November 7, 2024 • 57 mins
Who's up for some silliness? We got us a crazy, high-end, hard boiled casino Down Under that just can't seem to avoid trouble. But when a dude takes the place for multiple millions, they aren't so tough after all. With a special appearance by Ridiculous Crime barkeep Rascal Jack!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey, Saren Ware, you go, what do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (00:09):
It is the time for the show. Yes I do.
I was dreaming about it and I wanted to tell you. Okay,
one of my interests is undergarments. Oh okay, dude, either
the closest thing to you of your clothing?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Right, And I learned something new today about undergarments. And
I'm not like reading about it all the time, but like,
I try to keep a little facts and then I'm like, oh,
that's interesting. Whale bones used to be used in bras.
That's interesting, right, That's just interesting. Another bra fact while
we're on the topic, turns out that, you know, the
the clasp for the bra that hook designs like twelve
(00:44):
year old boys have to practice with one hand on
a Teddy bear to undo? Is that just me?
Speaker 5 (00:49):
No?
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Anyway, that clasp it was invented by who?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Who?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
No?
Speaker 6 (00:55):
Who was invented by Elizabeth I give you.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
No, I give you a better guests. It was invented
at the start or the end of the nineteenthentury early
twentieth century. That period, I think who would be inventing stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Then child al capine.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
You know this person's name, Mark Twain.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Mark Twain.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Twain invented the modern clasp for the bra. We still
using the clasp on the bra you're wearing now was
invented by Mark Twain. Yes, wild right and ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I guess, thank you. Wow, that is ridiculous. So you're interested.
I like how you said it was undergarments, but it's
really bras No.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
No, like socks, all the whole thing, long underwear. I
got opinions about all of it. You know this, I guess, dude. Yeah,
the t tank tops. I mean, you name an undergarment
I got.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Opinion to, well, that is ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
The lining of a like a sweatsuit. I'll give it
my wetsuit lining. I got opinions about anything that touches.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
My skin touches you.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
We can't just be throwing anything on this. It is
that's true. It is the integument.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It is.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
You know, we just recently found the second biggest organ recently,
like in the last ten years, we have another organ
that's all through our body.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, like the juice.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yeah, there you go, the juice.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So you know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
No, I'm out. That's it for.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
You, booze that costs more than a used Ford Taurus.
What this is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and
(02:49):
outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent
murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Damn right. Australia, Yeah, down Under.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I can't stop telling stories about that fabulous land. Man.
Did you know that gambling is legal in Australia?
Speaker 6 (03:10):
I did not, but you know, I'm not surprised Australians
spend more money on online gambling than any other country
on planet Earth.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Really, yeah, why are they not known for this? Almost
three you never hear about gambling as part of Aussie culture.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
It is clearly almost three quarters of Australian adults hit
the tables and machines within like the last twelve months.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Wow.
Speaker 7 (03:40):
And then more than the tables or machines within a year.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I mean they're going to a place to be.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
And then more than a third of Aussi's gambled at
least once a week. Wow, Yeah, I had, there's stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Apparently they're not good. No one else knows about this,
not all, Like, hey, you should ask an Ozzie about that.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
All this work on, like trying to counter acts like
gambling addictions, that stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
There's got to be like corrosive.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So there are some really nice like hotel casinos.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
There is a lot of money in Australia.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Everyone is gamming.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Oh yeah it is. Yeah. So I mean think like
there are Vegas style casinos these places.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Okay, yeah, I'm imagining like the hard rock casino, Like
the Seminoles are like.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Eight hundred hard rock casinos. It's only that's the only
kind that's allowed.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
They do they group them together like in Vegas Atlantic
City kind of, or they're just sprinkled.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Around, sprinkled around? Is my understanding? Correct me if I'm wrong,
I don't know. Obvious one in Melbourne is the Crown
Casino and it opened in nineteen ninety four right on
the banks of this river. The whole place there's a
casino and like three hotel towers and I think like
a mall. It takes up more than one point five
(04:53):
million square feet.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
It's a lot.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
It's a lot. It's like two city blocks.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
That's big.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's the largest casino complex in the Southern Hemisphere.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
And it's also one of the largest in the world. Okay, huge.
Did you know that Keanu Reeves has stayed at the Crown?
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I did? He invited me. I was like, Kean, I can't.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
You know who else has stayed there? Your boyfriend Tom Cruise?
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Really?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yes, dude, Why.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Are these guys not? Like they always tell me that
I'm going to be there. I never believe them.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
That's like the place to stay when you're there.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Into motorcycles and gambling.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Tennis stars Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, they stayed there during
the Australian Open.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Yeah they never called me.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah they didn't. It's the real deal. It's five stars,
super luck is what you're talking It's fancy pants.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, this is like Monico. Yeah, that's all five.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Fingers, all four of my fingers. Even so, it has
had its share of controversy. No, so, Chinese regulations wouldn't
let Chinese citizens transfer more than like a set amount
of money every year. So in that case, it's like
fifty thousand US dollars or sixty nine point five thousand
(06:01):
Australian dollars, is that.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Transfer out of the country. It transferred to Australia, out
of their country.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And into another jurisdic So Section sixty eight of the
Australian Casino Control Act makes it illegal to provide money
or gaming chips in a transaction using a credit card
or debit card, and that's intended to reduce money laundering
promote responsible gambling.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
You have to have the cash.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like buying lotto tickets here,
I get it.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
That's hard. You don't want to have people draining their.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Account or put it all on credit.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
To do at least one more step. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And then Section one twenty four of the Casino Control
Act requires casinos to retain specific accounting records regarding like
how they handle their money so that the proper taxes
are all done. Oh yes, Like basically, you can't charge
something as one thing when it's another. So all three
of those elements came together. The Crown Casino broke all
(06:59):
those rules. So they were letting Chinese gamblers use something
called a China Union Pay Bank card or Cup cup
for gambling purposes, and they weren't using these directly for chips.
They would get phony invoices for hotel services.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
It's like a credit line kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Money would know it would make it look like, oh,
you paid for six Hamburgers.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Through the hotel, so they're just like going, oh, yeah,
you got twelve.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
And then the Chinese gambler would pay the fake bill
using their I.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Got you and then they would be given the money
for the.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, and then the staff gives them a voucher they
can trade it in for casino chips. The head of
Australian Gaming Commission, fran Thorne said quote Crown's cup procedure
was a covert, purposeful scheme that violated the Casino Control
Act and was also designed to help customers circumvent China's
(07:54):
foreign currency conversion regulation.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Oh yeah, they're trying to circumvented, at least to government exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So she also pointed out that Crown knew this was shady.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Yeah they call.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
They still kept it.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
They came up away to get around it.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
They don't need no stinking regulations and they tried to
cover it up.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So in all, they processed about one hundred and sixty
four million Australian dollars in these payments and they made
like thirty two million off of it.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, And so they got busted and they were fined
eighty million Australian dollars for this scheme. Oh wow, And
it wasn't their only tangle with the Gaming Commission.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Did actual people who are involved actually go to jail
or have to pay fine?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
They just paid fines and that wasn't even their biggest fine.
Oh damn eighty million. So in twenty twenty two they
got pinched, and this time for a bunch of violations.
And it seems that like for more than ten years,
they were letting patrons gamble for more than twenty four
hours at a time without a break.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
How do you track that though?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I don't know, but there's apparently this law you cannot
cannot let someone.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Get you need to go sleep, like you need.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
To go get some water. Think about what you've done.
They also were letting gamblers use these plastic picks to
hold down machine buttons. It's like, you know how you
see people at like video poker, which the Ausies call
pokey machines, or like slot machines where there to hit
them all quick.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
I've gone to yeah casinas with my family members.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
It's that and the picks. They let people play multiple
machines at a time as well. Yeah, so in twenty nineteen,
the Crown was told, hey, listen, you got to stop
giving people button picks. This is their you have to
take steps to make sure that people stop using them.
And there the crowd's like, hmm okay, no they didn't.
(09:43):
And so Franz Thorne, right, she steps up, she said quote.
For a long time, Crown had promoted itself as having
the world's best approach to problem gambling. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Like what casinos like, I'm going
to take care of problem gambling. No, they're of course,
they're like, come hide under my coat. You're refined. Get
in here. So for those two violations, the extended play
(10:07):
periods and the pick action, they got two fines. They
got twenty million for the picks, yeah, and one hundred
million for the all day play. Wow, that was the
maximum penalt million.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
They got two million in fine.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Tundred million in fines, and the casino they released this
statement quote, we are genuinely remorseful for the failings of
the past, and we're committed to becoming a world leader
in the delivery of safe and responsible gaming and entertainment.
The recently appointed new leadership team at Crown is driving
a whole of company transformation program designed to uplift the
(10:44):
culture and build a better crown which exceeds the expectation
of our shareholders.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
I love the valley girl who works in the Australian
gaming industry.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Right. They are in cities, They're everywhere. They're so hard
to get away from. You know, they get these communications,
this degree, they go wing top consulting. Next thing you know,
they're running crowds. See they're like I graduated from Irvine
and here I am okay. So you know that if
they were hit with these kind of fines and they
just kept rolling that they're taking in a ton of
(11:16):
money in every amount. Yeah, casinos are basically money printing operations.
Like there's no way to lose money when you own
a casino.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Well, some people have found a way, Elizabeth. There's like
this one guy he found in Atlantic.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
City, some guys. Yeah, so they had a crazy stick
up there was on August twenty it did a crowned.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
So people are like, oh, man, I gotta rob that.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
They have so much money, let's do this. August twentieth,
twenty twenty two. Recently, recently, Thomas Mangoes who made me
think of that commercial that runs during football. I Am yours.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Mango Bring Back.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
He had a pretty serious gambling addiction and he'd been
gambling at the Crown Casino for like sixteen hours. I
have gambling mango problems. Yeah, so he sixteen hour run,
that's insane. Yeah, And at around five am he walks
up to the cashier in the Mahogany room and he
(12:19):
pulled out a gun and don't worry, it was a
toy gun, but the cashier didn't cashier didn't know it.
And he says, give us your hundreds. He tells her,
and the cashier she starts handing over them honeys while mangoes.
He's like shoving the bundles into his jacket, but he's
like calm, He's calmly doing this, calm the whole time.
(12:41):
What if he was wearing one of those like photographer's vests.
The tourists were all, but he wasn't doing like the
frandic hand it over. In all, he gets one hundred
and thirty six thousand dollars in hundreds.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Out of one hundred, had big pocket from a table.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
He had from a cashier. Oh right, Yeah, so he
walks out of the casino, hails a cab and takes
him too.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
For he walks out after doing this, huh.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, walks out, grabs a cab. He goes to Footscray,
which is a suburb of Melbourne. You say, so he
tips the driver seven hundred dollars, which is like really
nice of him, but that's not the best way to
avoid attention.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
And so from there he goes to Geelong. And this
is a city on the other end of corey O Bay.
It's like a big city in its own right, not
really a suburb of Melbourne. So in Geelong he checked
into a hotel under a false NAMEID. Then he shaved
off his mustache. I forgot to tell you as mustache.
(13:41):
He cut his hair. I forgot to tell you it
had hair, hair and anyone out and he got tattoos.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
So you also forgot to tell me he had no tattoos.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
This is exactly why why am how I got all
my tattoos? Job cover up?
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Seriously, his idea is that he's going to have these tattoos,
and like, clearly I can't be that guy because I've
got all this press police.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
He's really fresh covered up in the plastic.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Don't touch that, it's healing.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
He gets all this done, he's a new man.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
He goes to sky City Casino in Adelaide, he says,
and he checked in under a fake name, spent two
weeks there, and in that time he turned over more
than a million dollars, but he lost almost one hundred
and one thousand, so he only has like, wait, out
of his one hundred and thirty six thousand, he loses
(14:30):
one hundred thousand, nine hundred.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Dollars, and in the meantime he builds up to a
million and gets back down exactly. So he makes he's
got like twenty grand something. He's like exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
So, ye, he's left like thirty six thousand dollars September
twenty seventh. And remember he pulled this job on August twentieth.
