February 27, 2022 • 39 mins
In this first episode, find out how it all began. How did Dan, a normal Aussie bloke, work out his ATM card could give him the life of a rockstar?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Approache Production Episode one, The Outback rock Star. This is
a pretty unreal story. When I first heard it, I
actually didn't believe it. It's the story of a normal
Aussie bloke who some might call lucky, some might call stupid,
(00:29):
or some might call a criminal. His name is Dan Saunders,
and I first heard his story listening to the radio
one day driving my kids to school.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Imagine you find a loophole and that loophole enabled at
one point the million dollars, or whether the money had
an adm of money.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I called bullshit and thought there's no way this could
be true. And then I did what every inquisitive mind
does and googled him and boom, there it was. It
wasn't a lie. It was so unbelievably the truth. It
wasn't funny Alarican who fleeced a major bank of more
(01:08):
than one and a half million dollars, now.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
The ATMG who discovered a loophole in the banking system
that he exploited in a wild space.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
This is not your everyday true crime podcast. Sure there's
been a crime that nobody's died, nobody's missing, And to
be honest, as these episodes unfold, some might even question
whether it really was a crime. There will be moments
in this podcast where you might ask yourself, what would
(01:36):
I do? Would I do what Dan did?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I'm gonna probably go to jail now for what I'm doing.
Let's really test this glitch out. Let's take the Ferrari
for a drop.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I once heard a comedian say that there are more
true crime podcasts than actual true crimes, and I reckon,
He's not far from the truth. But this story is
not your run of the mill true crime podcast. As
the story unravels, you'll see why lots of producers, the
movie types are chasing this down as a movie. Why
(02:11):
because it has all the hallmarks of a great story.
Sex Like was just saying to me repeatedly, think about
this swinging in jail, think about this swing. You're in
jail drugs.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
There's a drug guy black. If you want drugs, you
go to that guy.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
What conroll?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
If I went out for lunch being massive tip, I'd
pay for another table as well lots of cash. You know.
In fact, months later I did transfer three lots of
nine hundred thousand, just to see what had happened and
sticking it to the big guy. Looks like me, and
there's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Us who if.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
There's an inch, we'll take it.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
As a hero and a villain who are possibly the
same person. That person is Dan Saunders, and this is
the glitch. It's much taller than I thought you'd bet. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I get that a lot. Yeah yeah, I thought you
(03:12):
were like, yeah, six floors, Yeah cool, let's go up.
Have you been here before?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I don't think that that's.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
An awesome hotel. Dan and I met to record this
podcast in a Brisbane hotel suite. We had a bunch
of calls and about a million texts before we sat down.
The hotel was called the Ovelo in the Valley in Brisbane. Now.
The Valley is the party district of Brisbane in Australia,
lots of clubs and bars and some really nice hotels
(03:43):
and some pretty ordinary ones too. The room we arranged
was called the rock Star Suite, which was fitting because
over the space of four months, Dan lived the life
of a rock star on someone else's cash.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
You know, I don't want to be walking around and going,
oh that's you know, that's atm boy.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I don't care about that stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
But in terms of his story, it's got legs, Yeah,
world wide legs.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
If Dan had a theme song back in twenty eleven,
it probably would have been that really cheesy song from
Nickelback that was big in two thousand and nine. In
one of the many calls I had with Dan getting
ready for the recording session, he dropped that bombshell, can
we get that Nickelback song licensed for this podcast? Bear us?
(04:36):
So we didn't get Nickelback, but I did get a
mate to sing the song. Our budgets aren't as big
as Dan's were when he had the magic ATM card.
You might be thinking Dan sounds like a bit of
a knob, but I challenge you not to like the
guy by the end of this podcast. Before that one
night when he went to an ATM, took out two
(04:59):
hundred bucks of the bank's money, which over the period
of four months came more than one point six million dollars,
all because of the glitch. Before all that, let's find
(05:20):
out who Dan Saunders is. I was able to establish
right now. Dan's living in Byron Bay, are at least
close to Byron Bay. He's living with mates who seem
to be professionals, and he's come to visit me to
do this podcast interview. He decided he'd stay in Brisbane
for a few days at another very high end hotel.
(05:40):
I was curious about how he still does this, You
Dodgy's still down on it.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I've got to protect my friends. Yeah, good, because yeah,
they've stuck with me through.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And these are friends throughout the ordeal.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Oh yeah, they're friends throughout the audio. But they're also
like friends who like they're you know, they're professionals. You know,
my mates with me the other day's like don't say
my name. And also it's like about yeah, it's just
about like there's so much disconnection now, you know, you
find people in connecting.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And you want to stick with them.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, it's when you go to jail. People are bannon you.
People you wouldn't think there's people in your life who
you'd think would be by you, thick and thin, and
the fact is they wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
You'll hear a fair bit of that in this podcast.
Friends that's stuck around and then friends, lovers and people
he hardly knew just up and leave. And yes, you
heard right, Dan ended up in jail, But that didn't
happen the way you think it happened. There are a
heap of twists and turns before Dan gets locked up.
(06:47):
To understand Dan, I reckon, it's important to go back
to his childhood. How did he grow up?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
My biggest memory from growing up is sport in the street.
Like I think I was probably one of the last
children that had to be home by the time of streetlights.
We're not you know that kind of thing. We're just
outside all day, just suburban Melbourne. And yeah we play
you know, crookt in the straight and you know, like
(07:13):
hold the baller, you know, cars coming, you know that
kind of stuff. You know, average had mom and dad
at home. You know, we didn't have a heap of
money or anything. But you know, I remember me and
a kid and always thinking about, oh, you know what
if we lived in a bigger house and now that
kind of thing, but like we could eat put it
that way, and I think, as long as you can
eat your all, right, right.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
What did Dan Saunders want to be when he grew up?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I think for a change over years, I think so.
I think it probably started with a footy player, you know,
like an AFL footy player, just because you know, my
dad used to used to love footing and we used
to go and all that kind of thing. Two weeks
in into my life, I went to Prince's Park and
I was underneath the put underneath the wooden wooden seats
(07:59):
at Princess Park and beer can rolled into my bassinette.
So from then on it was beer in football.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
The third at Princess Park five and a half but
it's gone and kind of wood leading Hawthorne by three points.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So Dan wanted to be a footy star as a kid.
An AFL footy star could definitely live the life of
a rock star. Good money, lots of girls, and a
bit of notoriety or maybe even fame. It's not lost
on me that Dan got all of that and didn't
have to do a pre season training or kick a ball.
He just had to head to the ATM. As you
(08:37):
can hear, Dan sounds pretty normal, not the mastermind crime
figure you might expect when you first started listening to
this podcast.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
When you work out, school is basically just a you know,
it's basically a a like a conditioning or an interview
for work. You know you've got to be there at
a certain time. You get a desk, someone gives you
a pen, license halfway through and you think you're important,
you know what, You get to work and you're like, oh,
it's just the same shit. Like so it's pretty Yeah.
(09:10):
I mean, once you work that out, if you're aware
enough to work that out as a young kid, how
can you really get mind? I mean, but that's just
my opinion.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
As we're preparing for this interview, we went backwards and
forwards with texts, and those texts continue to this day,
little texts that helped build a character of who Dan is.
In some of the texts I've had with Dan, he
seems pretty and the establishment. He's got a distaste for banks, obviously,
and I think in my chats with him, he's not
(09:39):
happy when big corporations stick it to what he terms
the little people.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It wasn't all what. It wasn't always at the end
for me personally, it wasn't even personal experience. I dated
a paramedic. She said to me one night because she's
doing the night shift and she set off, you know,
full moon tonight and it's and it's the footy finals.
