# Hot Rocks: The Green Vault Heist

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 3 Sep 2026, 54 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/bd4050fd-ca97-4d2c-9ea5-b4b9015acb85/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

In Dresden, Germany, an incredible trove of precious gems is on display in Dresden Castle's Green Vault. They've been there for hundreds of years, save a brief moment when a crime family lifted them and made a run for it. Some made it home, others weren't so lucky. Maybe those jewels will return someday. Hope, like crime, springs eternal. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:02] Speaker 2: Aaron Barnet.
[0:05] Speaker 3: Howdy, Elizabeth Button. Howdy.
[0:11] Speaker 2: How are you, buddy?
[0:11] Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty well, girly.
[0:14] Speaker 2: I have a question.
[0:17] Speaker 3: No, you don't.
[0:18] Speaker 2: Question? You know what's ridiculous?
[0:20] Speaker 3: Oh, thank God. You do have a question. Yes, I do.
[0:23] Speaker 3: So this one, it sounds a little bit dark, but
[0:25] Speaker 3: actually it's very sweet and it's definitely ridiculous. So imagine
[0:30] Speaker 3: if you told a number of people that you're friends
[0:33] Speaker 3: with Charles Barkley. Okay. No one believes you because, of course,
[0:37] Speaker 3: you're like, why would anyone believe you? You're not a
[0:41] Speaker 3: basketball player. You're this older Asian man who was a
[0:45] Speaker 3: cat litter scientist in Muscatine, Iowa. So it's not like
[0:49] Speaker 3: you get out a lot. Yeah, yeah. People are like,
[0:52] Speaker 3: how do you know Charles Barkley? You tell people all
[0:54] Speaker 3: the time. And then unfortunately, you pass away. And then
[0:57] Speaker 3: Charles Barkley shows up to your funeral and delivers a
[1:02] Speaker 3: heartbreaking eulogy.
[1:03] Speaker 2: No. Yes. No.
[1:05] Speaker 3: So this reporter, she wrote about this for WBUR, the
[1:10] Speaker 3: radio station. Okay. Her name is Shirley Wang. And it
[1:13] Speaker 3: was her father. And apparently... Her father is this guy,
[1:17] Speaker 3: Lin Wang, and he was, he's a commuter, right? He's
[1:21] Speaker 3: like always flying around. He stays a lot in hotels.
[1:23] Speaker 3: So he was out here in Sacramento and he was out,
[1:26] Speaker 3: you know, doing something for business and he was in
[1:28] Speaker 3: a hotel bar. And then there in the hotel bar
[1:30] Speaker 3: was Charles Barkley. Cause I guess they were like covering
[1:33] Speaker 3: a Kings game or whatever. Cause this is like after
[1:35] Speaker 3: his playing career and they get to talk in and
[1:38] Speaker 3: they start like, you know, just going back and forth
[1:41] Speaker 3: and he's making Charles laugh. And the two of them,
[1:43] Speaker 3: they hang out that night. He goes back down to
[1:45] Speaker 3: the bar next night. Charles is there. They talk again.
[1:48] Speaker 3: And then he's like, yeah, Hey, you know, if you're
[1:49] Speaker 3: ever in town, look me up kind of thing. And
[1:51] Speaker 3: most people don't assume if, if that Charles Barkley says, look, yeah,
[1:54] Speaker 3: Lin Wang's like, sure. Start sending him text messages all
[1:57] Speaker 3: the time. And oftentimes like his daughter looks over the
[1:59] Speaker 3: text messages, Charles Barkley wouldn't respond. It'd be like five
[2:03] Speaker 3: texts in a row from Lin. And it's all like, Hey,
[2:05] Speaker 3: I saw you on TV. Great game. Nothing. Nothing. Hey,
[2:07] Speaker 3: I was wondering, you know, like whatever, you know, nothing, nothing.
[2:10] Speaker 3: But some of the times Charles would and respond to him.
[2:14] Speaker 3: And apparently they had a really genial, honest to goodness,
[2:19] Speaker 3: deep felt friendship.
[2:21] Speaker 2: And I love nobody.
[2:23] Speaker 3: Ever believed it. And, you know, he's always like, dear brother,
[2:25] Speaker 3: happy birthday, brother, greatest SNL. There are a lot of
[2:29] Speaker 3: benefits to be involved. Lol. He's sending text messages like
[2:31] Speaker 3: this to Charles Barkley and he's not responding. It's just like,
[2:35] Speaker 3: you know, whatever. But when his daughter sees this and
[2:38] Speaker 3: thinks like, oh, dad, you're you've been harassing Charles Barkley.
[2:43] Speaker 3: And then her dad unfortunately passes away. And who comes
[2:47] Speaker 3: and gives the eulogy, but Charles Barkley and explains what
[2:50] Speaker 3: a great man he is, how he always talked about
[2:52] Speaker 3: his daughters. It tells his daughter what a great father
[2:55] Speaker 3: he was and how proud he was of them. And
[2:57] Speaker 3: it's just like, she's like, I had no idea. He
[3:00] Speaker 3: knew so much about my mother, my family.
[3:02] Speaker 2: All of us. That's incredible.
[3:03] Speaker 3: So apparently Charles Barkley is everything you would hope he
[3:06] Speaker 3: is in terms of.
[3:07] Speaker 2: Good listener.
[3:07] Speaker 3: Yeah. Being like, well, being genuine.
[3:09] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[3:09] Speaker 3: I know that he has like certain issues. Like I'm
[3:12] Speaker 3: not suggesting he's the best person on earth.
[3:13] Speaker 2: But he doesn't want to be your role model.
[3:15] Speaker 3: Exactly. As he says.
[3:16] Speaker 2: Repeatedly through his life.
[3:17] Speaker 3: But he is the good heart that you sense he is. Yeah.
[3:20] Speaker 3: And he is one of his best friends was a
[3:22] Speaker 3: cat litter scientist.
[3:23] Speaker 2: I love that. Right. That is an awesomely ridiculous.
[3:26] Speaker 3: There's a great story on WBUR if you want to
[3:28] Speaker 3: read more. Got it.
[3:29] Speaker 2: Oh, so good. Do you want to know what else
[3:32] Speaker 2: is ridiculous?
[3:33] Speaker 3: Oh, my God. I'd love to.
[3:34] Speaker 2: Committing crimes while awaiting trial on other crimes. Oh.
[3:37] Speaker 3: Oh.
[3:58] Speaker 2: This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
[4:03] Speaker 2: and cons. It's always 99% murder-free and 100% ridiculous.
[4:08] Speaker 3: Oh, you damn right.
[4:10] Speaker 2: Mm-hmm, I am. Okay, we've talked about gems and jewels
[4:13] Speaker 2: here before.
[4:14] Speaker 3: Numerous times, yes.
[4:15] Speaker 2: I don't know a whole lot about that world, and
[4:17] Speaker 2: I think most of my knowledge comes from my research
[4:19] Speaker 2: of ridiculous crimes. But I know when a stone is massive— Okay.
[4:24] Speaker 2: And I know when it has serious history.
[4:26] Speaker 3: This is true.
[4:27] Speaker 2: And I know that makes it valuable to the owners.
[4:30] Speaker 3: Well, that's not entirely true. You are able to pick
[4:32] Speaker 3: out rocks. You know, like, oh, that's a, you know, sapphire.
[4:35] Speaker 3: That's like, you know, some of the gemstones. Yeah.
[4:37] Speaker 2: But I mean, like, I don't know about like the
[4:40] Speaker 2: various cuts of it and like.
[4:41] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
[4:42] Speaker 2: The clarity. That's all trend and everything. Cut clarity. But
[4:45] Speaker 2: all of those things.
[4:46] Speaker 3: Right.
[4:47] Speaker 2: I know it makes it irresistible to thieves.
[4:50] Speaker 3: This is true.
[4:51] Speaker 2: Right.
[4:51] Speaker 3: Right.
[4:52] Speaker 2: And that's what we're all about here, Zarin. That's what
[4:54] Speaker 2: we do. Good old-fashioned thievery.
[4:56] Speaker 3: Irresistible to thieves. Yeah.
[4:57] Speaker 2: So today I have for you a heist.
[4:59] Speaker 3: What do you got?
[5:00] Speaker 2: Theft. Jewels of jewels.
[5:03] Speaker 3: You know I love this.
[5:04] Speaker 2: I know. One of which was a big dog, if
[5:07] Speaker 2: ever there was one.
[5:08] Speaker 3: The jewel or the heist?
[5:09] Speaker 2: The jewel.
[5:09] Speaker 3: Ah.
[5:10] Speaker 2: So I'm talking about the Dresden White Diamond.
[5:13] Speaker 3: This sounds familiar. Is this a famous, famous rock?
[5:15] Speaker 2: Did you already do this story? Have you told me
[5:17] Speaker 2: this story?
[5:17] Speaker 3: No, no, no.
[5:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a famous.
[5:18] Speaker 3: I think I've seen it referenced.
[5:19] Speaker 2: It's also called the Saxon White Diamond. And this thing
[5:22] Speaker 2: is large, colorless, cushion cut diamond. And sources give its
[5:28] Speaker 2: weight as around 49.71 carats. Some take it up to
[5:33] Speaker 2: 62 carats.
[5:34] Speaker 3: That's a lot of carats.
[5:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's massive. So like if a lady is walking
[5:37] Speaker 2: around like just in real life with a five carat
[5:41] Speaker 2: engagement ring.
[5:41] Speaker 3: Looks like a rock on their finger.
[5:43] Speaker 2: Exactly. Beyonce's ring from Old Man Carter, 24 carats.
[5:47] Speaker 3: Okay.
[5:47] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[5:50] Speaker 2: That Krupp diamond that I told you about before, the
[5:52] Speaker 2: one that the lady in Vegas had that went to
[5:54] Speaker 2: Elizabeth Taylor's ring from Richard Burton, that is enormous, 33 carats.
[5:57] Speaker 3: And this one was what?
[5:59] Speaker 2: Potentially 62 carats.
[6:01] Speaker 3: That's nuts. Yeah. Twice as big as Elizabeth Taylor's rock?
[6:04] Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
[6:04] Speaker 3: Almost twice?
