July 15, 2025 • 41 mins
Prolific French bank robber Redoine Faid repeatedly evaded capture then repeatedly escaped imprisonment, entertaining all who heard of his exploits. His Hollywood-style capers were larger than life, just like his audacious public image. But can the authorities ever truly capture the man who has captured a nation's imagination?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Come On, Come on, pick up?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Is anyone there? Listen?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We broke out of resort jail.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
It wasn't easy.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm not sure that pool.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Noodles are supposed to.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Be stretched lengthwise like that. And Zaren found out that
if he coats himself in bacon grease, he can slip
through just about any tight spot. He got chased by
a pack of loose emotional support dogs. Put a quick
dip in the hot tub, clean them right up. We
also learned that carjacking and airport shuttle is way easier
than we expected. Good life pro tip there. Anyway, we
(00:37):
headed down the highway with resort security and hot pursuit.
Some golf carts gave him the slip and pulled the
airport shuttle.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Into an abandoned barn.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
This is so cool, like Smoky in the Bandit action
enough of that we need to hide out here until
it cools down so we won't be in today to record.
Since we're all about that jail break life, now, can
you run a classic prison escape episode? It's maybe something
I'll all say. Keep it.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Hey, Elizabeth Dutton, you know it's.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Ridiculous uh yeah, that the dessert called the peach enchilada
does not contain tortillas, but does contain mountain dew.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
WHOA, my mind just leaked out of my ear like
warm mountain dew. Yep, that is ridiculous, But I was
thinking of something else. I was thinking of breaking out
of a French prison in a helicopter.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Okay, that's that is definitely ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
heists and cons. It's always ninety murder free and one ridiculous. Okay,
this story takes place overseas in a French prison. Well,
you know, some of the French prisons were over here,
but this one is actually in France. Oh now picture it.
(02:17):
It's a quiet Sunday morning in the tiny town of
Fontaine Tresagner in rural France. A helicopter instructor awaits three
new students at a small flying club. But when his
students arrive, they're actually a trio of well armed commandos
(02:38):
who have AK forty sevens, and they demand the flight
instructor fly them to the Center Penitentiae. Soothe Francillellen. It's
a French prison in nearby Roux or rou Or Roue. Yeah,
it's close in another town with r ea U. Now,
thanks to months of drone surveillance, these commandos know that
(02:59):
there is one spot in this French prison that is
not covered by helicopter netting. So of course this is
the one spot where they land their helicopter and boom.
The masked men dressed all in black, arrive at the
prison around eleven twenty in the morning local time, and
two commandos hop out of the hijack chopper. They carry
with them the aforementioned AK forty seven assault rifles, the
(03:22):
classic and the Insurrectionist, Terrorist and Military adjacent Community the
preferred gun because it doesn't get stuck when you have mud.
But they're going to a French prison. Mud isn't their concern.
They just need to be able to pop off and
scare some folks, so they set off some smoke bombs.
They use a handheld cement grinder and they use that
(03:44):
to cut through the heavy prison doors. Now, one commando,
of course, stays behind with the helicopter because you don't
want that pilot taking off and leaving all of them
in the French prison. So the two commandos work their
way through the prison and they make it to the
visitor's room. Why the visitor's room, because that's where the
masterminded the escape is waiting for them or Adon fighted
(04:05):
my man. Now Fid and his commandos all gather up
and return to the hijacked helicopter and they fly to
go Esse or Gonoce.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Goodness, there you go.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
That one a suburb of Paris or Peerie. It's about
twenty five miles northeast of the city, right, So the
commandos they hop out in this town, what you said,
and they set the pilot free, and then they torch
the helicopter. They burn it. Well, no, this is not
that bad. I mean, it's bad for the guy owns
a helicops wasteful. It is wasteful, Darling's that's very true.
(04:36):
But then they flee the torch helicopter in a black Renault.
They make the clean getaway on the old A four
like it's like basically a freeway in France and has
like you know, roundabouts and stuff. Anyway, they tear off
and they disappear. Next they go and they meet up
with where they have a new car so they can
swap cars. And then this one. Just like with the helicopter,
(04:58):
they torch the Reinault and then they hop into a
white utility van that they have parked in a shopping
mall in all Ni soubois another Parisian suburb. Anyway, the
eyewitnesses spot Rudon Fayid and his team of commandos as
they hop into the white utility van. And this, you know,
in Paris, there's plenty of white utility vans, just like
how there are plenty of white pit cup trucks here
(05:20):
like it's a work vehicle, right, So this is not
going to catch anyone's attention. And just like that, the
forty six year old international thief bank robber par Excellence disappears,
having escaped from a French prison in a helicopter, then
a Renault and then obviously a white van. But this,
mind you, is not the first time Radon Fayid has
(05:40):
escaped from a French prison.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Oh it's not.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
No, this guy, I want you to be able to
picture him the man. He's not a hardened criminal the
way you might picture an American criminal. This is not
somebody who has come up in the mean streets and
this is his only choice. He chooses crime. He did
come up in a tough neighborhood in a suburb of
France and the town of Creele. It's mostly an immigrant community.
(06:06):
He is a son of immigrants. But at the same
time he chooses to be a criminal. He has the
talents to have been able to be most anything he
wanted to be with obviously a lot of hard work
and some luck. But Radon Faid chooses crime. He wants
to be a mastermind criminal. His first hero is this guy,
Jacques Messrine, a big time local criminal of the slums
(06:28):
in seventies Paris. That's where his imagination starts.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
So he opts into this.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
He wants this. He not only wants it, he basically
wants to become more famous than the big slum criminal
that and when he grew up ran his town. Sure,
He's like, I can pass that guy.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
No sweat, He's way cooler. He's like, I'm way cooler
than this guy.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
I'm a boss, cooler than this guy.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
A seventies Paris suburb criminal like mastermind though like a
guy like a mob boss from the sounds kind of cool, right.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
We have like small time criminals like Carlosa Jackal independent
people being able to pull off huge international crimes. So
the imagination of criminals has changed in the seventies.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Well, and they're all walking around in like loafers and
bell bottomed sands, a belt, pants, like polyester and like
slightly feathered hair exactly, grimaces and like you know, tinted glasses,
yellow tinted glasses.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Very sensible, turtlenecks.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Hush, that's what That's what makes the whole thing, that's
what makes them so menacing is their fashion choices.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Exactly, a leather jacket and a turtleneck. Oh wow, criminal,
it's just I mean, like formal wear. Criminal.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I just turned my pocketbook over to them.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Take take it, okay, So radon't fight. He's got his
mastermind hero Jacques's mess Riene right, and he's like, I
can beat this guy. So he goes, now, how can
I train to become a bigger mastermind criminal? What would
you look to if you wanted to become a better criminal?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Could you get books in the library the Yeah, I
mean it's not really criminality for dummies?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Criminal? How to rob a bank for dummies?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Criminality poor led dummies.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
No, but there is something called Hollywood, which is exactly
that totally is so. Hollywood is just making all kinds
of criminal movies. And during the seventies you have like
a Heyday of crime movies. So and then also in
the eighties when Radlon Fayid is a young man, when
he's a teenager, as he's coming into his own he
has particular the films of Michael Mann. He loves Michael
(08:32):
Mann and if you're not familiar, Michael Manners the director
who did Heat which has one of the most epic
gunfights ever by bank robbers, and that's the type of
crime Radl Fayid has his mind set on. But there
is one big difference. He's not a violent criminal. He
doesn't want to hurt people. He not only doesn't want
to hurt people, he ensures he never hurts people. Now,
(08:53):
this just sets him apart for most of the criminals
of his day because it's easier to get away with
a crime if you have no witnesses. It's easy year
to get away with a large heist if you have
killed the bank manager. Right, He's like no. Now, there's
a couple of reasons why this is. Even though he
is France's pre eminent hold up man bank robber like
(09:13):
like he is the guy. By the early nineties he
has established himself, but mostly it's because he has people
left behind to tell the stories of his crimes. Oh
legend exactly. So the non violence gambit works for him
for years, because one he doesn't have victims to go
to the police insisting to get justice for their murdered brother, father, son, wife,
(09:36):
what have you. Instead, you have people who are thankful
that this folk hero bandit has left them alive and
now they have an interesting story to tell. If anything,
he kind of gifts them with something that makes them special,
and everybody retells these stories, and the legend of Ridon
Faid's spreads well.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And he's sticking up banks, right, So it's not like
he's robbing people's homes.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
He's not breaking he's going into jewelry shops. He's like
picking up the bank deposit trucks. He's robbing banks. He's
going to the people that have been basically not necessarily
exploiting the French people explicitly, but who the French people
feel they have been exploited by. So they're on the
side of Radon Faid, this criminal and the French in
(10:20):
particular they like their criminals, they like gangsters. They are
particular much like Americans fans of the gangster film. So
Radon Faid starts giving them a taste of it in
the real life and they come to love him. But
the fact that all of his heroes are actual bank
robbers from movies gives him a leg up in terms
of his legend. So he becomes a dedicated student of
(10:42):
Michael Mann. Michael Mann is his criminal bible, right, It's
basically the Willie Dixon to his led Zeppelin fo right.
