November 7, 2022 • 49 mins
Officials have arrested a suspect in connection to the harrowing Delphi murders. Three men from the Miami area get caught in a multi-state meat heist scheme. Cynical 'conspiracy theories' proliferate in the wake of the attack on Paul Pelosi. The FBI raids the home of journalist James Gordon Meek -- only to find he's disappeared. All this and more in this week's Strange News. They don’t want you to read our book.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. There's some good news we
can start the strange news off with this week. There
(00:47):
is a suspect who has been arrested in the Delphi
murder cases as they're as they're popularly known now, Matt Noel.
This is something that we had talked about in the
past as an unsolved true crime. You guys remember that one. Yeah, too,
very young girls who lost their lives, and there didn't
(01:10):
seem to be any leads for years and years and
years other than a cryptic uh and incredibly disturbing audio recording. Right.
One thing that we did, I think correctly in this
when we talked about in the past, is we noted
this uh, the scant evidence available was all that police
and law enforcement are revealed in the murders of Abigail
(01:31):
Williams and Liberty German. As of now, a man named
Richard Allen is in custody, but the arrest records are sealed.
So we're keeping an eye on this one and will update.
But in the interim, all we can say is we
hope there is just this enclosure for the families. Today,
(01:51):
we're going to talk about some other strange mysteries. We're
going to talk about some other violent things. There is
a producer who was rated by the FBI and then
disappeared for quite a while. We'll have an update on that.
There is politically motivated violence that is prompting a national
(02:12):
conversation in the US, though maybe not a conversation with
the tenor you would expect in the wake of these attacks.
But first, maybe we open up by talking about meat prices.
A weird way to get into it, but man, for anybody, Yeah,
anybody has been to a grocery store recently, especially if
(02:33):
you like the three of us are on the carnivorous
side of Michael Pollin's omnivore's dilemma. You know, the meat
prices have gone kind of nuts. You know, you might
be trying to buy some ribs, some nice spare ribs,
do a little Korean barbecue, only to experience sticker shock.
What's the what's the last time you guys went and
bought some meat and were you surprised by high prices?
(02:55):
Or do you have do you have a hook up?
Because this fully selfish question here, I'm looking for a
better place. Well, you can always get one of those
meat box subscriptions, just putting that out there. No, No,
you need a meat person, like a meat guy or
meat lady who just got the hook up on those meats.
(03:16):
Have a meat cute with your meat guy. There you go. Uh,
but yeah, it's been a while since I've actually purchased
some meat in that way. I did get some bacon
not long ago, and it was more expensive than I'm
accustomed to when buying bacon, like eight bucks. Yea, eggs
right on the money. There we go, There we go.
(03:38):
Because people know now how to rig a lot of
those economic or a lot of those favorite metrics of economists. Right, milk, eggs,
and bread. Uh, those things you can keep at a
somewhat stable price point usually, But if you have if
you have seen, if you have seen, like us, the
(03:58):
price on a lot of different meat products, whether in
grocery stores or in restaurants. A let of restaurants, now
they have a disclaimer that says, due to inflation or
due to supply chain issues, these prices have to be increased. Right. Uh.
Then you may have seen this, folks, and you may
have thought, hang on, why don't I do my own
(04:20):
heist if these folks are heist to me at a
grocery store? Yeah? Yeah, why not create a giant criminal
enterprise with three human beings? Which there's got to be
more than three human beings? All right, let's let's let's
talk about this. In today's meet minute. We're going to
a story from September two, so this past September. It's
(04:43):
coming to us from ABC channel eight. And here's the title,
thirty seven thousand pounds of missing meat in York. That's
York County leaves investigators craving answers and this is this
is coming out a Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm gonna read quite
a bit of this because it's a it's a short story, guys.
(05:06):
A refrigerated trailer, a large one was stolen on Saturday,
according to the York Police Department. Police say the thieves
transferred the thirty seven thousand pounds of meat it was
carrying into another trailer before disappearing. This happened around the
same time that more than seven hundred and fifty thousand
dollars worth of meat was stolen from three trailers in
(05:28):
Grand Island. The trailers taken from that area are still
nowhere to be found. This crime spree comes just a
few months after nearly four hundred thousand dollars worth of
beef was stolen across our area. So well, so far,
there are no reports of any arrests in in any
(05:50):
of these cases. So that was from September. Uh, that's
a lot of meat being stolen. And my question to
you guys before we even up into the rest of
this story, what do you do with thirty seven thousand
pounds of meat if you're going to try and take
it to a black market somewhere? Like, how does that
(06:11):
even function? What would I do? Or what would other
like like you haven't thought of the smell you but yeah,
it's tough. It's like what would you you know, it
goes back to things like the maple syrupist or other
you know, um, cheese heist in Europe, which you're a thing.
(06:33):
But but those are two things that have more of
a shelf life, at least in I believe, right. Meat
is if you're not storing it correctly, that much meat,
you need a huge facility to to keep it cold
or freeze it or something. And then do you do
the heist with the refrigerated truck that you've also hoisted
or is this like your thing? This is your cruise specialty?
(06:56):
Is is hoisting meat but hounds? That's uh, that's a
big truck. Yeah. And and if you're using the same
truck for multiple heists, like it appears that somebody is
stealing a ton of meat from different places. Uh, somebody's
going to pick up on your trail pretty easily if
you're in the same truck getting away from those crime
(07:17):
scenes every time. Uh. I don't it's weird. I don't
know what you do with black market meat. I want
to learn more. Uh, there is an interesting Mental Floss
article that I want to get into to give that
gives us some historical context about missing meat in the past,
or black market meat rather. But for now, let's jump
(07:39):
to the Washington Post, who wrote on October forget bank robbery.
These men stole nine million dollars in meats. I bet
they made uh you know they made Actually it's not
a bet. Uh. They provably made more money off this
heist than one would make in a typical bag and heist.
(08:00):
The economics of bank heist or not, what heat has
led you to believe? Folks, you're right. But the handy
thing about money is that even though you you gotta
flip it somehow, right, you gotta wash that money somehow
if you're gonna get it off your hands and actually
make money on a bank heist. In this case, you've
got a bunch of meat that you gotta flip somehow
(08:22):
to actually make that nine million dollars in meat. Uh.
It's it's a very strange thing. So I'm gonna go
through quite a bit of this article. Two guys, stop me,
Just jump in when you're ready. Uh, let's just go
through it because it's it's a little complicated, but it's
really interesting. The way this investigation came together started with
stolen beef, According to the Washington Post, nearly four under
(08:44):
thousand of it in two semi trailers taken from a
lot in Emerald, Nebraska. I was back in June, so
this is going even further back than the previous article
we mentioned. By the time the authorities had finished tracing
the missing stake, they had uncovered what they say was
an organized enterprise by three Florida men who pulled off
about forty five separate thefts of meat and equipment over
(09:08):
a year and a half. Impressive. Honestly, these are the
Florida men that kind of have their their heads on straight.
It would see they're still doing Florida Man esque type things.
But uh, yeah, they're not like running naked through a
you know, quickie mark high on meth. This is like
pretty organized. Again. Also, Florida Man is an unfair stereo
(09:31):
laws passed Florida, so so they But but no, it's
it's a really good point. Well, they do seem to
have uh, they do seem to have their wits about them.
This doesn't seem a crime of passion or impulse. Right.
Someone has knowledge, right, that's the thing. Right, they have
to They have to know a little bit about placement
(09:55):
process and timing. Yeah, well, and think about it. These
are in from Florida who are traveling from Miami to
the Midwest to various locations across the Midwest, knowing where
to go, where to pick up trailers that are already
full of meat, and then take those trailers like attach
them to their own trucks, often move those trailers away,
(10:17):
then take the meat out and blow out their incense,
you know what I mean. Sorry that was a reference
sdindal Um. But but yeah, you're right, there's a lot
They have to have a lot of knowledge something's going
on here. So these three guys, whose names you can
find if you look them up. I'm not gonna name
them just because they've been arrested, but they nothing has
been proven of what they've done, but we'll see why.
(10:39):
The investigators are pretty sure in just a moment um.
These three men were arrested on October twenty in Florida
on charges related to all of these thefts we're talking about. Um.
The authorities spent over a week tracking them, like tracing
these guys all of their movements as they watched thefts occur,
(11:00):
so they were up on their cell phones and they
also placed GPS devices on several trucks, large trucks like
semis that these men were driving and they literally just
watched them travel throughout the Midwest stealing some things, uh
from Sioux Falls, South Dakota specifically, where they watched them
steal it. They watched their their movements as they moved
(11:23):
the product into different places and then headed back towards Florida.
That's when they got picked up. And that's you know,
when they got arrested and charged. But some other weird
things happened along the way, you guys, just some strange stuff.
We talked, you know, we talked about government surveillance all
the time. When you're not under an active investigation like
(11:44):
these guys were, you don't imagine that anybody's gonna put
a GPS tracking device on your vehicle, or that someone's
just going to get a court order to track your
cell phone or be up on your cell phone wire style,
you know. But that's what happened to these guys. That's
what happened to these guys, um. And you have to imagine,
if you're you're pulling off these high stakes, uh it's thefts,
(12:12):
you'd imagine that somebody's watching you or you know, paying
attention to you, and they most certainly were. When when
these guys This is one of the weird things to me.