[6:05] Speaker 2: Yeah. So the Dresden White was in a league of
[6:07] Speaker 2: its own. They think that it originated from the Golconda
[6:10] Speaker 2: mines in southern India, and it was likely mined sometime
[6:14] Speaker 2: in like the 17th to 18th century.
[6:17] Speaker 3: Oh, way back. Yeah.
[6:19] Speaker 2: It gets its name from Dresden, the capital of Saxony, Germany,
[6:23] Speaker 2: combined with the gem's white color, Saxon white. It's very original.
[6:27] Speaker 3: Very original.
[6:27] Speaker 2: It's a very original name.
[6:28] Speaker 3: Gemologist, I'm telling you.
[6:29] Speaker 2: It was acquired in 1728 by Frederick Augustus I. Oh.
[6:34] Speaker 2: Augustus the Strong.
[6:35] Speaker 3: Sure.
[6:36] Speaker 2: Elector of Saxony and eventual king of Poland.
[6:39] Speaker 3: Yeah. That's why I know him.
[6:40] Speaker 2: Yeah. So, I mean, you're friends with him, right?
[6:43] Speaker 3: Well, we're in the same reading group.
[6:44] Speaker 2: You guys text each other?
[6:45] Speaker 3: Yes. It's all vellums and- So.
[6:48] Speaker 2: He was so captivated by its cut, its clarity, its color,
[6:53] Speaker 2: that he was like, I don't care what it costs,
[6:55] Speaker 2: I want it.
[6:56] Speaker 1: Okay.
[6:57] Speaker 2: And it wound up being somewhere between $ 750, 000 or a
[7:02] Speaker 2: million dollars, right? Now, I'm saying dollars. That's not the currency.
[7:08] Speaker 2: And it's like an inexact calculation to figure out what
[7:11] Speaker 2: it is in U.S. dollars today. But you know what, Zarin?
[7:14] Speaker 2: I care. I gave it a shot.
[7:16] Speaker 3: Did you? I did. I'm proud of you, girl.
[7:18] Speaker 2: So if you're to average the consumer price index inflation
[7:21] Speaker 2: from then to now, which is kind of pointless because
[7:24] Speaker 2: the U.S. didn't exist and the measurements are wildly different
[7:26] Speaker 2: through the years and they didn't even count things this
[7:28] Speaker 2: way back then. But the rough math takes it to
[7:31] Speaker 2: around $ 73 million today.
[7:33] Speaker 3: Okay. My guess was 71. Right. So close.
[7:36] Speaker 2: You're good at doing math in your head. I need
[7:38] Speaker 2: an abacus.
[7:38] Speaker 3: I keep up with the polling price index.
[7:41] Speaker 2: That's true. That's true. And so this is all based
[7:44] Speaker 2: on estimates and based on that $ 1 million estimate. Unit, figure, whatever.
[7:48] Speaker 3: Sure, yes.
[7:49] Speaker 2: So gems appreciate also at a different rate, and they
[7:52] Speaker 2: go through massive ups and downs when you're talking about
[7:55] Speaker 2: this category of diamonds.
[7:56] Speaker 3: Okay.
[7:57] Speaker 2: So basically we can say it's a whole lot.
[7:59] Speaker 3: Okay.
[8:00] Speaker 2: And I can't get too much sharper than that on
[8:02] Speaker 2: the money for you.
[8:02] Speaker 3: It's a shipload.
[8:04] Speaker 2: Yes. Anyway, so the diamond became closely linked with the
[8:08] Speaker 2: more famous... dresden green diamond.
[8:12] Speaker 3: Ah not the dresden.
[8:13] Speaker 2: Green so in 1748 augustus the second had a second
[8:19] Speaker 2: golden fleece badge made by this geneva goldsmith that included
[8:24] Speaker 2: both the dresden green and the saxon white and the
[8:27] Speaker 2: two stones stayed together in the badge for like 20 years.
[8:31] Speaker 3: A little loud i'm just saying i mean like it's
[8:34] Speaker 3: screaming it's huge what are we compensating that is a.
[8:37] Speaker 2: Huge brooch um It was Augustus II's favorite piece to
[8:41] Speaker 2: wear during state festivals.
[8:43] Speaker 3: He had no taste.
[8:43] Speaker 2: People are like, oh my God, are those fake? That's like,
[8:46] Speaker 2: what is that, paste? Then later in 1782, the court
[8:47] Speaker 2: jeweler reworked part of the setting. into a diamond epaulette
[8:55] Speaker 2: with the white diamond as its centerpiece. That's a shoulder thing,
[8:58] Speaker 2: so there's just one diamond on it?
[8:59] Speaker 3: On your shoulder?
[9:00] Speaker 2: On one shoulder.
[9:01] Speaker 3: Is there some kind of fur that it's holding so
[9:03] Speaker 3: your eye goes there?
[9:04] Speaker 2: Let's say it is. Let's say it's holding, I don't know,
[9:07] Speaker 2: a live rabbit.
[9:09] Speaker 3: A live rabbit. there you go i'm like picturing like
[9:14] Speaker 3: snow leopard fur no.
[9:15] Speaker 2: I'm just like live rabbit they've zip tied a live
[9:18] Speaker 2: rabbit to his shoulder this is why i don't get
[9:21] Speaker 2: to design military costuming uh okay where was i so
[9:26] Speaker 2: that's that's the focus here the white diamond white diamonds
[9:29] Speaker 2: now let's get to the locust you said you like
[9:31] Speaker 2: that to see that smooth i'm smooth as silk it
[9:34] Speaker 2: rhymed From the focus to the locus.
[9:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, someone call Sean Carter.
[9:37] Speaker 2: So they, Grunus Gevulba.
[9:39] Speaker 3: Uh-huh. Right?
[9:41] Speaker 2: How good was that?
[9:42] Speaker 3: Sounds convincing to me.
[9:42] Speaker 2: I was probably totally wrong.
[9:44] Speaker 3: I mean, that was like almost- Sorry, Germany. It was
[9:45] Speaker 3: more like Frankish.
[9:46] Speaker 2: It was like both like- Grunus Gevulba.
[9:49] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
[9:50] Speaker 2: Are you from the Holy Roman Empire?
[9:52] Speaker 1: Yes.
[9:52] Speaker 2: How did you know?
[9:53] Speaker 3: That's incredible.
[9:54] Speaker 2: I'm Augustus XIX. The Green Vault.
[9:57] Speaker 3: Yes.
[9:57] Speaker 2: Okay. So remember Augustus XIX.
[10:00] Speaker 3: Elector of Saxony. How could I forget? My man.
[10:02] Speaker 2: Yeah. He founded the Green Vault in 1723. Grunus. As
[10:09] Speaker 2: part of Dresden's constellation of art museums, state art museums.
[10:15] Speaker 2: There were 12, all told. And so the nickname of
[10:18] Speaker 2: the place, the Green Vault, comes from the malachite green
[10:22] Speaker 2: paint that was used in a lot of the rooms.
[10:26] Speaker 2: So it must have, like, the place is crazy. There's
[10:28] Speaker 2: so much gilding, like gold ornamentation everywhere. And it's real gold.
[10:33] Speaker 2: It's not spray painted and hot glued. Real gold.
[10:36] Speaker 4: Legit.
[10:37] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[10:37] Speaker 3: Like church gold.
[10:38] Speaker 2: But still tacky as all get out. Anyway, so Augustus,
[10:41] Speaker 2: he spent the better part of the 1720s, like, putting
[10:44] Speaker 2: together this collection at the gallery.
[10:46] Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
[10:46] Speaker 2: And he wasn't shy about why he was doing it.
[10:49] Speaker 2: He was basically in a jewelry arms race.
[10:52] Speaker 3: With?
[10:52] Speaker 2: Francis Louis XIV.
[10:55] Speaker 3: I was my guess. Yes.
[10:57] Speaker 2: Every glittering commission is like another shot fire.
[11:00] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[11:01] Speaker 2: And the results are just mind-blowing, even by royal treasury standards.
[11:06] Speaker 2: So one of the highlights of this place is a
[11:11] Speaker 2: 63-centimeter figure of a moor encrusted with emeralds.
[11:15] Speaker 1: Really?
[11:15] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[11:16] Speaker 2: And this one feels offensive. I'm not going to lie.
[11:18] Speaker 3: Yeah, you'd think.
[11:19] Speaker 2: Like my little man is basically only wearing jewelry and
[11:22] Speaker 2: carrying a platter of emeralds. He's got on a giant
[11:25] Speaker 2: necklace and no pants and like a belt of gold
[11:28] Speaker 2: chains and a choker and a crown and like a
[11:31] Speaker 2: huge grin.
[11:32] Speaker 3: And does he look African?
[11:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, he's painted brown. Yeah, I guess that, but
[11:36] Speaker 2: I mean— But he's not wearing traditional Moorish dress.
[11:39] Speaker 3: I didn't think they were going to do that.
[11:40] Speaker 2: He's just wearing like a Shakira jewelry bikini.
[11:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, I just wanted to know how brown they got.
[11:44] Speaker 2: Oh, they gave him the full-on exoticized other. Yeah, I
[11:47] Speaker 2: got you. And, you know, I mean, that's that sort
[11:50] Speaker 2: of like— colonial it's the time yeah still.
[11:55] Speaker 3: Bearer of my jewels.
[11:56] Speaker 2: Right and that's what he's doing he's holding a platter
[11:58] Speaker 2: and it's just got like emeralds built into it yeah
[12:02] Speaker 2: uh so anyway the museum they also had a 547
[12:07] Speaker 2: carat sapphire what it was a gift from russia's czar peter.
[12:11] Speaker 3: The first Wow.
[12:12] Speaker 2: That's huge.
[12:13] Speaker 3: The Pete. Yeah.
[12:14] Speaker 2: That's like, that's got to be the size of like
[12:16] Speaker 2: a human head.
[12:17] Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, well, dude, if Peter the Great's giving
[12:19] Speaker 3: you a giant rock and it's a sapphire.
[12:21] Speaker 2: That means he really is into you.
[12:23] Speaker 3: He wants to know.
[12:24] Speaker 2: That's why he pulls your pigtails. So the broader hall,
[12:28] Speaker 2: like jewels, Baroque objects, all this like elaborate gold stuff,
[12:32] Speaker 2: that was pulled in between 1723, 1730. And that's what
[12:37] Speaker 2: makes the Green Vault one of the oldest museums in Europe.
