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5 Successful Counterfeiters · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: from House Stuff works dot com. This episode of Stuff
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Speaker 1: Visit Go to Meeting dot com slash stuff. That's Go
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Speaker 1: to meeting dot com slash stuff. Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. This is Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
0:52
Speaker 1: This is Stuff you Should Know. He to Live and
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Speaker 1: Die in. Yes, Chuck just did a little Um, I
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Speaker 1: don't even know. That's foreshadowing. I am really off my
1:02
Speaker 1: game today, So you're not, Yeah, yeah, I am? Uh
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Speaker 1: what Chuck brought up? See listen, listen to me what
1:11
Speaker 1: Chuck brought up um to live in? I want to
1:14
Speaker 1: get through this sentence what Chuck brought up to live in?
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Speaker 1: Diane l a for is because we're talking about counterfeiting today,
1:22
Speaker 1: and that's the best counterfeit movie in history. It is.
1:25
Speaker 1: It is, and we've talked about it before, but I
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Speaker 1: think it's worth talking about again. Like you just did.
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Speaker 1: It's great, Thank you, You're welcome. Moving on, So, Chuck, counterfeiting,
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Speaker 1: as you may or may not know, is a dying crime,
1:39
Speaker 1: a lost art. It really is. And actually this is
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Speaker 1: one of those old school types of criminal activity that, um,
1:47
Speaker 1: people who are good at it have the respect of
1:49
Speaker 1: law enforcement. I was reading an article about this bust
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Speaker 1: of some counterfeiting ring and it amounted just some guy
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Speaker 1: with an inkjet printer who was printing off you know, terrible,
2:02
Speaker 1: terrible currency on fiber paper, right, and um, this secret
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Speaker 1: service guy, who's like a twenty two year vet was
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Speaker 1: just shook his head and discussed and he's like, it's
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Speaker 1: a dying art. Like you just you don't see good
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Speaker 1: paper any longer. Yeah, it's definitely a lost art. And um,
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Speaker 1: I kind of I know this sounds goofy, but I
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Speaker 1: kind of like the idea of since it doesn't have
2:22
Speaker 1: that much anymore, I can say this of counterfeiting like
2:25
Speaker 1: instead of a thief, anyone can throw a wind a
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Speaker 1: chair through a window and go like break into a
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Speaker 1: cash register at night. But to think like I'll print money,
2:34
Speaker 1: that's so believable that you can pass it. Yeah, it's
2:37
Speaker 1: like it was artistry for sure. It is. And um,
2:40
Speaker 1: when researching this article, there was a common theme among
2:44
Speaker 1: these great counterfeitters, these five most successful counterfeitters. Uh that
2:49
Speaker 1: they all were just they had tremendous guts. They were
2:55
Speaker 1: they tried to break out of jail at every turn. Um.
2:58
Speaker 1: And they were just really admirable criminals. Yeah, and must
3:02
Speaker 1: of them wrote books about it, which is interesting. It's well,
3:05
Speaker 1: it's a good way to make some money afterwards. You
3:07
Speaker 1: don't write a book about my life as a as
3:09
Speaker 1: a flat screen TV thief, No, And if you do,
3:12
Speaker 1: no one reads it. It's self published. So Chuck, let's
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Speaker 1: get into this all right, all right, Now we're gonna
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Speaker 1: talk about some of these successful counterfeiters, and we should
3:20
Speaker 1: also add a caveat here. Successful doesn't mean that they
3:23
Speaker 1: never got caught, we don't. We don't know about those
3:26
Speaker 1: counterfeit exactly right. The ones who got caught but still
3:30
Speaker 1: had these tremendous careers are the ones we're going to
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Speaker 1: talk about. And we're gonna do it chronologically, buddy, Starting
3:36
Speaker 1: with a guy named Stephen Burrows Steve. He was born
3:41
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire, Josh in the seventeen hundreds, late sept
3:44
Speaker 1: mid seventeen hundreds, and uh was raised throughout the United States.
3:50
Speaker 1: And I think that you have one of the best
3:52
Speaker 1: sendences you've ever written in this article, which one from
3:55
Speaker 1: an early age. He showed distinct signs of a cute chicanery.
