# It's an Honor to Rob a Bank: Lucio Urtubia

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 27 Aug 2026, 52 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/3e0aff93-8da0-4846-b576-b4b2015a18ea/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

He fought for freedom, not just for his native Spain but for oppressed people worldwide. With his strong believe that, "the keystone of existence is doing right by one's neighbor," his subversive tactics used the tools of system against itself: fake passports and counterfeit cash. Oh, and phony traveler's checks, which is how he ran afoul of one of the largest banks in the world. But leave it to Lucio to get the last laugh. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Hi, Zarin.
[0:04] Speaker 3: Why, hello, Elizabeth.
[0:05] Speaker 2: How you doing?
[0:06] Speaker 3: I'm doing fantastic.
[0:07] Speaker 2: Quick question.
[0:08] Speaker 3: Yes.
[0:08] Speaker 2: You know what's ridiculous?
[0:09] Speaker 3: That is my shoe size. Oh, no, wait, what? Oh, yes,
[0:13] Speaker 3: I do know what's ridiculous.
[0:14] Speaker 4: Yes.
[0:14] Speaker 3: Okay. So you, uh, used to teach in the prisons and, uh,
[0:19] Speaker 3: you know, there's this thing called like a jailhouse lawyer,
[0:21] Speaker 3: but the people who like read a bunch of legal books,
[0:23] Speaker 3: they're not actual lawyers, but they like give people advice.
[0:25] Speaker 3: Sometimes they do become lawyers if they have that access
[0:28] Speaker 3: that they can actually take the bar or whatnot. But
[0:30] Speaker 3: usually it's just like, they read all of the law books.
[0:33] Speaker 3: They know everything. They're essentially like a country lawyer back
[0:36] Speaker 3: in the day. Well, uh, there was over in Kenya,
[0:39] Speaker 3: this cat named Brian Mwenda. And, uh, He decided he
[0:44] Speaker 3: would try to do that from outside of jail. He
[0:46] Speaker 3: was like, what if I just become a lawyer by
[0:49] Speaker 3: reading all of the books? And so then he hacked
[0:51] Speaker 3: into the official registry of lawyers in Kenya, like their bar.
[0:56] Speaker 3: He found some like they call them advocates. So he
[0:59] Speaker 3: found some advocate over there who had a very similar name,
[1:02] Speaker 3: like almost identical name. He stole this man's identity and
[1:06] Speaker 3: he starts practicing law on his own, right? Zero law license,
[1:10] Speaker 3: just nothing. He just decides I'm going for it. He's
[1:13] Speaker 3: involved in 26 cases, wins them all.
[1:16] Speaker 2: What?
[1:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, with real judges, real lawyers he's fighting against. And
[1:20] Speaker 3: he is winning. Nobody's on to him, right? And then eventually,
[1:25] Speaker 3: you know, somebody from their law society catches on. And
[1:29] Speaker 3: then they look into it, and they're like, wait, Brian Mwenda,
[1:32] Speaker 3: Brian Mula Wenda, wait a minute, or whatever.
[1:34] Speaker 2: Oh, right, yeah.
[1:35] Speaker 3: And then they start calling him like a liar, a cheat.
[1:39] Speaker 3: He gets arrested for identity theft. Yeah. And then he
[1:41] Speaker 3: goes to court and does what?
[1:43] Speaker 2: Represents himself.
[1:44] Speaker 3: Yes, he does, Elizabeth. And he wins his case. You're kidding.
[1:49] Speaker 4: Yes.
[1:49] Speaker 3: You're kidding. Representing himself. You know what they say, if
[1:53] Speaker 3: you represent yourself, you have a fool for a client. Well.
[1:55] Speaker 3: But he's like, well, there's always an exception.
[1:57] Speaker 2: I think that earns him a law license, quite frankly.
[2:00] Speaker 3: Right?
[2:00] Speaker 2: Ridiculous, huh? That is ridiculous. Do you want to know
[2:03] Speaker 2: what else is ridiculous?
[2:04] Speaker 3: Yes, please.
[2:06] Speaker 2: Anarchy. I don't even know what that means, but I
[2:09] Speaker 2: love it.
[2:09] Speaker 3: Okay.
[2:30] Speaker 2: This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
[2:36] Speaker 2: and cons. It's always 99% murder-free and 100% ridiculous.
[2:41] Speaker 3: Oh, you're damn right.
[2:43] Speaker 2: Lucio Ortubia.
[2:45] Speaker 3: What'd you call me?
[2:47] Speaker 2: Lucio Ortubia.
[2:48] Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. Yes.
[2:49] Speaker 2: He came into this world in 1931 in Cascante in
[2:55] Speaker 2: Spain's Basque country.
[2:56] Speaker 3: I remember it well.
[2:57] Speaker 2: Why am I talking about this?
[2:58] Speaker 3: Why are you telling my story?
[3:00] Speaker 2: Lucio Ortubia. Okay, so his family, like others around his,
[3:06] Speaker 2: was poor.
[3:06] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
[3:07] Speaker 2: There were six kids, which was normal. But this was
[3:11] Speaker 2: no ordinary family. They were smugglers.
[3:13] Speaker 3: Oh, heck yeah.
[3:14] Speaker 2: They were also deep into radical politics.
[3:17] Speaker 3: Oh, real Basque country.
[3:19] Speaker 2: The focus of which was mostly opposition to the regime
[3:22] Speaker 2: of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. So Ortubia, he got drafted into
[3:27] Speaker 2: Franco's army at 17, 1948. And when we say Franco's army,
[3:32] Speaker 2: what does that mean, Zarin?
[3:34] Speaker 3: Elizabeth, what does it mean when we say Franco's army?
[3:37] Speaker 2: Thank you. Let me give you a quick rundown on
[3:38] Speaker 2: that idea. As they used to say on the old
[3:42] Speaker 2: Saturday Night Live sketch, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
[3:46] Speaker 3: Yes.
[3:47] Speaker 2: But there's more than that. So Franco is one of
[3:49] Speaker 2: the most consequential figures in 20th century European history.
[3:54] Speaker 3: By the way, before you get too far into this,
[3:55] Speaker 3: you do know there's another use of Franco's army, right? No.
[3:58] Speaker 3: Franco Harris, the Pittsburgh Steelers running back. His fans were
[4:02] Speaker 3: called Franco's Army.
[4:03] Speaker 2: Oh, that's cute.
[4:04] Speaker 3: That's fun. I didn't know if you were going to
[4:05] Speaker 3: reference that, so I had to bring that in there, too.
[4:07] Speaker 3: Did they know all the— Oh, yeah, it was the 70s. Okay.
[4:09] Speaker 3: They very much knew. Generalissimo Francisco Franco was still dead.
[4:12] Speaker 2: Sure, but, like, why do you want to be— okay.
[4:14] Speaker 3: It's catchy, Elizabeth.
[4:15] Speaker 2: So he was a military officer who led a coup,
[4:19] Speaker 2: won a brutal civil war, and then ruled Spain as
[4:22] Speaker 2: a dictator for nearly four decades.
[4:23] Speaker 4: Yes.
[4:24] Speaker 2: So let's start with the Spanish Civil War, shall we?
[4:26] Speaker 3: The longest lasting of the fascist leaders.
[4:28] Speaker 4: Yes.
[4:30] Speaker 2: So the Spanish Civil War went on from 1936 to 1939.
[4:33] Speaker 2: And Ortubia was still a boy at the time.
[4:36] Speaker 4: Yes.
[4:37] Speaker 2: So Spain's Second Republic, which was established the year Ortubia
[4:41] Speaker 2: was born in 1931, was like super politically fractured. And
[4:45] Speaker 2: it would swing back and forth between left-wing, right-wing governments
[4:49] Speaker 2: and And there were all these like social tensions over
[4:52] Speaker 2: land reform, the role of the church, regional autonomy. So Catalonia,
[4:57] Speaker 2: Basque country, and then like labor unrest. And in February
[5:01] Speaker 2: of 1936, a popular front coalition of left-wing parties won elections.
[5:07] Speaker 3: Oh yeah. That's always danger.
[5:09] Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
[5:09] Speaker 3: Conservatives. The church is going to go nuts.
[5:11] Speaker 2: Monarchists, the military, the church freaked out. So in July
[5:16] Speaker 2: of 1936, this group of generals launched a military uprising
[5:20] Speaker 2: against the duly elected government. And it succeeded in some
[5:24] Speaker 2: regions but failed in others like Madrid and Barcelona. So
[5:28] Speaker 2: this split the country into nationalist and republican zones. And
[5:32] Speaker 2: it was this stalemate that turned a coup into a
[5:36] Speaker 2: three-year civil war. Franco was not like one of the
[5:39] Speaker 2: initial lead conspirators.
[5:41] Speaker 3: No, he's like a colonel or something.
[5:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, but he wound up. as the supreme commander after
[5:46] Speaker 2: other key generals died pretty early on. So Franco's nationalists
[5:51] Speaker 2: got huge, big-time military support from Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy.
[5:57] Speaker 3: Yes.
[5:58] Speaker 2: Which like, draw your conclusions.
[5:59] Speaker 3: And the church in Rome.
[6:00] Speaker 2: And the church in Rome. So there you go. So
[6:02] Speaker 2: the Republic, on the other hand, was getting like limited
[6:05] Speaker 2: aid from the Soviets, from Mexico, and then volunteers from
[6:09] Speaker 2: the international brigades. So the nationalist forces, the ones behind
[6:14] Speaker 2: the coup, they gained ground. They took Barcelona in early 1939.