I'm like, yeah, okay, the full moon people, gup, it's bare,
(10:05):
but what about the footy finals? She's like, oh, always
more domestics. What are you talking about? She's like, yeah,
like fifty percent more call outs for domestics when the
foot is on. I'm like, like, that's something I've always
got behind as a kid. I'm not saying you should
watch football. I'm just saying that, how can you get
behind it? As a like, you know, every time I
(10:28):
watch footy now I think about that. Yeah, and that
doesn't come from anywhere except just the horse's mouth, you know,
like you know, it was just a passing comment. But
I was like, oh, that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I was pretty confused by this story from Dan. I
think what Dan was trying to say was don't believe
everything you hear. What I did get out of Dan's
paramedic story is that he's a pretty deep thinker.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Oh I don't know about that, Like like I wouldn't,
you know, Like it depends, like if you put me
in a think bubble at Google, they probably you know,
say who's the guy. But you know, like, I think
I've got a certain amount of street smarts. I think
I got a job at the casino when I was
and one of the first things I saw at the
casino was this lady was playing the poke kids. Old
(11:11):
Italian woman.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
She was.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Like distressed. You could see she had a problem, Like
she was like, you know, she was a bit twitchy,
and she was just like you could see I was
only working in a restaurant like across the way. She
dropped out on the poke machine. Like her skull hit
the machine like with this force of like a brick,
and she fell to the floor and she was dead right,
(11:37):
And as an eighteen year old was seeing that, I
was like, once she was on the ground, everyone of course,
you know, suitably freaked out around it. Then they called
the security and the paramedics and so everyone came and
then they were working on it. Then they put up
a screen, right, you know when you go to the
(12:00):
races and they put up a screen when a horse
does its leg and has to be put down. Right,
they did that in the casino for the woman, right,
put her on the stretcher and then wheeled her out
like all in the space of you know, fifteen minutes,
forty five minutes later, there was the screen had been cleaned.
(12:24):
Someone else was playing the pogriage, you know what I mean.
I was like, what's going on here?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So Dan was a normal Aussie knock about kid. Pretty
standard family with his mom and his dad, who were
both pretty straight laced.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So my dad was in TV and the media. He
taught me about the media at the very very young age.
Never let the truth get in front of a good story.
My mom was a childcare worker. Yeah, so dad used
to read the news on Channel ten when it was
called Channel Zeros.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Topless or drama followeens in Street. Then at age thirty,
there's ghostly laughs when Peter O'Toole Darren Hanna and Steve
Gutenberg Starr in ten's premiere Wednesday movie High Spirits.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I just remember it was sort of it was one
night I was magic. You know. It was kind of
like a magical thing because he was in the room
next to us, but the news was on, you know,
like because he'd done all the news breaks or whatever.
When you close to your dad, Yeah, it was yeah, yeah,
very close.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
We used to Yeah, we just go to footy all
the time, used to play play golf a bit. You know.
My dad used to say all the time, you say,
just go with the fly, just you know, don't worry
too much, like you know, if something's going to happen,
it will invariably happen. You just got to be you know,
positive and move forward with it. At the end of
the day, it doesn't matter if you've got you know,
ten thousand dollars or ten million dollars, it doesn't matter
(13:57):
like it, it doesn't change you as as a person.
And that's probably what you know he instilled in me
pretty early on.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Did you learn that lesson? Throughout this The way that.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
People change is insane, Like around money. I couldn't even
begin to tell you how much. Like I could tell
you a few stories about how people change, but yeah,
like it's like a complete one.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Ad no trouble with the law, and although Dan wasn't
going to become a banker or a lawyer, he wasn't dumb,
but his interests laid more in sport. Before the glitch,
Dan had only broken the law once and was never caught.
In reality, it's it's actually likely that most of us
have done something similar.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Prior to this is I've done probably two things wrong
that I was never I was never caught for first one,
I think I was five. I remember Mum saying, oh,
there's there's beautiful bedspreads at wherever the shop was, and now.
We went to the shop and she said, I can't
afford it this week, but I'll you know, we'll get
(15:00):
we'll get it soon. I looked at the beds person.
I was like, oh, they're there, Why don't you just
take them out? So well, I waited for him to
walk off, and then I just grabbed him. I was like, oh,
I was just you know, and you know, halfway down
the street, I'm like, oh, I've got those bedspreads. Man.
She's like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
You know, take it back.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
You know, my mum's never done anything wrong in our.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Life, unlike Dan's atm card Glitch. We never really heard
about the great bedspread robbery of the eighties on a
current affair. So let's put that down to a misdemeanor
of a young kid at five trying to do the
right thing by his mum. And how was she when
she found out about all of this?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Oh yeah, she just said What did she say? She
said something like, well, you're going to have to lie
in it now, aren't you. You know you've done the
wrong thing and now you know, And I'm like, yeah,
well I guess. So she said, oh, you're probably going
to go to jail, and I'm like, yeah, I probably will,
and at least you know where I am. She gives
(16:00):
that's true.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
There was another time when police came knocking, this time
for something more serious.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Look, the only time I talked with the police officer
was when they told me my father had passed away.
Just got home from school and you're knock at the door.
Pretty weird because mum and dad is still at work
and two cops at the front door, and I'm like
always in my head's going, oh, you didn't do anything wrong,
Just answer, it's all right. So yeah, I answered the
(16:31):
door and yeah, they said, you know, is John Waters
live here? And I said, oh, yeah he does. And
I said do you need to come in? And they're like, yeah,
probably better and they just yeah, they told me that
he had a heart attack and he was yeah, he
was sort of dead before he hit the ground, and yeah,
(16:52):
just started walking down the street. So yeah, it was
fifty two. Mum used to work not too far away,
So yeah, I went in the car and yeah, time
of Conker went to the scene, and yeah, I saw
he used to wear these R and Williams boots. I
saw them sort of poking out the bottom of the
(17:14):
White Sheet, and.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, John's death affected the family. They packed up the
family home in Melbourne and moved to the Sunshine Coast
in Queensland to a place called Kawana Waters in twenty
twenty two. Kawana Waters is a really affluent place with
big houses on the canals and luxurious lifestyles for those
(17:38):
that live there. But back when Dan moved there with
his family, it was a little different, like.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Very it's a different life up there, like you if
you grabub in Melbourne or Sydney, very different life on
the Sunshine Coast, like you know, right near the beach.
Not really many people pushing too hard up there, you know,
Like as a kid in Melbourne or Sydney, you're really
told that, you know, if you don't get your education,
(18:05):
like you're going to be in a big pool and
you're not going to know what to do. So there's
that big fear factor in regards to that. But on
the Sunshine Coast it was there was I remember that
was Newer States and stuff, and all the kids were
just to organize a party and just infiltrated big park
on the new estate and just it'd be full, like
(18:27):
it'd be cop centered up. They'd be like nine hundred
kids in this park sipping from goomsacks like it just
good time, good time. That was a loose time. That
was probably looser than the ATM time. That was loose. Yeah,
like kids can.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Die the looser than the ATM time.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Pretty loose.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I know there's lots of detail about Dan as a
kid in the start of this podcast, but I think
it's important to show what sort of bloke he was.
He wasn't some sort of criminal mastermind. He was just
a normal kid doing normal stuff. He was lucky to
escape the Sunshine Coast with no issues. He moved back
to Melbourne. He got a job at Nando's and then
(19:08):
some other random hospitality jobs before he got a job
at Melbourne's Crown Casino.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
And so the casino is the most beautiful way to
cut yourself off socially from everyone who really cares about you.
So you do a twenty four hour rotating roster with
eight thousand other like minded people and good experience for
terms of hospitality skills and things like that. I started
(19:35):
in food and beverage. So yeah, a very very loose environment.
Like you know, it looks very official and it's probably
toned down a bit now, but you know, we used
to have missed that. Bosses. It just go off, you know,
after work and go straight back onto the game before
(19:56):
and start playing blackjack.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
The first thing I said to you is that you're
not allowed a game, but plenty of people get.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
You would have seen some big money go through that.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah. I saw David Hasselhoff once with a big Macca's
bag for cash. Loved it. I thought, that's great. I
want to do that one day. But I loved it,
like I was like, oh, David Hasselhoff just just cruising.