4:00
Speaker 1: What did you read that like, Anthony Hopkins? Oh that
4:02
Speaker 1: was Anthony Hopkins. Yeah, oh, he said, why did I Yeah,
4:06
Speaker 1: that wasn't supposed to be anything. That is my news,
4:09
Speaker 1: real voice. That was good, thank you? And he was
4:12
Speaker 1: He was a little mischievous guy all his life, it
4:14
Speaker 1: sounds like, apparently gained a reputation as the worst boy
4:17
Speaker 1: in town. At a very young age. Um, he stole
4:21
Speaker 1: a bunch of watermelons from a local farmer, and he
4:24
Speaker 1: joined the search party to find the thief that chause
4:27
Speaker 1: he's smart and I think at age fourteen he ran away, um,
4:31
Speaker 1: joined the merchant navy, ended up basically being the de
4:34
Speaker 1: facto ship doctor. Well, he deserted, that's right. He went
4:38
Speaker 1: to the army, and the army deserted the army, then
4:41
Speaker 1: went to college, bailed on college, and then became like
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Speaker 1: a de facto doctor on the boat, which led him
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Speaker 1: to say, you know what, I could probably get away
4:52
Speaker 1: posing his stuff. His father was a clergyman, so he
4:55
Speaker 1: decided that he was going to pose as the leader
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Speaker 1: of a church, which he did successful least first six months,
5:01
Speaker 1: led the congregation like mass everything. Um. And he probably
5:07
Speaker 1: could have done that indefinitely because you know, people aren't
5:09
Speaker 1: that suspicious of preachers usually. Um. But he got busted
5:13
Speaker 1: passing some counterfeit money in Concorde, right Springfield, close enough, Yes,
5:19
Speaker 1: And then he was sent to jail. And then he thought,
5:23
Speaker 1: I bet a good way to escape from jail would
5:25
Speaker 1: be to set the jail on fire. Yeah, and it worked.
5:29
Speaker 1: He successfully escaped. Yeah, he fled to Canada actually, and um,
5:33
Speaker 1: he I think he did. He get caught again. Well,
5:38
Speaker 1: that's where he led. The most serious counterfeiting ring was
5:41
Speaker 1: when he went to Canada, right. So he was in Canada, um,
5:44
Speaker 1: and he led this ring for years and then suddenly
5:46
Speaker 1: he just decided to reform himself. He gave up crime,
5:49
Speaker 1: started supporting himself by tutoring wealthy Canadian children or the
5:53
Speaker 1: children of wealthy Canadians. I should say. Yes, he founded
5:57
Speaker 1: a library and that what he said. Yeah, he became
5:59
Speaker 1: kind of like got um cultural benefactor up there. Even
6:04
Speaker 1: though people were aware of who he was, they still
6:06
Speaker 1: respected him because the stuff he did, um, it was
6:10
Speaker 1: just so respectable. They're like, he printed some funny bills.
6:15
Speaker 1: He built us a library. Yeah, he built a library.
6:18
Speaker 1: And he died in eighteen forty. But before that he
6:20
Speaker 1: wrote a book, like you said, a lot of them do,
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Speaker 1: called Memoirs of my Own Life. That's the best memoir
6:27
Speaker 1: title in memoir history, Memoirs of my Own Life. So
6:30
Speaker 1: it's still in print. Apparently I haven't read it. I
6:33
Speaker 1: haven't either. Well. Moving on. Number four is drum roll
6:40
Speaker 1: the Lavender Hill Mob, which I found out was a
6:43
Speaker 1: movie from nineteen fifty one with Alec Guinness. We try
6:46
Speaker 1: researching them. I know that's all you see is the movie,
6:49
Speaker 1: but it's unrelated, not related at all. Instead, the Lavender
6:55
Speaker 1: Hill Mob actually are a fairly recent origin. They were
6:59
Speaker 1: um upper in in the nineties in Great Britain around
7:03
Speaker 1: Lavender Hill. I would imagine they were founded by this
7:06
Speaker 1: guy named Stephen Jury. And this guy was awesome. He
7:10
Speaker 1: was what they call an old school rogue and that's
7:13
Speaker 1: a quote. And uh another guy named Kenneth Mainstone who's
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Speaker 1: a retired printer, and Jury recruited Mainstone to come up
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Speaker 1: with some counterfeiting plates, right right, and they did very successfully.
