No One Gets Hurt
JJ Jorgenson is a lawyer. Tonio is a felon. Together they talk about crimes, scams, schemes, comedy and more!
No One Gets Hurt
Croatian Comedy & Crime
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Croatian comedy, Croatian food, ćevapi controversy… and one of the wildest credit union frauds you’ve probably never heard of. 🇭🇷
Croatian comedian Stanko joins No One Gets Hurt to explain what the comedy scene is really like in Croatia, why you should apparently NEVER call ćevapi a sausage, and some Croatian cultural rules we definitely did not know before this episode.
Then we get into the unbelievable story of the St. Paul Croatian Federal Credit Union, the Ohio credit union that collapsed after a massive fraud involving fraudulent loans, fake borrowers and more than $170 million in losses.
How does a credit union serving the Croatian-American community become the center of a nine-figure fraud case? And, more importantly, how angry are Croatians going to be that we called ćevapi sausage?
No One Gets Hurt — true crime, fraud, scams and ridiculous real-life stories. No murders required.
🎙️ New episodes every Thursday.
#Croatia #CroatianComedy #Cevapi #TrueCrimeComedy #Fraud #Podcast #ComedyPodcast #CroatianFood #TrueCrimePodcast
Listen up and no one gets heard.
SPEAKER_06This is a podcast that focuses on clients and where no one physically gets harmed. If this is a podcast where information is a podcast, we'll be taking fight.
SPEAKER_02So listen up and no one gets hurt. Well, don't forget to like and subscribe and in the comments. Tell us what it is like it's a good pod.
SPEAKER_06Welcome back to another episode of No One Gets Hurt Pod. This week we have with us um, I think I would consider him a long distance cousin of mine, a Croatian cousin, if you will. He's everybody's Croatian cousin. It's Stonko Zovak.
SPEAKER_03How's it going, everybody? Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for coming out, man. We're gonna have a good time today. I'm excited. I'm looking forward to this. I'm high on caffeine and THC and no sleep, so we'll see where it goes.
SPEAKER_06Nice. Hell yeah. And you're you're doing uh herbal tea, so you just you don't like the caffeine.
SPEAKER_00Is that what the honestly you said do I want coffee or tea? And like I don't drink either of those. Oh so I was just like ah, tea, because it's you know, no caffeine or whatever. So like I don't even know what you got me and what that is.
SPEAKER_06It's it's chamomile and it's herbal, so there's no uh no caffeine in it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's what yeah, okay. Cam that's like when you're sick, you drink that.
SPEAKER_06I mean, sure, like, or you're just like trying to be chill. You maybe like all right, that's the I'm that's what I'm trying to do.
SPEAKER_00I'm just trying to be chill.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Tonyo uses a different kind of herb to get chill. Better believe it. It's called cotton candy and cereal milk, or what was it? What is the thing?
SPEAKER_02It's uh no, cereal milk is one of my favorites, yeah, for sure. Oh, that's the vape uh cartridge flavor thing, or no, it's a weed strain. Oh, it's a strain of weed, but basically, uh a lot of weed strains are like food names now. Yeah, yeah, it's fucking weird.
SPEAKER_00Cotton candy. Ooh, is there a funnel cake already?
SPEAKER_02Oh I don't know. I think that would be I would smoke funnel cake. Yeah, right. Yeah, there's birthday cake.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_06One time my parents went out, I have older brothers. My brothers are like nine and eleven years older than me. And my brother, my parents had gone out of town for vacation or whatever, and my oldest brother decided this is the 80s. He's like, it's time for me to make funnel cake at home. And so he tried to make funnel cake at home. And my mom comes home from vacation and was like, why is there like smoke on the walls? And he's like, Because no one we don't use how to deep fry like dough. I don't know, like it's uh it's you have to like know what you're doing, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, you don't even need to deep fry it though.
SPEAKER_06You only need like yeah, well, that just yeah, he was always experimenting, probably had a whole pot full of like he was frying chicken. Yeah, yeah, I don't I play the fifth, I don't know. But I was like four or five, so yeah, he was in charge of watching me as well.
SPEAKER_02So did did was there a successful one at all?
SPEAKER_06No, but see, he worked at Knott's berry farm, and so he bought the funnel cake mix from Knott's berry farm and thought, like, oh, how hard could it be? It's like it's a little, there's there's some skill to it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a little bit of a technique in there. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06So um, so speaking of you, we're we're talking about fruit and then Croatia. Like, what do you think are some of the uh Croatian foods that you'd recommend Americans try?
SPEAKER_00Man, like if you're over here, if you go over there to Croatian. Give both.
SPEAKER_05Give us both.
SPEAKER_00Because there's probably there's not too many options, especially here in LA. There's not a lot of Croatian restaurants, but there's like that whole region by Croatia, like they all have chavapi, which is like I probably get a lot of hate for calling it a sausage, so I won't, but it's like actually, I just got I posted a TikTok the other day and like I said something about it, and I got all these comments like it's not a sausage, dude. How can you say that? Like, you're so American and all this stuff. But it's like we're gonna edit this to make you look so pro-sausage. It's sausage. I mean, it's like it's ground beef and lamb and pork, like all ground, mixed together into a log. That's a sausage. That's a sausage, yeah. That's a sausage. I'll die on that hill. Exactly. So, I mean, we got no other word to call it, but like it's that, and you can have it in like a bread with like some how would you like you would eat a sausage, perhaps?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00It's a sausage. I don't know why people get mad for calling it that, but that's really good. And then there's like a lot of roasted lamb, like on the spit, you know, where it turns and stuff, and that's real good. And then there's some like specific type where they get like a big dish and they put a bunch of potatoes and carrots, and then whatever meat you want. You can do lamb, you can do octopus, you can do you know, beef, whatever. You put the lid on it, you put it in like a big fire pit, and then you shovel the coals on top of the lid, and there's like a ring around it, so like the coals all stay covered. And then when it's done, you just you know take the coals off, lift up the lid, and then it's just it's done in there. Oh wow, it's like a stew. No, it's it's not like a stew. You pour olive oil and stuff, but and so that's the only liquid, so it gets like a little coagulated. Yeah, yeah, but it's not like you don't eat it with a spoon, you know, it's still like but there's just the meat and the potatoes and carrots and onions, like it cooks together so well. Oh, and somehow the it like cooks really even because all the coals are evenly spread on top. That's good.
SPEAKER_02A fire pit in my house that like would work perfectly for that. Huh? Yeah, my I have a pot that would fit in there. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna have to try that.
SPEAKER_00All you need is that like bell lid thing that somehow you can use. It's got one of those too. Yeah, yeah. How do you have what do you cook in there? You just got like grandfathered into this fire pit?
SPEAKER_03Like, it's just a fire pit, like we just have fires in it.
SPEAKER_02It's like an outdoor one, or it's like covered. No, it's like an outdoor fucking you can move it about the size of that table. Okay, but it's deep. Yeah. So I would be able to put a pot in there with the coals, and then I have a grate that'll go on top to keep it there. Yeah, you should try that then. Yeah, I'm gonna have to. It's really good. I love to cook, bro. Yeah, I get down in the kitchen. Fuck yeah. I d you know, I mean get this way eating bad foods.
SPEAKER_00You gotta make some funnel cakes in the fire roasted. That'd be cool. Fire roasted funnel cake.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That'd be interesting. That'd be interesting. I'll try anything once. As long as it's not in the needle. Okay. Dark turns. Dark turns. You gotta specify.