So he's like explaining like how his criminal mind works,
and Faid tries to give some journalists and insights. So
I'm going to quote Radon fayid here forgive my French accent.
(11:07):
Recently journalists asked me, you know you had a big
criminal career and you did it yourself. You are self,
thought I told him, No, I had the technical advisor,
a college teacher, a kind of mentor, and his name
is Michael Mann.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
I didn't know that robbed banks.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yes he did. When he's not harassing kittens, he's robbing
banks and giving me my voice. So Faid finnagels his
way into a screening when Michael Mann is doing it
that Johnny Depp movie Public Enemies, so Public Enemies comes out.
Johnny Depp is, you know, not over there. Michael Mann
is over there in France and he's doing like a
Q and a Radon Fay says, I got to talk
(11:44):
to my master. He sneaks in and pretends to be
like a film reviewer, a film student, and then he
like raises his hand and he's like, Michael Mann calls
on him and Radaul Feide stands up in this room
full of pretentious French cinophiles and he says, he's romance,
absolute example of organized crime. Inspired by life, by people,
(12:05):
real facts. He tries to transmit them in his cinema.
I personally, I am a former gangster. Unfortunately I do
not brag about it. I just spent ten years in prison.
I attacked Armored Vance. For twenty years I have known
Michael Mann. I discovered him with thief and with a
bunch of friends. We've watched his films as a bit,
(12:28):
as news reports, as documentaries. And now Michael Mann is
listening to this crazy phantom, the one he's been in
prison for being a real robber, and he's inspired by
Michael Mann, and Michael Man's like, uh, thank you for that.
I don't know how to respond because it was.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
This isn't so much a question but a comment.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
It's the classic one.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
He gets up and tabs my first time caller, longtime listener.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Now you have to understand, Judo Fight has a sense
of humor that I kind of like about this guy.
So Michael Man is his dude, right, and Michael Mann
has Heat, And like you know, Heat is very much
an iconic movie. But there are other iconic crime movies
from that era. For instance, Point Break. Oh, yes, now
you knew you remember that movie. Captain bigelowis, Now, what's
one of your favorite scenes in that movie? Is it
(13:16):
the bank robbery?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Do you have any favorite bank robbery scenes?
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You know what I think my favorite scene in the
movie is is when Keno says I am an FBI
agent and the Redon would say suit a, Jean do
di s a not bad? The General Dictorate for External Security? Yeah,
(13:43):
or General Dictorate for External Security. I guess they don't
have a translation for that exterior.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Ready to put your back into it that day, dude.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
I did hard time in high school French and that's
all I have to show for it.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Well, then I want to apologize to you as well
as the listeners for my French accents. Let me backtrack
about the Catherine Bigelow point break. Yeah, the scene that
he is inspired by from that movie is where they're
wearing the rubber masks for all the presidents, the dead presidents.
So he does that over in France, but he does
it with French leaders. So it's like exactly Jacques Shack
(14:21):
and General Charles Degaull are robbing a French bank. Now.
Now when he's deciding not to imitate Michael Mann or
Catherine Bigelow, there is a third favorite film director of
his from the nineties era Hollywood. No, what criminal director
from nineties era Hollywood?
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Do you think he loves a.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Wrong type of criminal director? I met a director of
crime films, not a director who is a criminal. Yeah,
it's tough, I know, it's Oh it was good.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
That was a good time for criminal films, especially like
indie ones. Who was it?
Speaker 4 (14:58):
So in a Reservoir Dogs, he has all the guys
named for colors and they have that big fight about
why I got to be mister pank So it's mister white,
mister pink, mister brown. He does the same thing. He
names his guys after colors. So he's constantly aping these
Hollywood movies and basically making Hollywood reel in a way
(15:18):
that nobody has ever really done.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
It's a cosplay.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
It's a cosplay criminal.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
So imagine now that Radon fight using this like tendency
for theatricality. Also this criminal imagination and a level of
ambition rarely seen in a criminal, because he's not just
going for money. He wants legend, he wants story, he
wants to be remembered, right, So this is very French
(15:44):
if you think about it, it's like, you know, it's
not so much about the money as about the how So,
the next thing he does is he gets too good
at being a criminal. He starts robbing banks all over
the continent. He's robbing banks in Switzerland, he's robbing banks
in France, He's robbing banks anywhere he can that they
have French speaking populous Belgium, He's gonna rob banks there.
He gets so good that the EU, even though it's
(16:06):
not the EU, then the European the European community starts
to look for him. Entrepole is after him. It is
like pretty much a matter of time before he's caught.
And he knows this because there's only so many places
a really flamboyant criminal like Rodon Fayid can hide. So
what does he do? Where would you go if you
needed to escape the success you have as a criminal?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Ah man, somewhere where they're just not gonna look for you.
I get. I mean, that's that's obvious. That's not a
very smart response.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Well, I mean like Moscow, Antarctica. These are all places
of Buenos Aires. These are places that people probably wouldn't
look for him. But that's not where he goes Fresno, Stockton. Yeah. Instead,
he goes to Israel and he becomes Jewish.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Oh as easy as that.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
He just says, you know what I'm gonna go do.
I'm gonna go become Jewish.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
He declares himself Jewish.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
He says, I'm not one of the chosen people. Wow,
God chose me, so it's amazing. He converts to Judaism.
He literally goes to Israel. He starts hanging out the
Orthodox community. He wears a Yamaica, he starts studying like
the Torah, the Talmud, the holy holy liturgies, and just
going to town trying to become Jewish.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Now going to town.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Trying to become Jewish. Now this lasts for a few months,
but by nineteen ninety seven, Fid's like, you know what,
I'm over it. He stops being Jewish. He goes back
to Europe, goes back to crime. Now do we know
why he wanted to be Jewish? Was it legitimate? Was
he just trying to hide out? Was he trying to
work a scam? We don't know. It's just a part
of the brilliance of his legend. For a short period
of time where don't Fightid was Jewish.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Well, you know, the Lord speaks to everyone in different.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Ways, Yeah, exactly, so he was motivated to a higher calling.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yeah, maybe there was some sort of con that he felt,
you know, because we don't we know details of all
these ridiculous crimes that we talk about. But then I
always like to think about what are the things that
didn't make it public, Like what happened that no one
found out about? So maybe he had some like weird
little con going.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Maybe he fell in love with a woman who was
an Israel and he's like I'll go to Israel become
Jewish and she's like, nah, this is not working. He's like,
I'm not gonna be Jewish anymore. That could be No,
I'm not too much of a romantic.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
No. I like to imagine that it was like a
Yentle situation.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
So he's trying to pretend he's a Jewish man and
he's actually Jewish woman.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
I don't know. I just wanted to have you seen Yental,
I think so. I just wanted to say, le one of.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Barbie Straton's best Yeah, was his givat on that one.
So back to my man, we don't fight. Let's put
a pin in that and we'll get back to him
after this short break. So my man, Radona fay Aid
(19:05):
has been hanging at in Israel, pretending to be Jewish,
possibly converting, and he's been on the run. He decides
to go back to Europe. He hits back to Switzerland.
Now what do you think he does when he gets
back to Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Okay, so he's left the Kibbutz. He's in Switzerland, yep,
opens a bank account, buys.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Chocolate, That's what I would do, but.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Rides the Saint Bernard down the street.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
These are all things that are excellent choices, but Radono
Fayid does none of them. He robs a bank. So
he robs a bank, and it doesn't quite go as
how he plans it. Instead, he has to take a
policeman hostage, which is a new thing for him. He
doesn't normally do this, but he's like, uh, you know,
I don't hurt people, So he uses the policeman as
a chit. He's like, if you basically as a hostage.
(19:50):
He goes, if you don't hurt me, I'll let the
policeman go. He lets the policeman go, he doesn't get hurt.
He escapes, but he's now back on the radar of interpal.
It doesn't take them long and like I said, he
is finally captured. His luck is completely turned. He is
arrested for a slew of robberies in France and Belgium
and Switzerland, and he is sentenced to thirty years in
(20:12):
a French penitentiary. He is just twenty six years old.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Twenty six He did all of this.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Before he was twenty six years old. Wow, But he's
a gangster. He's a mobster from way back. As far
as how he views himself. So he does his dime
just like any other mobster would, doesn't say a thing.