He turned himself into police.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
He just had to get this jag out.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
His defense was that he had PTSD after a video
shop that he owned since nineteen ninety burned down after
an armed robbery in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 7 (15:06):
So two decades later, yeah, he's likely also, he's like,
and then seven years after that, my marriage fell apart
and I got divorced in two thousand and that was
just all too much for me.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So twenty two years later, I'm going to pull this
weird oh hic.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
I had to like act it out, get it out
of my system. I'm going to wash that pt sest
out of my hair.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
You know what, your ghost, You demonstrated remorse. You show
some shame, and we love shame.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Oh, we do love the shame.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
And so he ordered him to serve non parole period
of three years, basically probation.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
So he's just out, just out, just be a cautionary
tale telling people about.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
There said quote, all of this behavior endorses the fantasy
world and surreal nature of the entire event.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
So I don't even understand what that means.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
There were bigger let's criminal elements at this casino though,
Oh yeah. So in twenty twenty one, so this is
before the stick up, the Finkelstein Report was released, and
it's a six hundred and fifty two page document on
an inquiry into whether the Crown Casino should be able
to keep its gambling license six hundred pages, six hundred
(16:17):
and fifty two pages.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
And then can you imagine the movie Martin Scorsese can
make out of that six hundred page report.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I'd love this. It's like an upside down casino. So
it just ripped into the Crown for all sorts of
illegal activities. There's a list in the document. I'll give
you some choice. Once they facilitated millions of dollars of
money laundering. They allowed operators with links to organize crime
to arrange for junket players to gamble at the casino.
Speaker 8 (16:45):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
One of the quotes, for many years Crown Melbourne has
engaged in conduct that is, in a word, disgraceful. They
called it illegal, dishonest, unethical, exploitative. They said they have
the catalog of wrongdoing is alarming, but more so because
it was engaged in by a regulated entity totally.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
And when you've gone past litany into catalog, this thing
just goes hard.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
And then they bring up the whole China stuff. And
so the report recommended that they be put under a
special manager for two years and that would let them
keep their license to operate, but they'd have to make
major changes, and they did. They got an all new
board and senior staff, and then they brought in a
different inspector to monitor whether the money laundering the loan
(17:33):
sharking and the drug deals were still going on.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
We'll do whatever as long as printing machine running.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It looks like they're in full operation right now. Click
and they might be riding the ship. But they're still
underwatched from the government, but you wouldn't know it from
their website. It's business as usual. So let's hold up,
wait a minute for some ads, and do go there
because I am with it. When we come back, I'll
(17:59):
explain how the forementioned activities are not the most ridiculous
crimes up in there.
Speaker 9 (18:04):
Nice all right, Zaron, good eye, Elizabeth.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Sorry, I'm getting in the mood.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Crown Casino. Crown Casino, So a lot of hanky shesh
has gone down there, and maybe they've been able to
smooth things out.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
What I'm saying is, let's give them the benefit of
the doubt.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Suomie, Crowned Casino, That's what I'm saying. Here's a quick question.
Apropos of nothing, Yes, I love those. How much do
you think the world's most expensive cocktail is?
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I'm sorry, what how much is the world's most expensive
cocktail tail? This is like one of the things like whoa,
we put real gold in there whatever. Oh, it's not
about the actual research that okay. So I'm imagining how
much would it cost to make a really fine drink
five for I don't know, a few grand.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Twelve thousand, five hundred Australian dollars. And that's back in
twenty thirteen. You were close.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
No, I was more than seven at all. That's like
three times is what I was saying.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
More than seventeen thousand dollars American today in the Year
of Our Lord twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
I like how generous you were, Like, you were close, Elizabeth.
If the speed limit was twenty five or.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You would have said forty dollars, I would have been like,
you're close.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
H You're really close. I was like, imagine if someone's
going seventy five and a twenty five mile an hour
like zone, that's how far away I was. It's three
times more anyway, I mean says this is like.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
That's what the most expensive cocktail. It's in the Guinness
Book of World Records.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Why is it so expensive?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I'll tell you it was made on February seventh, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
It's made is not constantly being made.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
By a man named Joel Heffernan.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
This is like the biggest cocktail ever made?
Speaker 5 (20:01):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It is the Giants swimple?
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Yeah, the whole town in Milwaukee help make this.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yes, how do you know Joel worked as a bartender
slash mixologist?
Speaker 8 (20:11):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (20:12):
I love that term.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I know what do you do?
Speaker 4 (20:16):
And you're liked?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
You just hit me in the face. It's at a
place called Club twenty three. And as you've probably guessed,
the Club twenty three was located inside the Crown Casino.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Okay, there we go. So is that for Jordan because
he's a big gamblers Club twenty three Michael Jordan. But
all that is gambling, it's not about sports at all. Yes,
they're like his pictures of him and other casinos and
then him.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Leaving the NBA.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Why so.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Uh it's still this is still listed as the world's
most expensive cocktail ever sold. Okay, And in this world
of TikTok excess for drink videos, no one has tried
to unseat it.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Really, even all those glow Gold schlogger people.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Apparently. So the pre the Vius world record for a
single cocktail was held by Salvator's legacy. Okay, and that
drink was developed by famous. I guess to like booze
aficionados and hospitality folks. This famous guy, Salvatore Calibres.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Oh, Salvatory Calibreci, Elizabeth, you tell me you don't know
sal Calibre.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
He made it. He made Salvatores legacy.
Speaker 8 (21:21):
Can you say that?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I love saying it with Claude des Griffier view Coniac
from seventeen seventy eight.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Like I know what that is?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
That drink Conaksting sold for fifty five hundred pounds in
October twenty twelve at the Playboy Club in London. Oh wow,
funny story about that cocktail when Salvatory tried to make
it for the world record in July of that year,
like things went south. Oh that bottle of seventeen seventy
(21:50):
eight cognac, which was worth about like fifty thousand pounds
at the time. Are you yeah, got dropped the bottle?
Days someone dropped the bottle and he was going to
like open it to poor to make the cocktail, and
she's wetting to stop the is what Salvatory said. Quote
when something gets smashed into a bar, it's normally cleaned
up straight away, but in this case, everyone just stood
(22:13):
looking at the puddle for ten minutes. Should we try
to sponge it up and filter the liquid? We mopped
it up in the end. Funnily enough, the bartender who
cleaned it away was stopped by police on his way
home and asked if he'd been drinking just freaked so salvatory.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
He put on, you didn't have any like real alcoholics, Like,
I got a tow, Let me get on a straw.
Would like the put like.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
A cigarette filter at the end of the straw in a.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Little red cocktail straws like they're sipping on like a
Roy Rogers.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So Salvatory. He like takes the shards of the bottle
and he puts it in this glass cabinet that also
holds like more than a million dollars worth of vintage kgnacs.
So anyway, are kidding?
Speaker 4 (22:55):
That's like putting the four hundred and fifty million dollars
in Leonardo da Vinci painting on a yacht, Like why
would you put all that there? I mean, you're just
asking gravity do it. Gravity.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
When he actually made the drink, he got his hands
on another bottle of this stuff, and so then he
made he makes the tipple with the Kognak, a seventeen
seventy bottle of Kumel liqueur, an eighteen sixty dub orange currosow,
and a tiny bottle of nineteenth century anguester of bitters. Okay,
so back to the Crown. Yeah, February of twenty thirteen,
(23:27):
the Crown sends out this press release. It crowed about
how like this New Zealand millionaire has agreed to pay,
you know, twelve and a half thousand dollars for the Winston.
The Winston, that's what the cocktail was called, the prescos Nuts.
There's all these like breathless articles about this obscenely decadent
and ostentatious drink, and they're all it's all over the
(23:47):
media in Australia and then like food and drink publications
around the world. Sure, so what's in the Winstone?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
What is in the Winston?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Elizabe, I'll tell you. It's made with eighteen fifty eight
vintage kroy Say couve leone Cognac.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
And by the way, when you're saying all this stuff,
I got some of the words. I know something I don't,
But the eighteen fifty that is the year, and not
like some name for.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
That's the year that's from. And I gotta say, I'm
saying these words. I don't know them. Yeah they mean nothing,
sounds like you. No, they don't.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
No much more than in there. You don't want to
hear me, try it?
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Okay. So this is this, this eighteen fifty eight, that's
the same cognac that Winston Churchill and Twight D. Eisenhower
sipped when planning the D Day landings. I imagine them
like drinking black coffee as they ponder the fate of
Europe in the free world. The hands imagine brave Allied soldiers. No,
they're sipping on yak and just like looking at each
(24:43):
other all the crazy their.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
World leaders debating something that may be the end of
the world. You're gonna have coffee stuff you can.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Find or steal. The fun fact about that batch of
conyak is also the cognac that was stocked on the Titan.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Okay, So, like, are you thinking about crossing the Atlantic?
I've got the Kodiac for you.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
So you've got that quisette cognac dating back to eighteen
fifty eight, it's already a world record holder because a
bottle was valued at one hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars.
That is nuts And they're like, there too, two nips
of that are in this drink and that's normally it's
normally six thousand a shot. Yeah, there's.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I've owned less than that. Shop.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Then there's gramoy A quintessence. Total Wine and More describes,
as the quote, a premier blend of extremely rare cognacs,
some over one hundred years old, sourced exclusively from Grand
to Champagne, the most prestigious growing region of cognac. Double
distilled wild tropical orange essence and aged in French oak casks,
(25:57):
limited annual release.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Very nice. What did BEVMO have to They wouldn't comment
the orange cat. I've never heard of orange cast. That's nice, yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Like that's Gremoier is orange?
Speaker 4 (26:07):
Oh yeah, of course the flavor. I just hadn't thought
about orange cast. I was like, oh, that's great, and
so no oak casts.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, but you say they're orange, tropical orange essence, French
oak cast.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
About that orange, I imagine the essence inside of the cast. Yeah,
we've oiled the cast.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Probably did. Don't trust me.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
My imagination is probably wrong.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Diaper, Total Wine and More will sell you a bottle
right now, cash on the barrel head for nine ninety
nine dollars ninety nine cents. No, no thank you, no
thank you. Next up Shartruse VP. They don't sell that
at Total Wine and More. In fact, I had I
had trouble finding an English language website that would talk
(26:49):
about it. I did find one, though, and it reads quote,
this specially matured version of green Shartruse is aged for
at least eight years in oak vats, the initials VP
stand for and I'm about to mess this one up
vielles mont, except in Almont meaning exceptionally long aged. The
(27:09):
individually numbered wax sealed bottles used are identical to those
used in eighteen forty. Appearance clear pale, lime green with
flecks of golden yellow aroma, herbaceous pine forest, with nasal cleaning, angelica, spearmint,
aniseed and tobacco nasal cleaning. Taste slightly syrupy sweet, but
with such earthy spirit pungent flavors that the sugar has
(27:33):
a welcome taming effect.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Earth and sweet.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Cleansing, antiseed, peppermint, spearmint, angelica, lime, peel, tobacco, ginger root,
and turmers.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
It's got everything.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
The aftertaste is called zy pine and peppermint fresh with
enlivening cracked black pepper.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
If you ever wanted to drink just.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
To eat the forest floor. Yeah, and then while a
fairy peas on there, it is down' have like a
dash of anguster of bitters in there because apparently you
can't do it. And then that comes from you know,
Trinidada drink. Yeah, and then but I'm sure that that
those particular ones are like super fancy under the light
(28:13):
of the harvest moon, like a bed of hibiscus flowers
or something. And to top it all off, the drink
has a pop rocks rim and a slink gym swizzle stick.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
What they turned it into a kid's that's.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
For my imaginary pina colade of.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Bread bowls, Like are you kidding this?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
This drink has a presentation of chocolate, nutmeg dust, essence
of poppy seed, yeah, tele rim now, essence of poppy
seed and roses, hints of coconut, passion flower and oranges.
So the hints are just like it winks at it.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Yeah, we put we put the passion fruit on the
same count.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Comes in a cut crystal glass with a diamond encrusted stirstick,
and it takes the bartender two days to make the
twelve five hundred dollars drink.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
So I gotta ordered on Thursday for the weekend.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
It's like a crazy soufle. I have no idea what
he's doing that whole time, but I think he needs
help with time management.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
I mean, like I thought there was like you've seen
some of those Japanese bartenders where they have like they
make the drink with the cube and on fire and
all this. I'm like, no, I just want to drink
like this guy's like two days, we've.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Had an anvil down in the basement.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
He's got to crystal the drink that was really close.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
To my drink that I call Elixir of the Gods.