When these guys got stopped on their way from South
Dakota where they stole nineteen palettes of ham which was
around a hundred and thirty thousand dollars worth of pork
(12:34):
by the way, something like that. Um, he was stopped
by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. The stolen palettes of him
were on that truck and he had a phony bill
of lading, that thing that said you know that we
just learned about that. It's the thing that it's your
shipment shipment manifest basically that says, here's all this stuff
that I'm caring for this company to go to this company,
(12:57):
All of that information is in there. It was phoneticated.
It was yeah right. He had it ready to go,
so he knew. He's got insider understanding of how the
shipping the shipping meat thing goes. He knows how the
sausage is made. Yes, perfect, perfect though. Um. But because
this dude, this driver, one of the three men, wasn't
(13:20):
registered with the Department of Transportation to Hall Goods, the
officer cited him for violations but didn't arrest him. I
guess it was unknown that these nineteen palets were stolen
at least by that Tennessee Highway patrol. Right, there's no
communication happening. Um, So they just let him go. They
continue driving until they got picked up again or stopped
(13:43):
again in Florida, and again state troopers pulled him over,
who again showed that phony bill of lading and showed
off the ham again like, hey, it's just ham Man,
It's all good. U. There were some other police officers
who you know, who were involved in the investigation following them,
and that's when these guys got picked up when they
(14:03):
arrived back to Miami, just to show that they were
transporting it all the way back down, which is important question.
Uh that so many questions. In fact, so Matt, it
sounds like we're of the same mind that these are
the street level operatives, right, They're not necessarily the brains
of the op. I mean, you hear bill of lady,
(14:25):
you hear the knowledge of where to hit and win. Uh.
I have a theory, if it's all right, please? Oh man?
All right, So here's here's the theory. This is profound speculation.
Not too long ago we looked in depth at how
all right the theory the headline cartels. Not too long ago,
(14:47):
we looked in depth at how cartels have been diversifying
their portfolio as they become increasingly corporate entities, from you know,
basic gracketeering and protection ran gets all the way up
to uh dabbling in agriculture right running avocados schemes, which
or a great profit center honestly, as anybody's going to
(15:09):
Chipotle knows. But the next thing I'm asking, does it
sound like it would be a possibility that a large
organized crime group could be behind this? Right? Would that
not answer the infrastructure question? You would need some restaurants
to defense this stuff, for wholesale suppliers to wash the
(15:31):
meat the way wash money, and a lot of a
lot of cartels and organized crime rings or whatever own
restaurants you know, and and operate them as fronts potentially
and may have you know, folks in their circle who
would just buy this stuff um sit side unseen. Yeah,
but you do. You don't see that much meat without
(15:53):
a client. You know, you can see your point and
there's a shelf life there. But but the thing is,
with a front, you have to keep everything looking as
above board as possible with those So if you're bringing
in stolen product like that to actually sell that could
be a big red flag. And if you're so, it
feels to me, I think you're right, Ben. This is
(16:13):
gonna be Sonola's special pork that's gonna be on sailing
special stories or something that's very interesting. Ben. Mm hmm.
You know, I was thinking it actually might end up
getting shipped to somewhere. Um, this sounds weird, but somewhere
that really needs food right now. I'm thinking about like
(16:34):
Puerto Rico that's still dealing with the aftermath of, you know,
a disaster. Like, are you saying the plan was to
ship it to these places? Yeah, That's what I'm saying.
Like maybe maybe the plan was, like maybe it was
less criminal, Maybe it was more that I'm being I
don't know, maybe it was that'd be great. Is interesting though,
(16:56):
with what you're saying there, Matt, because UH ICE was
evolved or excuse me, hs I whatever we're supposed to
call the but as I stand for, Ben, Immigrations and
Customs Enforcement and Security. Oh, let me remember it correctly.
UH Homeland Security Investigations, which on its website calls itself
(17:19):
a vital US asset in combating criminal organizations illegally exploiting
America's trade, travel, financial, and immigration systems. Interesting that they
would be there. And then again to your point, I
don't want this to get buried, met point out something lovely.
Elio followed these guys to make sure that they had
(17:39):
an airtight case for interstate commerce. Yep, interstate commerce. And
then you know they're taking it to Miami, which is
a great place if you want to load something up
on a cargo ship. Just saying who knows, We don't know,
we don't have the information. All three men have been
released on bail as we write this, and they're a
(18:00):
waiting to be arraigned. So we shall see what happens,
what comes of this. But in a weird way, kudos
to you guys who figured out how to steal all
that meat. I bet you they got bail. I bet
you part of the reason they got bail is to, uh,
you know, throw the little fish back and see if
the big fish bite. That's a good point. Then you're
(18:21):
not suppay that. Okay, it's part of the investigation. Man,
I'm gonna speculating here, ridiculous romance. All right, Well, that's
all the stolen meat for today, we're going to hear
a word from our sponsor and we'll be right back
with more strange news. And we're back with the story
(18:46):
that definitely has folks on both sides of the political divide.
I don't know, trying to figure out a position to
take on it. I guess I mean the obvious position
when an elderly gentleman has his home broken into it
is attacked by a hammer wielding psychopath would be empathy,
and uh, I hope he's okay. But as we know,
(19:07):
in politics, it's usually some way to spin it um,
and we're seeing spin happening on on both the Republican
and the Democrats side. Uh. The gentleman in question is
Nancy Pelosi's husband. Nancy Pelosi, a very prominent left wing lawmaker,
uh Speaker of the House. Her husband was at home
(19:28):
asleep in the middle of the night at their San
Francisco A state when a person allegedly broken by smashing
a glass sliding door like a like French door kind
of situation. Apparently Mr Pelosi was awakened with this gentleman
sort of like lurking over him, which is terrifying. Yeah,
(19:52):
where's Nancy, Where's Nancy. Where's Nancy? Repeatedly the gentleman in
question U, Mr Pelosi. By the way, it's eighty two
years old. The attacker in question is a person by
the name of David de Pop de Papa d E
p a p forty two years old belief of Oakland, California, which,
if you're familiar with the Bay Areas, not but a
(20:15):
hop skipper to jump away from San Francisco. UM, and
was apparently there, as evidenced by the comments that you
you referenced ben Um to find Nancy Pelosi. It was
of you know, very powerful Democrat. And it's interesting considering
this person is from the Bay Area and you kind
(20:35):
of consider, you know, that part of the country to
be almost exclusively liberal. UM. Definitely, No, that's not the case.
There's always going to be outliers, and this person seems
to be an extreme outlier. UM. And that he was
armed with a hammer and had plans it would seem
to kidnap Nancy Pelosi or at the very least hold
(20:58):
her and her husband hosta. UM. There is some talk
whether it's from I believe interviews with the subject where
he claimed that he wasn't going to assassinate her. He
just wanted to get information from her, you know what
he I guess would believe to be secret information and
was just gonna smash her kneecaps because he doesn't do email. No, no,
(21:22):
he doesn't. He doesn't do email. He doesn't write his
his representative. UM. And you know, again, this is an
instance in a spate of politically motivated attacks and and
and violence, acts of violence that we've been seeing kind
of an uptick on. There was that guy that like
I think, broke into an FBI field office and shot
(21:42):
up the place. Uh, there's just quite a few examples
of this. It's just another UM in what has become
a pretty troubling trend. And most Republican lawmakers and and uh,
you know, higher ups have condemned the attack because you know,
they're all in the same game. They're all you know, essentially,
they're public figures, and an attack on one of them
(22:04):
is potentially an attackle on all of them. You know.
It just goes to show the vulnerability of people in
that position. UM when there are divisive issues at play,
UM And you know, and people have very strong opinions
not to mention the climate we're living in of politicians,
just kind of saying whatever, Um, not really backed up
(22:26):
with facts. Uh. And folks can be radicalized very quickly.
You know, this is seems to be a person that
was radicalized by Q and on type conspiracies. Um. And
I believe they interviewed a close associate of this person,
Mr de Papa, Uh, saying you know, God help you
if he started talking about politics, that he had just
really kind of gone down that that rabbit hole of
(22:49):
of paranoia. And um, you know the story would end there,
you know, if if it didn't end there, which it doesn't,
because it has become very quickly a source of conspiracy theory. Um.