It was just cruising around the casino, flought, just playing
blackjack with this Max bag for a cash, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
A Macca's bag. Yeah, yeah, you're David Hasselhoff.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
But back then, now I reckon it would be something nice.
He means whatever, But now I don't know. I think
back then he was still he was still amazed that
he was famous. He was like, he was like, yeah, okay,
I'm going to I'm loving this, you know. Very it
(20:48):
was a very loose time. We see it. Every night
we'd finish work eleven o'clock twelve o'clock and we'd go
out to five am and then we do it. You know,
we used to wear it like a like a badge
of honor. You know, it was like the stamp for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
How loose is loose? Just like I think when you're
without incriminating yourself.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah, I mean when you just when it's just a
bit of a party, like you don't know what's going
to happen. It's just you know, you're not being overtly
dangerous in any way, but it's just like, you know,
we're going to go and get a bit loose, like
we're just not you know, we could end up in
you know, you'd wake up in you know, hider work,
(21:30):
you know, like another suburb in Melbourne and go how
the hell did out get here? Like what happened last night?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
You know?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I remember we used to walk around the gaming floor
a crown with like bourbon and coax in like pint glasses.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Drugs.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
It wasn't really my thing, but but yeah, like it
was definitely definitely but less less so more more just
sort of.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
And so back in those days, without trying to call
it too early, I think, you know, cocaine wasn't a
massive thing right, It was probably pills and weed.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
But also I mean we didn't you know, I didn't
really have the bankroll for that kind of stuff, you know,
like that that kind of thing is you know, it's
very Yeah, it can be very costly if you're doing
it over and over again, but mostly just high on life.
You know, it's a good time. It's just you know,
it's having having fun connecting with people. It's not about
(22:22):
you know, to be to be friends with someone and
not be friends because you know they drive the right
car or they do this or do that. You know,
like it's just we're just you know, a couple of
lads just having a bit of fun. It's great. I
had a boss at the casino and he said, I'm
running a nightclub, now, why don't you come across. I
was like, yeah, okay, all right. Crowns pretty much we got.
(22:46):
We got caught at Crown swimming in the hotel pool.
Apparently that's like if you work there, So we got yeah,
sort of they wanted to get rid of us, but
someone saved us and we just got a written morning.
And because whilst we used to get pissed and stuff,
we're actually quite good at our jobs, so he asked
(23:07):
me to come across. It was placed called Watermark Bar,
which is incidentally on the bottom of the NAB headquarters
in Docklands in Melbourne.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
The Watermark Docklands is a stylish event and function space,
or at least that's what their website says. In the
heart of the Docklands, it's a cool looking venue for
TVs above the bar that would show the latst footage
game or film clip and it would become a regular
haunt for Dan and the Crown mates, both before the
(23:39):
glitch and after. Dan met lots of his mates at
Crown and also met a girl. Her name was Bell,
and pretty early on it was serious.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
She actually worked at the casino when I worked there,
but we never met. We had a great connection and
it's very funny.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, she was great, so serious they planned on getting married.
They did what any planning on getting married couple does.
They started a joint bank account and moved closer to family.
Bell was studying to be a teacher, so she went
to live with a family in a tiny Victorian town
of glen Rowan. Bell was also religious and so were
(24:23):
a family, so Dan moved close by to work in
the town of Wangaratta, while Belle lived with her folks
in glen Rowan, which is about fifteen minutes up the road.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, she was sort of getting homesick and so she
decided that she was going to move back home, and
I sort of, yeah, I followed.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Because how often would you see each other like you
living in wang Yeah, we.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Didn't see each other heaps. Okay that because of that,
And yeah, she had quite a religious family, so we
can have sleep over her place or anything like that.
So it was a bit. Yeah, it was a bit different,
but we'd already lived together before, all right, it wasn't
like there wasn't that thing. Well, we knew what it
was going to be like, but it was only going
to be like that for so long.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And then talk to me about your mates in Wangaratta
at that stage, Yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
I was good friends with their brother. The only other
people I met was at work because I didn't Yeah,
I didn't know anyone else where were you working? I
was working at a place called the West Side Tavern.
I had a job earlier than that in a place
called Beachworth, a place called the Green Shed, and that's
where I met my chef friend his name was Mark,
(25:37):
but it was a bit far to a beachway. So
when the job came up in Wangaratda, it's funny town
because not a lot of hospitality, not a lot of
full time gigs.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
West Side Tavern. What is it that it look like?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I think that from all reports, I've tried to judge
it up a bit. Yeah, back in the day, very plain,
like it almost looked like, you know, one of those
display homes that you go to a village and there's
a display home with the red brick kind of like that. Yeah,
like clean and nice, but very you know, like like
(26:13):
they put it up in the middle of nowhere. But
it was solid. It had solid foundations and a good yeah, good,
good drinking crew. There was hardly any trouble there, Like,
it wasn't that kind of place. It was like you
knew if you went there. It was just very It
was very basic, comfortable style. It wasn't you know, no
one was too loud there or anything like that. It wasn't.
(26:35):
It was a nice, respectable in I thought.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I'd call the West Side Tavern and see if Dan
was a bit of a local legend at the pub.
After all, this story has been around for a while.
Their Facebook page looks like it's had a bit of
an update. It's got five hundred followers. When I called
them on a Wednesday, AVO, the pub was in full swing.
There were seven people there, a few having a punt
(27:00):
and the rest just regulars, probably having there after work FB.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, regularly, you know people who come in and you
know a few horse trainers from the local track. There
was a few characters there. It was a nice place.
It wasn't It wasn't a place where I sort of felt,
you know, I've worked places before where I've been like,
you know, you've got to be on your guard here
because like someone might glass you. Like it's a bit
of a ship joint. It was nice energy there, you know,
(27:24):
not in the terms of like you know, obviously everyone's
drinking away their problems. That's what you know, that's what
a pubby is basically. But yeah, I mean in terms
of like everyone was reasonably civil. You know, like the
Garbo would get there at ten am, and he'd be
there at ten am every day, you know, for his
two and then he'd head off and then you know,
(27:46):
Jeff from the factory to heat in get It's like
the same day. But you know, yeah, I just see
the new which bit yeah which bitch. Oh, you know,
it's just well it's not how it used to be.
Another another, another cart and dryer. Ye, perfect, great, you
know that kind of stuff. And yeah, you know, just
(28:09):
humble people going about their business and very very non
script very you know, the type of plays. If a
if a female walks in and she's a you know,
she's she's easy on the eye, the fucking world stops.
Everyone goes ship, what is happening here? Yeah, that kind
(28:29):
of true.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
And there was one other feature of that particular pub
or in as you like to call it, that became
a bit of a downfall.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah yeah, the tap.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah yeah, that's yeah. So this is where you can
punt on pretty much anything you like. Yeah, back in
the day, horses, dogs, whatever.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, while you can drinking.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
That was a beautiful line or face the first Okay,
enough of the backstory, let's get into the night. Dan
found out that he had a magic ATM card that
(29:13):
could give him endless amounts of cash and let him
live the life of a rock star, a life like
that time he saw the hof walking through the Crown
Casino with a Maca's bag full of cash allegedly. So
let's talk about that night. You're at the pub, you're working.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, west sides having pulling beers, and it was.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Like it's like a Tuesday night so on, so middle
of the week night.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, yeah, very very subdued, not much activity at all. Yeah,
a few people just sort of finishing up their fish
and chips in the corner.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
So bar shuts at nine point thirty ten.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, yeah, it just shuts when everyone stops drinking. Really,
so then yeah, I just cashed up and went Yeah,
because I was held responsible position, I was cashed up.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Means basically, yeah, the transaction.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Saw the till, reconciled the tab and yeah, just basically
I sought everything out, put it all in the safe.
