# The Beef Pirates of Philadelphia

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 27 Oct 2026, 1 h 03 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/4416da00-5462-486b-8a12-b4ef01640dfd/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

The police of Philadelphia were flummoxed by a new crime trend. As the crime statistics in the city were falling, one category of crime was spiking. And it was all thanks to a crew of beef pirates. The bucaneers of the tri-state area were constantly hitting big rigs and making off with highly valuable loot. The police launched Operation Beef Bandit to combat the thieves. But really it was Instagram that spelled doom for the larcenous beef burglars. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Elizabeth Dutton.
[0:04] Speaker 3: Zarin Burnett.
[0:06] Speaker 2: How you doing, girl?
[0:07] Speaker 3: I'm all right. How are you?
[0:08] Speaker 2: I'm hanging in there. It's, you know, the autumn. I
[0:12] Speaker 2: always like the autumn. It's one of my favorite seasons.
[0:14] Speaker 3: Autumn's nice.
[0:15] Speaker 2: Before, it's one of my favorites. So you enjoy Autumn, too?
[0:19] Speaker 3: It's in my top ten seasons.
[0:20] Speaker 1: Totally.
[0:21] Speaker 2: Oh, my God. Definitely top five for me. That's how
[0:23] Speaker 2: much I like it.
[0:23] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[0:25] Speaker 2: Now, I got another question for you.
[0:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, what's up?
[0:27] Speaker 2: Do you know what's ridiculous?
[0:28] Speaker 3: I do know what's ridiculous. I believe you mentioned... A
[0:31] Speaker 3: ways back. Something about the guy who invented the Pringles
[0:35] Speaker 3: can was.
[0:35] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Got buried in it. Yeah.
[0:37] Speaker 3: Like, I mean, not like his ashes.
[0:38] Speaker 2: They didn't. Yeah. They cremated him and his family, his children.
[0:41] Speaker 3: They didn't take a core sample of him and put
[0:43] Speaker 3: it in there.
[0:44] Speaker 2: And they didn't get like a special one. They went
[0:45] Speaker 2: to a store and just bought a Pringles can.
[0:47] Speaker 3: Well, it's funny you mentioned the special one. Oh, no.
[0:50] Speaker 3: There's a website. I stepped right into it.
[0:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, you did.
[0:54] Speaker 3: Called Once You Drop.
[0:56] Speaker 2: Uh-huh.
[0:56] Speaker 3: And Pringles, they've come up with a contest. Now, it
[1:00] Speaker 3: ends October 22nd, so we missed it. And the announced winner, supposedly,
[1:06] Speaker 3: is October 23rd. All right. But I feel like no
[1:09] Speaker 3: one's going to care.
[1:10] Speaker 2: Probably not.
[1:11] Speaker 3: Anyway, maybe you would. So Pringles is coming up with
[1:15] Speaker 3: a custom can-shaped cremation urn.
[1:19] Speaker 2: They're going to ride the original, the founder's whole dream?
[1:23] Speaker 3: It's completely why they're doing this. And they said that,
[1:26] Speaker 3: you know, you get, it's worth 500 bucks. It's a
[1:30] Speaker 3: custom metal of some, I don't know, maybe pewter? Who knows?
[1:34] Speaker 3: It's got the little lid and everything. Like, oh my God,
[1:36] Speaker 3: it's so cute. And you can put your ashes in there.
[1:39] Speaker 3: And then they also say you're going to get a
[1:40] Speaker 3: 200 year supply of Pringles chips.
[1:45] Speaker 2: For $ 500? No, no, no, not for $ 500 at all.
[1:48] Speaker 3: And in addition to the $ 500 urn, urn you can
[1:52] Speaker 3: turn around and sell for $ 500.
[1:53] Speaker 2: Oh, they're saying the street value of this urn is $ 500.
[1:55] Speaker 3: Street value is $ 500.
[1:56] Speaker 2: Retail.
[1:56] Speaker 3: No, they'll give you a 200-year supply of Pringles. Of
[2:05] Speaker 3: the multitudes of rude dudes who sent this, I'd say
[2:10] Speaker 3: a good dozen or so pointed out, like, perhaps this isn't,
[2:14] Speaker 3: you know, legally transferable. Would they really follow through with it?
[2:18] Speaker 2: Yeah. How did this work?
[2:19] Speaker 3: Well, I've, I looked into it and they actually give you,
[2:22] Speaker 3: because they said, oh, it's, you can will it to people.
[2:25] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[2:26] Speaker 3: This could be one of your assets. Yeah, they can be,
[2:34] Speaker 3: but it's $ 28, 080, which is like if you were to
[2:37] Speaker 3: buy a $ 2. 70 can a week for the next 200 years.
[2:43] Speaker 2: So they make you basically just pay out. Buy it yourself.
[2:45] Speaker 3: They're not going to comp you. They're going to just
[2:48] Speaker 3: give you the cash and be like, go get yourself
[2:49] Speaker 3: something nice. Go get a can of Pringles every week.
[2:52] Speaker 2: So this is like a CSA box where I pay
[2:54] Speaker 2: for the produce, and then it's basically what I would
[2:56] Speaker 2: have paid anyway. I'm just helping them get their costs
[2:59] Speaker 2: ahead of time.
[3:00] Speaker 3: Bingo, bingo. Yeah, so anyway, you have to sign a
[3:04] Speaker 3: last will and taste event.
[3:06] Speaker 2: Oh, man.
[3:07] Speaker 3: I was going to enter you into the contest, but
[3:08] Speaker 3: then I was like, they're asking a lot of personal information. So, Kazarin,
[3:13] Speaker 3: I had a little bit of impulse control, and I
[3:16] Speaker 3: didn't sign you up, so you can't win it.
[3:18] Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
[3:19] Speaker 3: And pay the taxes on $ 28, 000. There you go. $ 28, 000
[3:23] Speaker 3: is nuts.
[3:24] Speaker 2: I know. I mean, not that it's cheap to get
[3:27] Speaker 2: buried in America, but still.
[3:29] Speaker 3: Well, that's for the Pringles, the 200 years of Pringles.
[3:32] Speaker 2: Well, yes, but that's like a celebration of life or something.
[3:35] Speaker 3: I guess.
[3:36] Speaker 2: Right? They're like, oh, guaranteeing.
[3:37] Speaker 4: By the way.
[3:38] Speaker 3: No, they're just like, you're going to live on. This
[3:39] Speaker 3: is how you're going to die.
[3:40] Speaker 2: You're bequeathing it to your family.
[3:41] Speaker 3: You're going to die by eating too many Pringles. Hello.
[3:45] Speaker 2: They say processed food kills. Mm-hmm. Well, that is ridiculous.
[3:48] Speaker 3: Yes, it is.
[3:49] Speaker 2: I'll totally give you that. Yes, it is. Now, I've
[3:51] Speaker 2: got something ridiculous for you.
[3:52] Speaker 3: Oh, lay it on me.
[3:54] Speaker 2: I've got just two words for you. Uh-oh. Beef pirates.
[3:57] Speaker 3: Whoa.
[4:18] Speaker 2: This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
[4:25] Speaker 2: and cons. It's always 99% murder-free and 100% ridiculous.
[4:33] Speaker 3: Ridiculous.
[4:35] Speaker 2: Oh, Elizabeth.
[4:36] Speaker 3: What's up?
[4:37] Speaker 2: Where to begin? Well, I guess we should just dive
[4:39] Speaker 2: right in. So, what the hell are beef pirates, Zarin?
[4:42] Speaker 3: That's such a good question, Zarin. I'm so glad you
[4:44] Speaker 3: asked that, Zarin.
[4:45] Speaker 2: Good job, Zarin. Elizabeth. Here's a question I've been wanting
[4:48] Speaker 2: to ask you since I first started researching this story.
[4:51] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[4:51] Speaker 2: If I say beef pirates, what do you imagine?
[4:55] Speaker 3: Oh, it sounds like some sort of slur or like... Slur?
[4:59] Speaker 2: See, I picture like a crew of battle rappers from
[5:01] Speaker 2: Key West. We're the beef pirates, you know, like that's
[5:04] Speaker 2: like just their street crew. We run these streets.
[5:07] Speaker 3: I like that.
[5:08] Speaker 2: Beef pirates.
[5:08] Speaker 3: I like that.
[5:09] Speaker 2: No?
[5:09] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[5:10] Speaker 2: Well, the real answer comes... Far and further north from
[5:14] Speaker 2: the city of brotherly love, aka Philadelphia.
[5:17] Speaker 3: Okay, I could see them having beef pirates.
[5:20] Speaker 2: Somehow.
[5:20] Speaker 3: I mean, yeah.
[5:21] Speaker 2: It's a port city.
[5:21] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[5:22] Speaker 2: So in October of this year, there was a news
[5:24] Speaker 2: story with the curious headline, Who is stealing all the
[5:28] Speaker 2: beef in Philadelphia?
[5:29] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[5:30] Speaker 2: And the answer, beef pirates, Elizabeth. Beef pirates are stealing
[5:33] Speaker 2: all the beef in Philadelphia. Or if you prefer alliteration,
[5:36] Speaker 2: beef bandits.
[5:37] Speaker 3: Oh, the beef bandits.
[5:39] Speaker 2: Now, according to original reporting from NBC10 in Philadelphia, dateline
[5:44] Speaker 2: October 6, 2026.
[5:46] Speaker 3: Oh, this is fresh. This is hot beef.
[5:49] Speaker 2: Ripped from the headlines, Elizabeth.
[5:50] Speaker 3: Fresh off the cow.
[5:51] Speaker 2: I know how you like the law and order, so
[5:52] Speaker 2: I was like, let me pull some law and some orders.
[5:55] Speaker 2: And here is the quote from NBC10 in Philadelphia.
[5:58] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[5:58] Speaker 2: The theft occurred at approximately 3.40am on Southampton Road. Police
[6:03] Speaker 2: said three men approached a 2023 Freightliner and broke the
[6:06] Speaker 2: seal on the rear trailer doors. The suspects then entered
[6:09] Speaker 2: the trailer and removed approximately four pallets of ground beef,
[6:13] Speaker 2: which is about $ 40, 000 worth of meat.
[6:14] Speaker 1: Huh.
[6:16] Speaker 2: Now, that's quite a haul of stolen beef. Just hope
[6:19] Speaker 2: it wasn't any of that EU-rejected ground beef.
[6:20] Speaker 3: That's what I was just thinking.
[6:22] Speaker 2: Right? The U.S. has been importing lately. Yeah. I mean,
[6:24] Speaker 2: I'd hate for these meat thieves to get sick.
[6:26] Speaker 3: Like diseased scrapple.
[6:27] Speaker 2: Now, that recent news item came on the heels of
[6:30] Speaker 2: a similar story that was reported by local CBS News
[6:34] Speaker 2: Channel 3 from Philadelphia.
[6:35] Speaker 3: Oh, they're on it.
[6:36] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[6:36] Speaker 2: Two weeks earlier, it was reported by CBS News that, quote,
[6:40] Speaker 2: Authorities said four masked men approached a 2026 Freightliner outside
[6:44] Speaker 2: of Ritter Foods on South 3rd Street around 1 a.m.
[6:46] Speaker 2: and cut the hinges from the rear door of the trailer.
[6:49] Speaker 2: The suspects then removed about half a pallet of black
[6:52] Speaker 2: Angus beef ribs and loaded the meat into a dark-colored
[6:55] Speaker 2: Ford F-150, police said.
[6:58] Speaker 3: Ooh, beef ribs.
[6:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, right? Frozen beef ribs. Elizabeth, if you're like me,
[7:01] Speaker 2: you may be wondering, what kind of tailgate parties are
[7:04] Speaker 2: these Philadelphia Eagles.
[7:05] Speaker 3: Fans throwing these days?
[7:06] Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying.
[7:07] Speaker 3: Invite me, brother.
[7:08] Speaker 2: With pallets of stolen beef ribs? But in this case,
[7:11] Speaker 2: I don't think we can blame the lawless Eagles fans.
[7:14] Speaker 3: No.
[7:14] Speaker 2: Not this time. So is this beef-based crime wave based
[7:18] Speaker 2: on the rising prices of meat in the United States?
[7:21] Speaker 3: I think you nailed it with that.
[7:23] Speaker 2: That's likely part of the reason. But when, you know,
[7:25] Speaker 2: when prices rise, black markets thrive.
[7:27] Speaker 3: We know that.
[7:28] Speaker 2: That's been true forever. But that's not the full picture. Okay.
[7:31] Speaker 3: Because, I mean, I looked at the prices in the
[7:34] Speaker 3: store the other day for steak.