I think there was a and and and it was
fit's been fed. It's being fed by some also very
influential and divisive people. First and foremost is a little
(23:11):
fellow by the name of Elon Musk. You might have
heard of him. Um. He has a hundred and twelve
million Twitter followers. And in response to something Hillary Clinton tweeted,
which I tend to imagine with some sort of empathetic
I hope he's okay. My thoughts are with the family situation,
he linked out to a website called s m Observed
dot com, the headline being the awful truth Paul Pelosi
(23:35):
was drunk again and in a dispute with uh It's
cut off on this Twitter post, But but the gist
of it is with a lover that this this the
accusation is that this man, Mr Dpop was actually missing
in a relationship of some sort um a sexual relationship
with with Paul Pelosi, and that this was an escalation
(23:57):
of some sort of drunken quarrel that they at. And
there are claims in this article that the window or
the door rather was not broken from the outside, it
was broken from the inside. That's what I heard Donald
Trump saying. Repeated that Donald Trump in a in an interview,
and it was definitely in the spirit of you know,
(24:17):
you hear the same things I hear. This is what
I heard. But I didn't see a lot of analysis
from Musk nor Trump regarding those claims. There isn't And
he literally said, what you just said, Ben, you hear
the same things I do. Um said I I heard
it wasn't a break in, but a breakout. And again
this is an, you know, an attempt to demonize Mr Pelosi,
(24:40):
who I believe has had some public you know issues
in terms of with drinking and things like that. But
that that's just not what's going on here, that's not
at play, and this is just a way of like
hijacking the conversation and turning it into like a nasty
kind of mud slinging, uh situation. So Elon Musk tweets
a link to this article makes all these claims. The
(25:01):
website that he tweeted the link to is notorious for
spreading misinformation, for posting unfounded accusations and things kind of
you know, masquerading as as as fact um. And so
then of course Elon Musk is getting yelled at by
the Internet rightfully, so in my opinion for just casually,
you know, saying I think there's something more at play
(25:23):
here or maybe you know again, responded Hillary Clinton. And
then Marjorie Taylor Green comes to Elon Musk's defense and saying, uh,
Marjorie Taylor Green being a very divisive and inflammatory figure
in the Republican Party. Uh. From her Twitter. The same
mainstream media Democrat activists that sold conspiracy theories for years
about President Trump and Russia are now blaming Elon Musk
(25:43):
for quote internet misinformation about Paul Pelosi's friend attacking him
with a hammer. The media is source of misinformation and
again saying these things as as fact. There there are
no you know, from the reports you know of of
law enforcement and investigation. You know, there's no evidence of
(26:04):
any of this being the case. And these these men
knew each other, you know, again, in a state of terror,
I imagine, Um, Paul Pelosi was able to excuse himself
and use the restroom or you know for a second.
He called the police and kept the phone on, which
is what you're supposed to do, and the uh, the
dispatcher was able to kind of figure out what was
going on and sent somebody out. Um. And the people
(26:27):
that came out the police actually witnessed apparently, UM, Mr
Japap cracking Pelosi in the head with this hammer. Um,
he has a skull fracture. He's still in you know,
serious condition. You know, I believe in in an ic
U type situation. He may may have changed, but he's
you know, he's he's an eighty something year old man.
(26:48):
Eighty two is just eighty two year old man. He's
just been hit in the head with a blunt instrument. Um,
and it's essentially being used as a talking point by
folks like Marjorie Taylor Green and and sort of like
a very in bad taste sort of joke among certain
members of the Republican Party. Question, Yeah, question so with
(27:11):
um with folks who are prompting this, I guess um
are touting this alternative narrative, this sort of fan fick
about what happened to an elderly man. How do they
how do they explain the reports from the officer's side
(27:31):
about the other stuff was found with, like not just
the the hammer, but the the tape, the other hammer,
the gloves, the zip ties, Like is that do they
say that was planted evidence? Or do they address that
there is a certain um sentiment that this is some
(27:52):
sort of false flag situation. Um, you know, again, a
lot of these things are just said in little offhand moments,
you know. Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana tweeted and then
deleted a post on Sunday that pushed another conspiracy kind
of mocking the attack, and then Representative Claudia Tenney from
(28:13):
New York retweeted a picture of several men carrying hammers
outside of a home with a United Against Hate sign
and a gay pride flag. UM. So it's just very strange.
And the fact that it isn't just you know, pure
empathy coming across the board. I mean, Mitch McConnell, you know,
has condemned the attacks, but he also hasn't condemned his
(28:36):
colleagues for saying these things. So it's kind of one
of those things where it's like, oh, I can't help
with people say, um, it's it's rough man, you know, Uh,
let's see. So in a Dear Colleague letter, UM, two
members of Congress, Pelosi wrote that a quote a violent
man broke into our family home, demanded to confront me,
(28:56):
and brutally attacked my husband, Paul, our our till Green,
our grandchildren, and I are heartbroken and traumatized by the
life threatening attack on our pop. Which is cute, um.
And the political stuff aside. You know, I'm not a
huge fan of Nancy Pelosi personally at all, but it's
you know, this is this is outrageous. And and the
fact that um, someone was home invaded, uh, menaced, traumatized,
(29:23):
and then actually physically attacked. I just don't think there's
any room for little jokeys about that. It doesn't seem
right to me. We're in that position where we're we're
all pretty vulnerable, um, some of us much more than
others to believing this kind of thing because there's such
(29:43):
a distrust in police in general right now. And it
was a massive generalization, but it's just true. It's at
least increased quite a bit since you know, what, what
do you think, guys? I mean, the longer you're right,
you're right? Yeah, I would say September twelve, two thousand
and one, if I'm being absolutely being honest in government
(30:07):
to right. So any government institution and an official statement
coming out of that government institution about something that is
purposefully closed off to the public, right the details about
it are closed off because it's either classified or it's
part of an investigation. Anytime we're in that situation now,
the rumor mill is just gonna start churning, and and
(30:30):
it doesn't stop churning. And if there's one bad faith
actor out there, or maybe a handful that want to
stir the pot or get some clicks, they can get
that engine started, and uh, it just proliferates. Well, yeah,
I would agree. I'd also add this is a very
important point that this kind of propaganda disguised as hot takes.
(30:51):
It is meant for a specific audience. They're not writing
these things to look to convert people, right, um, what
what's happening and the reason they say propaganda In this
case propaganda isn't always untrue, but there demonstrably easily disproven
claims in some of these, uh we want to call
(31:12):
them theories. You have to remember if it sounds crazy
to you, you're not the intended audience here. This is
a lot like um as screwed up an American as
it is to sound this, this spectacle, this bread and
circuses take on this kind of thing. It is dehumanizing,
but it should be treated with the same level of
(31:35):
serious regard that you treat the trash talking by the
macho man Randy Savage or the Undertaker right before they
do a fake wrestling match. Sorry, Cafe, the secret is out,
but that like the reason I'm pointing this out is
because you know it's again, it's easy to dismiss people
who might fall for this stuff, might follow it the
(31:57):
way de Pepe did himself. You know, for two year
old guy who is other other than online streets, not
much as known about this individual at this time. UH,
exercising empathy to you're earlier pointnal is paramount, you know,
it's it's so crucial, but it's in very short supply
these days. And the last one just is the one.
(32:21):
This one is just so gross. Um. Trump's eldest son
retweeted a picture depicting a hammer on top of a
pair of underwear with the message, got my Paul Pelosi
Halloween costume ready. So it's like, I mean, this is
whatever your political affiliation or ideology is, this is folks
actively mocking a an octogenarian who has been attacked and
(32:46):
and uh and brutalized. And I just don't think there's
any room for that. So um yeah, let's take a
pause here and I'll hear a word from our sponsor,
and then we'll be back with one more piece of
strange news. So we are ending on a to be
(33:09):
continued piece of strange news. This is what I would
like to call it. UH. Eyes on a lot of
stories in the course of making this show, and as always,
it can be difficult to find just a few things
to focus on for the weekly strange News segment. Let's
introduce UH, Let's introduce everyone to someone you may not
have heard of fellow conspiracy realists, but you have probably
(33:32):
seen his work at some point. His name James Gordon Meek.
He's in his early fifties now. For a long time,
he's a lauded American journalist, writer, narrator, producer. He did
stuff like a documentary film in one called thirty twelve unredacted,
nominated for an Emmy. It was about the Green Berets
(33:54):
in Niger and part of the Tongo Tongo ambush. When
you can look up, but you will sports certainly it
certainly will not find reported in depth in your local
US based news sources. In two thousand and six, he
reported on an al Qaeda plot to deploy some bombs
(34:15):
at the Hudson River. This guy's legit is what I'm saying.
He's got his stripes. Uh. He even was a counter
terrorism advisor and investigator for the U. S. House Committee
on Homeland Security. He looked into the Boston Marathon bombing.
He was about that life, uh, and he may not
be about that life for long. The story here starts
(34:38):
in October. Late October, his home was unexpectedly rated by
the FBI, unexpected to his friends, and his colleagues. So
this is us walking up to the rabbit hole. The
guy's legit. His reporting focuses on geopolitical stuff, encounter terrorism,
so often it's going to be considered a political even
(35:01):
in these divisive times. He um not everybody in ABC
was his friends, but you know you you can find
in the sexcellent Rolling Stone article how he's described as
something of a military fanboy. Shout out to Tatiana Seagull,
who wrote this original article. And he was seemingly like
(35:23):
at the prime of his life. He had a book
coming out on the military's withdrawal from Afghanistan, and he
was in He was living in this apartment in Arlington, Virginia.