7:26
Speaker 1: And by the way, Jury is widely credited as establishing
7:30
Speaker 1: the knockoff perfume market. Yeah. I found he um actually
7:35
Speaker 1: bribed a perfumer to get recipes and by the time
7:40
Speaker 1: it was all said and done, had bottled five million
7:42
Speaker 1: phony Chanelle number five. That a factory in Acapulco making
7:48
Speaker 1: stuff if you love Georgio or if you like Georgio,
7:52
Speaker 1: you love La Lah and like the little spray Arissault kid. Yeah. Yeah,
7:57
Speaker 1: And when it was the last time you were cologne.
8:00
Speaker 1: Oh it's been a long time. Yeah, I work alone.
8:02
Speaker 1: When I was like seventeen, I think was the last time.
8:04
Speaker 1: That's it's about it for me. You know. It's funny.
8:06
Speaker 1: When I lived in you my Arizona. All those dudes
8:08
Speaker 1: work alone. Yeah, because everybody's sweaty out there. Well, I
8:12
Speaker 1: don't know, there's just kind of this there's a different
8:14
Speaker 1: culture and they're like, you don't work alone, and they're
8:15
Speaker 1: like because they have like Gill in there here. Okay,
8:18
Speaker 1: I know the culture you're speaking, the Jersey short type
8:21
Speaker 1: of thing. Yeah, okay, So the Leavener Hill mob, right,
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Speaker 1: they were very successful. They printed about fifty million pounds
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Speaker 1: worth of fake notes, and not pounds by weight, but
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Speaker 1: pound by you know, the currency currency. They also sold
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Speaker 1: fake stamps, which I thought was sort of ingenious. It is,
8:38
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it's like, look, you just
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Speaker 1: made fifty million pounds of fake currency, and and one
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Speaker 1: way to get rid of um, counterfeit money is not
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Speaker 1: to just passive, but you can actually sell it for
8:48
Speaker 1: you know, pennies on the dollar to people who know
8:51
Speaker 1: that it's counterfeit or you're going to go past with themselves.
8:54
Speaker 1: But um, even for pennies on the dollar, it's still
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Speaker 1: many millions of pounds, and these guys are making stamps
9:02
Speaker 1: on the side. Yeah, it was a little i'd Apparently
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Speaker 1: the first bills didn't work out, so great though. You
9:08
Speaker 1: hear about that that the Queen of England looked like
9:11
Speaker 1: she had a beard, and so that maybe that's why
9:14
Speaker 1: they were making stamps until they perfected the note making,
9:17
Speaker 1: which they did because they fooled UV detectors. They got
9:21
Speaker 1: so good at it. Yeah, and actually they got good
9:23
Speaker 1: enough that the um the Bank of England actually changed
9:27
Speaker 1: their design for their twenty pound note because of the
9:32
Speaker 1: Lavender Bob's activities and success. Pretty awesome, it is. And
9:36
Speaker 1: he wrote a book Joy did before he died. Just
9:39
Speaker 1: died a couple of years ago, didn't he two thousand
9:40
Speaker 1: six He had center two titles. The first one was
9:44
Speaker 1: called Funny Money Decent. The second one was great. Second
9:48
Speaker 1: one was called loads of Money. And that's one word,
9:52
Speaker 1: loads of loads of Money, the true story of the
9:54
Speaker 1: world's lawest ever counterfeiting ring Colin and there is. Well, yeah,
10:00
Speaker 1: it kind of classes up your book when you have
10:02
Speaker 1: a colon in there, loads of Money. We should write
10:05
Speaker 1: a movie about that guy. Alright, chuck onto the Nazis. Yeah,
10:11
Speaker 1: I didn't know this. Most people think of the Nazis
10:14
Speaker 1: as like the worst fascist state to ever emerge in
10:18
Speaker 1: the history of humanity, not the worst state. Ever, not
10:23