[12:40] Speaker 2: There it is. The end. So the collection, it has
[12:44] Speaker 2: gone through more history than like most nations. It survived
[12:49] Speaker 2: the Allied firebombing of Dresden in World War II.
[12:51] Speaker 3: Wow. And they didn't have to move this jewelry arms race?
[12:55] Speaker 2: No, but then it was confiscated by the Soviets afterwards.
[12:58] Speaker 3: Of course. There you go. Yeah.
[13:00] Speaker 2: They're like, come on, we've got.
[13:01] Speaker 3: How do we give these rocks to the people?
[13:03] Speaker 2: Give it to the people and then we've got murdering
[13:04] Speaker 2: to do. It wasn't returned to the city until 1958.
[13:08] Speaker 4: Wow.
[13:10] Speaker 2: So the building itself, I mean, it did take heavy
[13:13] Speaker 2: damage in the war.
[13:13] Speaker 3: Sure.
[13:14] Speaker 2: But then it was painstakingly restored. And there was like
[13:17] Speaker 2: this huge international fanfare when it was finally reopened. And
[13:22] Speaker 2: today the museum is split into like a historic wing
[13:24] Speaker 2: and then a newer one. And the green vault portion
[13:27] Speaker 2: is like 10 rooms, 3,000 pieces of jewelry and other treasures.
[13:33] Speaker 2: And like, it's just in like a former royal palace.
[13:36] Speaker 2: So it has pulled in crowds, like I said, since
[13:39] Speaker 2: like 1724. And that's something that is just screaming for
[13:44] Speaker 2: a heist.
[13:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, people love the rocks, either to see them or
[13:47] Speaker 3: to steal them.
[13:47] Speaker 2: Exactly. All right, so let's get into it here.
[13:50] Speaker 3: Please.
[13:51] Speaker 2: The job began at around 4.50 a.m. on Monday, November 25th, 2019.
[13:56] Speaker 2: This is very recent.
[13:57] Speaker 3: This is very recent.
[14:00] Speaker 2: The opening move was arson. So the thieves, or people
[14:03] Speaker 2: working with them, they torched a power distribution box near
[14:07] Speaker 2: the museum.
[14:08] Speaker 3: All right.
[14:08] Speaker 2: The fire knocked out streetlights. plunge the area into darkness.
[14:13] Speaker 3: So the tram stops, street lights are out, and then
[14:15] Speaker 3: also presumably the alarms.
[14:16] Speaker 2: And it kept the alarm system from ever switching on. So,
[14:19] Speaker 2: you know, the investigators later were like, yep, this was
[14:22] Speaker 2: deliberately disabled, sabotage. So by 4.57 p.m., seven minutes after
[14:27] Speaker 2: the explosion, the crew was moving on the vault itself.
[14:31] Speaker 2: They were in there. They climbed in through a window
[14:34] Speaker 2: in this mirrored hall of treasures. Then they cut through
[14:37] Speaker 2: a barrier fence, cut through the heraldry room. They get
[14:40] Speaker 2: to the jewelry room and that's where all the show
[14:42] Speaker 2: pieces are.
[14:43] Speaker 3: Makes sense.
[14:44] Speaker 2: Yeah. So in the jewelry room. And so like the
[14:47] Speaker 2: police were like, yeah, this is obviously very targeted. They
[14:50] Speaker 2: smashed open a display cabinet. It only took minutes and.
[14:53] Speaker 3: So this is like the Levi's where they're just cutting,
[14:55] Speaker 3: smashing and going through a window.
[14:57] Speaker 2: Yes.
[14:57] Speaker 3: Yes.
[14:58] Speaker 2: So the two guys are dressed all in black, which
[15:02] Speaker 2: caught on surveillance footage.
[15:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, but what do they care? They're wearing all black.
[15:05] Speaker 2: They went after like three specific display cases. They had
[15:09] Speaker 2: like a little axe forcing their way through the glass.
[15:13] Speaker 2: Everything pitch dark except for the beam of their flashlights.
[15:17] Speaker 2: like shining off the checkerboard floor and the gold on
[15:19] Speaker 2: the walls.
[15:20] Speaker 3: That must have been cool.
[15:21] Speaker 2: Guards watched the whole thing on CCTV.
[15:24] Speaker 3: Where were they?
[15:25] Speaker 2: You'll find out. They call the cops. Officers get there
[15:28] Speaker 2: within five minutes, but the thieves are gone, and they
[15:31] Speaker 2: took 21 pieces with them. Dang. And the stolen haul
[15:35] Speaker 2: reads like a royal jewelry box, right? A diamond-covered breast
[15:39] Speaker 2: star from the Polish Order of the White Eagle.
[15:41] Speaker 1: Wow.
[15:42] Speaker 3: Not the Polish Order of the White Eagle, Elizabeth.
[15:44] Speaker 2: I don't know. You hadn't heard about this at your meetings?
[15:47] Speaker 3: Frederick and I were talking about them the other day.
[15:49] Speaker 2: Just the other day. A hat clasp built around a
[15:52] Speaker 2: 16-carat diamond.
[15:53] Speaker 1: Okay.
[15:53] Speaker 2: Just kind of like the one that I have. 14
[15:55] Speaker 2: other just like huge stones, 103 smaller diamonds. Just loose rocks. Yeah,
[16:01] Speaker 2: just basically a sword hilt that was like studded with
[16:05] Speaker 2: nine large and then 770 small diamonds.
[16:09] Speaker 3: Whoa.
[16:09] Speaker 2: There's a matching scabbard.
[16:11] Speaker 3: A diamond encrusted sword hilt.
[16:12] Speaker 2: A diamond handled sword and a diamond encrusted hilt. Diamond
[16:16] Speaker 2: shoe buckles. This is like looking at your closet, Saren.
[16:18] Speaker 3: And they dare to say things about rappers' jewelry collections.
[16:21] Speaker 2: Right? Diamond buttons, diamond hair clips, diamond necklace. Chief among
[16:26] Speaker 2: the losses was the famed 49-carat Dresden white diamond, or 63,
[16:31] Speaker 2: whoever you're talking to.
[16:32] Speaker 3: Somewhere in there. Let's say 56. Yeah, that's right.
[16:34] Speaker 2: Call the middle. The cushion cut showstopper, as I like
[16:36] Speaker 2: to call it. So it was one of the single
[16:39] Speaker 2: most prized stones in the whole collection. All right. And,
[16:42] Speaker 2: you know, almost everything that was taken came from that,
[16:45] Speaker 2: you know, Frederick Augustus.
[16:47] Speaker 3: Yeah. The jewelry arms race.
[16:49] Speaker 2: But really, Frederick Augustus III, the final elector of Saxony, he, like,
[16:54] Speaker 2: later restyled himself in the vein of Frederick Augustus I.
[16:58] Speaker 3: Yes.
[16:58] Speaker 2: He was the first king of Saxony.
[17:00] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[17:01] Speaker 2: These weren't just, like, pretty objects. They were created and, like,
[17:04] Speaker 2: developed to broadcast Saxony's wealth and, like, you know, the
[17:08] Speaker 2: level of craftsmanship.
[17:09] Speaker 3: And to keep up with France, right? I mean, essentially. Yeah,
[17:11] Speaker 3: in essence. Like, with the Sun King, they're like, look,
[17:13] Speaker 3: we can do it, too.
[17:14] Speaker 2: So CNN just, like, gave this rundown about several of the, like,
[17:17] Speaker 2: big missing pieces. That hat clasp I mentioned, that was
[17:21] Speaker 2: made in the 1780s and worn to galas by Frederick
[17:24] Speaker 2: Augustus III. Fifteen large diamonds, over a hundred small ones.
[17:29] Speaker 2: A 16-carat centerpiece underneath a diamond bow. It just sounds just.
[17:35] Speaker 3: As tacky as it can be.
[17:37] Speaker 2: There was another epaulette, a shoulder ornament, also made for
[17:41] Speaker 2: Frederick Augustus III. That had 230 diamonds. That one wasn't
[17:46] Speaker 2: to hold a rabbit. That one was to hold a lizard.
[17:49] Speaker 3: Like a sash.
[17:50] Speaker 2: Yeah. So there's that sword. We talked about that. The
[17:53] Speaker 2: diamonds on diamonds. That Order of the White Eagle, right? Yes.
[17:56] Speaker 2: That one, that goes back to Frederick Augustus III's childhood
[18:01] Speaker 2: introduction to Polish knighthood. And when he was an adult,
[18:04] Speaker 2: he had the cord jeweler make it into a bird
[18:07] Speaker 2: shape with like a large drop cut diamond that formed
[18:10] Speaker 2: the body and then like two clawed feet below it.
[18:14] Speaker 3: Can you turn this into a bird?
[18:16] Speaker 2: Make it a bird And then the companion piece, the
[18:19] Speaker 2: Order of the White Eagle Breast Star, that was done
[18:22] Speaker 2: in the 1740s in Geneva by a Swiss jeweler. It
[18:27] Speaker 2: was an eight-pointed star centered on a 20-carat diamond. It
[18:31] Speaker 2: had like a Maltese cross made of red rubies. The
[18:35] Speaker 2: bow-shaped pin, that was like a lot of women at
[18:38] Speaker 2: the time wore it low on the neckline. Oh, look
[18:41] Speaker 2: at my decolletage. Hey, my eyes are down there is
[18:45] Speaker 2: what they're saying. And that's his wife wore that thing
[18:49] Speaker 2: all over the place. And it was really supposed to
[18:51] Speaker 2: be celebrating the birth of their daughter.
[18:54] Speaker 3: Of course.
[18:55] Speaker 2: 660 diamonds.
[18:56] Speaker 3: Nothing says new baby like 660 diamonds. Totaling 614 carats.
[18:58] Speaker 3: It should be so heavy.
[19:02] Speaker 2: There's one that looked like fanned leaves of a palm tree.
[19:06] Speaker 2: That was for the Order of the Golden Fleece, which
[19:10] Speaker 2: is like an order founded to defend the Catholic faith.
[19:12] Speaker 2: There were just pearls, pearls for days.
[19:15] Speaker 3: Finally, somebody got some pearls in there.