[6:17] Speaker 2: Madrid fell in March of 39. And the war ended
[6:19] Speaker 2: in April of 1939 with a nationalist victory that Death
[6:26] Speaker 2: toll was like somewhere between 500,000 and a million people.
[6:30] Speaker 2: It's horrific. Absolutely horrific. Also horrific, the immediate post-war years
[6:36] Speaker 2: called the years of hunger for the people of Spain.
[6:39] Speaker 3: Of course, because all the industry has been, the farms,
[6:41] Speaker 3: everything's been ruined.
[6:42] Speaker 2: Yeah. Political parties were banned. The Catalan and Basque regional
[6:46] Speaker 2: identities and languages fully suppressed. Franco kept Spain officially neutral
[6:52] Speaker 2: in World War II, but was sympathetic to the Axis, obviously.
[6:56] Speaker 2: And he sent the Blue Division to fight alongside Germany
[7:00] Speaker 2: on the Eastern Front while avoiding, like, full entry into
[7:03] Speaker 2: the war.
[7:04] Speaker 3: I'm neutral.
[7:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm neutral, but here, have some troops.
[7:06] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[7:07] Speaker 2: So it was this balancing act that kind of helped
[7:09] Speaker 2: him survive when Hitler and Mussolini were out of there.
[7:12] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[7:13] Speaker 2: Yeah. So after World War II, Spain was like internationally isolated.
[7:18] Speaker 3: Yes, that's a good way of putting it. Yeah.
[7:20] Speaker 2: And that's the period when Ortubia was conscripted. So Franco
[7:25] Speaker 2: has this like fierce... anti-communist, you know, streak. And that
[7:30] Speaker 2: made him a really useful Cold War partner.
[7:33] Speaker 4: To the U.S.
[7:33] Speaker 3: I was just about to say, that's why he got
[7:35] Speaker 3: to be alive for so long.
[7:36] Speaker 2: The U.S. signed base agreements with Spain in 1953.
[7:39] Speaker 3: We can work with the fascists.
[7:41] Speaker 2: Spain joined the U.N. in 55, and they're, like, slowly
[7:44] Speaker 2: easing the isolation. And then, like, the technocrats come in,
[7:49] Speaker 2: and they want economic liberalization. So basically rapid industrial growth
[7:55] Speaker 2: and like tourism driven development.
[7:57] Speaker 3: They wanted what Italy had. Yeah.
[7:59] Speaker 2: Even while there's still all this political repression, there's censorship,
[8:03] Speaker 2: no free elections. They're suppressing dissent, like going against Basque nationalists,
[8:08] Speaker 2: labor movements. And they're like, would you like some totalitarianism
[8:11] Speaker 2: with your tapas? Oh, tourists. So that gives you an
[8:15] Speaker 2: idea of Ortubia, Spain and the Basque region. Now, remember,
[8:20] Speaker 2: he gets pulled into the army, and when there, he
[8:24] Speaker 2: held up the family tradition of smuggling.
[8:27] Speaker 3: Nice.
[8:28] Speaker 2: And in this case, it was rations from military stores
[8:30] Speaker 2: on the French-Spanish border. All sorts of things.
[8:33] Speaker 3: Oh, okay.
[8:34] Speaker 2: Ortubia later remembered, quote, Suddenly found myself surrounded by thousands
[8:43] Speaker 2: of shirts, thousands of pairs of trousers, thousands of everything imaginable,
[8:48] Speaker 2: and I started stealing from them. What a pleasure it
[8:51] Speaker 2: was to rob the fatherland, that land that had given
[8:55] Speaker 2: me nothing but hunger, injustice, and crime. That was what
[8:59] Speaker 2: I experienced as a child. How could I possibly love
[9:02] Speaker 2: the fatherland?
[9:03] Speaker 3: So he's like Orson Welles in The Third Man, like
[9:06] Speaker 3: the Harry Lyme where he's just stealing military stuff. Exactly.
[9:10] Speaker 2: So he gets busted for this in 1954 and just
[9:12] Speaker 2: makes a run for it. He goes AWOL. He heads
[9:14] Speaker 2: to France. And that was a wise move because pilfering
[9:18] Speaker 2: and smuggling were capital offenses in Spain.
[9:21] Speaker 3: Oh, I bet.
[9:21] Speaker 2: Yeah, he would get the death penalty. And so it
[9:24] Speaker 2: was that he found himself in Paris in 1954. Two
[9:29] Speaker 2: of his sisters had made their way there, too. He
[9:32] Speaker 2: got a job as a mason, bricklayer. And it was
[9:35] Speaker 2: like a good, solid career that would keep him with
[9:38] Speaker 2: opportunities throughout his life.
[9:39] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. They had a lot to rebuild. Sure.
[9:42] Speaker 2: Very true. And so that was his day job. In
[9:46] Speaker 2: the evenings, he would meet up with fellow Spaniards, Catalonians,
[9:50] Speaker 2: and not simply Catalonians, but Catalonian anarchists.
[9:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go.
[9:55] Speaker 2: So according to the MERS Day Bita Cola project, quote,
[10:00] Speaker 2: began to associate with the libertarian youth of the Fédération Anarchiste,
[10:05] Speaker 2: at first to learn French, but quickly, with full conviction
[10:09] Speaker 2: in the relationships he was able to establish and forge
[10:11] Speaker 2: there with intellectuals such as André Breton, and Albert Camus.
[10:15] Speaker 3: Whoa.
[10:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's run with the big dogs.
[10:18] Speaker 3: Hell yeah.
[10:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, so Ortubia recounted, quote, while living in Paris, the
[10:24] Speaker 2: anarchist Germinal Garcia asked me to hide three Spanish revolutionaries.
[10:28] Speaker 2: One of them turned out to be the legendary Kiko Sabate.
[10:32] Speaker 2: When I found out who it was, And then it's
[10:34] Speaker 2: just an exclamation point is what he wrote. Because at
[10:38] Speaker 2: that time, El Kiko was already very well known among us.
[10:42] Speaker 2: In Franco's Spain, he was the regime's number one public enemy.
[10:45] Speaker 2: But for me, he was God. So Kiko Sabate, a.k.a.
[10:50] Speaker 2: El Kiko, a.k.a. Francesc Sabate-Jopart, he was a Catalan anarchist
[10:57] Speaker 2: guerrilla fighter, one of the most famous of the anti-Franco
[11:01] Speaker 2: resistance fighters. And he kept the fight going long after
[11:04] Speaker 2: the Spanish Civil War ended.
[11:05] Speaker 3: And he's like a successful bandit too, right? Yes, yes.
[11:09] Speaker 2: So in 1932, he formed an action group called Los Novatos,
[11:13] Speaker 2: the Apprentices.
[11:14] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
[11:15] Speaker 2: And they aligned with the Iberian Anarchist Federation, FAI. In 1935,
[11:21] Speaker 2: the group had carried out all these armed robberies to
[11:24] Speaker 2: fund prisoner relief efforts. And that was like typical of
[11:28] Speaker 2: the militant anarchist, quote, action group.
[11:31] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
[11:31] Speaker 2: Culture in Barcelona at the time.
[11:33] Speaker 3: Stalin robbed banks, too.
[11:34] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[11:35] Speaker 2: So when Franco's coup broke out in July of 36,
[11:39] Speaker 2: Sabaté and his brother, José, joined the Republican efforts in battle.
[11:44] Speaker 2: And after the Republic's defeat in 39, Sabaté was interned
[11:48] Speaker 2: in a concentration camp in France.
[11:50] Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
[11:50] Speaker 2: And he later joined the French resistance against the Nazi occupation.
[11:54] Speaker 3: Good on you, brother.
[11:55] Speaker 2: Right? He's a fighter. After World War II, rather than
[11:58] Speaker 2: accepting exile, he became one of the leading figures of
[12:02] Speaker 2: the anti-Franco guerrillas who launched cross-border raids. They would go
[12:06] Speaker 2: from France into Catalonia.
[12:09] Speaker 3: They got those mountains to hide in. Sure, yeah. It's
[12:11] Speaker 3: always beautiful.
[12:11] Speaker 2: And so the Sabaté brothers, this time Kiko and Pepe...
[12:15] Speaker 2: They turned their focus from the idea of mass anarchist
[12:19] Speaker 2: insurrection toward using guerrilla actions as propaganda to keep anti-Francoist
[12:25] Speaker 2: resistance alive in their comrades.
[12:27] Speaker 3: Totally. Keep the fight alive. Yeah. Keep hope alive.
[12:31] Speaker 2: His operations mixed political resistance with like a little crime
[12:35] Speaker 2: as a treat.
[12:35] Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
[12:36] Speaker 2: Yeah. Bank robberies, bombings.
[12:38] Speaker 3: Some Robin Hood energy.
[12:39] Speaker 2: And it was all to fund the cause.
[12:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
[12:42] Speaker 2: And that's how he became a legend. He evaded capture
[12:45] Speaker 2: for years, and that made him like a folk hero
[12:47] Speaker 2: in some anarchist and Catalan resistance circles. There were movies
[12:52] Speaker 2: about him, biographies written.
[12:54] Speaker 3: And also, the Mexican Revolution had a lot of these characters.