You're a pretty trustworthy guy, Yeah, well yeah, I mean
there was nothing like, there was nothing not to trust
me with it.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
You know what sort of cash turns over in a
pub like that on a Tuesday night.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Oh yeah. It was like you know, like I think
you'd notice if you took money, because it's like, you know,
if you take fifty dollars out of four hundred, like
it's a fair bit, right, So.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Not turn out the hundreds of thousands of dollars or anything.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
It's not a lot of money. I went to a
place called the Bull's Head, which is in one Garader
still there, you know, because as long as we were
spending money, he'd stay open. I think. I think sometimes
we stayed there till like one or two o'clock in
the morning, when he normally be closed at you know,
eleven thirty. Matt my my friend. He was a chef
(30:58):
at Beachworth who I'd previously worked with and had we
had a good report, brought together by the love of
the Golden Ale. Not Golden Ale, that's horrible, but yeah,
so we used to love a few beers and we'd
go go together and yeah, so I was at I
was at the pub with Mark Payday Wednesday. It's payday
(31:21):
on Wednesdays, so it was things are a bit lan
in the old account. So Mark shouted the first few
and I was like, I'm going to go and try
and get some money out because you know, and he
was also like, you know, pay for some beers you
Mark Inn Yeah, fair cool, I'll head out to the ATM.
(31:42):
So I wasn't sure because I knew that I transferred
a little bit of money to the joint account, so
I wasn't sure how much was in there. I was
pretty sure it was like three dollars. It wasn't a
lot of money, but I tried to get a balance
donetheless on my savings account and it wouldn't give me one,
just said balance in my albod this time. And by
(32:03):
this time it's probably, yeah, eleven past twelve.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
On eleven minutes past twelve on that Wednesday morning. How
do you remember that exact detail?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
It's probably pretty good, it's pretty good, but the whole
thing is like a yeah, I mean, I don't define
my life on this, but it's like it's definitely a
period that I was wide for sound during that time,
and I could tell you everything, like every single thing
pretty much exactly the time it happened.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
This is a National Australia Bank ATM. Yeah, you banked
with the NAB.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Your joint account was with the NAB too, So all
banking was through NAB. Yeah, yeah, everything.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I mean, you know, like one could say my complete
portfolio was through the National Australia Bank, all three dollars
of it.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Yes, and and.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And some like they make money off the debt and
and a credit card that had two thousand dollars dead
on it.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Okay, so you talk to me about that you've got
You've got a savings account and a credit account and
a joint account. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, And and basically the joint account is you've got
to transfer on the internet, so internet banking. That account
was with another.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Bank, so you can't take money out of it.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
No, no, no, no, like that's like, you know, both got
a sign for it.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Ye. So what you've got really on you is an
ATM card as a savings account and a credit card,
both with a NAB linked to one another.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
So you could put your card in an ATM and
you know, you could transfer between those two accounts. So
when I couldn't get a balance on my account, that's
what that's in fact what I did. So I put
the card back in and put my PIN number in
and then selected transfer. I was like, well, I'll just
(33:47):
transfer some money from my credit card to my savings account.
Now I thought I didn't think they'd be much in
the credit card, but I thought they might be two
hundred bucks in the credit card, So I transfer. I
transferred two hundred from my credit card to my savings
account and it just said is actually canceled and spat
the card back out. So I was like, okay, that's weird,
(34:10):
So put the card back in, put the pin back in. Yeah. Well,
I'm a baler. I gonna keep going and keep trying.
So I needed to buy Marke a beer, so thought
I'll get two hundred out of the same ascount see
if that transaction, like truy to see if the transfer worked.
So anyway, the money comes out, so I'm like, oh, okay,
it must have worked. So the eighteen isn't really telling
(34:31):
me anything, but it's still doing sort of what I
wanted to do. And so I'd take you two hundred
dollars and just just go back to the bar and
you know, just continue having to dreat with Mark. We
could really put them on. So I've probably had probably
three points in forty minutes. So then it's probably like, yeah,
(34:51):
it's probably you know, ten two, maybe ten to one,
five to one, something like that. I'm we're leaving, say
goodbye to Mark. He goes, it starts to rain.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
You still probably got one hundred and fifty bucks in
your pocket.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah, probably probably one hundred and forty or something. Yeah,
you know you didn't count the jukebox jack. Sorry, it's
in the rain. I've got to walk home, which is
maybe one one point two one point three ks, and
so I'm like, maybe I'll just stop. I'm just stopping
the l chive the ATM and I was thinking about it.
(35:28):
I was just thinking that was it's weird. I certainly
didn't need more money at that point, Like nothing was
open and I couldn't have gone anywhere. I wasn't standing
at the front of a casino somewhere going, oh, you know,
how am I going to get a bit of extra
coin here? So, out of pure curiosity and probably a
bit of it, I'm just gone, maybe it's probably card
(35:52):
back in, see what happens to you. So I put
it back in and I still couldn't get a balance,
and I say it the can. So I was like,
I'm going to transfer from a credit card to my
savings another two So I did that same thing at
the transaction cancer and the card came out and I
was like, Okay, well, if history has anything to say
(36:17):
about this, we should be able to get the two
hundred out of the savings account.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
So I did.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So then I did four hundred.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Then I did six hundred, all in the same night,
all the.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Same night, and then I did another eight hundred or
something enough to drag it up to two. Because I
had a credit card and I had a Save music card,
(37:02):
so I could get one thousand dollars on each card.
I could get a thousand dollars on the savings card,
and then I got a thousand on the credit card,
which was linked to the savings account. So I just
put the credit card in press savings account and get
the thousand out of there. So I had, Yeah, I
had about you know, nineteen forty nine and forty bucks
(37:22):
or something like that in my hands, and the rain stopped.
I was like, well, perfect, great started down the road
and I put the money in my wallet, and yeah,
I just went went home, went to bed, and I
remember distinctly waking up in the morning and I was like, oh,
(37:43):
hell of a dream. That was a weird dream. To
add all that stuff happened, and I even thought the
part the first bit was probably a dream, like with
the first two hundred. And then I went back and
then I knelt sort of looked to the side, and
on the right hand side of me. It was the
bedside table and a wallet full of cash, and I
(38:03):
was like, wow, that really did happen. Okay, I sort
of thought, well, you know, my accounts will just be
overdrawn now and I'll owe the money to the bank
and you know that'll be it. And you know, it's
just sort of a one off. So there's a couple
of things, a couple of things you know, sort of
could deal with a bit of cash for. So I
(38:25):
think one was like a you know, like a new
fridge free with fridge was on the blink.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
So do you tell the girlfriend that you're all cashed
up that way?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I mean I didn't feel cashed up anyway, Like I
think we went out when I went out for dinner
or something as well, and yeah, just I just did
a few sort of yeah, a few sort of you know, sort.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Of niggling things, you know, normal things, normal stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And I was like, you know what, I can just
pay back that money. You know later on it'll be
it'll be fine.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
So your credit card was showing that you're in debt.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, so I didn't know that yet though, Okay, like
I didn't I didn't check the bank straight.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Away next time on the glitch.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
I started standing on one leg a lot, which which
is means checking your buffs. I started checking my balance
flat out, and they snowballed into this bit of a
punting and sort of trying to win the money back,
trying to win more money. I was losing. I was
losing a lot of hopelessness, Like I was like, I'm
going to like I'm going to keep digging myself a
(39:32):
whole here if I keep doing it. I was punting
like a madman, like I was trying to win back.