SPEAKER_06Uh all right. Well, changing topics a little bit. Uh, when I have gotten the opportunity to perform with you, I've noticed that you're really good at crowd work. How do you how do you think you've worked at that? Like, is it just you grew up in a family where you had to fight for yourself to be funny, or would you is it something that you developed?
SPEAKER_00I will, you know, I will say I'm the funniest in my family, so I'm not gonna agree with you there that I had to fight with that. But no, I don't I mean, I appreciate you saying that. I don't think my crowd work is anything that it's like something that I've recently started to try and like actually focus on instead of just, you know, by accident getting a couple good things in there. Um, so it's still like it's still something I'm working on, and I really can't even give advice because I'm still trying to figure it out myself. But a lot of the times I'm just you know, it's something I'll use it to lead into the next joke, so like I know it's like about the topic, so if it goes bad, I can just sort of go into my joke anyways. And if if there's something you know good there, I can just keep working on that.
SPEAKER_02How long have you been doing comedy?
SPEAKER_00Uh about four years now. Okay. Sort of on in I mean, I started doing comedy in LA for like a couple months and then went to Croatia for three years. And so this was a good thing. Oh, I didn't realize you lived there for three years. Holy moly! Most of my comedy. Yeah. Yeah. Or I guess at this point now, most is in LA, but I did like a few months of comedy, just like a couple open mics and stuff in LA. Went to Croatia first year, year and a half. I was there, didn't do anything, and then I found like an open mic in uh in English over there. So I started doing comedy over there. So I probably did a little bit over a year in Croatia. No, no, it was small, it's like just getting like the generation before me was like the first stand-up comic generation in Croatia. And like so at shows, they'd like explain to the audience how it works. Because over there they tell a lot of it's kind of like you know, a guy walks into a bar type of joke. That's like street jokes that are passed around, and like they're big on that, and they'd have to explain to people like these people are writing their own jokes, like it's not these street jokes, laugh out loud if something's funny, laugh and clap. If it's so like they're starting from scratch, explaining it. At one point I started making up my own rules. I'm like, you know, don't forget to tip your comedics after the show, that's how we do it. So it is the scene's like pretty new over there, at least you know, a few years ago when I was doing that, and now it's kind of it's become more popular. I mean, comedy all over the world now. Everyone's seeing the clips and stuff.
SPEAKER_02It really is uh blowing up. I felt like it wasn't a small scene back in the day, but like compared to now there's so many people doing it, and then there's so many people doing it at a high level. Back like, you know what I mean? You had a few people at a time that were doing it at that level. Now there's so fucking many. You mean locally, or like no, no, no, I mean like at the highest levels. Oh, yeah. There's so many people that have made it that far now.
SPEAKER_06I think that it probably was a lot of people doing it, just that we weren't seeing it because it was like the uh sitcom decided who was going to be like Roseanne was gonna be, or Seinfeld's gonna be the person, or the movies were this is who's gonna be, you know, they plucked from the clubs, but I didn't I don't think there was like the access, and there probably wasn't the number of clubs as well.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, it was pre-social media days, so like you you still had to be discovered right by somebody at that time. Now you could post the video on TikTok or Instagram and just by happenstance you're fucking famous in the morning.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, and I think it's it's an interesting theme because you having this element to you, the Croatian element to you, like um people that live in America that have the you know Yugoslavian backgrounds uh will relate to you. And I think a lot of your stories aren't necessarily just for the Yugoslavian, and I say that I know it's not Yugoslavia, but like I'm just saying, like, you're gonna get me killed over here. If you're saying Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sir Serbian, uh all of the you know, the groups. Um, I feel like it's beyond that too. Like I feel like uh Greek and Macedonian and Italian would probably all understand and relate as well, you know, very similar background of like, for instance, like my mom being like half Croatian, like a lot of her family stories for me, it's like you know, I will talk to my Greek friends about it, and it's it's very, very similar, you know. So I'm saying, like you have that built in where like some of your jokes may be starting from the point of just being Croatian, but it would be relatable to other people, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I think Greek definitely there's a lot of carryover. My mom's Italian, so I I've got that background as well. And I mean they share Italy and Greece and Croatia, they all share the Adriatic Sea, so it's all you know, Mediterranean.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, but yeah, it is nice to have like I mean, because that's what you want in comedy too. Like you want to be able to relate to the audience or you know, something that they can relate to. So that that does help. And when you have people, because you know, I've got my show, Croatian Roots, American Problems. So, like when you have those people in the audience, like and everyone can relate to what you're talking about, like that's super helpful.
SPEAKER_06I think that's awesome. So very, very cool. Uh, so uh this is where I'm gonna tell you the crime that I brought today.
SPEAKER_02So if you haven't already You look pretty excited. I'm I'm intrigued.
SPEAKER_06Well, if you can't already tell, we're talking about Croatia, right? Yeah. So maybe my crime involves Croatia. Oh yeah. So we're gonna take this to actually Ohio, which is actually where my my uh Croatian family's from. So that's where they that's where they lived, yeah. So this is uh in a a suburb near Cleveland, and we're dealing with St. Paul, Croatian Federal Credit Union. It's a bank. So uh this happens in like around 1999 through 2012. That's when the it starts, I think 2010 is when the FBI starts to get involved. But uh we have a federal union credit bank that's giving loans to the community, and the reason why it's the Croatian bank is because the neighborhood that they're in happens to be mostly Croatian. So the bank is trying to help the locals to you know start businesses, buy a home, the American dream, etc. Right. So that's that's what it's there for. But the COO decides he's gonna use it in a different way. So he his name is uh Raguz, his last name is Raguz. Now I don't know uh his name is Anthony Raguz. Now I don't know if he's Croatian or not. I don't know if any of these individuals, I know one of the individuals is from Macedonia, but the rest of them, I'm not sure if they're probably the bad guy. He's one of the bad guys. There's a lot of bad guys in this case, so yeah. So um, but basically, Anthony Raguz is giving out loans to individuals, and he is getting uh bribes in return. So he's basically saying, you know, uh, you give me money and I'm gonna give you a loan, right? So uh one of one of the things that he's doing is uh he he uh well let me let me let's back up. What do you think is the most dangerous Croatian institution other than a than a bank?
SPEAKER_00Do y'all have an IRS? You know what? I never I was over there three years, never paid taxes over the sound.
SPEAKER_02I'm fucking applying for a fucking visa immediately.
SPEAKER_00I think they've got some agreement with the US, and that's why I just pay the American taxes. Probably better to pay Croatian taxes. You get healthcare and stuff over there. I'd rather do it over there. I don't know, most dangerous institution. Jeez.
SPEAKER_06I feel like there's a Croatian mob. Come on.
SPEAKER_00They got, yeah, they got their mafia people over there. I won't say it too much, I won't name names over here.
SPEAKER_06Well, so this bank though, wouldn't you think a Croatian bank that's like that says it in its name, like we're trying to help people. Do you think people would be like more like they would be trustworthy of the bank, right? Like you'd be like, oh, I feel like this is gonna be a good institution to invest in, right?
SPEAKER_02Like a regular average Joe, I guess.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um the credit union has about 5,400 members, and they at the beginning of this, um, you know, they they're just doing their business as they're supposed to do. And in the end, um, they had re uh assets in the amount of like supposedly 238 million at the end of 2009.