Speaker 1: first worst because Mussolini wasn't all that successful. Um, you know,
10:29
Speaker 1: they they directly murdered ten million marginalized people, um, including Jews,
10:38
Speaker 1: Roman Catholics, homosexuals and others. They invaded Poland and France
10:44
Speaker 1: and other countries. But they also ran arguably the most
10:50
Speaker 1: successful counterfeiting ring in the history of humanity. There were
10:54
Speaker 1: a lot of in the history of humanities with Nazis,
10:57
Speaker 1: almost all of them were horrible. Actually, all of them
11:00
Speaker 1: were horrible. This is the least horrible thing they've ever done, probably,
11:04
Speaker 1: but it was going to pan out pretty bad in
11:06
Speaker 1: the end. Yeah. They made about six hundred and fifty
11:10
Speaker 1: million pound notes, which would be about seven billion bucks today, right,
11:14
Speaker 1: which was about of the currency in circulation in Great
11:18
Speaker 1: Britain at the time. And their brilliant idea was to
11:22
Speaker 1: fly over England and drop cash money from planes. They
11:27
Speaker 1: actually figured out and this was called Operation Bernard after Bernard,
11:33
Speaker 1: who was an s S officer who's in charge of
11:35
Speaker 1: this operation. The head of the operation named the operation
11:37
Speaker 1: after himself. Basically, what they did was they went around
11:39
Speaker 1: and figured out what nearly dead people in their camps
11:43
Speaker 1: used to be printers in the time before the war,
11:46
Speaker 1: and they identified them and drafted them to work in
11:49
Speaker 1: what was called the Devil's Workshop, which is like a
11:52
Speaker 1: secret printing press or printing office. And uh, what is
11:58
Speaker 1: it you you you speak to Irman? What camp? Uh?
12:02
Speaker 1: Saskatchewan now? Uh Shauschenhausen. Nice chuck. So they had some
12:08
Speaker 1: guys there, all assembled to crack the English currency and
12:14
Speaker 1: and they did successfully, leading to the six fifty million
12:18
Speaker 1: pound notes. Yeah, and they well they didn't drop her
12:20
Speaker 1: from the plane though they laundered it use some of
12:22
Speaker 1: that money to like import things. And this isn't factually
12:27
Speaker 1: backed up, but there is a rumor that they actually
12:30
Speaker 1: used that money to pay for the rescue of Mussolini.
12:34
Speaker 1: Did they really? Yeah, well, they apparently made a bunch
12:37
Speaker 1: of cats. They gave the money to a German businessman
12:39
Speaker 1: who served as a front form to launder it, and
12:41
Speaker 1: he bought anything of value that he could get his
12:43
Speaker 1: hands on with this money. And apparently it wasn't a
12:46
Speaker 1: secret like Uh. England had known since like nineteen thirty
12:50
Speaker 1: nine that this was going on, and they tried to
12:53
Speaker 1: close their borders to income and currency, but it didn't
12:56
Speaker 1: really work. They finally cracked the American hundred dollar bill.
13:01
Speaker 1: Just as their camp was liberated and they they the
13:05
Speaker 1: Nazis and these guys were coming. So they took all
13:07
Speaker 1: the printing prayer by these guys, the Allies. They took
13:10
Speaker 1: the printing stuff and threw it in the lakes, blew
13:13
Speaker 1: stuff up with explosives. I don't know why they were
13:15
Speaker 1: trying to cover this aspect of the Holocaust up, you know, um,
13:20
Speaker 1: and they were about to execute everybody who was involved,
13:24
Speaker 1: and the Allies showed up and save the day. Yeah,
13:28
Speaker 1: And I think we should point out the idea but
13:29
Speaker 1: behind all of this was to undermine the economies of
13:32
Speaker 1: England and the United States, or do not point that out,
13:36
Speaker 1: which is that's a pretty important part. That was the plan.
13:38
Speaker 1: They weren't just like, oh, we'll get English money and
13:40
Speaker 1: didn't would buy things because you know, if you have
13:44
Speaker 1: a sudden influx of cash, a lot of cash on
13:46
Speaker 1: the on the market leads to inflation. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Uh.