[19:17] Speaker 2: 177 strings of pearls. And they had been gathered individually
[19:22] Speaker 2: in the 1700s, but then it wasn't until Like the
[19:26] Speaker 2: 20s that they strung them into a necklace.
[19:28] Speaker 3: I love all this energy going into, look at my
[19:30] Speaker 3: rock collection.
[19:31] Speaker 2: Basically.
[19:32] Speaker 3: These are pretty rocks. Not like normal rocks.
[19:36] Speaker 2: So that's the heist and that's the haul. Let's take
[19:38] Speaker 2: a break. And when we return, we're going to dig
[19:40] Speaker 2: deeper into this caper.
[19:41] Speaker 3: Heck yeah. Zarin. Elizabeth.
[20:04] Speaker 2: Zarin. So we got the green vault burgled.
[20:07] Speaker 3: Yes.
[20:07] Speaker 2: Burgled.
[20:08] Speaker 4: Hot rocks.
[20:08] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Total hot rocks. All the treasures lifted in
[20:11] Speaker 2: the blink of an eye, but not all was lost.
[20:14] Speaker 2: One marquee piece dodged the whole affair by sheer luck,
[20:18] Speaker 2: and that was the 41-carat Dresden Green Diamond.
[20:21] Speaker 3: Oh, did they drop it?
[20:23] Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, it was like, no, they didn't
[20:25] Speaker 2: drop it, Zarin.
[20:26] Speaker 3: Sorry.
[20:27] Speaker 2: It's the main piece in the whole museum.
[20:30] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[20:31] Speaker 2: But it happened to be on loan to the Metropolitan
[20:33] Speaker 2: Museum of Art in New York when the break-in happened.
[20:36] Speaker 2: So it wasn't home at the time.
[20:37] Speaker 3: You couldn't even reach it.
[20:38] Speaker 2: Right. That one came into the collection in 1742. But,
[20:45] Speaker 2: you know, it was on vacation. All told, the state
[20:48] Speaker 2: prosecutor's office put the value of everything— Like, you know,
[20:53] Speaker 2: 4,300 diamonds in total. Like, at a minimum of 113
[20:57] Speaker 2: million euros. That's like 128 million.
[20:59] Speaker 3: And that's in 2019.
[21:01] Speaker 2: None of it was insured.
[21:03] Speaker 3: What? How do you insure that?
[21:05] Speaker 2: Well, see, that's the thing. Like, Saxony's finance minister was like,
[21:09] Speaker 2: this is standard practice. Insurance premiums for treasures like these
[21:13] Speaker 2: are higher than the cost of repairing any damage they
[21:16] Speaker 2: might suffer.
[21:17] Speaker 3: And also, I mean, they're essentially priceless. There is no
[21:20] Speaker 3: price until you sell it.
[21:21] Speaker 2: Basically, yeah. And so before they made their exit, the thieves,
[21:25] Speaker 2: like they doused the room in powder from a fire extinguisher.
[21:29] Speaker 1: Oh.
[21:29] Speaker 2: Super like CSI trick to muddy any forensic trail.
[21:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's smart.
[21:34] Speaker 2: And I mentioned that the police were on scene within
[21:36] Speaker 2: minutes of the alarm going off.
[21:38] Speaker 3: Okay.
[21:39] Speaker 2: Suspects had already vanished. Their getaway was an Audi S6.
[21:43] Speaker 3: Heck yeah, that is a dope ride. You're doing a getaway?
[21:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.
[21:48] Speaker 3: I recently learned that Audi, the original guy, Horsch, he
[21:53] Speaker 3: wasn't allowed to use his name because he got kicked out.
[21:56] Speaker 3: He started a company called Horsch. The company kicked him
[21:58] Speaker 3: out and they kept his last name. He couldn't start the–
[22:01] Speaker 3: he started a new car company. He's like, what do
[22:03] Speaker 3: we call it? I can't call it Horsch. Some kid
[22:05] Speaker 3: is sitting there in the boardroom, like son of one
[22:07] Speaker 3: of the board members. He's like, yeah, well, you know,
[22:09] Speaker 3: he's working on doing his Latin homework. He's like, well,
[22:12] Speaker 3: Horsch means listen in German. Why don't you just say
[22:14] Speaker 3: it in Latin? And so they named it Audi.
[22:17] Speaker 2: No way.
[22:18] Speaker 3: Yeah, fun fact.
[22:19] Speaker 2: And Horsch, look what that got you. Look, huh?
[22:21] Speaker 3: Exactly.
[22:23] Speaker 2: So, yeah, Audi S6. Where is Horsch today? That's my question.
[22:26] Speaker 3: Audi S6. Thanks.
[22:28] Speaker 2: They ditched and torched it in an underground parking garage.
[22:32] Speaker 2: And then they went on to Berlin in another car,
[22:34] Speaker 2: a Mercedes that was like dolled up to look like
[22:37] Speaker 2: a taxi. Police, they put up roadblocks.
[22:40] Speaker 3: That's super smart. Right?
[22:41] Speaker 2: Police put up roadblocks on the highways leading out of
[22:44] Speaker 2: the city. But like, they're right on the Autobahn. And
[22:47] Speaker 2: the thieves were like, we got a head start, buddy.
[22:49] Speaker 2: And we got an S6 later. In the days that followed,
[22:53] Speaker 2: officials are like, oh boy, these are all going to
[22:55] Speaker 2: get broken apart. You know, these aren't.
[22:58] Speaker 3: Going to survive. You aren't seeing these rocks again, yeah.
[23:01] Speaker 2: You know, they're not going to be difficult to pry loose, recut.
[23:04] Speaker 2: You know, they're gigantic. You can get a bunch of
[23:06] Speaker 2: stuff out of there.
[23:07] Speaker 3: If you get any recent or, you know, reasonable gem cutter...
[23:10] Speaker 3: They can turn those into so many different things.
[23:12] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[23:13] Speaker 3: You have so much to work with.
[23:14] Speaker 2: You know, it's like leftovers. They can just, they can
[23:17] Speaker 2: repurpose them.
[23:18] Speaker 3: We can turn this into stew. We can turn this
[23:19] Speaker 3: into a casserole. We can turn this into a taco.
[23:21] Speaker 2: This could be a pizza topping. So investigators, they put
[23:25] Speaker 2: up a 500,000 euro reward for information leading to an
[23:30] Speaker 2: arrest or the recovery of the jewels.
[23:32] Speaker 3: Oh, okay.
[23:32] Speaker 2: Then things got messy.
[23:34] Speaker 3: Oh, no.
[23:34] Speaker 2: So on November 29th, 2019, a security guard got arrested.
[23:39] Speaker 2: And prosecutors initially suspected that he had leaked details about
[23:42] Speaker 2: the museum's layout and the security setup to the thieves.
[23:46] Speaker 2: And then they also accused him and a colleague of
[23:49] Speaker 2: failing to respond properly when the break-in was underway, like
[23:52] Speaker 2: basically letting it happen.
[23:54] Speaker 3: Yeah, not looking the other way, just watching the CCTV.
[23:56] Speaker 2: And they had. They had watched the robbery unfold live
[23:59] Speaker 2: on their monitors, didn't intervene. I'm on break. And so
[24:02] Speaker 2: the police— The police were like, what is even happening here?
[24:06] Speaker 2: It's your one job. What was between you and stopping
[24:11] Speaker 2: the heist?
[24:11] Speaker 3: Yeah, doing the thing you paid for.
[24:13] Speaker 2: But then the director of the state art collections was like, no,
[24:16] Speaker 2: they had actually followed protocol. I swear to it. Because
[24:20] Speaker 2: they were told, like, they didn't have weapons. They just,
[24:23] Speaker 2: they're like, just.
[24:24] Speaker 3: What were they supposed to do? Are they basically just
[24:26] Speaker 3: people movers?
[24:27] Speaker 2: They're decorations.
[24:29] Speaker 3: Please don't lean on the glass.
[24:30] Speaker 2: Four guards wound up coming under scrutiny. March 2020, investigators
[24:35] Speaker 2: were also looking at these two other guards. They hadn't
[24:38] Speaker 2: even been on shift that night. And we're like, oh,
[24:40] Speaker 2: maybe they helped the thieves.
[24:42] Speaker 3: They're all inside it.
[24:43] Speaker 2: In the end, every one of them was released and
[24:45] Speaker 2: the charges dropped. They had no connection. So... There was
[24:49] Speaker 2: another thread that seemingly led to nowhere. January of 2020,
[24:52] Speaker 2: an Israeli security firm called CGI Group claimed that its
[24:58] Speaker 2: investigators had made contact online with the culprits. And German
[25:03] Speaker 2: authorities were like, we don't have any evidence of a ransom. Like,
[25:07] Speaker 2: what are you talking about?
[25:08] Speaker 3: And also, why are you contacting stolen jewel guys? Yeah.
[25:12] Speaker 2: And I want to add that the CGI group would
[25:14] Speaker 2: go on to be hired to identify and track down
[25:16] Speaker 2: the crew involved in the Louvre heist in 2025. Are
[25:19] Speaker 2: they just like freelance? It's a company that's made up
[25:23] Speaker 2: of former Israeli intelligence professionals, and they specialize in intelligence gathering, like,
[25:29] Speaker 2: working for security consulting for businesses.
[25:31] Speaker 3: So if something hits the news, they're like, this could
[25:33] Speaker 3: drum up some business.
[25:33] Speaker 2: And I think they kind of just inserted themselves in
[25:35] Speaker 2: this one.
[25:35] Speaker 3: Okay.
[25:36] Speaker 2: According to a message first reported by the German tabloid Bild,
[25:41] Speaker 2: someone reached out to CGI and offered to sell back
[25:45] Speaker 2: a pair of the stolen pieces for about 9 million euro.
[25:48] Speaker 3: Wait, why would that part make no sense?
[25:50] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[25:50] Speaker 3: Now I'm suspicious.
[25:52] Speaker 2: And the 9 million euro is like way under the
[25:53] Speaker 2: appraised worth. Yes.
[25:55] Speaker 3: Also, why them? P.S.
[25:57] Speaker 2: It needs to be payable in Bitcoin.
[25:59] Speaker 3: Okay, no, I don't believe any of this.
[26:00] Speaker 2: So the CGI's founder and CEO, Zvika Nave, he came
[26:06] Speaker 2: up with emails from a sender that was calling themselves
[26:09] Speaker 2: Dark Grim Reaper. Like, was the kid like a 13-year-old kid?