Oh yeah, I was down about forty grand I was
trying to win it back. But anyway, small town things
are just travels fast. So she yeah, she sends to
your text the same pretty much the same day, just
out of the blue. I'm not sure what you're into,
(39:53):
but I want no part of it. And that's it
for us,
Approache Production Episode one, The Outback rock Star. This is
a pretty unreal story. When I first heard it, I
actually didn't believe it. It's the story of a normal
Aussie bloke who some might call lucky, some might call stupid,
(00:29):
or some might call a criminal. His name is Dan Saunders,
and I first heard his story listening to the radio
one day driving my kids to school.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Imagine you find a loophole and that loophole enabled at
one point the million dollars, or whether the money had
an adm of money.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
I called bullshit and thought there's no way this could
be true. And then I did what every inquisitive mind
does and googled him and boom, there it was. It
wasn't a lie. It was so unbelievably the truth. It
wasn't funny Alarican who fleeced a major bank of more
(01:08):
than one and a half million dollars, now.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
The ATMG who discovered a loophole in the banking system
that he exploited in a wild space.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
This is not your everyday true crime podcast. Sure there's
been a crime that nobody's died, nobody's missing, And to
be honest, as these episodes unfold, some might even question
whether it really was a crime. There will be moments
in this podcast where you might ask yourself, what would
(01:36):
I do? Would I do what Dan did?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I'm gonna probably go to jail now for what I'm doing.
Let's really test this glitch out. Let's take the Ferrari
for a drop.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I once heard a comedian say that there are more
true crime podcasts than actual true crimes, and I reckon,
He's not far from the truth. But this story is
not your run of the mill true crime podcast. As
the story unravels, you'll see why lots of producers, the
movie types are chasing this down as a movie. Why
(02:11):
because it has all the hallmarks of a great story.
Sex Like was just saying to me repeatedly, think about
this swinging in jail, think about this swing. You're in
jail drugs.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
There's a drug guy black. If you want drugs, you
go to that guy.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
What conroll?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
If I went out for lunch being massive tip, I'd
pay for another table as well lots of cash. You know.
In fact, months later I did transfer three lots of
nine hundred thousand, just to see what had happened and
sticking it to the big guy. Looks like me, and
there's a lot of.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Us who if.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
There's an inch, we'll take it.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
As a hero and a villain who are possibly the
same person. That person is Dan Saunders, and this is
the glitch. It's much taller than I thought you'd bet. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I get that a lot. Yeah yeah, I thought you
(03:12):
were like, yeah, six floors, Yeah cool, let's go up.
Have you been here before?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I don't think that that's.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
An awesome hotel. Dan and I met to record this
podcast in a Brisbane hotel suite. We had a bunch
of calls and about a million texts before we sat down.
The hotel was called the Ovelo in the Valley in Brisbane. Now.
The Valley is the party district of Brisbane in Australia,
lots of clubs and bars and some really nice hotels
(03:43):
and some pretty ordinary ones too. The room we arranged
was called the rock Star Suite, which was fitting because
over the space of four months, Dan lived the life
of a rock star on someone else's cash.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
You know, I don't want to be walking around and going,
oh that's you know, that's atm boy.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I don't care about that stuff.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
But in terms of his story, it's got legs, Yeah,
world wide legs.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
If Dan had a theme song back in twenty eleven,
it probably would have been that really cheesy song from
Nickelback that was big in two thousand and nine. In
one of the many calls I had with Dan getting
ready for the recording session, he dropped that bombshell, can
we get that Nickelback song licensed for this podcast? Bear us?
(04:36):
So we didn't get Nickelback, but I did get a
mate to sing the song. Our budgets aren't as big
as Dan's were when he had the magic ATM card.
You might be thinking Dan sounds like a bit of
a knob, but I challenge you not to like the
guy by the end of this podcast. Before that one
night when he went to an ATM, took out two
(04:59):
hundred bucks of the bank's money, which over the period
of four months came more than one point six million dollars,
all because of the glitch. Before all that, let's find
(05:20):
out who Dan Saunders is. I was able to establish
right now. Dan's living in Byron Bay, are at least
close to Byron Bay. He's living with mates who seem
to be professionals, and he's come to visit me to
do this podcast interview. He decided he'd stay in Brisbane
for a few days at another very high end hotel.
(05:40):
I was curious about how he still does this, You
Dodgy's still down on it.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I've got to protect my friends. Yeah, good, because yeah,
they've stuck with me through.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
And these are friends throughout the ordeal.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Oh yeah, they're friends throughout the audio. But they're also
like friends who like they're you know, they're professionals. You know,
my mates with me the other day's like don't say
my name. And also it's like about yeah, it's just
about like there's so much disconnection now, you know, you
find people in connecting.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
And you want to stick with them.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, it's when you go to jail. People are bannon you.
People you wouldn't think there's people in your life who
you'd think would be by you, thick and thin, and
the fact is they wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
You'll hear a fair bit of that in this podcast.
Friends that's stuck around and then friends, lovers and people
he hardly knew just up and leave. And yes, you
heard right, Dan ended up in jail, But that didn't
happen the way you think it happened. There are a
heap of twists and turns before Dan gets locked up.
(06:47):
To understand Dan, I reckon, it's important to go back
to his childhood. How did he grow up?
Speaker 2 (06:53):
My biggest memory from growing up is sport in the street.
Like I think I was probably one of the last
children that had to be home by the time of streetlights.
We're not you know that kind of thing. We're just
outside all day, just suburban Melbourne. And yeah we play
you know, crookt in the straight and you know, like
(07:13):
hold the baller, you know, cars coming, you know that
kind of stuff. You know, average had mom and dad
at home. You know, we didn't have a heap of
money or anything. But you know, I remember me and
a kid and always thinking about, oh, you know what
if we lived in a bigger house and now that
kind of thing, but like we could eat put it
that way, and I think, as long as you can
eat your all, right, right.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
What did Dan Saunders want to be when he grew up?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I think for a change over years, I think so.
I think it probably started with a footy player, you know,
like an AFL footy player, just because you know, my
dad used to used to love footing and we used
to go and all that kind of thing. Two weeks
in into my life, I went to Prince's Park and
I was underneath the put underneath the wooden wooden seats
(07:59):
at Princess Park and beer can rolled into my bassinette.
So from then on it was beer in football.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
The third at Princess Park five and a half but
it's gone and kind of wood leading Hawthorne by three points.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
So Dan wanted to be a footy star as a kid.
An AFL footy star could definitely live the life of
a rock star. Good money, lots of girls, and a
bit of notoriety or maybe even fame. It's not lost
on me that Dan got all of that and didn't
have to do a pre season training or kick a ball.
He just had to head to the ATM. As you
(08:37):
can hear, Dan sounds pretty normal, not the mastermind crime
figure you might expect when you first started listening to
this podcast.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
When you work out, school is basically just a you know,
it's basically a a like a conditioning or an interview
for work. You know you've got to be there at
a certain time. You get a desk, someone gives you
a pen, license halfway through and you think you're important,
you know what, You get to work and you're like, oh,
it's just the same shit. Like so it's pretty Yeah.
(09:10):
I mean, once you work that out, if you're aware
enough to work that out as a young kid, how
can you really get mind? I mean, but that's just
my opinion.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
As we're preparing for this interview, we went backwards and
forwards with texts, and those texts continue to this day,
little texts that helped build a character of who Dan is.
In some of the texts I've had with Dan, he
seems pretty and the establishment. He's got a distaste for banks, obviously,
and I think in my chats with him, he's not
(09:39):
happy when big corporations stick it to what he terms
the little people.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
It wasn't all what. It wasn't always at the end
for me personally, it wasn't even personal experience. I dated
a paramedic. She said to me one night because she's
doing the night shift and she set off, you know,
full moon tonight and it's and it's the footy finals.