Pretty nice place, right, He's got the top floor just
to paint the picture. Uh. And then when the FBI
raids him, suddenly things get even weirder. More news comes
(35:47):
out he is the raid happens with unmarked cars, right,
so not necessarily desiring to make a scene. You see
this in a lot of true crime fiction, and it's
actually not too off base. Sometimes police will want to
make a public display, do a perp walk for the cameras, right,
we got the bad guy. Sometimes FBI will want to
(36:10):
come in and have more of an established presence, your
tax dollars at work saving the world. This was not
that case. Except for local police. Mostly cars were unmarked
and the raid get this ten minutes stem distern. The
raid was ten minutes long just for electronics. Maybe that's it. Yeah,
(36:31):
just maybe looking for one thing. Maybe they're part of
the meat conspiracy and they were like the ham is
in a different state, but checked down here. He's got
a deep freezer, which is weird for an apartment and uh,
and refrigerator that ten that's m hmm. Ten minutes implies.
(36:57):
That means they know what they're going for. They got
like it implies either this isn't the whole story, or
they knew exactly what they were looking for in this
case for someone who does military, counter terrorism and war journalism,
sounds a lot like he was playing fast and loose
with something classified. Right, that's a reasonable assumption at this time. Okay,
(37:20):
until we know, until we know more about this. Uh.
Part of the reason that this raid was only ten
minutes long was that his residence was apparently empty and
had been for months. Also, he unexpectedly, out of the blue,
resigned from ABC months before this rate occurred, and he
(37:43):
went to ground curious or and curious or you know,
curious air and curious or whatever accent you prefer. But
that's that's nuts, right, So he it appears that he
knew something was coming. Wait, wait, been really quickly just
a bullet point the order here? Did he resign, move
(38:05):
out and then get rated or what was the order
of operations? The resign? Okay, so upcoming book on Afghanistan? Right,
lots of reporting behind behind him. He's got a hell
of a career and it seems like he's in the
cowbird seat. Unexpectedly resigns to uh, and then ghost becomes
a ghost. Three FBI raid ten minutes four. Oh. By
(38:30):
the way, his apartments really do a little digging. It's
like it's pretty upscale. If you were not familiar with Arlington, Virginia,
it's not the poor part of Virginia. So so he's, uh,
the Sienna Park apartments, right, that's our order of operations.
Solid dude, or at least solid professional. Unexpectedly hands in
(38:50):
his papers. Then there's this very weird, very short raid. Uh.
The FBI's official statement was that this had occurred on
April quote at the block of Columbia Pike, Arlington, Virginia,
conducting court authorized law enforcement activity. The FBI cannot comment
further due to an ongoing investigation, and this is still
(39:16):
the official statement. The guy has not been charged with
a crime. Uh. This is quite likely the first raid
to be carried out on a journalist under the administration
of President Biden. Uh. This the search warrant was signed
off the day before the raid, and no one had
(39:39):
seen the guy since, so this led. Honestly, I was
I think I group texted you guys about this. I
was reading about this from the day it popped up
on my radar. And with a fog war that happens
in these kind of things, you know, you have to
understand one of the big, big red flags, one of
(40:02):
the first canaries to die in a coal mine of
fascism is always going to be harassment and arrest of journalists.
It is a consistent pattern that has never not happened
when a when a nation state is collapsing. So this,
as you can understand, fellow conspiracy realist, is very concerning
(40:25):
to people like us who follow these trends. So of
course everybody is starting to think this guy got black bagged?
What was he building in there? What was he working on? Uh?
And other than the upcoming book, nobody really knew. And
this is something interesting because let me ask before you
(40:46):
get to twist, would it be reasonable to assume that,
given his experience in journalistic acumen, this guy would have
known it at least enough ops set two of breaking
the law? Like, wouldn't he have been able to have
some journalistic protections in places? I think journalists of this
(41:09):
kind that's why hardened and investigative journalists know they're going
to be breaking some kind of federal law at some
point in an investigation, maybe, right, like having being in
possession of a classified document that you're not supposed to be,
that you're not supposed to have. But well, just what
you said, Ben, if you work for an organization, a
big one like ABC, you know there's a huge team
(41:32):
of corporate lawyers behind you if you do get caught
with that information, right, or the classified stuff that you're
not supposed to have as a part of doing your
job and telling a story about it. Because often a
journalist like this isn't going to release a full document
or something, right, There's gonna be steps taken much like
The Guardian has done in the past, Like other major
(41:54):
outlets have done in the past, Stuff's been redacted to
protect the government, even though the outlet is revealing things
about that government. Right, That's often what occurs. Um. I
feel like this guy would have known he was protected. Well,
that's the thing, Matt, because just last year a new
policy went into place, which is supposed to look it's
(42:18):
not just us on the show saying that harassment entertainment
and you know, vivisection of journalists is a sign of trouble.
Shout out to kashag. Other people know this too, and
people in the halls of government. So there's a new
policy that came out in that prohibits federal prosecutors from
seizing journalists documents in less the Deputy Attorney General approves.
(42:44):
The Deputy Attorney General now is Lisa Monaco. So if
the raid was for this guy's records, the Deputy a
g would have had to say something. And so far,
no one, no one's speaking about a case. No one's
saying this guy was charged with this thing. And the
folks you worked with at ABC are also investigative journalists,
(43:06):
to your point, and they they had a quote where
they said, uh. Collectively they said, uh, he fell off
the earth. He fell off the face of the earth.
Everybody asked, No one knows what happened to him. He
resigned very abruptly. He hasn't worked for us for months. Uh,
and that's specifically Kim Godwin. Uh. The network put out
(43:28):
this statement saying that he resigned for what he said
was personal reasons, and they refused to comment or report
on speculation. So if you are not plugged in right,
if you're not part of the FBI, or you're not
deputy A, g. Etcetera, or you're not Meek himself, then
(43:48):
this looks a lot like a journalist getting disappeared spooky
spooky stuff just in time for Halloween. But there is
fortunately a twist kind yeah, kind of well another twist,
I guess. Yeah. The uh s a four out of
(44:13):
four out of So this happened just yesterday as national
November Novel Writing Month begins. Uh. Ben Ashford, a journalist
in Virginia writing for of all Things, No Offense, The
Daily Mail, which doesn't have the best reputation as the source,
broke the news. James Gordon Meek, after being a ghost
(44:38):
for six months, more than days has been found. He
is at his or he was, He's probably not there now,
to be honest with you. He was at his mother's
town house in McLean, Virginia. He refused to answer any questions,
including the reports that agents may have found some sort
(44:59):
of lap top associated with him that contained classified info.
His colleagues have said that if he had any classified stuff,
any sensitive materials you could call them, it would have
been for a story he was working on. Right. They're
they're essentially in a roundabout way. They're saying, we don't
think he's a spy, you know what I mean? Uh?
(45:21):
And spying is again finally being a publicly acknowledged problem
here in the US. Uh. The thing is that he
was another little nugget of information. He was supposed to
get an award for his coverage of the withdrawal from Afghanistan,
but he ducked out of the ceremony back a few
months ago in May. And he if you look at
(45:44):
the pictures here, you can you can see him. Now.
If you look at this article here from Daily Mail,
then you will see that he's definitely alive. It's definitely him. Uh.
He just I don't know. You could call it over
reporting because the article describes what he looks like, describes
(46:06):
some background, but really all you see is a guy
who looks in pretty good shape for early fifties getting
into an suv several blocks away of his own accord.
Do we know how tall this guy is? He looks like, yeah,
he's very yes he is, it's all. He's very departly
(46:26):
dressed to he's wearing a very cool scarf situation. He
kind of looks like Charlie Sheen, Yeah a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
maybe maybe it's a breaking bad vacuum cleaner repairman situation.
But then he that scarfed, by the way I believe
is called cafe. Yes, that's right. Yeah, so he Uh,
(46:50):
you'll see it. Actually, you'll see a lot of war
journalists to wear those. Um yeah, I don't. I don't
think so, because this guy is smart enough that he
would have avoided any kind of visibility right like that.
You know, he probably wouldn't have gone to ground at
his mom's house if it was a serious need to
disappear situation. Uh, Like our friend Elizabeth Greenwood points out
(47:14):
in um Playing Dead, one of the best works on
faking one's death or suicide. If someone's not sloppy about disappearing,
there are gonna be two reasons they get caught. One
is trying to get money from like an insurance thing
or some sort of other account they want to touch.
And the second is staying in touch with anyone literally,
anyone from their past life. So he would be smart enough.
(47:37):
We can assume not to play that particular reindeer game.
But as of now the story is developing, it does
seem that James Gordon Meek is alive. What was the
FBI's beef with him? Unknown? What is going to come
of this unknown, unless, of course, you want to help
(47:57):
us out. Fellow conspiracy realists. Want your thoughts on who's
behind the Great meat Heist. We want your ideas about
the weaponization of crimes against the elderly. We would also
if your game, I love to hear your take on
what the hell is going on with the FBI and
James Gordon Meek. We try to be easy to find online. Yeah,
(48:21):
I think we succeed mostly. You can find us on Facebook,
on YouTube, and on Twitter at the Handlo Conspiracy Stuff.