[7:36] Speaker 2: Did your jaw fall?
[7:37] Speaker 3: No.
[7:37] Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
[7:38] Speaker 2: Hits the floor of the store. Yeah.
[7:40] Speaker 3: I'm just like, there's absolutely no way I'm paying that
[7:43] Speaker 3: kind of money.
[7:43] Speaker 2: It's getting ridiculous. Now, based on reporting by another local
[7:48] Speaker 2: Philadelphia news outlet, ABC six action news. We have a
[7:53] Speaker 2: theory about who the perps are. Thanks to police captain
[7:57] Speaker 2: John Ryan of Northeast detectives. Captain Ryan says, and I quote,
[8:01] Speaker 2: we believe it's the same or similar groups involved. We've
[8:04] Speaker 2: made arrests in the past.
[8:06] Speaker 1: Oh.
[8:06] Speaker 2: So for deeper answers to what's going on, we need
[8:09] Speaker 2: to revisit that first news article from local blog TypeClickType
[8:14] Speaker 2: with the colorful title, Who is Stealing All the Beef
[8:16] Speaker 2: in Philadelphia?
[8:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good, I like the title.
[8:18] Speaker 2: It's a good title. Now, Brian Grubb was the guy
[8:21] Speaker 2: who apparently writes for and wrote this blog, TypeClickType, and
[8:25] Speaker 2: he helpfully explains, they have made arrests in the past,
[8:28] Speaker 2: and I know they have made arrests in the past
[8:30] Speaker 2: because I remember Operation Beef Bandit. Okay. Now, what, pray tell,
[8:35] Speaker 2: is Operation Beef Bandit?
[8:36] Speaker 3: Oh, I remember it well.
[8:38] Speaker 2: Another great question, Elizabeth. We're really getting somewhere too early. Now,
[8:41] Speaker 2: it turns out this latest spike in beef-based burglaries is
[8:45] Speaker 2: not a new trend at all. But since you may
[8:47] Speaker 2: not follow Philadelphia area news outlets for your local news,
[8:51] Speaker 2: you may not remember Operation Beef Bandit. Luckily for you,
[8:55] Speaker 2: I went and did some research. And in the May
[8:58] Speaker 2: 2025 issue of Philadelphia Magazine, there was this long-form article
[9:02] Speaker 2: that dove deep into the story with An equally fun headline,
[9:05] Speaker 2: if you ask me. The Beef Bandits of Nicetown. Oh.
[9:09] Speaker 3: But wait a second. I thought they were like, yeah,
[9:11] Speaker 3: back in the 80s. It was last year. I remember.
[9:15] Speaker 2: Well, the story ran last year.
[9:17] Speaker 3: Yeah, but it is... Okay. Still, that's when they found
[9:20] Speaker 3: out about it.
[9:21] Speaker 2: That's when they published their story. The story primarily takes
[9:24] Speaker 2: place in a few years, like 2023. Oh, I remember
[9:28] Speaker 2: it well. Gather round, children. You were in your early
[9:31] Speaker 2: 80s at the time, I think. Come on. So personally,
[9:34] Speaker 2: I don't know if you ask me, I prefer Beef
[9:36] Speaker 2: Pirates to Beef Bandits. But you know, Beef Bandits does
[9:39] Speaker 2: have more poetic alliteration. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, according to
[9:42] Speaker 2: the journalist who penned the story... Philadelphia has been the
[9:46] Speaker 2: hunting grounds of a crew of beef bandits before. You see,
[9:50] Speaker 2: back in 2022, 2023, this wave of beef-based burglaries that
[9:54] Speaker 2: were flummoxing the Philly PD. As Philadelphia Magazine puts it,
[9:58] Speaker 2: and I quote, Lieutenant George Atkinson. Ackerman didn't know who
[10:01] Speaker 2: was causing it, but something funny had started to happen.
[10:04] Speaker 2: So this same article later explains the funny part, and
[10:08] Speaker 2: I quote, beef had begun to vanish by the literal
[10:11] Speaker 2: ton out the backs of tractor trailers. So it's pretty
[10:15] Speaker 2: much the same MO as the current way, right? So
[10:18] Speaker 2: according to the quoted policeman, Lieutenant Ackerman, the way he
[10:21] Speaker 2: tells it, and once again, I quote, we had a
[10:25] Speaker 2: truck with, I think, thousands of pounds of beef, and
[10:28] Speaker 2: it just disappears. It's nowhere, right? They're selling it somewhere, right?
[10:32] Speaker 2: But where? We don't know. It's just gone. So triazomite,
[10:36] Speaker 2: the Philly PD... fail to answer the eternal question, where's
[10:40] Speaker 2: the beef?
[10:41] Speaker 3: Oh, Zarin.
[10:42] Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
[10:42] Speaker 3: No, that was so good.
[10:44] Speaker 2: You nailed it.
[10:45] Speaker 3: You stuck the landing on that one.
[10:47] Speaker 2: I couldn't do the Clara Pelley voice, though. Anyway.
[10:49] Speaker 3: No, no, it was perfect.
[10:50] Speaker 2: The confusion over who was lifting the stolen beef and
[10:52] Speaker 2: the constant number of thefts led the Philly PD to
[10:55] Speaker 2: take a more serious approach. Together with other law enforcement
[10:59] Speaker 2: agencies in the New Jersey, because, you know, it's the
[11:01] Speaker 2: tri-state area, New York, New Jersey, and southeast Pennsylvania, which
[11:04] Speaker 2: is basically Philly. So they worked with law enforcement in
[11:08] Speaker 2: New Jersey, which they often do because Philly's just over
[11:10] Speaker 2: the river from Jersey. So they launched this multi-state task
[11:13] Speaker 2: force to get to the bottom of this beef-based crime wave.
[11:17] Speaker 2: They name it Operation Beef Bandit. Now, at first, their
[11:20] Speaker 2: task force made little headway in their pursuit of the
[11:24] Speaker 2: beef pirates. They remained ever elusive, Elizabeth, about as difficult
[11:27] Speaker 2: to catch as like, I don't know, a leprechaun or
[11:30] Speaker 2: a lasting feeling of inner peace.
[11:32] Speaker 3: It was difficult, right?
[11:33] Speaker 2: So part of the problem was this one longstanding Philadelphia,
[11:37] Speaker 2: New Jersey tradition. For some context, Philadelphia Magazine spoke with
[11:42] Speaker 2: Keith Lewis, who is a vice president at Verisk Cargo Net.
[11:47] Speaker 2: It's a cargo theft prevention and recovery network.
[11:50] Speaker 3: Okay.
[11:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, like, like, Yeah, I.
[11:54] Speaker 3: Think I talked about them in one of the other heists.
[11:57] Speaker 2: I think you did. It's ringing a bell. I thought so.
[12:00] Speaker 2: I didn't want to put you on the spot.
[12:01] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[12:02] Speaker 2: But Lewis, Keith Lewis, he focuses on Philly's culture of
[12:05] Speaker 2: turning a blind eye to a certain type of theft,
[12:08] Speaker 2: explaining how, and I quote, You're in Philadelphia, so I
[12:11] Speaker 2: know you've heard this phrase. Where'd you get that? Oh,
[12:13] Speaker 2: it fell off a truck.
[12:14] Speaker 3: I was going to say, yeah.
[12:16] Speaker 2: Ah, the old mafia, the New Jersey tradition. Think of
[12:18] Speaker 2: like Chrissy on The Sopranos boosting trucks.
[12:21] Speaker 3: Yes.
[12:21] Speaker 2: So as Philadelphia Magazine found, there are plenty of folks
[12:24] Speaker 2: in the old neighborhoods who remember and respect this tradition
[12:27] Speaker 2: to this day.
[12:28] Speaker 3: That's exactly where my mind went with this. Something fell
[12:31] Speaker 3: off a truck.
[12:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
[12:33] Speaker 3: And then, you know, local restaurants buy the, you know.
[12:36] Speaker 2: My dad got my mom a nice mink stole. How
[12:39] Speaker 2: did he afford that? He fell it off a truck. So,
[12:42] Speaker 2: for instance, the writer of Philadelphia Magazine, he spoke with
[12:44] Speaker 2: some bar patrons about what they recall of this longstanding
[12:48] Speaker 2: black market tradition. Yeah. And I quote, There's the yawn
[12:52] Speaker 2: about the bar in Oxford Circle that used to let
[12:54] Speaker 2: neighborhood thieves hold a flea market for hot goods as
[12:57] Speaker 2: long as the bar owner got a cut. And the
[12:59] Speaker 2: one about the former Acme Warehouse in Brewery Town where,
[13:02] Speaker 2: according to a local barfly, local kids would pop the
[13:05] Speaker 2: doors on meat trucks when they took a slow, hard
[13:08] Speaker 2: turn off of Gerard and take a rump roast home
[13:10] Speaker 2: for supper. Boys, where'd you get all the meat? Slow
[13:14] Speaker 2: turn on Gerard. So that same article then traces this
[13:17] Speaker 2: crime pattern further back and returns to one of our
[13:20] Speaker 2: favorite crime decades, the 1970s. And I quote, meanwhile, back
[13:24] Speaker 2: in the 70s, bonus meats from the old Cross Brothers
[13:27] Speaker 2: meat packers in Kensington somehow apparently showed up like clockwork
[13:31] Speaker 2: every Friday at a specified street corner that was an
[13:34] Speaker 2: open neighborhood secret. Oh yeah, says Jeff, capped native of
[13:38] Speaker 2: Northeast Philly's Irish neighborhoods, who's Current job is too respectable
[13:42] Speaker 2: for him to cop to teenage beef larceny. Quote, the
[13:45] Speaker 2: truck would pull up, they'd log a skid, an eye round,
[13:49] Speaker 2: but never unload it. Every Friday, we all knew where
[13:52] Speaker 2: it went. You'd show up and get your meat. His
[13:54] Speaker 2: neighbor on the next stool confirms these details without admitting complicity.
[13:59] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, I love it.
[13:59] Speaker 2: So they're all bragging about how they used to get
[14:01] Speaker 2: some of the hot meat, too.
[14:03] Speaker 3: So that happened with me.
[14:05] Speaker 2: You got some hot, you know, stolen meat?
[14:07] Speaker 3: Sarah Tassioni, the Calabrian cutie, and I had a friend
[14:11] Speaker 3: who this, like, punk friend of ours who was driving
[14:15] Speaker 3: a delivery route for this deli company.
[14:17] Speaker 2: Oh, that's gold.
[14:18] Speaker 3: And, like, he would suddenly give us prosciutto that, quote, unquote,
[14:21] Speaker 3: fell off the truck.
[14:22] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[14:23] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[14:23] Speaker 3: It happened every now and then. Totally.
[14:24] Speaker 2: I used to have a lot of friends who worked
[14:25] Speaker 2: in the food service. And I think you've had the
[14:27] Speaker 2: same thing where, like, friends are like, oh, this cookie broke.
[14:30] Speaker 3: Here you go.
[14:30] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. On the small.
[14:32] Speaker 3: Completely.
[14:32] Speaker 2: Yeah. So, like, I made a dozen pizzas and the
[14:36] Speaker 2: order got canceled.
[14:38] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[14:38] Speaker 2: Yeah. So, Elizabeth, this whole trend that we're talking about,
[14:42] Speaker 2: that was then, right? And this is now. So what
[14:44] Speaker 2: has changed now? Well, for a while, things have been
[14:48] Speaker 2: or at least had been quite different. You see, over
[14:50] Speaker 2: the last few decades— That same Philadelphia, New Jersey tradition
[14:54] Speaker 2: of things falling off the back of a truck and
[14:56] Speaker 2: then being sold out the back of a store or
[14:58] Speaker 2: a bar or in black market flea markets, that had
[15:01] Speaker 2: all kind of gone the way of like disco balls
[15:03] Speaker 2: and bell-bottom pants, right?
[15:05] Speaker 3: Sure, yeah.
[15:06] Speaker 2: But then after the pandemic, the tradition danced back onto
[15:09] Speaker 2: the scene, right? As Philly detective Lieutenant Ackerman reported, the
[15:13] Speaker 2: pattern of thefts by the beef pirates is First began
[15:16] Speaker 2: as a trickle. Nobody really noticed in the numbers. Then
[15:19] Speaker 2: it grew into this steady stream and then it continued
[15:22] Speaker 2: to grow until it became this just a deluge, a
[15:25] Speaker 2: flood of small crime.
[15:27] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[15:27] Speaker 2: This eventual flood is what led the police in Philadelphia
[15:30] Speaker 2: and New Jersey to team up for Operation Beef Bandit.
[15:33] Speaker 3: Okay.
