Ridiculous Crime
True Crime is more than blood, guts, mayhem, and murder. Zaron Burnett and Elizabeth Dutton share outlandish tales of capers, heists, and cons that shine a light on the absurd and outrageous side of criminality. Always 99% murder-free and 100% ridiculous, this is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast by iHeartRadio.
Episodes
A con man flim flam artist who loved hockey wanted nothing more than to own a professional hockey team. The problem is that he wasn't a billionaire, which is sort of a prerequisite for professional team ownership. No problem. Borrow some cash, fake some documents, tell some lies and BOOM, the team was his..at least for a couple of months. Fill up the tub.
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When the first World War kicked off, Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, a notorious daredevil and rich kid playboy, decided armed combat wasn't for him. And so, rather than serve, he decided to dodge the draft. He would spend the next two decades begging for a pardon as he evaded justice and the many men sent to capture him.
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The best part of espionage is the spycraft, the cool gadgets and codes often disguised as everyday objects. Some look like lipstick, others like umbrellas. And then there are the ones that are a bit riskier because they're smaller and easier to misplace. Coins. Talkin' about coins.
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When World War II broke out, the biggest star in the world planned to sit it out. But as Fate would have it, events conspired to motivate Clark Gable AKA the "King of Hollywood" to enlist and go fight the Nazis. This was a big bummer for his #1 German fan, Der Fuhrer, AKA Adolf Hitler. But just like his wife Carole Lombard had hoped, Clark Gable did go to war against his biggest fan boy.
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Filippo Bernardini felt like an outsider in the publishing world, so he decided to fix that. Did he dazzle executives with his intellect and insight? No. He stole his way into literary inner circles. And we know how those stories end.
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T'was the night before the Christmas, and all through the house not a creature was stirring... except for a mouse stealing some Christmas cookies. No, not really. But this episode is a fun collection of Christmas crimes and the holiday-crazed criminals who committed them.
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A man who called himself Lord Gordon Gordon sure knew how to con 'em. He scammed jewelers, land owners, and railroad magnates with great alacrity on both sides of the Atlantic. But in the hierarchy of criminals, the robber barons generally come out on top, and Gordon Squared just didn't anticipate that.
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Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner had one of the great love affairs of the last century. But it was actually a love triangle that included the famously-reclusive Howard Hughes. It gets wilder than that –– their love rivalry lasted decades and involved the mafia and the CIA. In fact, the dynamic forever changed Las Vegas and even ended the Rat Pack Era. This one is a wild midcentury tale... and 100% criminally ridiculous!
Using his logistical and felonious prowess, Adam Worth developed a sophisticated criminal network stealing money, art, and jewelry from high-value targets on two continents. Understated and cunning, Worth was so successful he inspired one of literature's greatest criminal masterminds. Quite the criming legacy.
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Who would possibly think it's a good idea to rob Johnny Cash...at Christmastime... in Jamaica? If this sounds like some sort of Mad Lib, trust us, it's not. This really happened. And oddly enough, it's actually a charming Christmastime tale.
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During WWII, there were lots of ways to contribute to the war effort. One involved sitting at a radio station on Long Island, feeding lies to the Nazis to aid the Allies. Owen House was the secret center of Operation Ostrich, the most intense counterintelligence effort you've never heard of.
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Let's say you're a German industrialist who needs to drive up the price of copper on the commodities market, would you hire a midcentury adventurer/boat captain and a pair of Miami skin divers to help you blow up a bridge in Zambia? If so, then you are the perps in this truly wild Cold War tale of international intrigue.
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Martha Stewart is more than a food and entertaining icon; she's a brand. Literally. But a brand can't lie to the feds and a brand can't go to jail. Martha Stewart the human, however, could and did just that. But you can't keep a tough gal down. Martha made a comeback and then some. And that's a good thing.
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If you were in a bad place, hard up financially, looking for work, and some sorta lifeline... how far down your list of options would be the idea: should I start a counterfeiting ring? For Jeff Turner that was his number one idea. And that's how he became the King of Counterfeiters. But it's also how Jeff ended up on this show, so clearly there were some challenges he didn't expect. For example, a duplicitous Cleveland heroin deale...
Applying to college. Oh, what a busy time that is for high school students. There are stressors like posing for a fake rowing photo or making sure your SAT ringer spelled your name right on the Scantron. See, while some teens spend all their time studying and participating in activities to get ahead, others spend their parents' cash to game the system. Gotta put that Full House syndication money to good use!
The 1920s was an era of radical change in the culture. One of the major indicators was the advent of The Flapper –- young women who rejected the previous generations' notions of femininity and embraced their own ideas of modern womanhood. This of course inspired a nationwide moral panic! Enter the Flapper Bandit –– a young woman who rejected previous notions of legality and embraced her own ideas of how to rob a b...
What's your favorite pizza topping? Pepperoni? Anchovies? A kilo of heroin? If it's the drugs, the Sicilian mob had a pizza parlor for you! They created networks of drug wholesale hubs in modest pizza joints up and down the East Coast. But the FBI is the one that delivered when it came to justice.
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When people speak of the first American bank robber, typically, they think of Jesse James. While he may have been the first world famous bandit and bank robber, he was not the most prolific. That was a man named George Leonidas Leslie, the first truly great American bank robber. He was an underground figure, an outlaw folk hero who made his living robbing the original robber barons.
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In wartime, codes and puzzles become a language of warfare. But if you can make a code, someone can break the code. Enter Velvalee Dickinson. She was a lover of costumed porcelain dolls and Japanese culture, and Velvalee was at the center of a truly bizarre doll-based mystery. During World War II, a team of female codebreakers investigated a series of letters from doll-lovers in the US sent to Argentina. The forged letters discusse...
She was America's Sweetheart, a woman whose gorgeous gams kept the antifascist Allied forces going as they won WWII. With talent, humor, beauty, and wit;, Betty Grable was a star. And with stardom comes creeps. And with creeps often comes crime. But if you come for Ms. Grable, you best not miss.
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Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton