Latest / Crime Night / Buried Under the Sorcerer’s Bed

Transcript

Buried Under the Sorcerer’s Bed · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I was reading through the case files for this story,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, the thing that stuck with me wasn't
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: even the crime itself, not at first. Oh yeah, it
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: was the setting. We're talking about this one specific house
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: in ed Duiam, Sudann Yeah, back in nineteen ninety four, right,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: And the way the police reports described this place, it
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: doesn't sound like a crime scene. It sounds like something
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: from a horror movie.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: It really does. It was known as the House of Whispers,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: and for good reason. You have to picture the atmosphere
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: the White Nile State mid nineties. The heat is just
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: absolute one hundred and ten degrees, dust on everything. But
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: then you have this one house and the locals they
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: wouldn't even walk on the same side of the street.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: It was covered in these bizarre talismans, weird symbols painted
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: on the mud bricks, bundles of herbs hanging from the
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: eaves that looked like well like shrunken heads.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: And the noise that's what got me. The reports mentioned
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: these rhythmic, terrifying sounds coming from inside.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: All hours of the night, low chain hing, thumping sounds.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: And for the people living there, this wasn't just some
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: creepy neighbor. This was a place of real power. The
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: man who lived there, shueb He built up this terrifying reputation.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: He wasn't just a scammer in their eyes.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. He was a conduit. He claimed
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: he could speak to the jin you know, the spirits
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: of the unseen.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: World, Which brings us to the central figure of our
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: deep dive today. Not Schwi, but the man who walked
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: into that house. We don't have his name in the
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: public records, but we know who he was. Young, ambitious
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and desperate. Completely does he walks into that house with
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: a bag of money, and he's looking for a miracle.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: And he never walks out.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So before we get to the horror, and believe me,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: it gets horrific. I want to understand the why. Why
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: is a businessman in nineteen ninety four's Sudan someone who
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: deals in logic walking into a sorcerer's lair to fix
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: his finances.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Context is absolutely everything here. You can't get this crime
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: without understanding Sudan. In the nineties, economy was in a
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: total tail spin. Inflation was out of control, sanctions were
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: biting hard, and the normal ways of making money like
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: import export were becoming incredibly risky.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: So people are looking for shortcuts.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: They had to the straight roads were all blocked. It's
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: an environment where, you know, magical thinking isn't just superstition,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: it's almost an economic strategy.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: When the system fails you, you look for another system.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly when the banks fail you, the market fails you.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: He turned to the supernatural.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: And this young man fits that profile perfectly.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: He wanted to be a tycoon. He had the ambition,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: but not the experience. He'd taken money from investors, family friends,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: local lenders and put it all into projects that just
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: crashed and burned.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, I can feel that pressure. It's not just about
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: losing the money. It's the shame. Right in a community
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: like that, owing money is a kind of social death.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Sentence, and maybe a physical one. These investors they don't
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: just send angry emails. They show up at your door.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: He was cornered completely, and that's when he starts to
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: hear the whispers about.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Money downloading, money downloading tanzil Al. I'm well, it sounds
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: like some kind of tech scam, but this is way
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: before the internet. In Ed Douaim, how does that? How
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: did that work?
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: It's fascinating and terrifying. The pitch is that a powerful sorcerer,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: someone like Schweive, can summon the gin to literally transport
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: money from the spirit world into your hands.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Or the more common version is that they can multiply
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: your existing money. You bring one stack of cash, the
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: spirits bless it, and it magically becomes ten stacks.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: So it's a Ponzi scheme, but dressed up in mystical
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: robes precisely.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: And Schweib was very sophisticated. He didn't just wait for customers.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: He had a sales team.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Get out of here.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Two assistants, Nor and Mohammed. Think of them as recruiters.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: They'd hang out in markets and cafes looking for guys
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: who look stressed out. They'd see our young businessman, see
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: the sweat on his brow, and they'd.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Whisper, there's a man who can fix this.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: But he is very power and very dangerous.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: And the danger part that's part of the cell isn't
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: it makes it feel exclusive.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: It makes it feel real. If it was easy, everyone
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: would do it. So the young man scrapes together what
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: he has left and goes to meet Schwipe.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Walk me through that he steps into the House of whispers.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: It's a sensory overload, the smell of heavy incense trying
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: to cover up something stale. It's dark. Schwibe is probably
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: sitting on a raised rug, surrounded by his artifacts. He
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: doesn't ask the young man what he wants. He tells him.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: He plays the all knowing figure. He says something like,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: I can help you. The gin are willing, but they
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: need fuel.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And here it comes. This is where the red mercury
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: shows up. I've heard this term in conspiracy theories for years.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, red mercury is the holy grail of con artists.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: It's a myth from the Cold War, right. The story goes,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: the Soviets made this stuff that could do anything from
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: making planes invisible to building tiny nuclear bahms.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And summoning gin. Apparently, why not.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Once something is myth, you can say it does anything.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: The most important thing about red mercury is that it
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: doesn't exist, which means it's incredibly rare and they're expensive.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: There you go. Shweb tells him, I can multiply your money,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: but first we have to buy the red mercury to
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: bind the spirits.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: It's just advance fee fraud. The Nigerian print scam, but
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: with demons.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: You got it. The young man pays a huge sum