[26:14] Speaker 3: Was this his 4chan name?
[26:15] Speaker 2: The Dark Grim Reaper had masked their identity through the
[26:18] Speaker 2: dark web.
[26:19] Speaker 3: Naturally.
[26:19] Speaker 2: And then said, there's going to be no negotiation. You're
[26:22] Speaker 2: never going to find me.
[26:23] Speaker 3: Pay or play.
[26:24] Speaker 2: And CGI was like, look, the museum hired us. Museum
[26:28] Speaker 2: management hired us to look into the case.
[26:30] Speaker 1: Hmm.
[26:31] Speaker 2: And then museum management was like, no, we did not.
[26:34] Speaker 2: Who are you? And then, in fact, the state art
[26:38] Speaker 2: collection issued a joint statement with the local prosecutor's office,
[26:42] Speaker 2: the police, saying just that. Like, no, we never engaged
[26:46] Speaker 2: this firm.
[26:47] Speaker 3: They had to release a statement.
[26:48] Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
[26:49] Speaker 3: Do not send more emails to them.
[26:51] Speaker 2: Nave, for his part, he said that a large, well-known
[26:54] Speaker 2: European law firm had brought CGI on board and that
[26:58] Speaker 2: he just figured like, oh, this must be tied to
[27:00] Speaker 2: like the insurance policy on the jewels. Everyone's like, there's
[27:04] Speaker 2: no insurance policy.
[27:06] Speaker 3: Boom.
[27:07] Speaker 2: Snap. There you go.
[27:08] Speaker 3: Try your next last time. Exactly.
[27:09] Speaker 2: And so the cops were just like, we have wasted
[27:12] Speaker 2: so much time on this. Get out of here. Real
[27:15] Speaker 2: progress came from a different direction. Yeah. That same January,
[27:19] Speaker 2: German police, they zeroed in on a fresh set of
[27:22] Speaker 2: suspects in an operation that put, they had 1,600 officers
[27:28] Speaker 2: searching 18 apartments, garages, and vehicles. Wow. Like, that's, I
[27:32] Speaker 2: don't think all 1,600 were on the actual searches. The
[27:35] Speaker 2: actual task forces, yeah. And there were others back at
[27:37] Speaker 2: the office.
[27:38] Speaker 3: Yeah, some were just like.
[27:39] Speaker 2: Some had, like, filed some paperwork on it at one
[27:41] Speaker 2: point in time. November 2020.
[27:43] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[27:44] Speaker 2: Three German citizens have been taken into custody. And this
[27:49] Speaker 2: was all this like months of legwork, dedicated task force.
[27:52] Speaker 2: They called it Operation Epaulette. Oh, because— Zip tie that rabbit, baby.
[27:58] Speaker 3: Out of all the things, they focus on the epaulette.
[28:01] Speaker 2: So the investigators are like, look, we got this breakthrough
[28:04] Speaker 2: because of CCTV footage and DNA evidence that was recovered
[28:08] Speaker 2: from the burned-out getaway car.
[28:10] Speaker 3: Oh, they did pull some touch DNA?
[28:12] Speaker 2: They went deep, yeah.
[28:12] Speaker 3: Okay.
[28:13] Speaker 2: And then there was a second lead, a man who
[28:15] Speaker 2: had sold the batch of SIM cards used by the
[28:18] Speaker 2: robbers during the heist. So they were doing like in-depth
[28:22] Speaker 2: forensic like trackings.
[28:24] Speaker 3: Was the SIM card left in a phone in the
[28:27] Speaker 3: burned out car?
[28:28] Speaker 2: I don't know. But like they were just able to
[28:31] Speaker 2: I don't know how they track that stuff. So the
[28:33] Speaker 2: arrest tied the case to the same like what they
[28:36] Speaker 2: were referring to as Lebanese mafia clan.
[28:38] Speaker 3: The Lebanese.
[28:39] Speaker 2: Uh-huh. Whose members had already been convicted that year for
[28:42] Speaker 2: stealing one of the largest gold coins in the world
[28:45] Speaker 2: from a Berlin museum, the Bode Museum.
[28:47] Speaker 3: The largest gold coin in the world. Like legit. Oh, really?
[28:51] Speaker 2: It looks like a sewer cover. What the heck is that?
[28:55] Speaker 2: It's also known as the Big Maple Leaf.
[28:57] Speaker 3: It sounds like something you'd see like on a roadside
[28:59] Speaker 3: attraction in Minnesota.
[29:00] Speaker 2: Largest coin.
[29:01] Speaker 3: The largest gold coin in the world.
[29:02] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[29:03] Speaker 3: Next stop.
[29:04] Speaker 2: This was an audacious move. I mean, it was bumbling.
[29:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit.
[29:09] Speaker 2: Okay, so a little about this coin. A giant commemorative
[29:12] Speaker 2: gold coin minted by the Royal Canadian Mint. In 2007.
[29:18] Speaker 2: There were just five made ever. One was kept in
[29:22] Speaker 2: permanent storage at the Royal Canadian Mint in Ottawa. Another
[29:27] Speaker 2: was loaned to Berlin's Bode Museum in 2010 by an
[29:31] Speaker 2: anonymous private collector. That's hanky. Loaned?
[29:34] Speaker 3: Because people want to see the largest, one of the
[29:37] Speaker 3: largest gold coins.
[29:37] Speaker 2: The coin? How much do you think the coin weighs?
[29:41] Speaker 3: 1,200 pounds.
[29:42] Speaker 2: Yes.
[29:43] Speaker 3: I'm doing an Elizabeth guess.
[29:45] Speaker 2: You like that? It was so good. 221 pounds.
[29:48] Speaker 3: Dear God.
[29:49] Speaker 2: That's like kind of approaching gold toilet levels.
[29:51] Speaker 3: That's far more than I thought.
[29:53] Speaker 2: Yeah. 99.999% pure gold.
[29:54] Speaker 3: Wow.
[29:57] Speaker 2: That's crazy. 1.18 inches thick with a 20.9 inch diameter.
[30:04] Speaker 2: Had a picture of QE2 on it, Queen Elizabeth II.
[30:07] Speaker 3: That's nuts.
[30:09] Speaker 2: It held the Guinness World Record for purity. The face
[30:13] Speaker 2: value on it.
[30:13] Speaker 3: Almost two feet across.
[30:14] Speaker 2: Yeah. The face value on it. Was a million Canadian dollars.
[30:20] Speaker 4: One million.
[30:20] Speaker 2: But the weight alone.
[30:22] Speaker 3: I need one million Canadian dollars.
[30:24] Speaker 2: Of one million coin. The weight alone, like at market
[30:29] Speaker 2: gold prices, put it like at almost six million.
[30:32] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. And now, I mean, with the price of
[30:34] Speaker 3: gold having gone up since 2019. Yeah.
[30:37] Speaker 2: So on the night of March 27th, 2017, thieves broke
[30:41] Speaker 2: into the museum. They bypassed bulletproof glass, made a clean
[30:45] Speaker 2: getaway with this huge coin. It was amazing. And they had, like,
[30:50] Speaker 2: scoped out the location on earlier visits.
[30:52] Speaker 3: How many of them were carrying the gold coin when
[30:54] Speaker 3: they were leaving?
[30:55] Speaker 2: Wait till you hear how they moved it. So on
[30:58] Speaker 2: one of the earlier scope outs, they climbed up to
[31:02] Speaker 2: the display window and like damaged the security glass, but
[31:05] Speaker 2: it held fast.
[31:06] Speaker 3: It did its job.
[31:09] Speaker 2: So like the police are going for the actual heist.
[31:11] Speaker 2: They broke a window at the back of the museum
[31:14] Speaker 2: near an elevated rail line and they used a ladder
[31:17] Speaker 2: that they found on the tracks to get in and out.
[31:19] Speaker 3: Wait, that they found? They didn't bring the ladder?
[31:22] Speaker 2: Apparently. But here's my favorite. Lucky score. I told you
[31:24] Speaker 2: it was bubbling. They used a wheelbarrow and a skateboard
[31:28] Speaker 2: to move the coin.
[31:29] Speaker 3: That's like how I used to move furniture in my 20s.
[31:35] Speaker 2: In college, between my junior and senior year, I moved
[31:39] Speaker 2: using a skateboard.
[31:40] Speaker 3: 100%.
[31:40] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[31:40] Speaker 3: Those memory foam mattresses? You don't know how to carry
[31:44] Speaker 3: those things. Give me two skateboards.
[31:45] Speaker 2: You can stack a couple boxes.
[31:46] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
[31:48] Speaker 2: I mean, you go a couple blocks. You're not moving
[31:50] Speaker 2: that far.
[31:51] Speaker 3: All right.
[31:51] Speaker 2: So they had inside help. A childhood friend of the
[31:54] Speaker 2: ringleaders had taken a job as a security guard at
[31:57] Speaker 2: the museum, like, just before the theft. They didn't wait.
[32:00] Speaker 2: They didn't, you know. The culprits were these cousins, Ahmed
[32:04] Speaker 2: and Wissam Remo, members of the well-known Remo clan.
[32:08] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, we've mentioned them before.
[32:10] Speaker 2: Berlin family, Lebanese roots, tied to organized crime. There was
[32:14] Speaker 2: a third relative as well as the security guard accomplice.
[32:17] Speaker 2: And so at a trial that went for 41 days
[32:20] Speaker 2: over the course of a year, so it was like
[32:21] Speaker 2: off and on.
[32:22] Speaker 3: German trials. are insane with it. I've been following one
[32:26] Speaker 3: now for like a year and I'm like, when will
[32:28] Speaker 3: you end? So I can get like to the point
[32:31] Speaker 3: I can share this story.
[32:33] Speaker 2: So Ahmed and Wissam, they were each sentenced to four
[32:36] Speaker 2: and a half years and they were tried as juveniles
[32:38] Speaker 2: because their ages at the time of the crime. Security
[32:41] Speaker 2: guard got three years, four months, the fourth defendant, the
[32:45] Speaker 2: cousin or whatever, he got acquitted for lack of evidence.
[32:47] Speaker 3: Okay.
[32:47] Speaker 2: And the Coyne, Never been recovered.
[32:50] Speaker 3: Oh, they melted that down.