On Instagram, we are Conspiracy Stuff Show. We also have
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(48:42):
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say whatever you'd like. Please let us know if we
can use that name and your voice on one of
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call that number, find us on social or if you
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try email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com.
(49:25):
Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. There's some good news we
can start the strange news off with this week. There
(00:47):
is a suspect who has been arrested in the Delphi
murder cases as they're as they're popularly known now, Matt Noel.
This is something that we had talked about in the
past as an unsolved true crime. You guys remember that one. Yeah, too,
very young girls who lost their lives, and there didn't
(01:10):
seem to be any leads for years and years and
years other than a cryptic uh and incredibly disturbing audio recording. Right.
One thing that we did, I think correctly in this
when we talked about in the past, is we noted
this uh, the scant evidence available was all that police
and law enforcement are revealed in the murders of Abigail
(01:31):
Williams and Liberty German. As of now, a man named
Richard Allen is in custody, but the arrest records are sealed.
So we're keeping an eye on this one and will update.
But in the interim, all we can say is we
hope there is just this enclosure for the families. Today,
(01:51):
we're going to talk about some other strange mysteries. We're
going to talk about some other violent things. There is
a producer who was rated by the FBI and then
disappeared for quite a while. We'll have an update on that.
There is politically motivated violence that is prompting a national
(02:12):
conversation in the US, though maybe not a conversation with
the tenor you would expect in the wake of these attacks.
But first, maybe we open up by talking about meat prices.
A weird way to get into it, but man, for anybody, Yeah,
anybody has been to a grocery store recently, especially if
(02:33):
you like the three of us are on the carnivorous
side of Michael Pollin's omnivore's dilemma. You know, the meat
prices have gone kind of nuts. You know, you might
be trying to buy some ribs, some nice spare ribs,
do a little Korean barbecue, only to experience sticker shock.
What's the what's the last time you guys went and
bought some meat and were you surprised by high prices?
(02:55):
Or do you have do you have a hook up?
Because this fully selfish question here, I'm looking for a
better place. Well, you can always get one of those
meat box subscriptions, just putting that out there. No, No,
you need a meat person, like a meat guy or
meat lady who just got the hook up on those meats.
(03:16):
Have a meat cute with your meat guy. There you go. Uh,
but yeah, it's been a while since I've actually purchased
some meat in that way. I did get some bacon
not long ago, and it was more expensive than I'm
accustomed to when buying bacon, like eight bucks. Yea, eggs
right on the money. There we go, There we go.
(03:38):
Because people know now how to rig a lot of
those economic or a lot of those favorite metrics of economists. Right, milk, eggs,
and bread. Uh, those things you can keep at a
somewhat stable price point usually, But if you have if
you have seen, if you have seen, like us, the
(03:58):
price on a lot of different meat products, whether in
grocery stores or in restaurants. A let of restaurants, now
they have a disclaimer that says, due to inflation or
due to supply chain issues, these prices have to be increased. Right. Uh.
Then you may have seen this, folks, and you may
have thought, hang on, why don't I do my own
(04:20):
heist if these folks are heist to me at a
grocery store? Yeah? Yeah, why not create a giant criminal
enterprise with three human beings? Which there's got to be
more than three human beings? All right, let's let's let's
talk about this. In today's meet minute. We're going to
a story from September two, so this past September. It's
(04:43):
coming to us from ABC channel eight. And here's the title,
thirty seven thousand pounds of missing meat in York. That's
York County leaves investigators craving answers and this is this
is coming out a Lincoln, Nebraska. I'm gonna read quite
a bit of this because it's a it's a short story, guys.
(05:06):
A refrigerated trailer, a large one was stolen on Saturday,
according to the York Police Department. Police say the thieves
transferred the thirty seven thousand pounds of meat it was
carrying into another trailer before disappearing. This happened around the
same time that more than seven hundred and fifty thousand
dollars worth of meat was stolen from three trailers in
(05:28):
Grand Island. The trailers taken from that area are still
nowhere to be found. This crime spree comes just a
few months after nearly four hundred thousand dollars worth of
beef was stolen across our area. So well, so far,
there are no reports of any arrests in in any
(05:50):
of these cases. So that was from September. Uh, that's
a lot of meat being stolen. And my question to
you guys before we even up into the rest of
this story, what do you do with thirty seven thousand
pounds of meat if you're going to try and take
it to a black market somewhere? Like, how does that
(06:11):
even function? What would I do? Or what would other
like like you haven't thought of the smell you but yeah,
it's tough. It's like what would you you know, it
goes back to things like the maple syrupist or other
you know, um, cheese heist in Europe, which you're a thing.
(06:33):
But but those are two things that have more of
a shelf life, at least in I believe, right. Meat
is if you're not storing it correctly, that much meat,
you need a huge facility to to keep it cold
or freeze it or something. And then do you do
the heist with the refrigerated truck that you've also hoisted
or is this like your thing? This is your cruise specialty?
(06:56):
Is is hoisting meat but hounds? That's uh, that's a
big truck. Yeah. And and if you're using the same
truck for multiple heists, like it appears that somebody is
stealing a ton of meat from different places. Uh, somebody's
going to pick up on your trail pretty easily if
you're in the same truck getting away from those crime
(07:17):
scenes every time. Uh. I don't it's weird. I don't
know what you do with black market meat. I want
to learn more. Uh, there is an interesting Mental Floss
article that I want to get into to give that
gives us some historical context about missing meat in the past,
or black market meat rather. But for now, let's jump
(07:39):
to the Washington Post, who wrote on October forget bank robbery.
These men stole nine million dollars in meats. I bet
they made uh you know they made Actually it's not
a bet. Uh. They provably made more money off this
heist than one would make in a typical bag and heist.
(08:00):
The economics of bank heist or not, what heat has
led you to believe? Folks, you're right. But the handy
thing about money is that even though you you gotta
flip it somehow, right, you gotta wash that money somehow
if you're gonna get it off your hands and actually
make money on a bank heist. In this case, you've
got a bunch of meat that you gotta flip somehow
(08:22):
to actually make that nine million dollars in meat. Uh.
It's it's a very strange thing. So I'm gonna go
through quite a bit of this article. Two guys, stop me,
Just jump in when you're ready. Uh, let's just go
through it because it's it's a little complicated, but it's
really interesting. The way this investigation came together started with
stolen beef, According to the Washington Post, nearly four under
(08:44):
thousand of it in two semi trailers taken from a
lot in Emerald, Nebraska. I was back in June, so
this is going even further back than the previous article
we mentioned. By the time the authorities had finished tracing
the missing stake, they had uncovered what they say was
an organized enterprise by three Florida men who pulled off
about forty five separate thefts of meat and equipment over
(09:08):
a year and a half. Impressive. Honestly, these are the
Florida men that kind of have their their heads on straight.
It would see they're still doing Florida Man esque type things.
But uh, yeah, they're not like running naked through a
you know, quickie mark high on meth. This is like
pretty organized. Again. Also, Florida Man is an unfair stereo
(09:31):
laws passed Florida, so so they But but no, it's
it's a really good point. Well, they do seem to
have uh, they do seem to have their wits about them.
This doesn't seem a crime of passion or impulse. Right.
Someone has knowledge, right, that's the thing. Right, they have
to They have to know a little bit about placement
(09:55):
process and timing. Yeah, well, and think about it. These
are in from Florida who are traveling from Miami to
the Midwest to various locations across the Midwest, knowing where
to go, where to pick up trailers that are already
full of meat, and then take those trailers like attach
them to their own trucks, often move those trailers away,
(10:17):
then take the meat out and blow out their incense,
you know what I mean. Sorry that was a reference
sdindal Um. But but yeah, you're right, there's a lot
They have to have a lot of knowledge something's going
on here. So these three guys, whose names you can
find if you look them up. I'm not gonna name
them just because they've been arrested, but they nothing has
been proven of what they've done, but we'll see why.
(10:39):
The investigators are pretty sure in just a moment um.
These three men were arrested on October twenty in Florida
on charges related to all of these thefts we're talking about. Um.
The authorities spent over a week tracking them, like tracing
these guys all of their movements as they watched thefts occur,
(11:00):
so they were up on their cell phones and they
also placed GPS devices on several trucks, large trucks like
semis that these men were driving and they literally just
watched them travel throughout the Midwest stealing some things, uh
from Sioux Falls, South Dakota specifically, where they watched them
steal it. They watched their their movements as they moved
(11:23):
the product into different places and then headed back towards Florida.
That's when they got picked up. And that's you know,
when they got arrested and charged. But some other weird
things happened along the way, you guys, just some strange stuff.
We talked, you know, we talked about government surveillance all
the time. When you're not under an active investigation like
(11:44):
these guys were, you don't imagine that anybody's gonna put
a GPS tracking device on your vehicle, or that someone's
just going to get a court order to track your
cell phone or be up on your cell phone wire style,
you know. But that's what happened to these guys. That's
what happened to these guys, um. And you have to imagine,
if you're you're pulling off these high stakes, uh it's thefts,
(12:12):
you'd imagine that somebody's watching you or you know, paying
attention to you, and they most certainly were. When when
these guys This is one of the weird things to me.