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: just to start the ritual. Shweb does some theatrics, chanting, smoke,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: maybe some sleight of hand, and sends him home to wait.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And that weight must be just excruciating. You're at home,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: staring at an empty safe, waiting for cash to just materialize.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: And of course nothing happens. The debts are still there.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: The investors are getting louder, so real visceral panic sets in.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: He goes back to Shweve's house, but.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: He's not a supplicant this time. He's angry.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: He's furious. He demands to know why it didn't work.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Now this is the moment I think the scammer would
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: just cut and run. You got the money. The guy's mad.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Time to disappear, but Schweib doesn't no.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Because Shred understands human psychology better than he understands magic.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: This is where he uses the sunk cost fallacy. He
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: and his assistants Nor and Mohammed. They flip the script.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: They don't apologize. They blame him.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: It's your fault.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: The offering was too small. You've insulted the spirits with
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: your cheapness. That's why it failed.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: That is just masterclass gas lighting, it is.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: They tell him there's only one way to fix it,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: to save the money he's already lost. He has to
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: double down. Oh no, They tell him, bring everything, every
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: last penny you have. We need a massive seed to
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: force the portal open.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: And because he's desperate and he's already so deep in
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the hole, he actually considers this.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: It's the gambler's ruin, right if he walks away. Now
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: he has to admit he's been scammed. He's totally broke.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: If he pays, there's that tiny chance he saved.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So he does it. He gathers the money, raids.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: The last of the accounts, maybe money that wasn't even
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: his to touch a massive amount of.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Cash, And this is the detail that just chills me.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: They tell him exactly where to put the money under
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the bed.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Ugh Swabe takes him into his private room, a room
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: that strictly off limits. He has the young man physically
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: placed the cash under his sleeping frame. He tells him leave.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: The spirits need privacy. Return in three days and your
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: wealth will be multiplied three days.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: He leaves. He waits, I can't imagine what those three
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: days were like.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: He comes back on the third day, expecting salvation, but
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: when he gets there, Nor and Mohammad block the door.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: They stall him.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: The spirits need two more days.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: It's not ready yet, and that's the snap. The spell
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: finally breaks.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: It does. In that moment, looking at these two guys
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: making excuses, he realizes he's been played. The mysticism just
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: evaporates and he sees them for what they are, thieves.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: So he loses it.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: He starts screaming, and then then he makes the mistake
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: that costs him his life.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: He threatens them.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: He screams, if I don't get my money right now,
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: I am going to the police. I will tell them everything.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: He threatens to bring the law into the SORCER's sanctuary.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly until that second shue I was a fraudster, but
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: a threat to expose him that threatens his entire world,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: his reputation, his freedom.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: The young man storms off, giving them an ultimatum.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: But he never makes it to the police station. He's
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: never seen by his family again.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: He just vanishes, and at first nobody suspects murder.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Why would they look at the profile. He's a failed businessman,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: with huge debts to everyone, his investors, even the police.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: It looks like a classic midnight run.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: They figure he's skipped down to escape his creditors.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: It's tragically convenient for Schweb. The victim's own circumstances provided
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: the perfect cover story for his disappearance.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: So the police questioned Shweve.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: They do early on, and he plays the part of
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: the calm, spiritual leader perfectly. Yes, the poor boy came
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: here for blessings. I tried to help his soul. I
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: have no idea where his body.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Went, and without evidence, they have to let him go.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: They do, but not everyone bought it. There's always that
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: one detective, isn't there, the one with a gut feeling.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: The one who can't let it go.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: There is an officer on the case who new Schweb's reputation.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: He knew Schweb wasn't just some harmless eccentric. He was
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: a predator, and he knew the young man was close
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: to his family. The runaway story just didn't sit right
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: with him.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So what does he do. He can't just raid the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: house again.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: He starts it off the book surveillance. He watches the
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: House of Whispers. But he's smart, he doesn't focus on Schweb.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: He's too composed.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: He watches the assistance, the.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Weak links, Nora Mohammed. He watches them coming and going,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: and one day he spots Nor walking down the street.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Alone, and he makes his move.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: He decides to roll the dice, grabs Nor, arrests him
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: on suspicion, probably bluffing about how much evidence they have,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: and drags him to the station.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Now that interrogation has to be something else. You're not
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: just dealing with a criminal. You're dealing with a guy
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: who thinks his boss can summon demons.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: That's the absolute key. Nor isn't just afraid of jail.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: He is terrified of Schweb. He genuinely believes that if
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: he talks, Schweb will know instantly and strike him down
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: with a curse.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: He's literally shaking in the interrogation room.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: So the officer has to get creative. He doesn't play
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: good cop, bad cop. He plays protector cop, protector cop.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: He realizes the source of the fear. He looks at
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Nora and says, I can protect you if you tell
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: me the truth. I will keep you safe. Schwab's magic
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: cannot touch you in here. I will stand between you
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: and him.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: He offered him a shield against the magic.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: And Norri grabbed it. He just breaks down. He confesses everything,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: and the story he tells it changes the temperature in
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: that room.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: This is where it goes from fraud to a horror film.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: He explains what happened after the young man made his threat.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Nora says that after he stormed off, Shwab didn't panic.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: He plotted. He told nor to call the boy back,
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: tell him come back. The money is ready, you can
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: collect it now.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: The lore and the young man he needed that money
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to be real so badly. He went back.