I'm like, yeah, okay, the full moon people, gup, it's bare,
(10:05):
but what about the footy finals? She's like, oh, always
more domestics. What are you talking about? She's like, yeah,
like fifty percent more call outs for domestics when the
foot is on. I'm like, like, that's something I've always
got behind as a kid. I'm not saying you should
watch football. I'm just saying that, how can you get
behind it? As a like, you know, every time I
(10:28):
watch footy now I think about that. Yeah, and that
doesn't come from anywhere except just the horse's mouth, you know,
like you know, it was just a passing comment. But
I was like, oh, that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I was pretty confused by this story from Dan. I
think what Dan was trying to say was don't believe
everything you hear. What I did get out of Dan's
paramedic story is that he's a pretty deep thinker.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Oh I don't know about that, Like like I wouldn't,
you know, Like it depends, like if you put me
in a think bubble at Google, they probably you know,
say who's the guy. But you know, like, I think
I've got a certain amount of street smarts. I think
I got a job at the casino when I was
and one of the first things I saw at the
casino was this lady was playing the poke kids. Old
(11:11):
Italian woman.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
She was.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Like distressed. You could see she had a problem, Like
she was like, you know, she was a bit twitchy,
and she was just like you could see I was
only working in a restaurant like across the way. She
dropped out on the poke machine. Like her skull hit
the machine like with this force of like a brick,
and she fell to the floor and she was dead right,
(11:37):
And as an eighteen year old was seeing that, I
was like, once she was on the ground, everyone of course,
you know, suitably freaked out around it. Then they called
the security and the paramedics and so everyone came and
then they were working on it. Then they put up
a screen, right, you know when you go to the
(12:00):
races and they put up a screen when a horse
does its leg and has to be put down. Right,
they did that in the casino for the woman, right,
put her on the stretcher and then wheeled her out
like all in the space of you know, fifteen minutes,
forty five minutes later, there was the screen had been cleaned.
(12:24):
Someone else was playing the pogriage, you know what I mean.
I was like, what's going on here?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
So Dan was a normal Aussie knock about kid. Pretty
standard family with his mom and his dad, who were
both pretty straight laced.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
So my dad was in TV and the media. He
taught me about the media at the very very young age.
Never let the truth get in front of a good story.
My mom was a childcare worker. Yeah, so dad used
to read the news on Channel ten when it was
called Channel Zeros.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Topless or drama followeens in Street. Then at age thirty,
there's ghostly laughs when Peter O'Toole Darren Hanna and Steve
Gutenberg Starr in ten's premiere Wednesday movie High Spirits.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I just remember it was sort of it was one
night I was magic. You know. It was kind of
like a magical thing because he was in the room
next to us, but the news was on, you know,
like because he'd done all the news breaks or whatever.
When you close to your dad, Yeah, it was yeah, yeah,
very close.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
We used to Yeah, we just go to footy all
the time, used to play play golf a bit. You know.
My dad used to say all the time, you say,
just go with the fly, just you know, don't worry
too much, like you know, if something's going to happen,
it will invariably happen. You just got to be you know,
positive and move forward with it. At the end of
the day, it doesn't matter if you've got you know,
ten thousand dollars or ten million dollars, it doesn't matter
(13:57):
like it, it doesn't change you as as a person.
And that's probably what you know he instilled in me
pretty early on.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
Did you learn that lesson? Throughout this The way that.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
People change is insane, Like around money. I couldn't even
begin to tell you how much. Like I could tell
you a few stories about how people change, but yeah,
like it's like a complete one.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Ad no trouble with the law, and although Dan wasn't
going to become a banker or a lawyer, he wasn't dumb,
but his interests laid more in sport. Before the glitch,
Dan had only broken the law once and was never caught.
In reality, it's it's actually likely that most of us
have done something similar.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Prior to this is I've done probably two things wrong
that I was never I was never caught for first one,
I think I was five. I remember Mum saying, oh,
there's there's beautiful bedspreads at wherever the shop was, and now.
We went to the shop and she said, I can't
afford it this week, but I'll you know, we'll get
(15:00):
we'll get it soon. I looked at the beds person.
I was like, oh, they're there, Why don't you just
take them out? So well, I waited for him to
walk off, and then I just grabbed him. I was like, oh,
I was just you know, and you know, halfway down
the street, I'm like, oh, I've got those bedspreads. Man.
She's like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
You know, take it back.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
You know, my mum's never done anything wrong in our.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Life, unlike Dan's atm card Glitch. We never really heard
about the great bedspread robbery of the eighties on a
current affair. So let's put that down to a misdemeanor
of a young kid at five trying to do the
right thing by his mum. And how was she when
she found out about all of this?
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Oh yeah, she just said What did she say? She
said something like, well, you're going to have to lie
in it now, aren't you. You know you've done the
wrong thing and now you know, And I'm like, yeah,
well I guess. So she said, oh, you're probably going
to go to jail, and I'm like, yeah, I probably will,
and at least you know where I am. She gives
(16:00):
that's true.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
There was another time when police came knocking, this time
for something more serious.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Look, the only time I talked with the police officer
was when they told me my father had passed away.
Just got home from school and you're knock at the door.
Pretty weird because mum and dad is still at work
and two cops at the front door, and I'm like
always in my head's going, oh, you didn't do anything wrong,
Just answer, it's all right. So yeah, I answered the
(16:31):
door and yeah, they said, you know, is John Waters
live here? And I said, oh, yeah he does. And
I said do you need to come in? And they're like, yeah,
probably better and they just yeah, they told me that
he had a heart attack and he was yeah, he
was sort of dead before he hit the ground, and yeah,
(16:52):
just started walking down the street. So yeah, it was
fifty two. Mum used to work not too far away,
So yeah, I went in the car and yeah, time
of Conker went to the scene, and yeah, I saw
he used to wear these R and Williams boots. I
saw them sort of poking out the bottom of the
(17:14):
White Sheet, and.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Yeah, John's death affected the family. They packed up the
family home in Melbourne and moved to the Sunshine Coast
in Queensland to a place called Kawana Waters in twenty
twenty two. Kawana Waters is a really affluent place with
big houses on the canals and luxurious lifestyles for those
(17:38):
that live there. But back when Dan moved there with
his family, it was a little different, like.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Very it's a different life up there, like you if
you grabub in Melbourne or Sydney, very different life on
the Sunshine Coast, like you know, right near the beach.
Not really many people pushing too hard up there, you know,
Like as a kid in Melbourne or Sydney, you're really
told that, you know, if you don't get your education,
(18:05):
like you're going to be in a big pool and
you're not going to know what to do. So there's
that big fear factor in regards to that. But on
the Sunshine Coast it was there was I remember that
was Newer States and stuff, and all the kids were
just to organize a party and just infiltrated big park
on the new estate and just it'd be full, like
(18:27):
it'd be cop centered up. They'd be like nine hundred
kids in this park sipping from goomsacks like it just
good time, good time. That was a loose time. That
was probably looser than the ATM time. That was loose. Yeah,
like kids can.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Die the looser than the ATM time.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Pretty loose.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
I know there's lots of detail about Dan as a
kid in the start of this podcast, but I think
it's important to show what sort of bloke he was.
He wasn't some sort of criminal mastermind. He was just
a normal kid doing normal stuff. He was lucky to
escape the Sunshine Coast with no issues. He moved back
to Melbourne. He got a job at Nando's and then
(19:08):
some other random hospitality jobs before he got a job
at Melbourne's Crown Casino.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
And so the casino is the most beautiful way to
cut yourself off socially from everyone who really cares about you.
So you do a twenty four hour rotating roster with
eight thousand other like minded people and good experience for
terms of hospitality skills and things like that. I started
(19:35):
in food and beverage. So yeah, a very very loose environment.
Like you know, it looks very official and it's probably
toned down a bit now, but you know, we used
to have missed that. Bosses. It just go off, you know,
after work and go straight back onto the game before
(19:56):
and start playing blackjack.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
The first thing I said to you is that you're
not allowed a game, but plenty of people get.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
You would have seen some big money go through that.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yeah. I saw David Hasselhoff once with a big Macca's
bag for cash. Loved it. I thought, that's great. I
want to do that one day. But I loved it,
like I was like, oh, David Hasselhoff just just cruising.