It's a drink that is sugar free lemonade and pineapple
juice on the rocks.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
You keep talking about this is it good?
Speaker 2 (29:35):
So what does the Winston taste like?
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Money?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Money?
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Well?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I was trying to think of someone who could walk
us through it, and then I remembered that our ridiculous
crime bar keep in the basement saloon. Yeah, he'd be
the perfect person to tell us all I did. Come
on in and Rascal Jack, it's good to see you,
and you brought your parrot that plays the steel drunk.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
You can't sit there, No, it's fine.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
You're gonna us a song.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Oh okay, let me tell you that a little drink
called the Winston.
Speaker 8 (30:08):
It's a little bit doney, it's a little bit short, drenk.
If you give me more, I might get sick. You
put a little in a cup. Go ahead and put
(30:33):
a little more in that cup. I need to get drunk.
I just spent twelve thousand dollars on a drink. Have
you ever felt like you've been getting ripped off? My friends?
(30:55):
Just remember there's a guy who's been twelve contail.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
You know what.
Speaker 8 (31:07):
This isn't enough, zaren. I want you to close your eyes.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
And picture it.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
You heard the man, You heard the man clothes. It's
February seventh, twenty thirteen. You are a bar back at
Club twenty three at the Crown Casino. The place has
been a buzz for days now in anticipation of the
creation of the world's most expensive cocktail ever sold. The
(31:35):
place is packed mostly with reporters, but also with high
rollers and onlookers. Wanting to witness a gross display of excess.
People chat and laugh as swanky, down tempo early ats
ambient music fills the air. It's all very zero seven.
You make your way from table to table, picking up
empty glasses and wiping down surfaces. Your neat uniform of
(31:58):
crisp black dress shirt, black slacks, and shined up black
dress shoes adequately hides all the booze you spill on
yourself or that's spilled on you. Through the evening, this
place is full of the same people every night, rich
middle aged guys and shiny suits and slick back hair,
drinking expensive scotch their dates, wispy women half their age
(32:19):
and sparkling slip dresses, sip champagne or martinis if they're
trying to look sophisticated, and then other iterations of those folks.
But there are a lot more people here tonight, a
more diverse crowd. Of course, everyone's here to witness a
world record being set. They want to see barman Joel
Heffernan make the Winston for New Zealand millionaire James Manning.
(32:41):
Joel's a good guy, and you know how nervous he
is about this. He wants everything to go perfectly. This
will push him into the ranks of the best in
the biz, like Salvatore Calibraci or Rascal Jack. But the
event was supposed to start twenty minutes ago, and there's
no sign of James. Some pr folks walk by you
(33:02):
briskly and they run into this vice president of VIP Services.
He's got a guy with him that looks familiar. Oh
that's Jang Win. He's a regular at the casino, doesn't
come into the bars or clubs much. He has a
suite here that he sometimes lives in. You heard he's
part owner of the Geelong Football Club. Win is not
dressed for the occasion. He's wearing old sandals and a
(33:24):
grubby shirt, and he looks like he just woke up.
The vice president of Vip Services. He escorts when to
the bar, putting him right where James Manning was supposed
to stand. The crowd and the staff mutter to each other,
looking around in confusion. The music lowers and Joel begins
to mix the drink. It's a very dramatic affair. The
crowd and their glad rags lean in to watch him
(33:46):
expertly put the wiggles on a cocktail shaker. He pours
the concoction into a special glass. He dusts it with
some stuff, sprinkles drops of other stuff from a test
tube and a dropper. First, Joel hands when the bill
for the drink, Newenn signs it without even looking at it.
Fall or move, you think. Then Joel slides the cocktail
(34:07):
across the rich, polished bar. Newenn looks irritated, like he
has somewhere else to be. He checks his watch, The
VIAP manager turns when to face the cameras both press
and house, and Wind takes a sip of the cocktail.
Everyone awaits his reaction. You've been wondering if James Manning
would make a big show of it, raving about the
(34:29):
complex flavors, or if he'd pose and pretend to be
in deep thought, savoring the taste and thinking of the
boys on Omaha Beach. Instead, you watches when puts the
drink down, adjusts his shirt, and then walks out of
the bar. The crowd is stunned. You are stunned. What
just happened? And why wasn't James Manning here? I'm so confused, Jaren,
(34:52):
I'm going to answer that question. I'm going to erase
your confusion as soon as we get back from this break, Zarin.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
I'm still so confused to Elizabeth, I've been thinking about
the entire commercial break better.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
He took one sip, so they just served the world's
most expensive cocktail to the world's least interested casino cast
one sip, sets it down, walks away. Why well, what
was that about?
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Right?
Speaker 4 (35:39):
Is this a magic trick?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
James Manning? Why wasn't he there? Who is James James?
Where are my pants? Who stole my pants?
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Why am I wearing your pants?
Speaker 5 (35:49):
No?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Okay? So Manning he described himself as a quote substantial gambler.
He's a whale. Okay, he's a property he was a
property developer from New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
And he was staying it doesn't it seem like hippos
instead of whales should be the term for gamblers because
whales are not known for a reading. But it's hippos.
We always think it was like hu hippos, right, And
that's like, oh, you don't want to mess with a hippo.
You don't want to get in the water with the small.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Fish in the pond and the whale comes in like
was it.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Yeah, yeah, never made sense to me anyway, Sorry, go on.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
He spends a lot of money there, he stay, he's
staying at the casino February twenty thirteen. He's spending and
he's winning lots and lots of money. So the casino
reaches out to see if he wants to buy the
world's most expensive cocktail of course, as long as you're here,
And he's like, yeah, why not, So I'm down. And
so he and his family had been staying there already
(36:41):
for a couple of weeks. They're in like one of
the high rollers swite.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Sure, they have like their own cabana.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
And when he had his own VIP services person that
was waid on accommodate his every win for our crew.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
So he liked to be a psychiatrists.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
He liked to play at the card tables. And I
have to say I couldn't figure out exactly which game
like they just talking.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
About or like game poker, Oh yeah, poker.
Speaker 8 (37:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
So the night like a lot of different games over
in the Asian game.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I think they have all sorts of yeah, so just
card games.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Okay, Poker's let's go with poker.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
So the night before this cocktail event. Manning's at the tables, right,
He's at the high stakes tables, not the nickel slots,
and he's on a roll and he's winning hand after hand,
like and that kind of luck. Can't hold out like.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Ten thousand hand minimum, that kind of table kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
And but this is what makes him a whale. And
so he's been having terrific luck though for a while
he's just been raking it in, which is why the
casino they were really eager to get him in on
this cocktail stum spread some of the money around, get
them away from the table off. But that night, so
this is the night before, they have their eyes on
chains on the floor as well as through the camera.
(38:00):
At this point, there are more than two thousand cameras
in this casino. It's a lot of cameras, and they're
all like really HD like zoom in to all the
stuff totally. I mean, they have like beta mass. So
security noticed something. They are in colors erin so the
(38:22):
cameras they were moving in like a weird way, and
so they're watching James. They're watching James, but they see
like on another camera is like zoomed in on the
cards of the other players at his table. Oh yes,
And the security officers weren't the ones doing the zooming,
oh double. They used one of the cameras they did
(38:44):
control to zoom in on James, and they thought they
saw an ear piece and he he didn't wear a
hearing aid that they were aware he got long hair.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
They saw, well, he can't.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Quite make it out. So they watched him play eight hands,
and he played him really quickly and they were all winners.
And so then like he gets up and he retires
to his luxury suite.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Did she get that guy from casino with the cattle prod?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
The hammer? And security They keep their eyes on him
the whole time as he goes back to the sweet
they're trying to work out what was going on because
they have all these high resolution cameras and it looked
like someone had hacked the system and was relaying that
information to James through an ear piece. Okay, and so
(39:32):
he's using the casino's own system against it.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
And they can't like unzoom their cameras, like they have
no control over those cameras. Like these people have.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Hacked in deep, they've hacked indep and here he is,
he's raging against the machine he's using it against. So
there's this woman, Linda Hancock. She's a professor. She wrote
a book about the Crown Casino, so she knows the place.
She said that his winnings, all this winning, didn't draw
attention right away because he's this big whale. You know,
(39:59):
win big, bet big and like Pitt, you know what
you're eventually the house is always going to win. This
they tell themselves, she told Australian Broadcasting quote. The Crown
Casino has about six or seven leer jets. It flies
these VIPs in. So how it all works is that
these people have a minder. The person had his family
with him, so that's not uncommon either. They come in,
(40:20):
they look after the family while the high roller gambles. Now,
I would like to introduce you to someone else.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
Please, I love people.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
A casino consultant named Baron Stringfellow.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
What come on, that's a stringfellow.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Look, it's so much better. He used to be based
in Las Vegas, but now it looks like he operates
out of Hiawatha, Kansas.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
And I'm fascinated by him. I am his and his
amazing Barrenstringfellow Dot.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Com website, I find the most interesting people.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Here's some bio information from his website, and there's random capitalization.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Oh, of course.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Barn performed his first page show at the age of
thirteen in nineteen seventy three. He is from Las Vegas, Nevada.
He has been in casino as his profession for a
bit less time than magic. I'm trying to give you
the exclamation prints here. The two careers intertwined nicely into
one amazing job. His combined works have been seen internationally
(41:16):
and he may be the quote best kept secret in
magic cheaters.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Beware.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Baron is an international casino scams expert and entertainer. Calls
come in worldwide to solve casino crime and get Baron's
insight into scams. Twenty years in tribal gaming, fifteen of
those with our own consulting firm. We don't just train
casino personnel, regulatory staff, and state federal government in a
multitude of casino solutions. We enter train what intertrain events
(41:49):
large and small flourish under Baron's application of sizzle. Yeah,
so he uses magic to train casino folks in detecting
fraud and implement tak best practices.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
I bet he's got great stories about how Penn and
Teller are like dicks. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Probably one time he does seminars in Macau. Oh really yeah,
one of his he's like a big name. One of
his big topics is he says, so this is vicious
activities and casinos, And like I said, he is fascinating
and I would love to hear all of his stories.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
I would like to take a road trip with him.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Be amazing. Anyway, So when they ask him about this heist,
the press, they're like, who do we go to? We
go to the number one guy, Barren Strings. So they
talked to him. He said it took fewer resources than
what you'd imagine for like an Ocean's eleven type.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Thing, ocean thirteen type.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah quote, intercepting them the surveillance signals is simple as
going down to a local radio shack. That's what he
told Australian broadcast.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
He used radio shack. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (42:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I wonder if there's still a radio shack in Iowas.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
I bet they're internationally too, though, Like you know, I
hear that they.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Maybe he still exists. I don't know, but I need
to take one of them.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
I don't want to go there again.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I know. So this is how he described the operation.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
Please quote.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
The player wears an earpiece that's fed information from an
accomplice sitting somewhere in the casino or outside of it.
This person would have access to the casino's surveillance feed
and would be watching the action on the table. They
would then relay the best plays and bets to the
player and stringfellows and stuff like. This is actually like
kind of common and that the casinos know about it. Yeah,
(43:27):
but they don't report it because it would generate so
much bad pr and encourage other people.
Speaker 4 (43:32):
Sure, I mean there's a lot of cheaters, and we
see that this is usually the plan, which, yeah, how
do you get eyes on whoever, either the dealer or
your other opponents, and then how do you get into
the person's ear or like with electronic like did he
do it on their schedule?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
But the casinos they're like he said, quote, the problem
with casinos is that they believe they are unbeatable, and
we see over and over again that they are not unbeatable.
If casinos would monitor for wireless transmissions, they would be
able to thwart these plans on set.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
I bet because they have to use them themselves, that
they can't use blocks.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
So the casino have clocks, like why would they not exactly,
So the casino now knows what's going on. They know
that Manning's up in his villa in Crown Towers, and
they did the math and they figured out how much
he'd taken them for. Okay, thirty three million dollars.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
Oh yeah, buddy.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
So they head up there in the middle of the
night and they gave him the boot what They kicked
him out. They did not call the cops, They didn't
beat it. They were like, sir, you need to leave.
