Ridiculous Crime is a production of My Heart Radio. Hey Elizabeth Dutton, saren my girl. Do you know what's ridiculous? Oh do I you came at it already. I'm what's ridiculous is that Applebee's is making a lip gloss. Wait what Yeah, they're working with this company called Winky Looks, and they've come up with four shades and tastes of the thing that they call saucy gloss. And they're the different flavors of their chicken wings. So if you want me to read you the names of the yes, sorry, sorry, buddy. Um. The one is called give Me Hot Buffalo, and it's coral colored sweet Chili Kiss and that's gold flakes in a deep red color. Then there's one called Bema Honey Pepper. That one's golden. Someone got paid to come up with these, yeah, and then there's Honey Barbecutie Barbecut, and that's a burgundy color. They're eighteen dollars apiece. They taste like the barbecue sauces that they're named for. So are you supposed to like put this on and make out? And they let the taste of chicken wings come between you and the person you want to get intimate with um Yeah, sorry, I mean that this way instead of like just really going to town on a bucket of wings and then making out with someone, you can make out and go to town on the bucket of wings. They're eighteen dollars a piece. If you want a whole set of them, there sixty five. They also apparently made a dance music video called Taste My Face that goes with them Taste Face. The founder of Winky Looks said that she got a message on LinkedIn from an Applebee's rep and that's how they started all this. This all started on a LinkedIn d m y so perfect and so like each loss looks like the sauce. Let your m and tell you about some lip glosses. It is I have for like a synergy between our corporations. I love it. They said that they had to use all these like materials so that to make it taste like the sauces, and so their labs smelled like barbecue sauce for a really long time. Can you imagine the taste test for the lip gloss. It doesn't taste like chicken. You just got like a guy in the corner who dips the one thing and sucks on it. Tastes like rubber boots, tastes like my cousin, tastes like a tire fire. Next, you don't want to taste like berry. Next, Well, that's all very ridiculous. I don't even know how to recover from that. You can't, but I've got something for you that's it's ridiculous. But also it's a crime. Okay, So this one takes place in those super sexy, super fun seventies. In July ninety six, there was a group of French hard ben and they decided, you know what, let's quit messing around. Let's go big. Let's robbed the las at the General or the main bank in Nice, France. Now that main bank is like, um, pretty much a medieval structure, big stone walls like eight meters thick, so you're basically a castle. So they're like, let's break into a bank that's a castle right now. In France, this case became known as le cas d sc, which is means the bank robbery of the century. Why because they got away with it nice, You're ready, I'm ready. This is ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers heights and cons it's all always murder free and one ridiculous. Don't you forget it? Never? Cow? Could I so, Elizabeth? This bank robbery, I'd like to tell you about the lecas Do Sack, the bank robberty of the century. It was a thirty million euro bank job, which at the time this was not euros. It was actually still Frank's and in modern dollars. If the currency converters are correct and the inflation converters are correct, this is a hundred and forty million dollar job they pulled off. Dang, yeah, goal, jewelry, bank notes, all the best things that you can hide in safety deposit boxes. Now, many folks believe this job was an inspiration for the Spanish swiler show, that one that we both like, the La casa the papel or in English money heist. Yeah, which is not what costa the papel means in English. No, it is not at all, but you know whatever the paper house is like. But that's also a nickname for that specific Spanish bank. So actually it's the it's the money printer in Spain, right, you know, the mint So it makes sense in that I don't think we would be like yes, the mint. I don't know if that would work in English, So I guess whatever that money simple people. So the stories about bank robberies we both enjoy. It's something that we will if we see a good and will tell the other. Now, do you have a favorite bank job or that's in from a movie or a book not reality, Like you think of a favorite bank job that's pulled off, You're like, oh, dude, the one in the Italian job was pretty good. Whatever that sexy beast. I really like that. So now could you imagine deciding to take a movie that you love and going that's going to be my criminal bible, that's going to be my like self help book. You can sure you're very open today. I like that. I'll do anything. Now, see, personally, I could not. That's you're limiting yourself to one source. And so if anything that's not in the scope of that, will you run the risk too? If if you're using it as a model, then others are going to realize that, and it depends on when they when they realize that that's a good point. Yeah, they can get a couple of chapters ahead. They're like, wait a minute, I've read this book, so yeah, much like you know the French bank robber, the fictional one or Saint Lupint. We have a very charismatic Frenchman for this story. And his name was Albert or Speggieri, which is an Italian last name, I know, But he's a Frenchman. He's from the Alps, the French Alps, so you can see how the name might have moved over borders, or borders moved over names. I don't know, but he's from the how is that the department or the High Alps Department in English, which is basically the French Alps region, So in southeast France. That's what this dude is raised. Now, as a teenager, he gets to crime real quick. He's like, you know what this whole like, Hey work a day and it's not from me, and I got things I need to do. I got this girl I'm trying to impress. So as a teenager, he uh pulls off his first robbery to impress a girl. He needs to buy a diamond ring. He hasn't had that kind of money painting fences and delivering newspapers or whatever the French equivalent was for a teenage boy. I guess sixties running a crape stand, running a crape stand. That hot crepe business wasn't really working. So he's like, I'm gonna rob a bag, and he pulls off a robbery, gets a diamond, impresses the girl, and then after that he's like, you know what if you want to make your dreams come true? Crime exactly. He's also a flashy, somewhat arrogant criminal, and if you know anything about flashy arrogant criminals, they eventually get caught. Yeah, that's why we're talking