It was just cruising around the casino, flought, just playing
blackjack with this Max bag for a cash, beautiful.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
A Macca's bag. Yeah, yeah, you're David Hasselhoff.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
But back then, now I reckon it would be something nice.
He means whatever, But now I don't know. I think
back then he was still he was still amazed that
he was famous. He was like, he was like, yeah, okay,
I'm going to I'm loving this, you know. Very it
(20:48):
was a very loose time. We see it. Every night
we'd finish work eleven o'clock twelve o'clock and we'd go
out to five am and then we do it. You know,
we used to wear it like a like a badge
of honor. You know, it was like the stamp for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
How loose is loose? Just like I think when you're
without incriminating yourself.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah, I mean when you just when it's just a
bit of a party, like you don't know what's going
to happen. It's just you know, you're not being overtly
dangerous in any way, but it's just like, you know,
we're going to go and get a bit loose, like
we're just not you know, we could end up in
you know, you'd wake up in you know, hider work,
(21:30):
you know, like another suburb in Melbourne and go how
the hell did out get here? Like what happened last night?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
You know?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
I remember we used to walk around the gaming floor
a crown with like bourbon and coax in like pint glasses.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Drugs.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
It wasn't really my thing, but but yeah, like it
was definitely definitely but less less so more more just
sort of.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
And so back in those days, without trying to call
it too early, I think, you know, cocaine wasn't a
massive thing right, It was probably pills and weed.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
But also I mean we didn't you know, I didn't
really have the bankroll for that kind of stuff, you know,
like that that kind of thing is you know, it's
very Yeah, it can be very costly if you're doing
it over and over again, but mostly just high on life.
You know, it's a good time. It's just you know,
it's having having fun connecting with people. It's not about
(22:22):
you know, to be to be friends with someone and
not be friends because you know they drive the right
car or they do this or do that. You know,
like it's just we're just you know, a couple of
lads just having a bit of fun. It's great. I
had a boss at the casino and he said, I'm
running a nightclub, now, why don't you come across. I
was like, yeah, okay, all right. Crowns pretty much we got.
(22:46):
We got caught at Crown swimming in the hotel pool.
Apparently that's like if you work there, So we got yeah,
sort of they wanted to get rid of us, but
someone saved us and we just got a written morning.
And because whilst we used to get pissed and stuff,
we're actually quite good at our jobs, so he asked
(23:07):
me to come across. It was placed called Watermark Bar,
which is incidentally on the bottom of the NAB headquarters
in Docklands in Melbourne.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
The Watermark Docklands is a stylish event and function space,
or at least that's what their website says. In the
heart of the Docklands, it's a cool looking venue for
TVs above the bar that would show the latst footage
game or film clip and it would become a regular
haunt for Dan and the Crown mates, both before the
(23:39):
glitch and after. Dan met lots of his mates at
Crown and also met a girl. Her name was Bell,
and pretty early on it was serious.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
She actually worked at the casino when I worked there,
but we never met. We had a great connection and
it's very funny.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, she was great, so serious they planned on getting married.
They did what any planning on getting married couple does.
They started a joint bank account and moved closer to family.
Bell was studying to be a teacher, so she went
to live with a family in a tiny Victorian town
of glen Rowan. Bell was also religious and so were
(24:23):
a family, so Dan moved close by to work in
the town of Wangaratta, while Belle lived with her folks
in glen Rowan, which is about fifteen minutes up the road.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Yeah, she was sort of getting homesick and so she
decided that she was going to move back home, and
I sort of, yeah, I followed.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Because how often would you see each other like you
living in wang Yeah, we.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Didn't see each other heaps. Okay that because of that,
And yeah, she had quite a religious family, so we
can have sleep over her place or anything like that.
So it was a bit. Yeah, it was a bit different,
but we'd already lived together before, all right, it wasn't
like there wasn't that thing. Well, we knew what it
was going to be like, but it was only going
to be like that for so long.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
And then talk to me about your mates in Wangaratta
at that stage, Yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
I was good friends with their brother. The only other
people I met was at work because I didn't Yeah,
I didn't know anyone else where were you working? I
was working at a place called the West Side Tavern.
I had a job earlier than that in a place
called Beachworth, a place called the Green Shed, and that's
where I met my chef friend his name was Mark,
(25:37):
but it was a bit far to a beachway. So
when the job came up in Wangaratda, it's funny town
because not a lot of hospitality, not a lot of
full time gigs.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
West Side Tavern. What is it that it look like?
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I think that from all reports, I've tried to judge
it up a bit. Yeah, back in the day, very plain,
like it almost looked like, you know, one of those
display homes that you go to a village and there's
a display home with the red brick kind of like that. Yeah,
like clean and nice, but very you know, like like
(26:13):
they put it up in the middle of nowhere. But
it was solid. It had solid foundations and a good yeah, good,
good drinking crew. There was hardly any trouble there, Like,
it wasn't that kind of place. It was like you
knew if you went there. It was just very It
was very basic, comfortable style. It wasn't you know, no
one was too loud there or anything like that. It wasn't.
(26:35):
It was a nice, respectable in I thought.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
I'd call the West Side Tavern and see if Dan
was a bit of a local legend at the pub.
After all, this story has been around for a while.
Their Facebook page looks like it's had a bit of
an update. It's got five hundred followers. When I called
them on a Wednesday, AVO, the pub was in full swing.
There were seven people there, a few having a punt
(27:00):
and the rest just regulars, probably having there after work FB.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Yeah, regularly, you know people who come in and you
know a few horse trainers from the local track. There
was a few characters there. It was a nice place.
It wasn't It wasn't a place where I sort of felt,
you know, I've worked places before where I've been like,
you know, you've got to be on your guard here
because like someone might glass you. Like it's a bit
of a ship joint. It was nice energy there, you know,
(27:24):
not in the terms of like you know, obviously everyone's
drinking away their problems. That's what you know, that's what
a pubby is basically. But yeah, I mean in terms
of like everyone was reasonably civil. You know, like the
Garbo would get there at ten am, and he'd be
there at ten am every day, you know, for his
two and then he'd head off and then you know,
(27:46):
Jeff from the factory to heat in get It's like
the same day. But you know, yeah, I just see
the new which bit yeah which bitch. Oh, you know,
it's just well it's not how it used to be.
Another another, another cart and dryer. Ye, perfect, great, you
know that kind of stuff. And yeah, you know, just
(28:09):
humble people going about their business and very very non
script very you know, the type of plays. If a
if a female walks in and she's a you know,
she's she's easy on the eye, the fucking world stops.
Everyone goes ship, what is happening here? Yeah, that kind
(28:29):
of true.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
And there was one other feature of that particular pub
or in as you like to call it, that became
a bit of a downfall.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah yeah, the tap.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Yeah yeah, that's yeah. So this is where you can
punt on pretty much anything you like. Yeah, back in
the day, horses, dogs, whatever.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, while you can drinking.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
That was a beautiful line or face the first Okay,
enough of the backstory, let's get into the night. Dan
found out that he had a magic ATM card that
(29:13):
could give him endless amounts of cash and let him
live the life of a rock star, a life like
that time he saw the hof walking through the Crown
Casino with a Maca's bag full of cash allegedly. So
let's talk about that night. You're at the pub, you're working.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Yeah, west sides having pulling beers, and it was.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Like it's like a Tuesday night so on, so middle
of the week night.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Yeah, yeah, very very subdued, not much activity at all. Yeah,
a few people just sort of finishing up their fish
and chips in the corner.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
So bar shuts at nine point thirty ten.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, yeah, it just shuts when everyone stops drinking. Really,
so then yeah, I just cashed up and went Yeah,
because I was held responsible position, I was cashed up.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Means basically, yeah, the transaction.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Saw the till, reconciled the tab and yeah, just basically
I sought everything out, put it all in the safe.