And he's like, my children are asleep. I don't care, sir,
you need to leave.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
Isn't it a wild how? Like you can take the
English culture and you get America, or you can get Canada,
or you can get Australia. America were like, beat his
ass Canada, Australia Like, well, sir, you need to get out.
You can't be stealing, like we.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Say, like you reach a certain threshold of money and
consequences are different.
Speaker 4 (44:55):
I think that that guy, if he's not on the
inside or doesn't have a lot of money, if he's
just taking him for.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
A lo lot of money. He's a whale.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
Yeah, I don't know though, I think I don't think
this play goes in America.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
They did do something to him. They hit him with
a withdrawal of license. Notice, yes, it meant that he
couldn't come into the entire Crown complex, not even into
the luxury shops.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
Darren, Wow, he can't do the shopping. He will know,
And he.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Said okay, and then he went back with his family,
presumably to New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
No duty free goods for you, that's it.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Sorry, And so that's why he wasn't there to drink
the world's most expensive cocktail ever. So he just taken
the casino for thirty three million dollars and had been evicted.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
And Wynn knew this. That's why he takes the silly Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Well, the casino that he's another whale. They just grab
another whale, only this one doesn't give a tinker's damn
about a cocktail he just wanted to get. He's not
even like his buddy, No, no, no, so like the
casino made a deal with when and he you know,
they said, you you signed for the drink and then
we'll pay you back later.
Speaker 4 (46:02):
Are you kidding.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
And then the casino it turns out they never charged
him for it in the first place, so technically no
one paid for the world record, right, the casino just
ate the cost.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
So was it?
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Is it the most expensive cocktail ever sold? Still holds
the record when you go to the Guinness website to
this day, it holds the record.
Speaker 4 (46:22):
I'm calling hijinks.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, me too. So anyway, the casino fired the VIP
services manager that was someone to Manning and his family
because the thoughts were that he was the one. Yeah,
and so Victoria Police they did confirm that they were
involved in the investigation, even though they didn't receive a
formal complaint. So there's nothing on file. Everything's on the
(46:47):
hush hush and.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
Away.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
And it looks like Manning and the casino came to
some sort of deal. Speaking of deals, I'm not saying
you're wanting this man to be heard?
Speaker 4 (46:59):
How how different the reactions you get to just do
what you want.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Linda Hancock, she's the one who wrote the book on
the crowd.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
Yeah huh.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
She thinks that Manning and the VIP manager had a
deal of their own. Okay, she's a quote. How it
could happen is that they assigned someone to look after
all the needs of the premium player. Sometimes they can
be quite demanding. Sometimes they drink, sometimes they don't. They
may have a particular food they like. This person was
accommodated in one of the luxury villas up on the
(47:28):
very high floor of the Crown Casino. There's the Versace villa.
These villas are extremely luxurious. They cost thirty thousand dollars
a night if you want to rent well yourself. Yeah
and even what yeah night a night. So the whole
thing is wired. And I guess if there is corruption
in the ranks or collusion between the minder and the player,
they must have struck a deal.
Speaker 4 (47:49):
Oh I need to pick my job out.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
I thirty thousand a night. It's just yeah. So the
press got a hold of the story in March of
twenty thirteen, one month after it went down, and the
casino told the press it was pretty sure they'd be
able to get most of the money back. Stringfellow, our hero,
he said, that's pretty much impossible. Yes, Like they let
you walk out. He was like, quote chances or zero
(48:14):
if they let you walk out of the casino game over, Well, you.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
Can still get back illegally, you can send the viper
after May.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Right, Manning denied the charges and I had trouble tracking
him down after the heist, but I think I found him,
did you. Well, there's a James Manning who's a bitcoin
baron in Australia.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
Okay sounds.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
He was the CEO of Masson Infrastructure Group, which is
like a bitcoin mining operation that was based in Pennsylvania
and a right and so that he was the CEO
up until May of twenty twenty three, and he got
the boot when he failed to disclose related party transactions.
He founded a hedge fund based in Sydney and in
(48:55):
twenty twenty two he and his wife, who's like a
former fashion designer of course, have like four kids. They
sold their house in Wallahara, a Tony uh the suburbs
for fifteen million dollars house. Then they listed another house
down the street that they had for eight million because
two years later.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
Down the street it was like next door because they
didn't want to have neighbors and he was down the.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Street like they just buy up the neighborhood. So apparently
bitcoin bosses are buying up a ton of high end
Australian real estate. There are stories about this, and I
imagine the same thing is happening all over the world.
You know, they're a good number of properties in San
Francisco that sit empty because owners buy them as investments.
That's what everyone says.
Speaker 4 (49:34):
You don't even want to know the numbers, like it's
you know that it's like I think right now, it's
in America. There are twenty eight unoccupied homes for every
homeless person. Yeah, okay, the numbers are stupid.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
And then the city like you'll see in those big
high rise like luxury apartments, like most of whole floors.
Speaker 4 (49:51):
Oh yeah, San Francisco's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, because it's a good front.
Speaker 4 (49:55):
Who just pays attention to that? And he'll point out yeah, yeah,
the you know, the.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Way that the property values keep increasing everywhere. You know,
it's a good investment, which is just disgusting. I don't
like that either. So that may or may not be
the same James Manning. But the details and I mean
Manning was described as a Kiwi in all the heist reporting,
and this dude is in Australia, but I can't find
(50:21):
a bio for Aussie James Manning to see if he's.
Speaker 4 (50:24):
Easy for a keiwave to go from New Zealand Australia.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I mean, and it's it's weird that there's just like
nothing about him. I did. I did find SEC filings
that refer to Manning as having property development experience earlier
in his career, so that lines up anyway. If that
James Manning isn't the same one as the Crown Casino one,
I apologize, and please don't sue me. I'm just basically
(50:48):
asking people not to sue me today.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
And if you are related to the Manning brothers from football,
please call me because I'd like to be on the
Manning cast.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Yeah exactly. We both have ridiculous takeaway. Oh no, I
got what you ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 4 (51:03):
Pepe? Ask me Elizabeth. I'm so glad. I've been sitting
here holding my fingers crossed for like five minutes. I
can tell you this now. I don't I pick on
the bitcoin guys because I think that what they're doing is,
you know, just basically speculating. You're just creating this money
that we don't need and then selling it to someone
who's an idiot, and then they make me make money.
I'm like, I don't see any value here, right, But
at the same time, I spend a lot of time
(51:24):
looking for Mersin prime. So I'm using a big computer
to do very similar things and I make nothing out
of it. You know, yeah, I'm gaining nothing. So I'm
the idiot if you really want to talk about it
from the economic standpoint. But there's this other guy who
I was thinking about when you were telling the story.
When I thought that Manning or rather Win was buying
the drink and then not enjoying it, and I was
so hung up on that. There was a guy recently
(51:45):
who found the next largest Mersen prime, right, which is
made you think total. But then the guy spent two
million dollars using cloud computing to find it.
Speaker 9 (51:55):
Right.
Speaker 4 (51:56):
You know, me, I got my one computer, I plug
in a couple of numbers and I go look for these.
A month later, I go, oh, not that one, and
I do it again. Right, this guy has cloud computing
doing it, all these numbers all the time, twenty four hours.
He spent two million dollars doing this. You would think, man,
it paid off, you did it, your planned worked, you
found the next biggest mercy and prime. And then they're
(52:16):
like talking to him and he's like, yeah, I did that,
and he.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Didn't care excited about it.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Why did you spend the two million if he doesn't
give you any joy.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Here's the thing about like bitcoin and that kind of stuff,
is the environmental impact.
Speaker 4 (52:30):
Oh yeah, I was trying to side step that make.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
The electricity is.
Speaker 4 (52:36):
Maybe you've prepared that for a lot of the crypto coins.
So you can't say that anymore about him other than bitcoin.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
AI.
Speaker 4 (52:41):
Sure, definitely pretty much. If you're trying to cool something,
you're taking water or electricity, either you know, for the
stand or for the cooling. But shouldn't these things get
these people joy? If you're gonna be denying my grandchildren
a future on the planet, shouldn't at least get joy
out of this?
Speaker 2 (52:56):
Exactly?
Speaker 4 (52:57):
Well, there, that's my ridiculous tahaway. Would people would at
least get a moment of joy, as I said, of
like a moment of like I got this. He didn't,
because that's not joy.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
That's not joy.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
Joy.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
That's my takeaway that was I was watching this thing
the other day about what joy is, and then it
doesn't have to be like this amazing like fireworks of
things it's just simple pleasantries, like simple things in life
that and it's our tasks to stop and like think
of that joy. And when you think about this this bartenders,
(53:31):
I mean the alcohol cost a side of just like
I can't believe they would charge that amount. Like he
spends two days preparing all these things, and a lot
of thought goes into that of layering all these flavors
and the experience of it, you know, I like, I
I'm not I make fun of like mixologists, but with
(53:56):
anything like that, any like food or drink, when you
think about the entire your experience of it, that you
would want to have someone enjoy this cocktail and you know,
experience every sensory element of it, and then to put
it in front of a dude who like takes a
sip and is like all right later, that's got to be.
Speaker 4 (54:17):
Like I checked the box.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
There, I did it.
Speaker 4 (54:19):
Saw me do it exact guys, Like that was two
days of my life you to go there, I did it.
Speaker 6 (54:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
And because it's so expensive, apparently the casino said like
we're going to be making like twelve more of these
or something. They'll be available for a certain amount of time.
And I don't know if they ever made them or
anyone cared, but.
Speaker 4 (54:38):
Just these like flagrant, gross displays of well and now
when you google.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
That bartender's name, this is all that comes upon I know, right,
poor kid. Uh, you know what we need to as
a palate cleanser. What Elizabeth a talk by?
Speaker 4 (54:54):
Hell yeah, I went cheat.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
Elizabeth Zarin close your eyes. Treasure Island being robbed. I
was in the floor where the cops repelled down. I'm
watching the TV to see what's going on. Hurt. All
the helicopters saw my husband hit the floor with the
gunfire on the news.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Thought he was shot.
Speaker 3 (55:27):
He was right next to the security guards and I
was five months pregnant and about had that baby that night.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
Great episode. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (55:40):
So glad everything was fine for you and your family.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Wow, so you're like witness to history. Yeah, I'm so
glad everyone wound up. Okay, and the little bibs, Oh
my god, that's crazy. Thank you for sure. Uh, that's
it for today. You can find us online at Ridiculous
Crime dot com. Go there and check out the merch.
(56:02):
I think it's hilarious.
Speaker 4 (56:04):
It's dope. There's some great and there.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
We're going to keep putting more stuff in h so
always keep checking back. We've been remiss, ye there. Yeah,
They're not like campaigns anymore now, it's just always always.
Speaker 4 (56:17):
There, set it and forget it exactly.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
We're at Ridiculous Crime on Twitter and Instagram. You can
email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, and
most importantly, as I always say, leave a talk back
on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted
by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by
world's most expensive VIP services manager, Dave Kusten, starring Annals
(56:46):
Rutger as Judith Cocktails, conversation and crooning by Rascal Jack.
Research is by Marissa Remy Martin Black Pearl, Louis the
Thirteenth Brown and Andrea Bomorph nineteen fifty seven Scotch So
I'm Sharp and To. The theme song is by Thomas
the Dalmore sixty two Lee and Travis Passion Azteca Platinum Liqueur.
(57:07):
Host wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred guests hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are
Ben Diva, Vodka Bolan and nol Di Malfi Le Mancello,
Sobremme Brown.
Speaker 5 (57:26):
Dis Crime, Say It One More Time Crime.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio four more
podcasts 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 (00:03):
Hey, Saren Ware, you go, what do you know what's ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (00:09):
It is the time for the show. Yes I do.
I was dreaming about it and I wanted to tell you. Okay,
one of my interests is undergarments. Oh okay, dude, either
the closest thing to you of your clothing?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (00:22):
Right, And I learned something new today about undergarments. And
I'm not like reading about it all the time, but like,
I try to keep a little facts and then I'm like, oh,
that's interesting. Whale bones used to be used in bras.