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: He walks into that private room. Sharabe is there and
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: there's no ritual this time, no Shwave murders him right
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: in the holy room.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: But the disposal that shows how premeditated this all was.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: You don't improvise what they found, not at all.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Nor reveals that Shueb had already dug the grave.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Wait inside the room under his bed.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: He had moved the bed frame, dug a deep shaft
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: into the dirt floor, and then just covered it up, waiting,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: my God. When the murder was done, Schwab dismembered the body.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: He cut the poor man into pieces small enough to
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: fit into a barrel. He stuffed the remains into the barrel,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: packed it with plastic bags and cloth to try and
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: contain the smell, and lowered it into the hole, filled
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: the dirt back in. And then, and this is the
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: detail that suggests pure psychopathy.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: He moved his bed back.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: He moved his bed back over the spot he slept there.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: He slept there every single night, sleeping on top of
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: his victim and the stolen fortune. The level of detachment
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: is it's just hard to process. He literally built his
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: comfort on top of his crime.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: With that confession. The police don't hesitate. They raid the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: house and.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: This time they storm in. You can imagine the scene,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: the police shouting, tearing down all the magical junk, the heat,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: the dust, the smell of incense mixed with something else.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: They go straight for the bedroom.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: They shoved Schwaia beside, dragged the bed away, and they
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: start digging, and you can just feel the tension in
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: that room. The shovel hit something hard, hit the barrel.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: They pull it out, open it up, and the young
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: man is there.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: What's also in the barrel are piles of talismans shoui
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: buried the tools of his khan along with his victim.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: The evidence is irrefutable. You can't gaslight a barrel with
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: a body in it.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: No, Chuaib confessed to everything, the greed, the manipulation, the murder.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: He didn't even seem remorseful, just defeated that his power
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: hadn't protected him.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: What happened to them?
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: The Sudanese courts were swift. Schweib was sentenced to death
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: and executed. Nor and Mohammed for their part in luring
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: the victim got maximum prison sentences, and Schuib's family these
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: were destroyed. In a society like that, the shame is
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: just unbearable to be the family of a exposed not
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: just as a fraud, but as a butcher. They fled town.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: The house stood empty, a monument to the horror.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: It's such a heavy story, but as we wrap up,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I keep coming back to that young man. It's so
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: easy to ask, how could he be so stupid to
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: believe in money downloading? But we see this today, don't we.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: We see it every single day. We don't call it
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: red mercury or gin. We call it exclusive algorithm trading
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: box or AI driven crypto yield farming. The words change,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: but the mechanism is identical. It's a predator finding a
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: desperate person and offering them a magic key.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: The scam doesn't work because the victim is stupid. It
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: works because the victim is in pain.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: That's it exactly. Desperation creates a blind spot. When you're cornered,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: you stop asking how does this work, and you just
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: start hoping, please let this work. Schweid wasn't a wizard.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: He was just a man who knew how to weaponize hope.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: And that is a terrifying thought to leave you with.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: We all like to think we're too smart to fall
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: for the sorcerer's trap. But if the stakes were high enough,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: if you were truly desperate, who knows what kind of
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: door you be willing to walk through.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: And what you be willing to leave under the bed.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: That's it for this deep dive into the house with whispers.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Take care of yourselves and maybe double check those too
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: good to be true offers. Indeed, stay skeptical, catchy on
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the next deep dive.