You're a pretty trustworthy guy, Yeah, well yeah, I mean
there was nothing like, there was nothing not to trust
me with it.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
You know what sort of cash turns over in a
pub like that on a Tuesday night.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Oh yeah. It was like you know, like I think
you'd notice if you took money, because it's like, you know,
if you take fifty dollars out of four hundred, like
it's a fair bit, right, So.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Not turn out the hundreds of thousands of dollars or anything.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
It's not a lot of money. I went to a
place called the Bull's Head, which is in one Garader
still there, you know, because as long as we were
spending money, he'd stay open. I think. I think sometimes
we stayed there till like one or two o'clock in
the morning, when he normally be closed at you know,
eleven thirty. Matt my my friend. He was a chef
(30:58):
at Beachworth who I'd previously worked with and had we
had a good report, brought together by the love of
the Golden Ale. Not Golden Ale, that's horrible, but yeah,
so we used to love a few beers and we'd
go go together and yeah, so I was at I
was at the pub with Mark Payday Wednesday. It's payday
(31:21):
on Wednesdays, so it was things are a bit lan
in the old account. So Mark shouted the first few
and I was like, I'm going to go and try
and get some money out because you know, and he
was also like, you know, pay for some beers you
Mark Inn Yeah, fair cool, I'll head out to the ATM.
(31:42):
So I wasn't sure because I knew that I transferred
a little bit of money to the joint account, so
I wasn't sure how much was in there. I was
pretty sure it was like three dollars. It wasn't a
lot of money, but I tried to get a balance
donetheless on my savings account and it wouldn't give me one,
just said balance in my albod this time. And by
(32:03):
this time it's probably, yeah, eleven past twelve.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
On eleven minutes past twelve on that Wednesday morning. How
do you remember that exact detail?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
It's probably pretty good, it's pretty good, but the whole
thing is like a yeah, I mean, I don't define
my life on this, but it's like it's definitely a
period that I was wide for sound during that time,
and I could tell you everything, like every single thing
pretty much exactly the time it happened.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
This is a National Australia Bank ATM. Yeah, you banked
with the NAB.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Your joint account was with the NAB too, So all
banking was through NAB. Yeah, yeah, everything.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I mean, you know, like one could say my complete
portfolio was through the National Australia Bank, all three dollars
of it.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Yes, and and.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And some like they make money off the debt and
and a credit card that had two thousand dollars dead
on it.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Okay, so you talk to me about that you've got
You've got a savings account and a credit account and
a joint account. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Yeah, And and basically the joint account is you've got
to transfer on the internet, so internet banking. That account
was with another.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Bank, so you can't take money out of it.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
No, no, no, no, like that's like, you know, both got
a sign for it.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Ye. So what you've got really on you is an
ATM card as a savings account and a credit card,
both with a NAB linked to one another.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
So you could put your card in an ATM and
you know, you could transfer between those two accounts. So
when I couldn't get a balance on my account, that's
what that's in fact what I did. So I put
the card back in and put my PIN number in
and then selected transfer. I was like, well, I'll just
(33:47):
transfer some money from my credit card to my savings account.
Now I thought I didn't think they'd be much in
the credit card, but I thought they might be two
hundred bucks in the credit card, So I transfer. I
transferred two hundred from my credit card to my savings
account and it just said is actually canceled and spat
the card back out. So I was like, okay, that's weird,
(34:10):
So put the card back in, put the pin back in. Yeah. Well,
I'm a baler. I gonna keep going and keep trying.
So I needed to buy Marke a beer, so thought
I'll get two hundred out of the same ascount see
if that transaction, like truy to see if the transfer worked.
So anyway, the money comes out, so I'm like, oh, okay,
it must have worked. So the eighteen isn't really telling
(34:31):
me anything, but it's still doing sort of what I
wanted to do. And so I'd take you two hundred
dollars and just just go back to the bar and
you know, just continue having to dreat with Mark. We
could really put them on. So I've probably had probably
three points in forty minutes. So then it's probably like, yeah,
(34:51):
it's probably you know, ten two, maybe ten to one,
five to one, something like that. I'm we're leaving, say
goodbye to Mark. He goes, it starts to rain.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
You still probably got one hundred and fifty bucks in
your pocket.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah, probably probably one hundred and forty or something. Yeah,
you know you didn't count the jukebox jack. Sorry, it's
in the rain. I've got to walk home, which is
maybe one one point two one point three ks, and
so I'm like, maybe I'll just stop. I'm just stopping
the l chive the ATM and I was thinking about it.
(35:28):
I was just thinking that was it's weird. I certainly
didn't need more money at that point, Like nothing was
open and I couldn't have gone anywhere. I wasn't standing
at the front of a casino somewhere going, oh, you know,
how am I going to get a bit of extra
coin here? So, out of pure curiosity and probably a
bit of it, I'm just gone, maybe it's probably card
(35:52):
back in, see what happens to you. So I put
it back in and I still couldn't get a balance,
and I say it the can. So I was like,
I'm going to transfer from a credit card to my
savings another two So I did that same thing at
the transaction cancer and the card came out and I
was like, Okay, well, if history has anything to say
(36:17):
about this, we should be able to get the two
hundred out of the savings account.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
So I did.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
So then I did four hundred.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Then I did six hundred, all in the same night,
all the.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Same night, and then I did another eight hundred or
something enough to drag it up to two. Because I
had a credit card and I had a Save music card,
(37:02):
so I could get one thousand dollars on each card.
I could get a thousand dollars on the savings card,
and then I got a thousand on the credit card,
which was linked to the savings account. So I just
put the credit card in press savings account and get
the thousand out of there. So I had, Yeah, I
had about you know, nineteen forty nine and forty bucks
(37:22):
or something like that in my hands, and the rain stopped.
I was like, well, perfect, great started down the road
and I put the money in my wallet, and yeah,
I just went went home, went to bed, and I
remember distinctly waking up in the morning and I was like, oh,
(37:43):
hell of a dream. That was a weird dream. To
add all that stuff happened, and I even thought the
part the first bit was probably a dream, like with
the first two hundred. And then I went back and
then I knelt sort of looked to the side, and
on the right hand side of me. It was the
bedside table and a wallet full of cash, and I
(38:03):
was like, wow, that really did happen. Okay, I sort
of thought, well, you know, my accounts will just be
overdrawn now and I'll owe the money to the bank
and you know that'll be it. And you know, it's
just sort of a one off. So there's a couple
of things, a couple of things you know, sort of
could deal with a bit of cash for. So I
(38:25):
think one was like a you know, like a new
fridge free with fridge was on the blink.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
So do you tell the girlfriend that you're all cashed
up that way?
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I mean I didn't feel cashed up anyway, Like I
think we went out when I went out for dinner
or something as well, and yeah, just I just did
a few sort of yeah, a few sort of you know, sort.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Of niggling things, you know, normal things, normal stuff.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And I was like, you know what, I can just
pay back that money. You know later on it'll be
it'll be fine.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
So your credit card was showing that you're in debt.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, so I didn't know that yet though, Okay, like
I didn't I didn't check the bank straight.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Away next time on the glitch.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
I started standing on one leg a lot, which which
is means checking your buffs. I started checking my balance
flat out, and they snowballed into this bit of a
punting and sort of trying to win the money back,
trying to win more money. I was losing. I was
losing a lot of hopelessness, Like I was like, I'm
going to like I'm going to keep digging myself a
(39:32):
whole here if I keep doing it. I was punting
like a madman, like I was trying to win back.
Oh yeah, I was down about forty grand I was
trying to win it back. But anyway, small town things
are just travels fast. So she yeah, she sends to
your text the same pretty much the same day, just
out of the blue. I'm not sure what you're into,
(39:53):
but I want no part of it. And that's it
for us,
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