about him today. Didn't take him long to get busted early on because he had not yet learned that lesson, and so he gets busted as a young man. And for some reason what I was reading about him, I couldn't quite get the same answer from two different stories on this. He goes to work for some anti de Gaul but yet pro French colonial paramilitary wing that is against the Algerian independence movement. You say so, right, So he's like down there working in like a right wing paramilitary like let's hold onto our colonial countries, I guess, And uh, that gets him put into prison. So I don't know exactly what happened, but whatever he was doing as a paramilitary wing person. He gets thrown into prison. He says, oh, you know what, that's not good. I'm going back to crime. Crime is where it works. So by nineteen seventy six he's out a freeman, and ostensibly he lets everybody else believe that he is a gone legitimate, you know, because he's realized I cannot be the flashy criminal because that calls attention to myself. So I'm gonna be a comma photographer. He gets a photo studio, he lives in Nice, France, and he takes pictures of people. Zim Boom Boom is also very nice, and he does such a good job. He becomes the official photographer of Nice France, so he's noting down there. If you've seen a picture from the early seventies and it was a tourist photo of Nice France, most likely he took me. Yeah. So dudes like any comes from friends with the mayor. He ingratiates himself and this is a tourist economy. So these people, they're a little more easy breezy than others, say parts of France very well. Maybe now that he's gone legit friends with the mayor, the whole it He's like, I need to go first some kind of score. I got everybody looking the other way, which, you know, maybe a little room to move. He hears from his friend that the bank, the Society's days general, has this um issue at the moment, they're about to install a bank alarm. Now, for the longest time, they never had a bank alarm because, as I told you, it's a castle eight eight meter thick walls, so they don't need anything like that. If you've got twenty four ft walls, you know, alarm huh. But they're like huge by the way, right, But they're like, well things are times are changing, you know, it's the seventies. A lot of banks have alarms. We should get with it. So they're going to do that. But it's France, so there's all these permits they got to get and construction stalls, and so the friends complaining about this and basically lets it be known there's no alarm in the bank. He was venting to the wrong person and ten percent. So the French permitting process that allows us all to occur this delay he becomes like almost like a taunt for man Albert. Right, So Albert says to himself quote whoever herald of a bank with no seismic or ultrasonic alarm, no TV system. Right, it's like offensive to him, kind of like that's offensive to everyone. So just let's just skip past that and let me do it. You're either getting inspector Cluso or you're getting Pepe. So which one do you want? Do you want to bumbling like the blend, I'll just kind of hit the middle. So this dude, Albert, he writes a book later on about being a criminal. Much later, he writes, and that's where that line comes from. Right now, he wasn't just a writer. He was also something of a reader. And uh, he's a renaissance man, tell you amount of letters. And now this book that he reads and becomes, as I said earlier, a criminal bible. In this case for him, it was called to or Loophole or how to Rob a Bank, and it was by Robert Paul. It was a English book, but he obviously read it in French. So that's the French title. I read. The English title is a buch easier how to rob a bank exactly, but it's called Loophole or how to Rob a Bank. It's so I will be referring to it as loophole because how to rob a bank? Make it confusing? Or if I did it exactly this book that was published one year before the robbery goes down, right, So it's a brand new, fresh, contemporaneous book. And it builds itself quote as a fast moving and gripping plot. And most importantly, and I quote, loophole provides a shrewd and fascinating insight into the preparation execution of a major crime. It supposed to be like a novel as blueprint crime thriller is about it English bank robber, who's the best? Who's ever cracked a safe? Right? And I'm just gonna quote from the inside flap of this book because some of it is just so deliciously anyway, here's a quote of the example of the dialogue ever heard of the City Savings Deposits Bank. I know what they got, I know every foot of that place. I'm telling you get in and get out, and I won't be cut. I made him American just because it just sounds like somebody, a guy named would say Steve. Now, this guy, he's an architect who that's the main character. He gets fired three weeks before Christmas. That is such a you know, they always have people the architects. It's it's a job nobody does except in movies and books. I mean, obviously there are real architects, but if you never ever see it treated as anything other than we need A character has a job that will not matter in the plot. But yet he's like wealthy and a dresses interesting people like him. So it's like, how do you make him a doctor? But he didn't have to go to the hospital, and he doesn't have super long hours. Yeah, and he doesn't have any of the complications of morality. Yeah. So this architect fired three weeks before Christmas. He doesn't know what to do. He's got all his money problems, he can't afford his life and because it's apparently he's living high on the architect salary, and he's like, what am I gonna do? And so and I quote Mike Daniels has always been looking for the one big job that will enable him to get out of the game, and recently he's got his eye on the City Savings Deposits bank. With his alarm vault, infrared beams, radio frequency waves, and unscheduled patrol vis it's all the thieves in London declared, this is the one jug you cannot blow. Oh no, I don't know about you, but I don't come from jug blowing people. So for a book to tell me this is one jug you can't blow, I'm just gonna take their word for it. And then like typically, I think that's fighting words. I don't know. I've never met a jug. I couldn't blow me. I will not be told. Yeah, don't don't limit me. You don't know the jugs I know. Bro. So this fictional man, Mike Daniels, I'm with this dude. He takes the bet. He's like, I will blow this jug. Bro. So Daniels and I quote thinks he's found a loophole in the bank security. You damn right he did. Brothers, He's gonna exploit that because it is a loophole. So he has this loophole. And I quote, if you are Mike Daniels, ambitious