He's like, I can do my thirty. Turns out the
French are like, you know, after ten years, man, you
seem to be a changed man. You seem to be
a rehabilitated and they decide to turn him free. So
(20:40):
now Radon Fayid is free. A brilliant man. What has
always been his primary concern movies exactly, the drama of stories,
in the power of legend. So what does he do?
He decides he'll tell his own story. He's like, I
can make a fortune by talking about being a criminal.
I don't need to be a criminal per se. Right,
(21:02):
So he writes a criminal know how book, like basically.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
A criminality for le dummies.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Exactly, and he calls it bracieux des cities or grand
balditisme something like that. There you go, just like that,
the banditism So it roughly translates as robber from the
streets to great banditry so exactly. So this story is
(21:29):
like obviously self aggrandizing. He becomes a grand criminal on
the level of like Moriarty, right, so he does. But
the problem is he doesn't have his own Sherlock homes.
He only has all of French police right, but that's
not enough for him. He needs more conflicts. So he
then becomes a hero who can wag his finger at
(21:51):
all French culture as the former criminal who can tell
them where French society has gone wrong. He goes on
TV and becomes this moral scold and he basically because
they're having a problem in the nineties with gangsters people
going around shooting everybody up, he starts telling them that
basically it's the French authority's fault. It's society is to blame.
(22:12):
It is not these young men, it's his society. And
everyone's like, oh, may we, may we, and they all
go crazy for it because it's the lesson that they
want to believe is true. It's not us, it's them,
it's the French authorities. So now what happens. You think
this is gonna go well for Radon Fayid to become
go from criminal to criminal explainer.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Ah, you know, I think that it sounds like it's
so in his blood that he has crafted this so heartily.
I don't know if he can I don't know if
he can get out of it.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
I'll give you a little sneak peek into the mind
of Radon Fayid. If I am telling everyone I'm no
longer a criminal, they will believe it, which clears up
a lot of room for me to be going back
to being a criminal. So it's all a cover. He
is now masterminding crimes because nobody would think that he
would dare become a criminal again. He said, he's not.
(23:09):
It's so important to his identity. He goes right back
to it and masterminds a bank robbery.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
So he's doing like TV appearances. He's on like Good
Morning Paris and just talking about the poison of the
state and then he oh, that is brilliant, right.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
And he has the book. He has the book out,
so the press is constantly talking about the book. They
have him on. Everybody wants to talk to him. And
he's a charming, ambitious, creative, intelligent man. So he's a
great guest on French TV, sure, and he has that
little bit of dark width that they like, so he
doesn't mind making fun of At the time, Nicholas Sarkozzi,
who was the French president. So we're in twenty eleven right,
(23:48):
and around this time, about Let's say, three days after
he appears on a French TV show raredon Fight, he
gets arrested. Why does he get arrested because his bank
robbery he's a mastermind, goes bad. Like Michael Mann would
be like really excited by how bad it would make
a great movie. Oh no, okay, you're ready for a
(24:10):
short story. Totally okay. It's early in the morning. A
patrol car cruises past a white van and they're like, oh,
look a white van van. It would mean nothing to
these cops except there are two big bullet holes in
the back of the white van that's not supposed to
be in a work van. So the French cops they
pull over and they stop to investigate. Oh what is
(24:31):
going on here with these holes in your van? Right
inside the utility van is a squad of heavily armed,
masked men, all holding Ak forty seven's and wearing balaklava masks.
So they're freaking out. They're like, what are we gonna do?
So the driver just starts pushing into traffic. The cops
are circling around the van on foot, and the driver
(24:51):
just pushes into traffic, hits a car takes off the
cops go back to their car give chase the heavily
armed men in the back. What do they do? They
do some fast and furious type ish. They push open
the doors and they start spraying AK forty seven's at
the cop cars in traffic. Oh no, right, how insane
is that? So they're driving around on their fast and
(25:12):
furious vibe and the police cars swerving and crashing into cars.
The vanload of mass men escape, so it looks like
everything's fine. Yeah, the getaway driver follows the original plan.
The redn't fight. You created a brilliant plan. It had
a backup car. They go to the backup car. They
exchanged cars. They're like, well, we're not gonna be able
to rob the bank today. They started driving away. Little
do they know that somebody in the gang must have
(25:33):
snitched because there is a tracker underneath their getaway car,
and when they come up to the freeway to make
their escape, there is a police car waiting for them
on the bridge.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Oh my goodness, this is like out of a Michael
Man film.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Right. So the mass men, still dressed in their camouflage,
bulletproof vests and their ball of clavius, they basically start
shooting the heck out of that cop car. They tear,
they shoot up. There is a young male cop and
a young female cop. They're both shot up. The window
explodes in just a symphony of glass and light and
(26:08):
the female cop her name is ale Fouquet something like that.
She is a mother to a young child, and within
hours of this interaction she is pronounced dead. Her partner
to Tiri or what is it theory Tiri Morou He
is hitting the chest. He survives, but with Fouquet passed away,
(26:29):
she becomes the first female metropolitan police officer in Paris
to be killed in the line of duty.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
That's horrible. So she's our one percent, one percent.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
Yes, her death shocks the Parisian culture. They're not used
to this military style of violence, so used to this
in movies, but now Radon Fay, it has made it
a real life thing. And it's tragic when the blood
actually hits the sidewalk in the streets.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Well, and I feel like he wouldn't sign off on
this sort of think. This is like he's got crew members.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
They messed up and that moment of fear ruins everything.
So Nicholas Sarkozy, he takes his shooting super personal. He's like, no,
this is not the excepting out of my France. Pardon,
apologies to all the French. He launches a nationwide man hunt, right,
and he's going to bring justice to these criminals and
(27:21):
bring these criminals to justice. Now do you think it
takes long for him to find any of these people?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
No? I think that they put the hammer down.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
That same night, the police arrest one of the suspects. Wow,
that same night, Malik Kier. And when they get to
Malik Kyder's hideout, they discover assault rifles, they discover grenades,
they discovered the same balaklava masks that the gunmen were
wearing in the van. They didn't get rid of them.
So now they've got DNA for.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
The whole crew.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Boom, they're all done.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
So Bradon Fayid here's on the news that he is
now a person of interest, a suspect in this crime.
He disappears, he goes on the run. He is not
going back to prison. He doesn't care about being embarrassed
at all that but he is not going back to prison,
not because because I remember he had time left on
his sentence. He was released on good behavior. And being
(28:13):
a changed man. They will tack that back on. He's
going to be looking at a thirty year stretch at
least because of his pro violation. It's going to be
a guarantee. And masterminding a bank job I think is
a pro violate.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I think so.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
On June eighth, twenty eleven, he is finally captured after
being on the run for six months. For six months
he was able to avoid capture, but of course he's captured. Yeah,
and this now brings our story full circle. Our French
Robin Hood is going to a prison, a prison where
a helicopter will come in and free him. Well, I'll
(28:48):
get right back to that after this break. So, Elizabeth
(29:13):
Radon fightd you like him? You don't like him?
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You know? I do? I do. He's got moxie.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
So what about him do you like?
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I like the fact that he is clever. I like
the fact that he goes out with the intention of
being nonviolent in this and he's entertaining. He's an entertaining criminal.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Like, how can you not like him?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Right, So the French authorities kind of have the same stance.
So radon't fight. He's recaptured after being on the run
for six months. There's been this whole media circus, but
he's this famous former criminal. Turns out that's not the case.
He's been scolding French society. Apparently that doesn't necessarily work
because he's still the criminal. Nicholas Arcozzi has been embarrassed
by him, and now Nicholas Sarkozy gets to punish him.
(29:59):
So everything is started to rebalance out for the most part. Right, Well,
he goes back to prison and what does he do
in prison? Starts plotting on an escape.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Sure, he's like the El Chapo, the exact scape artist.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
So on April thirteenth, twenty thirteen, Radon Fayed's wife shows
up for a visit at the detention facility in Lil,
France where he is being held. I've been to little
to lovely little town in great museums, but I can't
imagine being in a prison there. It just doesn't feel
like a prison town. They'd be like being in a
prison in Montreal.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
There's prisons there too.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
Well, I'm sure it just seems like a town where
you don't want to be in prison. It's like it's
too nice. Yeah, so Faid he needs to get out
of this prison, So what is he gonna do. He
uses a bomb to blow up a heavy prison door.