SPEAKER_02Dollars or what did I say? Uh 238 million.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, dollars. Uh oh. Yeah, well, assets, assets. So yeah. I mean, yeah, it's supposed to be a tiny little bank, exactly. So um, so Anthony Ragruz is the chief operating officer, and he issued more than 1,000 fraudulent loans, totaling more than 70 million to 300 accounts.
SPEAKER_02And these people were paying him for a loan.
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_02He's counterintuitive. I don't understand.
SPEAKER_06So here's what he would do. He somebody would come in, like someone uh we'll get to those people in a minute, but someone would come in and give him a brown paper bag filled with hundred dollar pills, and they'd be like, I need a loan. And then he would give them a loan. So he wasn't making like he ended up accepting more than one million dollars in bribes and kickbacks and guessing.
SPEAKER_02It's not really a lot, I guess. No, I know. And like the grand scheme of the compared to some things that we've seen.
SPEAKER_06I agree.
SPEAKER_02Uh, over our time doing this podcast, it's really fucking like it's obviously a shitload of money. Yeah, I was just saying, yeah, but it's like fucking chump change compared to some of these guys, dude.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, well, I mean, it seems a little suspicious if you're going into a bank with a brown paper bag, right?
SPEAKER_02I mean, but I mean, would you just carry it in there like it's your lunch or like you know what I mean? Wouldn't you not have it in a jacket pocket or a backpack or a briefcase or something?
SPEAKER_06Unfortunately, the FBI documents that I reviewed don't exactly tell how they brought it how they brought it in, but people would bring it in.
SPEAKER_02They don't want to give people the fucking blueprints to do it again.
SPEAKER_06Probably. Um, but he was giving the loans to people who were unemployed or had no assets. So that becomes part of the problem. Now, if I came into the bank and I was like, you know what, I want a loan for $400,000. What were what would what would be some of the questions you might ask me?
SPEAKER_02Uh uh. I guess the first thing I would do is check your credit score.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_02And I would check your is your your you have an account at my bank.
SPEAKER_06I'm opening an account.
SPEAKER_02I wouldn't have an account there yet.
SPEAKER_06I'm like, I I might I'm coming to you and I'm saying, I need $400,000. What what are some questions you might ask me?
SPEAKER_02The very first thing I'm gonna do is check your credit score, and then I'm gonna ask you what you plan to do with the money uh and ask you how you plan to pay it back. So I would require like some bank statements showing me that you bring revenue in. Um that's all I can think of off the top of my head.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. What about do you have any uh other ideas?
SPEAKER_00You know, the only thing I know about loans is from the movie Yes Man.
SPEAKER_05I don't know how that is.
SPEAKER_00Jim Carrey seen that one?
SPEAKER_05I don't think so, huh?
SPEAKER_00Oh man. He like has to say yes to everything anyone asks him. Okay, forget how it's a very niche movie, but I I fuck with it. It's a good one. Well, he's like a loan officer or whatever, and so like he gives all the loans because he has to say yes, and everyone's asking him for loans, and then like he gets fired or something because you know you're not supposed to just give out loans to anyone. So I don't yeah, I guess I don't really understand. I guess you have to have some sort of proven model of being able to pay that back because if you need the money, like obviously you don't have the money, but you're gonna have to prove that at some point you're gonna be able to pay all that back. So you have to have whatever, yeah, like what you said, what's your plan to do with the money and how are you gonna make that money back plus interest?
SPEAKER_06Well, right, but like employment stubs, like you know, like how much you need to be.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's what I was saying, like bank records and and things like that.
SPEAKER_06Right, and how long have you been employed there?
SPEAKER_02Things that I've been asked when I asked for a loan.
SPEAKER_06Right. Like how long have you been working there? Uh, you know, maybe a couple references to confirm like you're you know, you've been in the community for however long. Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_02What was Anthony asking?
SPEAKER_06Oh, he wasn't asking anything because he didn't care. He didn't care.
SPEAKER_02I figured it's much approved.
SPEAKER_06No, he was asking, where's the brown paper bag? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You're not gonna use this for anything illegal, right? Wait, yeah.
SPEAKER_06But then when some of the loan the loans were not getting oh, so okay, let me back up. So he's giving these loans, right? And then don't you think that like the parent company, the the federal credit union is gonna be like, wait a second, all this money's going out, but nothing's coming back in, right? Because you have to make payments on the loan.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_06You can't just take money and not make payments. Right.
SPEAKER_02At some point, somebody's gonna see that, hey, we're but losing money. Right, right.
SPEAKER_06So what uh Mr. Raguse would do is he would have those individuals come and take out another loan to start paying back the first loan off. It was called a reset. They would do a reset.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like a Ponzi scheme.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's basically it's basically a Ponzi scheme. So uh yeah. So in the the bank starts like losing so much money that the the parent company starts to investigate, and it's basically um there's a federal agency that uh it's called NCUA. They check on the regulating insuring federal credit unions. Uh they have a watchdog investigating unit called NCUA OIG. I don't like we're just yeah, I'm just giving back I'm just giving background information, basically. And then they get the FBI, IRS, or Department of Justice involved to do the investigation. So so basically those ones.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, those ones you know those ones, right? Right, right.
SPEAKER_06Um so basically the FBI and the IRS come to the NCUA, the the like the overlord of the bank, right? And they're like, hey, it looks like there's some criminal activity going on. And they start to do an in-depth examination on the fraud. And uh they're asking uh Ragu's for the the statements, like, hey, what's going on? So every time they'd be like, Hey, like we need to understand how these assets are lining up. He'd go, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll get those to you tomorrow. And then he'd go to the bank and then they would start redoing the paperwork so that way they were just basically pushing it down the road. So then the book the books would be adding up, but there was no money there. So then it would just further delay the situation.
SPEAKER_02So that's exactly how my stepdad ran his electrical company. Oh, really? Oh, he was a fucking crook, dude. He he was he was a criminal. Really? Yeah, for sure. He did like I want to say like 210,000 one year, and like the expenditures was almost nothing because we were just tearing. Fucking Lowe's and Home Depot apart.
SPEAKER_06Oh, yeah, he's explained this before. Yeah. Like books.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I would the the expenditures for fucking like materials was probably like maybe 10 grand the whole year. We did a lot of business.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's some good profit margins.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, 10 10 grand might have covered like four jobs that we did. And we had business all year. Jeez.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Well, so as they're doing the investigation, they're realizing that also none of these loans are secured by any assets. So there's nothing that they can actually collect. So they're not being paid back. There's no assets that they can, you know, foreclose on or whatever.
SPEAKER_02Right, because they didn't offer up any collateral, they offered up a money bag. Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_06So that's basically how the FBI gets involved. But um the interest to me, some of the interesting things is that um the in there's so many individuals. Like I tried to dig down on like how many different individuals there were, and it it like it's a in it's an endless list of people, all right. So uh one of the guys uh named Sado Sotka. I I don't I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Oh the Macedonian guy. Actually, no. Just hoping that he's the the worst of us, yeah.
SPEAKER_06The Macedonian is Koljo Nikolovsky.
SPEAKER_00All right, I could see that.
SPEAKER_06So he now of interest to me is that he actually um well we'll we'll start with him since that's that's the interest. Okay, so he was a major borrower and he had been involved in fraud and um laundering of money, and he got his sentence was 10 years and eight years, but instead of running at the same time, they are consecutive. Right. So so it was 18 years. So there's there's concurrent sentence sentences where like they run at the same time, and then there's concurrent, which means that like they stack. So you get two if you get two sentences in one's 10 years, one's 18 years, you actually are doing 18 years.