professional thief and master safecracker, you plan for months, in minute detail. You hire three hard bitten colleagues whose working respect, and you find yourself Stephen Booker, out of work architect and civil engineer, whose comfortable suburban life is coming apart. You pick his brain, get him involved, where down his moral resistance and hire him. Then you enter the London sewer and bore from within the safe as a timelock. And you have a weekend in which to dig a tunnel under the vault and blast it open. If you throw the alarm, half the police force will be on your tail. The timing must be split second. Nerves are stretched. One of your men is claustrophobic. There is constant danger of lethal gas. A rainstorm can wipe you out. But if you pull it off, the prize is several million pounds and pride and having done the biggest, most daring and ingenious job in history. If you pull it off, that is it sounds like a you're advertising a monster truck rally, right, chicken wings. I could not myself. That's all from the flat of the inside of the book. I want to read this book now, Mike Daniels jugg blower, I can blow that jug brother so our real wife criminal Albert Speghiari he takes from this book Loophole and he's like, you know what, this author nailed everything. I'm going to follow this to the t I'm gonna find a sewer. I'm gonna find a bank. I'm gonna rob it, I'm gonna bore a tunnel. I'm not gonna get an architect. I don't know if I were get an architect. But other than that, I'm gonna follow this to the letter. He's gonna blow jug. So he's like, you know, if this guy wrote the perfect blueprint, what could go wrong if I follow it? And he's on this show? So something went wrong. Well, after this short little break, we'll get into Albert throwing the wheels of this crime into motion. Elizabeth ready for Albert to set the wheels in motion. Okay, so my brother, my dude, my fulk hero criminal about to be. He's eyeing what's going to be a career making crime. He's like, this could be the biggest job. I need to be smart about this. So he's like, I'm gonna map the sewers because that was in the book. So he goes and he maps the sewers. He starts figuring out, he gets blueprints, He walks the sewers, so he knows every left and right turn, every dead end, so forth right. He's like, that's step one. Now for step two, he's like, okay, I need to test the system to see what I'm dealing with. So he gets a safety security deposit box. He rents one of those, and he goes in and they when they leave him alone, next, we will leave you to your privacy so you can inspect you all the little pictures and jewels to whatever you bring. And he's like, may wee thank you all right, So he pulls out an alarm clock, winds it up, sets it to midnight, throws it in a box, puts the box in, closes it, locks it up, and he's like, I'm good, and then knocks on the door, let me out. I'm good. They're like, that was fast, So he's like it's fine, and so check and see if it was yep, Yeah, that's it. He sets the alarm from midnight. And he has a reason for this because he wants enough to vault has an alarm and it will be tripped by noise or by shaking. So he figures this alarm clock, there's like an old rattley kind will do enough to trigger the alarm because if if it, he can keep the sensitivity of what he plans to do underneath that level of shaking is essentially his idea. Yea sets it off. The bank does not report, oh we've been broken into. He's like, so I think I've got it, and we got a good measure of what I can get away with. So now he's like, okay, sticking to the plot of loophole, what do I need to do next, he goes like, okay, now, hire a crew of hard men. So he's done his mapping, he's got a safety deposit, and he's checked with the alarm. Go hire some bad men. So he's like, where can I get bad men around here? So he goes down to the port town of Marseille. He goes up and he's like, a good crime town. You smell the crime in the air, right, mars is the kind of place like if you imagine a Guy Ritchie movie, but a Guy Ritchie movie that has been running for centuries, like that's Marseille. Okay. So he's at this, uh, this inspiration loophole and he's like going, you know what, in the book, there's this many criminals. I'm gonna go a little bit bigger. So he hires fifteen veteran Marseille hardman. Oh that's a that's that's that's worries big more. The more people, the more trouble. Totally, you got a lot of mouse to keep quiet. So but he picks them and he goes and he doesn't just hire them off the street, like, oh, you look like you have a strong back. If you ever held a shovel, you know. He goes to a crime family and he's like, hey, I get some guys. He's like, they're the OMERTA part will come from them, their their coat of silence will be to their boss. And if I get their boss, then I get their silence. So he's like, this should be fun. That makes way more sense than I was thinking, Like sit outside of a cafe reading loophole and then kind of give people knowing looks when they walk by. And if anyone know, you're like over here, I want to talk about a book, or you hold additions, here, hold this shovel. Does that feel natural? So he he gets his fifth team, Marc hard Men, and he's like, Okay, now back to the book. What do I do now? And so he's like, okay, I've got to drill a hole in the bank fault from the sewers. Okay, check, check, all right, I've got my map. Okay, it's time to get the equipment. So he's like, okay, hard Men come to nice France, I'll put you up. Okay, here's the deal. He had them take their own little scooters there, like twelve little tiny citron No. No, I'm imagining them all in vespas, like in a row, fifteen hard men on vespas. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Leather jack hits, mean glares and shiny light blue vespas, lots of chrome. Now that everything's set up in the hard men are in town, he's like, we need to get equipment. So he's like, look, guys, I'm gonna get all this stuff that is, like you know, the filters and the power cables. I'm gonna need you to get the drills, but do not go buy them. They like, what do you mean? And don't buy them? He's like, hey, go steal them. So he hasn't go to construction site, so there's no purchase records of any of this stuff, and so he just they've spend a couple of months stealing all the pneumatic drills, the industrial pumps, anything that they think they need, right, and now they're like a thermal lance. One might need a thermal lance or a powerful jack. It's a good dry run to like if any of them kind of balk at the idea, Yeah, you can see how good they are priming. Yeah, So once they have everything set up, they set up their work site and the okay, let's run some