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True Crime is more than blood, guts, mayhem, and murder. Zaron Burnett and Elizabeth Dutton share outlandish tales of capers, heists, and cons that shine a light on the absurd and outrageous side of criminality. Always 99% murder-free and 100% ridiculous, this is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast by iHeartRadio.
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1Applying to college. Oh, what a busy time that is for high school students. There are stressors like posing for a fake rowing photo or making sure your SAT ringer spelled your name right on the Scantron. See, while some teens spend all their time studying and participating in activities to get ahead, others spend their parents' cash to game the system. Gotta put that Full House syndication money to good use! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The 1920s was an era of radical change in the culture. One of the major indicators was the advent of The Flapper –- young women who rejected the previous generations' notions of femininity and embraced their own ideas of modern womanhood. This of course inspired a nationwide moral panic! Enter the Flapper Bandit –– a young woman who rejected previous notions of legality and embraced her own ideas of how to rob a bank... and in the process became a national news story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What's your favorite pizza topping? Pepperoni? Anchovies? A kilo of heroin? If it's the drugs, the Sicilian mob had a pizza parlor for you! They created networks of drug wholesale hubs in modest pizza joints up and down the East Coast. But the FBI is the one that delivered when it came to justice. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
When people speak of the first American bank robber, typically, they think of Jesse James. While he may have been the first world famous bandit and bank robber, he was not the most prolific. That was a man named George Leonidas Leslie, the first truly great American bank robber. He was an underground figure, an outlaw folk hero who made his living robbing the original robber barons. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In wartime, codes and puzzles become a language of warfare. But if you can make a code, someone can break the code. Enter Velvalee Dickinson. She was a lover of costumed porcelain dolls and Japanese culture, and Velvalee was at the center of a truly bizarre doll-based mystery. During World War II, a team of female codebreakers investigated a series of letters from doll-lovers in the US sent to Argentina. The forged letters discussed prized dolls and their visits to doll hospitals. Turns out, the letters were coded messages from a doll-loving spy network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
She was America's Sweetheart, a woman whose gorgeous gams kept the antifascist Allied forces going as they won WWII. With talent, humor, beauty, and wit;, Betty Grable was a star. And with stardom comes creeps. And with creeps often comes crime. But if you come for Ms. Grable, you best not miss. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Florida man unhappy with life. Florida man move to Europe. Florida man change name. Florida man take phony title. Uh oh, Florida man get in trouble. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What does it take to fix the World Series? You'll need players willing to tank the most important games of their careers, a powerful criminal element, and a solid plan. Well, two out of three's not bad. In 1919, a crew of gamblers convinced members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series in order to make a big payday. This was appealing, since their salaries were meager and treatment was dismal. But the plan was weak as creek water, and the whole plot went on to nearly destroy baseball itself. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A modern flim flam artist, Billy McFarland was known for scheming and coming up with ways to make money and have fun doing it. His magnum opus was the epic Fyre Festival. Intended as a luxurious concert on a tropical island, it fell apart before it even began. But not far enough in advance to avoid disappointing and fleecing ticket holders. But at least Ja Rule was there.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Imagine you have the power to mint millionaires. But to do it you have to engage in crime. Specifically, you have to rig the McDonald's Monopoly game. Now, would you pick as your partners in this crime a made man from the Colombo Crime family and a former cocaine smuggler? If you said yes, you are Uncle Jerry, who did just that!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In honor of the new Paramount Pictures movie Roofman, we’re re-releasing this episode from May 2024. Paratrooper Jeff Manchester used his skills to burgle Corporate America as The Roofman. First, he'd focused on McDonalds and other fast food. Then, like a criminal butterfly, he morphed into a Toys 'R' Us Man who built a secret apartment in an open store –– it was the ultimate inside job.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Young George Weyerhaeuser was snatched off the street back when kidnapping the child of a wealthy family seemed to be all the rage. Neither horrific nor violent nor ending in tragedy, this kidnapping is an offbeat adventure with a heartwarming ending.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lots of idealistic young folks come to believe the world is a rigged game run by immoral fat cats. Many get motivated to change the state of things. Some even fantasize about robbing those same fat cats to get even. Stephen Jackley didn't just fantasize, he acted on it. He became a wannabe Robin Hood, a crimer who wanted to rob from the rich to give to the poor. But then life sorta got in the way.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Elizabeth Taylor looooved diamonds. Some had storied histories going back to royal palaces and forgotten empires. Others came from exotic locales. And then there was the Krupp Diamond. Before Liz donned it on her finger, it belonged to the ex-wife of a Nazi. And that's not the craziest part of this story. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
It was just like Ocean's 11...except instead of a stylish crew of longtime pro criminals, it was a guy with a BB gun and another in a Ford Mustang. And instead of the glitz and glamor of Las Vegas, it was Riverside County, California. And instead of jetting off to Europe to hide, the criminals holed up in a Motel 6. So maybe it wasn't just like Oceans 11 when Rolando Ramos and Eric Aguilera went to work at a casino and robbed their employer. But they felt like it was. And that's ridiculous.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Kevin Trudeau was a born salesman...and an excellent con man. He knew exactly how to rope people in with promises of wealth, health, and all around better lives. But as we all know, if something sounds too good to be true, it is. And it's probably a brainchild of ol' Kev.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Sometimes you really just wanna get away –– this week's crimer, Eric Edson, takes that to outlandish and preposterous levels of commitment. Whether on two wheels or four, by land or by sea, either highspeed or slow-rolling, Edson flat out refuses to be caught. It takes a whole consortium of cops, a veritable multiplicty of law enforcement to bring him to justice.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Folks, we got us a card sharp. Canada Bill Jones was a three card monte guy, taking rubes for their cash on trains and riverboats across the heart of America. Oddly principled and unrepentant, ol' Bill is a con artist for the ages.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Once upon a time... a married man and father of three went online and there he met a mystery woman from Uzbekistan. The two began an internet friendship that blossomed into an online romance. Within months, he and she decided he should fake his death so he could leave his wife and kids behind in Wisconsin and run away to be with her. Obviously, that didn't go down as planned since he's on this show!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The salad oil business is slippery stuff. Sometimes you have to grease some palms to get what you want. You have to be slick. And you have to trim the fat to keep your business profitable. Lubricating the cogs of international trade...okay, you get the picture. This guy dealt in oil and got himself into serious trouble.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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The Black Panthers weren't "revolutionaries." They were terrorists and thugs whose "movement" eventually collapsed into criminality exactly because that's really what they were all along. They set back the progress of the Black community by decades. Their pseudointellectual attempts to justify that criminality was nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig and was straight out of the terrorist handbook.