He then uses more bombs and keeps blowing up prison
doors until he's finally worked his way out. So he
(30:54):
takes a gun that's a fake gun, and he uses
that to get four prison guards hostage. He uses the
prison guards as a cover and then they all make
their way out of prison.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Where was he giving these bombs?
Speaker 4 (31:07):
He The suspicion is his wife brought them in when
she visited, but there is no proof of that. It
could have been he got it from a guard or
inmate who don't fight. His lawyer insists that his wife
had nothing to do with it. It was purely coincidental
that she happened to be there on the day that
he broke out and happened to be seeing him at
the time he was breaking up. Such as all purely coincidental. Yeah,
you have to be French to understand this.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
So once they're free of the prison walls, Fayid, who's
staying true to his mo he doesn't hurt anyone. He
lets one cop go, they go a little further, he
lets another cop go, and then finally, once he lines
up with his Basically, I don't want to say is coworkers.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Basically is the teammates criminals.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
They decide to release the final two hostages and they
take off. Now for the next six weeks, he does
whatever he wants. He is free as a bird, right,
he's wearing a wig when he wants to go out
and gets some Chaco latmelk, you know. But this does
last long because eventually somebody catches up on the fact
there's this really strange man and this cheap motel who
(32:06):
doesn't seem to mind the price of anything and should
be somewhere else, and it becomes an issue. The police
show up at they surround the flophouse motel. They rush
in and a team in all black, armed and ready
for war, approach the hotel room and where is redont fight?
Right there waiting with a stunned face. How did you
catch me?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Did they rip his wig off? His fright wig?
Speaker 4 (32:30):
You wouldn't have couped me. It weren't for you, meadling children.
So they catch him, unguarded, flat footed, totally unaware, and
he's like I can't help but being pressed because he's
redn't fight, He's like full of himself. He doesn't think
he's going anywhere because he knows he's not going to
be held if he can help it. Right, But now
he has to go to a trial because he's held
(32:51):
on the bad bank job that he has avoided. That's
a separate crime. He has to be tried for that.
So he goes into a trial. Now, what do you
think you're going to use as a legal defense if
you were Doon Faid and you weren't at the crime,
it wasn't me. There you go. So his legal defense
is also a charm offensive. So he basically tries to
(33:12):
win over the jury by being so French and so
unsufferably a full hero that only they could love him.
How could they hit him?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Did he bad his eyelashes at them? And his charm offensive?
Does that? Would that all work on the French? I
feel like we have notions about other countries here in
the States, and we, you know, give them characteristics and
perhaps they don't have or that not everybody has.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
I think we also we forget about the effects of
classism on French culture. That if depending on who's in
this jury, you're gonna have a very different opinion. I
think of how they view him.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's very true.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
So he tells the jury at one point in his trial,
I may not be a Robin Hood, I'm not the hero,
but I never killed him. They want so hey, he's
basically making his case, which is, look, I'm a folk hero,
I'm a legend. I'm not fatal. The French are like, oh,
that's good, he's all fair, all fair. Now. Meanwhile, this
(34:11):
is the kind of dude who gives three hour monologues
in court. Radon fight he could on the stand and
gave a three hour monologue explaining why it was that
he was in this court room.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
This is when the people who are super stoked to
be on that jury are like starting to doubt how
there's their own stokage.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Yes, and also they think sometimes those types of charm
offensive can back up all of your forward progress because
people start getting mad that their ass is still in
that seat.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah. Three hours of a monologue is not charming, you
know what, it is ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
So Radon fight amidst his jurors that if they find
him guilty, he'll just attempt to escape again, He's like, look,
I'm gonna say it like it is. I am not
going to allow to be held. But then he tells them,
but hey, but is written yet? So French, so French.
So what do you think the jury does? Do you
think they go guilty, innocent or hung trial?
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Hell, I don't know, jury, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
They say guilty. He has found guilty to return to prison,
and good to his word, he escapes French prison in
a helicopter.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Wow, well nothing was written and this is where we
came in. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
He had promised them and then he gave them an
even bigger one. Last one's like with bombs this time.
He's like, we're not going to repeat the same.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
There's a certain elegance to the helicopter and the one
spot where the anti helicopter netting did they run out
of funding for the netting and we're like, you know,
it's kind off to the side or like was the
guy who was supposed to put it up just like.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
He just measured it wrong and it made it one spot.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
You know, he didn't measure twice cut once classic machine
eyeballed it.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
And then he had like a big square and he's
like a man, well it looks good, guys. No helicopter could.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Land, you would do that anyway. We're overly cautious, you guys.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
He painted himself into a corner.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Of course. I wonder if he lost his job.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Actually I do not know that was Let's just say
he didn't, because I would hate for him to lose
his job exactly because of Dad's excellence, you know, I mean,
like he it's not so much. I mean he had
the drones flying over the prison for weeks. Sure so.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
But I also kind of I'll endorse someone losing their
job in the criminal justice system, like as a corrections officer, because.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
I'll endorse it because I want them to not have that.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I want them to not have I want that to
not be a job.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Yeah, exactly, I'm with you all there. Okay, So how
would you escape from your French prison?
Speaker 3 (36:44):
I would. I would be a really good person who
just like to get like what they call a trustee job.
So they're like, she's so well behaved, she's she's you know,
she got her act together, and I would work my
way to be able to work in like the prison baker,
and you know, i'd wow them with my breads and confections.
(37:06):
But then I'm also perfecting baking a giant baguette, And
so I'd bake about like three or four of these
giant bagettes like human and then one of com sized bagettes,
and I would hollow one of them out and sneak
(37:29):
myself into it. But I'd also be constructing a giant
paper bag and a giant bicycle with a giant basket
on the front. And so then I load myself into
the bagette in the basket, so it just looks like
a giant's bike with baguettes. And they then what happens
(37:50):
is they don't think that's weird. They just, like all
all the prison employees, think they're hallucinating that something's wrong
with them, that we must have eaten some sort of
like mushroom spores or bad cheese. And in their panic,
then I, you know, as they wheel off this oddity
of this giant bike with giant bag attes. I'm in
(38:13):
one of the bag ats, and then as they wheel
it out, I tip it and I fall, and then
I sneak out. I roll out of the bag at
and run into the woods.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
I like it, and I live.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Among the wolves, the French wolves, the French wolves.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
I like, that's a that's a great plan. Hit you up.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
I've put a lot of thought into this. I have
diagrams if you want to look at them, measurements for
flower and yeast.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
I think I would just wait for the French national
soccer team to be playing in some major tournament, and
I would just walk out the front door.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Oh yeah, because everything would come to.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Us exactly, no one be paying attention. So that is
the basic story of my Man Radon Fad and he
like comes up as possibly one of the most epic
movie inspired criminals of all time. But as a Frenchman,
it's even more so impressive because, like, I don't know,
(39:11):
it seems like kind of more of an American thing
to go like full Mickey Mallory, I'm gonna be inspired
by the movies, and like, you know, that just seems American.
I don't know why, but it seems like the French
would be more inspired by like Jerry Lewis, Jerry Lewis
in literature exactly, or the literature of Jerry Lewis, ah,
the great literature of Jerry Lewis. So my Man, the
forty six year old crime legend is now currently ben
(39:35):
returned to a maximum security French prison, after being caught
for the third time, the French Justice Minister Nicole Bellube.
He told europe One Radio quote, We're going to put
them in a high security facility where he will be
watched extremely closely. So that's the promise, but we gotta
believe ra don't fay. He's got to stay at least
(39:56):
one step ahead of him. So we'll see if he's
free once again, we'll tell you about it and it
won't be a surprise, but it'll be hard for me
not to root for this folk hero. Same So what's
our ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 3 (40:08):
I think that if you're gonna if you're gonna do something,
you gotta go all in and make it interesting.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Oh I like that. I think my ridiculous takeaway for
him is pick a good film director stick to us.
For me, it'd be Billy.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Wilder, The Crimes of Billy Wilder.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
If I'm gonna become a criminal, I'm gonna use Billy
Wilder's playbook cross Dressing, runaway to Miami, get involved with
the gangsters. That's my that's my score.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Well done, Thank you.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Well, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
I'm zaraen Burnette and I'm Elizabeth Dutton.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
You're gonna find us online at Ridiculous Crime on both
Twitter and Instagram. Got a tip for us about a
ridiculous crime you'd like to hear about. Maybe when you
committed you want to confess to a ridiculous crime. You
can email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
(41:02):
and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Dave Kusten. Research
is by the intrepid Marissa Brown. The theme song is
by Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Executive producers are Ben
Bolin and Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
from my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Come On, Come on, pick up?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Is anyone there? Listen?