filters. So, because we got to deal with all the toxic smells and we're gonna have in the sewer system, we're gonna have to get our industrial drills down there is we're gonna need electrical So they run electricity through the street lights. So they just plug into the street lights and they would drop cords down. They're super serious. So they only work on alternating nights. And then this allows them to want sleep for ten hours, which he insists that they do. He's like, you have to sleep for ten hours and that you get your good night's sleep. He's like, your crew, Yeah, not only that there only does the demand ten hours asleep, which I knew you would love. You will be so impressed with his just wherewithal he doesn't allow them to drink while they're working. They cannot bring in caffeine. They're not allowed to do anything. They have to run clean and they gotta run natural, right, So he has them. So it's like a sports season has just begun. But when you say they had to be really serious, I imagine they're all working away and one guy cracks a joke and everyone just stares at him in silent shaking their heads. No, we don't do that, mean bug until you stop that funny business. So they're sitting there working every other night, and they're so thorough about this that they knock a hole into this like sewer system and they go and they work on their tunnel and they're like, you know, creating the walls. They dig a little, they're goingly, going a few inches each night. They then brick back up the wall covering where they've penetrated from the sewer. So every night they also have to add a couple hours in to remake the wall. And this way, any sewer people are going to cruise down the sewer worker wouldn't notice because so know the wall. So the tunnel is being hidden behind this false wall that they rebuild every other day. Now takes them about two months to get to the edge of the walls, right, But these are Marseille hard men. They work and they work, and they do exactly as told. They get through ten hours. They don't snitch, they don't speak out, and they don't go to bars and get drunk on their day off. They're really good about it. And they get to the walls and it's just before Bastille Day, which was his plan because that is a huge day in France. It's basically like the fourth of July is and it in essence it's a celebration to freedom and independence, but also it's a big party weekend everybody. So they wanted to get there on Friday. And they get to the walls on Friday, and how do they know because they can hear the alarm clocks shaking at midnight and they know it's right there in the safety deposit box wall and that's where they are. So now they've also used it as a homing signal. That's perfect, right, pretty brilliant. I appreciate that. So now that we have reached the walls, the tunnel is dug, they're on the other side of safety deposit box. All it is left for them to do is to break in. Elizabeth, I'd like you to close your eyes and picture it. I'm picturing it it's best deal day weekend. I don't know what it is yet. It's furry, it's warm, it's in your hand. In France nineteen seventy six, it's the Friday night of a long weekend. One hell of a bell bottom, good time going down to Nice right now, al right, each night, drunken rebblers in the street. They've got the mayor out there with him prows and everyone's having fun. The fireworks overhead. It's a perfect cover if you want to break into a bank fault. So Albert and the Marseille hardman, they are busy in their workspace, just banging away, swinging hammers, knocking chisels and the two months of hard, sweaty, stinky work. Because remember they are working in a sewer essentially, like sometimes they're waist deep and filth. Sometimes they're in rubber rafts. It's just been a hard so a few fuse. It's so funny of them just sitting there working on damnits. Jacques or a few enthusiastic swings of the sledge hammer. Chisels breakthrough and all of a sudden there's a shaft of light. They can see into the vault. They're there. They knocked through the wall, and then they realize actually in the safety deposit wall, so they have to push their way through, and they pry open the safety deposit boxes from the backside, which is yeah, extra difficult, and now boom they're inside. So they knock a hole. They have a workspace. They take the as settling torches and stuff and start getting to business. Now they're able to open three hundred and seventy one safety deposit boxes. Jug blown fully blown. So this jug, now that it's fully blown and tooting away, is giving up gold bars, jewelry collections, diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, you name it. Dude, niece has got real wealth down There's that's im like. And then also there is the as you I've noted in other bank robbers we discussed there's always a potential of the blackmail photo in the safety deposit box. This one comes very much true. They take out the blackmail photos and they're all these lurid, naked photos of the rich, famous and powerful doing things to each other that are dirty and naked, and they throw them up on the walls of the vault, plastering them so that while they're working they're just staring at all these naked people. Yeah, right, exactly, so you know, it's a little fun for the guys, exactly, they get some fun and then also keeping things French. Albert is very good to his men. He brings in the picnic lunch and the picnic lunch, what do you think is in it? Very good? Also for gras, he brings in red wine. They eat a meal of coke and potatoes that he cooks with a reportable stove for their meals. By the way, they're eating on these solid silver utensils that they're pulling out of the safety deposit box exactly, using all the rich people's stuff for like I don't know, I don't know if they're using it appropriately or not, but they're just using it having fun. They're using the right utensils for each I don't mean, like do they have the right fork in the right hand. I mean, I don't know if they're just like stabbing the knife into the wall for fun too, and then also using it to like spread the Yeah, exactly. So there's these huge silver toureens, like you know, like soup containers for like now they're silver. They were using those for the commodes. So they're just like crapping in these rich people in that fancy buckets, making soup, making the new soup. So this is like how the how these fifteen Marseille hard men entertaining themselves over this long weekend while they break into all of the safety deposit boxes and it takes a while. Did not just like popping each one open. They have to like pry and work on to get three one of the thousands that are there. Is like a real accomplishment. Now, over