[12:58] Speaker 3: It was very popular in the imagination that you need
[13:00] Speaker 3: these figures in your fight.
[13:02] Speaker 2: Exactly. So he continued... His clandestine campaign into the 50s,
[13:08] Speaker 2: late 1950s. And this was way after most of the
[13:11] Speaker 2: resistance had been crushed.
[13:12] Speaker 3: I was going to say, yeah.
[13:13] Speaker 2: And then there's Uturbia hiding him.
[13:16] Speaker 4: Yes.
[13:17] Speaker 2: And you can see why it was an honor and
[13:19] Speaker 2: inspiration for him. According to Toward Freedom, quote, The young
[13:23] Speaker 2: Lucio listened to Sabaté' s tales of direct action and absorbed
[13:27] Speaker 2: whatever wisdom he had to offer, like methods for sniffing
[13:31] Speaker 2: out infiltrators. And as Ortubia put it, quote, I met
[13:36] Speaker 2: guerrillas that put me on the road to direct action
[13:39] Speaker 2: and expropriations. Sabaté taught me to lose respect for private property.
[13:48] Speaker 3: Taught me to lose respect for, I love that.
[13:50] Speaker 2: You love that? Under Sabaté' s tutelage, Urtubia kicked off what
[13:54] Speaker 2: would be a long career of bank robberies, smuggling, and forgery.
[13:59] Speaker 3: I'm so jealous.
[14:00] Speaker 2: So, like, passports, traveler's checks, currency. Most of the proceeds
[14:04] Speaker 2: went to groups working with political prisoners in Spain.
[14:07] Speaker 4: Totally.
[14:07] Speaker 1: Okay.
[14:08] Speaker 3: Makes sense.
[14:08] Speaker 2: So, Sabate, now, he was cold-blooded. He didn't mind violence.
[14:13] Speaker 2: Not so of Urtubia. He couldn't stand physical violence. And
[14:17] Speaker 2: he liked economic violence.
[14:19] Speaker 3: Okay. I'm with it.
[14:20] Speaker 2: So 1962, Che Guevara is traveling throughout Europe as head
[14:25] Speaker 2: of the National Bank of Cuba.
[14:27] Speaker 3: Oh, right.
[14:28] Speaker 2: And in France, he met Lucio Ortubia.
[14:31] Speaker 3: Get out of town. This guy meets everybody. Everybody.
[14:34] Speaker 2: And so Ortubia is like, Che, Che, Che, come here.
[14:36] Speaker 2: I have this incredible plan. You've got to hear it.
[14:39] Speaker 2: He's like, I'm going to counterfeit literal tons of American
[14:43] Speaker 2: dollars and I'm going to distribute them worldwide. Oh, yeah.
[14:47] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[14:47] Speaker 2: Just send them around. And he's thinking that the phony
[14:50] Speaker 2: currency is going to devalue the dollar and then ultimately
[14:53] Speaker 2: bring down the U.S. I mean, it's a cute idea.
[14:56] Speaker 2: It's a little naive, but there you go. Ortubia told
[15:00] Speaker 2: Che that he would make the printing plates for the
[15:03] Speaker 2: counterfeit dollars and then Cuba could handle the production and distribution. Like, bing, bang, boom.
[15:08] Speaker 3: Bye-bye, Uncle Sam.
[15:10] Speaker 1: Okay.
[15:10] Speaker 2: So Ortubia, he gave Che a sample of his fake bills. Like, hey,
[15:14] Speaker 2: check them out.
[15:15] Speaker 3: Look at my work.
[15:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, Che's like, oh, yeah, okay, thanks. I'll think about it.
[15:18] Speaker 2: Sticks it in his pocket. A few months go by.
[15:21] Speaker 2: Ortubia finally hears from Che, not interested. This is not
[15:25] Speaker 2: a goer. We're not going to do this. But Ortubia,
[15:27] Speaker 2: he's undeterred. And so I've mentioned the uprisings in Paris
[15:31] Speaker 2: in 1968 before.
[15:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, another commune.
[15:34] Speaker 2: So Ortubia, he used that as his motivation to open
[15:38] Speaker 2: a print shop. And so he started making political posters
[15:41] Speaker 2: and pamphlets. And then he also churned out fake passports,
[15:46] Speaker 2: fake ID cards.
[15:47] Speaker 3: I mean, once you got the printer going.
[15:48] Speaker 2: Fake paychecks.
[15:49] Speaker 3: Oh, really? Right. Back before they had magnetic ink?
[15:53] Speaker 2: Uh-huh. Ortubia later wrote, quote, one of my greatest delights
[15:57] Speaker 2: in those days was, quote, liberating office equipment, typewriters, copiers,
[16:02] Speaker 2: offset presses, whatever I could get my hands on for
[16:05] Speaker 2: it could all be moved down to Spain.
[16:07] Speaker 3: I love this guy. I know.
[16:09] Speaker 2: So let's take a break. And when we come back,
[16:10] Speaker 2: more crime in the name of anarchy.
[16:34] Speaker 3: Zarin. From Elizabeth.
[16:35] Speaker 2: So I was just telling you about how Lucio Ortubia.
[16:39] Speaker 3: Met everybody. Stole everything. Met everybody.
[16:42] Speaker 2: He loved liberating office equipment. Sending it from France to Spain.
[16:48] Speaker 2: In one particular incident, right-wing goons burned down a small
[16:53] Speaker 2: printing press in Spain.
[16:54] Speaker 3: Okay.
[16:54] Speaker 2: And it was run by these like idealistic young folks.
[16:57] Speaker 3: Sure. They're running a printing press.
[16:59] Speaker 2: In rebuilding the project, they contacted Ortubia. And they were hoping, like,
[17:04] Speaker 2: can you source a reinforced door for us?
[17:08] Speaker 3: That was their answer. We need a stronger door.
[17:10] Speaker 2: A stronger door. As Ortubia explained, quote, back then, France
[17:15] Speaker 2: was extremely rich and you could get anything you wanted.
[17:18] Speaker 3: How thick a door? What are the measurements?
[17:21] Speaker 2: So, Zarin, close your eyes.
[17:23] Speaker 3: Oh, hell yeah. My eyes are closed.
[17:24] Speaker 2: I want you to picture it. You are an iron door.
[17:33] Speaker 2: You were forged in France, and it is in France
[17:35] Speaker 2: you now sit, leaned up against a large stack of
[17:39] Speaker 2: bricks at a building site. You are destined for use
[17:42] Speaker 2: in this new building, or so you think. What do
[17:45] Speaker 2: you know? You're a door. It's five in the morning.
[17:48] Speaker 2: The songbirds are singing in the trees beside the framework
[17:51] Speaker 2: of wood and rebar that cast long shadows in the
[17:54] Speaker 2: burgeoning daylight. You're covered in a fine coat of morning dew.
[17:59] Speaker 2: In the distance, you hear a bicycle bell. Then you
[18:01] Speaker 2: hear the gentle rumble of a work van. This seems
[18:04] Speaker 2: a little early. These guys should be arriving for another
[18:06] Speaker 2: hour or so. How strange. The van pulls close to you. Ah,
[18:11] Speaker 2: it's the mason, you realize. He comes your way, which
[18:14] Speaker 2: makes sense. After all, you are leaning against an enormous
[18:17] Speaker 2: stockpile of bricks. But he stops in front of you,
[18:20] Speaker 2: assessing you. He takes a rag from his back pocket
[18:23] Speaker 2: and sighs as he wipes the dew from each side
[18:26] Speaker 2: of you. As he shoves the rag in the back
[18:28] Speaker 2: pocket of his work pants, he looks around. Not a soul.
[18:32] Speaker 2: Then he tips you over and turns you on the side,
[18:35] Speaker 2: parallel with the ground. He sets you on a nearby
[18:38] Speaker 2: work cart and pushes you toward the van, the cart's
[18:41] Speaker 2: wheels struggling over the uneven dirt below. He reaches the
[18:44] Speaker 2: van and walks over to open the back doors. Then
[18:47] Speaker 2: he stands there, looking back and forth between you and
[18:50] Speaker 2: the van. He seems to be contemplating how on earth
[18:53] Speaker 2: he'll lift you from the cart to the storage area
[18:56] Speaker 2: in the vehicle. This isn't how it's supposed to be.
[18:59] Speaker 2: You belong here at this future building. You've gotten used
[19:02] Speaker 2: to the climate and the location. You've grown fond of
[19:05] Speaker 2: the workers and the light in the evening. Where is
[19:08] Speaker 2: he taking you? Just then you hear the sound of
[19:11] Speaker 2: tires approaching.
[19:12] Speaker 3: It's the cops.
[19:13] Speaker 2: You hope they're able to correct this misunderstanding to make
[19:16] Speaker 2: sure you stay where you are. The doors of the
[19:19] Speaker 2: police car open and two officers step out. They greet
[19:22] Speaker 2: the mason and stare at the door. They ask him
[19:25] Speaker 2: what he thinks he's doing. Stealing property? No, the mason
[19:29] Speaker 2: assures them, gesturing to his work clothes. He tells them
[19:31] Speaker 2: he works here. That he was told to load up
[19:34] Speaker 2: the door and take it to another work site across town.
[19:37] Speaker 2: He tells them it was dropped off here by mistake.
[19:40] Speaker 2: Cops stare at him. The mason stares back. Your boss
[19:43] Speaker 2: could have gotten someone to help you out, one of
[19:46] Speaker 2: the cops exclaims. They offer to lend a hand. The
[19:49] Speaker 2: mason thanks them for it. but as he rounds to
[19:51] Speaker 2: the other side of the cart.
[19:52] Speaker 3: He mutters, idiots.
[19:54] Speaker 2: The three men lift you up and gently set you
[19:56] Speaker 2: in the back of the van. No jostling, no banging.
[19:59] Speaker 2: You're nestled on top of a heavy wool blanket, empty
[20:02] Speaker 2: buckets and well-worn trowels beside you. The mason tosses a
[20:06] Speaker 2: canvas tarp over you, sending you into total darkness. You
[20:09] Speaker 2: hear the songbirds again until the back doors of the
[20:12] Speaker 2: van are slammed shut. The mason and the police officers
[20:16] Speaker 2: exchange muffled pleasantries. Then you hear the cops get into
[20:19] Speaker 2: their car and drive away. The mason climbs into the
[20:23] Speaker 2: driver's seat of the van and turns to look your way.
[20:26] Speaker 2: Or at least that's what it sounds like when you
[20:28] Speaker 2: hear him say, you're going to love Spain, amiga. So
[20:32] Speaker 2: is Aaron. This continued on all through the 60s and 70s.
[20:37] Speaker 3: By the way, can I just say, as a former
[20:39] Speaker 3: construction worker who wore a uniform of a house painter,
[20:41] Speaker 3: just basically paint whites covered in speckles of color, I
[20:46] Speaker 3: could look like I'd beaten up clowns, right? I was
[20:48] Speaker 3: just covered in color, right? And all these people, people
[20:51] Speaker 3: will point this out often, you can pretty much get
[20:53] Speaker 3: away with anything if you're wearing either a high-vis vest
[20:57] Speaker 3: and legitimate dirty boots and jeans or paint whites. Or
[21:02] Speaker 3: you walk in with certain, like a ladder and like
[21:04] Speaker 3: maybe a couple of tools. Cause everybody's like, oh. One,
[21:07] Speaker 3: they think that you're, like, beneath them doing something they
[21:10] Speaker 3: don't want to hear about.
[21:10] Speaker 2: Sure.
[21:11] Speaker 3: And so they're like, of course. And you're often going
[21:12] Speaker 3: to be doing weird things, removing things. Right. Asking a
[21:16] Speaker 3: cop for help removing a door. And everyone's like, of course.
[21:19] Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
[21:19] Speaker 3: Like, I'm telling you, if you want to rob a bank,
[21:21] Speaker 3: go get yourself some paint whites and have at it.
[21:24] Speaker 3: Nobody will be like, I won't even remember. I didn't
[21:26] Speaker 3: really look at them.
[21:27] Speaker 2: Right.
[21:27] Speaker 4: Exactly.
[21:27] Speaker 3: You know, that's the other part. They don't really look
[21:29] Speaker 3: at you.
[21:29] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that played in his favor when he
[21:32] Speaker 2: was stealing stuff.
[21:33] Speaker 3: So, brilliant choice.
[21:34] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[21:35] Speaker 3: Exactly.
[21:36] Speaker 2: He worked full time as a mason on.
[21:38] Speaker 3: These construction projects.
[21:40] Speaker 2: And at night, then he's making these fake passports and
[21:44] Speaker 2: paychecks and ID cards. According to Jacobin Magazine, quote, Originally,
[21:49] Speaker 2: the passports were produced with South American refugees and Spanish
[21:53] Speaker 2: dissidents in mind. But later, everyone from Germany's Bader-Meinhof group
[21:58] Speaker 2: to the Black Panthers would use them.
[22:00] Speaker 3: Oh, damn. So you got Stokey Carmichael?
[22:02] Speaker 2: He was the one who made the passports for the
[22:04] Speaker 2: Black Panthers.
[22:05] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that was him. Timothy Leary, when he was
[22:07] Speaker 3: on his run to Algeria?
[22:08] Speaker 1: Yes.
[22:09] Speaker 3: That was him. Oh, wow.
[22:10] Speaker 2: He also collaborated on the kidnapping of Nazi war criminal
[22:14] Speaker 2: Klaus Barbie in Bolivia, the Butcher of Lyon, who terrorized
[22:18] Speaker 2: the French resistance. What's crazy is that it was the U.S.
[22:22] Speaker 2: who got Klaus Barbie to Bolivia in order to run
[22:26] Speaker 2: from an arrest warrant in France.
[22:27] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
[22:28] Speaker 2: It's like the CIA was working with him because he
[22:30] Speaker 2: was anti-communist.
[22:31] Speaker 3: Totally. That's our favorite get-out-of-jail-free card.
[22:33] Speaker 2: Well, and the Soviets were a major part of wreck-and-shop
[22:36] Speaker 2: on Nazi Germany.
[22:37] Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
[22:38] Speaker 2: So once he got to Bolivia, Barbie's like, I'll do
[22:40] Speaker 2: some consulting work. And he advised the dictator there how
[22:43] Speaker 2: to squash resistance by using torture.
[22:46] Speaker 3: He said Bolivia, right? Which is where Che met his end.
[22:49] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[22:49] Speaker 3: So there's a direct connection.
[22:50] Speaker 2: There's a direct connection. So the U.S. was like, oh,
[22:52] Speaker 2: we're so sorry we helped him, but whatever, too late.
[22:54] Speaker 3: What do you know about rockets?
[22:57] Speaker 2: In 83, Barbie was arrested, extradited to France, convicted of
[23:00] Speaker 2: crimes against humanity, got a life sentence. He had been
[23:03] Speaker 2: given the death penalty in two previous trials where he
[23:06] Speaker 2: was brought up on charges in absentia. But then capital
[23:09] Speaker 2: punishment was abolished in France in 1981. So off to
[23:13] Speaker 2: the cell he went, died in 91 of cancer, good
[23:15] Speaker 2: riddance to bad rubbish. Back to Ortubia. So he was
[23:20] Speaker 2: trying to like, he was trying to bring him to justice.
[23:23] Speaker 2: In 1970, Ortubia and his wife Anne had a daughter, Juliet.
[23:28] Speaker 2: And Ortubia described her interesting childhood. Quote, Juliet was raised
[23:34] Speaker 2: in our ethos of clandestinity. She used to help her
[23:38] Speaker 2: mother in preparing a thousand different things in secret locations.
[23:41] Speaker 3: I love this.
[23:42] Speaker 2: Like what an upbringing, right?
[23:43] Speaker 3: Totally.
[23:44] Speaker 2: So let's talk about the paychecks he was making.
[23:47] Speaker 3: Please, I'd be curious about this.
[23:49] Speaker 2: That was interesting. So 1977 is when he came up
[23:51] Speaker 2: with this plan. He would make up fake identities for
[23:55] Speaker 2: workers who didn't exist. And then he and his crew
[23:58] Speaker 2: drew up paychecks for these invented people. And then they
[24:02] Speaker 2: drew up fake IDs for these invented people. And operatives
[24:06] Speaker 2: carrying the fake IDs will go to a bank and
[24:08] Speaker 2: cash the fake checks and then stroll out with cash
[24:12] Speaker 2: for the cause.
[24:14] Speaker 3: So they're able to cash the checks on the accounts
[24:17] Speaker 3: that are held by that bank. So let's just say
[24:20] Speaker 3: it's a construction company. So like, you know, Sunrise Construction
[24:24] Speaker 3: Company has an account of that bank.
[24:26] Speaker 4: Right.
[24:27] Speaker 3: I was given a check. They look at it and
[24:28] Speaker 3: they just cash it.
[24:29] Speaker 2: They cash it right there.
[24:30] Speaker 3: Okay. Interesting.
[24:31] Speaker 2: And that was working well, so he expanded on it.
[24:34] Speaker 2: And he decided to make copies of real traveler's checks.
[24:38] Speaker 3: Wow.
[24:39] Speaker 2: Books of $ 100.
[24:40] Speaker 3: International. Oh, yeah.
[24:41] Speaker 2: So he would change the serial numbers so they didn't
[24:44] Speaker 2: show up as lost or stolen.
[24:45] Speaker 3: Okay.
[24:46] Speaker 2: But all the ones he made would have the same
[24:49] Speaker 2: bogus serial number.
[24:50] Speaker 4: Hmm.
[24:51] Speaker 2: And then his people would synchronize watches and go to
[24:54] Speaker 2: banks across the city at the exact same time and
[24:58] Speaker 2: cash the traveler's checks.
[24:59] Speaker 3: And there's no electronic records, so nobody knows.
[25:01] Speaker 2: Right. Because they're avoiding suspicion. Like if one person passed
[25:05] Speaker 2: a fake check, serial number would be logged.
[25:07] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[25:07] Speaker 2: And it would prevent any further use of the number.
[25:10] Speaker 2: But if you hit all at once, they don't know.
[25:12] Speaker 3: They're all logging at the same time.
[25:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, until the checks are sent off and then go
[25:15] Speaker 2: through the clearing process. And as you were saying, nothing's online.
[25:19] Speaker 3: Back then it took a few days to clear checks.
[25:21] Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. And Ortubia, he selected a very specific target bank.
[25:26] Speaker 3: Which one?
[25:27] Speaker 2: First National City Bank, now known as just Citibank.
[25:31] Speaker 3: Oh.
[25:32] Speaker 2: Here's how he explained it. Quote, We had an infrastructure
[25:37] Speaker 2: unrivaled by any other revolutionary organization, and our forgery operations
[25:42] Speaker 2: were going extremely well. At one point, it occurred to
[25:45] Speaker 2: us that we should counterfeit U.S. dollars, that being a
[25:49] Speaker 2: currency a lot easier to forge than ID cards or
[25:52] Speaker 2: passports from various countries. But we knew that we were
[25:55] Speaker 2: facing a 20-year jail term for counterfeiting the dollar, if
[25:59] Speaker 2: anything went wrong. So we dropped the dollar idea and
[26:02] Speaker 2: turned our thoughts to traveler's checks instead. Our attention settled
[26:06] Speaker 2: on the First National City Bank of the United States,
[26:09] Speaker 2: which was probably the mightiest bank in the world at
[26:11] Speaker 2: the time.
[26:11] Speaker 3: Interesting.
[26:12] Speaker 2: We're just going for the top.
[26:13] Speaker 3: It's interesting that the checks don't carry the same penalty
[26:16] Speaker 3: as the dollar. I mean, obviously, the Treasury, they're going
[26:18] Speaker 3: to come after you for that. But it's like, How
[26:21] Speaker 3: much less time are we talking? Right.
[26:23] Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know. But how much did he take
[26:25] Speaker 2: them for.
[26:25] Speaker 3: Is a good question. How much, Elizabeth, did he take
[26:27] Speaker 3: them for?
[26:27] Speaker 2: The equivalent today of 20 million euros.
[26:30] Speaker 3: Oh, snap. Did it, brother.
[26:32] Speaker 2: He absolutely flooded the market with thousands of counterfeit traveler's checks.
[26:37] Speaker 3: All for the cause. All for the cause.
[26:39] Speaker 2: So Urtubia, he went to Brussels and he bought 30,000
[26:43] Speaker 2: francs worth of Citibank traveler's checks. He used fake IDs,
[26:47] Speaker 2: of course. Then he starts making the copies. he said, quote,
[26:52] Speaker 2: this was all very exacting work, but when you're driven
[26:54] Speaker 2: by an ideal, you take pleasure in it.
[26:57] Speaker 3: I would imagine.
[26:58] Speaker 2: He's a craftsman no matter what he does. Totally.
[27:00] Speaker 3: And how good it would feel using your crafts for
[27:02] Speaker 3: like right purpose.
[27:03] Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. Right livelihood.
[27:06] Speaker 3: So if he would go and buy these $ 30, 000 of
[27:08] Speaker 3: traveler's checks and then he'd go and he'd make like
[27:10] Speaker 3: 10 versions of each check and then they go out
[27:13] Speaker 3: and they cash them.
[27:13] Speaker 2: They go out and cash them. And so when he
[27:16] Speaker 2: says exacting, he means that he taught himself how to
[27:18] Speaker 2: do it all. Like he became an expert in photo
[27:22] Speaker 2: engraving and he started producing these books by the Hundreds
[27:27] Speaker 2: of kilos of traveler's checks. Kilos is how they measured it.
[27:32] Speaker 2: He was funding revolutions all over the world without a
[27:35] Speaker 2: drop of blood being shed. According to El Espectador, quote,
[27:41] Speaker 2: with tons of counterfeit checks distributed across Madrid, Barcelona, Paris,
[27:45] Speaker 2: and Brussels, among other European cities, more than 40 people
[27:49] Speaker 2: would enter the bank branches simultaneously to cash them in.
[27:53] Speaker 2: They managed to secure 7 million pesetas in the currency
[27:57] Speaker 2: value of 30 years ago. They obtained that same amount
[28:01] Speaker 2: with the same ease and precision over the course of
[28:03] Speaker 2: several weeks. It's estimated that they managed to siphon off
[28:07] Speaker 2: $ 20 million. So those 40 people worked in pairs.
[28:11] Speaker 3: Okay. How did they work?
[28:12] Speaker 2: One would go into the cash, the check. The other
[28:14] Speaker 2: would kind of keep watch. Each of the pairs would
[28:16] Speaker 2: hit up about 15 banks and then leave the city,
[28:19] Speaker 2: like in and out in one day.
[28:20] Speaker 3: Now, do you think that the one on watch had
[28:22] Speaker 3: like a distraction ready, like a smoke bomb if anything
[28:24] Speaker 3: went wrong and then they both clear?
[28:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And so the money was split like a
[28:30] Speaker 2: third for the team on the ground, a third for
[28:33] Speaker 2: what they would refer to as infrastructural expenses, and a
[28:37] Speaker 2: third for the movement. And Ortubia later explained, quote, I
[28:41] Speaker 2: didn't steal. I expropriated. He who robs a thief gets
[28:46] Speaker 2: 100 years of forgiveness. It's an honor to rob a bank.
[28:50] Speaker 2: If people could do it, they would. They don't because
[28:52] Speaker 2: they can't or they don't know how. It's an honor
[28:56] Speaker 2: to rob a bank.
[28:57] Speaker 3: I love that. Right?
[28:59] Speaker 2: So let's take a break. After these ads, we're going
[29:01] Speaker 2: to follow more of the activities of the honorable bank robber.
[29:25] Speaker 3: Zarin. Elizabeth.
[29:26] Speaker 2: Welcome back.
[29:27] Speaker 3: Can I say how much I love this guy?
[29:29] Speaker 2: I told you. I told you when I came into
[29:32] Speaker 2: headquarters today.
[29:33] Speaker 3: Viva Lucio.
[29:34] Speaker 2: You're gonna love this dude you're so right uh so
[29:36] Speaker 2: lucio ortubia uh caller you're on the air uh do
[29:41] Speaker 2: you ever wonder what it would be like if we
[29:42] Speaker 2: did this live and had people calling in no i
[29:45] Speaker 2: do i think 80 of the calls Would be people
[29:48] Speaker 2: correcting my pronunciation of things. I'd be like 80%.
[29:51] Speaker 3: Only 80%.
[29:52] Speaker 2: But it'd be fun. Like long time rude dude, first
[29:55] Speaker 2: time caller.
[29:55] Speaker 3: That part would be fun. Having the callers live, I
[29:58] Speaker 3: think that would be fun. I would have to like
[30:02] Speaker 3: hold my tongue on my reactions and stuff. And someone's like, well,
[30:04] Speaker 3: you pronounced that wrong. I'm like, I pronounced it alternatively.
[30:07] Speaker 2: I think I'm going to start answering my phone with caller,
[30:12] Speaker 2: you're on the air.
[30:12] Speaker 3: That would be incredible.
[30:14] Speaker 4: Right?
[30:15] Speaker 2: Does any of this make sense to people under, like, say, 30?
[30:19] Speaker 3: Probably not.
[30:20] Speaker 2: Probably not. Do they know about radio talk shows? Aside
[30:23] Speaker 2: from the wonderful iHeartRadio stations out there.
[30:25] Speaker 3: But, I mean, honestly, I don't know.
[30:26] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[30:27] Speaker 3: I lose track of who would know what. I just
[30:30] Speaker 3: assume at this point most people under 30 don't know
[30:33] Speaker 3: most of the stuff that I experienced or know. Yeah.
[30:35] Speaker 2: Or like, am I the seventh caller?
[30:37] Speaker 3: I saw this thing that people were debating where this
[30:40] Speaker 3: Gen Z person was saying they watch movies from millennial
[30:44] Speaker 3: times when they were in their 20s and stuff and saying,
[30:47] Speaker 3: did you guys really party like they show in TVs
[30:50] Speaker 3: and movies? I find it hard to believe. And they
[30:52] Speaker 3: were just talking about parties, like raves, clubs, house parties.
[30:55] Speaker 3: Like you had like a house just filled with people.
[30:58] Speaker 3: And then they would mention like that Project X with
[31:00] Speaker 3: the guy down in Australia that I told the story about.
[31:02] Speaker 3: I mean, that just seems like hard to believe. And meanwhile,
[31:05] Speaker 3: I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh man, you don't
[31:07] Speaker 3: even know, brother. There's so many things.
[31:10] Speaker 2: Are the kids not partying now?
[31:11] Speaker 3: Apparently not.
[31:12] Speaker 2: I know that there's not as much drinking.
[31:15] Speaker 3: No, but it's not even just that. Even just getting together,
[31:17] Speaker 3: they don't have as many friends. They don't have as
[31:19] Speaker 3: many partners, both in crime and in bed. I mean,
[31:23] Speaker 3: it's just in general not... getting loose the way that
[31:27] Speaker 3: we did. And also things have shifted so much. I mean, I,
[31:30] Speaker 3: you know, leaving aside like just like COVID related stuff,
[31:33] Speaker 3: just in general, the culture there, they have a lot
[31:37] Speaker 3: more screens and a lot more like I do what
[31:38] Speaker 3: I want as opposed to like we had was I'm bored.
[31:41] Speaker 3: What are you doing? Let's go get together. I'll meet,
[31:44] Speaker 3: I'll call you do, you know, like there was a
[31:46] Speaker 3: lot more of that.
[31:47] Speaker 2: Let me go over to that pay phone and call
[31:49] Speaker 2: my own answering machine.
[31:50] Speaker 4: Sure.