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We broke out of resort jail.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
It wasn't easy.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm not sure that pool.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Noodles are supposed to.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Be stretched lengthwise like that. And Zaren found out that
if he coats himself in bacon grease, he can slip
through just about any tight spot. He got chased by
a pack of loose emotional support dogs. Put a quick
dip in the hot tub, clean them right up. We
also learned that carjacking and airport shuttle is way easier
than we expected. Good life pro tip there. Anyway, we
(00:37):
headed down the highway with resort security and hot pursuit.
Some golf carts gave him the slip and pulled the
airport shuttle.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Into an abandoned barn.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
This is so cool, like Smoky in the Bandit action
enough of that we need to hide out here until
it cools down so we won't be in today to record.
Since we're all about that jail break life, now, can
you run a classic prison escape episode? It's maybe something
I'll all say. Keep it.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Hey, Elizabeth Dutton, you know it's.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Ridiculous uh yeah, that the dessert called the peach enchilada
does not contain tortillas, but does contain mountain dew.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
WHOA, my mind just leaked out of my ear like
warm mountain dew. Yep, that is ridiculous, But I was
thinking of something else. I was thinking of breaking out
of a French prison in a helicopter.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Okay, that's that is definitely ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
This is Ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers,
heists and cons. It's always ninety murder free and one ridiculous. Okay,
this story takes place overseas in a French prison. Well,
you know, some of the French prisons were over here,
but this one is actually in France. Oh now picture it.
(02:17):
It's a quiet Sunday morning in the tiny town of
Fontaine Tresagner in rural France. A helicopter instructor awaits three
new students at a small flying club. But when his
students arrive, they're actually a trio of well armed commandos
(02:38):
who have AK forty sevens, and they demand the flight
instructor fly them to the Center Penitentiae. Soothe Francillellen. It's
a French prison in nearby Roux or rou Or Roue. Yeah,
it's close in another town with r ea U. Now,
thanks to months of drone surveillance, these commandos know that
(02:59):
there is one spot in this French prison that is
not covered by helicopter netting. So of course this is
the one spot where they land their helicopter and boom.
The masked men dressed all in black, arrive at the
prison around eleven twenty in the morning local time, and
two commandos hop out of the hijack chopper. They carry
with them the aforementioned AK forty seven assault rifles, the
(03:22):
classic and the Insurrectionist, Terrorist and Military adjacent Community the
preferred gun because it doesn't get stuck when you have mud.
But they're going to a French prison. Mud isn't their concern.
They just need to be able to pop off and
scare some folks, so they set off some smoke bombs.
They use a handheld cement grinder and they use that
(03:44):
to cut through the heavy prison doors. Now, one commando,
of course, stays behind with the helicopter because you don't
want that pilot taking off and leaving all of them
in the French prison. So the two commandos work their
way through the prison and they make it to the
visitor's room. Why the visitor's room, because that's where the
masterminded the escape is waiting for them or Adon fighted
(04:05):
my man. Now Fid and his commandos all gather up
and return to the hijacked helicopter and they fly to
go Esse or Gonoce.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Goodness, there you go.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
That one a suburb of Paris or Peerie. It's about
twenty five miles northeast of the city, right, So the
commandos they hop out in this town, what you said,
and they set the pilot free, and then they torch
the helicopter. They burn it. Well, no, this is not
that bad. I mean, it's bad for the guy owns
a helicops wasteful. It is wasteful, Darling's that's very true.
(04:36):
But then they flee the torch helicopter in a black Renault.
They make the clean getaway on the old A four
like it's like basically a freeway in France and has
like you know, roundabouts and stuff. Anyway, they tear off
and they disappear. Next they go and they meet up
with where they have a new car so they can
swap cars. And then this one. Just like with the helicopter,
(04:58):
they torch the Reinault and then they hop into a
white utility van that they have parked in a shopping
mall in all Ni soubois another Parisian suburb. Anyway, the
eyewitnesses spot Rudon Fayid and his team of commandos as
they hop into the white utility van. And this, you know,
in Paris, there's plenty of white utility vans, just like
how there are plenty of white pit cup trucks here
(05:20):
like it's a work vehicle, right, So this is not
going to catch anyone's attention. And just like that, the
forty six year old international thief bank robber par Excellence disappears,
having escaped from a French prison in a helicopter, then
a Renault and then obviously a white van. But this,
mind you, is not the first time Radon Fayid has
(05:40):
escaped from a French prison.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Oh it's not.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
No, this guy, I want you to be able to
picture him the man. He's not a hardened criminal the
way you might picture an American criminal. This is not
somebody who has come up in the mean streets and
this is his only choice. He chooses crime. He did
come up in a tough neighborhood in a suburb of
France and the town of Creele. It's mostly an immigrant community.
(06:06):
He is a son of immigrants. But at the same
time he chooses to be a criminal. He has the
talents to have been able to be most anything he
wanted to be with obviously a lot of hard work
and some luck. But Radon Faid chooses crime. He wants
to be a mastermind criminal. His first hero is this guy,
Jacques Messrine, a big time local criminal of the slums
(06:28):
in seventies Paris. That's where his imagination starts.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
So he opts into this.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
He wants this. He not only wants it, he basically
wants to become more famous than the big slum criminal
that and when he grew up ran his town. Sure,
He's like, I can pass that guy.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
No sweat, He's way cooler. He's like, I'm way cooler
than this guy.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
I'm a boss, cooler than this guy.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
A seventies Paris suburb criminal like mastermind though like a
guy like a mob boss from the sounds kind of cool, right.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
We have like small time criminals like Carlosa Jackal independent
people being able to pull off huge international crimes. So
the imagination of criminals has changed in the seventies.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Well, and they're all walking around in like loafers and
bell bottomed sands, a belt, pants, like polyester and like
slightly feathered hair exactly, grimaces and like you know, tinted glasses,
yellow tinted glasses.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Very sensible, turtlenecks.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Hush, that's what That's what makes the whole thing, that's
what makes them so menacing is their fashion choices.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Exactly, a leather jacket and a turtleneck. Oh wow, criminal,
it's just I mean, like formal wear. Criminal.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I just turned my pocketbook over to them.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Take take it, okay, So radon't fight. He's got his
mastermind hero Jacques's mess Riene right, and he's like, I
can beat this guy. So he goes, now, how can
I train to become a bigger mastermind criminal? What would
you look to if you wanted to become a better criminal?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Could you get books in the library the Yeah, I
mean it's not really criminality for dummies?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Criminal? How to rob a bank for dummies?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Criminality poor led dummies.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
No, but there is something called Hollywood, which is exactly
that totally is so. Hollywood is just making all kinds
of criminal movies. And during the seventies you have like
a Heyday of crime movies. So and then also in
the eighties when Radlon Fayid is a young man, when
he's a teenager, as he's coming into his own he
has particular the films of Michael Mann. He loves Michael
(08:32):
Mann and if you're not familiar, Michael Manners the director
who did Heat which has one of the most epic
gunfights ever by bank robbers, and that's the type of
crime Radl Fayid has his mind set on. But there
is one big difference. He's not a violent criminal. He
doesn't want to hurt people. He not only doesn't want
to hurt people, he ensures he never hurts people. Now,
(08:53):
this just sets him apart for most of the criminals
of his day because it's easier to get away with
a crime if you have no witnesses. It's easy year
to get away with a large heist if you have
killed the bank manager. Right, He's like no. Now, there's
a couple of reasons why this is. Even though he
is France's pre eminent hold up man bank robber like
(09:13):
like he is the guy. By the early nineties he
has established himself, but mostly it's because he has people
left behind to tell the stories of his crimes. Oh
legend exactly. So the non violence gambit works for him
for years, because one he doesn't have victims to go
to the police insisting to get justice for their murdered brother, father, son, wife,
(09:36):
what have you. Instead, you have people who are thankful
that this folk hero bandit has left them alive and
now they have an interesting story to tell. If anything,
he kind of gifts them with something that makes them special,
and everybody retells these stories, and the legend of Ridon
Faid's spreads well.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And he's sticking up banks, right, So it's not like
he's robbing people's homes.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
He's not breaking he's going into jewelry shops. He's like
picking up the bank deposit trucks. He's robbing banks. He's
going to the people that have been basically not necessarily
exploiting the French people explicitly, but who the French people
feel they have been exploited by. So they're on the
side of Radon Faid, this criminal and the French in
(10:20):
particular they like their criminals, they like gangsters. They are
particular much like Americans fans of the gangster film. So
Radon Faid starts giving them a taste of it in
the real life and they come to love him. But
the fact that all of his heroes are actual bank
robbers from movies gives him a leg up in terms
of his legend. So he becomes a dedicated student of
(10:42):
Michael Mann. Michael Mann is his criminal bible, right, It's
basically the Willie Dixon to his led Zeppelin fo right.
So he's like explaining like how his criminal mind works,
and Faid tries to give some journalists and insights. So
I'm going to quote Radon fayid here forgive my French accent.
(11:07):
Recently journalists asked me, you know you had a big
criminal career and you did it yourself. You are self,
thought I told him, No, I had the technical advisor,
a college teacher, a kind of mentor, and his name
is Michael Mann.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
I didn't know that robbed banks.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Yes he did. When he's not harassing kittens, he's robbing
banks and giving me my voice. So Faid finnagels his
way into a screening when Michael Mann is doing it
that Johnny Depp movie Public Enemies, so Public Enemies comes out.
Johnny Depp is, you know, not over there. Michael Mann
is over there in France and he's doing like a
Q and a Radon Fay says, I got to talk
(11:44):
to my master. He sneaks in and pretends to be
like a film reviewer, a film student, and then he
like raises his hand and he's like, Michael Mann calls
on him and Radaul Feide stands up in this room
full of pretentious French cinophiles and he says, he's romance,
absolute example of organized crime. Inspired by life, by people,
(12:05):
real facts. He tries to transmit them in his cinema.
I personally, I am a former gangster. Unfortunately I do
not brag about it. I just spent ten years in prison.
I attacked Armored Vance. For twenty years I have known
Michael Mann. I discovered him with thief and with a
bunch of friends. We've watched his films as a bit,
(12:28):
as news reports, as documentaries. And now Michael Mann is
listening to this crazy phantom, the one he's been in
prison for being a real robber, and he's inspired by
Michael Mann, and Michael Man's like, uh, thank you for that.
I don't know how to respond because it was.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
This isn't so much a question but a comment.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
It's the classic one.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
He gets up and tabs my first time caller, longtime listener.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Now you have to understand, Judo Fight has a sense
of humor that I kind of like about this guy.
So Michael Man is his dude, right, and Michael Mann
has Heat, And like you know, Heat is very much
an iconic movie. But there are other iconic crime movies
from that era. For instance, Point Break. Oh, yes, now
you knew you remember that movie. Captain bigelowis, Now, what's
one of your favorite scenes in that movie? Is it
(13:16):
the bank robbery?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Do you have any favorite bank robbery scenes?
Speaker 3 (13:22):
You know what I think my favorite scene in the
movie is is when Keno says I am an FBI
agent and the Redon would say suit a, Jean do
di s a not bad? The General Dictorate for External Security? Yeah,
(13:43):
or General Dictorate for External Security. I guess they don't
have a translation for that exterior.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Ready to put your back into it that day, dude.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
I did hard time in high school French and that's
all I have to show for it.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Well, then I want to apologize to you as well
as the listeners for my French accents. Let me backtrack
about the Catherine Bigelow point break. Yeah, the scene that
he is inspired by from that movie is where they're
wearing the rubber masks for all the presidents, the dead presidents.
So he does that over in France, but he does
it with French leaders. So it's like exactly Jacques Shack
(14:21):
and General Charles Degaull are robbing a French bank. Now.
Now when he's deciding not to imitate Michael Mann or
Catherine Bigelow, there is a third favorite film director of
his from the nineties era Hollywood. No, what criminal director
from nineties era Hollywood?
Speaker 3 (14:37):
Do you think he loves a.
Speaker 4 (14:42):
Wrong type of criminal director? I met a director of
crime films, not a director who is a criminal. Yeah,
it's tough, I know, it's Oh it was good.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
That was a good time for criminal films, especially like
indie ones. Who was it?
Speaker 4 (14:58):
So in a Reservoir Dogs, he has all the guys
named for colors and they have that big fight about
why I got to be mister pank So it's mister white,
mister pink, mister brown. He does the same thing. He
names his guys after colors. So he's constantly aping these
Hollywood movies and basically making Hollywood reel in a way
(15:18):
that nobody has ever really done.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
It's a cosplay.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
It's a cosplay criminal.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
So imagine now that Radon fight using this like tendency
for theatricality. Also this criminal imagination and a level of
ambition rarely seen in a criminal, because he's not just
going for money. He wants legend, he wants story, he
wants to be remembered, right, So this is very French
(15:44):
if you think about it, it's like, you know, it's
not so much about the money as about the how So,
the next thing he does is he gets too good
at being a criminal. He starts robbing banks all over
the continent. He's robbing banks in Switzerland, he's robbing banks
in France, He's robbing banks anywhere he can that they
have French speaking populous Belgium, He's gonna rob banks there.
He gets so good that the EU, even though it's
(16:06):
not the EU, then the European the European community starts
to look for him. Entrepole is after him. It is
like pretty much a matter of time before he's caught.
And he knows this because there's only so many places
a really flamboyant criminal like Rodon Fayid can hide. So
what does he do? Where would you go if you
needed to escape the success you have as a criminal?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Ah man, somewhere where they're just not gonna look for you.
I get. I mean, that's that's obvious. That's not a
very smart response.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Well, I mean like Moscow, Antarctica. These are all places
of Buenos Aires. These are places that people probably wouldn't
look for him. But that's not where he goes Fresno, Stockton. Yeah. Instead,
he goes to Israel and he becomes Jewish.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Oh as easy as that.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
He just says, you know what I'm gonna go do.
I'm gonna go become Jewish.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
He declares himself Jewish.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
He says, I'm not one of the chosen people. Wow,
God chose me, so it's amazing. He converts to Judaism.
He literally goes to Israel. He starts hanging out the
Orthodox community. He wears a Yamaica, he starts studying like
the Torah, the Talmud, the holy holy liturgies, and just
going to town trying to become Jewish.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Now going to town.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Trying to become Jewish. Now this lasts for a few months,
but by nineteen ninety seven, Fid's like, you know what,
I'm over it. He stops being Jewish. He goes back
to Europe, goes back to crime. Now do we know
why he wanted to be Jewish? Was it legitimate? Was
he just trying to hide out? Was he trying to
work a scam? We don't know. It's just a part
of the brilliance of his legend. For a short period
of time where don't Fightid was Jewish.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Well, you know, the Lord speaks to everyone in different.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Ways, Yeah, exactly, so he was motivated to a higher calling.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Yeah, maybe there was some sort of con that he felt,
you know, because we don't we know details of all
these ridiculous crimes that we talk about. But then I
always like to think about what are the things that
didn't make it public, Like what happened that no one
found out about? So maybe he had some like weird
little con going.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Maybe he fell in love with a woman who was
an Israel and he's like I'll go to Israel become
Jewish and she's like, nah, this is not working. He's like,
I'm not gonna be Jewish anymore. That could be No,
I'm not too much of a romantic.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
No. I like to imagine that it was like a
Yentle situation.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
So he's trying to pretend he's a Jewish man and
he's actually Jewish woman.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
I don't know. I just wanted to have you seen Yental,
I think so. I just wanted to say, le one of.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
Barbie Straton's best Yeah, was his givat on that one.
So back to my man, we don't fight. Let's put
a pin in that and we'll get back to him
after this short break. So my man, Radona fay Aid
(19:05):
has been hanging at in Israel, pretending to be Jewish,
possibly converting, and he's been on the run. He decides
to go back to Europe. He hits back to Switzerland.
Now what do you think he does when he gets
back to Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Okay, so he's left the Kibbutz. He's in Switzerland, yep,
opens a bank account, buys.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Chocolate, That's what I would do, but.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Rides the Saint Bernard down the street.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
These are all things that are excellent choices, but Radono
Fayid does none of them. He robs a bank. So
he robs a bank, and it doesn't quite go as
how he plans it. Instead, he has to take a
policeman hostage, which is a new thing for him. He
doesn't normally do this, but he's like, uh, you know,
I don't hurt people, So he uses the policeman as
a chit. He's like, if you basically as a hostage.
(19:50):
He goes, if you don't hurt me, I'll let the
policeman go. He lets the policeman go, he doesn't get hurt.
He escapes, but he's now back on the radar of interpal.
It doesn't take them long and like I said, he
is finally captured. His luck is completely turned. He is
arrested for a slew of robberies in France and Belgium
and Switzerland, and he is sentenced to thirty years in
(20:12):
a French penitentiary. He is just twenty six years old.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Twenty six He did all of this.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Before he was twenty six years old. Wow, But he's
a gangster. He's a mobster from way back. As far
as how he views himself. So he does his dime
just like any other mobster would, doesn't say a thing.