the time of the weekend, Sunday afternoon, uh starts to come to be and the rains start to gather and there's hard rain that's falling on nice. Hard rain is going to fall on this hard rain starts to hit the sewers, it starts to flood. So the guys are like, oh man, we got to get at the show on the road. So they gather up everything that they can and then they managed to unlike some of the other robbers we've covered, they removed most everything they brought with them. They get all on the rubber boats and they're like go go right. So like these guys are all like launching down the sewer with all the stolen stuff. And then right before they leave Alberts like un moment, and then he like takes the piece of chalk and he writes a message on the inside of the bank fault and in in chalk he writes arms knee violence, So which that means in English and not my bad accent, he means without guns, nor violence nor hate. So he was basically saying, is they were bragging, we pulled this off and we're not like these other terrorists bank robbers of the seventies, because like the PLO was a getting into bank robbery at this time, so they really wanted to stinguish themselves. The i RA was in bank robbery. There was a lot of like people, They're like, look, we did this without guns, without hate in our heart. We just did it for the rush. She just basically put a piece symbol on the wall exactly two fingers and then swam off in the wastewater. Yeah, well that's the other thing. So then this is also part of the possibly illegal strategy. So it's like, look, we didn't mean any harts establish it that it's the seventies. Relax. A lot of stuff happened. It was more than just regrettable men's fashions. There was a lot of stuff happening. Do you think back to how wild the seventies were when you read these news stories, Like, I can't imagine explaining to someone who's like under the age of what the seventies like. You could just take any week of the newspaper and just take the headlines and they'd be like, are you for real right now? I'm like, yeah, look at that, and here's the next day, and here's the next day, and it's just the headlines. But don't you think that applies now to butt Well, they get hung up on the idea of like it's so it's so unique now, and I'm like, oh, people who are a little older, like you know, like my mother has a sense of this which she talks to me about like the repetition of repetition of history. So I'm like, if you go back the seventies, it wasn't all like people were just like everything was cool and we're growing our launch and trying to get over the sixties and trying to buy back into America. No, it was turbulent as hell, especially internationally. That decade needs more look back. It totally does. But also you and I love newspapers dot com. Yes, this is not a paid advertisement. They don't they don't even know we exists. They just take my money. But anytime you go back and you look at headlines on a in like the thirties and the eighteen sixties, you look at these headlines and it's nuts. Yeah, because constantly and it's all on one newspaper, like that's all happening. Everyone thinks they're living at the end of the world, I guess. And also, no times are unique in terms of it being insane, is essentially my point, just different flavors of insane. Yeah, so, okay, Monday rolls around. Bank employees show up. There's a hole in the vault, but they don't know it because these robbers were so smart they welded the bank vault shut from the inside so they can't get into the bank. They're like, oh, so they don't even know it's been robbed yet, but they know something's wrong because the bank is welded shut. Their jugs been blown fully blown, so they have to go and get a drill of their own and reblow the jug and they knock a hole in the wall, and then they find out when they look inside the whole of the vault they they've knocked into, They're like, oh, we've been robbed Sacar Blue. So yeah, so then they have to go and tell the police. The police come out to investigate. Word gets out and all the rich and famous and powerful they come running down there, like my secret stuff, and they're all in a panic. And so the banks meant a bunch of time keeping its customers out of the bank while they're like waving their rich risks with bobbles of jewels knocking about. And so the bank's like, look, calm down, we'll get you all your stuff. We're not gonna just throw it in a pile, and we're gonna we're gonna have it all like sorted out. Don't worry. We'll let you know if it was your stuff we're stolen or not. We have a list, and everyone's like and the police were like, okay, um, you deal with the angry customers. We're gonna start trying to investigate stuff, right, So they go and get the list on their own of like witch box has been broken into, they figure out who it is and they go to the individual people because once again the bank isn't really being helpful. They're like, okay, so we understand that you had a box and you had box number seven four three, would you like to tell what was in it? And the person It's like, no, I did not. That is important to just finds this stuff. You photos? Yeah, why do you want to look at toto? Do you want to see that? I show you do? Not shaming me as they've gotten away with his stolen loot. Albert Spagghieri has done it. He's pulled off the crime of the century, hundreds of millions of dollars. All these rich and powerful people are embarrassed. The newspapers are talking about it. There is no reason for people to not know his name at this point. Everyone. All he has to do is make himself known and everyone would be like, that's the guy. So it's tempting him. But he's like, hundreds of millions of dollars, why would you want? Who cares if everyone knows you're the guy? But he wants the fame. He wants the crowd. He wants people to know he was the mastermind he because remember he used his book and he's so perfect plan. Yeah, so let's take a quick little break and I'll get into how this all goes oh so wrong. So now we have the robbery as occurred. They've gotten away, Albert and his Marseille hard Man are on the lamb and the police have to spring into action. Right So they've interviewed the rich people and they don't have a clue to go on. They got nothing. Meanwhile, Albert, he's gone home. He's taking a bubble bath, he's gonna can espresso. He's cleaned himself up, he's wiped the sewer off, he's counting his money, and he's like, you know what, I'm out of here. He bounces, he leaves. They're not going to catch him because this mastermind of the sewer gang, he knows that, you know, eventually he will not be able to resist the acclaim. So he knows, I gotta get myself out of here. He bounces, Where's