[31:51] Speaker 2: And then put the code so I can listen to
[31:53] Speaker 2: my messages. Oh, there are none.
[31:55] Speaker 3: I have no friends. They don't have any of those experiences.
[31:58] Speaker 3: So I was like, but the fact that I found
[32:01] Speaker 3: funny was, or the point I found funny was, they
[32:03] Speaker 3: could not believe it. They're like, it was so far
[32:05] Speaker 3: from their experience. Like, this must be lies. I'm like, no,
[32:09] Speaker 3: there could be things you don't know that were true.
[32:11] Speaker 3: Things have not always been the same. Why would you
[32:14] Speaker 3: not believe it? Exactly.
[32:16] Speaker 2: It was all just a fiction.
[32:17] Speaker 3: Yeah. So when I hear about Lucio stuff, I just
[32:19] Speaker 3: get excited.
[32:20] Speaker 2: But I got stuck on collar.
[32:22] Speaker 3: Yeah. Sorry. Anyway.
[32:24] Speaker 2: So Lucio Urtubia, he's running a scam on Citibank, cashing
[32:28] Speaker 2: millions in fake traveler's checks, using his band of nonviolent revolutionaries.
[32:33] Speaker 2: Because you know what? No war, but class war, baby. Yeah.
[32:37] Speaker 2: So the scam got so good for Urtubia and so
[32:41] Speaker 2: bad for Citibank that they had to suspend traveler's checks.
[32:44] Speaker 4: Wow.
[32:45] Speaker 3: Really? Yeah.
[32:46] Speaker 2: At least those with a value above $ 10 were suspended.
[32:49] Speaker 3: So he changed the nature of traveler's tax.
[32:51] Speaker 2: And that was right before the summer vacation season. Oh.
[32:55] Speaker 2: And so Americans, like they could and did use credit
[32:58] Speaker 2: cards in Europe back then. Yeah. But that was really
[33:01] Speaker 2: only an option.
[33:03] Speaker 3: For like hotels.
[33:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, major businesses. So big hotels, department stores. And you
[33:08] Speaker 2: had to be in a major city. Totally.
[33:09] Speaker 3: But when you're buying anything, like say in a restaurant
[33:12] Speaker 3: at a shop, like on the street, like I like
[33:14] Speaker 3: that leather purse.
[33:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, no.
[33:15] Speaker 3: People would accept your like traveler's check.
[33:17] Speaker 2: Right.
[33:18] Speaker 3: Because they knew they could take that to a bank. Exactly.
[33:20] Speaker 2: For everything else, you'd need like your local cash, you know,
[33:23] Speaker 2: or traveler's checks. So, like, thousands of tourists got impacted
[33:27] Speaker 2: by this freeze on Citibank checks. I mean, you could
[33:30] Speaker 2: get Amex still, but the Citibank ones had to freeze. So,
[33:34] Speaker 2: here's Citibank losing money on fake traveler's checks and then
[33:39] Speaker 2: not making commission money once the checks were suspended.
[33:42] Speaker 3: Okay.
[33:43] Speaker 2: And here's Urtubia sitting there with kilos and kilos of
[33:47] Speaker 2: unused fake traveler's checks. So, you had to think, like,
[33:51] Speaker 2: how do I use them or move them or something?
[33:53] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[33:54] Speaker 2: Enter Tony Sarro. S-A-R-R-O.
[33:57] Speaker 3: Okay.
[33:58] Speaker 2: Sarro, I suppose. But he's an American. So July 1980,
[34:03] Speaker 2: Ortubia met this American, Tony Sarro. Sarro claimed he had
[34:08] Speaker 2: a buyer willing to purchase the forged checks for 30%
[34:12] Speaker 2: of their face value.
[34:13] Speaker 3: Hmm.
[34:14] Speaker 2: Now, normally, Ortubio would have been super suspicious of this.
[34:18] Speaker 3: I would, too.
[34:19] Speaker 2: He was very careful. It took him a lot to, like,
[34:22] Speaker 2: trust someone outside the movement.
[34:23] Speaker 3: Is this guy from the tri-state area?
[34:26] Speaker 2: I wonder. But this was a lot of money when
[34:30] Speaker 2: he and the revolutionaries really needed it.
[34:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
[34:34] Speaker 2: So he agreed to the deal. And when the day
[34:37] Speaker 2: came to complete the deal— Ortubia met Saro at a
[34:41] Speaker 2: table outside of the Café Les Deux Magots in Paris'
[34:46] Speaker 2: Saint-Germain-des-Prés district.
[34:47] Speaker 3: Oh, sure, yeah.
[34:48] Speaker 2: Famous, famous café. And as soon as he sat down,
[34:52] Speaker 2: police swooped in. Every direction arrested him. Turns out that
[34:56] Speaker 2: Saro was an informant working for the French police. Yeah,
[35:00] Speaker 2: I know. So Ortubia, he gets released pending trial. But
[35:04] Speaker 2: the case would not end there, Zarin. In 1981, July,
[35:09] Speaker 2: he was summoned to appear in a separate court case.
[35:13] Speaker 2: Seems the man was arrested carrying false documents he claimed
[35:16] Speaker 2: had come from Ortubia. And he was so mad about
[35:21] Speaker 2: this summons. He wrote this really long letter to the
[35:23] Speaker 2: judge explaining why he would not be there. And then
[35:27] Speaker 2: he went on the lam. I mean, at least he
[35:30] Speaker 2: was like, you know, I'm going to explain this to you.
[35:31] Speaker 3: I'll tell you my side.
[35:32] Speaker 2: So he went underground with this false identity, Fermin Gil Munares.
[35:38] Speaker 3: Okay.
[35:39] Speaker 2: Munares. And so he evaded capture until October 9th.
[35:43] Speaker 3: 1981. Did he grow like an outrageous mustache?
[35:46] Speaker 2: Yes, yes. And wig game on point. He gets arrested
[35:50] Speaker 2: just walking down the street. So the Citibank case became
[35:54] Speaker 2: like a cause célèbre. Former French foreign minister Roland Dumas
[36:00] Speaker 2: agreed to defend Urtubia.
[36:02] Speaker 3: Wow.
[36:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a pretty big get.
[36:04] Speaker 3: Hell yeah.
[36:05] Speaker 2: At his court appearance, the judge was like, I'll grant
[36:07] Speaker 2: you conditional release. You don't, you know, you don't have
[36:10] Speaker 2: to be locked up. behind the scenes, this whole thing,
[36:13] Speaker 2: this whole affair had become an embarrassment for Citibank. And
[36:17] Speaker 2: then by extension for like French-American relations. So between hearings,
[36:22] Speaker 2: an advisor to the French prime minister contacted Citibank to
[36:27] Speaker 2: convey that a public trial would be damaging to France.
[36:31] Speaker 2: And Citibank got pushed to negotiate directly with Urtubia rather
[36:36] Speaker 2: than go after prosecution, press charges.
[36:39] Speaker 3: Arbitration almost in a sense. Well, like basically don't handle
[36:42] Speaker 3: it in front of a judge.
[36:43] Speaker 2: Like how, how do you basically, yeah. And so they're like,
[36:47] Speaker 2: you drop the charges in exchange for the forged plates
[36:52] Speaker 2: and all the remaining checks and his promise to end
[36:55] Speaker 2: the operation.
[36:56] Speaker 3: Totally.
[36:58] Speaker 2: So they're like, okay, that's a good deal. Or Tubia
[37:01] Speaker 2: was like, you know, it's a good deal, but it's
[37:03] Speaker 2: not a great deal.
[37:04] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[37:05] Speaker 2: It's kind of not good enough.
[37:06] Speaker 3: What's your next offer?
[37:08] Speaker 2: He's like, I can't bow down to a corporation. Like,
[37:10] Speaker 2: I just don't have it in me. Oh, wow. I
[37:13] Speaker 2: want more. So he's like, oh, okay, I'll do all that.
[37:17] Speaker 2: And you have to pay me on top of that
[37:21] Speaker 2: exchange for stopping. Pay me to stop robbing you. And
[37:26] Speaker 2: Citibank agreed.
[37:27] Speaker 3: That's incredible. Yeah.
[37:28] Speaker 2: Citibank agreed. So a lawyer delivered the counterfeit printing plates
[37:32] Speaker 2: and the leftover checks. to Citibank representatives in this Paris
[37:36] Speaker 2: hotel room in exchange for a case of cash.
[37:39] Speaker 3: A case of cash. He's like, I want... I want
[37:41] Speaker 3: a suitcase.
[37:42] Speaker 2: Yes. So Ortubia, he later put the money towards social
[37:46] Speaker 2: and political movements in Latin America.
[37:48] Speaker 3: Brilliant.
[37:48] Speaker 2: So it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to live this
[37:50] Speaker 2: life of luxury.
[37:51] Speaker 3: He's not going to the south of France and buying
[37:52] Speaker 3: a yacht.
[37:52] Speaker 2: He kept his same lifestyle and just passed it on.
[37:55] Speaker 2: For the cause. He wound up getting only a light sentence,
[37:58] Speaker 2: like six months for forgery, and everything else was dropped.
[38:02] Speaker 2: After the settlement... You know, Lucio's, like, 50 at this point.