He's like, I can do my thirty. Turns out the
French are like, you know, after ten years, man, you
seem to be a changed man. You seem to be
a rehabilitated and they decide to turn him free. So
(20:40):
now Radon Fayid is free. A brilliant man. What has
always been his primary concern movies exactly, the drama of stories,
in the power of legend. So what does he do?
He decides he'll tell his own story. He's like, I
can make a fortune by talking about being a criminal.
I don't need to be a criminal per se. Right,
(21:02):
So he writes a criminal know how book, like basically.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
A criminality for le dummies.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Exactly, and he calls it bracieux des cities or grand
balditisme something like that. There you go, just like that,
the banditism So it roughly translates as robber from the
streets to great banditry so exactly. So this story is
(21:29):
like obviously self aggrandizing. He becomes a grand criminal on
the level of like Moriarty, right, so he does. But
the problem is he doesn't have his own Sherlock homes.
He only has all of French police right, but that's
not enough for him. He needs more conflicts. So he
then becomes a hero who can wag his finger at
(21:51):
all French culture as the former criminal who can tell
them where French society has gone wrong. He goes on
TV and becomes this moral scold and he basically because
they're having a problem in the nineties with gangsters people
going around shooting everybody up, he starts telling them that
basically it's the French authority's fault. It's society is to blame.
(22:12):
It is not these young men, it's his society. And
everyone's like, oh, may we, may we, and they all
go crazy for it because it's the lesson that they
want to believe is true. It's not us, it's them,
it's the French authorities. So now what happens. You think
this is gonna go well for Radon Fayid to become
go from criminal to criminal explainer.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Ah, you know, I think that it sounds like it's
so in his blood that he has crafted this so heartily.
I don't know if he can I don't know if
he can get out of it.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
I'll give you a little sneak peek into the mind
of Radon Fayid. If I am telling everyone I'm no
longer a criminal, they will believe it, which clears up
a lot of room for me to be going back
to being a criminal. So it's all a cover. He
is now masterminding crimes because nobody would think that he
would dare become a criminal again. He said, he's not.
(23:09):
It's so important to his identity. He goes right back
to it and masterminds a bank robbery.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
So he's doing like TV appearances. He's on like Good
Morning Paris and just talking about the poison of the
state and then he oh, that is brilliant, right.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
And he has the book. He has the book out,
so the press is constantly talking about the book. They
have him on. Everybody wants to talk to him. And
he's a charming, ambitious, creative, intelligent man. So he's a
great guest on French TV, sure, and he has that
little bit of dark width that they like, so he
doesn't mind making fun of At the time, Nicholas Sarkozzi,
who was the French president. So we're in twenty eleven right,
(23:48):
and around this time, about Let's say, three days after
he appears on a French TV show raredon Fight, he
gets arrested. Why does he get arrested because his bank
robbery he's a mastermind, goes bad. Like Michael Mann would
be like really excited by how bad it would make
a great movie. Oh no, okay, you're ready for a
(24:10):
short story. Totally okay. It's early in the morning. A
patrol car cruises past a white van and they're like, oh,
look a white van van. It would mean nothing to
these cops except there are two big bullet holes in
the back of the white van that's not supposed to
be in a work van. So the French cops they
pull over and they stop to investigate. Oh what is
(24:31):
going on here with these holes in your van? Right
inside the utility van is a squad of heavily armed,
masked men, all holding Ak forty seven's and wearing balaklava masks.
So they're freaking out. They're like, what are we gonna do?
So the driver just starts pushing into traffic. The cops
are circling around the van on foot, and the driver
(24:51):
just pushes into traffic, hits a car takes off the
cops go back to their car give chase the heavily
armed men in the back. What do they do? They
do some fast and furious type ish. They push open
the doors and they start spraying AK forty seven's at
the cop cars in traffic. Oh no, right, how insane
is that? So they're driving around on their fast and
(25:12):
furious vibe and the police cars swerving and crashing into cars.
The vanload of mass men escape, so it looks like
everything's fine. Yeah, the getaway driver follows the original plan.
The redn't fight. You created a brilliant plan. It had
a backup car. They go to the backup car. They
exchanged cars. They're like, well, we're not gonna be able
to rob the bank today. They started driving away. Little
do they know that somebody in the gang must have
(25:33):
snitched because there is a tracker underneath their getaway car,
and when they come up to the freeway to make
their escape, there is a police car waiting for them
on the bridge.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Oh my goodness, this is like out of a Michael
Man film.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Right. So the mass men, still dressed in their camouflage,
bulletproof vests and their ball of clavius, they basically start
shooting the heck out of that cop car. They tear,
they shoot up. There is a young male cop and
a young female cop. They're both shot up. The window
explodes in just a symphony of glass and light and
(26:08):
the female cop her name is ale Fouquet something like that.
She is a mother to a young child, and within
hours of this interaction she is pronounced dead. Her partner
to Tiri or what is it theory Tiri Morou He
is hitting the chest. He survives, but with Fouquet passed away,
(26:29):
she becomes the first female metropolitan police officer in Paris
to be killed in the line of duty.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
That's horrible. So she's our one percent, one percent.
Speaker 4 (26:39):
Yes, her death shocks the Parisian culture. They're not used
to this military style of violence, so used to this
in movies, but now Radon Fay, it has made it
a real life thing. And it's tragic when the blood
actually hits the sidewalk in the streets.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Well, and I feel like he wouldn't sign off on
this sort of think. This is like he's got crew members.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
They messed up and that moment of fear ruins everything.
So Nicholas Sarkozy, he takes his shooting super personal. He's like, no,
this is not the excepting out of my France. Pardon,
apologies to all the French. He launches a nationwide man hunt, right,
and he's going to bring justice to these criminals and
(27:21):
bring these criminals to justice. Now do you think it
takes long for him to find any of these people?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
No? I think that they put the hammer down.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
That same night, the police arrest one of the suspects. Wow,
that same night, Malik Kier. And when they get to
Malik Kyder's hideout, they discover assault rifles, they discover grenades,
they discovered the same balaklava masks that the gunmen were
wearing in the van. They didn't get rid of them.
So now they've got DNA for.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
The whole crew.
Speaker 4 (27:51):
Boom, they're all done.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
So Bradon Fayid here's on the news that he is
now a person of interest, a suspect in this crime.
He disappears, he goes on the run. He is not
going back to prison. He doesn't care about being embarrassed
at all that but he is not going back to prison,
not because because I remember he had time left on
his sentence. He was released on good behavior. And being
(28:13):
a changed man. They will tack that back on. He's
going to be looking at a thirty year stretch at
least because of his pro violation. It's going to be
a guarantee. And masterminding a bank job I think is
a pro violate.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
I think so.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
On June eighth, twenty eleven, he is finally captured after
being on the run for six months. For six months
he was able to avoid capture, but of course he's captured. Yeah,
and this now brings our story full circle. Our French
Robin Hood is going to a prison, a prison where
a helicopter will come in and free him. Well, I'll
(28:48):
get right back to that after this break. So, Elizabeth
(29:13):
Radon fightd you like him? You don't like him?
Speaker 3 (29:16):
You know? I do? I do. He's got moxie.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
So what about him do you like?
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I like the fact that he is clever. I like
the fact that he goes out with the intention of
being nonviolent in this and he's entertaining. He's an entertaining criminal.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Like, how can you not like him?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Right, So the French authorities kind of have the same stance.
So radon't fight. He's recaptured after being on the run
for six months. There's been this whole media circus, but
he's this famous former criminal. Turns out that's not the case.
He's been scolding French society. Apparently that doesn't necessarily work
because he's still the criminal. Nicholas Arcozzi has been embarrassed
by him, and now Nicholas Sarkozy gets to punish him.
(29:59):
So everything is started to rebalance out for the most part. Right, Well,
he goes back to prison and what does he do
in prison? Starts plotting on an escape.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Sure, he's like the El Chapo, the exact scape artist.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
So on April thirteenth, twenty thirteen, Radon Fayed's wife shows
up for a visit at the detention facility in Lil,
France where he is being held. I've been to little
to lovely little town in great museums, but I can't
imagine being in a prison there. It just doesn't feel
like a prison town. They'd be like being in a
prison in Montreal.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
There's prisons there too.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
Well, I'm sure it just seems like a town where
you don't want to be in prison. It's like it's
too nice. Yeah, so Faid he needs to get out
of this prison, So what is he gonna do. He
uses a bomb to blow up a heavy prison door.
He then uses more bombs and keeps blowing up prison
doors until he's finally worked his way out. So he
(30:54):
takes a gun that's a fake gun, and he uses
that to get four prison guards hostage. He uses the
prison guards as a cover and then they all make
their way out of prison.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Where was he giving these bombs?