SPEAKER_00But the other one would be you're just taking the longer of the two sentences.
SPEAKER_02So like if you get a concurrent sentence, let's say they sentence you to 10 years, eight years, seven years, and four years, you'll only do 10 because it's all running together.
SPEAKER_00Well, then how do you get that one as opposed to the one that stacks?
SPEAKER_06It depends on the charges. So basically, what you're charged with. So, like if it's something like like really bad where someone gets hurt, a lot of times those don't run concurrently, they'll run consecutively because they want to ensure that you're not gonna get out, you know.
SPEAKER_02Like mine were consecutive, they weren't concurrent at all.
SPEAKER_06Well, his were you you did some scary stuff, so yeah. That's true.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I did. I broke into a house with a gun. Jeez, yeah, you know, I would want that to be a stack too. To be fair, yeah, and a 7-Eleven, but you know.
SPEAKER_02I didn't go in the 7-Eleven. Oh, I thought you did. I just drove. Oh I just drove for that one. Okay, and I shouldn't have because I was on so much Sandhex. We could have died that night. Yeah, I'm just somebody like in hindsight, we could have died, the guy whose house it was. Like, I feel terrible about it. I joke about it, but like, you know what I mean? I don't not bragging, I fucking feel awful about it. How long ago was that?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, he just got out last week, so I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_00I was on a show with him a month ago.
SPEAKER_02This was for the day.
SPEAKER_03This was 2010, so okay. 16 years now. Wow, yeah, yeah. I did six years and then I've been home for almost 10. Where where'd you do it at? Virginia. Oh, jeez. Yeah. Were you living over there? Yeah, that's where I grew up at. Okay, and then now you're out of here.
SPEAKER_02I moved to California the day I got out. Really? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Drove out here or flew? No, I flew.
SPEAKER_02They let me out at like 2:30 a.m. and I was fucking on a plane by six. Jeez. Yeah. Normally they don't let you out until like 11 o'clock, like noon-ish. Uh-huh. 11 a.m. noon, but they knew I had a plane. Uh you bought it while you were in there or like figured out how to came out here to live with my wife, and uh, she had everything situated.
SPEAKER_06This is actually part of his community service thing. This is his podcast.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this podcast. Well, I'm gonna need you to sign off on my hours now. Or the parole agreement.
SPEAKER_0016 years later, man. Yeah, you got to do that.
SPEAKER_06No, no, I'm actually the per parole officer, so I forced him to be here.
SPEAKER_02So they could keep me, they could have, well, they could have kept me on probation until 2056.
SPEAKER_00That long? Yeah. Oh my god. I was thinking it's like, no way you'd still be on parole 16 years later.
SPEAKER_02No, I got off of like probation in like a year and a half. I did all my requirements, paid all my fines and restitutions and whatnot. Uh, but they could have kept me for fucking 40 years, dude. Yeah, I still have what year is it? 2026? So I still have like 30 years over my head right now. That's insane. Yeah, so like if I fuck up in California, I'm gonna do the time in California, and then Virginia's gonna fucking pluck me out of here, and I could do up to 30 years there. Really? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You finish the everything over there, whatever left over that they didn't give you.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, they could give me the in Virginia, they call it life on the installment plan. So they'll put a fuck ton of fucking years over your head. So if you fuck up, they can give you five more years, let you go home and fuck up again, give you 10 fucking or it depending on the severity of the crime, they could smack you with all of it at once. Uh-huh. Yeah. So I'm not stealing a Snickers bar. You can't do anything now.
SPEAKER_06Um, well, back to the Macedonian. So he ends up um this the way he got his sentence was he pled guilty. Okay. And then after he got his sentence, he I think is the only one from my research appealed the the sentence. So basically he wrote, surprise.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Macedonians, you know what I mean? I don't know.
unknownI don't know you there.
SPEAKER_00Classic Macedonian appealing your sentence. It's well-known stereotype over there. I'm just taking your word for it, though. Actually, I have no beef with the Macedonians. I don't mind being racist against white people. I'm alright with it. Wait, but that's what you should do, right? Appeal. Or like oh, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Well, no, he pled guilty to it.
SPEAKER_02So he Can you appeal a guilty plea?
SPEAKER_06Well, that's what well, I mean, can you? Yes. Can you sue anybody for any reason? Yes, but like doesn't mean you're gonna win. Right.
SPEAKER_02I didn't know that was a possibility.
SPEAKER_06He appealed it, yeah. So yeah, he appealed it, and they were like, no, you pled this is part of your plea agreement. So no, you don't get to undo what you you know agreed to. So yeah. Um, but yeah, so he had 18 years, but he um, you know, his situation wasn't as bad as uh some other people. Uh he's one of the worst though, but yeah. So Anthony, the COO, who got a million dollars, he ended up getting 14 years. He pled guilty. Uh there was another guy named Moco Nicoli, and he got 27 months. He was uh he pled guilty for bank fraud and laundering. Uh then Sado uh Satka, he his family, he's the one that put the money in the brown paper bag. He actually, okay, so he he recruited another guy named JP, not our JP, but JP. And um basically told JP, you give money to Roguz and he's gonna give you a loan. All right. So uh he goes with uh JP to and JP, we don't know who JP is because he's only known to the grand jury, and he his information is not he was never charged. So whoever JP is, he snitched.
SPEAKER_02He probably he told.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there ain't no that motherfucker's under witness protection right now. Boy, he told it all. They know what kind of coffee that man drank. Like he told them everything. That motherfucker wears tidy whiteys, his socks don't match, his wife is a bit like and and he was laundering money. Don't forget about that.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_06Well, I want to know the size brown paper bag they use because apparently the amount of money in the bribe of cash in the brown paper bag, $90,000.
SPEAKER_0290k. Now, how much of a loan were they getting though? That's what I'm saying for that.
SPEAKER_06At one point, he got uh well, actually, uh so Sokka in total, his family got $4.4 million in loans? Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Now, was that one loan, or do you know?
SPEAKER_06It was I had broken up over the top, yeah. And and I I think that maybe the JP loan was included in that. But Satko was actually very interesting. So what he was doing was he was creating businesses that he was making the loans for, right? And I believe that he was also, oh, there's so many people. I think bear with me here, but I think he was one of the ones that was in jail. I think he oh no, no, no, he's a different guy. Sorry, there's so many, so many people, so many people. I know, my apologies. Um, you know what? Let me just quit my job and just do this whole time.
SPEAKER_02We can just cut it here.
SPEAKER_06The job that helps support the situation because this makes no money.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we bring a brown paper bag and I know, I know.
SPEAKER_06Um if you like and subscribe, and all you have to do is hit the subscribe button below here. It doesn't cost you anything, it helps us out, helps you feel good about it.
SPEAKER_02So perfectly legal too. All legal completely legal.
SPEAKER_06Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02This is not legal advice, but hitting that sub button is totally legal.
SPEAKER_06So Sokka and JP, they create these like businesses, right? And Sokka, one of the things he did was he bought a piece of property, commercial property, for $460,000. All right. So then he has JP go get a loan, and then Sacco sells the $460,000 commercial property to JP within like I think it was 13 months, all right? Like roughly, let's say like a year or two years, right?
SPEAKER_02At least they didn't do it like 13 days later. True, true. That was a bit smart.
SPEAKER_06What do you think would be like a reasonable amount to pay for a building building that you just that was just sold for $460,000?
SPEAKER_02Like, what do you think would be like reasonable that's renovated or there's nothing the same exact building?
SPEAKER_06I believe it's the same exact building.