[38:07] Speaker 2: He went back to Brick Lane. And he stepped back
[38:10] Speaker 2: from a lot of the, like, clandestine forgery work that
[38:13] Speaker 2: had defined much of his adult life. He remained, though,
[38:17] Speaker 2: politically active within Paris's anarchist circles, though, like, more low-key and, like,
[38:23] Speaker 2: more legal.
[38:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, like the granduncle who can tell you, can inform, mentor. Yeah, yeah.
[38:29] Speaker 2: In 1996, he renovated a derelict building on the Rue
[38:34] Speaker 2: des Cascades in the Bellevue district of Paris. And he
[38:39] Speaker 2: opened it as Le Fermet des Bonheurs, the space, L'Espace
[38:44] Speaker 2: Louise Michel. So Louise Michel was born in 1830, French anarchist, teacher.
[38:50] Speaker 2: and revolutionary, one of the most celebrated figures of the
[38:53] Speaker 2: Paris Commune of 1871, major voice in 17th century anarchist
[39:00] Speaker 2: and feminist movements. So when the Paris Commune was declared
[39:03] Speaker 2: in March of 1871, this was like a short-lived revolutionary
[39:08] Speaker 2: government that took control of Paris after France's defeat in
[39:12] Speaker 2: the Franco-Prussian War. She threw herself into it completely. She
[39:15] Speaker 2: served in the National Guard. She fought on the barricades
[39:19] Speaker 2: during Bloody Week when French government troops like crushed the commune.
[39:23] Speaker 2: And she became known for both her fighting spirit and
[39:26] Speaker 2: all the humanitarian work she did tending to the wounded.
[39:29] Speaker 2: She got arrested a bunch of times for her activism.
[39:33] Speaker 2: She led a march of the unemployed in Paris in 1883, which,
[39:37] Speaker 2: you know, led to looting of bakeries. And that put
[39:41] Speaker 2: her in prison. But she was also the target of
[39:44] Speaker 2: an assassination attempt when a monarchist shot her. She survived
[39:49] Speaker 2: and then asked for authorities to be lenient with her attacker.
[39:52] Speaker 3: Hmm.
[39:53] Speaker 2: So she was known as La Vierge Rouge, the Red Virgin.
[39:57] Speaker 2: And she became like this enduring symbol of anarchists, feminists,
[40:02] Speaker 2: revolutionary politics in France. And there are a bunch of
[40:05] Speaker 2: like streets, schools, public spaces all across France named for her,
[40:10] Speaker 2: a Paris metro station.
[40:11] Speaker 3: She deserves it. Yeah.
[40:12] Speaker 2: And so she's like this touchstone figure for anarchist and
[40:15] Speaker 2: radical movements, which is exactly why Ortubia named his self-managed
[40:21] Speaker 2: social center after her. And so it's like this cultural
[40:25] Speaker 2: center used by anarchist groups and various anti-establishment projects in
[40:29] Speaker 2: the neighborhood.
[40:29] Speaker 3: Love that.
[40:30] Speaker 2: So Ortubia, he's like happy to be out of the
[40:32] Speaker 2: public eye. And he became something of a folk hero
[40:36] Speaker 2: in his later years. This is mostly thanks to the
[40:39] Speaker 2: 2007 documentary Lucio. It's like a Basque-produced documentary. It traces
[40:46] Speaker 2: his life through a mix of dramatized reenactment. There are
[40:50] Speaker 2: his own recollections on camera, testimony from other people who
[40:53] Speaker 2: knew him. It covers everything. His father got really sick
[40:58] Speaker 2: and passed away. Then he was exiled in Paris.
[41:00] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[41:01] Speaker 2: His work as a bricklayer, the whole Citibank thing. And
[41:05] Speaker 2: there are on-camera interviews with Roland Dumas, the French lawyer,
[41:10] Speaker 2: former foreign minister who defended him. And then Ortubia himself,
[41:15] Speaker 2: he's in his mid-70s at this time, but the film
[41:18] Speaker 2: describes him as, quote, still raising anarchist hell. And so
[41:23] Speaker 2: he gets like this level of fame that he had
[41:26] Speaker 2: spent most of his life avoiding when the film comes out.
[41:30] Speaker 2: In 2007, he went to London for a screening of
[41:33] Speaker 2: the film at the Anarchist Book Fair. And then his book,
[41:38] Speaker 2: published in English as To Rob a Bank is an Honor.
[41:42] Speaker 2: That is like presented as his own autobiography.
[41:45] Speaker 3: I got to check this.
[41:46] Speaker 2: And they put it together from stacks of his own
[41:48] Speaker 2: writing that he handed over to be organized into a book.
[41:51] Speaker 2: And this is because he insisted, quote, I'm no writer.
[41:56] Speaker 2: But it's actually really well done. So it opens with...
[41:59] Speaker 2: So you checked it?
[42:00] Speaker 3: Huh? You checked it?
[42:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, I've read big chunks of it.
[42:02] Speaker 4: Cool.
[42:02] Speaker 2: So it opens with his like impoverished Basque childhood, framing
[42:08] Speaker 2: poverty as quote, a spur to creativity. And then it
[42:12] Speaker 2: rooting his anarchism in early lessons about community solidarity.
[42:16] Speaker 3: Oh, hell yeah.
[42:17] Speaker 2: So as he put it, quote, the keystone of existence
[42:19] Speaker 2: is doing right by one's neighbor. Oh, I love that.
[42:22] Speaker 2: I mean, come on.
[42:23] Speaker 3: Dude, this guy's my dude.
[42:25] Speaker 2: And then it, then the book, like the documentary, traces
[42:28] Speaker 2: his life through exile and action. And so the book,
[42:31] Speaker 2: it has like this really kind of, the best way
[42:34] Speaker 2: to describe it would be like rough hewn, like oral
[42:37] Speaker 2: quality to it. It's very conversational. Because there was no
[42:41] Speaker 2: ghost writer to smooth anything out. It's his own voice.
[42:45] Speaker 2: And there are like so many choice quotes.
[42:47] Speaker 3: He's very poetic. Oh, yeah.
[42:49] Speaker 2: And he makes these declarations about liberation and resistance, like
[42:53] Speaker 2: woven through basically every passage.
[42:54] Speaker 3: Just philosophy and poetry woven through and personal anecdote.
[42:58] Speaker 2: And like, while not happy in the public eye, he
[43:01] Speaker 2: still gave like a bunch of interviews reflecting on his
[43:04] Speaker 2: life and his politics. In a 2014 conversation with Vice News,
[43:10] Speaker 2: he spoke about this long friendship he had with Jean-Marc Rouillon,
[43:14] Speaker 2: a founder of the French armed group Action Direct. And
[43:18] Speaker 2: at the same time, he made sure to kind of
[43:20] Speaker 2: like distance himself from dude's commitment to armed struggle.
[43:24] Speaker 3: Yeah, that is thing.
[43:25] Speaker 2: He argued that like anarchists needed intelligence and pragmatism more
[43:30] Speaker 2: than like doctrinaire tactics.
[43:32] Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
[43:32] Speaker 2: And he thought that people should act according to their
[43:34] Speaker 2: judgment when the moment demanded it. And he said he
[43:39] Speaker 2: had no regrets for the path that his life had taken,
[43:42] Speaker 2: was proud of having openly told a judge that he
[43:45] Speaker 2: was an anarchist because he believed in anarchism. Like, yeah,
[43:49] Speaker 2: that's what I am.
[43:50] Speaker 3: You called it.
[43:51] Speaker 2: Exactly. And in his later years, he stayed in Paris,
[43:54] Speaker 2: largely in the 20th arrondissement. And he was like a
[43:59] Speaker 2: fixture just in the city's anarchist leftist scene.
[44:02] Speaker 3: What a life.
[44:03] Speaker 2: He died in Paris on July 18th, 2020 at the
[44:07] Speaker 2: age of 89. That's a good run. There were all
[44:11] Speaker 2: these tributes from anarchist and anti-authoritarian circles all across Europe
[44:16] Speaker 2: that described him as like this emblematic figure of 20th
[44:19] Speaker 2: century anti-Francoist and anarchist resistance. Yeah. Everyone sees him as
[44:25] Speaker 2: this man who had all this clandestine activity capped by
[44:29] Speaker 2: the Citibank affair. His final big thing is to get
[44:34] Speaker 2: one over on this corporation. And so this was even
[44:39] Speaker 2: as those closest to the events, like his old comrades,
[44:43] Speaker 2: would caution that some of the mythology around him had
[44:46] Speaker 2: kind of grown looser. With the retelling over the years. Oh,
[44:49] Speaker 2: of course, yeah. But, you know, such is life.
[44:51] Speaker 3: You're a folk hero at that point.
[44:52] Speaker 4: Exactly.
[44:52] Speaker 3: What can you do? People are going.
[44:53] Speaker 2: To add a little salt to it. In 2022, a
[44:56] Speaker 2: movie called Man of Action was released on Netflix. And
[44:59] Speaker 2: it's a scripted dramatization rather than a documentary. That's why
[45:02] Speaker 2: I haven't watched it.
[45:03] Speaker 3: Okay.
[45:04] Speaker 2: Because I didn't want the invented scenes to cloud my
[45:07] Speaker 2: perception of things.
[45:08] Speaker 3: Is it like a French production, Spanish production?
[45:10] Speaker 2: It's a Spanish production, yeah. Okay. And then it was
[45:13] Speaker 2: explicitly billed as like freely based on his life.
[45:16] Speaker 3: Sure. Inspired by. Yeah.