he go? I have no United States of America there not, just that. He goes to c I A headquarters. Yes, right up to CIA headquarters, knocks on the front door and knock knock. Did he give notice in niece about like I'm not going to be here. I'm taking photography break now he just you know, disappears. He's a flight tr He shows up at CIA headquarters. He tells the CIA, hey, you guys want to take a meeting with me. They're like, bro, who are you? Because you have to remember, this is the CIA in the seventies, one year before the Church Committee hearings will renew to the world what the CIA has been doing. So this is the last year of the shameless. We will kill your leader CIA. Exactly. We tried to kill Fidel cast eight thirty eight times. Do you think we will not embarrass and disappear you? So that CIA is the CIA we're talking about, right, So Albert turns up at the CIA crowd quarters like, you guys should totally hire me because like I'm kind of a mastermind. In case you didn't know this, you don't keep up on French crime. I've come to tell you personally that is like again, who are you? And he's like, oh, you know, I'll lay out my bona feedes and he's like telling him all this stuff, all the jobs he's pulled, and he's like, then, by the way, I just kind of pulled off the bank robbery of the century. He tells the c I A just to get a job there. Then he pulled off the bank robbery and he's like, hey guys. So he's like, oh, you do know what we do here? Right? We don't. Okay, look, we don't need a HIGST team, not right now. So we're good, thanks for coming in, but we'll take your resume if you want to leave it at the front door. And he's like or like, you know, I don't know, leave a card or something whatever, Just please go away. We don't have time for this. And he's like, oh. They're like, but oh, one more thing. What was your name again? You could you? Like? Where are you from? You said he pulled off the bank robbery, the centry, I was in France and nice And he's like, yeah, I got to gout. Are not interested, right, And they're like, no, seriously, that was you. You're absolutely certain that was you. Do you have any evidence that we could know this was you? And he's like maybe we do, right, which means uh, you know, but yes, of course right, And they're like okay, well, maybe we could have a home number, maybe your your address, you could just give that to us. We could get in contact with you later. And he's like, no, no, I got to go because it's of course, the CIA is an investigative agency, has allies and been France, so they call their French counterparts like as soon as he's out of the building, and they're like a French CIA, which I'm sorry I do not know is called French CIA. Do you know who's just in our office? And they're like, no, for all, neither do. We wouldn't give us his name. He goes in there and he's like, I did these crimes, big, not gonna tell you my name's interested they're not really okay. He tells him his name, but he's like, you know, They're like, is that really your name? They were like, we have some evidence that you did this crime because they're gonna immediately turned it over the front name Mr corn Towers. Yes exactly, Regina, you say okay. So a few months later, the French authorities get another tip about this crime, but this time not from the CIA. This time the tip is from an angry X. Yeah. So actually, well, the French authorities got a couple of tips they got and one tip was from two of the lookouts for the crew. They had been paid in gold bars and they've been going around town going cash would you like to buy these gold bars? How much would you buy these gold bars for? So they make a name for themselves that these two guys with gold bars for sales. So the cops just go and arrest him. And so then what's one story that they then turn on the crew. The other story is that an X gets in a fight with one of the members of the crew, he like jilts her. She then goes immediately to the cops and says, you know who my ex boyfriend is, and then lays out he wasn't he did the bank robberate this entry and his buddies are Albert Spickery and it just runs down the crew. And so then that guy gets arrested. The cops bring him in, they interrogate him for hours and hours and hours. He's like, no, I was not there. I don't think are you're talking about like four hours later. I don't know if he just he just really needed a smoke or what, but he was like, how about the smoke break. They're like, tell us the name of the crew. He's like, I can't have a smoke break. And then they're like, if you tell his name of the crew, will give you a two galos or whatever, and he's like, yeah, okay, he gives up the whole crew, all right, so some a few hours of interrogation, he's done. Right. So now it's October seventies six, basically the end of the year, and the whole gang is getting arrested. But Albert once again is luckily out of the country because he just has luck like that. He happens to be in Japan. So he's like, hey, Japan, Yeah, I'm just hanging out. Let me tell you about me. He's there with the mayor of Nice and they're on like a buddy's tour of Japan. They're doing like a whole like sister city thing or guess I don't know what they're doing, but anyway, they're hanging out. When they get back to Nice, there's all these police at the airport and they're like, oh, for the mayor, this is obviously part of our security. And instead they're like, oh, he's like me, I mean, and so then they arrest him in front of the mayor and then he gets taken in so he gets interrogated by the police. He last two full days, doesn't say a word. Finally, after two days he's like, okay, it was me, can you can you alert the press? So so, but he refuses the name names. He is a real criminal, he doesn't he didn't say any other members of the crew. He won't say anything about how he got the money, who was the money man to pay for all this anything. He's like, I was the mastermind. Please tell the press this and everything should be fine, and they're like, uh sir. He's like, yes, just tell them famous folk hero bank Robert Albert Speggieri was been arrested. You need help. I can write this for you. The press release. What's is the problem? They're like, no, we need to know. I don't know anything else. This is all I know. So they have gone. They follow his request. The press becomes known, and he then has one problem. This means he has now go to prisons. He's like, that does not to work for Albert. So he's like, you know what, I've got the plan. So he gets to work. He's like, I don't know if this other part comes from the book. I don't know if it was in loophole. But his plan is is he invents documents and he fakes these documents, and then