Eh, Chicago used to be a great city. Now it's like a couple dozen blocks you could call great surrounded by the crime ridden ruins of the rest of the city which is in turn surrounded by suburbs to which anyone with the ability to flee has fled. It's unfortunate, but absolutely true.
These two want everyone to buy their pseudo-intellectual nonsense while they openly admit that they aren't capable of pinning down concepts like annuities to become financially literate? Hilarious.
You think proper French pronunciation was more likely in Vermont, a British colony from its inception, than it was in Wisconsin which began as a French fur trapping territory and still has many French names amongst its counties and municipalities? Makes sense...
nope .. not cam-a-no. ka-may-no. weird, ya can Google it.
I wonder if the Internet was around in 1981 this scam would have lasted as long as it did- people would have been posting all over about what a liar he was.... OR maybe he would have run for & won the Presidency.
Keep in mind that 1981 money is worth 3x today. So that $1,500 seminar class would be $4,500 today. & that $15,000 week long class was like spending $45,000 today. Which is insane. If they skipped this POS con man's "classes" & invested that money instead it would have resulted in actual gains. But we are greedy as a society- if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. I hope all these victims ended up okay in the end.
P.S. If you want to catch a play/musical at a theater with a real cool vibe? Hit up the Pantages! The interior is so cool. When I was a kid who was too young to be all that interested in the shows my mom would take us to, I'd just enjoy the atmosphere and all the detail in the decor.
*prohibitive*
....*Also a child in need is a child in need. Why do you care so much (to mention it several times) WHERE they're from? You sell yourself as so "woke" (& I'm NOT using that term as an insult - to me it means compassionate, non- judgmental, empathetic & accepting). So are you a xenophobe? I've listened to the entire catalog of this podcast & I never got that impression of you but perhaps you are not what you like to portray.
.... I'm in the process here in the US. *Another reason is because the US (supposedly) has higher standards of care for children in group homes (orphanages/foster care) compared to those in other (less "developed "countries ). So one can argue these kids would never have the same opportunities as an orphan, unadopted child in the US would....
WTF, Elizabeth?... What's w/ the judgement about WHERE the couple adopted their children? Yeah, there are kids in Michigan who need adopted too but what does that have to do w/ anything? The 2 kids adopted from Columbia were still kids in need of a family. & There are several reasons WHY someone would choose to go elsewhere to adopt: *The cost is prohibited for many couples- ideally, it shouldn't cost anything but that's not the way it is here in the US. (I know this firsthand b/c -
P.S. You cannot still send a telegram via Western Union. They turned over their telegram service to International Telegram in 2006. I only know this because my aunt used to send us WU telegrams for Christmas every year as her unique way of wishing family members happy holidays.
An article I read on furries, bronies, and other alternative communities said that female bronies are called pegasisters (a combo of Pegasus and sister). Just FYI since Z said there wasn't a separate name for the ladies in the group. 😂
He felt so unsafe walking around America as a black man, but the second his tiger mauled him he called the cops that are supposedly the source of that fear. Ridiculous...
this is definitely my favorite episode thus far, hilarious!
Before the story of who JT LeRoy really was, I read Sarah and immediately got the vibe that it was fictional. So much of it reads like someone fantasizing about what they think some super edgy street kid character lives like. To anyone who has actually lived any part of that life it comes off as a caricature. The only people I knew who thought it was written as anything approaching autobiography were edgy kids who had their own similar fantasies.
P.S. The Cali Cartel existed before Pablo Escobar died and competed with the Medellin Cartel for years. They didn't go out and "form their own cartel" after Escobar was killed.
I used to work at an exotic car dealership here in SoCal and we had insurance that covered any accidents on test drives. I know this because one of my coworkers was on a Lambo test drive and the driver whipped it around a blind curve and into the ass end of an LA-area traffic jam. He was all worried that he'd get fired and owe a bunch of money until my boss explained to him that we have insurance and it wasn't his fault.
Not to be that guy, but it's courts martial not court martials.