[15:34] Speaker 2: And through old school police work, I'm talking like shoe
[15:36] Speaker 2: leather detective work and hitting the phone lines and wiretaps.
[15:41] Speaker 2: this task force was able to make some headway to
[15:45] Speaker 2: nab the free-roaming beef pirates. Oh. Oh, yeah. But before
[15:49] Speaker 2: we get into all that, Elizabeth, let's take a little break. Yes, let's.
[15:51] Speaker 2: And then after these messages, we'll be back to meet
[15:54] Speaker 2: our detectives and our crimers.
[15:56] Speaker 3: I love it.
[16:17] Speaker 2: And we're back, Elizabeth.
[16:18] Speaker 3: We're back.
[16:18] Speaker 2: What's up? Okay, where were we? Oh, that's right. Philadelphia, a.k.a. Illadelphia, a.k.a.
[16:24] Speaker 2: the city of brotherly love, a.k.a. the only city where
[16:27] Speaker 2: the NFL stadium for their football team had its own
[16:30] Speaker 2: county jail lockup.
[16:32] Speaker 3: Wait, what?
[16:32] Speaker 2: It was called Eagles Jail at the old veteran stadium.
[16:35] Speaker 3: Fly, Eagles, fly.
[16:36] Speaker 2: And trust, they needed the one. Yeah. No, I can't.
[16:39] Speaker 2: I kid Philadelphia. I have family in Philly. I love you, Philly,
[16:42] Speaker 2: but you know who you are. Anyway, my true point is,
[16:45] Speaker 2: is that while New Jersey certainly has plenty of stuff
[16:48] Speaker 2: fall off the back of trucks these days, Philly had
[16:51] Speaker 2: not been known for cargo theft. It had kind of become,
[16:54] Speaker 2: you know, a thing of the past, things that your
[16:56] Speaker 2: uncles and grandfathers and great aunts would talk about. And
[17:00] Speaker 2: we have covered some cargo theft stories. Like there was
[17:03] Speaker 2: the Nike bandits I told you about in the Southwest
[17:05] Speaker 2: who break into train boxcars and they steal van loads
[17:08] Speaker 2: of Nike shoes. Or they'll break into the boxcars as
[17:11] Speaker 2: they slowly pass through the industrial train yard section of
[17:15] Speaker 2: Los Angeles. Yeah. And of course, we've talked about port crimes,
[17:18] Speaker 2: like you did the classic episode about Bruno Schultz, the
[17:20] Speaker 2: glass eye smuggler.
[17:22] Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[17:23] Speaker 2: Right? He was working those New York docks. Yeah. But
[17:25] Speaker 2: Philly is not really known for these sort of, you know,
[17:28] Speaker 2: wild cargo theft stories. However, starting in 2022, cargo thefts
[17:33] Speaker 2: in the city start to pop off in these crime statistics. Yeah.
[17:37] Speaker 2: And it wasn't just like loads of fresh beef. I
[17:39] Speaker 2: don't want to mislead you. There are obviously other loads
[17:42] Speaker 2: you can carry in refrigerated trucks. like, say, king crab legs.
[17:47] Speaker 2: Those got hit. There are also loads of stuff that
[17:50] Speaker 2: are easy to carry valuables, like flat screen TVs. Oh, yeah.
[17:54] Speaker 2: Those also went missing.
[17:55] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[17:56] Speaker 2: So to put this in perspective, let's put some numbers
[17:59] Speaker 2: on this crime trend, right? In the 8th District of Philadelphia,
[18:02] Speaker 2: this is an industrial section of the city.
[18:04] Speaker 3: Okay.
[18:04] Speaker 2: Back in 2022, there were about 40 big rig trucks
[18:08] Speaker 2: that were broken into cleared out. Two years later in 2024,
[18:12] Speaker 2: there were 180 trucks that got hit and emptied out.
[18:17] Speaker 2: You can see how the cops suddenly noticed the numbers.
[18:20] Speaker 2: So Elizabeth, these beef pirates were stealing millions upon millions
[18:25] Speaker 2: of dollars of cargo. And eventually people were like, Are
[18:28] Speaker 2: you going to do anything about this? The detectives were like, okay, fine. Now,
[18:32] Speaker 2: the way this crime works is pretty straightforward. If you
[18:35] Speaker 2: can probably imagine, you have a long haul trucker, right?
[18:38] Speaker 2: He drives a load of whatever he's hauling into Philly.
[18:41] Speaker 2: He drives out to the industrial section of the city,
[18:44] Speaker 2: to a distribution center, a warehouse. You get the idea.
[18:48] Speaker 2: But often there's a bunch of other truckers already there,
[18:51] Speaker 2: all of them waiting to dump their loads. Sure. So
[18:53] Speaker 2: the long haul trucker has to find a place to wait.
[18:56] Speaker 2: That's not in the line because the drivers have these
[19:00] Speaker 2: strict hours that they have to maintain and they cannot
[19:03] Speaker 2: continuously operate their truck. They can't be driving for more
[19:06] Speaker 2: than I think it's like eight hours. Yeah. And they
[19:08] Speaker 2: have to keep track. The truck keeps track. It gets reported.
[19:10] Speaker 2: If you go over your hours, you can get fired.
[19:13] Speaker 2: It's a really big deal. So the truckers, while they're waiting,
[19:16] Speaker 2: they'll go find some spot in the industrial section of
[19:18] Speaker 2: the city, park their rig along the side of the road,
[19:21] Speaker 2: maybe in a spot in an empty parking lot. And
[19:25] Speaker 2: then that driver crashes out for the night. And those trucks,
[19:27] Speaker 2: if you've seen them, they've got it all set up now.
[19:29] Speaker 2: They've got refrigerators, microwaves. Yeah, a DVD player, if you're
[19:33] Speaker 2: still into that. They've got... You know, screens you can
[19:36] Speaker 2: connect your laptop to. Air fryers.
[19:38] Speaker 3: Air fryers.
[19:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, they got everything. Instant pots. It's like a little
[19:41] Speaker 2: tiny apartment. You're spot on.
[19:42] Speaker 3: I know.
[19:43] Speaker 2: So the drivers, they're getting comfortable. They eat their dinner.
[19:46] Speaker 2: They watch a little something. Maybe they read. Who knows?
[19:48] Speaker 2: And then when they wake up. the next morning, they
[19:51] Speaker 2: spend that day waiting in line to drop their load
[19:54] Speaker 2: at the warehouse, the distribution center, right?
[19:56] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[19:56] Speaker 2: They idle their engine for hours, which counts for their
[19:59] Speaker 2: driving hours. So you see why they have to do this. Yeah, exactly.
[20:03] Speaker 2: In the dark of the city night, thieves like to strike.
[20:07] Speaker 2: And strike they do, Elizabeth. Like bandits of old or
[20:10] Speaker 2: highwaymen robbing stagecoach drivers on wagon roads, right? These thieves
[20:15] Speaker 2: creep out of the dark of night. They crack open
[20:17] Speaker 2: the long haul trucker's trailer and they clean it out.
[20:20] Speaker 2: Hopefully the driver doesn't even wake up because they're that good.
[20:23] Speaker 2: They don't have to rock the trailer a lot. And now,
[20:26] Speaker 2: like I said, they'll steal appliances, frozen seafood, electronics, cases
[20:30] Speaker 2: of alcohol, pallets of beef ribs, whatever the truck is hauling.
[20:33] Speaker 2: They'll pull it out and they'll say, we can sell this.
[20:36] Speaker 2: So these thieves, for them, business was a booming. Thousands
[20:41] Speaker 2: of pounds of beef and snow crab, hundreds and hundreds
[20:43] Speaker 2: of cases of stolen booze. Every couple of days, they're
[20:46] Speaker 2: hitting trucks everywhere. As Lieutenant Ackerman of the Philly PD
[20:50] Speaker 2: put it, we were getting hit once, twice, three times
[20:53] Speaker 2: a week in multiple different locations. We were getting crushed. Once, twice,
[20:59] Speaker 2: three times a lady. And this wasn't a result of
[21:03] Speaker 2: the pandemic, by the way, because in 2022, the crime...
[21:07] Speaker 2: It started trending down in Philadelphia. Like from 2023, 2024,
[21:11] Speaker 2: the city's recording steep drops in like homicide numbers.
[21:15] Speaker 3: Okay.
[21:16] Speaker 2: And so like between 23 and 2024, that was the
[21:19] Speaker 2: largest single year-to-year fall in their murder rate in 60 years. Wow. Yeah.
[21:24] Speaker 2: And if we're talking nonviolent property crimes like these, Philly
[21:27] Speaker 2: saw like a 7% reduction from 2024 to 2025. Modest,
[21:31] Speaker 2: I will admit. Not as dramatic. Right. But it ain't nothing.
[21:35] Speaker 2: The trend was clearly going down.
[21:37] Speaker 3: Right.
[21:37] Speaker 2: Meanwhile, cargo theft is just popping off. So what gives?
[21:41] Speaker 2: Glad you're staying curious, Elizabeth.
[21:42] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[21:43] Speaker 2: Well, as I keep stressing, you can thank the beef
[21:46] Speaker 2: pirates for these numbers. Naturally, the cargo theft prevention folks
[21:50] Speaker 2: were quick to point the finger at somebody, right? And
[21:53] Speaker 2: who do they pick? The truck drivers. Oh, yeah. At
[21:56] Speaker 2: first they believed this must be an inside job. These
[21:59] Speaker 2: guys are, you know, they're not running onto normal schedules.
[22:01] Speaker 2: They don't have, they don't keep normal routes. They're going
[22:03] Speaker 2: to different places. How are they people all finding them
[22:06] Speaker 2: with these like really expensive loads? And I was like, well,
[22:09] Speaker 2: you know, honestly, with these prices, a lot of these
[22:10] Speaker 2: loads are expensive.
[22:11] Speaker 3: Doesn't matter what they're hauling.
[22:13] Speaker 2: But these loss prevention, cargo theft prevention folks, they assume
[22:16] Speaker 2: the drivers must be in on it. How else can
[22:18] Speaker 2: these thieves know when and where to find the trucks, right?
[22:20] Speaker 2: That's their basic supposition. And, you know, Or else, I mean,
[22:25] Speaker 2: the other thought is that these beef pirates are just
[22:27] Speaker 2: cruising the dark roads of the industrial sections of the city,
[22:31] Speaker 2: trawling for long haul trucks.
[22:32] Speaker 3: Was there a change in regulation of how much time
[22:36] Speaker 3: these guys had to rest between runs and that?
[22:41] Speaker 2: Not that I'm aware of. There may have been.
[22:42] Speaker 3: That's what I'm wondering if suddenly more of them are parked.
[22:44] Speaker 3: I mean, but it's like in Oakland, people drive or
[22:47] Speaker 3: like bad guys drive around looking for U-Hauls that people
[22:51] Speaker 3: have outside their house.
[22:52] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Ask anyone with a band. They get hit.
[22:54] Speaker 3: Exactly. But like if you're going to move, right, like
[22:57] Speaker 3: you load up the U-Haul and then a lot of
[22:59] Speaker 3: times people are just like, okay, we're done for the evening.
[23:01] Speaker 2: We'll leave tomorrow morning. You got to back that thing
[23:02] Speaker 2: up against something.
[23:03] Speaker 3: No, you just got to, I mean, forget it. They'll
[23:05] Speaker 3: take the whole truck.
[23:05] Speaker 2: Oh, they will that too. Yeah.
[23:07] Speaker 3: You know, you have to make sure that you park
[23:09] Speaker 3: it somewhere secure or you just leave town.
[23:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, leave town. But if you had to stay in town,
[23:13] Speaker 2: you back it up, put a truck right up against it.
[23:16] Speaker 3: Exactly.
[23:17] Speaker 2: Pin that thing in.
[23:17] Speaker 3: Right up to the side of the building. But I'm
[23:19] Speaker 3: just wondering, I think driving around looking for, you know,
[23:22] Speaker 3: semi trucks that are, you know, look like they have
[23:25] Speaker 3: refrigeration or something.
[23:27] Speaker 2: I don't know. That's what I'd do. The pattern, they
[23:30] Speaker 2: couldn't figure it out, right? Because these truck trailers, all
[23:32] Speaker 2: of a sudden they're getting hit all across the city,
[23:35] Speaker 2: not just in the industrial section. Because some of them
[23:37] Speaker 2: park in suburban routes where they don't want to enter
[23:39] Speaker 2: the city, so they're staying outside of the surrounding freeways.
[23:42] Speaker 2: And they just pull over in a suburban Walmart or a-
[23:45] Speaker 2: A mall parking lot. Yeah. Those guys are getting hit. Right.