13:50
Speaker 1: There was a BBC TV show Josh about this in
13:54
Speaker 1: called Private Shorts. And then one of the Jewish um
14:00
Speaker 1: prisoners forced to do this was named Adolf Burger, and
14:04
Speaker 1: he later wrote a book, and that book was turned
14:07
Speaker 1: into a movie that won Best Foreign Language Film in
14:10
Speaker 1: two thousand eight. H The Counterfeiters in English, don't ask me,
14:14
Speaker 1: it was in German. Let's check it out. Yeah, moving on, Chuck,
14:18
Speaker 1: Moving on to number two. Charles Ulric. Yes, not related
14:23
Speaker 1: to Robert Urick as far as I know, because there's
14:27
Speaker 1: two different names. Now. This guy was another um, kind
14:31
Speaker 1: of dashing counterfeitter, filled with daring do and he was
14:34
Speaker 1: also a ladies man, actually do. I couldn't help There's
14:39
Speaker 1: no other better way to describe it. A cute chicanery. Yeah,
14:44
Speaker 1: he was a ladies man, right, Yeah, it actually led
14:46
Speaker 1: to his downfall, right. He was a polygamist, uh, and
14:49
Speaker 1: he wasn't shy about it. He was like Bill Paxston
14:52
Speaker 1: for goodness, say right. And this was in the eighteen
14:55
Speaker 1: sixties in New York. He and like most of these
14:58
Speaker 1: uh counter fitters, he was a gifted engraver of plates. Right.
15:02
Speaker 1: So the local mob figures out that this guy is
15:05
Speaker 1: a gifted engraver of plates, and the corral um to
15:08
Speaker 1: try to get him in well working for them, and
15:11
Speaker 1: he does, and he ends up getting in trouble and
15:14
Speaker 1: ends up forming his own mob, his own gang, and
15:18
Speaker 1: with all the women included. Right. Um, he finally gets
15:21
Speaker 1: caught in eighteen sixty eight and stands trial. He was
15:24
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati, and he got twelve years in the federal
15:27
Speaker 1: pokey uh and by his own estimation, he printed about
15:31
Speaker 1: eighty thousand dollars worth of um phony bills a lot
15:35
Speaker 1: of deb back then, which is equal to about one
15:37
Speaker 1: point three million in two thousand eight dollars. Right, but
15:41
Speaker 1: what was his downfall, Chuck, I said, women, but specifically
15:44
Speaker 1: what well like you said, he was a just sort
15:47
Speaker 1: of a blatant polygamous, made no bones about it, and
15:51
Speaker 1: he engaged, moved all around, engaged in relationships and never
15:54
Speaker 1: broke off the old ones. Eventually he moved his wife
15:58
Speaker 1: and to live with he and his girlfriend and a
16:01
Speaker 1: third woman, and one of them finally said, you know what,
16:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna turn you in, jerk. Actually all of them
16:07
Speaker 1: turned on him, but interesting, and they turned him in.
16:10
Speaker 1: And that's that's where the Cincinnati trial came from. Before that,
16:13
Speaker 1: he had been um incarcerated, and in the grand tradition
16:18
Speaker 1: of counterfeiters, he broke out and actually led the cops
16:22
Speaker 1: on a chase across the Niagara River. Like right at
16:26
Speaker 1: the falls and made it across actually into Canada and
16:30
Speaker 1: escaped and he was like, who's that lady in the
16:32
Speaker 1: barrel as he was going, And if that's not daring do,
16:35
Speaker 1: I don't know what that's daring do? My friend, that's
16:38
Speaker 1: a cute chickenary. Can you really like that? That's just great?
16:41
Speaker 1: All right? The last one, buddy, And this guy's pretty familiar. Yeah,
16:45
Speaker 1: everyone's probably heard of Frank a Big Nail because the
16:50
Speaker 1: Stevie Spielberg movie Catch Me if you Can, Yeah, Tommy Hanks.