when his trial comes up, he's like, I have these documents that they will need to be decoded for the judge that they will tell you the full plan and all of the people in the crew. And they're like really okay, yeah, yeah here and he's like, but I cannot do it in the open court room. We have to do it in judges chambers. No. Yeah. So he's like, I will decode it with the judge. That way the judge can see for themselves, like, I will give you the code and the judge can do it, not the prosecutor. I don't want anybody. I want the judge to decode it. So he's like they're like, okay, but not here. We have to do it in the judges chambers. So they're like all right, dude, let's go up there. So they go to the third floor and that's so they're in the palais do Justice and the third floor and the judges chambers and he's he pulls out his paper to work and he's like all right, judge, here you go. And so the judges like, okay, so what is this And it's like, okay, well, this is the coded document I told you about, and here is the code. And the prosecutors like le let me see the key. Only no, no, no, just the judges of those both looks, so they they're both like really focused on this document. Meanwhile, Albert for the window that has been left open after he complained about the heat. So the moment of distraction, he jumps out of the window. He lands on top of a portico above the entrance to the Palais Do Justice, bounces off the portico, lands on a park car, hops off the park car and it is perfectly fine. Three story fall to the charge and the prosecutor run to the window to look down at the ground floor and there he is Outbert is perfectly fine, and he waves up to him and goes Then he hops on the back of a waiting motorbike and takes off and disappears, never to be seen again by anyone in French justice. Oh and then the judge goes back and the decodes it and it tells him to remember to drink his oval teeth like a secret coder. Very good, so he okay, So he successfully jumps out of a third story window onto like a portico roof, like a little roof that's like over the entry way Do Justice. And then from there he hops onto a park, car rolls off the park, car lands on the street, and he had a motorbike waiting part of his plan, and then Alvoir and then bounces out. So once they tootle off, he's gone to judge pissed right, the judge is demanding of justice. So the judge then continues the trial and he convicts Albert in absentia gives him life in prison. Meanwhile, Albert has decided I'm out brothers. He goes to South America and he gets some plastic surgery and he falls in love. He meets a young heiress named Audie, and then she forsakes her fortune for his, and then the two of them live happily ever after on the Lamb. Now, he still, though likes to mess with the French police in the French justice is um so every so and so often he sends in a photo of him in some outrageous get up, like him on the lap of Santa Claus or him with the giant afro on, and it says hello from Albert. And then he also sends photos of himself to the newspapers because he doesn't want to be forgotten, so he also sends them like I am still alive and so be like you know, ho ho, and which means like you know, my little cabbage is and so he's like, you know, taunting everybody. Finally, years after his triumphant bank robbery of the century, Albert passes away from cancer on the lamb in Argentine, Argentina. Rather, his loving wife Audi's still there by his side. She arranged for the body to be sent back home to his mother in France. The l A Times reported on his death right and this is a quote from the l A Times. Albert Spencer seven, mastermind of the spectacular Sewer Gang bank heist in on the run for twelve years, died and his body was left outside his mother's house on Saturday. Police said Speieri's body was brought to his mother's home in this Riviera city early Saturday by two men who fled. Now please tell me it was like a confident at least. Yeah, it wasn't just like on the street now. It was like it wasn't like he was in a bag marked Albert. So if if you can imagine, his mother is like happy that he's been returned to her because you can bury him in France. Now, if you can also keep up with this, and I know you can. I'm gonna lay this one right down in your feet. This is not the end this story. Yeah, I know that he was dead. The bank robbery's done. How could it possibly be? Well before he died back in when he was living on the lamb and he just wanted that acclaim. He's down in Argentine and he writes a book about the niece robbery, right, and he was inspired by the novel Loophole. So I don't know if he's like wanting to pay it back, like I'm going to inspire some criminal in the future too, right, So anyway, he decides to do this, and he in his version of the account of the niece robbery, there is this smooth and savvy criminal contractor who explores the sewers by night and he then goes on to higher two men from Marseilles and they put together a crew and they pull off this wonderful bank job. And there's a brilliant right, he's super handsome. So he publishes his book and everybody knows about it, and the French police read it and then they dismiss it as mere fiction. They like, we expect better realism from someone who's actually successfully robbed a bank. I do not believe it. They call him out on his literary and he's successfully exactly so, but they're like all focused on book, Like I did not believe the realism. The dialogue so bad. Yeah, I have questions, so many questions. The French, so howbvert he wasn't the only member of his crew to write a novel about this bank job to other dudes from also write books. And they're also wanting to be known that Albert was not the mastermind. So they said he was definitely not the mastermind, even if he thinks he was, And they're like, m, that's an interesting way of phrasing it. It turns out in Tighten, the apparently true mastermind of this nineteen seventy six bank robbery finally comes to brought forward to justice. Right, the real mastermind was a Marseilles kingpin named Jacques Cassandri who was the head of the Zampa crime family in the lawless port town of Marseilles. So can you guess how this head of the Zampa crime family gets caught as the true mastermind? Oh my god? Did he posted on Facebook? He wrote a book? A novel about so he wanted credit to so he's public is the way to do it, and he's so he's like absolutely convinced that the statue of limitations is up and he's like, Oh, I'm not going to talk to a lawyer about this. I'm just gonna write a novel and publish it. Turns out, in France there's a statue of limitations on bank robbery. He was right about that, but there is no statue of limitations on money