[45:18] Speaker 2: And it dramatizes like his childhood poverty and this and that.
[45:22] Speaker 2: And the mentorship under Kiko Sabate. And then his eventual
[45:26] Speaker 2: showdown with Citibank versus, you know, with the traveler's checks.
[45:30] Speaker 2: It performed well on Netflix in Spain.
[45:33] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[45:34] Speaker 2: And it got, you know, huge numbers. Landed on the
[45:38] Speaker 2: platform's regional weekly top 10. And so, you know, it
[45:42] Speaker 2: takes liberties. Combined characters, all that kind of thing. So that, Zarin,
[45:47] Speaker 2: is Lucio Urtubia.
[45:50] Speaker 3: I absolutely.
[45:51] Speaker 2: What is your ridiculous takeaway?
[45:53] Speaker 3: Well, one, I got a new hero, folk hero. I mean,
[45:56] Speaker 3: this guy is like a legend and I love that
[45:58] Speaker 3: he was out there with Kiko. So, I mean, it's like, oh,
[46:00] Speaker 3: the passing of the torch in my mind, one's more violent,
[46:03] Speaker 3: one's more crafty and creative. I'm trying to always remind
[46:06] Speaker 3: myself to respect the crafty and creative and downgrade the violent.
[46:10] Speaker 3: But also, I thought it was interesting and I didn't
[46:14] Speaker 3: want to interrupt the narrative to check dates, but How awesome.
[46:19] Speaker 3: Once you told me you get to a certain point,
[46:20] Speaker 3: I'm like, OK, absolutely. This happened is how great is
[46:23] Speaker 3: it to outlive a fascist regime? Right. He was there.
[46:26] Speaker 3: The fight colors most of his life. And then he
[46:31] Speaker 3: outlasted the Spanish Franco fascist regime and got to see
[46:36] Speaker 3: it turn into the Spain that we currently know, which
[46:39] Speaker 3: is far, far different.
[46:40] Speaker 2: Yes.
[46:41] Speaker 3: I mean, that must have been like I can only
[46:44] Speaker 3: dream to have a similar life course where I get
[46:47] Speaker 3: to watch. My enemies fall like that. Exactly. Damn. So, Elizabeth,
[46:51] Speaker 3: what is your ridiculous takeaway?
[46:52] Speaker 2: I mean, his story is just phenomenal. And what I
[46:57] Speaker 2: like about it is that there are so many buzzwords
[47:00] Speaker 2: that get thrown around today that are in here. Communist
[47:04] Speaker 2: and anarchist and this and that.
[47:07] Speaker 3: Direct action.
[47:07] Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you take all the labels off, because
[47:10] Speaker 2: half the time people use them and we don't even
[47:12] Speaker 2: know what it really means. Yeah. And talk about just
[47:17] Speaker 2: what he does. And I think the statement that he
[47:21] Speaker 2: made about how everything is about doing right by one's neighbor.
[47:26] Speaker 1: Yes.
[47:27] Speaker 3: Oh my God.
[47:28] Speaker 2: You know, I think there's, there's a lot of people,
[47:30] Speaker 2: you can't, whatever your, your political stripe is, you can't
[47:33] Speaker 2: really argue with that. And so I suppose the, the,
[47:38] Speaker 2: the arguing point is, is how one does that.
[47:41] Speaker 3: Totally.
[47:42] Speaker 2: But I think that if we all can like get
[47:44] Speaker 2: back to the core of like, look, we just got
[47:46] Speaker 2: to look out.
[47:47] Speaker 3: For each other. Yeah. We're in it together. Full stop.
[47:49] Speaker 2: And we're in it.
[47:50] Speaker 3: Let's look out for each other. Yeah.
[47:51] Speaker 2: And like, you know, we're in a time when, you know,
[47:55] Speaker 2: everyone's facing, all across the world are facing, you know,
[47:58] Speaker 2: a lot of huge challenges. Europe's melting.
[48:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, crisis, multiple crises.
[48:03] Speaker 2: You gotta just constantly look out for people. And, you know,
[48:06] Speaker 2: we've had that, we've been put to that test through
[48:09] Speaker 2: a lot of things. And sometimes we meet the mark
[48:13] Speaker 2: and a lot of times we fall short.
[48:15] Speaker 3: And also the modern emphasis on comfort, individualism, a kind
[48:20] Speaker 3: of like, Your home is your castle. And if you
[48:22] Speaker 3: think about the model of a castle, it is not
[48:24] Speaker 3: to care about your neighbors. Right.
[48:26] Speaker 2: You got the moat up.
[48:27] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
[48:28] Speaker 2: So one of the things that I really liked was
[48:30] Speaker 2: hearing about what he did. And yeah, he's breaking the
[48:32] Speaker 2: law and all this stuff. But like his commitment to
[48:35] Speaker 2: nonviolence and his commitment to helping people And those who
[48:39] Speaker 2: are oppressed is just incredible to me.
[48:40] Speaker 3: Even when he gets the money at the end, he's like,
[48:42] Speaker 3: gives it away.
[48:43] Speaker 2: Gives it away.
[48:46] Speaker 3: I like your plan, but no.
[48:46] Speaker 2: But no, absolutely not.
[48:48] Speaker 3: He's like, we're not getting caught up in this.
[48:50] Speaker 2: He's like, oh, sweetie, that's just not going to work.
[48:52] Speaker 2: But thank you. Thank you. And with that, I would
[48:56] Speaker 2: like a talk back, please.
[48:57] Speaker 3: Oh, my God. Did he just say that?
[49:07] Speaker 4: OMG.
[49:11] Speaker 3: Hey, everyone.
[49:12] Speaker 4: Do you know what's ridiculous? I had to do a
[49:14] Speaker 4: month-long National History Day project for school, and I chose
[49:18] Speaker 4: Emperor Norton because of your guys' episode. I love the
[49:21] Speaker 4: fact that he supported women's suffrage, so that's why I
[49:24] Speaker 4: chose him. For my project, I actually dressed up as
[49:28] Speaker 4: him and did a performance and was actually invited to
[49:32] Speaker 4: the state's competition. By the end of the project, my
[49:35] Speaker 4: teacher called me Empress Nora Norton. Hey, it's me again,
[49:40] Speaker 4: Empress Nora. I finally have my own hometown ridiculous crime.
[49:45] Speaker 4: My parents were on a walk with the intern when
[49:47] Speaker 4: they were rerouted by the police. According to the news article,
[49:52] Speaker 4: a man had, quote, theft by unauthorized taking. He then
[49:55] Speaker 4: tried to avoid arrest by firing fireworks at the police.
[49:59] Speaker 4: And that's ridiculous.
[50:01] Speaker 2: Wait, okay, I'm going to pass out.
[50:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, this is so much.
[50:04] Speaker 2: There's just too much.
[50:04] Speaker 3: Empress Nora.
[50:05] Speaker 2: Empress Nora, you've packed way too much into this. First
[50:07] Speaker 2: of all, you dressing up as the emperor is just incredible.
[50:12] Speaker 3: And congrats on going to state.
[50:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, I am so excited for you. And this is just,
[50:20] Speaker 2: you're making me so happy. But then can we talk about...
[50:23] Speaker 2: Firing fireworks at the police officer. Oh, this is just
[50:28] Speaker 2: so good. You just nailed it twice.
[50:31] Speaker 3: Oh, my God.
[50:32] Speaker 2: Thank you. This is what I'm talking about. This is
[50:33] Speaker 2: why I love talkbacks.
[50:35] Speaker 3: Yes. Nora, Empress Nora. Thank you, Empress Nora.
[50:37] Speaker 2: You're incredible and I love you.
[50:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, keep it up.
[50:40] Speaker 2: That's it for today. You can find us online at RidiculousCrime.com.
[50:45] Speaker 2: We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky, Instagram, you know.
[50:50] Speaker 2: Maybe nothing at some point. Are we going to get
[50:54] Speaker 2: rid of social media at some point? You can email
[50:57] Speaker 2: us at RidiculousCrime at gmail.com.
[50:59] Speaker 3: We're in certain libraries, card catalogs. Exactly.
[51:02] Speaker 2: On like bulletin boards at your local community center. Leave
[51:06] Speaker 2: a talk back. Please, please, please, please on the iHeart app.
[51:10] Speaker 3: Reach out.
[51:13] Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett.
[51:16] Speaker 2: Produced and edited by anarchist electrician Dave Kustin. Our ridiculous
[51:21] Speaker 2: assistant is California separatist Terry Maldonado Fong. Research is by
[51:25] Speaker 2: a subversive letterpress operator, Marissa Brown. The theme song is
[51:29] Speaker 2: by incredibly rude French bank tellers Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.
[51:34] Speaker 2: Host wardrobe is provided by Botany 500. Producer Dave Kustin's
[51:37] Speaker 2: wardrobe is by Mr. Guy of Beverly Hills. Guests are
[51:41] Speaker 2: in makeup by Sparkleshot and Mr. Andre. Executive producers are
[51:45] Speaker 2: CIA plant in Barcelona, Ben Bolin, and plant in CIA
[51:49] Speaker 2: office lobby, Noel Brown.
[51:57] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime.
[52:00] Speaker 2: Say it one more time.
[52:01] Speaker 4: Ridiculous Crime.
[52:04] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
[52:07] Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever
[52:10] Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.

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