[23:48] Speaker 2: And then also drivers are getting hit in rest stops
[23:50] Speaker 2: in New Jersey. They don't even make it all the
[23:52] Speaker 2: way into Philly yet. And these truckers just stop for
[23:55] Speaker 2: the night because they're running out of hours. Anyway, the
[23:57] Speaker 2: only real common aspect is these beef pirates work at
[24:00] Speaker 2: night because clearly they're hitting these trucks at night. Yeah.
[24:02] Speaker 2: The police investigate the drivers. They investigate the truck dispatchers.
[24:06] Speaker 2: They're looking for some proof of an inside job. They
[24:08] Speaker 2: turn up nothing. They rule out that whole line of questioning.
[24:11] Speaker 2: So the Philly cops start to patrol the industrial sections
[24:14] Speaker 2: of the city on the lookout for like men with
[24:17] Speaker 2: bolt cutters and like, you know, pry bars. No luck
[24:20] Speaker 2: there either. They don't spot these guys just trawling along.
[24:24] Speaker 2: So the Philly PD try to work the other end,
[24:27] Speaker 2: the black market. Yeah. Who's buying this stolen beef?
[24:30] Speaker 3: Who wants burgled beef?
[24:31] Speaker 2: Exactly. Who's like, oh, I'm moving hot TVs. I got
[24:34] Speaker 2: stolen appliances. You like king crab legs?
[24:36] Speaker 3: Go to the flea markets.
[24:38] Speaker 4: Right?
[24:39] Speaker 2: No. So the cops are thinking maybe if they bust them,
[24:41] Speaker 2: they can work backwards from there. They'll flip on them.
[24:44] Speaker 2: But again, no luck. Most of the time, they found
[24:47] Speaker 2: no buyers for the stolen goods in the known black markets.
[24:50] Speaker 2: Where is this stuff going? However, they do find evidence
[24:54] Speaker 2: of the heist. Like sometimes like the best the cops
[24:57] Speaker 2: could do is they would find like a load of
[24:59] Speaker 2: king crab legs just left to spoil in an alley. Really?
[25:02] Speaker 2: I'm talking like a big load, right? Not just like
[25:04] Speaker 2: a couple.
[25:05] Speaker 3: Oh, the smell.
[25:06] Speaker 2: Yeah. Apparently the crabs would just get dumped like when
[25:08] Speaker 2: the beef pirates couldn't find a buyer or link up
[25:11] Speaker 2: with them. So they- They just leave pallets of stolen
[25:13] Speaker 2: seafood in some alley. And I guess Philly doesn't have folks,
[25:17] Speaker 2: you know, we'll say fools like me who would find
[25:20] Speaker 2: crab in an alley and they just drag that pallet
[25:22] Speaker 2: of frozen crab legs back to their place going, some
[25:24] Speaker 2: of this has got to be good. Now, to be fair,
[25:27] Speaker 2: a couple of detectives do start to get close. They
[25:29] Speaker 2: set up sting operations. They go undercover. They approach some
[25:33] Speaker 2: folks who are in the know, right? Walk the gray
[25:36] Speaker 2: areas of life. Folks, you know, who move black market
[25:38] Speaker 2: goods and they do it, no questions asked. I don't
[25:41] Speaker 2: know where it came from, right? But somehow, every time
[25:43] Speaker 2: these types, they suss out the undercover Philly cops. They
[25:47] Speaker 2: make the detectives as cops, and the black market guys
[25:50] Speaker 2: just walk away from the deal before they hand over
[25:52] Speaker 2: any of the stolen goods. So then now their evidentiary
[25:55] Speaker 2: trail runs cold. So these Philly detectives, they're like, we
[25:59] Speaker 2: need help. We're just banging our heads against the wall
[26:02] Speaker 2: over here. They got nothing. They got less than nothing, right?
[26:05] Speaker 2: They have a growing crime wave, and they're chasing vapors.
[26:08] Speaker 2: So Lieutenant Ackerman, he reaches out to cops in LA
[26:11] Speaker 2: and he's like, hey, I hear you guys are also
[26:14] Speaker 2: dealing with a crazy wave of cargo theft. What do
[26:16] Speaker 2: you guys do? How do you deal with these damn
[26:18] Speaker 2: cargo thieves? And the LA cops are like, oh man, yeah, no,
[26:22] Speaker 2: what you're dealing with is nothing like the train robbers
[26:24] Speaker 2: we got out West. So yeah, we got nothing for you.
[26:26] Speaker 2: Good luck with that though, huh? Elizabeth, the reason why
[26:30] Speaker 2: the Philly PD kept having such a hard time IDing
[26:33] Speaker 2: the crews of Beef Pirates work in the city like
[26:35] Speaker 2: they're like, you know, modern day Robin Hood and his
[26:37] Speaker 2: band of merry men is that they were. professional criminals.
[26:41] Speaker 3: I thought you were going to say, because it was
[26:42] Speaker 3: an inside job.
[26:43] Speaker 2: It was cops. Cops robbing everything. That would be amazing.
[26:47] Speaker 2: It's cops pulling it off. That would be incredible.
[26:50] Speaker 3: All these cop barbecues at their houses. They're just eating crab.
[26:54] Speaker 2: A bunch of greasy mustaches with beef ribs juice everywhere.
[26:58] Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
[26:59] Speaker 2: So it turns out these guys know how to do
[27:01] Speaker 2: their street crimes. They keep their crews tight. They don't
[27:04] Speaker 2: work with outsiders. And you know how some crimers will
[27:07] Speaker 2: make connections when they're locked up and they kind of
[27:09] Speaker 2: create these loose networks of affiliation and people who can
[27:12] Speaker 2: vouch for a new guy for pulling jobs? Not these guys.
[27:16] Speaker 2: You had to grow up with these guys. Or you
[27:18] Speaker 2: needed to be family. Like, if you're someone's cousin, then
[27:21] Speaker 2: you could be a beef pirate.
[27:22] Speaker 3: That makes sense. I mean, because it's the greed that
[27:24] Speaker 3: gets to them where they think, oh, I've got this whole,
[27:26] Speaker 3: I can make this new big deal.
[27:28] Speaker 2: And you bring in some outsider who's dangling something.
[27:31] Speaker 3: Wearing a members-only jacket.
[27:32] Speaker 2: Yeah. They keep their crew small, highly mobile, super fluid,
[27:37] Speaker 2: everything you would hope to see from beef pirates. And
[27:40] Speaker 2: like I said, they're career criminals. They're not fly-by-night amateurs.
[27:43] Speaker 2: These guys are successful. They're not getting caught. So they
[27:45] Speaker 2: get more confident that their ways work. Why deviate from
[27:48] Speaker 2: what's working? Eventually, this cat, Scott Cornell, who's a cargo
[27:52] Speaker 2: theft expert, doesn't really matter. He's the head of transportation
[27:55] Speaker 2: unit for Travelers Insurance. So he tells Philadelphia Magazine that, quote,
[28:00] Speaker 2: there were usually somewhere between 8 and 15 people. Either
[28:04] Speaker 2: they had grown up together or they were related. They
[28:06] Speaker 2: were a very tight-knit group. Law enforcement really couldn't get
[28:09] Speaker 2: undercovers in those groups because if they didn't know you
[28:12] Speaker 2: or hadn't grown up with you or weren't related to you,
[28:15] Speaker 2: they wouldn't work with you. So Scott Cornell is basically
[28:18] Speaker 2: confirming what I told you. So since these Philly PD
[28:21] Speaker 2: can't get lucky and catch them in the act and
[28:23] Speaker 2: they can't get an undercover cop close to these crews
[28:26] Speaker 2: and They aren't in their families, so they can't get in.
[28:29] Speaker 2: The Philly cops, they watch a whole year, a whole
[28:32] Speaker 2: calendar year come and go, and they have no idea
[28:35] Speaker 2: how to bust these beef pirates.
[28:36] Speaker 3: They're all like trying to marry their daughters into the family.
[28:39] Speaker 2: Exactly. It's just news story after news story every couple
[28:42] Speaker 2: of days, every couple of weeks. So they're just getting
[28:44] Speaker 2: embarrassed for a full year. And everyone's like, are you
[28:46] Speaker 2: going to do something about this? They're like, we are trying.
[28:49] Speaker 3: You guys don't understand.
[28:51] Speaker 2: But then the Philly detectives finally do get lucky. working
[28:55] Speaker 2: with their joint task force with law enforcement from New Jersey.
[28:58] Speaker 2: And that's when they launched Operation Beef Bandit, right? But
[29:02] Speaker 2: if you ask Lieutenant Ackerman, he prefers that you call
[29:05] Speaker 2: it the Dimescaper.
[29:07] Speaker 3: Oh, the Dimescaper. Oh, yeah. Oh, look at him.
[29:09] Speaker 2: I'm with Lieutenant Ackerman. I prefer the Dimescaper. That sounds
[29:11] Speaker 2: like some pulp novel that I'd read or I'd watch.
[29:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, it totally does.
[29:14] Speaker 2: The Dimescaper.
[29:15] Speaker 3: Or like the name of an episode of like Poirot.
[29:20] Speaker 2: Yes, totally.
[29:21] Speaker 3: Like a British Poirot. The Dimescaper.
[29:23] Speaker 2: Or Sam Spade on the old radio network.
[29:25] Speaker 3: Yes.
[29:26] Speaker 2: A lot of his shows are the such and such caper. Okay,
[29:29] Speaker 2: there it is.
[29:29] Speaker 3: Let's go with that.
[29:30] Speaker 2: It works for both of us. Your cozy British mysteries.
[29:33] Speaker 3: Yes.
[29:33] Speaker 2: My mid-century noir.
[29:35] Speaker 3: Yeah, and I just like a caper. I like a
[29:37] Speaker 3: good caper.
[29:38] Speaker 2: Who doesn't love a caper, right?
[29:39] Speaker 3: I know.
[29:40] Speaker 2: So at this point, the story is in the summer
[29:43] Speaker 2: of 2023, Operation Beef Bandit, a.k.a. the Dimes Caper, is
[29:47] Speaker 2: in full swing. But you know what? Rather than me
[29:50] Speaker 2: tell you why it's called the Dimes Caper, Elizabeth, close
[29:52] Speaker 2: your eyes.
[29:53] Speaker 3: My eyes are closed.
[29:54] Speaker 2: I want you to picture it. It's April 13th, 2023,
[30:07] Speaker 2: and strange things are afoot in the parking lot of
[30:09] Speaker 2: the Walmart, the one on Franklin Mills Circle in Philadelphia.
[30:13] Speaker 2: At the moment, you're there chilling alone, tearing chicken meat
[30:17] Speaker 2: out of a half-wrapped, discarded sandwich someone left behind as litter.
[30:21] Speaker 2: You wash down the chicken meat with some spilled Gatorade
[30:24] Speaker 2: from a plastic bottle resting on its side. It's the
[30:27] Speaker 2: blue Gatorade, your least favorite. But as an alley cat,
[30:30] Speaker 2: you don't really care that much. Then you hear the
[30:34] Speaker 2: low growl of a truck engine. The tractor and trailer
[30:37] Speaker 2: gears down to make the slow turn into the Walmart
[30:39] Speaker 2: parking lot. You watch as it draws closer and closer
[30:43] Speaker 2: to you. The truck grows louder and louder as it
[30:46] Speaker 2: draws near until finally it slows to a rumbling stop.
[30:51] Speaker 2: With a shudder, the engine cuts off. You watch the
[30:54] Speaker 2: truck for a moment, but no one steps out. Instead,
[30:57] Speaker 2: you see lights in the cab come on as the
[31:00] Speaker 2: driver gets settled in for their night. Within minutes, the
[31:03] Speaker 2: lights go off. Replaced with the flickering light show of
[31:06] Speaker 2: someone watching a show on a laptop or maybe it's
[31:09] Speaker 2: a tablet, same difference to you. You're an alley cat.