laundring. So they come after him not for the original crime, but the commission of getting rid of the crime. Two tens, Cassandra published his novel, which he flatteringly described there was a man very much like himself who was secretly the real mastermind of the Nie bank robbery, right, and in this novel he goes on to describe it. And apparently the French police were much more convinced by the realism of his book because I took it seriously. And even though he publishes this book anonymously as d Amigo, all right, that's his pen name, damiegal sod Amigo, because Jacques Cassandri head of the Zampa crime family. When he publishes his book. The French police were like, I will take two copies, and so they go and they investigate the book and they're like, de realism is amazing. I believe him, you know. So then they decided let's make a case, and so they start to investigate. Cassandre is like, whoa, whoa, whoa mess? Just a novel man? Who's this d amigo guy? Not me? My name is Jaux Cassandres. The police were like, m sir, we went to the signing and you're the one. He's right there. You signed our book. So the French police continued their investigation. And although this guy had waited thirty six years to get his credit, he had not talked to a lawyer. So he doomed himself by using this novel. And it turns out that he had also left a manuscript on his home computer. So if the police found the manuscript of the book on his own computer, he didn't use a ghostwriter. He said that Jacques Cassandred his way right through this novel. He did like no, like was it November national novel writing? Yeah? Yeah, no right mo. So he throws his his hat in that ring and proms out of the book. Publish it, and it's all about these people, and uh it tells the story if six Marseille hard men, which is this is apparently the most accurate account. Six Marseille hard Man and Albert Spezieri. They break into a bank vault. They welld it shut. They probably opened the boxes. They didn't Zeve do this on Bastill day with the picnic party the cultiv all that was true. They crapped in the antique silver soup tureens. All that's true. The party lasts the whole weekend and they get away for it for the next few decades until he writes his book. So Cassandri apparently got two billion euros for his part of the job, and he eventually through the trial that he gets clear to the money laundering charges. So he's out on that. But the defense was hinged on the question of whether a novel can be considered evidence of a crime. So the court sides with him. They go, nah, this is France. It's a it's a book of fiction that can not be real if it says right there. So the judge, though, is like, but I still want justice. So he goes and he says, you know, Cassandra, you are now guilty of fraud, embezzlement, bribery and just got not a list of petty crimes that he get him on. This is basically just all criminal cron r is um and nepotism because he also then the judge buss his wife, his son, his daughter, and just threw some extra humiliation he bust the daughter in law. In total, eleven members of the Zappa crime family all go down because the boss wanted to write a novel ticket credit for the bank Robbery of the Century. So from book to book to book, this it comes around full circle. It goes they pull it off because of book, and they get doomed because of a book. That's amazing. So there you go. That is the story of Albert Spaggieri and Jacques Cassandri and the bank Robbery of the Century and the mini mini novels about it, available at any fun book publishing stories near you. Boy, Elizabeth, what's our ridiculous takeaway? Well, for me, I would have to say that you know it's that vanity like that's right. Just I don't understand if you pull this thing off and you have the money, which should be like your original goal and you have the ability that you know you've got a good cover. No one wants to read your writing criminals or write something else. Yeah, I'm a big believer in the standard lane and this one, which is you're a criminal, you're good at that. Do that? Is that your takeaway, I'd love to hear your take away. Oh, thank you for asking, Elizabeth, that was so genuine. My takeaway is basically, writers, what are you gonna do with the But I'm honestly, they constantly do themselves. They either become the monster of their own creation or they imprison themselves inside their stories. Like writers just constantly can't figure this stuff out. And like I'm I'm fully aware of this that these are the dangers in the perils of the path. You're a writer, I'm a writer. Our stories will prison us or we ourselves become the monsters in our stories if we come a persona or a character. And this is all you know, can be made so much worse when you also add into the mix the male ego, because i mean, let's be real about this for a second. There is a reason why most of the criminals that we cover in the story are men, because they do things like women and fems, they would seem to understand that there is an importance to the crime. You wanted the crime, you got away with the crime. You want credit for the crime too, Like that's too much. You're now asking to ride the same horse twice with just your one. But you can't do that right, Like you can't blow that jug. That jug has been blown. So having people know you got away with it, that that's that is the the unreachable goal. And women seem to understand, and women, fems and people who are do not suffer from the male ego seem to understand that this is if you want to get crested credit, you're gonna get busted. That's just how crime works. Because we know you did the crime. Now you have to do the time. So if you want to get away with the crime, don't let anyone know about it. That's the secret to crime. Thanks for joining us. I'm Elizabeth Dutton, I'm Saren Burnett. Is my damn right. So you can find us online at Ridiculous Crime on both Twitter and Instagram. You gotta tip for us about a ridiculous crime you'd like to hear about. Hit us up. Do you want to confess to Ridiculous Crime. We don't recommend it, but if that jug needs blown, send it this way. Email us at Ridiculous Cry I'm at gmail dot com. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett, produced and edited by head of the Couston Crime Family Dave Coust. Researches by Chief Inspector of the French Riviera, Merissa brown. Our theme song is by Monshoeur, Thomas v and Freer Travis Dutton. Executive producers are Ben Scargo or Scard. Don't It's all delicious to me? Boland and nol Sap Corrupt Browne say it one more time? We dequeous Crew. Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio. Four more podcasts to my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.