When these guys got stopped on their way from South
Dakota where they stole nineteen palettes of ham which was
around a hundred and thirty thousand dollars worth of pork
(12:34):
by the way, something like that. Um, he was stopped
by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. The stolen palettes of him
were on that truck and he had a phony bill
of lading, that thing that said you know that we
just learned about that. It's the thing that it's your
shipment shipment manifest basically that says, here's all this stuff
that I'm caring for this company to go to this company,
(12:57):
All of that information is in there. It was phoneticated.
It was yeah right. He had it ready to go,
so he knew. He's got insider understanding of how the
shipping the shipping meat thing goes. He knows how the
sausage is made. Yes, perfect, perfect though. Um. But because
this dude, this driver, one of the three men, wasn't
(13:20):
registered with the Department of Transportation to Hall Goods, the
officer cited him for violations but didn't arrest him. I
guess it was unknown that these nineteen palets were stolen
at least by that Tennessee Highway patrol. Right, there's no
communication happening. Um, So they just let him go. They
continue driving until they got picked up again or stopped
(13:43):
again in Florida, and again state troopers pulled him over,
who again showed that phony bill of lading and showed
off the ham again like, hey, it's just ham Man,
It's all good. U. There were some other police officers
who you know, who were involved in the investigation following them,
and that's when these guys got picked up when they
(14:03):
arrived back to Miami, just to show that they were
transporting it all the way back down, which is important question.
Uh that so many questions. In fact, so Matt, it
sounds like we're of the same mind that these are
the street level operatives, right, They're not necessarily the brains
of the op. I mean, you hear bill of lady,
(14:25):
you hear the knowledge of where to hit and win. Uh.
I have a theory, if it's all right, please? Oh man?
All right, So here's here's the theory. This is profound speculation.
Not too long ago we looked in depth at how
all right the theory the headline cartels. Not too long ago,
(14:47):
we looked in depth at how cartels have been diversifying
their portfolio as they become increasingly corporate entities, from you know,
basic gracketeering and protection ran gets all the way up
to uh dabbling in agriculture right running avocados schemes, which
or a great profit center honestly, as anybody's going to
(15:09):
Chipotle knows. But the next thing I'm asking, does it
sound like it would be a possibility that a large
organized crime group could be behind this? Right? Would that
not answer the infrastructure question? You would need some restaurants
to defense this stuff, for wholesale suppliers to wash the
(15:31):
meat the way wash money, and a lot of a
lot of cartels and organized crime rings or whatever own
restaurants you know, and and operate them as fronts potentially
and may have you know, folks in their circle who
would just buy this stuff um sit side unseen. Yeah,
but you do. You don't see that much meat without
(15:53):
a client. You know, you can see your point and
there's a shelf life there. But but the thing is,
with a front, you have to keep everything looking as
above board as possible with those So if you're bringing
in stolen product like that to actually sell that could
be a big red flag. And if you're so, it
feels to me, I think you're right, Ben. This is
(16:13):
gonna be Sonola's special pork that's gonna be on sailing
special stories or something that's very interesting. Ben. Mm hmm.
You know, I was thinking it actually might end up
getting shipped to somewhere. Um, this sounds weird, but somewhere
that really needs food right now. I'm thinking about like
(16:34):
Puerto Rico that's still dealing with the aftermath of, you know,
a disaster. Like, are you saying the plan was to
ship it to these places? Yeah, That's what I'm saying.
Like maybe maybe the plan was, like maybe it was
less criminal, Maybe it was more that I'm being I
don't know, maybe it was that'd be great. Is interesting though,
(16:56):
with what you're saying there, Matt, because UH ICE was
evolved or excuse me, hs I whatever we're supposed to
call the but as I stand for, Ben, Immigrations and
Customs Enforcement and Security. Oh, let me remember it correctly.
UH Homeland Security Investigations, which on its website calls itself
(17:19):
a vital US asset in combating criminal organizations illegally exploiting
America's trade, travel, financial, and immigration systems. Interesting that they
would be there. And then again to your point, I
don't want this to get buried, met point out something lovely.
Elio followed these guys to make sure that they had
(17:39):
an airtight case for interstate commerce. Yep, interstate commerce. And
then you know they're taking it to Miami, which is
a great place if you want to load something up
on a cargo ship. Just saying who knows, We don't know,
we don't have the information. All three men have been
released on bail as we write this, and they're a
(18:00):
waiting to be arraigned. So we shall see what happens,
what comes of this. But in a weird way, kudos
to you guys who figured out how to steal all
that meat. I bet you they got bail. I bet
you part of the reason they got bail is to, uh,
you know, throw the little fish back and see if
the big fish bite. That's a good point. Then you're
(18:21):
not suppay that. Okay, it's part of the investigation. Man,
I'm gonna speculating here, ridiculous romance. All right, Well, that's
all the stolen meat for today, we're going to hear
a word from our sponsor and we'll be right back
with more strange news. And we're back with the story
(18:46):
that definitely has folks on both sides of the political divide.
I don't know, trying to figure out a position to
take on it. I guess I mean the obvious position
when an elderly gentleman has his home broken into it
is attacked by a hammer wielding psychopath would be empathy,
and uh, I hope he's okay. But as we know,
(19:07):
in politics, it's usually some way to spin it um,
and we're seeing spin happening on on both the Republican
and the Democrats side. Uh. The gentleman in question is
Nancy Pelosi's husband. Nancy Pelosi, a very prominent left wing lawmaker,
uh Speaker of the House. Her husband was at home
(19:28):
asleep in the middle of the night at their San
Francisco A state when a person allegedly broken by smashing
a glass sliding door like a like French door kind
of situation. Apparently Mr Pelosi was awakened with this gentleman
sort of like lurking over him, which is terrifying. Yeah,
(19:52):
where's Nancy, Where's Nancy. Where's Nancy? Repeatedly the gentleman in
question U, Mr Pelosi. By the way, it's eighty two
years old. The attacker in question is a person by
the name of David de Pop de Papa d E
p a p forty two years old belief of Oakland, California, which,
if you're familiar with the Bay Areas, not but a
(20:15):
hop skipper to jump away from San Francisco. UM, and
was apparently there, as evidenced by the comments that you
you referenced ben Um to find Nancy Pelosi. It was
of you know, very powerful Democrat. And it's interesting considering
this person is from the Bay Area and you kind
(20:35):
of consider, you know, that part of the country to
be almost exclusively liberal. UM. Definitely, No, that's not the case.
There's always going to be outliers, and this person seems
to be an extreme outlier. UM. And that he was
armed with a hammer and had plans it would seem
to kidnap Nancy Pelosi or at the very least hold
(20:58):
her and her husband hosta. UM. There is some talk
whether it's from I believe interviews with the subject where
he claimed that he wasn't going to assassinate her. He
just wanted to get information from her, you know what
he I guess would believe to be secret information and
was just gonna smash her kneecaps because he doesn't do email. No, no,
(21:22):
he doesn't. He doesn't do email. He doesn't write his
his representative. UM. And you know, again, this is an
instance in a spate of politically motivated attacks and and
and violence, acts of violence that we've been seeing kind
of an uptick on. There was that guy that like
I think, broke into an FBI field office and shot
(21:42):
up the place. Uh, there's just quite a few examples
of this. It's just another UM in what has become
a pretty troubling trend. And most Republican lawmakers and and uh,
you know, higher ups have condemned the attack because you know,
they're all in the same game. They're all you know, essentially,
they're public figures, and an attack on one of them
(22:04):
is potentially an attackle on all of them. You know.
It just goes to show the vulnerability of people in
that position. UM when there are divisive issues at play,
UM And you know, and people have very strong opinions
not to mention the climate we're living in of politicians,
just kind of saying whatever, Um, not really backed up
(22:26):
with facts. Uh. And folks can be radicalized very quickly.
You know, this is seems to be a person that
was radicalized by Q and on type conspiracies. Um. And
I believe they interviewed a close associate of this person,
Mr de Papa, Uh, saying you know, God help you
if he started talking about politics, that he had just
really kind of gone down that that rabbit hole of
(22:49):
of paranoia. And um, you know the story would end there,
you know, if if it didn't end there, which it doesn't,
because it has become very quickly a source of conspiracy theory. Um.