SPEAKER_02Then I'm paying $460,000 for it.
SPEAKER_06But a year later, there might be some.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I might offer $400. $400, yeah. What it would do. If you haven't done anything to it, it's going down, right?
SPEAKER_00Well, who and maybe I mean Cleveland, not sure what the property is a good point. I mean, any any spot you could buy for $460K, that's here in LA, that'd be a steal. But I don't know, maybe it's it increased a little bit. I don't know, $500, maybe $600K max.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, $600, because that would be like under the radar, right? Like, like, okay, like $600, that seems like for a building. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, no. JP spent $3 million.
SPEAKER_00Jeez.
SPEAKER_06So that's another kickback scheme, right? Because then Sacco's getting all that money from the loan that he got from the bank to buy the building. So it's a tangled web, basically, is what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00So the guy that bought it had to pay three million, though.
SPEAKER_06Right, but he got the loan from this St. Paul Croatian Federal for that reason. For that reason.
SPEAKER_00And then he doesn't pay back the loan?
SPEAKER_06Nobody pays back the loan. Like barely if anybody paid back, it was like very minimal at best. Yeah. So but he got a property out of it. Now he's got this property. He's got the property out of it. The other thing that Sakko was doing and JP was very smart, was they they created this network of businesses. So then that way that each business was able to get different um different loans, right? So like what if you were c coming up with some fake business names, what would you come up with, do you think?
SPEAKER_02I've always wanted to have uh an edible company.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_02Uh that it's all like uh pies and cakes and shit, and I was gonna call it baked goods.
SPEAKER_05I like that.
SPEAKER_02Because you get baked and everything's baked, it's like a double entendre. I thought that was pretty smart.
SPEAKER_06But that would be your fake business?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Like you actually don't do it.
SPEAKER_02No, yeah, that's fine. I already have the idea. I don't need to come up with another idea.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know? That's a good one.
SPEAKER_00I like that. What do you got? Uh well, you said it's a real bad, make it sound like it's called the the business store or something. A Vegas thing.
SPEAKER_02That company.
SPEAKER_00I don't just you could name it anything. Like, business names are so crazy these days, you can name it anything. I can't. Well, I mean, what kind of business was it?
SPEAKER_06There is no business. Well, what don't they have to declare like you're just like um you know ABC widgets, and that's like that's basically all you don't you don't have to say, like that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_02What you would name your company ABC widget?
SPEAKER_06No, no, I'm using that, I'm using that I've been using that as an example, but yeah. No, so so um so one of them was coming up with like celebrity limousine or John Victor Model Town Agency or uh, you know, those don't sound too bad.
SPEAKER_02I like those.
SPEAKER_06And then and then one of them created, I thought was very smart, was like uh, I think it was like the the Cleveland Company. I'm I'm getting it wrong, you know, but it was like the Cleveland Group, I think it was like the Cleveland Group, but then it was like flooring division, excavation division.
SPEAKER_02That's genius. Yes, that's fucking smart.
SPEAKER_06One of the companies though was called BS Construction.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, dude. That's perfect. Yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Uh but one of the other individuals that I wanted to talk about before we exit this story is um now I'm never gonna say his last name correctly, but it's Jism. That's the first name.
SPEAKER_02I'm not mature enough to not laugh at that.
SPEAKER_06Seljiki, I think is how you say it, but I could be wrong. Um, so this guy actually hit the mothership in terms of sentencing. And I think he's the only one that uh was actually found guilty. I believe.
SPEAKER_02This all took, I'm sorry, you said this all took place in 1999.
SPEAKER_06Uh I think that the loans kind of started in 1999, but this all came to a head in 2010.
SPEAKER_02Damn, that's a long time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I wonder how long they were going before like somebody caught on to them.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think I think pro my guess, I again, I I'm only basically limited to FBI uh press releases, is how I figured uh this whole case out. Uh and and like uh part of it would be like uh they would say this is like for the grand jury, so it's not like that these weren't necessarily proven. Do you know what I'm saying? So this is like the preemptive press release, and then there'd be like the post uh conviction or post uh plea agreement press release, so it's a little scattered. But um I think that they were all um uh so basically like 2010 and uh they uh I'm one more time. What was the question again? Sorry, your question you asked.
SPEAKER_02I wonder how long that they went before they someone caught on to them.
SPEAKER_06So my thought was most likely is it was in 1999, probably through 2004, it's probably very small loans that were probably under the radar, you know, probably my my guess, I don't know, but like probably like 5,000 here, 100,000 there, you know, stuff that like you could probably cover up pretty easily. But then as the pigs become hogs, the money the money starts to get bigger and bigger. And I did see something that I think um I think it was Satka, it could have been Selj Saljiki. I can't again, I don't remember, but one of them went and threatened Ragu's family like to allegedly to give them the loan. Like, if you don't do the loan, I know where you live, kind of a thing. So yeah, it it's so the brown paper bag became something different. So um, but the reason why Jism Saljiki was interesting to me is that he received over $10.6 million dollars in loans and he gave over $200,000 in bribes to Ragu or Rogu's, however you say his name. But he received 25 years in prison. Damn. And he he um I think was the only one that was actually convicted. So everybody else, from what I could tell, pled guilty.
SPEAKER_02And they were in the feds.
SPEAKER_06Oh yeah, federal. Yeah, yeah. But what I found the most interesting about Saljiki is that uh he started his uh loan operation with Ragu's in about 2003. All right, that's fine. And then in 2004, for unrelated criminal reasons, he was in prison. So he was in prison for six years approximately, uh, four to six years approximately, and he was directing other people to go to the bank to get loans. So he was operating it while he was in prison, got out of prison, and kept doing it after prison.
SPEAKER_02So that's the same thing a lot of drug dealers do. Yeah, they'll get locked up and come in, and then they'll have people bring them the drugs. Sometimes it's the CEO, sometimes it's you know, somebody that comes to visit them, keep pumping drugs, go home and fucking do it all over again.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. So that's so the biggest sentences were uh 18 years and 25 years, and then um the the guy who was at the the head, the one that got a million dollars, 14 years. I just don't just I mean, none of it's worth that you shouldn't do that, period, but for a million dollars, yeah.
SPEAKER_02How much time? 14 years? Yeah, so that's less than a hundred thousand a year. Yeah, no, I'm not doing it. Yeah, you could make that with a good job. If we're talking like a million a year, yeah, I'll go to jail for a few years. Yeah, come home fucking uh do like three years and come home to three million dollars. If you get a keep it, yeah. If you that's what I'm saying, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Fuck well, most of them also have to pay restitution. So one I I one of the one of the guys had to pay something like $72 million back in restitution.
SPEAKER_02Damn.
SPEAKER_06So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Mine was like seven grand.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so but um, yeah, so they're that's that bank is no longer in existence and it's out. So that's what happened to that Saint Paul Croatian Federal Credit Union in East Lake, Ohio. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02And they got caught up because somebody noticed that the transactions were off.
SPEAKER_06Basically, the the parent of the bank, the parent banking, the federal credit union that like basically gives the money or you know, whatever the transaction would be called, the money, uh was wondering like why aren't we getting because if you think about it, loans are supposed to be investments, right? Like the bank is supposed to make money on base of the interest rate, right? And then if they are not making money and you're not paying it back and you've given the warnings that you're you know obligated to give, then you foreclose on the property.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_06But there was there's no payments or limited payments being made. And then on top of that, they couldn't foreclose on anything because except for maybe a couple of commercial properties, it sounds like, but not to the tune of you know, three million when you're spending three million dollars for a building that's worth $460,000.