16:54
Speaker 1: It was made at a time when Spielberg unwittingly had
16:58
Speaker 1: a fake or a stolen Rockefeller in his collection. Yeah,
17:01
Speaker 1: I love this movie. Did you like it? I liked
17:04
Speaker 1: it too. It was just I don't know. It was
17:05
Speaker 1: it when spielberget kind of put out some stinkers and
17:08
Speaker 1: everything was so serious, and then he just kind of
17:10
Speaker 1: did a fun, entertaining heist movie, right, And it's one
17:14
Speaker 1: of those movies you can lay on the couch and watch,
17:16
Speaker 1: like for the fiftieth time on like a Sunday. Did
17:19
Speaker 1: they never show it on TV? Yeah? That was I
17:22
Speaker 1: think it ran on like T and T for a
17:24
Speaker 1: while because I saw it. Yeah, I love this movie. Um.
17:28
Speaker 1: Leo DiCaprio obviously played Frank and a funny story. When
17:32
Speaker 1: abcnail found out DiCaprio is going to portray him, he
17:36
Speaker 1: was worried because he didn't know if Leonardo DiCaprio would
17:39
Speaker 1: be able to be smooth enough to play him accurately.
17:42
Speaker 1: He's like the smoothest dude on the planet. He is smooth.
17:45
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, Leo, no, I don't think this guy cares.
17:50
Speaker 1: I don't think he thinks. Leo DiCaprio holds a candle
17:53
Speaker 1: to goodness me, you can land Gazelle. And then also
17:57
Speaker 1: can Tom Brady. Well look at him, dude, stud quarterback. Yeah,
18:02
Speaker 1: but I mean chiseled out of stone. He's a quarterback.
18:06
Speaker 1: Shut up, all right. Uh. He did most of his
18:09
Speaker 1: work and his teens and twenties, which is the remarkable
18:12
Speaker 1: thing about his story. And he was a check forger, yes,
18:16
Speaker 1: as anybody who's seen the movie can tell you. Uh.
18:18
Speaker 1: And actually, between the ages of sixteen and twenty one,
18:21
Speaker 1: he cash more than two point five million dollars in
18:24
Speaker 1: fake checks in all fifty states and twenty six countries. Yeah. Yeah,
18:28
Speaker 1: that's some serious work. And He was also a confidence
18:31
Speaker 1: man because he would not only write fake checks, but
18:34
Speaker 1: he would masquerade as as you saw in the film,
18:37
Speaker 1: like an airline pilot or a doctor or an attorney professor.
18:41
Speaker 1: I think he did at one point and fooled everybody. Yeah,
18:45
Speaker 1: and he just forged whatever documents he needed to prove
18:48
Speaker 1: that he had the education or training or resume or
18:51
Speaker 1: whatever and get hired, which made him a good comment,
18:54
Speaker 1: which made him chuck smooth. He said, catch me if
18:58
Speaker 1: you can. Few things here, Josh, that are similar and
19:02
Speaker 1: different from real life and in the movie, because they
19:04
Speaker 1: always beef it up a little bit in the movies.
19:06
Speaker 1: He did actually um pose as a federal agent when
19:11
Speaker 1: they busted in on him and kind of snuck out
19:13
Speaker 1: the back door. Said keep looking. Yeah, he ordered the
19:16
Speaker 1: fens who were looking for him to keep looking. He
19:18
Speaker 1: said he was like a treasury agent or something. Absolutely
19:20
Speaker 1: and yeah, and he was their first. Um he actually
19:23
Speaker 1: did escape from a moving plane taxing on the runway.
19:28
Speaker 1: That's pretty seriously, that's awesome. That really happened. However, in
19:32
Speaker 1: real life he never saw his father again after he
19:34
Speaker 1: left home, and uh, he he had a real problem
19:39
Speaker 1: with his parents. Divorced. I mean, like more so than
19:42
Speaker 1: any kid I've ever heard. Like, he would fantasize about
19:46
Speaker 1: meeting his parents again and then being proud of him,
19:49
Speaker 1: and then getting back together because they were proud of
19:51
Speaker 1: his exploits weird. It's kind of like Ralphie dreaming that
19:55
Speaker 1: he was going to go blind from having to eat
19:57
Speaker 1: soap for swearing. You remember it was so poisoning. Uh.