[31:13] Speaker 2: Having finished your late dinner of scavenged chicken meat and
[31:15] Speaker 2: spilled Gatorade, you slink off into the dark of the
[31:18] Speaker 2: night on the hunt for a place to curl up
[31:21] Speaker 2: for a long nap. As you creep across the parking lot,
[31:24] Speaker 2: you hear a pair of pickup truck engines pull into
[31:26] Speaker 2: the Walmart parking. As you lie down in a shadowed
[31:30] Speaker 2: spot beneath a lifted truck, You watch these new pickup
[31:33] Speaker 2: trucks stalk the Walmart parking lot. They cut off their
[31:37] Speaker 2: headlights but continue to creep closer to that big rig
[31:40] Speaker 2: that recently parked. The pair of pickup trucks pull to
[31:43] Speaker 2: a silent stop. The doors spring open. A group of
[31:47] Speaker 2: what look to be young men, based on how they move,
[31:49] Speaker 2: piles out of the two trucks. The men wear masks,
[31:53] Speaker 2: clearly up to no good. You continue to watch them
[31:55] Speaker 2: from your shadowed hiding spots. Using bolt cutters and tire irons,
[32:00] Speaker 2: the masked men make short work of the lock on
[32:03] Speaker 2: the back of the trailer. Next, they pull on the
[32:05] Speaker 2: doors of the big rig's trailer and swing them open. Then,
[32:09] Speaker 2: the young men climb inside. A moment later, one steps
[32:12] Speaker 2: back out into the light and throws a handful of dimes.
[32:16] Speaker 2: The metal coins catch the parking lot's lights and shine
[32:19] Speaker 2: and flash against the night. Then the dimes splash against
[32:23] Speaker 2: the black top of the parking lot with a metallic
[32:25] Speaker 2: symphony of sound. You don't know it, but turns out
[32:29] Speaker 2: this truck is hauling a load of dimes from the U.S.
[32:32] Speaker 2: Mint in Philadelphia. It's on its way to Miami, transporting
[32:36] Speaker 2: a load of brand new dimes worth about $ 750, 000. You
[32:42] Speaker 2: watch the young masked man as they unload the big
[32:45] Speaker 2: rigs trailer. Soon, a third vehicle arrives, someone must have
[32:48] Speaker 2: called it. More young masked men join this raiding party.
[32:52] Speaker 2: In total, you count 10 men. They move fast, well-practiced.
[32:56] Speaker 2: They remove dimes from the trailer and transfer them to
[32:58] Speaker 2: the pickup trucks. You couldn't possibly count their tape. But
[33:02] Speaker 2: if you could, you'd know it's roughly 2 million dimes.
[33:05] Speaker 2: The currency is worth about $ 200, 000. And being metal, it's
[33:09] Speaker 2: not a light load. In total, the stolen dimes weigh
[33:12] Speaker 2: about 10,000 pounds. After they load down the two pickup
[33:16] Speaker 2: trucks with the stolen currency, the men... all load back
[33:19] Speaker 2: up into the cabs of the trucks, the remainder climb
[33:22] Speaker 2: back into that third vehicle, and together they all steal
[33:25] Speaker 2: away into the dark of night. You burp up some
[33:27] Speaker 2: chicken that won't stay down, you lick your fur and
[33:30] Speaker 2: curl back up, you're guessing that's going to be the
[33:32] Speaker 2: only excitement you'll see tonight. You're right. But in the
[33:36] Speaker 2: morning when you wake up, the parking lot is now
[33:38] Speaker 2: a full-on crime scene. Yellow police tape delineates the area
[33:42] Speaker 2: where the many, many Philadelphia police are working. Some cops
[33:47] Speaker 2: collect physical evidence from the big rig trailer. Junior officers
[33:50] Speaker 2: are tasked with gathering up the many, many spilled dimes
[33:54] Speaker 2: left strewn about the blacktop parking lot like a hailstorm
[33:58] Speaker 2: of currency. If you could count, you would see that
[34:01] Speaker 2: there are literally thousands of dimes spread across this Walmart
[34:04] Speaker 2: parking lot. But you can't count. You're an alley cat.
[34:07] Speaker 2: And thus, you soon grow bored of the police. You yawn, stretch,
[34:11] Speaker 2: and then run off to find some breakfast. Ah, the
[34:13] Speaker 2: free life of an alley cat. So there you go, Elizabeth.
[34:18] Speaker 3: Yes.
[34:18] Speaker 2: Now, once these cops arrive on the scene to find
[34:20] Speaker 2: this busted open trailer from the U.S. Mint and what's
[34:24] Speaker 2: left of this load of dimes, the Philly detectives, who
[34:27] Speaker 2: are already frustrated, embarrassed, and frankly, at this point, just
[34:30] Speaker 2: kind of gobsmacked, this unfortunate dimes caper becomes a key
[34:35] Speaker 2: development in their case. But at the moment, Officer Miguel Torres,
[34:40] Speaker 2: spokesperson for the Philly PD, tells the New York Times,
[34:44] Speaker 2: I've never seen anything like this. How are they going
[34:46] Speaker 2: to use it? Now, to his point, this same spokesperson
[34:49] Speaker 2: for the Philly PD, he also warns folks in the
[34:52] Speaker 2: city of brotherly love who are not beef pirates that
[34:55] Speaker 2: they might want to refrain from cashing any rolls of
[34:58] Speaker 2: dimes for a while so that the banks don't grow suspicious.
[35:01] Speaker 2: and dime them out to the police.
[35:03] Speaker 3: Oh, I like what you did there.
[35:04] Speaker 2: Thank you. As Officer Torres puts it, if for some
[35:07] Speaker 2: reason you have a lot of dimes at home, this
[35:09] Speaker 2: is probably not the time to cash them in. Now,
[35:12] Speaker 2: despite this warning that the authorities are on the lookout
[35:14] Speaker 2: for deposits of large amounts of dimes, banks in the
[35:17] Speaker 2: areas do log some suspicious deposits of thousands and thousands
[35:22] Speaker 2: of dimes. In the suburbs of Philadelphia, some banks report
[35:26] Speaker 2: suspicious deposits of tons of dimes, like Like a lot.
[35:31] Speaker 2: Not actual weight, but just so much that we're like,
[35:33] Speaker 2: I've never seen this many dimes.
[35:35] Speaker 3: How would one person accumulate?
[35:36] Speaker 2: This is like a year's worth of all of our customers' dimes.
[35:39] Speaker 3: Right, right.
[35:39] Speaker 2: So one guy, like there was this one guy, he
[35:41] Speaker 2: reportedly opens up multiple new bank accounts. And each time
[35:46] Speaker 2: he deposits more than 10,000 dimes to start his new account.
[35:50] Speaker 2: Ha ha ha! And then he quickly withdraws the funds,
[35:53] Speaker 2: but he demands it in cash, in dollar bills. Yeah, yeah.
[35:56] Speaker 2: There are also reports from neighboring cities like Baltimore that
[35:59] Speaker 2: some alleged beef pirates or their confederates take a trip
[36:02] Speaker 2: to like some of the grocery stores in the area
[36:05] Speaker 2: and they use those Coinstar machines.
[36:06] Speaker 3: That's what I was going to say. Why are you
[36:08] Speaker 3: putting a bank account in your name with all your information?
[36:10] Speaker 3: Go to, don't submit a Coinstar. They take a little
[36:13] Speaker 3: off the top.
[36:14] Speaker 2: Hey, by 8%, yeah, I think.
[36:15] Speaker 3: You know, hey.
[36:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, but also there's cameras in grocery stores. There's cameras
[36:19] Speaker 2: in banks, too.
[36:19] Speaker 3: No one owns wigs.
[36:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
[36:22] Speaker 3: Coinstar's not going to ask for your social security number.
[36:24] Speaker 2: No, and most likely it would take a while for
[36:26] Speaker 2: that Coinstar to even notice. They're like, we're getting a
[36:28] Speaker 2: lot of dimes.
[36:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
[36:30] Speaker 2: So the Coinstar machines, right, they're converting thousands and thousands
[36:34] Speaker 2: of dimes into cash. And then these payouts are redeemable
[36:37] Speaker 2: at the supermarket. So then you got the chance of
[36:38] Speaker 2: the supermarket manager being like, wait, is this all dimes again? Yeah.
[36:41] Speaker 2: But Elizabeth, what the beef pirates don't know is they're
[36:44] Speaker 2: gleefully coming up with new ways to convert dimes into dollars.
[36:47] Speaker 2: is that one of their truck robberies just two weeks
[36:49] Speaker 2: earlier had crossed a red line. What line? I'm so
[36:52] Speaker 2: glad you're on it, Elizabeth. Now, don't worry. It's not
[36:55] Speaker 2: a 1% situation. We're still 99% murder-free in the story.
[36:59] Speaker 2: You see, what had happened was in April 2024, some
[37:03] Speaker 2: beef pirates, they hit a long-haul trucker. And that strike
[37:07] Speaker 2: would be possibly you could say they're undoing.
[37:10] Speaker 3: Oh.
[37:10] Speaker 2: Yeah. But before I tell you about that, let's take
[37:12] Speaker 2: a little break.
[37:12] Speaker 3: All right.
[37:13] Speaker 2: And after these messages, we will catch back up with
[37:15] Speaker 2: the beef pirates. Nice. We're back, Elizabeth.
[37:38] Speaker 3: Zarin.
[37:39] Speaker 2: So in April, 2023, some beef pirates, they hit this
[37:41] Speaker 2: long haul trucker. He's driving a refrigerated trailer. The driver
[37:45] Speaker 2: was parked for the night. That's when the beef pirates hit.
[37:48] Speaker 2: They bust open the lock as they always do. They
[37:50] Speaker 2: start emptying the trailer of the load as they always do.
[37:53] Speaker 2: But in this one instance, the driver wakes up. I
[37:55] Speaker 2: guess he's a bit of a light sleeper. Yeah. He
[37:58] Speaker 2: gets out of the truck. He goes back to see
[38:00] Speaker 2: what's happening. And guess what he finds? If you said
[38:04] Speaker 2: a bunch of dudes in shiesty masks emptying his truck trailer,
[38:08] Speaker 2: you are today's big winner, winner, chicken dinner. Yeah, because
[38:11] Speaker 2: that's exactly what happens. And he confronts them. So the
[38:15] Speaker 2: beef pirates, then they grab this unlucky truck driver. And
[38:18] Speaker 2: then they give him some dance lessons. No, they don't
[38:20] Speaker 2: give him dance lessons, Elizabeth. They slam him to the
[38:23] Speaker 2: ground and they tell him to act cool.
[38:24] Speaker 3: Oh, that's what I'm thinking. Like, it's better just to
[38:26] Speaker 3: act like he slept through it.
[38:28] Speaker 2: Yeah. At least he didn't get out with like a weapon,
[38:29] Speaker 2: like an ax handle that they didn't take from him
[38:31] Speaker 2: and use it on him.
[38:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
[38:33] Speaker 2: Anyway, so this is a big deal, Elizabeth, because when
[38:35] Speaker 2: they grab him, they assault him. And that turns their
[38:38] Speaker 2: theft into a violent robbery.
[38:40] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[38:41] Speaker 2: Interstate robbery is a federal crime.
[38:43] Speaker 4: Woo!
[38:44] Speaker 2: So this one act triggers a whole new level of
[38:47] Speaker 2: police response. Now we're talking about the feds coming into
[38:50] Speaker 2: the picture. Yeah. And part of the issue for the
[38:52] Speaker 2: Philly PD is that the truckers are long haul drivers.
[38:55] Speaker 2: And so they need to keep moving. So they don't
[38:57] Speaker 2: stick around for a bunch of questions or part of
[38:59] Speaker 2: like a days or weeks long investigation. They're difficult to
[39:01] Speaker 2: get a hold of. They don't want to be cooperative. Yeah.
[39:03] Speaker 2: But the feds are everywhere. Yeah. They can come to you.
[39:07] Speaker 2: I mean, hell, they can coordinate activities between local police forces.
[39:10] Speaker 2: They're like, well, where's he driving to? Well, they call ahead. Yeah.
[39:13] Speaker 2: So once the feds get involved, Operation Beef Bandit picks
[39:16] Speaker 2: up some real steam. That same truck driver who gets
[39:19] Speaker 2: robbed in Philly a couple of weeks later, he's in Michigan,
[39:21] Speaker 2: and that's where he's working with their local cops to
[39:23] Speaker 2: ID one of the suspected beef pirates of Philadelphia, all
[39:26] Speaker 2: thanks to this coordination. Wow. So around this same time,
[39:29] Speaker 2: the Philly PDs start working the phones. They start running
[39:32] Speaker 2: search warrants, and then they contact the telecom companies. And
[39:36] Speaker 2: they ask for tower dumps.
[39:38] Speaker 3: Oh, my gosh.
[39:39] Speaker 2: It's tech talk, Elizabeth. Yeah, it is. If you're wondering
[39:40] Speaker 2: what a tower dump is, have I got good news
[39:43] Speaker 2: for you. Yes. A tower dump is a database of
[39:46] Speaker 2: all the cell phones that connect to a particular cell
[39:48] Speaker 2: phone tower in a given period of time. I figured
[39:50] Speaker 2: you could guess that. Yeah. So they ask for, in
[39:53] Speaker 2: this case, April 13th, 2023, between the hours of 1230 a.m.