SPEAKER_02Like that's like clearly fucking money laundering.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so most of the charges were cons conspiracy, money laundering, bank fraud. One of I think a couple of them had um like lying to a banking institution.
SPEAKER_02I'm surprised there's no wire fraud. I guess it was too early for wire fraud, perhaps. I I think I don't know when wiring money started.
SPEAKER_06Well, you don't have to it's it's uh I think it's when it's crossing the state lines is for wire fraud as part of it. Yeah, so they they were this is all in Ohio. So I maybe that's why there was no wire fraud. I I don't do criminal law, so I don't I can't comment on it, but yeah, it was mone money laundering, conspiracy. Um, those are like the big the big ticket items, so yeah. Um, yeah, bank fraud. Yeah. So yeah, so that's that's my story. And um, you know, you can redeem the Croatian people with your comedy.
SPEAKER_02That's a fair the whole country's counting on you, bro. You're like that one country in the Olympics that has one competitor. Like, you know what I mean? A few of the countries I've seen, they have one, and like, bro, if you're the only competitor from your country, you better fucking win.
SPEAKER_00You have to win. If you're the only one, you're probably not gonna win. This is all we got. We just wanted to march in the parade. That's true. That is sad when you see all the ceremonies that they're all walking, and then it's just one dude holding his leg.
SPEAKER_06And most likely it's an American that didn't qualify the American team. And they're like my great great uncle on my mom's side.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know what? I have to say, a lot of the Those names you were saying didn't sound Croatian, so it's I don't want to take any of the blame for the story here.
SPEAKER_06Well, Ragu sounds kind of Italian. I mean, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Surprise, we know you were in on it. James, come and arrest him. He's an undercover cop, actually. You're going to jail, buddy.
SPEAKER_06There was there was an Eddie Zai. Oh, he was the one that made the Cleveland group. So Eddie Zai made the Cleveland group. So my apologies, Mr. Sokka. Mr. Sokka and JP, my my bad. Um, it was actually Eddie Zye that came up with the Cleveland group.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, the Correction Corner.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, Correction Corner, live and in person. Um, he received approximately 16.7 million dollars in the fraud. So yeah. A lot of money. He got seven million, seven years in prison. Yeah. So yeah, no, I agree. Most of them sounded more um, there's Nicole's a little more Italian. Sokka, Sato Sokka, I thought maybe Japanese, but I could I couldn't find pictures or any ethnic like information background on any of them. The only one that had the ethnic background was the Macedonian.
SPEAKER_02So yeah. Well, what's the prize? Or Macedonians taking a hit. No reason to miss the podcast. Absolutely no reason because I don't even know where that country is.
unknownIt's just south of Croatia.
SPEAKER_02I don't know where the fuck that's at.
SPEAKER_06It's north of Greece, it's east of Italy.
SPEAKER_02I can point those out on the map. Yeah, Italy. I always compare it to Italy. People usually know. I know where the boot is, okay. Stiletto.
SPEAKER_06It's our Macedonian friends out there at us. Like, tell us what we got wrong today. And uh, you know, we'll make sure to put it in the corruption corner next time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, let's argue in the comments. I'm down. I don't got nothing else to do all day. She's fully employed. I sit on my ass all day. So let's I'm just kidding. I'm somewhere in between. So he's got time to argue part-time. He'll start it, but he's not gonna finish it, okay?
SPEAKER_06But before we get to your crime, I will say I posted.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you got a crime too? I do. Oh, so we got two crimes? We do. Oh man, all right here. We got six felonies in one night, bro. Two crimes is fucking chump change.
SPEAKER_06I realize I posted uh the one about uh from la from the Mikey Barajas episode where uh Steve Wynne allegedly, uh Joe Francis said that Steve Wynn had allegedly said, I'm gonna take a shovel and hit you in the back of the head and bury you in the desert. And I posted that on a trial reel, and some guy commented, This is AI slop.
SPEAKER_02Love that.
SPEAKER_06And I'm like, what does that even mean?
SPEAKER_02Burning the negativity.
SPEAKER_06And then he's like, exactly. Or so I'm like, what? And so I was like, thank you. Like, I mean, I guess that's a compliment. I don't know. I feel like I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Maybe your voice sounded like one of the AI voice models.
SPEAKER_06Where it's like that's what I said.
SPEAKER_02You know I'm gonna put something fucked up right there.
SPEAKER_05Excellent.
SPEAKER_01We don't like Macedonians. I know them, they're terrible people.
SPEAKER_06You know what? On second thought, if you or someone knows like the the ambassador to Macedonia, we are happy to accept a trip to go and see it for ourselves. All three of us are happy to go plus one for each of us. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04I'll take it. For your consideration.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, well, the three of us will go with our plus ones, it will be great, and we'll report back and tell you how much Macedonia.
SPEAKER_01If we don't like it, we'll just go across the water and have spaghetti, it'll be fine.
SPEAKER_02Either with sauce or gravy, is you know. We'll figure it out.
SPEAKER_06Have you heard this about the gravy? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00My Nona. Yeah, no, no. I called her my grandma, but yeah, I think I'm trying to remember, do they call it, did she call it gravy or not? I think it depends on like how thick it is, maybe.
SPEAKER_06No.
SPEAKER_00No?
SPEAKER_06No. It's it's so okay. I actually, my friend that's Italian, like dad was born in Italy. Uh, she's like, it's sauce, it's everyday it's sauce. She her philosophy is it's an East Coast thing. So it's East Coast Italians that are trying to make sauce or sorry, make uh sauce something different than what it is, like make it a little more exotic. So they're calling it gravy.
SPEAKER_02Gravy sounds a lot less exotic than sauce. That's true.
SPEAKER_06She also said though, this is funny because she was like, yeah, she was like, there's also all these like East Coast Italian terms that are like they're not like uh I I have to look it up, but is she had a couple where it's like these are not real things, these are things that the East Coast Italians made up to like you know make it uh like a thing, you know what I mean? So yeah, the Gabaghool, yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that. It would I can't have to remember, uh I I have I'm sorry, I don't have it, I I can look it up right now, but yeah, sorry. I feel bad, like, oh let me look it up, I'll look it up right now. Uh yeah, so she she was just like all these things are fake and it's not real. Um she goes to Italy all the time, like she goes for like a month every year, pretty much. So um, yeah, see if I can find it really quick. Oh, yeah. She's like, uh also no one in Italy says half these nonsense, nonsense words you hear from Italian Americans in New York, i.e. gabagul. Not a thing. And she goes, Maz, not a thing. Uh she's like, I could go on, but you get the drift. Also, I was in Rome for about a week. It was a legit 100 degrees, and you can spot a local versus a tourist from a mile away. The local is in a full suit, jacket, and button-up shirt, despite the weather. Tourists are dying in a tank top. That was her reporting to me.
SPEAKER_00So Rome is pretty hot. I've been over there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. It would get hotter than here.
SPEAKER_06And they don't have air conditioning.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they don't have the and it's all like cobblestone roads and stuff, and like packed with people, so it just like amplifies.
SPEAKER_02It is 2026, and these people ain't got air conditioning.
SPEAKER_00No, like all over Europe. That's the summer. There was a huge heat wave. I like a bunch of people die every year over there because like the heat waves and they don't have AC.
SPEAKER_02And they don't think maybe they should spend a little government money to fix that.
