Again, obviously most of them go terribly in the long run, and most of the time your best bet to jail break is by letting your lawyer set you free through the legal processes or waiting out the clock. But still, cool people are mostly cool people and cool stuff again mostly cool. Yeah, I mean, hey, we there there. There is a large number of people in this episode who are free right now, so you know, yeah, good, good, good for them. I hope, I hope having a nice time if if they ever hear this, somehow high you're cool, have have have a good have a good life. Yeah, I'm sorry if I got any details wrong, but don't don't contact me to correct me. No, send all inquiries. I right, Okay. I mean that one's actually funny because I think that our friend Robert Evans would be better equipped to handle the kinds of communications. He's like an actual journalist, it's compared to the science fiction writer like me. But that's the episode. That's uh, that's Prison Breaks Parts one and two, our first inaugural prison breaks. I feel like this will be a trend because prison breaks are cool. Yeah, they are any any plugs for us at the end here? Yeah, I'm at Twitter at b h R three or there's gonna be destroyed. Guy, I work on I work on a podcast. It's called it could Happen here. Um, you can find it Happened here pod on Twitter, Instagram. You can also find it wherever fine podcasts are distributed. And yeah, I guess I technically mom behind the baschards occasionally. Yeah. Yeah, so listen to that too. You're also on cool People who did cool stuff occasionally. That's true, and people should definitely listen to that. Yeah, every Monday and Wednesday. Margaret, Because this is coming out in July, do you want to plug your book? Oh? Yeah, I have a book called we Won't Be Here Tomorrow and Other Stories that is coming out from a K Press. It's a collection of my short fiction. Before I was a podcaster, I was just a writer of science fiction and fantasy. I've never been an actor, you might have guessed. And that book is coming out from a K Press on September. It is probably available for pre order by the time you hear this. You can also follow me on Twitter at Magpie Killjoy where I wish I spent less time. Yeah and um. We'll be back next week on Wenday On Wednesday by cool People Who did Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.