[39:55] Speaker 2: to 615 a.m., centered on this spot where this truck
[40:00] Speaker 2: driver gets hit. Right. So the Philly PD, they receive
[40:03] Speaker 2: a list from T-Mobile of all the cell phones that
[40:05] Speaker 2: connect to this tower near the site of the heist.
[40:07] Speaker 2: The cops got a suspicious pattern. There's this A flurry
[40:11] Speaker 2: of cell phone activity from a bunch of phones. They're
[40:14] Speaker 2: all texting each other, calling each other, which is odd. Clearly,
[40:17] Speaker 2: they must know each other and they seem to be
[40:19] Speaker 2: coordinating something. Yeah. Maybe they're recreating a debate of the
[40:23] Speaker 2: Constitutional Congress.
[40:24] Speaker 3: Who knows? Who's to say?
[40:25] Speaker 2: All they know is they are definitely working in coordination.
[40:28] Speaker 2: So the Philly PD aimed to find out who are
[40:30] Speaker 2: these fine fellows working in coordination late at night at
[40:32] Speaker 2: the scene of our crime. Yeah. Now, they finally have
[40:35] Speaker 2: the solid trail of clues. In the Philly PD, they
[40:38] Speaker 2: follow it. They locate the owners of these cell phones.
[40:41] Speaker 2: They trace them back to a neighborhood called Nicetown.
[40:44] Speaker 3: Nicetown.
[40:45] Speaker 2: But Elizabeth, I don't want you getting the wrong idea.
[40:47] Speaker 2: Despite its name, Nicetown is not nice.
[40:50] Speaker 3: That's what I would kind of guess.
[40:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's known for having the city's lowest property values.
[40:55] Speaker 2: Just before the pandemic in 2019, Nicetown also had the
[40:58] Speaker 2: city's lowest life expectancy. Yeah, Nicetown is rough.
[41:03] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[41:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, but also it makes it seem like the crew
[41:05] Speaker 2: from the Beef Pirates would live there. So the cops
[41:07] Speaker 2: are like, I think we're on to something.
[41:08] Speaker 3: Right.
[41:09] Speaker 2: Right. So at this point, if you're, you know, Nicetown,
[41:12] Speaker 2: if you're unfamiliar with Philly geography and their neighborhoods, Nicetown
[41:15] Speaker 2: is in North Philly, right? Up near the industrial sections
[41:18] Speaker 2: that we're talking about. So the streets there, they're lined
[41:20] Speaker 2: with like East Coast style row houses.
[41:23] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[41:23] Speaker 2: Right. So it's just house after house after house. These
[41:26] Speaker 2: like two story townhouse style homes as Philadelphia Magazine describes
[41:30] Speaker 2: it for its readers. On 19th Street, the long line
[41:33] Speaker 2: of eaves can make it seem like the whole neighborhood
[41:35] Speaker 2: shares the same long porch cluttered with couches and half
[41:39] Speaker 2: barrel smokers.
[41:41] Speaker 3: Okay.
[41:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, right?
[41:42] Speaker 3: I know what they're cooking in the smokers.
[41:44] Speaker 2: Some frozen ribs, right?
[41:46] Speaker 3: Some beef.
[41:46] Speaker 2: I hope you like beef ribs. I hope you brought
[41:49] Speaker 2: an appetite. Now, thanks to the cell phone data the
[41:51] Speaker 2: Philly police pulled from the tower dumps, they have their
[41:54] Speaker 2: list of suspects. So their list begins with four names.
[41:56] Speaker 2: That list soon grows to 10 names. And then the
[41:59] Speaker 2: feds hop in and they help them. They're like, we
[42:01] Speaker 2: can indict these fellows. So they indict them. And these
[42:03] Speaker 2: now become co-defendants or co-conspirators. And these guys all have
[42:08] Speaker 2: street names, right? There's street names like Killa, Stacks, Slick, Rock, a.k.a. 24, right?
[42:13] Speaker 2: Reading the indictment, I had to make like I'm reading
[42:16] Speaker 2: a Russian novel and I got to come up with
[42:17] Speaker 2: all their like, this is his one name. He also
[42:20] Speaker 2: goes by Slick. And there are also some more uncommon
[42:24] Speaker 2: street names like Lou. Lou. But L-E-W. It's like, yeah, man,
[42:29] Speaker 2: this is my crew. Killa, Stacks, Slick, Rock, AK-24, and Lou.
[42:34] Speaker 2: But Lou's no joke. He's basically the ringleader. His government
[42:37] Speaker 2: name is Hanif Palmer.
[42:39] Speaker 3: So it's not even Louis in there.
[42:41] Speaker 2: No, not that I found. Wow. Could be his middle name.
[42:44] Speaker 3: He just loves... The Inspector Lewis series.
[42:49] Speaker 2: There you go. He's into British mysteries like you. He's like,
[42:51] Speaker 2: I love a cozy teapot mystery. What do you call them?
[42:55] Speaker 3: Cozies.
[42:56] Speaker 2: Tea cozies, right?
[42:56] Speaker 3: No, just cozies.
[42:57] Speaker 2: Just cozy mysteries? Okay.
[42:58] Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's like everyone dies in Cambridge.
[43:01] Speaker 2: Ah, yes. Good college town. Now, setting Lewis aside, I
[43:05] Speaker 2: want to talk about my favorite of the Beef Pirates,
[43:07] Speaker 2: the cat named Stacks. His government name is Malik Palmer,
[43:11] Speaker 2: and Lieutenant Ackerman had this photo of him that he
[43:13] Speaker 2: kept in his office. But don't make it weird, Elizabeth.
[43:16] Speaker 2: He wasn't like a fan of Stacks. It wasn't like
[43:18] Speaker 2: some fan crush.
[43:19] Speaker 3: Oh, I wanted it like in his wallet where it's
[43:21] Speaker 3: like his kids and his mom and then Stacks.
[43:24] Speaker 2: And Stacks, totally.
[43:25] Speaker 3: And like an Olin Mills shoot.
[43:28] Speaker 2: He's like posing with whatever props they had in the studio.
[43:32] Speaker 2: So in this case, the photo is evidence. The pic,
[43:34] Speaker 2: it shows Stacks dressed in like a hoodie and shorts.
[43:37] Speaker 2: Dresses like I do. And you're lying back in the
[43:40] Speaker 2: bed of a pickup truck, you know. showing some thigh meat,
[43:43] Speaker 2: smiling at the camera. Why is he smiling? Because he's
[43:46] Speaker 2: lying in a truck bed filled with stolen dimes.
[43:49] Speaker 3: No.
[43:50] Speaker 2: He's like Scrooge McDuck over here.
[43:52] Speaker 3: No, they took a picture.
[43:54] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Bad, bad. This is like where they deviated
[43:57] Speaker 2: from what I told you earlier about them being professional criminals.
[43:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
[44:00] Speaker 2: Yeah. So further proof that as Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander
[44:04] Speaker 2: Bowerman told the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper— It was like a
[44:07] Speaker 2: game to them, right?
[44:08] Speaker 3: Sounds like it, yeah.
[44:09] Speaker 2: But now the game was almost over. So thanks to
[44:11] Speaker 2: the phone searches, the authorities had all the evidence they
[44:13] Speaker 2: need to bust this whole crew. In a run between
[44:16] Speaker 2: January and July of 2023, their crew documents their $ 1. 5
[44:21] Speaker 2: million worth of truck heists with this steady stream of
[44:25] Speaker 2: text messages and sent photos of them posing with the
[44:28] Speaker 2: stuff they're stealing.
[44:29] Speaker 3: Sent photos.
[44:30] Speaker 2: So when the crew would steal a load of LG
[44:32] Speaker 2: televisions in January... Douglas Mathis, a.k.a. PPG, texted his co-defendant,
[44:38] Speaker 2: Sakeen Dixon, a.k.a. Killa, who needs some big-ass TVs, right? Now,
[44:43] Speaker 2: in March, when they stole 49 cases of blue hypnotic liquor,
[44:48] Speaker 2: one beef pirate texted another, just hit another truck, shooter. Now,
[44:52] Speaker 2: someone responded that they should enjoy a feast of liquor
[44:55] Speaker 2: and cow feet. So, yeah, eating low on the cow.
[44:59] Speaker 3: Right, exactly.
[45:00] Speaker 2: A few days.
[45:01] Speaker 3: Blue liquor and cow feed.
[45:03] Speaker 2: Who hurt you?
[45:04] Speaker 3: Who hurt people hurt people?
[45:06] Speaker 2: Who wants hypnotic and oxtail?
[45:08] Speaker 3: Oh, Jesus.
[45:08] Speaker 2: So a few days later on March 7th, as if
[45:11] Speaker 2: their feast needed more food, the beef pirates then branched
[45:14] Speaker 2: out and they stole 10,000 pounds of turkey wings. Then
[45:17] Speaker 2: on March 10th, keeping it true to form, they heisted
[45:20] Speaker 2: a dozen pallets loaded down with frozen beef ribs.
[45:22] Speaker 3: Turkey wings. Yeah, I know. That's got to be like
[45:25] Speaker 3: for making stock.
[45:27] Speaker 2: I assume so. It's not for like, you know.
[45:28] Speaker 3: You're not grilling up turkey wings?
[45:29] Speaker 2: I don't know any restaurant that has turkey wings. Like,
[45:31] Speaker 2: you want some buffalo turkey wings?
[45:33] Speaker 3: Well, I mean, but they'd be huge.
[45:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be the other part. Yeah.
[45:36] Speaker 3: All right, let's see what we can do. Start making
[45:38] Speaker 3: that a thing.
[45:40] Speaker 2: Turkey wings? Yeah. We need to come up with a
[45:42] Speaker 2: good sauce for that.
[45:43] Speaker 3: You know where I like the biggest wings I ever
[45:46] Speaker 3: had in a restaurant?
[45:46] Speaker 2: No, Elizabeth, I don't know. What are the biggest wings
[45:48] Speaker 2: you ever had in a restaurant?
[45:49] Speaker 3: At Rob Ben's. Marshawn Lynch's place in Oakland.
[45:53] Speaker 2: Well, technically.
[45:53] Speaker 3: You've been there.
[45:54] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Definitely.
[45:55] Speaker 3: I wrote about it.
[45:56] Speaker 2: Emeryville. Emeryville. Sorry.
[45:58] Speaker 3: Those are like the biggest wings I've ever seen.
[46:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, they were incredible. They were like... Like performance enhancing wings.
[46:05] Speaker 3: Totally. They may have been juvenile turkeys.
[46:07] Speaker 2: Who put these wings on steroids?
[46:08] Speaker 3: Could be.
[46:11] Speaker 2: You can't really taste because it's got so much sauce
[46:13] Speaker 2: on it. Now, alongside the text that these guys are
[46:17] Speaker 2: sending each other every time they're busting something out, they
[46:19] Speaker 2: would also send pics of them with their stolen hauls.
[46:22] Speaker 3: I love it.
[46:23] Speaker 2: Connecting them in time to the individual. So the cops...
[46:26] Speaker 2: And the feds are able to just turn this– it's
[46:28] Speaker 2: like a gift-wrapped prosecution, right?
[46:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, but like the older generation that taught them how
[46:33] Speaker 3: to crime wants to smack them on the back of
[46:36] Speaker 3: the head.
[46:36] Speaker 2: They're losing it.
[46:36] Speaker 3: Like, what is this?
[46:37] Speaker 2: They're like, are you going to put this on Instagram?
[46:38] Speaker 2: What are you doing, son? So all in all, between
[46:41] Speaker 2: January and July of 2023, there are 16 heists, as
[46:43] Speaker 2: I said, worth $ 1. 5 million. But the crew was stubborn
[46:48] Speaker 2: because in 2024, many of these same street names, they
[46:52] Speaker 2: show up in an arrest report from New Jersey because
[46:54] Speaker 2: while they're waiting on their arraignments and whatnot, and some
[46:57] Speaker 2: of these beef pirates, they get popped for stealing from
[46:59] Speaker 2: trucks at rest stops in New Jersey. And those were
[47:02] Speaker 2: the arrests that were part of Operation Beef Bandits. So
[47:05] Speaker 2: it all gets swung together. The dimes caper, Operation Beach Bandit.
[47:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, everything. Throw it all in there.
[47:10] Speaker 2: Along the way, other cases get thrown into the smorgasbord
[47:13] Speaker 2: of prosecutions. Like there was a carjacking of a FedEx truck.
[47:17] Speaker 2: There was a bust involving nine kilos of cocaine. Whoa. Yeah,
[47:20] Speaker 2: the rap sheets are just getting deep at this point. So,
[47:23] Speaker 2: you know, I call them beef pirates, but really at
[47:25] Speaker 2: this point they're diversifying.