SPEAKER_06No, it's it's actually no, it's actually because they don't. My understanding is that they don't want the air conditioning units hanging out of the windows because it would be unattractive. Whereas Americans are like, you know what, we don't care to be tacky. Mine's pretty cool. Well, no, I mean we're talking like we're you're talking about buildings that are like hundreds of years old.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they don't have central central air, let alone like a window unit.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I don't I I don't know, maybe thousands would be wrong, thousands of years probably wrong, but hundreds of years old buildings. So they don't have the ducting system to do this central air, and then they have to do um like window units, but then window units isn't attractive, right? Like if you look at a building that's this beautiful architecture, there's just like a janky window unit hanging out of it.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. There are buildings in Virginia from like the Civil War area that have air conditioning, so I don't know what the fuck their excuse is.
SPEAKER_06Well, they probably had to go back in and like Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a possibility. They could do that.
SPEAKER_06I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Well, also it hasn't been as hot over there up until like recently, so they hadn't really needed it until that damn global warming.
SPEAKER_06No, I mean, I will say I went to London like 25 years ago, and they had a heat wave there that they hadn't seen for like another 20 years, and they had no air conditioning there, and uh it was miserable. It was absolutely they're like, just open the windows.
SPEAKER_02It's like no, let more hot air, yeah. Like, yeah, that sounds awful. My AC was down for like three days, and I didn't even want to be in my house.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's terrible. My girlfriend just moved out of her apartment a few weeks ago because there was no AC, and now she's got it set at 72 at this new apartment. I keep mine at 69. Yeah, that's year, dude. Year round it's 69 in my house, yeah. That is cool, dude. I said she's I just this morning I bumped it up to 75 while she was still asleep. Oh, we would have fist bumped. 69, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we would have threw hands off.
SPEAKER_0069, yeah. We're fighting. I'm still living at home with my parents. My mom keeps it at 79 in the house and then turns it off before night because she doesn't want it blowing on you at night. It gets like 83 at night. No.
SPEAKER_02Once it's uh when it when mine was out, dude, it was like 89.90 in my fucking house right now. But that's three days. I couldn't do that. Yeah, I didn't want to be there.
SPEAKER_06No, I want it to be ice cold and I want to be covered to here. On my face, yeah. I like that.
SPEAKER_00I want to fucking freeze. I'd rather be 80 than 70.
SPEAKER_06See, I feel like I wake up, I can't breathe. I'm like, huh, like because it's my my every my sinuses like close up, I feel like when it's warm. So yeah, I can't get comfortable when it's hot. No, but anyways. Yeah. So what have you got for us this week, Tony? Tell us everything.
SPEAKER_02I'm gonna flip the script on you today. Oh do you need $10 million?
SPEAKER_06Of course, yes. Who doesn't?
SPEAKER_02What do you need? Everybody could fucking pretty much everybody could use $10 million. All you gotta do. There's a caveat. All you gotta do is uh find two guys that they've been looking for since 1990.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_02So these two guys dressed up in police uniforms and went to uh what's the name of that shit? The Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum. I think it's in Boston.
SPEAKER_06Oh, it's Boston, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And uh so they went under the guise of someone called in about a disturbance here, and then they walked in. Uh it says they overpowered the guards. So I feel like I know nobody gets hurt, but like they probably beat them up. Uh and like tied them up and shit. And then they were in there for a little over an hour, so it was like an hour and 20 minutes, and they stole $500 million worth of art. Whoa. Uh and I don't know any of these uh artists, so I'm gonna look real quick. Uh Dagus D-E-G-A-S-S sketches. Okay. I have no idea who that is. Uh Rembrandt. Yes. Don't know who that is either. Uh Vermeer.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02Uh so they stole a Vermeer painting, which uh was only one of only 36 in existence. Uh so yeah, they broke in there and they they stole $500 million worth of various art items and got away with it.
SPEAKER_06Do they think it was like an inside job?
SPEAKER_02They don't know. They have no idea. There wasn't much information I could find because like they got away so fucking clean.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, there's actually a documentary on this on Netflix, I want to say I'm gonna have to check that out. Yeah, I w I watched it, it's been a long time since I watched it, but I think there was an I there was one idea that it could have been inside uh information like that was laid out. Yeah, um, and I think if I remember correctly, I'm probably not, but it was like things like the alarm system. There was something with like how the alarm system worked, and I think it was like off that night or something like that. Like there was a whole bunch of different weird things that I think happened.
SPEAKER_02A bunch of happen stances, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I don't remember a hundred percent, but it's been a minute since I'm gonna have to look that.
SPEAKER_02I couldn't find much information uh outside of like the FBI website. So and they were never caught to this day, bro.
SPEAKER_06So how many paintings was it exactly that they got?
SPEAKER_02I think it was like 13. Let me double check.
SPEAKER_06Because that you think about it, that takes some coordination, right? Because you oh absolutely you have to be there's just two of them. They I mean you can't, and I'm assuming some of the statues are or the paintings are large, so like to be able to carry them out, like that's not gonna be like a 10 minute situation.
SPEAKER_02Right, it's not like a snatch and grab, like where you smash the glass at a jewelry store and just take everything it could like you have to be super delicate, right? Which I assume is why it took them fucking an hour and 20 minutes. It was 13. 13 works of art worth fucking upwards of 500 million dollars. That's fucking crazy. Wow, and they're on the and that they're only offering 10 million to catch them.
SPEAKER_06Well, here's here's another question. Do they um so so clearly the art has never been circulated after the fact, like you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Like it must have been to not not commercially or legally, maybe like underground in the black market, I would assume. You know, uh I can't I can't envision just like your average everyday collector breaking into a fucking museum, you know, just to have shit in his collection.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02Uh so I assume that that now, okay. Let's say you're gonna do this heist.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02How would you like would you already have someone where you knew you could sell it, or would you just fucking do it and hope for the best?
SPEAKER_06No, I think that you in this scenario, you probably already have someone in the world. A buyer, right? Yeah, I would think so, yeah.
SPEAKER_02For sure. Something that I would have at least like mentioned to somebody, but like I'm not gonna go risk fucking $500 million. You're gonna go to jail for a long time.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh especially because we know you didn't pay them taxes.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02We know you didn't pay them taxes. Uh, so I feel like I would have to have everything, like almost like not necessarily cash in hand, but like I need to see the money before I, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Bust out the stuff.
SPEAKER_00Uh well, how do you even? I mean, I guess it's just some super rich guy that's gonna keep that for shelf. Because I just say how because you can't even, once it's stolen, like you can't, how do you even verify that that's like the real yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um that's a good question. How would do you have any thoughts on how you might verify that?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, so there's um usually like there's a signature that they so there's multiple things that people can use to verify these paintings. Um they check on it it's it's actually uh crazy like how many things that there are. So not only do they check the signature, but then they will also check like the frame to see what the frame is, like to see like what the material is.
SPEAKER_02They left the frames.
SPEAKER_06Okay. Well, then they will also check so they cut them out.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. It doesn't say if they cut them out, they must have it. But it does say now. I don't maybe they didn't leave the frames and afterwards they hung frames, but where the pieces were stolen from, there's just empty frames there.