That's interesting, right, That's just interesting. Another bra fact while
we're on the topic, turns out that, you know, the
the clasp for the bra that hook designs like twelve
(00:44):
year old boys have to practice with one hand on
a Teddy bear to undo? Is that just me?
Speaker 5 (00:49):
No?
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Anyway, that clasp it was invented by who?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Who?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
No?
Speaker 6 (00:55):
Who was invented by Elizabeth I give you.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
No, I give you a better guests. It was invented
at the start or the end of the nineteenthentury early
twentieth century. That period, I think who would be inventing stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Then child al capine.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
You know this person's name, Mark Twain.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Mark Twain.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Twain invented the modern clasp for the bra. We still
using the clasp on the bra you're wearing now was
invented by Mark Twain. Yes, wild right and ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I guess, thank you. Wow, that is ridiculous. So you're interested.
I like how you said it was undergarments, but it's
really bras No.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
No, like socks, all the whole thing, long underwear. I
got opinions about all of it. You know this, I guess, dude. Yeah,
the t tank tops. I mean, you name an undergarment
I got.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Opinion to, well, that is ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
The lining of a like a sweatsuit. I'll give it
my wetsuit lining. I got opinions about anything that touches.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
My skin touches you.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
We can't just be throwing anything on this. It is
that's true. It is the integument.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It is.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
You know, we just recently found the second biggest organ recently,
like in the last ten years, we have another organ
that's all through our body.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, like the juice.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yeah, there you go, the juice.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So you know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
No, I'm out. That's it for.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
You, booze that costs more than a used Ford Taurus.
What this is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and
(02:49):
outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent
murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Damn right. Australia, Yeah, down Under.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I can't stop telling stories about that fabulous land. Man.
Did you know that gambling is legal in Australia?
Speaker 6 (03:10):
I did not, but you know, I'm not surprised Australians
spend more money on online gambling than any other country
on planet Earth.
Speaker 4 (03:21):
Really, yeah, why are they not known for this? Almost
three you never hear about gambling as part of Aussie culture.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
It is clearly almost three quarters of Australian adults hit
the tables and machines within like the last twelve months.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Wow.
Speaker 7 (03:40):
And then more than the tables or machines within a year.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I mean they're going to a place to be.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
And then more than a third of Aussi's gambled at
least once a week. Wow, Yeah, I had, there's stuff.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
Apparently they're not good. No one else knows about this,
not all, Like, hey, you should ask an Ozzie about that.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
All this work on, like trying to counter acts like
gambling addictions, that stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
There's got to be like corrosive.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
So there are some really nice like hotel casinos.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
There is a lot of money in Australia.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
Everyone is gamming.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Oh yeah it is. Yeah. So I mean think like
there are Vegas style casinos these places.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Okay, yeah, I'm imagining like the hard rock casino, Like
the Seminoles are like.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Eight hundred hard rock casinos. It's only that's the only
kind that's allowed.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
They do they group them together like in Vegas Atlantic
City kind of, or they're just sprinkled.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Around, sprinkled around? Is my understanding? Correct me if I'm wrong,
I don't know. Obvious one in Melbourne is the Crown
Casino and it opened in nineteen ninety four right on
the banks of this river. The whole place there's a
casino and like three hotel towers and I think like
a mall. It takes up more than one point five
(04:53):
million square feet.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
It's a lot.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
It's a lot. It's like two city blocks.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
That's big.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's the largest casino complex in the Southern Hemisphere.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
And it's also one of the largest in the world. Okay, huge.
Did you know that Keanu Reeves has stayed at the Crown?
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I did? He invited me. I was like, Kean, I can't.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
You know who else has stayed there? Your boyfriend Tom Cruise?
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Really?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yes, dude, Why.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
Are these guys not? Like they always tell me that
I'm going to be there. I never believe them.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
That's like the place to stay when you're there.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Into motorcycles and gambling.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Tennis stars Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, they stayed there during
the Australian Open.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Yeah they never called me.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah they didn't. It's the real deal. It's five stars,
super luck is what you're talking It's fancy pants.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, this is like Monico. Yeah, that's all five.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Fingers, all four of my fingers. Even so, it has
had its share of controversy. No, so, Chinese regulations wouldn't
let Chinese citizens transfer more than like a set amount
of money every year. So in that case, it's like
fifty thousand US dollars or sixty nine point five thousand
(06:01):
Australian dollars, is that.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Transfer out of the country. It transferred to Australia, out
of their country.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And into another jurisdic So Section sixty eight of the
Australian Casino Control Act makes it illegal to provide money
or gaming chips in a transaction using a credit card
or debit card, and that's intended to reduce money laundering
promote responsible gambling.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
You have to have the cash.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like buying lotto tickets here,
I get it.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
That's hard. You don't want to have people draining their.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Account or put it all on credit.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
To do at least one more step. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
And then Section one twenty four of the Casino Control
Act requires casinos to retain specific accounting records regarding like
how they handle their money so that the proper taxes
are all done. Oh yes, Like basically, you can't charge
something as one thing when it's another. So all three
of those elements came together. The Crown Casino broke all
(06:59):
those rules. So they were letting Chinese gamblers use something
called a China Union Pay Bank card or Cup cup
for gambling purposes, and they weren't using these directly for chips.
They would get phony invoices for hotel services.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
It's like a credit line kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Money would know it would make it look like, oh,
you paid for six Hamburgers.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Through the hotel, so they're just like going, oh, yeah,
you got twelve.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
And then the Chinese gambler would pay the fake bill
using their I.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Got you and then they would be given the money
for the.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, and then the staff gives them a voucher they
can trade it in for casino chips. The head of
Australian Gaming Commission, fran Thorne said quote Crown's cup procedure
was a covert, purposeful scheme that violated the Casino Control
Act and was also designed to help customers circumvent China's
(07:54):
foreign currency conversion regulation.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Oh yeah, they're trying to circumvented, at least to government exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
So she also pointed out that Crown knew this was shady.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Yeah they call.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
They still kept it.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
They came up away to get around it.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
They don't need no stinking regulations and they tried to
cover it up.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So in all, they processed about one hundred and sixty
four million Australian dollars in these payments and they made
like thirty two million off of it.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, And so they got busted and they were fined
eighty million Australian dollars for this scheme. Oh wow, And
it wasn't their only tangle with the Gaming Commission.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Did actual people who are involved actually go to jail
or have to pay fine?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
They just paid fines and that wasn't even their biggest fine.
Oh damn eighty million. So in twenty twenty two they
got pinched, and this time for a bunch of violations.
And it seems that like for more than ten years,
they were letting patrons gamble for more than twenty four
hours at a time without a break.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
How do you track that though?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I don't know, but there's apparently this law you cannot
cannot let someone.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Get you need to go sleep, like you need.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
To go get some water. Think about what you've done.
They also were letting gamblers use these plastic picks to
hold down machine buttons. It's like, you know how you
see people at like video poker, which the Ausies call
pokey machines, or like slot machines where there to hit
them all quick.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
I've gone to yeah casinas with my family members.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
It's that and the picks. They let people play multiple
machines at a time as well. Yeah, so in twenty nineteen,
the Crown was told, hey, listen, you got to stop
giving people button picks. This is their you have to
take steps to make sure that people stop using them.
And there the crowd's like, hmm okay, no they didn't.
(09:43):
And so Franz Thorne, right, she steps up, she said quote.
For a long time, Crown had promoted itself as having
the world's best approach to problem gambling. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Like what casinos like, I'm going
to take care of problem gambling. No, they're of course,
they're like, come hide under my coat. You're refined. Get
in here. So for those two violations, the extended play
(10:07):
periods and the pick action, they got two fines. They
got twenty million for the picks, yeah, and one hundred
million for the all day play. Wow, that was the
maximum penalt million.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
They got two million in fine.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Tundred million in fines, and the casino they released this
statement quote, we are genuinely remorseful for the failings of
the past, and we're committed to becoming a world leader
in the delivery of safe and responsible gaming and entertainment.
The recently appointed new leadership team at Crown is driving
a whole of company transformation program designed to uplift the
(10:44):
culture and build a better crown which exceeds the expectation
of our shareholders.
Speaker 4 (10:50):
I love the valley girl who works in the Australian
gaming industry.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Right. They are in cities, They're everywhere. They're so hard
to get away from. You know, they get these communications,
this degree, they go wing top consulting. Next thing you know,
they're running crowds. See they're like I graduated from Irvine
and here I am okay. So you know that if
they were hit with these kind of fines and they
just kept rolling that they're taking in a ton of
(11:16):
money in every amount. Yeah, casinos are basically money printing operations.
Like there's no way to lose money when you own
a casino.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Well, some people have found a way, Elizabeth. There's like
this one guy he found in Atlantic.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
City, some guys. Yeah, so they had a crazy stick
up there was on August twenty it did a crowned.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
So people are like, oh, man, I gotta rob that.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
They have so much money, let's do this. August twentieth,
twenty twenty two. Recently, recently, Thomas Mangoes who made me
think of that commercial that runs during football. I Am yours.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Mango Bring Back.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
He had a pretty serious gambling addiction and he'd been
gambling at the Crown Casino for like sixteen hours. I
have gambling mango problems. Yeah, so he sixteen hour run,
that's insane. Yeah, And at around five am he walks
up to the cashier in the Mahogany room and he
(12:19):
pulled out a gun and don't worry, it was a
toy gun, but the cashier didn't cashier didn't know it.
And he says, give us your hundreds. He tells her,
and the cashier she starts handing over them honeys while mangoes.
He's like shoving the bundles into his jacket, but he's
like calm, He's calmly doing this, calm the whole time.
(12:41):
What if he was wearing one of those like photographer's vests.
The tourists were all, but he wasn't doing like the
frandic hand it over. In all, he gets one hundred
and thirty six thousand dollars in hundreds.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
Out of one hundred, had big pocket from a table.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
He had from a cashier. Oh right, Yeah, so he
walks out of the casino, hails a cab and takes
him too.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
For he walks out after doing this, huh.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, walks out, grabs a cab. He goes to Footscray,
which is a suburb of Melbourne. You say, so he
tips the driver seven hundred dollars, which is like really
nice of him, but that's not the best way to
avoid attention.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
And so from there he goes to Geelong. And this
is a city on the other end of corey O Bay.
It's like a big city in its own right, not
really a suburb of Melbourne. So in Geelong he checked
into a hotel under a false NAMEID. Then he shaved
off his mustache. I forgot to tell you as mustache.
(13:41):
He cut his hair. I forgot to tell you it
had hair, hair and anyone out and he got tattoos.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
So you also forgot to tell me he had no tattoos.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
This is exactly why why am how I got all
my tattoos? Job cover up?
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Seriously, his idea is that he's going to have these tattoos,
and like, clearly I can't be that guy because I've
got all this press police.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
He's really fresh covered up in the plastic.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Don't touch that, it's healing.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
He gets all this done, he's a new man.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
He goes to sky City Casino in Adelaide, he says,
and he checked in under a fake name, spent two
weeks there, and in that time he turned over more
than a million dollars, but he lost almost one hundred
and one thousand, so he only has like, wait, out
of his one hundred and thirty six thousand, he loses
(14:30):
one hundred thousand, nine hundred.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Dollars, and in the meantime he builds up to a
million and gets back down exactly. So he makes he's
got like twenty grand something. He's like exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
So, ye, he's left like thirty six thousand dollars September
twenty seventh. And remember he pulled this job on August twentieth.