Speaker 4 (31:07):
He The suspicion is his wife brought them in when
she visited, but there is no proof of that. It
could have been he got it from a guard or
inmate who don't fight. His lawyer insists that his wife
had nothing to do with it. It was purely coincidental
that she happened to be there on the day that
he broke out and happened to be seeing him at
the time he was breaking up. Such as all purely coincidental. Yeah,
you have to be French to understand this.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
So once they're free of the prison walls, Fayid, who's
staying true to his mo he doesn't hurt anyone. He
lets one cop go, they go a little further, he
lets another cop go, and then finally, once he lines
up with his Basically, I don't want to say is coworkers.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Basically is the teammates criminals.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
They decide to release the final two hostages and they
take off. Now for the next six weeks, he does
whatever he wants. He is free as a bird, right,
he's wearing a wig when he wants to go out
and gets some Chaco latmelk, you know. But this does
last long because eventually somebody catches up on the fact
there's this really strange man and this cheap motel who
(32:06):
doesn't seem to mind the price of anything and should
be somewhere else, and it becomes an issue. The police
show up at they surround the flophouse motel. They rush
in and a team in all black, armed and ready
for war, approach the hotel room and where is redont fight?
Right there waiting with a stunned face. How did you
catch me?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Did they rip his wig off? His fright wig?
Speaker 4 (32:30):
You wouldn't have couped me. It weren't for you, meadling children.
So they catch him, unguarded, flat footed, totally unaware, and
he's like I can't help but being pressed because he's
redn't fight, He's like full of himself. He doesn't think
he's going anywhere because he knows he's not going to
be held if he can help it. Right, But now
he has to go to a trial because he's held
(32:51):
on the bad bank job that he has avoided. That's
a separate crime. He has to be tried for that.
So he goes into a trial. Now, what do you
think you're going to use as a legal defense if
you were Doon Faid and you weren't at the crime,
it wasn't me. There you go. So his legal defense
is also a charm offensive. So he basically tries to
(33:12):
win over the jury by being so French and so
unsufferably a full hero that only they could love him.
How could they hit him?
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Did he bad his eyelashes at them? And his charm offensive?
Does that? Would that all work on the French? I
feel like we have notions about other countries here in
the States, and we, you know, give them characteristics and
perhaps they don't have or that not everybody has.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
I think we also we forget about the effects of
classism on French culture. That if depending on who's in
this jury, you're gonna have a very different opinion. I
think of how they view him.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's very true.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
So he tells the jury at one point in his trial,
I may not be a Robin Hood, I'm not the hero,
but I never killed him. They want so hey, he's
basically making his case, which is, look, I'm a folk hero,
I'm a legend. I'm not fatal. The French are like, oh,
that's good, he's all fair, all fair. Now. Meanwhile, this
(34:11):
is the kind of dude who gives three hour monologues
in court. Radon fight he could on the stand and
gave a three hour monologue explaining why it was that
he was in this court room.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
This is when the people who are super stoked to
be on that jury are like starting to doubt how
there's their own stokage.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
Yes, and also they think sometimes those types of charm
offensive can back up all of your forward progress because
people start getting mad that their ass is still in
that seat.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah. Three hours of a monologue is not charming, you
know what, it is ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
So Radon fight amidst his jurors that if they find
him guilty, he'll just attempt to escape again, He's like, look,
I'm gonna say it like it is. I am not
going to allow to be held. But then he tells them,
but hey, but is written yet? So French, so French.
So what do you think the jury does? Do you
think they go guilty, innocent or hung trial?
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Hell, I don't know, jury, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
They say guilty. He has found guilty to return to prison,
and good to his word, he escapes French prison in
a helicopter.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Wow, well nothing was written and this is where we
came in. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
He had promised them and then he gave them an
even bigger one. Last one's like with bombs this time.
He's like, we're not going to repeat the same.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
There's a certain elegance to the helicopter and the one
spot where the anti helicopter netting did they run out
of funding for the netting and we're like, you know,
it's kind off to the side or like was the
guy who was supposed to put it up just like.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
He just measured it wrong and it made it one spot.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
You know, he didn't measure twice cut once classic machine
eyeballed it.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
And then he had like a big square and he's
like a man, well it looks good, guys. No helicopter could.
Speaker 3 (35:59):
Land, you would do that anyway. We're overly cautious, you guys.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
He painted himself into a corner.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Of course. I wonder if he lost his job.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Actually I do not know that was Let's just say
he didn't, because I would hate for him to lose
his job exactly because of Dad's excellence, you know, I mean,
like he it's not so much. I mean he had
the drones flying over the prison for weeks. Sure so.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
But I also kind of I'll endorse someone losing their
job in the criminal justice system, like as a corrections officer, because.
Speaker 4 (36:32):
I'll endorse it because I want them to not have that.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I want them to not have I want that to
not be a job.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
Yeah, exactly, I'm with you all there. Okay, So how
would you escape from your French prison?
Speaker 3 (36:44):
I would. I would be a really good person who
just like to get like what they call a trustee job.
So they're like, she's so well behaved, she's she's you know,
she got her act together, and I would work my
way to be able to work in like the prison baker,
and you know, i'd wow them with my breads and confections.
(37:06):
But then I'm also perfecting baking a giant baguette, And
so I'd bake about like three or four of these
giant bagettes like human and then one of com sized bagettes,
and I would hollow one of them out and sneak
(37:29):
myself into it. But I'd also be constructing a giant
paper bag and a giant bicycle with a giant basket
on the front. And so then I load myself into
the bagette in the basket, so it just looks like
a giant's bike with baguettes. And they then what happens
(37:50):
is they don't think that's weird. They just, like all
all the prison employees, think they're hallucinating that something's wrong
with them, that we must have eaten some sort of
like mushroom spores or bad cheese. And in their panic,
then I, you know, as they wheel off this oddity
of this giant bike with giant bag attes. I'm in
(38:13):
one of the bag ats, and then as they wheel
it out, I tip it and I fall, and then
I sneak out. I roll out of the bag at
and run into the woods.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
I like it, and I live.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Among the wolves, the French wolves, the French wolves.
Speaker 4 (38:29):
I like, that's a that's a great plan. Hit you up.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
I've put a lot of thought into this. I have
diagrams if you want to look at them, measurements for
flower and yeast.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
I think I would just wait for the French national
soccer team to be playing in some major tournament, and
I would just walk out the front door.
Speaker 3 (38:49):
Oh yeah, because everything would come to.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Us exactly, no one be paying attention. So that is
the basic story of my Man Radon Fad and he
like comes up as possibly one of the most epic
movie inspired criminals of all time. But as a Frenchman,
it's even more so impressive because, like, I don't know,
(39:11):
it seems like kind of more of an American thing
to go like full Mickey Mallory, I'm gonna be inspired
by the movies, and like, you know, that just seems American.
I don't know why, but it seems like the French
would be more inspired by like Jerry Lewis, Jerry Lewis
in literature exactly, or the literature of Jerry Lewis, ah,
the great literature of Jerry Lewis. So my Man, the
forty six year old crime legend is now currently ben
(39:35):
returned to a maximum security French prison, after being caught
for the third time, the French Justice Minister Nicole Bellube.
He told europe One Radio quote, We're going to put
them in a high security facility where he will be
watched extremely closely. So that's the promise, but we gotta
believe ra don't fay. He's got to stay at least
(39:56):
one step ahead of him. So we'll see if he's
free once again, we'll tell you about it and it
won't be a surprise, but it'll be hard for me
not to root for this folk hero. Same So what's
our ridiculous takeaway here?
Speaker 3 (40:08):
I think that if you're gonna if you're gonna do something,
you gotta go all in and make it interesting.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Oh I like that. I think my ridiculous takeaway for
him is pick a good film director stick to us.
For me, it'd be Billy.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Wilder, The Crimes of Billy Wilder.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
If I'm gonna become a criminal, I'm gonna use Billy
Wilder's playbook cross Dressing, runaway to Miami, get involved with
the gangsters. That's my that's my score.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Well done, Thank you.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Well, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
I'm zaraen Burnette and I'm Elizabeth Dutton.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
You're gonna find us online at Ridiculous Crime on both
Twitter and Instagram. Got a tip for us about a
ridiculous crime you'd like to hear about. Maybe when you
committed you want to confess to a ridiculous crime. You
can email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Thanks for listening. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
(41:02):
and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Dave Kusten. Research
is by the intrepid Marissa Brown. The theme song is
by Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Executive producers are Ben
Bolin and Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
from my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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