[47:26] Speaker 3: They really are.
[47:27] Speaker 2: So they're more like Swiss Army knives, although that's not
[47:30] Speaker 2: really cool on the street. But they can do it all, Elizabeth.
[47:32] Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. So back to that bust of
[47:34] Speaker 2: the beef pirates breaking into the trucks at the rest
[47:36] Speaker 2: stops on the I-95 in New Jersey. That bust was
[47:40] Speaker 2: a direct result of Operation Beef Bandit. As ABC6 out
[47:44] Speaker 2: of Philadelphia reported, and I quote, Criminal investigators have been
[47:47] Speaker 2: conducting Operation Beef Bandit, targeting an organized criminal crew they
[47:51] Speaker 2: say is responsible for a series of nine burglaries at
[47:54] Speaker 2: service areas along the New Jersey Turnpike. And the same
[47:57] Speaker 2: story from ABC6 of Philadelphia. They also reported that, and
[48:01] Speaker 2: I quote, police say they believe the crew is also
[48:04] Speaker 2: responsible for stealing millions of dollars in goods and similar
[48:07] Speaker 2: thefts in the tri-state area over the past three years,
[48:10] Speaker 2: including cases in Philadelphia. So at this point, the reporters,
[48:14] Speaker 2: the police, the feds are all catching up. They're like,
[48:16] Speaker 2: wait a minute, this is all one thing. So the
[48:19] Speaker 2: bust in New Jersey was actually probably one of the
[48:20] Speaker 2: most dramatic ones because as ABC6 reported that, Police say
[48:24] Speaker 2: they saw two suspect vehicles enter the Molly Pitcher service
[48:27] Speaker 2: area on the New Jersey Turnpike around 1.25 a.m., where
[48:31] Speaker 2: four people were seen breaking into a parked occupied tractor
[48:34] Speaker 2: trailer and stealing boxes of meat. Police say troopers then
[48:38] Speaker 2: quickly moved in on the group of bandits. So at
[48:41] Speaker 2: this point... One of the beef buyers, his cat, this
[48:44] Speaker 2: 31-year-old Hanif Tucker, he's easily caught. They just nab him. Yeah.
[48:48] Speaker 2: A 23-year-old Sean Coleman, he tries to flee on foot.
[48:51] Speaker 2: I don't know where he's running on a New Jersey turnpike.
[48:53] Speaker 2: He also gets apprehended. Yeah. Two others, the 37-year-old Salahuddin Reddy,
[48:58] Speaker 2: aka Dean, and 27-year-old Rahsaan Clark Reddy, I think they're related,
[49:03] Speaker 2: tried to flee in a stolen car. And to make
[49:06] Speaker 2: their getaway, they ram an unmarked police car. It was
[49:09] Speaker 2: unoccupied at the time. I don't want you getting worried.
[49:11] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[49:12] Speaker 2: These two rough and readies, they managed to escape the
[49:15] Speaker 2: rest stop, but the police engage them in a high
[49:18] Speaker 2: speed pursuit and they, quickly run them down. Both men
[49:21] Speaker 2: are eventually arrested. So at this point, 37 year old
[49:24] Speaker 2: Salahuddin Reddy, aka Dean, had been in on the dimes heist.
[49:28] Speaker 2: He'd also been there for the frozen crab legs, heist
[49:31] Speaker 2: in April. Days later, a heist of Samsung TV is
[49:34] Speaker 2: worth $ 360, 000. Wow. So they now have things, they can
[49:38] Speaker 2: start flipping people on each other, placing timelines. So when
[49:42] Speaker 2: the feds start dropping indictments on all these beef pirates,
[49:45] Speaker 2: a main player in the crew turns out to be
[49:47] Speaker 2: Rakim Savage, aka Rock, aka 24.
[49:50] Speaker 4: Okay.
[49:52] Speaker 2: He was dumb enough to post evidence on Instagram of
[49:54] Speaker 2: how he was spending the proceeds from his crimes.
[49:58] Speaker 4: Oh.
[49:58] Speaker 3: Stop.
[49:59] Speaker 2: On his Instagram account, Zugang24, Rakim Savage, a.k.a. Rock, a.k.a. 24,
[50:05] Speaker 2: he posts images of him in Cancun, Mexico, swimming with dolphins.
[50:09] Speaker 4: Wait, no.
[50:10] Speaker 2: I swear to God. No. He's doing like the craziest
[50:14] Speaker 2: white girl stuff ever.
[50:14] Speaker 3: Right?
[50:15] Speaker 2: He's down there swimming with dolphins and posting on Instagram
[50:17] Speaker 2: about it.
[50:18] Speaker 3: He's got like a puka shell necklace. He's getting a
[50:20] Speaker 3: henna tattoo on the back of his hand.
[50:22] Speaker 2: He's like right next to like, I don't know, like
[50:24] Speaker 2: a raft of like sorority girls from Alabama. They're all
[50:27] Speaker 2: swimming with dolphins together.
[50:28] Speaker 3: Meanwhile, Helen Reddy's kids got busted. Yeah.
[50:31] Speaker 2: Exactly.
[50:31] Speaker 3: They're sitting in the slammer. He's living it up.
[50:34] Speaker 2: There's also shots of him in Jamaica, not at Sandals.
[50:37] Speaker 3: Darn it.
[50:38] Speaker 2: He's in the Caribbean Sea riding a horse.
[50:41] Speaker 3: Oh, he's doing the whole.
[50:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, he's doing the whole.
[50:43] Speaker 3: He's feeling hot, hot, hot.
[50:45] Speaker 2: Exactly. There are other shots of him back home in
[50:48] Speaker 2: Philly flaunting his diamond chain that reads, in all shiny rocks, zoo.
[50:54] Speaker 2: because that's his group, Zoo Gang, right?
[50:55] Speaker 3: Zoo Gang.
[50:56] Speaker 2: And so there are also shots imposed at the intersection
[50:58] Speaker 2: of 19th and Wingo, which is that intersection I mentioned
[51:00] Speaker 2: earlier in Nicetown. So he's there, he's giving the camera
[51:03] Speaker 2: the bird, right?
[51:04] Speaker 3: Sure, tough guy.
[51:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, real bad man, Elizabeth.
[51:07] Speaker 3: Bad man.
[51:08] Speaker 2: Now, my favorite is how he was particularly partial to
[51:10] Speaker 2: Louis Vuitton threads. Like, there's a shot of him decked
[51:13] Speaker 2: out in Louis Vuitton, and he captioned this Instagram shot,
[51:17] Speaker 2: Sometimes I think why God keep blessing me and I'm
[51:19] Speaker 2: committing sins. So, hashtag big Zoo Gang. Sometimes I think,
[51:26] Speaker 2: why God keep blessing me? Why?
[51:28] Speaker 3: Why, God?
[51:29] Speaker 2: And I'm committing sins over here, God. Are you even
[51:31] Speaker 2: paying attention, Lord?
[51:32] Speaker 3: Hashtag Louis Vuitton speeding.
[51:34] Speaker 2: I mean, but that is a good question, Rock, a.k.a. 24. Yeah.
[51:37] Speaker 2: And it seems we have our answers because God's blessings
[51:39] Speaker 2: did not last much longer. In September of this year,
[51:43] Speaker 2: Rakim Savage, a.k.a. Rock, a.k.a. 24, was sentenced to 108
[51:47] Speaker 2: months in federal prison, a.k.a. about nine years.
[51:50] Speaker 3: A.k.a. the slammer.
[51:51] Speaker 2: So along with the Beef Pirates from the Zoo Gang,
[51:53] Speaker 2: there were the Criminal Cousins from the affiliated Omerta Street Gang.
[51:57] Speaker 2: These are closely related. So Rakeem Savage, he's in both.
[52:01] Speaker 2: And in the Omerta, he's listed as Fat Rock. I
[52:04] Speaker 2: don't know if they're just a meaner crew. They're just like...
[52:08] Speaker 2: So anyway, he's a.k.a. Rock, a.k.a. 24, a.k.a. Fat Rock. Yeah.
[52:13] Speaker 2: And that's Rock R.O.C. like Charles Dutton.
[52:16] Speaker 3: Oh, not R.O.Q.
[52:17] Speaker 2: No.
[52:17] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[52:18] Speaker 2: Not like hypnotic. Like the.
[52:19] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[52:19] Speaker 3: Or isn't there like a skin care thing?
[52:22] Speaker 2: Oh, there may be. I don't know.
[52:26] Speaker 3: But then I'm thinking like, oh, Merita, doesn't that like
[52:28] Speaker 3: code of silence? And that means like, don't post your
[52:31] Speaker 3: ish on Instagram.
[52:33] Speaker 2: That would be like. Yeah.
[52:34] Speaker 3: A little bit.
[52:34] Speaker 2: Top of mind for me.
[52:35] Speaker 3: I got to send them back to basics and we're
[52:38] Speaker 3: going to sit down and watch a bunch of mod
[52:40] Speaker 3: movies together.
[52:41] Speaker 2: Italians in New Jersey are just shaking their head there
[52:42] Speaker 2: and they call it Homerita. Look at this. Hey, come here. Hey, Ma,
[52:45] Speaker 2: look at this. So Rocky gets indicted along with seven
[52:49] Speaker 2: other street bandits. I won't get into all their stuff,
[52:51] Speaker 2: but Elizabeth, you know how we both like a good name. Yeah.
[52:54] Speaker 2: Can I share some of these names with you?
[52:55] Speaker 3: Please do.
[52:56] Speaker 2: Because we have, there's Jaleel Williams, 25. That's a great name.
[53:00] Speaker 2: Street name, 25th Street Bill.
[53:02] Speaker 3: 25th Street Bill.
[53:03] Speaker 2: AKA Kill Bill.
[53:05] Speaker 3: That's a long nickname, 25th Street Bill. It's a tongue twister.
[53:08] Speaker 2: And they're all from 25th Street, 30th Street, 19th Street,
[53:12] Speaker 2: right in that nice town neighborhood. So he's like 25th
[53:14] Speaker 2: Street Bill, as opposed to like 19th Street Bill. You
[53:17] Speaker 2: don't want to get them confused.
[53:19] Speaker 3: But it's like in Oakland, you know what they call
[53:21] Speaker 3: all the 20s in the avenues?
[53:24] Speaker 2: The avenues, right?
[53:25] Speaker 3: The murder dubs.
[53:26] Speaker 2: Murder dubs. That's good.
[53:27] Speaker 3: That's way cooler than 25th Street Hill.
[53:30] Speaker 2: Exactly. There's also a Kyaira Garnett street name, Kai Hefe, a.k.a. Hefe.
[53:36] Speaker 3: Oh, I like Kai Hefe.
[53:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought that was kind of fun.
[53:38] Speaker 3: That sounds like something I would call him.
[53:40] Speaker 2: Then there's also- And annoy him. Hanif Robertson, street name, Neif, a.k.a.
[53:45] Speaker 2: Black Neif. In case there's, I don't know if there's
[53:47] Speaker 2: a white knee or a red knee. There's somebody else. Anyway,
[53:50] Speaker 2: there's also.
[53:51] Speaker 3: Black knees and white knees. I had a friend who
[53:55] Speaker 3: got mixed up with this guy, Mike, and he was
[53:59] Speaker 3: Irish Mike. And then he had a friend, Korean Mike.
[54:02] Speaker 3: And then they had a third Mike, Indian Mike. He
[54:05] Speaker 3: was Native American. Those three ran around all day. Indian Mike,
[54:10] Speaker 3: Korean Mike, and Irish Mike.
[54:12] Speaker 2: I knew a white Steve and a black Steve who
[54:14] Speaker 2: were in a crew.
[54:15] Speaker 3: You got to have some way to tell people apart.
[54:18] Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
[54:19] Speaker 3: I don't know. We don't always all have last names, but,
[54:22] Speaker 3: you know.
[54:23] Speaker 2: So there also, I got a couple more for you.
[54:25] Speaker 2: There was a Byheese Moore, street name, Heise, a.k.a. Clay,
[54:29] Speaker 2: like Clay Thompson with a K.
[54:31] Speaker 4: Oh.
[54:32] Speaker 2: Yeah. So I don't want you to get confused like,
[54:33] Speaker 2: you know, oh, Cassius Clay?
[54:35] Speaker 3: Like, no. Clay Morrow from Sons of Anarchy?
[54:38] Speaker 2: No, once again, no. Now there's obviously my fave.
[54:41] Speaker 3: He's like one of the Kardashians with a K.