He turned himself into police.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
He just had to get this jag out.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
His defense was that he had PTSD after a video
shop that he owned since nineteen ninety burned down after
an armed robbery in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 7 (15:06):
So two decades later, yeah, he's likely also, he's like,
and then seven years after that, my marriage fell apart
and I got divorced in two thousand and that was
just all too much for me.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
So twenty two years later, I'm going to pull this
weird oh hic.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
I had to like act it out, get it out
of my system. I'm going to wash that pt sest
out of my hair.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
You know what, your ghost, You demonstrated remorse. You show
some shame, and we love shame.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
Oh, we do love the shame.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
And so he ordered him to serve non parole period
of three years, basically probation.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
So he's just out, just out, just be a cautionary
tale telling people about.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
There said quote, all of this behavior endorses the fantasy
world and surreal nature of the entire event.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
So I don't even understand what that means.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
There were bigger let's criminal elements at this casino though,
Oh yeah. So in twenty twenty one, so this is
before the stick up, the Finkelstein Report was released, and
it's a six hundred and fifty two page document on
an inquiry into whether the Crown Casino should be able
to keep its gambling license six hundred pages, six hundred
(16:17):
and fifty two pages.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
And then can you imagine the movie Martin Scorsese can
make out of that six hundred page report.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I'd love this. It's like an upside down casino. So
it just ripped into the Crown for all sorts of
illegal activities. There's a list in the document. I'll give
you some choice. Once they facilitated millions of dollars of
money laundering. They allowed operators with links to organize crime
to arrange for junket players to gamble at the casino.
Speaker 8 (16:45):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
One of the quotes, for many years Crown Melbourne has
engaged in conduct that is, in a word, disgraceful. They
called it illegal, dishonest, unethical, exploitative. They said they have
the catalog of wrongdoing is alarming, but more so because
it was engaged in by a regulated entity totally.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
And when you've gone past litany into catalog, this thing
just goes hard.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
And then they bring up the whole China stuff. And
so the report recommended that they be put under a
special manager for two years and that would let them
keep their license to operate, but they'd have to make
major changes, and they did. They got an all new
board and senior staff, and then they brought in a
different inspector to monitor whether the money laundering the loan
(17:33):
sharking and the drug deals were still going on.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
We'll do whatever as long as printing machine running.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It looks like they're in full operation right now. Click
and they might be riding the ship. But they're still
underwatched from the government, but you wouldn't know it from
their website. It's business as usual. So let's hold up,
wait a minute for some ads, and do go there
because I am with it. When we come back, I'll
(17:59):
explain how the forementioned activities are not the most ridiculous
crimes up in there.
Speaker 9 (18:04):
Nice all right, Zaron, good eye, Elizabeth.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Sorry, I'm getting in the mood.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Crown Casino. Crown Casino, So a lot of hanky shesh
has gone down there, and maybe they've been able to
smooth things out.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
What I'm saying is, let's give them the benefit of
the doubt.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Suomie, Crowned Casino, That's what I'm saying. Here's a quick question.
Apropos of nothing, Yes, I love those. How much do
you think the world's most expensive cocktail is?
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I'm sorry, what how much is the world's most expensive
cocktail tail? This is like one of the things like whoa,
we put real gold in there whatever. Oh, it's not
about the actual research that okay. So I'm imagining how
much would it cost to make a really fine drink
five for I don't know, a few grand.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Twelve thousand, five hundred Australian dollars. And that's back in
twenty thirteen. You were close.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
No, I was more than seven at all. That's like
three times is what I was saying.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
More than seventeen thousand dollars American today in the Year
of Our Lord twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
I like how generous you were, Like, you were close, Elizabeth.
If the speed limit was twenty five or.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
You would have said forty dollars, I would have been like,
you're close.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
H You're really close. I was like, imagine if someone's
going seventy five and a twenty five mile an hour
like zone, that's how far away I was. It's three
times more anyway, I mean says this is like.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
That's what the most expensive cocktail. It's in the Guinness
Book of World Records.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Why is it so expensive?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I'll tell you it was made on February seventh, twenty thirteen.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
It's made is not constantly being made.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
By a man named Joel Heffernan.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
This is like the biggest cocktail ever made?
Speaker 5 (20:01):
Is that?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
It is the Giants swimple?
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Yeah, the whole town in Milwaukee help make this.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yes, how do you know Joel worked as a bartender
slash mixologist?
Speaker 8 (20:11):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (20:12):
I love that term.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I know what do you do?
Speaker 4 (20:16):
And you're liked?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
You just hit me in the face. It's at a
place called Club twenty three. And as you've probably guessed,
the Club twenty three was located inside the Crown Casino.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
Okay, there we go. So is that for Jordan because
he's a big gamblers Club twenty three Michael Jordan. But
all that is gambling, it's not about sports at all. Yes,
they're like his pictures of him and other casinos and
then him.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Leaving the NBA.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Why so.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Uh it's still this is still listed as the world's
most expensive cocktail ever sold. Okay, And in this world
of TikTok excess for drink videos, no one has tried
to unseat it.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Really, even all those glow Gold schlogger people.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Apparently. So the pre the Vius world record for a
single cocktail was held by Salvator's legacy. Okay, and that
drink was developed by famous. I guess to like booze
aficionados and hospitality folks. This famous guy, Salvatore Calibres.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Oh, Salvatory Calibreci, Elizabeth, you tell me you don't know
sal Calibre.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
He made it. He made Salvatores legacy.
Speaker 8 (21:21):
Can you say that?
Speaker 2 (21:21):
I love saying it with Claude des Griffier view Coniac
from seventeen seventy eight.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Like I know what that is?
Speaker 2 (21:29):
That drink Conaksting sold for fifty five hundred pounds in
October twenty twelve at the Playboy Club in London. Oh wow,
funny story about that cocktail when Salvatory tried to make
it for the world record in July of that year,
like things went south. Oh that bottle of seventeen seventy
(21:50):
eight cognac, which was worth about like fifty thousand pounds
at the time. Are you yeah, got dropped the bottle?
Days someone dropped the bottle and he was going to
like open it to poor to make the cocktail, and
she's wetting to stop the is what Salvatory said. Quote
when something gets smashed into a bar, it's normally cleaned
up straight away, but in this case, everyone just stood
(22:13):
looking at the puddle for ten minutes. Should we try
to sponge it up and filter the liquid? We mopped
it up in the end. Funnily enough, the bartender who
cleaned it away was stopped by police on his way
home and asked if he'd been drinking just freaked so salvatory.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
He put on, you didn't have any like real alcoholics, Like,
I got a tow, Let me get on a straw.
Would like the put like.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
A cigarette filter at the end of the straw in a.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Little red cocktail straws like they're sipping on like a
Roy Rogers.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So Salvatory. He like takes the shards of the bottle
and he puts it in this glass cabinet that also
holds like more than a million dollars worth of vintage kgnacs.
So anyway, are kidding?
Speaker 4 (22:55):
That's like putting the four hundred and fifty million dollars
in Leonardo da Vinci painting on a yacht, Like why
would you put all that there? I mean, you're just
asking gravity do it. Gravity.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
When he actually made the drink, he got his hands
on another bottle of this stuff, and so then he
made he makes the tipple with the Kognak, a seventeen
seventy bottle of Kumel liqueur, an eighteen sixty dub orange currosow,
and a tiny bottle of nineteenth century anguester of bitters. Okay,
so back to the Crown. Yeah, February of twenty thirteen,
(23:27):
the Crown sends out this press release. It crowed about
how like this New Zealand millionaire has agreed to pay,
you know, twelve and a half thousand dollars for the Winston.
The Winston, that's what the cocktail was called, the prescos Nuts.
There's all these like breathless articles about this obscenely decadent
and ostentatious drink, and they're all it's all over the
(23:47):
media in Australia and then like food and drink publications
around the world. Sure, so what's in the Winstone?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
What is in the Winston?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Elizabe, I'll tell you. It's made with eighteen fifty eight
vintage kroy Say couve leone Cognac.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
And by the way, when you're saying all this stuff,
I got some of the words. I know something I don't,
But the eighteen fifty that is the year, and not
like some name for.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
That's the year that's from. And I gotta say, I'm
saying these words. I don't know them. Yeah they mean nothing,
sounds like you. No, they don't.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
No much more than in there. You don't want to
hear me, try it?
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Okay. So this is this, this eighteen fifty eight, that's
the same cognac that Winston Churchill and Twight D. Eisenhower
sipped when planning the D Day landings. I imagine them
like drinking black coffee as they ponder the fate of
Europe in the free world. The hands imagine brave Allied soldiers. No,
they're sipping on yak and just like looking at each
(24:43):
other all the crazy their.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
World leaders debating something that may be the end of
the world. You're gonna have coffee stuff you can.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Find or steal. The fun fact about that batch of
conyak is also the cognac that was stocked on the Titan.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Okay, So, like, are you thinking about crossing the Atlantic?
I've got the Kodiac for you.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
So you've got that quisette cognac dating back to eighteen
fifty eight, it's already a world record holder because a
bottle was valued at one hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars.
That is nuts And they're like, there too, two nips
of that are in this drink and that's normally it's
normally six thousand a shot. Yeah, there's.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I've owned less than that. Shop.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Then there's gramoy A quintessence. Total Wine and More describes,
as the quote, a premier blend of extremely rare cognacs,
some over one hundred years old, sourced exclusively from Grand
to Champagne, the most prestigious growing region of cognac. Double
distilled wild tropical orange essence and aged in French oak casks,
(25:57):
limited annual release.
Speaker 4 (25:58):
Very nice. What did BEVMO have to They wouldn't comment
the orange cat. I've never heard of orange cast. That's nice, yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Like that's Gremoier is orange?
Speaker 4 (26:07):
Oh yeah, of course the flavor. I just hadn't thought
about orange cast. I was like, oh, that's great, and
so no oak casts.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yeah, but you say they're orange, tropical orange essence, French
oak cast.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
About that orange, I imagine the essence inside of the cast. Yeah,
we've oiled the cast.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Probably did. Don't trust me.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
My imagination is probably wrong.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Diaper, Total Wine and More will sell you a bottle
right now, cash on the barrel head for nine ninety
nine dollars ninety nine cents. No, no thank you, no
thank you. Next up Shartruse VP. They don't sell that
at Total Wine and More. In fact, I had I
had trouble finding an English language website that would talk
(26:49):
about it. I did find one, though, and it reads quote,
this specially matured version of green Shartruse is aged for
at least eight years in oak vats, the initials VP
stand for and I'm about to mess this one up
vielles mont, except in Almont meaning exceptionally long aged. The
(27:09):
individually numbered wax sealed bottles used are identical to those
used in eighteen forty. Appearance clear pale, lime green with
flecks of golden yellow aroma, herbaceous pine forest, with nasal cleaning, angelica, spearmint,
aniseed and tobacco nasal cleaning. Taste slightly syrupy sweet, but
with such earthy spirit pungent flavors that the sugar has
(27:33):
a welcome taming effect.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Earth and sweet.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Cleansing, antiseed, peppermint, spearmint, angelica, lime, peel, tobacco, ginger root,
and turmers.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
It's got everything.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
The aftertaste is called zy pine and peppermint fresh with
enlivening cracked black pepper.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
If you ever wanted to drink just.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
To eat the forest floor. Yeah, and then while a
fairy peas on there, it is down' have like a
dash of anguster of bitters in there because apparently you
can't do it. And then that comes from you know,
Trinidada drink. Yeah, and then but I'm sure that that
those particular ones are like super fancy under the light
(28:13):
of the harvest moon, like a bed of hibiscus flowers
or something. And to top it all off, the drink
has a pop rocks rim and a slink gym swizzle stick.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
What they turned it into a kid's that's.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
For my imaginary pina colade of.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Bread bowls, Like are you kidding this?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
This drink has a presentation of chocolate, nutmeg dust, essence
of poppy seed, yeah, tele rim now, essence of poppy
seed and roses, hints of coconut, passion flower and oranges.
So the hints are just like it winks at it.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
Yeah, we put we put the passion fruit on the
same count.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Comes in a cut crystal glass with a diamond encrusted stirstick,
and it takes the bartender two days to make the
twelve five hundred dollars drink.
Speaker 4 (28:59):
So I gotta ordered on Thursday for the weekend.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
It's like a crazy soufle. I have no idea what
he's doing that whole time, but I think he needs
help with time management.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
I mean, like I thought there was like you've seen
some of those Japanese bartenders where they have like they
make the drink with the cube and on fire and
all this. I'm like, no, I just want to drink
like this guy's like two days, we've.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Had an anvil down in the basement.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
He's got to crystal the drink that was really close.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
To my drink that I call Elixir of the Gods.
It's a drink that is sugar free lemonade and pineapple
juice on the rocks.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
You keep talking about this is it good?
Speaker 2 (29:35):
So what does the Winston taste like?