SPEAKER_06Uh so so they'll also test like the um the canvas that it's on, so like they'll know, like, okay, if this particular print or not print, this uh artwork was done like let's say in you know 1880. Well, in 1880, they weren't using this particular type of canvas, they were using a different kind of canvas. So they that will be one fact check on it. Um, I know another thing that they've done for our artists is that like um they'll check the paint quality and so like they'll like take a fleck of uh paint and then they'll do the chemistry on it to figure out like what it is. And if it has lead in it, then they know that that is the this period of time that there was lead in the paint because then they stopped putting lead in the paint. Yeah, so there's that as well. Um, they'll also like if it's like an unknown art, so like in this instance it's it's in a museum, but um if this was like maybe someone that was trying to say, Oh, I found this Picasso in my grandmother's attic, they'll look at it and they'll try to figure out if it correlates with the period in which the date of the signature, because like on the back, well like sometimes people put like the signature and the date, and they'll be like, Okay, well, this is his you know, blue period piece. Uh, this or it looks like it correlates with the blue period piece, but the date doesn't match the blue period. So then they have to maybe do like some deductive reasoning. Like, does this mean it was like he was crossing over to the next you know phase, or was this you know left over? So there's a lot of I believe there's a lot of factors that go into it, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That seems I wouldn't want to buy something that's like I mean, I guess if you got millions of dollars, it doesn't really but like something you're like, oh it's probably his painting, but like maybe it's not, we're kind of sure, and like you're paying you know five million bucks for it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I feel like as a collector at that level, even if you're buying shit underground, you have somebody that can come in and be like, Yeah, this is legit.
SPEAKER_06So I have a hot take.
SPEAKER_02Hit me.
SPEAKER_06I think a lot of the art world, so sorry, I feel like this is gonna be real aggressive.
SPEAKER_02Money laundering, money laundering. Yes, dude, I know it fucking is. Yeah, I know it is. There's no way you're gonna tell me that a fucking picture of a banana is worth $10 million. Fuck you.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, well, I mean there, I will have to say, like, I don't want to be political, but I do have to say one of the most genius things Hunter Biden ever did was create paintings because he created paintings and he was selling them for like a million dollars. And uh yeah, I mean it seems legit. Sure.
SPEAKER_02Stopping at Michael's on the way home.
SPEAKER_06No, but his his was like, in my opinion, was to gain access to other like you know, his dad is the president, right? So like it seems like I mean, don't get me wrong, all the different children of all the different political figures they figure out different schemes and scams to run, I'm sure. But like I'm just saying, this to me was one of the most geniuses. It's like, what my artworks with $500,000, of course it is, like it's great, and it's like but to me, it's saying, like, oh, I'm giving you this $500,000 so I can be friends with you, or I can meet your dad, or maybe like I can get you to consult on something for me. That's my own opinion. I'm sorry, but and I'm sure the Trump kids do something similar. I'm sure that uh George Bush's kids did something similar. I mean, I'm sure they all do something similar, but I'm just saying I thought that this was like they're all criminals. I I mean all of them allegedly, but uh they're all criminals.
SPEAKER_00There's so much insider trading and just everything that goes on once you become a high-ranking politician. I mean, that's like a form of lobbying almost. You know, here's $500,000 for this painting that sucks, but and like can you, you know, whatever, ease up on oil restrictions, or you know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_06I will say something funny. Um, Tim Dillon, the comedian, he he was saying I think it was him that was saying, like Lindsey Graham, you know, he just died, and he didn't have very much money in comparison to like other people in the Senate. And they're like, So you know he was doing it just for the love of the game.
SPEAKER_02They do, I'm telling you, they do it for the love, bro.
SPEAKER_06No, no, like like that, he was getting us in wars and whatnot. Like, like his interest in the war machine was like for the love of the game, it wasn't for his own.
SPEAKER_00He just wanted to win just to keep that machine turning.
SPEAKER_06So, yeah, I don't know. I just thought that was a funny take.
SPEAKER_02So, but uh what do you got going on in comedy coming up?
SPEAKER_00Um, what do I have? I got I'm performing in a Mad Denny's in like a week. I think that this will come out after that. I got I got Croatia in two weeks, and so I might actually do some comedy out there. I might be able to jump on a show or two for one of the cities I'm at. And then I didn't really like plan anything for this time because I knew I'd be on vacation and stuff. So after that, I'm kinda pretty wide open. But I hit up Mike's, I got I got a show, my show in Portland in September. Oh, hell yeah. So that's a ways away, but uh I'm trying to set up a couple other ones. I just heard back from Dallas and what other cities? Um Detroit. Oh some club I hit up a bunch of menus, but uh it's like the door deals aren't that great, and I'd have to pull like 81 people in Detroit just to make it worth it, which like I could, but that's just to break even. So it's like shit. I can't pull eight, so you're doing fucking great. Well, that's just I got the Croatian angle, and they're they got a big community out there. That's fair, and Dallas is a smaller community as well. You deserve it though, dude. You're fucking hilarious.
SPEAKER_06Well, actually, Dallas is a really big community because there's actually a miniature Croatia there.
SPEAKER_00You know, I just heard about that read in McKinney, which I guess is near Dallas. Yeah, it's like um Supitar is the name of the city on an island in Croatia, and they I don't know how big. Have you been?
SPEAKER_06No, but I saw it, yeah. I saw it on uh like uh pictures, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm not sure how big this city is that they built, but they built it to look exactly like the city, to match this one city on an island in Croatia, like the same, you know, bricks, old stones, and like that's crazy. I think it's like a wedding, wedding venue place too and stuff. So I did want to check that out if if that Dallas show happens.
SPEAKER_06What's crazy about Texas is it's so big that they can build like replicas of other countries within, because there's actually Fredericksburg, which is basically like little Germany, from what I've heard. So like yeah, Fredericksburg, I believe, is outside of Austin. So yeah, yeah. But I mean, we have Solvang, which is little Denmark basically.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, that'd be funny. But yeah, I guess if you're from somewhere that's never you've never been to that and you go to it for the first time. I just laugh. I don't know, it's just kind of funny. I've been to the road trip. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Okay, so I'm my other my other big portion is Danish. So my dad, my dad is Danish, and uh I got to I went there first before I got to go to Denmark. I've never been to Croatia, but I've been to Denmark. And um, but it's interesting because they have these things called ablescavers, they're these little dish delicious uh pancake balls, so they be they have these like little um like uh like a cast iron that you use, and then you have these spheres, and then you pour basically like a similar pancake batter in them, and then you you make them into a ball so they're these and then then you put like uh jams and uh powder sugar on it. So good. They're so good. Yeah, and they solve they sell them in solving, they're called able seavers.
SPEAKER_00You think other countries have like little Americas in them? It's like a Burger King and McDonald's.
SPEAKER_06I I've heard that Japan has like a country bar, so I feel like I feel like country bars are probably yeah, like that's probably like Americana, you know.
SPEAKER_02Or you think other countries go out for American, like we go out for Chinese or Indian, McDonald's and KFC everywhere.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I guess fast food.
SPEAKER_02What an awful representation, dude. You have the worst foods in America. That's true, yeah.
SPEAKER_06I don't know. McDonald's hamburger's not that bad.
SPEAKER_02Disgusting. Yeah, you think? Yeah, I mean they got the best fries on the market, hands down. I gotta give them that.
SPEAKER_00Uh are you an in-and-out guy then? You probably hate in-out fries.
SPEAKER_02I love in and out, but their fucking fries are trash.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's what people say.
SPEAKER_06All right, well, on that note, we've finished we started with Croatian food, we're ending on American food. Thank you so much for joining us today. And um, you know, again, like and subscribe. Doesn't cost you anything. Uh makes us know that you like what's going on here and leave us a comment. So thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER_02See you guys next week. Peace.