[54:43] Speaker 2: There's also another one of mine who's like probably in
[54:46] Speaker 2: my fave camp, Rakim Kang, street name, Hellcat, a.k.a. Cat,
[54:51] Speaker 2: if you're on a more informal level.
[54:53] Speaker 3: Well, when he's in the first thing in the morning,
[54:55] Speaker 3: he's just Cat. He's not Hellcat.
[54:58] Speaker 2: Rakim.
[54:58] Speaker 3: I love the name Rakim.
[55:00] Speaker 2: Yes.
[55:00] Speaker 3: I knew a guy named Rakim growing up.
[55:02] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. I knew a couple.
[55:03] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[55:03] Speaker 2: It's a good name, especially for a certain generation. It's like, oh,
[55:05] Speaker 2: what's up, Rock?
[55:06] Speaker 3: Well, it's like a super hard name. And the Rakim
[55:08] Speaker 3: I knew was like a power nerd. So, you know.
[55:12] Speaker 2: They have power nerd Rakims. Power nerd Rakims. You get
[55:16] Speaker 2: a large enough black population, you're bound to find a few.
[55:18] Speaker 3: You're bound to get a nerdy Rakim.
[55:20] Speaker 2: So there's also a Ward Roberts, street name Rob. Yeah.
[55:25] Speaker 2: But he had another one.
[55:26] Speaker 3: Some of these guys lose the lotto on these.
[55:27] Speaker 2: Because his name is Ward Roberts, right? Street name Rob, a.k.a.
[55:31] Speaker 2: Young Ward.
[55:32] Speaker 3: Young Ward.
[55:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, which assumes and replies there is an old ward.
[55:36] Speaker 2: So maybe not. Maybe like a baby ward. Anyway, finally,
[55:40] Speaker 2: there's the last guy, Harry Draper. Street name Coach, a.k.a.
[55:45] Speaker 3: Unk. It's Coach like from Cheers. The one old white guy.
[55:52] Speaker 2: So they call him Coach and Unc because Draper was
[55:56] Speaker 2: 46 years old, about 20 years older than all of
[56:00] Speaker 2: his co-defendants. They're all like 23, 25, you know. He's 46.
[56:03] Speaker 2: So I'm like, what's up, Unc?
[56:05] Speaker 3: Don Draper.
[56:06] Speaker 2: Sipping on that hypnotic. Yeah, exactly.
[56:09] Speaker 3: Why don't they hire me as a consultant to give
[56:11] Speaker 3: out nicknames?
[56:12] Speaker 2: Dude, AMC needs to call you. Now, despite the fact
[56:15] Speaker 2: that most of these guys, once they were busted, they
[56:17] Speaker 2: caught about eight to 10 year sentences in federal prison.
[56:20] Speaker 2: It seems that due to the persistence of economic disadvantages
[56:23] Speaker 2: and the ever rising prices of meat, seafood, as well
[56:26] Speaker 2: as inflation for electronics and appliances, which always spurs the
[56:30] Speaker 2: buyers of the black market, there is now a new
[56:32] Speaker 2: wave of beef pirates that recently popped up onto the
[56:35] Speaker 2: scene and And as I told you about up top.
[56:37] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
[56:38] Speaker 2: So they seem eager to replace this crew despite the
[56:41] Speaker 2: clear reasons not to.
[56:42] Speaker 3: Well, there's a vacuum.
[56:43] Speaker 2: So I guess watch this space because we may have
[56:46] Speaker 2: a follow-up to this story about Beef Pirates soon. Beef
[56:49] Speaker 2: Pirates 2. But for now, I have to ask you, Elizabeth,
[56:52] Speaker 2: what's a ridiculous takeaway here?
[56:53] Speaker 3: Oh, my goodness. I want to know who's buying this stuff.
[56:57] Speaker 4: Right?
[56:57] Speaker 3: I think in the olden days, they would have gone
[57:00] Speaker 3: around to, like I said, local restaurants or families or whatever.
[57:03] Speaker 3: But these are a much larger scale.
[57:04] Speaker 2: I think they're keeping it in the neighborhood.
[57:06] Speaker 3: Yeah, but then, like, who's—yeah, I just want to know
[57:09] Speaker 3: who's eating it.
[57:10] Speaker 2: They had a huge ring of, like, lookouts and people
[57:14] Speaker 2: giving them tips of, like, I saw a truck going by.
[57:16] Speaker 2: It was refrigerated. So I think they were rewarding a
[57:18] Speaker 2: lot of people, and then those people would then pass
[57:21] Speaker 2: it along. So you basically are breaking it off to
[57:23] Speaker 2: a lot of folks, and then they're selling the electronics,
[57:25] Speaker 2: I think. But I think for the meat, the things
[57:27] Speaker 2: that are going bad quick, they're just stoking people out.
[57:30] Speaker 3: Oh, that's a good idea.
[57:31] Speaker 2: That's my guess. I do not know.
[57:32] Speaker 3: I think they're selling steaks out of trunks. You ever
[57:35] Speaker 3: seen that?
[57:37] Speaker 2: Like tomahawk steaks, like big ones?
[57:39] Speaker 3: You ever seen that?
[57:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
[57:40] Speaker 3: Where someone like sells, they just got steaks out of
[57:42] Speaker 3: a trunk and you're like, who in their right mind?
[57:44] Speaker 2: I've been to a parking lot in Oakland, yes. They
[57:48] Speaker 2: have car stereos next to steaks with like a towel
[57:50] Speaker 2: separating them.
[57:52] Speaker 3: And then a bunch of stolen ties.
[57:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. If they're smart, some diapers on the outside.
[57:58] Speaker 2: They're like, hey, that's to get you over there to
[58:00] Speaker 2: come see what they got.
[58:01] Speaker 3: Darren, what's your takeaway?
[58:02] Speaker 2: My takeaway is... Crime never sleeps. So I'm looking out
[58:07] Speaker 2: for you truck drivers. Guys, you know, if you do
[58:11] Speaker 2: feel somebody rocking on the trailer, it's not worth it
[58:13] Speaker 2: to get out. They have insurance. You can act like
[58:16] Speaker 2: I slept through it. It's just stuff. I don't want
[58:19] Speaker 2: you guys getting hurt over these knuckleheads. So be mindful.
[58:23] Speaker 3: Yes.
[58:23] Speaker 2: There you go. I guess it's not that ridiculous, but
[58:25] Speaker 2: it is a takeaway.
[58:25] Speaker 3: It's a takeaway.
[58:26] Speaker 2: And it's free. So there you go. So are you
[58:28] Speaker 2: in the mood for a talk bag? We can watch
[58:30] Speaker 2: this one down. I am.
[58:31] Speaker 3: I am. Oh, my God.
[58:35] Speaker 4: Did he just say that?
[58:37] Speaker 2: I love Jake. Hey, folks.
[58:46] Speaker 4: This is Jack in Boise, Idaho. And I just wanted
[58:50] Speaker 4: to reach out and let you know I love the
[58:52] Speaker 4: podcast and also Grillo's Pickles. You made me a big fan.
[58:58] Speaker 4: Just wanted to let you know there's something out there
[59:01] Speaker 4: that Grillo's does called Pickle the Gallo. I don't know
[59:05] Speaker 4: if you've had a chance to try it yet, but
[59:07] Speaker 4: it's pretty banging.
[59:09] Speaker 2: So, yeah. give it a shot.
[59:11] Speaker 4: All right. Love you guys.
[59:12] Speaker 2: Take care. Bye.
[59:13] Speaker 3: Jack, Pickles de Gallo.
[59:15] Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
[59:16] Speaker 3: Love that stuff.
[59:16] Speaker 2: We got some in the HQ fridge.
[59:18] Speaker 3: But here's the thing. I'm always looking for new ways
[59:20] Speaker 3: to use it because it's good on a hot dog.
[59:23] Speaker 2: It's amazing on a hot dog.
[59:23] Speaker 3: That's amazing on a hot dog. But you can't really like,
[59:26] Speaker 3: it's not like a nachos thing. Oh, no, I wouldn't
[59:29] Speaker 3: say so. I like to blend it in with tuna.
[59:32] Speaker 2: Oh, that's good.
[59:33] Speaker 3: Pickles de gallo. I've never tried that. So, Jack, you know,
[59:36] Speaker 3: send us an email or something.
[59:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, some suggestions.
[59:38] Speaker 3: I'm really interested in knowing how you're using pickles de gallo.
[59:40] Speaker 3: How are you notching on this? But, yeah, you're right.
[59:42] Speaker 3: Grillo's amazing.
[59:44] Speaker 2: Yes. One of the best pickles in the game.
[59:47] Speaker 3: They should be cutting us in. Look at us. We're
[59:49] Speaker 3: referring customers. Gorillas.
[59:54] Speaker 2: They won't contact us until they have a sports betting app.
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: As always, you can find us online at Ridiculous Crime
[1:00:04] Speaker 2: on social media. We have Instagram. That's where there's going
[1:00:06] Speaker 2: to be photos of these beef pirates in their halls.
[1:00:09] Speaker 2: You can go to Blue Sky if you want to
[1:00:10] Speaker 2: check out links to the shows. And apparently, I hear
[1:00:13] Speaker 2: over on Spotify, people have a whole comment section going on.
[1:00:16] Speaker 4: Oh, really?
[1:00:17] Speaker 2: For each episode, they're talking about... I don't want to go,
[1:00:20] Speaker 2: but Terry was telling me about it.
[1:00:21] Speaker 3: That's where I heard it. Terry was like, oh, they're
[1:00:24] Speaker 3: all chatting.
[1:00:24] Speaker 2: I was like, that's cool. I'm happy for them. I
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: don't want to be like the mother coming down the
[1:00:29] Speaker 2: stairs into the basement. Are you guys having fun down there?
[1:00:31] Speaker 2: I don't want to see when people are mean. Yeah, well.
[1:00:35] Speaker 2: So if you want to, go check it out, Spotify. Also,
[1:00:38] Speaker 2: we have our website, RidiculousCrime.com. So that's where you can
[1:00:41] Speaker 2: find merch and all sorts of fun artwork. We need
[1:00:44] Speaker 2: to get some new merch. I keep saying this, but
[1:00:46] Speaker 2: we're going to– I've been telling Terry, you know, come on,
[1:00:49] Speaker 2: let's just pick a weekend. We'll just sit down and
[1:00:51] Speaker 2: do a bunch of drawings. Also you, I keep sending
[1:00:54] Speaker 2: you calendar invites. I think I'm spelling your name wrong.
[1:00:57] Speaker 2: I don't know. But also, big news, Elizabeth. Our website
[1:01:00] Speaker 2: was recently nominated to replace Usher for his Las Vegas residency.
[1:01:04] Speaker 3: You're kidding. Do we get to play the dome or
[1:01:07] Speaker 3: whatever it's called? The sphere?
[1:01:08] Speaker 2: Sphere, yeah. Warm up your pipes, Dutton.
[1:01:10] Speaker 3: I just fall down the stairs.
[1:01:11] Speaker 2: Obviously, we always love your talkback. So go to the
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: iHeart app, download it, leave us a talkback. Maybe we're
[1:01:16] Speaker 2: going to hear your voice here. We would love to
[1:01:18] Speaker 2: hear it. And you can email us if you like,
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: if you're old school. Go to RidiculousCrime at gmail.com. And please,
[1:01:23] Speaker 2: if you do email us, start your email at Dear Terry,
[1:01:27] Speaker 2: thank you for listening, and we will catch you next crime.
[1:01:33] Speaker 2: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Bernal.
[1:01:36] Speaker 2: Produced and edited by the man who kindly leaves some
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: food out for the alley cats of this world, Mr.
[1:01:42] Speaker 2: Dave Kustin. Our Ridiculous Assistant is by the one person
[1:01:44] Speaker 2: who calls Knoxville the city of cousin love. Terry Maldonado Fong.
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: Pre-search is by a woman who, when they hear Philadelphia,
[1:01:51] Speaker 2: they don't think of Rocky movies or even the boxer
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: Joe Frazier, but instead thinks of the city as the
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[1:02:00] Speaker 2: theme song is by our resident boys-to-men cover band, the
[1:02:03] Speaker 2: New Jack Swingers Club, a.k.a. Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: The host wardrobe provided by Botany 500. Producer Dave's wardrobe
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[1:02:19] Speaker 2: Did you know my street name is Craig Bolin? And Noel. No,
[1:02:24] Speaker 2: I didn't. But did you know my street name is
[1:02:26] Speaker 2: Franklin Avenue? Wow.
[1:02:32] Speaker 3: Ridiculous crime. Say it one more time.
[1:02:37] Speaker 4: Ridiculous crime.
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