I think there was a and and and it was
fit's been fed. It's being fed by some also very
influential and divisive people. First and foremost is a little
(23:11):
fellow by the name of Elon Musk. You might have
heard of him. Um. He has a hundred and twelve
million Twitter followers. And in response to something Hillary Clinton tweeted,
which I tend to imagine with some sort of empathetic
I hope he's okay. My thoughts are with the family situation,
he linked out to a website called s m Observed
dot com, the headline being the awful truth Paul Pelosi
(23:35):
was drunk again and in a dispute with uh It's
cut off on this Twitter post, But but the gist
of it is with a lover that this this the
accusation is that this man, Mr Dpop was actually missing
in a relationship of some sort um a sexual relationship
with with Paul Pelosi, and that this was an escalation
(23:57):
of some sort of drunken quarrel that they at. And
there are claims in this article that the window or
the door rather was not broken from the outside, it
was broken from the inside. That's what I heard Donald
Trump saying. Repeated that Donald Trump in a in an interview,
and it was definitely in the spirit of you know,
(24:17):
you hear the same things I hear. This is what
I heard. But I didn't see a lot of analysis
from Musk nor Trump regarding those claims. There isn't And
he literally said, what you just said, Ben, you hear
the same things I do. Um said I I heard
it wasn't a break in, but a breakout. And again
this is an, you know, an attempt to demonize Mr Pelosi,
(24:40):
who I believe has had some public you know issues
in terms of with drinking and things like that. But
that that's just not what's going on here, that's not
at play, and this is just a way of like
hijacking the conversation and turning it into like a nasty
kind of mud slinging, uh situation. So Elon Musk tweets
a link to this article makes all these claims. The
(25:01):
website that he tweeted the link to is notorious for
spreading misinformation, for posting unfounded accusations and things kind of
you know, masquerading as as as fact um. And so
then of course Elon Musk is getting yelled at by
the Internet rightfully, so in my opinion for just casually,
you know, saying I think there's something more at play
(25:23):
here or maybe you know again, responded Hillary Clinton. And
then Marjorie Taylor Green comes to Elon Musk's defense and saying, uh,
Marjorie Taylor Green being a very divisive and inflammatory figure
in the Republican Party. Uh. From her Twitter. The same
mainstream media Democrat activists that sold conspiracy theories for years
about President Trump and Russia are now blaming Elon Musk
(25:43):
for quote internet misinformation about Paul Pelosi's friend attacking him
with a hammer. The media is source of misinformation and
again saying these things as as fact. There there are
no you know, from the reports you know of of
law enforcement and investigation. You know, there's no evidence of
(26:04):
any of this being the case. And these these men
knew each other, you know, again, in a state of terror,
I imagine, Um, Paul Pelosi was able to excuse himself
and use the restroom or you know for a second.
He called the police and kept the phone on, which
is what you're supposed to do, and the uh, the
dispatcher was able to kind of figure out what was
going on and sent somebody out. Um. And the people
(26:27):
that came out the police actually witnessed apparently, UM, Mr
Japap cracking Pelosi in the head with this hammer. Um,
he has a skull fracture. He's still in you know,
serious condition. You know, I believe in in an ic
U type situation. He may may have changed, but he's
you know, he's he's an eighty something year old man.
(26:48):
Eighty two is just eighty two year old man. He's
just been hit in the head with a blunt instrument. Um,
and it's essentially being used as a talking point by
folks like Marjorie Taylor Green and and sort of like
a very in bad taste sort of joke among certain
members of the Republican Party. Question, Yeah, question so with
(27:11):
um with folks who are prompting this, I guess um
are touting this alternative narrative, this sort of fan fick
about what happened to an elderly man. How do they
how do they explain the reports from the officer's side
(27:31):
about the other stuff was found with, like not just
the the hammer, but the the tape, the other hammer,
the gloves, the zip ties, Like is that do they
say that was planted evidence? Or do they address that
there is a certain um sentiment that this is some
(27:52):
sort of false flag situation. Um, you know, again, a
lot of these things are just said in little offhand moments,
you know. Representative Clay Higgins of Louisiana tweeted and then
deleted a post on Sunday that pushed another conspiracy kind
of mocking the attack, and then Representative Claudia Tenney from
(28:13):
New York retweeted a picture of several men carrying hammers
outside of a home with a United Against Hate sign
and a gay pride flag. UM. So it's just very strange.
And the fact that it isn't just you know, pure
empathy coming across the board. I mean, Mitch McConnell, you know,
has condemned the attacks, but he also hasn't condemned his
(28:36):
colleagues for saying these things. So it's kind of one
of those things where it's like, oh, I can't help
with people say, um, it's it's rough man, you know, Uh,
let's see. So in a Dear Colleague letter, UM, two
members of Congress, Pelosi wrote that a quote a violent
man broke into our family home, demanded to confront me,
(28:56):
and brutally attacked my husband, Paul, our our till Green,
our grandchildren, and I are heartbroken and traumatized by the
life threatening attack on our pop. Which is cute, um.
And the political stuff aside. You know, I'm not a
huge fan of Nancy Pelosi personally at all, but it's
you know, this is this is outrageous. And and the
fact that um, someone was home invaded, uh, menaced, traumatized,
(29:23):
and then actually physically attacked. I just don't think there's
any room for little jokeys about that. It doesn't seem
right to me. We're in that position where we're we're
all pretty vulnerable, um, some of us much more than
others to believing this kind of thing because there's such
(29:43):
a distrust in police in general right now. And it
was a massive generalization, but it's just true. It's at
least increased quite a bit since you know, what, what
do you think, guys? I mean, the longer you're right,
you're right? Yeah, I would say September twelve, two thousand
and one, if I'm being absolutely being honest in government
(30:07):
to right. So any government institution and an official statement
coming out of that government institution about something that is
purposefully closed off to the public, right the details about
it are closed off because it's either classified or it's
part of an investigation. Anytime we're in that situation now,
the rumor mill is just gonna start churning, and and
(30:30):
it doesn't stop churning. And if there's one bad faith
actor out there, or maybe a handful that want to
stir the pot or get some clicks, they can get
that engine started, and uh, it just proliferates. Well, yeah,
I would agree. I'd also add this is a very
important point that this kind of propaganda disguised as hot takes.
(30:51):
It is meant for a specific audience. They're not writing
these things to look to convert people, right, um, what
what's happening and the reason they say propaganda In this
case propaganda isn't always untrue, but there demonstrably easily disproven
claims in some of these, uh we want to call
(31:12):
them theories. You have to remember if it sounds crazy
to you, you're not the intended audience here. This is
a lot like um as screwed up an American as
it is to sound this, this spectacle, this bread and
circuses take on this kind of thing. It is dehumanizing,
but it should be treated with the same level of
(31:35):
serious regard that you treat the trash talking by the
macho man Randy Savage or the Undertaker right before they
do a fake wrestling match. Sorry, Cafe, the secret is out,
but that like the reason I'm pointing this out is
because you know it's again, it's easy to dismiss people
who might fall for this stuff, might follow it the
(31:57):
way de Pepe did himself. You know, for two year
old guy who is other other than online streets, not
much as known about this individual at this time. UH,
exercising empathy to you're earlier pointnal is paramount, you know,
it's it's so crucial, but it's in very short supply
these days. And the last one just is the one.
(32:21):
This one is just so gross. Um. Trump's eldest son
retweeted a picture depicting a hammer on top of a
pair of underwear with the message, got my Paul Pelosi
Halloween costume ready. So it's like, I mean, this is
whatever your political affiliation or ideology is, this is folks
actively mocking a an octogenarian who has been attacked and
(32:46):
and uh and brutalized. And I just don't think there's
any room for that. So um yeah, let's take a
pause here and I'll hear a word from our sponsor,
and then we'll be back with one more piece of
strange news. So we are ending on a to be
(33:09):
continued piece of strange news. This is what I would
like to call it. UH. Eyes on a lot of
stories in the course of making this show, and as always,
it can be difficult to find just a few things
to focus on for the weekly strange News segment. Let's
introduce UH, Let's introduce everyone to someone you may not
have heard of fellow conspiracy realists, but you have probably
(33:32):
seen his work at some point. His name James Gordon Meek.
He's in his early fifties now. For a long time,
he's a lauded American journalist, writer, narrator, producer. He did
stuff like a documentary film in one called thirty twelve unredacted,
nominated for an Emmy. It was about the Green Berets
(33:54):
in Niger and part of the Tongo Tongo ambush. When
you can look up, but you will sports certainly it
certainly will not find reported in depth in your local
US based news sources. In two thousand and six, he
reported on an al Qaeda plot to deploy some bombs
(34:15):
at the Hudson River. This guy's legit is what I'm saying.
He's got his stripes. Uh. He even was a counter
terrorism advisor and investigator for the U. S. House Committee
on Homeland Security. He looked into the Boston Marathon bombing.
He was about that life, uh, and he may not
be about that life for long. The story here starts
(34:38):
in October. Late October, his home was unexpectedly rated by
the FBI, unexpected to his friends, and his colleagues. So
this is us walking up to the rabbit hole. The
guy's legit. His reporting focuses on geopolitical stuff, encounter terrorism,
so often it's going to be considered a political even
(35:01):
in these divisive times. He um not everybody in ABC
was his friends, but you know you you can find
in the sexcellent Rolling Stone article how he's described as
something of a military fanboy. Shout out to Tatiana Seagull,
who wrote this original article. And he was seemingly like
(35:23):
at the prime of his life. He had a book
coming out on the military's withdrawal from Afghanistan, and he
was in He was living in this apartment in Arlington, Virginia.