[32:52] Speaker 2: Oh, that's gone, baby. They're like, okay, obviously.
[32:54] Speaker 3: You don't sell that thing.
[32:55] Speaker 2: They cut it into pieces. They sold it off.
[32:59] Speaker 3: It's gone.
[32:59] Speaker 2: It's gone forever. So back to the Green Vault. At
[33:03] Speaker 2: least one of the suspects that was detained in November
[33:05] Speaker 2: 2020 had also taken part in that job.
[33:09] Speaker 3: Are you kidding me?
[33:10] Speaker 2: That was Wisam Remo, right? He was 23 at the
[33:14] Speaker 2: time of the Green Vault thing. He'd already been sentenced
[33:16] Speaker 2: to four and a half years over the coin theft,
[33:19] Speaker 2: and he hadn't begun serving it because his appeal was pending.
[33:23] Speaker 2: He's on appeal on something that's like a lock.
[33:27] Speaker 3: You know me. I'm not like a big fan of like,
[33:28] Speaker 3: lock him up or any of that type of behavior.
[33:30] Speaker 3: But when I hear stories about the European hesitancy to
[33:34] Speaker 3: put anyone in prison, they're like, well, he's on appeal,
[33:36] Speaker 3: so we're going to let him stay out. You know,
[33:38] Speaker 3: and he's got to see his mother.
[33:40] Speaker 2: He's got to see and got to rob a gallery.
[33:43] Speaker 2: And he's a member of, like I said, this like
[33:45] Speaker 2: organized crime family. And they're the ones who inspired this
[33:48] Speaker 2: German TV series called Four Blocks. I've not seen it,
[33:51] Speaker 2: but that's apparently it. Two more suspects, twin brothers identified
[33:56] Speaker 2: as Abdul Majed R and Mohammed R, still on the
[34:01] Speaker 2: run at this point. It triggered this large scale manhunt.
[34:05] Speaker 2: So Interpol issued a red notice. And about a month later, Mohammed,
[34:09] Speaker 2: he gets caught in a car that's parked in Berlin.
[34:12] Speaker 2: And that's the same neighborhood that the Remo clan calls
[34:15] Speaker 2: home turf. Abdul, he evaded capture for another five months,
[34:20] Speaker 2: and then he's caught May 17th, 2021. A sixth and
[34:24] Speaker 2: final suspect got picked up August 2021. By September of
[34:29] Speaker 2: that year, prosecutors had formally charged all six guys with
[34:33] Speaker 2: serious gang theft and arson. Because don't forget, they blew
[34:36] Speaker 2: up the power station.
[34:37] Speaker 3: All right.
[34:37] Speaker 2: Three are brothers. The other three are their cousins. Police
[34:41] Speaker 2: seized hard drives, computers, phones in the search, but the
[34:45] Speaker 2: treasure itself was unaccounted for.
[34:48] Speaker 3: And they're not talking.
[34:49] Speaker 2: They're not talking. So let's stop for some ads. You know, people,
[34:52] Speaker 2: I want, Zarin, I want you to really think about this.
[34:54] Speaker 2: People worked hard to write, record, and engineer these things.
[34:57] Speaker 2: So let's be respectful and pay attention, okay?
[35:00] Speaker 3: Eyes forward.
[35:01] Speaker 2: And when these are done, we'll go to court. Zarin.
[35:24] Speaker 3: Dude, Elizabeth, can I say one thing before you get started?
[35:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead. Please do.
[35:27] Speaker 3: So with these, I was thinking about during the ad break, right?
[35:30] Speaker 3: And like the brothers and the cousins who are like
[35:35] Speaker 3: working together as a crime family, I a hundred percent
[35:38] Speaker 3: know if I had one, just one brother, we would
[35:41] Speaker 3: be a crime family.
[35:42] Speaker 2: You totally would.
[35:43] Speaker 3: I mean, like just another person who I could trust completely.
[35:46] Speaker 3: Like that was my problem with crime. I'm like, I
[35:48] Speaker 3: want to do this job by myself. I don't trust them.
[35:50] Speaker 3: Because they have every reason to flip on you. But
[35:52] Speaker 3: a brother, you're like, mom's going to be pissed if
[35:54] Speaker 3: you flip on me.
[35:55] Speaker 2: And you know I ain't going to flip on you.
[35:56] Speaker 3: Oh, that's a good point. So it's like you're less likely.
[35:59] Speaker 2: Far less likely. So we're really lucky you only have
[36:02] Speaker 2: a sister.
[36:02] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. And no brother. Because she doesn't trust me
[36:05] Speaker 3: that way. She's like, I'm not doing crime to you.
[36:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. She's smart.
[36:08] Speaker 3: She's smart. Yeah, she's a woman. She knows better. She
[36:11] Speaker 3: knows better.
[36:11] Speaker 2: Than to go along.
[36:12] Speaker 3: With her dumb brother to do crime. We're a crime family, Meg.
[36:17] Speaker 2: So this crime family, as I said, the cops raided
[36:20] Speaker 2: their homes. They came away with all sorts of tech tools, whatever,
[36:25] Speaker 2: no jewels. And then, you know, what would be a
[36:29] Speaker 2: long trial kicked off? As the New York Times tells it, quote,
[36:33] Speaker 2: During the trial, which lasted 15 months, the six defendants
[36:37] Speaker 2: sometimes seemed like the crew of Ocean's Eleven and at
[36:40] Speaker 2: other times like Mr. Bean. But it was not just
[36:43] Speaker 2: the accused who at times appeared inept. The trial shed
[36:46] Speaker 2: a light on a German justice system that failed, to
[36:49] Speaker 2: an almost comical degree, when it came to stopping determined criminals.
[36:53] Speaker 3: Well, it took them 15 months for basically an open-shut
[36:56] Speaker 3: case of, like, did you go in and smash the
[36:58] Speaker 3: glass and take the stuff?
[37:00] Speaker 2: You know, you're waiting, you're on appeal for another one.
[37:03] Speaker 2: It's basically the same, you know, methodology. I mean, it's true. Okay, so...
[37:09] Speaker 2: So the proceedings, they did deliver this detailed play-by-play of
[37:13] Speaker 2: how the job actually came together. So four months before
[37:16] Speaker 2: the robbery, one of the guys traveled to Magdeburg, about
[37:22] Speaker 2: 180 miles northwest of Dresden.
[37:23] Speaker 3: Okay.
[37:24] Speaker 2: And he picked up a used, already registered Audi S6
[37:28] Speaker 2: that would become the getaway car. He later— He and
[37:31] Speaker 2: some of the guys repainted it silver and left the
[37:33] Speaker 2: roof only, you know, the dark original color.
[37:36] Speaker 3: The house on the CCTV cameras would not register it
[37:39] Speaker 3: the same.
[37:40] Speaker 2: Right, right.
[37:40] Speaker 3: That's smart.
[37:41] Speaker 2: And nearly a week before the heist, another man broke
[37:44] Speaker 2: into the city power supply service room at the foot
[37:47] Speaker 2: of the Augustus Bridge. Police investigate at the time, and
[37:51] Speaker 2: they're just like, well, there's nothing alarming here.
[37:53] Speaker 3: They're probably trying to steal copper.
[37:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, okay, well, you know, lock it back up.
[37:58] Speaker 2: Around the same time period, the crew cut this really, like, neat,
[38:02] Speaker 2: precise triangular section out of an old metal grate covering
[38:07] Speaker 2: a corner window of the treasure chamber. And they deliberately
[38:10] Speaker 2: chose a spot outside the view of the nearest security camera.
[38:13] Speaker 2: So they cut it and left it. Like, all right.
[38:16] Speaker 3: Good.
[38:17] Speaker 2: Then they pried loose about a foot and a half
[38:19] Speaker 2: of thick wrought metal, glued the cut section back into
[38:23] Speaker 2: place so that no one would notice. You want to
[38:26] Speaker 2: know what tool ultimately did the damage?
[38:28] Speaker 3: I don't know.
[38:29] Speaker 2: Thermal lance?
[38:31] Speaker 3: Powerful jack?
[38:32] Speaker 2: Bodacious jack?
[38:33] Speaker 4: No.
[38:33] Speaker 3: Swiss army knife?
[38:34] Speaker 4: No.
[38:35] Speaker 2: They made like LA's 118 firehouse on the hit ABC
[38:38] Speaker 2: TV show 911, and they used pneumatic jaws of life.
[38:42] Speaker 3: What?
[38:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, what rescue crews use to pry open wrecked cars.
[38:46] Speaker 3: Rip open the doors.
[38:47] Speaker 2: You can't just buy those, by the way.
[38:49] Speaker 3: No, you've got to steal that.
[38:50] Speaker 2: Three months before the heist, Wissam, he broke into a
[38:53] Speaker 2: specialized tool factory and stole one.
[38:56] Speaker 3: The factory? He went right to the source.
[38:57] Speaker 2: He went to the factory. Factory direct.
[38:59] Speaker 3: I want a new one.
[39:00] Speaker 2: And in an odd twist, he actually stood before a
[39:02] Speaker 2: judge on an unrelated burglary charge just two days after
[39:06] Speaker 2: the Dresden robbery.
[39:07] Speaker 3: What?
[39:08] Speaker 2: The court, completely unaware what the stolen tool had been
[39:12] Speaker 2: used for, gave him two and a half years for
[39:14] Speaker 2: the factory break-in.
[39:15] Speaker 3: Oh, I want to do crime in Europe.
[39:16] Speaker 2: These guys are in and out of court while committing
[39:18] Speaker 2: more and more crimes. It's incredible. A good thing, like
[39:21] Speaker 2: I said, the trial reconstructed the early morning of the
[39:24] Speaker 2: heist in vivid detail.
[39:26] Speaker 3: I bet. They had all those months.
[39:27] Speaker 2: To put together the vivid details. Oh, Zarin, Zarin. your eyes.
[39:30] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. My eyes are closed.
[39:32] Speaker 2: I want you to picture it. You are a criminal
[39:42] Speaker 2: prosecutor in the higher regional court of Dresden. You're working
[39:46] Speaker 2: the high-profile Green Vault heist case. It's been a grueling
[39:50] Speaker 2: 15-month trial, and now it is reaching its climax, closing arguments.