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Money?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Money?
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Well?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
I was trying to think of someone who could walk
us through it, and then I remembered that our ridiculous
crime bar keep in the basement saloon. Yeah, he'd be
the perfect person to tell us all I did. Come
on in and Rascal Jack, it's good to see you,
and you brought your parrot that plays the steel drunk.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
You can't sit there, No, it's fine.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
You're gonna us a song.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
Oh okay, let me tell you that a little drink
called the Winston.
Speaker 8 (30:08):
It's a little bit doney, it's a little bit short, drenk.
If you give me more, I might get sick. You
put a little in a cup. Go ahead and put
(30:33):
a little more in that cup. I need to get drunk.
I just spent twelve thousand dollars on a drink. Have
you ever felt like you've been getting ripped off? My friends?
(30:55):
Just remember there's a guy who's been twelve contail.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
You know what.
Speaker 8 (31:07):
This isn't enough, zaren. I want you to close your eyes.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
And picture it.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
You heard the man, You heard the man clothes. It's
February seventh, twenty thirteen. You are a bar back at
Club twenty three at the Crown Casino. The place has
been a buzz for days now in anticipation of the
creation of the world's most expensive cocktail ever sold. The
(31:35):
place is packed mostly with reporters, but also with high
rollers and onlookers. Wanting to witness a gross display of excess.
People chat and laugh as swanky, down tempo early ats
ambient music fills the air. It's all very zero seven.
You make your way from table to table, picking up
empty glasses and wiping down surfaces. Your neat uniform of
(31:58):
crisp black dress shirt, black slacks, and shined up black
dress shoes adequately hides all the booze you spill on
yourself or that's spilled on you. Through the evening, this
place is full of the same people every night, rich
middle aged guys and shiny suits and slick back hair,
drinking expensive scotch their dates, wispy women half their age
(32:19):
and sparkling slip dresses, sip champagne or martinis if they're
trying to look sophisticated, and then other iterations of those folks.
But there are a lot more people here tonight, a
more diverse crowd. Of course, everyone's here to witness a
world record being set. They want to see barman Joel
Heffernan make the Winston for New Zealand millionaire James Manning.
(32:41):
Joel's a good guy, and you know how nervous he
is about this. He wants everything to go perfectly. This
will push him into the ranks of the best in
the biz, like Salvatore Calibraci or Rascal Jack. But the
event was supposed to start twenty minutes ago, and there's
no sign of James. Some pr folks walk by you
(33:02):
briskly and they run into this vice president of VIP Services.
He's got a guy with him that looks familiar. Oh
that's Jang Win. He's a regular at the casino, doesn't
come into the bars or clubs much. He has a
suite here that he sometimes lives in. You heard he's
part owner of the Geelong Football Club. Win is not
dressed for the occasion. He's wearing old sandals and a
(33:24):
grubby shirt, and he looks like he just woke up.
The vice president of Vip Services. He escorts when to
the bar, putting him right where James Manning was supposed
to stand. The crowd and the staff mutter to each other,
looking around in confusion. The music lowers and Joel begins
to mix the drink. It's a very dramatic affair. The
crowd and their glad rags lean in to watch him
(33:46):
expertly put the wiggles on a cocktail shaker. He pours
the concoction into a special glass. He dusts it with
some stuff, sprinkles drops of other stuff from a test
tube and a dropper. First, Joel hands when the bill
for the drink, Newenn signs it without even looking at it.
Fall or move, you think. Then Joel slides the cocktail
(34:07):
across the rich, polished bar. Newenn looks irritated, like he
has somewhere else to be. He checks his watch, The
VIAP manager turns when to face the cameras both press
and house, and Wind takes a sip of the cocktail.
Everyone awaits his reaction. You've been wondering if James Manning
would make a big show of it, raving about the
(34:29):
complex flavors, or if he'd pose and pretend to be
in deep thought, savoring the taste and thinking of the
boys on Omaha Beach. Instead, you watches when puts the
drink down, adjusts his shirt, and then walks out of
the bar. The crowd is stunned. You are stunned. What
just happened? And why wasn't James Manning here? I'm so confused, Jaren,
(34:52):
I'm going to answer that question. I'm going to erase
your confusion as soon as we get back from this break, Zarin.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
I'm still so confused to Elizabeth, I've been thinking about
the entire commercial break better.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
He took one sip, so they just served the world's
most expensive cocktail to the world's least interested casino cast
one sip, sets it down, walks away. Why well, what
was that about?
Speaker 3 (35:39):
Right?
Speaker 4 (35:39):
Is this a magic trick?
Speaker 2 (35:41):
James Manning? Why wasn't he there? Who is James James?
Where are my pants? Who stole my pants?
Speaker 4 (35:47):
Why am I wearing your pants?
Speaker 5 (35:49):
No?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Okay? So Manning he described himself as a quote substantial gambler.
He's a whale. Okay, he's a property he was a
property developer from New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
And he was staying it doesn't it seem like hippos
instead of whales should be the term for gamblers because
whales are not known for a reading. But it's hippos.
We always think it was like hu hippos, right, And
that's like, oh, you don't want to mess with a hippo.
You don't want to get in the water with the small.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Fish in the pond and the whale comes in like
was it.
Speaker 4 (36:17):
Yeah, yeah, never made sense to me anyway, Sorry, go on.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
He spends a lot of money there, he stay, he's
staying at the casino February twenty thirteen. He's spending and
he's winning lots and lots of money. So the casino
reaches out to see if he wants to buy the
world's most expensive cocktail of course, as long as you're here,
And he's like, yeah, why not, So I'm down. And
so he and his family had been staying there already
(36:41):
for a couple of weeks. They're in like one of
the high rollers swite.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Sure, they have like their own cabana.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
And when he had his own VIP services person that
was waid on accommodate his every win for our crew.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
So he liked to be a psychiatrists.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
He liked to play at the card tables. And I
have to say I couldn't figure out exactly which game
like they just talking.
Speaker 4 (37:03):
About or like game poker, Oh yeah, poker.
Speaker 8 (37:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
So the night like a lot of different games over
in the Asian game.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I think they have all sorts of yeah, so just
card games.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Okay, Poker's let's go with poker.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
So the night before this cocktail event. Manning's at the tables, right,
He's at the high stakes tables, not the nickel slots,
and he's on a roll and he's winning hand after hand,
like and that kind of luck. Can't hold out like.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Ten thousand hand minimum, that kind of table kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
And but this is what makes him a whale. And
so he's been having terrific luck though for a while
he's just been raking it in, which is why the
casino they were really eager to get him in on
this cocktail stum spread some of the money around, get
them away from the table off. But that night, so
this is the night before, they have their eyes on
chains on the floor as well as through the camera.
(38:00):
At this point, there are more than two thousand cameras
in this casino. It's a lot of cameras, and they're
all like really HD like zoom in to all the
stuff totally. I mean, they have like beta mass. So
security noticed something. They are in colors erin so the
(38:22):
cameras they were moving in like a weird way, and
so they're watching James. They're watching James, but they see
like on another camera is like zoomed in on the
cards of the other players at his table. Oh yes,
And the security officers weren't the ones doing the zooming,
oh double. They used one of the cameras they did
(38:44):
control to zoom in on James, and they thought they
saw an ear piece and he he didn't wear a
hearing aid that they were aware he got long hair.
Speaker 4 (38:53):
They saw, well, he can't.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Quite make it out. So they watched him play eight hands,
and he played him really quickly and they were all winners.
And so then like he gets up and he retires
to his luxury suite.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Did she get that guy from casino with the cattle prod?
Speaker 2 (39:09):
The hammer? And security They keep their eyes on him
the whole time as he goes back to the sweet
they're trying to work out what was going on because
they have all these high resolution cameras and it looked
like someone had hacked the system and was relaying that
information to James through an ear piece. Okay, and so
(39:32):
he's using the casino's own system against it.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
And they can't like unzoom their cameras, like they have
no control over those cameras. Like these people have.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Hacked in deep, they've hacked indep and here he is,
he's raging against the machine he's using it against. So
there's this woman, Linda Hancock. She's a professor. She wrote
a book about the Crown Casino, so she knows the place.
She said that his winnings, all this winning, didn't draw
attention right away because he's this big whale. You know,
(39:59):
win big, bet big and like Pitt, you know what
you're eventually the house is always going to win. This
they tell themselves, she told Australian Broadcasting quote. The Crown
Casino has about six or seven leer jets. It flies
these VIPs in. So how it all works is that
these people have a minder. The person had his family
with him, so that's not uncommon either. They come in,
(40:20):
they look after the family while the high roller gambles. Now,
I would like to introduce you to someone else.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
Please, I love people.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
A casino consultant named Baron Stringfellow.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
What come on, that's a stringfellow.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Look, it's so much better. He used to be based
in Las Vegas, but now it looks like he operates
out of Hiawatha, Kansas.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
And I'm fascinated by him. I am his and his
amazing Barrenstringfellow Dot.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Com website, I find the most interesting people.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Here's some bio information from his website, and there's random capitalization.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Oh, of course.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Barn performed his first page show at the age of
thirteen in nineteen seventy three. He is from Las Vegas, Nevada.
He has been in casino as his profession for a
bit less time than magic. I'm trying to give you
the exclamation prints here. The two careers intertwined nicely into
one amazing job. His combined works have been seen internationally
(41:16):
and he may be the quote best kept secret in
magic cheaters.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Beware.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Baron is an international casino scams expert and entertainer. Calls
come in worldwide to solve casino crime and get Baron's
insight into scams. Twenty years in tribal gaming, fifteen of
those with our own consulting firm. We don't just train
casino personnel, regulatory staff, and state federal government in a
multitude of casino solutions. We enter train what intertrain events
(41:49):
large and small flourish under Baron's application of sizzle. Yeah,
so he uses magic to train casino folks in detecting
fraud and implement tak best practices.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
I bet he's got great stories about how Penn and
Teller are like dicks. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Probably one time he does seminars in Macau. Oh really yeah,
one of his he's like a big name. One of
his big topics is he says, so this is vicious
activities and casinos, And like I said, he is fascinating
and I would love to hear all of his stories.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
I would like to take a road trip with him.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
Be amazing. Anyway, So when they ask him about this heist,
the press, they're like, who do we go to? We
go to the number one guy, Barren Strings. So they
talked to him. He said it took fewer resources than
what you'd imagine for like an Ocean's eleven type.
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Thing, ocean thirteen type.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah quote, intercepting them the surveillance signals is simple as
going down to a local radio shack. That's what he
told Australian broadcast.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
He used radio shack. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (42:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
I wonder if there's still a radio shack in Iowas.
Speaker 4 (42:53):
I bet they're internationally too, though, Like you know, I
hear that they.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Maybe he still exists. I don't know, but I need
to take one of them.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
I don't want to go there again.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
I know. So this is how he described the operation.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
Please quote.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
The player wears an earpiece that's fed information from an
accomplice sitting somewhere in the casino or outside of it.
This person would have access to the casino's surveillance feed
and would be watching the action on the table. They
would then relay the best plays and bets to the
player and stringfellows and stuff like. This is actually like
kind of common and that the casinos know about it. Yeah,
(43:27):
but they don't report it because it would generate so
much bad pr and encourage other people.
Speaker 4 (43:32):
Sure, I mean there's a lot of cheaters, and we
see that this is usually the plan, which, yeah, how
do you get eyes on whoever, either the dealer or
your other opponents, and then how do you get into
the person's ear or like with electronic like did he
do it on their schedule?
Speaker 2 (43:45):
But the casinos they're like he said, quote, the problem
with casinos is that they believe they are unbeatable, and
we see over and over again that they are not unbeatable.
If casinos would monitor for wireless transmissions, they would be
able to thwart these plans on set.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
I bet because they have to use them themselves, that
they can't use blocks.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
So the casino have clocks, like why would they not exactly,
So the casino now knows what's going on. They know
that Manning's up in his villa in Crown Towers, and
they did the math and they figured out how much
he'd taken them for. Okay, thirty three million dollars.
Speaker 4 (44:22):
Oh yeah, buddy.