Pretty nice place, right, He's got the top floor just
to paint the picture. Uh. And then when the FBI
raids him, suddenly things get even weirder. More news comes
(35:47):
out he is the raid happens with unmarked cars, right,
so not necessarily desiring to make a scene. You see
this in a lot of true crime fiction, and it's
actually not too off base. Sometimes police will want to
make a public display, do a perp walk for the cameras, right,
we got the bad guy. Sometimes FBI will want to
(36:10):
come in and have more of an established presence, your
tax dollars at work saving the world. This was not
that case. Except for local police. Mostly cars were unmarked
and the raid get this ten minutes stem distern. The
raid was ten minutes long just for electronics. Maybe that's it. Yeah,
(36:31):
just maybe looking for one thing. Maybe they're part of
the meat conspiracy and they were like the ham is
in a different state, but checked down here. He's got
a deep freezer, which is weird for an apartment and uh,
and refrigerator that ten that's m hmm. Ten minutes implies.
(36:57):
That means they know what they're going for. They got
like it implies either this isn't the whole story, or
they knew exactly what they were looking for in this
case for someone who does military, counter terrorism and war journalism,
sounds a lot like he was playing fast and loose
with something classified. Right, that's a reasonable assumption at this time. Okay,
(37:20):
until we know, until we know more about this. Uh.
Part of the reason that this raid was only ten
minutes long was that his residence was apparently empty and
had been for months. Also, he unexpectedly, out of the blue,
resigned from ABC months before this rate occurred, and he
(37:43):
went to ground curious or and curious or you know,
curious air and curious or whatever accent you prefer. But
that's that's nuts, right, So he it appears that he
knew something was coming. Wait, wait, been really quickly just
a bullet point the order here? Did he resign, move
(38:05):
out and then get rated or what was the order
of operations? The resign? Okay, so upcoming book on Afghanistan? Right,
lots of reporting behind behind him. He's got a hell
of a career and it seems like he's in the
cowbird seat. Unexpectedly resigns to uh, and then ghost becomes
a ghost. Three FBI raid ten minutes four. Oh. By
(38:30):
the way, his apartments really do a little digging. It's
like it's pretty upscale. If you were not familiar with Arlington, Virginia,
it's not the poor part of Virginia. So so he's, uh,
the Sienna Park apartments, right, that's our order of operations.
Solid dude, or at least solid professional. Unexpectedly hands in
(38:50):
his papers. Then there's this very weird, very short raid. Uh.
The FBI's official statement was that this had occurred on
April quote at the block of Columbia Pike, Arlington, Virginia,
conducting court authorized law enforcement activity. The FBI cannot comment
further due to an ongoing investigation, and this is still
(39:16):
the official statement. The guy has not been charged with
a crime. Uh. This is quite likely the first raid
to be carried out on a journalist under the administration
of President Biden. Uh. This the search warrant was signed
off the day before the raid, and no one had
(39:39):
seen the guy since, so this led. Honestly, I was
I think I group texted you guys about this. I
was reading about this from the day it popped up
on my radar. And with a fog war that happens
in these kind of things, you know, you have to
understand one of the big, big red flags, one of
(40:02):
the first canaries to die in a coal mine of
fascism is always going to be harassment and arrest of journalists.
It is a consistent pattern that has never not happened
when a when a nation state is collapsing. So this,
as you can understand, fellow conspiracy realist, is very concerning
(40:25):
to people like us who follow these trends. So of
course everybody is starting to think this guy got black bagged?
What was he building in there? What was he working on? Uh?
And other than the upcoming book, nobody really knew. And
this is something interesting because let me ask before you
(40:46):
get to twist, would it be reasonable to assume that,
given his experience in journalistic acumen, this guy would have
known it at least enough ops set two of breaking
the law? Like, wouldn't he have been able to have
some journalistic protections in places? I think journalists of this
(41:09):
kind that's why hardened and investigative journalists know they're going
to be breaking some kind of federal law at some
point in an investigation, maybe, right, like having being in
possession of a classified document that you're not supposed to be,
that you're not supposed to have. But well, just what
you said, Ben, if you work for an organization, a
big one like ABC, you know there's a huge team
(41:32):
of corporate lawyers behind you if you do get caught
with that information, right, or the classified stuff that you're
not supposed to have as a part of doing your
job and telling a story about it. Because often a
journalist like this isn't going to release a full document
or something, right, There's gonna be steps taken much like
The Guardian has done in the past, Like other major
(41:54):
outlets have done in the past, Stuff's been redacted to
protect the government, even though the outlet is revealing things
about that government. Right, That's often what occurs. Um. I
feel like this guy would have known he was protected. Well,
that's the thing, Matt, because just last year a new
policy went into place, which is supposed to look it's
(42:18):
not just us on the show saying that harassment entertainment
and you know, vivisection of journalists is a sign of trouble.
Shout out to kashag. Other people know this too, and
people in the halls of government. So there's a new
policy that came out in that prohibits federal prosecutors from
seizing journalists documents in less the Deputy Attorney General approves.
(42:44):
The Deputy Attorney General now is Lisa Monaco. So if
the raid was for this guy's records, the Deputy a
g would have had to say something. And so far,
no one, no one's speaking about a case. No one's
saying this guy was charged with this thing. And the
folks you worked with at ABC are also investigative journalists,
(43:06):
to your point, and they they had a quote where
they said, uh. Collectively they said, uh, he fell off
the earth. He fell off the face of the earth.
Everybody asked, No one knows what happened to him. He
resigned very abruptly. He hasn't worked for us for months. Uh,
and that's specifically Kim Godwin. Uh. The network put out
(43:28):
this statement saying that he resigned for what he said
was personal reasons, and they refused to comment or report
on speculation. So if you are not plugged in right,
if you're not part of the FBI, or you're not
deputy A, g. Etcetera, or you're not Meek himself, then
(43:48):
this looks a lot like a journalist getting disappeared spooky
spooky stuff just in time for Halloween. But there is
fortunately a twist kind yeah, kind of well another twist,
I guess. Yeah. The uh s a four out of
(44:13):
four out of So this happened just yesterday as national
November Novel Writing Month begins. Uh. Ben Ashford, a journalist
in Virginia writing for of all Things, No Offense, The
Daily Mail, which doesn't have the best reputation as the source,
broke the news. James Gordon Meek, after being a ghost
(44:38):
for six months, more than days has been found. He
is at his or he was, He's probably not there now,
to be honest with you. He was at his mother's
town house in McLean, Virginia. He refused to answer any questions,
including the reports that agents may have found some sort
(44:59):
of lap top associated with him that contained classified info.
His colleagues have said that if he had any classified stuff,
any sensitive materials you could call them, it would have
been for a story he was working on. Right. They're
they're essentially in a roundabout way. They're saying, we don't
think he's a spy, you know what I mean? Uh?
(45:21):
And spying is again finally being a publicly acknowledged problem
here in the US. Uh. The thing is that he
was another little nugget of information. He was supposed to
get an award for his coverage of the withdrawal from Afghanistan,
but he ducked out of the ceremony back a few
months ago in May. And he if you look at
(45:44):
the pictures here, you can you can see him. Now.
If you look at this article here from Daily Mail,
then you will see that he's definitely alive. It's definitely him. Uh.
He just I don't know. You could call it over
reporting because the article describes what he looks like, describes
(46:06):
some background, but really all you see is a guy
who looks in pretty good shape for early fifties getting
into an suv several blocks away of his own accord.
Do we know how tall this guy is? He looks like, yeah,
he's very yes he is, it's all. He's very departly
(46:26):
dressed to he's wearing a very cool scarf situation. He
kind of looks like Charlie Sheen, Yeah a little bit. Yeah, yeah,
maybe maybe it's a breaking bad vacuum cleaner repairman situation.
But then he that scarfed, by the way I believe
is called cafe. Yes, that's right. Yeah, so he Uh,
(46:50):
you'll see it. Actually, you'll see a lot of war
journalists to wear those. Um yeah, I don't. I don't
think so, because this guy is smart enough that he
would have avoided any kind of visibility right like that.
You know, he probably wouldn't have gone to ground at
his mom's house if it was a serious need to
disappear situation. Uh, Like our friend Elizabeth Greenwood points out
(47:14):
in um Playing Dead, one of the best works on
faking one's death or suicide. If someone's not sloppy about disappearing,
there are gonna be two reasons they get caught. One
is trying to get money from like an insurance thing
or some sort of other account they want to touch.
And the second is staying in touch with anyone literally,
anyone from their past life. So he would be smart enough.
(47:37):
We can assume not to play that particular reindeer game.
But as of now the story is developing, it does
seem that James Gordon Meek is alive. What was the
FBI's beef with him? Unknown? What is going to come
of this unknown, unless, of course, you want to help
(47:57):
us out. Fellow conspiracy realists. Want your thoughts on who's
behind the Great meat Heist. We want your ideas about
the weaponization of crimes against the elderly. We would also
if your game, I love to hear your take on
what the hell is going on with the FBI and
James Gordon Meek. We try to be easy to find online. Yeah,
(48:21):
I think we succeed mostly. You can find us on Facebook,
on YouTube, and on Twitter at the Handlo Conspiracy Stuff.
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(48:42):
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United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com