[39:55] Speaker 2: You are in the high-security courtroom in Dresden. There's bulletproof
[39:59] Speaker 2: glass and security gauntlet one has to run to get
[40:02] Speaker 2: in and out of this room. It's robust, to say
[40:05] Speaker 2: the least. This is the site of the most severe
[40:08] Speaker 2: terrorism cases, the most complicated organized crime trials, and the
[40:12] Speaker 2: Green Vault gem theft. Unlike in the United States, there's
[40:16] Speaker 2: no jury for you to address. Instead, the presiding judge
[40:20] Speaker 2: sits before you, flanked by lay judges. These are ordinary citizens,
[40:24] Speaker 2: and they have equal voting power on guilt and sentencing.
[40:28] Speaker 2: Closing arguments are generally purely fact. You've seen a lot
[40:32] Speaker 2: of American TV. There, the prosecutors get to weave a
[40:35] Speaker 2: story for a jury, appeal to their emotions. You wish
[40:38] Speaker 2: that were the protocol here. And you think you may
[40:41] Speaker 2: try to mix it up a little bit here, too.
[40:43] Speaker 2: Maybe spice up your closing to present the facts in
[40:46] Speaker 2: a more accessible way. Everyone is seated. You are instructed
[40:50] Speaker 2: to begin. You clear your throat. Ladies and gentlemen, your honor,
[40:56] Speaker 2: I present to you a summation of the facts surrounding
[40:59] Speaker 2: the theft on Monday, November 25th, 2019 of precious gems
[41:03] Speaker 2: and jewelry from the Grünes Gewölbe. This may be a
[41:08] Speaker 2: bit unorthodox how I present this information to you, but
[41:11] Speaker 2: bear with me. It will be worth it. You clear
[41:14] Speaker 2: your throat again, full of anxiety, wondering if you are
[41:17] Speaker 2: about to make a terrible mistake and end your career.
[41:21] Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, close your eyes. Are your eyes closed?
[41:25] Speaker 2: I want you to picture it. MUSIC The judge looks
[41:36] Speaker 2: at you and raises an eyebrow. A lay judge shuffles
[41:39] Speaker 2: some papers and looks confused, but then closes his eyes.
[41:42] Speaker 2: Another of the lay judges lifts a pitcher of water
[41:45] Speaker 2: and pours herself a glass. The microphone in front of
[41:47] Speaker 2: her picks up the sound and broadcasts it into the room.
[41:51] Speaker 2: You pause and then continue. There are muffled comments behind
[41:55] Speaker 2: you coming from the gallery. The judge says, this is
[41:58] Speaker 2: highly unorthodox, but do proceed. You begin. It's a little
[42:03] Speaker 2: before 5 a.m. on that last Monday of November 2019,
[42:07] Speaker 2: you tell them. You are a crow sitting on the
[42:11] Speaker 2: rain gutter of a building in Dresden. You see a
[42:14] Speaker 2: crude homemade bomb, really just a cooking pot packed with
[42:17] Speaker 2: diesel and gasoline. Moments later, it explodes outside the electrical
[42:22] Speaker 2: service room by the Augustus Bridge, killing the streetlights in
[42:25] Speaker 2: the surrounding blocks. The blast ruffles your feathers. Darkness descends
[42:30] Speaker 2: on the area. You look over and see two men
[42:32] Speaker 2: about 200 yards away slip through a pre-cut hole in
[42:36] Speaker 2: the window grate of the Green Vault Museum. You fly
[42:40] Speaker 2: over to the building to get a better look, alighting
[42:42] Speaker 2: on a tree limb, its leaves turning yellows and oranges
[42:46] Speaker 2: before falling brown and cracked to the earth. You watch
[42:49] Speaker 2: as the men set about hammering open jewel cases, striking
[42:52] Speaker 2: the display cases 56 times in the span of a
[42:56] Speaker 2: few minutes. All is dark around you. The sky, the streets,
[43:00] Speaker 2: and the room where the men are stealing such shiny,
[43:03] Speaker 2: beautiful objects. You had no idea any of this was
[43:06] Speaker 2: in there. You look around and notice the window they'd
[43:09] Speaker 2: chosen sits in a blind spot, invisible to any camera.
[43:13] Speaker 2: And that likely wouldn't have mattered, as the world around
[43:16] Speaker 2: you is currently as inky as your feathers. Yesterday, you
[43:19] Speaker 2: heard an alarm coming from a museum. When you flew
[43:22] Speaker 2: over to investigate, you heard someone mention a motion sensor.
[43:25] Speaker 2: They said it had been tripped and the guards would
[43:27] Speaker 2: just shut it off. Never turned it back on, you think?
[43:31] Speaker 2: As the thieves shuffle in the gallery, collecting handfuls of
[43:34] Speaker 2: diamonds and triggering a tug of jealousy in your quick-beating heart,
[43:39] Speaker 2: you decide to check in on the rest of the building.
[43:42] Speaker 2: You fly to another tree, another branch, and peer in
[43:45] Speaker 2: the window where the guards sit and watch TV monitors
[43:47] Speaker 2: all day. The woman who does this job in the
[43:50] Speaker 2: mornings often sets nuts out on the windowsill for you
[43:52] Speaker 2: and your murder. You know her face, and your children's
[43:55] Speaker 2: children will know it too. She has become a kindred.
[43:59] Speaker 2: You hop on the sill and look in the room.
[44:01] Speaker 2: Two private security guards watch a closed circuit feed. On
[44:05] Speaker 2: the screen, the thieves struggle to free the jewelry from
[44:07] Speaker 2: the cases. The goods appear to be held in place
[44:10] Speaker 2: by tough nylon strings. The burglars fish through their pockets
[44:14] Speaker 2: for a utility knife or something to cut the strings. Meanwhile,
[44:17] Speaker 2: the guards argue. One keeps insisting that company rules bar
[44:21] Speaker 2: them from confronting the intruders directly. We don't have any
[44:24] Speaker 2: sort of weapon, one shouts. The other sighs and picks
[44:27] Speaker 2: up the phone.
[44:28] Speaker 3: Hello, police?
[44:30] Speaker 2: And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what happened when the
[44:32] Speaker 2: green vault was violated and the most precious items were stolen. Uh, okay,
[44:39] Speaker 2: the judge says. Do you have anything else to present?
[44:42] Speaker 2: Anything of substance? I mean, I did enjoy being a
[44:45] Speaker 2: crow for a moment, I won't lie. Me too, interjects
[44:48] Speaker 2: the lay judge. But then the judge warns you that
[44:50] Speaker 2: the stunt was in poor judgment. You nod, apologize, and
[44:53] Speaker 2: straighten your papers. You clear your throat one last time
[44:57] Speaker 2: and begin a dry rundown of the facts of the case. Inside,
[45:02] Speaker 2: you think it was worth it. You compile facts and
[45:05] Speaker 2: share all week. It's so nice to be creative and
[45:08] Speaker 2: escapist and share an image and experience with others. At
[45:12] Speaker 2: least you had a chance to help them picture it. Zarin.
[45:17] Speaker 3: So meta, Elizabeth.
[45:18] Speaker 2: Picture it within a picture.
[45:20] Speaker 3: Yes. I mean, you doubled it up. You made me
[45:22] Speaker 3: experience what it is to experience a picture.
[45:25] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[45:25] Speaker 3: I felt like a German judge. Thank you. Not for
[45:28] Speaker 3: the first time in my life, but it felt nice.
[45:30] Speaker 2: Double up. It was perfect. The case walked us through
[45:36] Speaker 2: the actual heist. It also shed a light on what
[45:38] Speaker 2: happened afterwards. So that Luke gets put in the Audi
[45:43] Speaker 2: riding on stolen plates and They took it to a
[45:45] Speaker 2: parking garage in this residential street, like, miles away.
[45:49] Speaker 3: Oh.
[45:51] Speaker 2: They went into that Mercedes made up to look like
[45:53] Speaker 2: a cab, set the Audi on fire. The fire spread
[45:56] Speaker 2: to more than 60 other cars in the garage.
[45:59] Speaker 1: Oops.
[45:59] Speaker 2: So it wasn't just like, oh, we torched it in
[46:01] Speaker 2: a field.
[46:02] Speaker 3: Did they leave some protester pamphlets, make it look like
[46:04] Speaker 3: some environmentalist girl? That's what I would have done.
[46:06] Speaker 2: You'd think, but it was unnecessary no matter how you
[46:08] Speaker 2: slice it.
[46:09] Speaker 3: Oh, definitely. It's a shame for the people.
[46:10] Speaker 2: Who own those cars. Unnecessary, guys.
[46:11] Speaker 3: Come on now.
[46:13] Speaker 2: And so the Blaze, that racked up over half a
[46:15] Speaker 2: million euros in damage. And it put the life of
[46:19] Speaker 2: a woman who happened to be inside at risk.
[46:21] Speaker 3: Oh.
[46:22] Speaker 2: So they weren't just, again, go torch it in a
[46:24] Speaker 2: field like you're supposed to, like in the movies.
[46:25] Speaker 3: They're very sloppy.
[46:26] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[46:26] Speaker 3: With the whole, like, we borrowed a ladder. We accidentally
[46:29] Speaker 3: burned all these cars down.
[46:31] Speaker 2: And then the second getaway car, that Benzo, that had
[46:34] Speaker 2: the same fiery fate about a month later.
[46:36] Speaker 3: I figured, yeah. Yeah.
[46:37] Speaker 2: So the trial went on, like I said, for, you know,
[46:39] Speaker 2: 15 months. But about a year in, one defendant- Rabe Remo,
[46:45] Speaker 2: he has it a little bit different spelling than everybody else.
[46:49] Speaker 2: He abruptly reversed his earlier testimony and admitted that he had,
[46:53] Speaker 2: in fact, been inside the vault during the robbery.
[46:55] Speaker 3: Oh, one of the cousins snitched.
[46:57] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[46:59] Speaker 3: See, that's why you got to have a brother. You
[47:01] Speaker 3: can't have a cousin. You get on a cousin, that's
[47:02] Speaker 3: too far removed.
[47:04] Speaker 2: The six defendants wound up revealing where the items were
[47:07] Speaker 2: hidden as part of a negotiated arrangement. So they were like,
[47:11] Speaker 2: we'll return the jewels and admit to the crimes in
[47:14] Speaker 2: exchange for capped prison terms. So in December of 2022,
[47:19] Speaker 2: German police, they recovered a batch of all these treasures,
[47:22] Speaker 2: 31 objects in total.