Speaker 2 (44:24):
So they head up there in the middle of the
night and they gave him the boot what They kicked
him out. They did not call the cops, They didn't
beat it. They were like, sir, you need to leave.
And he's like, my children are asleep. I don't care, sir,
you need to leave.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
Isn't it a wild how? Like you can take the
English culture and you get America, or you can get Canada,
or you can get Australia. America were like, beat his
ass Canada, Australia Like, well, sir, you need to get out.
You can't be stealing, like we.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Say, like you reach a certain threshold of money and
consequences are different.
Speaker 4 (44:55):
I think that that guy, if he's not on the
inside or doesn't have a lot of money, if he's
just taking him for.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
A lo lot of money. He's a whale.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
Yeah, I don't know though, I think I don't think
this play goes in America.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
They did do something to him. They hit him with
a withdrawal of license. Notice, yes, it meant that he
couldn't come into the entire Crown complex, not even into
the luxury shops.
Speaker 4 (45:17):
Darren, Wow, he can't do the shopping. He will know,
And he.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Said okay, and then he went back with his family,
presumably to New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
No duty free goods for you, that's it.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Sorry, And so that's why he wasn't there to drink
the world's most expensive cocktail ever. So he just taken
the casino for thirty three million dollars and had been evicted.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
And Wynn knew this. That's why he takes the silly Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Well, the casino that he's another whale. They just grab
another whale, only this one doesn't give a tinker's damn
about a cocktail he just wanted to get. He's not
even like his buddy, No, no, no, so like the
casino made a deal with when and he you know,
they said, you you signed for the drink and then
we'll pay you back later.
Speaker 4 (46:02):
Are you kidding.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
And then the casino it turns out they never charged
him for it in the first place, so technically no
one paid for the world record, right, the casino just
ate the cost.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
So was it?
Speaker 2 (46:14):
Is it the most expensive cocktail ever sold? Still holds
the record when you go to the Guinness website to
this day, it holds the record.
Speaker 4 (46:22):
I'm calling hijinks.
Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, me too. So anyway, the casino fired the VIP
services manager that was someone to Manning and his family
because the thoughts were that he was the one. Yeah,
and so Victoria Police they did confirm that they were
involved in the investigation, even though they didn't receive a
formal complaint. So there's nothing on file. Everything's on the
(46:47):
hush hush and.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
Away.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
And it looks like Manning and the casino came to
some sort of deal. Speaking of deals, I'm not saying
you're wanting this man to be heard?
Speaker 4 (46:59):
How how different the reactions you get to just do
what you want.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Linda Hancock, she's the one who wrote the book on
the crowd.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
Yeah huh.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
She thinks that Manning and the VIP manager had a
deal of their own. Okay, she's a quote. How it
could happen is that they assigned someone to look after
all the needs of the premium player. Sometimes they can
be quite demanding. Sometimes they drink, sometimes they don't. They
may have a particular food they like. This person was
accommodated in one of the luxury villas up on the
(47:28):
very high floor of the Crown Casino. There's the Versace villa.
These villas are extremely luxurious. They cost thirty thousand dollars
a night if you want to rent well yourself. Yeah
and even what yeah night a night. So the whole
thing is wired. And I guess if there is corruption
in the ranks or collusion between the minder and the player,
they must have struck a deal.
Speaker 4 (47:49):
Oh I need to pick my job out.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
I thirty thousand a night. It's just yeah. So the
press got a hold of the story in March of
twenty thirteen, one month after it went down, and the
casino told the press it was pretty sure they'd be
able to get most of the money back. Stringfellow, our hero,
he said, that's pretty much impossible. Yes, Like they let
you walk out. He was like, quote chances or zero
(48:14):
if they let you walk out of the casino game over, Well, you.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
Can still get back illegally, you can send the viper
after May.
Speaker 2 (48:22):
Right, Manning denied the charges and I had trouble tracking
him down after the heist, but I think I found him,
did you. Well, there's a James Manning who's a bitcoin
baron in Australia.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
Okay sounds.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
He was the CEO of Masson Infrastructure Group, which is
like a bitcoin mining operation that was based in Pennsylvania
and a right and so that he was the CEO
up until May of twenty twenty three, and he got
the boot when he failed to disclose related party transactions.
He founded a hedge fund based in Sydney and in
(48:55):
twenty twenty two he and his wife, who's like a
former fashion designer of course, have like four kids. They
sold their house in Wallahara, a Tony uh the suburbs
for fifteen million dollars house. Then they listed another house
down the street that they had for eight million because
two years later.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
Down the street it was like next door because they
didn't want to have neighbors and he was down the.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
Street like they just buy up the neighborhood. So apparently
bitcoin bosses are buying up a ton of high end
Australian real estate. There are stories about this, and I
imagine the same thing is happening all over the world.
You know, they're a good number of properties in San
Francisco that sit empty because owners buy them as investments.
That's what everyone says.
Speaker 4 (49:34):
You don't even want to know the numbers, like it's
you know that it's like I think right now, it's
in America. There are twenty eight unoccupied homes for every
homeless person. Yeah, okay, the numbers are stupid.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
And then the city like you'll see in those big
high rise like luxury apartments, like most of whole floors.
Speaker 4 (49:51):
Oh yeah, San Francisco's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, because it's a good front.
Speaker 4 (49:55):
Who just pays attention to that? And he'll point out yeah, yeah,
the you know, the.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
Way that the property values keep increasing everywhere. You know,
it's a good investment, which is just disgusting. I don't
like that either. So that may or may not be
the same James Manning. But the details and I mean
Manning was described as a Kiwi in all the heist reporting,
and this dude is in Australia, but I can't find
(50:21):
a bio for Aussie James Manning to see if he's.
Speaker 4 (50:24):
Easy for a keiwave to go from New Zealand Australia.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
I mean, and it's it's weird that there's just like
nothing about him. I did. I did find SEC filings
that refer to Manning as having property development experience earlier
in his career, so that lines up anyway. If that
James Manning isn't the same one as the Crown Casino one,
I apologize, and please don't sue me. I'm just basically
(50:48):
asking people not to sue me today.
Speaker 4 (50:50):
And if you are related to the Manning brothers from football,
please call me because I'd like to be on the
Manning cast.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Yeah exactly. We both have ridiculous takeaway. Oh no, I
got what you ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 4 (51:03):
Pepe? Ask me Elizabeth. I'm so glad. I've been sitting
here holding my fingers crossed for like five minutes. I
can tell you this now. I don't I pick on
the bitcoin guys because I think that what they're doing is,
you know, just basically speculating. You're just creating this money
that we don't need and then selling it to someone
who's an idiot, and then they make me make money.
I'm like, I don't see any value here, right, But
at the same time, I spend a lot of time
(51:24):
looking for Mersin prime. So I'm using a big computer
to do very similar things and I make nothing out
of it. You know, yeah, I'm gaining nothing. So I'm
the idiot if you really want to talk about it
from the economic standpoint. But there's this other guy who
I was thinking about when you were telling the story.
When I thought that Manning or rather Win was buying
the drink and then not enjoying it, and I was
so hung up on that. There was a guy recently
(51:45):
who found the next largest Mersen prime, right, which is
made you think total. But then the guy spent two
million dollars using cloud computing to find it.
Speaker 9 (51:55):
Right.
Speaker 4 (51:56):
You know, me, I got my one computer, I plug
in a couple of numbers and I go look for these.
A month later, I go, oh, not that one, and
I do it again. Right, this guy has cloud computing
doing it, all these numbers all the time, twenty four hours.
He spent two million dollars doing this. You would think, man,
it paid off, you did it, your planned worked, you
found the next biggest mercy and prime. And then they're
(52:16):
like talking to him and he's like, yeah, I did that,
and he.
Speaker 2 (52:19):
Didn't care excited about it.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
Why did you spend the two million if he doesn't
give you any joy.
Speaker 2 (52:25):
Here's the thing about like bitcoin and that kind of stuff,
is the environmental impact.
Speaker 4 (52:30):
Oh yeah, I was trying to side step that make.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
The electricity is.
Speaker 4 (52:36):
Maybe you've prepared that for a lot of the crypto coins.
So you can't say that anymore about him other than bitcoin.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
AI.
Speaker 4 (52:41):
Sure, definitely pretty much. If you're trying to cool something,
you're taking water or electricity, either you know, for the
stand or for the cooling. But shouldn't these things get
these people joy? If you're gonna be denying my grandchildren
a future on the planet, shouldn't at least get joy
out of this?
Speaker 2 (52:56):
Exactly?
Speaker 4 (52:57):
Well, there, that's my ridiculous tahaway. Would people would at
least get a moment of joy, as I said, of
like a moment of like I got this. He didn't,
because that's not joy.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
That's not joy.
Speaker 4 (53:10):
Joy.
Speaker 2 (53:10):
That's my takeaway that was I was watching this thing
the other day about what joy is, and then it
doesn't have to be like this amazing like fireworks of
things it's just simple pleasantries, like simple things in life
that and it's our tasks to stop and like think
of that joy. And when you think about this this bartenders,
(53:31):
I mean the alcohol cost a side of just like
I can't believe they would charge that amount. Like he
spends two days preparing all these things, and a lot
of thought goes into that of layering all these flavors
and the experience of it, you know, I like, I
I'm not I make fun of like mixologists, but with
(53:56):
anything like that, any like food or drink, when you
think about the entire your experience of it, that you
would want to have someone enjoy this cocktail and you know,
experience every sensory element of it, and then to put
it in front of a dude who like takes a
sip and is like all right later, that's got to be.
Speaker 4 (54:17):
Like I checked the box.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
There, I did it.
Speaker 4 (54:19):
Saw me do it exact guys, Like that was two
days of my life you to go there, I did it.
Speaker 6 (54:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
And because it's so expensive, apparently the casino said like
we're going to be making like twelve more of these
or something. They'll be available for a certain amount of time.
And I don't know if they ever made them or
anyone cared, but.
Speaker 4 (54:38):
Just these like flagrant, gross displays of well and now
when you google.
Speaker 2 (54:44):
That bartender's name, this is all that comes upon I know, right,
poor kid. Uh, you know what we need to as
a palate cleanser. What Elizabeth a talk by?
Speaker 4 (54:54):
Hell yeah, I went cheat.
Speaker 3 (55:08):
Elizabeth Zarin close your eyes. Treasure Island being robbed. I
was in the floor where the cops repelled down. I'm
watching the TV to see what's going on. Hurt. All
the helicopters saw my husband hit the floor with the
gunfire on the news.
Speaker 2 (55:25):
Thought he was shot.
Speaker 3 (55:27):
He was right next to the security guards and I
was five months pregnant and about had that baby that night.
Speaker 2 (55:36):
Great episode. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (55:40):
So glad everything was fine for you and your family.
Speaker 2 (55:42):
Wow, so you're like witness to history. Yeah, I'm so
glad everyone wound up. Okay, and the little bibs, Oh
my god, that's crazy. Thank you for sure. Uh, that's
it for today. You can find us online at Ridiculous
Crime dot com. Go there and check out the merch.
(56:02):
I think it's hilarious.
Speaker 4 (56:04):
It's dope. There's some great and there.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
We're going to keep putting more stuff in h so
always keep checking back. We've been remiss, ye there. Yeah,
They're not like campaigns anymore now, it's just always always.
Speaker 4 (56:17):
There, set it and forget it exactly.
Speaker 2 (56:21):
We're at Ridiculous Crime on Twitter and Instagram. You can
email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, and
most importantly, as I always say, leave a talk back
on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted
by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by
world's most expensive VIP services manager, Dave Kusten, starring Annals
(56:46):
Rutger as Judith Cocktails, conversation and crooning by Rascal Jack.
Research is by Marissa Remy Martin Black Pearl, Louis the
Thirteenth Brown and Andrea Bomorph nineteen fifty seven Scotch So
I'm Sharp and To. The theme song is by Thomas
the Dalmore sixty two Lee and Travis Passion Azteca Platinum Liqueur.
(57:07):
Host wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred guests hair
and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are
Ben Diva, Vodka Bolan and nol Di Malfi Le Mancello,
Sobremme Brown.
Speaker 5 (57:26):
Dis Crime, Say It One More Time Crime.
Speaker 1 (57:33):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio four more
podcasts 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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