20:04
Speaker 1: He was one of four kids, and in the movie,
20:06
Speaker 1: I think he was an only child. Um Hannity the
20:10
Speaker 1: character hand Ratty, the character hand Ratty, Tom Hanks character. Yeah,
20:14
Speaker 1: it was actually got named Joe Shay. They changed his name. Yeah,
20:17
Speaker 1: I don't know why because they said in the original
20:19
Speaker 1: script it was Joe Shay and I could never find
20:22
Speaker 1: any reason why they changed it to hand Ready. Did
20:23
Speaker 1: they say anything about Captain America? Did he use the
20:26
Speaker 1: Captain America alias? No, I didn't notice. Uh. He was
20:31
Speaker 1: in the film actually as one of the French policemen
20:33
Speaker 1: that nabbed him. Yeah, he had a cameo, yeah, because
20:37
Speaker 1: he did a stint in the French jail, French prison,
20:43
Speaker 1: French prison. He uh is actually married married a woman
20:49
Speaker 1: as soon as he went straight. He married a woman,
20:51
Speaker 1: still married to her today. It's got three sons, and
20:53
Speaker 1: one of his sons is a federal agent. And he
20:57
Speaker 1: did remain friends with Tom Hanks or not, but yeah,
21:03
Speaker 1: and he does, uh, he does consulting on like identity
21:06
Speaker 1: fraud and you know, bank security and stuff like that. Right. Yeah,
21:09
Speaker 1: everyone on your list wrote a book except for number
21:11
Speaker 1: two Charles or yeah, well in the Nazis Yeah, but
21:16
Speaker 1: the other the guy wrote actually one of the guys involved,
21:19
Speaker 1: Charles Ulrich was just too too involved with the ladies.
21:22
Speaker 1: I guess waste time write in a book. You should
21:24
Speaker 1: write a book about that, Chuck. Do you want to
21:26
Speaker 1: finish this? Finish? You want to wrap this turkey up exactly?
21:31
Speaker 1: This episode of stuff you should know is brought to
21:34
Speaker 1: you by go to Meeting, the affordable way to meet
21:37
Speaker 1: with clients and colleagues for your free thirty day trial.
21:40
Speaker 1: Is it go to meeting dot com slash stuff. Okay,
21:44
Speaker 1: So if you want to see some pictures about the
21:47
Speaker 1: guys that we were just talking about, one I couldn't find,
21:50
Speaker 1: so I used a picture of Dartmouth College. It is
21:54
Speaker 1: the best I could come up with, and I apologize
21:55
Speaker 1: for that. Sorry. You can type in counterfeitters CEO you
21:59
Speaker 1: A T E R F E I T E R
22:03
Speaker 1: S in the handy search part how stuff works dot Com,
22:06
Speaker 1: which leads us to the listener mail Thank the Lord, Josh,
22:14
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this sinister, Eats wrote in Yeah, we
22:18
Speaker 1: got a bunch of them. We did schooled another out
22:20
Speaker 1: there being all weird. Uh this is uh three quickies.
22:26
Speaker 1: I edited them down, guys um first ones from Jonathan.
22:30
Speaker 1: When I hear spoken words, I see the written forms
22:33
Speaker 1: of the words in my visual field. I see them
22:35
Speaker 1: much the same way I see a memory. They don't
22:39
Speaker 1: scroll across my visual field like a stock ticker, whether
22:41
Speaker 1: they appear in flashes and seemingly random positions and sizes.
22:45
Speaker 1: I see the words most clearly when I'm deeply focused
22:47
Speaker 1: on the content of speech, like at a lecture or
22:50
Speaker 1: when I'm listening to lyricize music. I often see even
22:53
Speaker 1: see words when I'm dreaming. As for the color, the
22:56
Speaker 1: best I can do is say that they are a
22:58
Speaker 1: generic Sands seraph aunt white, filled with black boarders. And
23:02
Speaker 1: he's a researcher at you see San Diego, he said,
23:05
Speaker 1: perhaps I should just ask Professor um Ramakan drawn next time,
23:10
Speaker 1: he's sitting across from me at Perk's Cafe, and that's like, dude,
23:14
Speaker 1: if you see that, Yeah, I'm glad that we could
23:18
Speaker 1: bring these two together. It's like the mom with her
23:20
Speaker 1: son who went off to college. That's right. So that's
23:23
Speaker 1: from Jonathan. Here's the second one from Ben. When I
23:25
Speaker 1: was eight or nine years old, my best friend moved
23:27
Speaker 1: to another town that summer. After not hearing from him
23:30
Speaker 1: in a while, I decided to give him a call.