[47:24] Speaker 3: So not everything. Right.
[47:26] Speaker 2: Taken back to the Green Vault. But, you know, here
[47:30] Speaker 2: they squealed, right? According to the New York Times, quote,
[47:34] Speaker 2: Mahmoud Jaraba, an academic who studies criminal families like the Remos,
[47:38] Speaker 2: said that those networks were known for their loyalty and
[47:41] Speaker 2: unwillingness to deal with authorities, which made the plea deal
[47:44] Speaker 2: in the Green Vault case so striking. However, he added,
[47:48] Speaker 2: because of a code of silence, it was very difficult
[47:50] Speaker 2: for outsiders to know much about the real power structure
[47:53] Speaker 2: within these families.
[47:55] Speaker 3: The power structure and also the fact that they basically
[47:57] Speaker 3: got to keep some of it. They gave them back
[47:59] Speaker 3: some of it and they got to cap their time.
[48:01] Speaker 2: As you pointed out, not everything was returned.
[48:03] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good deal.
[48:04] Speaker 2: The white diamond, nowhere to be found. White diamond. So
[48:08] Speaker 2: now we've got all six. They've all admitted the involvement.
[48:12] Speaker 2: There are actually, there were two. One guy, he was
[48:16] Speaker 2: able to prove that he'd spent the night in the
[48:17] Speaker 2: emergency room that night. So he was out of it.
[48:20] Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Okay.
[48:20] Speaker 2: And then another one was like, look, I'm innocent. I'm
[48:23] Speaker 2: not playing this game. So there's, you know, this fine print, right? Like,
[48:30] Speaker 2: not only would they have the cap to the sentence,
[48:32] Speaker 2: they said, I'll own up to my individual role, each
[48:36] Speaker 2: of them.
[48:36] Speaker 3: Hmm.
[48:37] Speaker 2: But they had the right to stay silent about any
[48:38] Speaker 2: accomplices that the police hadn't yet caught. That was another
[48:42] Speaker 2: part of it.
[48:43] Speaker 3: What a great deal.
[48:44] Speaker 2: And they were given time with their attorneys to prepare
[48:47] Speaker 2: the answers before facing prosecutors' questions.
[48:50] Speaker 3: And then for their sentence, they got like, what, two weeks?
[48:53] Speaker 2: Yeah. So they're like, yeah, we burglarized the museum, but
[48:56] Speaker 2: we can't give you any bigger picture details like what
[48:59] Speaker 2: happened after we burglarized it.
[49:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, how many we did this, who we've ever worked with.
[49:03] Speaker 2: Who planted, who's in charge.
[49:04] Speaker 3: Whatever happened to that gold coin that we also stole.
[49:06] Speaker 2: Exactly. Verdicts came down May 2023. Five men, all from
[49:10] Speaker 2: the same crime family, were convicted and sentenced for their
[49:14] Speaker 2: parts in the robbery in the getaway. They were tried
[49:18] Speaker 2: under youth sentencing guidelines because they were only 20 at
[49:21] Speaker 2: the time of the heist. And the other ones, not
[49:25] Speaker 2: the original two brothers.
[49:27] Speaker 3: They're under 25, right? I think it's something like that.
[49:30] Speaker 2: Yeah. They got prison terms that range from four years
[49:33] Speaker 2: and four months to six years and three months.
[49:35] Speaker 3: Wow, actually years.
[49:36] Speaker 2: And then that one guy had the alibi, I was
[49:39] Speaker 2: in the ER.
[49:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good one.
[49:40] Speaker 2: And then the government was also seeking 89 million euros
[49:43] Speaker 2: in damages for the missing treasure and the damage to
[49:46] Speaker 2: the museum. Oh, okay.
[49:47] Speaker 3: Well, that's at least fair.
[49:48] Speaker 2: They're still looking for 40 suspected accomplices. 40? Yeah. August 2024,
[49:56] Speaker 2: all the treasures were back on display in the museum.
[49:58] Speaker 2: They were still exactly as they looked when they were recovered.
[50:02] Speaker 2: And they're part of ongoing legal proceedings, technically still considered
[50:06] Speaker 2: property of the court, but back on display.
[50:10] Speaker 3: Still property of the court. We own these now.
[50:12] Speaker 2: What's not there, though? Dresden White Diamonds, still missing to
[50:16] Speaker 2: this day.
[50:17] Speaker 3: And they weren't forced to say anything about where it is,
[50:19] Speaker 3: what happened to it, what of the 40 accomplices might
[50:21] Speaker 3: have it.
[50:22] Speaker 2: Exactly. Zarin, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
[50:25] Speaker 3: Why can't we do crime in Germany? This is incredible.
[50:30] Speaker 3: It's like if you're doing crime on a children's scale.
[50:33] Speaker 3: They're like, look, okay, that was a bad one. We're
[50:36] Speaker 3: going to put you on a timeout. And you have
[50:38] Speaker 3: to tell us at least one of the people who
[50:40] Speaker 3: helped you in the classroom. I mean, this is ridiculous.
[50:43] Speaker 3: And I'm not suggesting like, oh, you need to be
[50:45] Speaker 3: like us, like shoot everybody, blackmail their families, ruin their
[50:49] Speaker 3: financial future.
[50:50] Speaker 2: I don't want that.
[50:51] Speaker 3: I'm not suggesting anyone be like American Justice. But this
[50:54] Speaker 3: is just incredible. Like there's got to be something where
[50:56] Speaker 3: it's like we got to give the prosecutors a little
[50:58] Speaker 3: more latitude, like force us to tell some of the accomplices.
[51:03] Speaker 2: I'm just a big fan of him going to court
[51:05] Speaker 2: for stealing the jaws of life. Yes.
[51:07] Speaker 3: And being in court for two days.
[51:09] Speaker 2: Right after he died.
[51:12] Speaker 3: Oh, so good. I do love Stealing the Jaws of Life.
[51:14] Speaker 3: That's an incredible move.
[51:16] Speaker 2: I think Stealing the Jaws of Life is going to
[51:18] Speaker 2: be like the name of my album.
[51:19] Speaker 3: Your poetry collection? Yeah.
[51:20] Speaker 2: My album, not a poetry collection. I mean, I'm a
[51:23] Speaker 2: serious musician now, Zarin.
[51:24] Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I didn't say chapbook, you know? What is this, $ 5?
[51:30] Speaker 2: What are you, baby? All right. Dave, please talk back.
[51:34] Speaker 2: I need one.
[51:37] Speaker 3: Oh, my God. Did he just say that? I love cheese.
[51:47] Speaker 4: Elizabeth Zarin. It's a chicken sandwich here, and that's sandwich
[51:52] Speaker 4: with two M's. Original good boy, former bad boy.
[51:54] Speaker 3: No ditty.
[51:55] Speaker 4: Here to share with you tonight, my younger brother, Chris P. Bacon,
[51:58] Speaker 4: no relation to Kevin, and I decided a five-finger discount
[52:01] Speaker 4: on our neighbor's weight set, free weight set. Well, free
[52:04] Speaker 4: weights aren't free. To make a long story short, Rain
[52:07] Speaker 4: plus weak arms equals failed attempt. After going home covered
[52:11] Speaker 4: in mud, we decided to work out the old-fashioned way.
[52:13] Speaker 4: No drugs filled with dirt.
[52:15] Speaker 3: Thank you for everything. And that's ridiculous. That's incredible.
[52:18] Speaker 2: Okay, so I just need to say that you're, like,
[52:20] Speaker 2: if you start a cult, I'll follow you.
[52:22] Speaker 3: Totally. That's pretty amazing. And the poetry of that, rain,
[52:25] Speaker 3: weak arms, I mean, that was great.
[52:27] Speaker 2: We're talking poetry. That's poetry.
[52:30] Speaker 3: Yes.
[52:30] Speaker 2: I mean, legitimately, that was beautiful.
[52:32] Speaker 3: Put a beat under it that you're getting, like, a
[52:33] Speaker 3: Grammy nod.
[52:34] Speaker 2: That's some deep stuff, too.
[52:36] Speaker 3: I'm into that. That was great, brother. Thank you.
[52:39] Speaker 2: Yeah. Leave us some more.
[52:40] Speaker 3: I want more. Exactly. Come back with more.
[52:42] Speaker 2: The crowd's calling for more.
[52:43] Speaker 3: Encore.
[52:45] Speaker 2: That's it. We're going out on a high with that.
[52:48] Speaker 2: That's it for today. You can find us online at RidiculousCrime.com.
[52:53] Speaker 2: I'm going to still be processing this for a while now.
[52:56] Speaker 2: We're also at Ridiculous Crime. That's genius. We're also at
[53:00] Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime on both Blue Sky and Instagram. Email us
[53:03] Speaker 2: at ridiculouscrime at gmail.com. Leave a talkback on the iHeart app.
[53:07] Speaker 2: Try and beat that one. Reach out. Ridiculous Crime is
[53:13] Speaker 2: hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett. Produced and edited
[53:16] Speaker 2: by Dave Kustin, a.k.a. David the Strong, elector of Little Italy.
[53:21] Speaker 2: Our ridiculous assistant is notorious jewel fence Terry Maldonado Fong.
[53:26] Speaker 2: Research is by crow wrangler Marissa Brown. The theme song
[53:29] Speaker 2: is by Remo Brothers, who got iced out of all
[53:31] Speaker 2: the good jobs because they can't keep their mouth shut.
[53:34] Speaker 2: Thomas Lee Remo and Travis Dutton Remo. Host wardrobe is
[53:37] Speaker 2: provided by Botany 500. Producer Dave Kustin's wardrobe by Mr.
[53:41] Speaker 2: Guy of Beverly Hills. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkle
[53:44] Speaker 2: Shot and Mr. Andre. Executive producers are two guys who
[53:48] Speaker 2: can't hear Dresden without thinking of Kurt Vonnegut, Ben Bolin
[53:51] Speaker 2: and Noel Brown.
[53:58] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime.
[54:01] Speaker 2: Say it one more time. Ridiculous Crime.
[54:05] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
[54:08] Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever
[54:12] Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.

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