23:32
Speaker 1: Once I walked home from another friend's house. A couple
23:34
Speaker 1: of seconds later, my right wrist suddenly had an intense
23:37
Speaker 1: pain and throbbing for no apparent reason. I I sed
23:41
Speaker 1: my wrist. It made it feel better, and when I
23:42
Speaker 1: got home, I was still very confused why I happened.
23:45
Speaker 1: I called my best friend to tell him about this
23:46
Speaker 1: weird thing, only to discover that he was also in pain,
23:50
Speaker 1: waiting for his mom to get him to the hospital.
23:52
Speaker 1: Seems See and his brother were playing Indiana Jones and
23:55
Speaker 1: the Escape from the Closing Garage Door when he landed
23:58
Speaker 1: the wrong way and busted his right wrist. I'm a
24:01
Speaker 1: pretty logical guy, but that is really creepy, and a
24:03
Speaker 1: true is that the work of neurons or a minor
24:06
Speaker 1: psychic event, who knows, who knows? And this last one
24:10
Speaker 1: is from Jordan and New Zealand. He's at Kiwi. Would
24:13
Speaker 1: love New Zealand. I associate all numbers and letters with colors,
24:18
Speaker 1: and my mother and I also used to argue at
24:20
Speaker 1: times about what color a letter is, just like Navoco. Yeah,
24:24
Speaker 1: and they didn't know that they were sinnisty. It's state
24:29
Speaker 1: awesome police though, what a bad show that was. I
24:32
Speaker 1: thought it might also interest you to know that I
24:34
Speaker 1: experienced music as a projection of colors. I can only
24:38
Speaker 1: explain it as a sort of mixture of fireworks and
24:40
Speaker 1: a fountain cool. Uh, stream of water shoots in the air,
24:44
Speaker 1: changes colors in the shape and relation to the music.
24:46
Speaker 1: Allowed beat is annoying because it's like a pulse ripple
24:49
Speaker 1: in the pond. It distracts and muddies the other tones.
24:53
Speaker 1: Although it's sometimes annoying, I find music distracting. Uh, it
24:57
Speaker 1: can get distracting, and I still find it very difficult
24:59
Speaker 1: to focus on a kind versation that there's too much
25:01
Speaker 1: background noise or music. But now it can actually mute
25:04
Speaker 1: partially mute colors. So I can concentrate on music. While
25:08
Speaker 1: I still see no colors, I do see the explosions,
25:13
Speaker 1: so like a classical piano pieces, really intense, he says.
25:17
Speaker 1: He still sees Oh, I'm sorry. He still sees colors
25:20
Speaker 1: and explosions even though he's muted it, but he's lessened
25:22
Speaker 1: it to the point where he can actually listen to
25:24
Speaker 1: music and not go crazy. Goodness, I'm having an off
25:27
Speaker 1: day two. Um wait, what do you mean too? If
25:32
Speaker 1: I'm talking to someone in music is playing in the background,
25:35
Speaker 1: I can focus on the speaker much easier than I
25:37
Speaker 1: was previously able, thanks to his new muting ability. So
25:40
Speaker 1: it's from Jordan and New Zealand's and we heard from
25:43
Speaker 1: other Synis seats and I just couldn't get them all
25:45
Speaker 1: in the air. So thanks. We heard from one guy
25:46
Speaker 1: who was like, wait, I thought everybody saw the date
25:50
Speaker 1: physically wrap around them, right. Yeah, this is pretty cool. Yeah.
25:55
Speaker 1: Join us on Facebook and Twitter. Yes, please do at
25:58
Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast for Twitter and just look
26:00
Speaker 1: up stuff you should know. Um, website, I think it's
26:03
Speaker 1: called website on Facebook. Yeah, do those things? An email
26:09
Speaker 1: about anything at all? Right, Chuck, I've got nothing, so
26:11
Speaker 1: just send us an email. Will You That Stuff? Podcast
26:15
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
26:22
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works
26:24
Speaker 1: dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out our
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26:33
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