Latest / Real Crime with Adam Shand / BEST OF 2025: How One Man Lost $1.8M | Ed Toller

Transcript

BEST OF 2025: How One Man Lost $1.8M | Ed Toller · Real Crime with Adam Shand

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Approche Production.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Hello listeners to Real Crime with Adam Shanner. I want
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: to wish you a very safe and happy festive season.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: We're going to be taking off over the Christmas break,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: so I wanted to leave you with a couple of
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: excerpts from my favorite podcasts of twenty twenty five. I
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: hope you enjoy them, and I look forward to giving
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: you some new and excellent crime experiences on our podcast
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: in the new year. I'll talk to you then enjoy.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: At the same time, the people who are probably along
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: with you for the ride, enjoying that high lifestyle that
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: you're enjoying, they all disappear when you're in the jail
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: cell on your own and you realize you're sort of
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: friendless and that must be a very difficult moment personally,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: and you're taking stock of your own personality and your
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: own choices. That's a moment most people don't face. What's
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: that like.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: It's funny, you know, because a lot of people that were.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: Around when I was gambling, I honestly would have thought
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: that they would have been quite close friends, and I
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: wasn't under the impression that anything I could really do
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: would ever deter them from having a friendship with me.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: But I was very wrong about that, and probably eighty
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: percent of the people that I was friends with prior
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: to going to.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Jail I no longer am. And there was definitely a
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: sense of anger at first.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: But you know, I've had a lot of time to
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: reflect on that stuff, obviously from where I was, and
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: I think that to me, that's a bonus now to
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: live life without those people and to not have them
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: within my circle, if you like, because I think certainly
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: it's not that I believe that they're guilty by association,
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: but certainly they're around when there was all the trimmings
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: of what comes with being a gambler who wants to
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: spend his money on all sorts of different things, you know,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: and there were people that would take advantage of that situation,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: and you know, they're no longer around. To me, do
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: I look back on that and think where are they now? No,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: not really, because I think that they're probably doing it
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: to someone else, or they're probably living a life that
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe they regret some of it as well,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: i'd hope.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure you were living in the eastern suburbs
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: of Sydney, where I also grew up as well, and
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I understand the tribe of people that attach themselves to you,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: and you can back it in that they would have
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: attached themselves to somebody else the next hot thing, and
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: it is a soulless experience, and friendships are very tenuous.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: In jail, you met a different class of people. You
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: went to a private school in England, well educated. You know,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: here you're meeting people with no chance in life who
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: are in there and this is going to be their
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: life career. Criminals, people who made some really dumb mistake.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: How did that impact you and give you, I guess
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: a sense of what you'd squandered in a way?
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean jail here is really eye opening.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Obviously you touched on the fact that I lived in
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: the Eastern Suburbs. I lived in a community I guess,
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: which is very sheltered and very privileged and very out
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: of the I'd almost call it far removed from reality
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: in all honesty. And when I went in there, you know,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: I went to a number of different jails within New
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: South Wales, but I met so many people that have
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: literally had the opposite of my lifestyle, the polar opposite.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: They've had no chance.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Since the day that they were born, they've had domestic violence,
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: they've had drug use, they've had alcohol, gambling, and they've
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: grown up knowing only one route really, if you like,
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Whereas I didn't. I grew up knowing that crime was
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: bad and that I shouldn't do it, and if I
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: do it, you know, this is what the punishment will be.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: And I feel like there's so much unknown, you.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Know, there's this like people are obsessed with crime shows
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: and documentaries around crime and what it is and who
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: commits it, and murder shows and all this whatever else.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: But the reality is that the people who are committing
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: day to day crimes, if you like, who just keep
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: returning in and out of.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: A system year in, year out.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: It's really sad stories that we don't hear about out
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: here because there's no need for it, you know, there's
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: no need for people to hear about it. But I
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: think that some of the stuff, like, you know, I
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: write letters for people who couldn't write or couldn't read,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: you know, wanted to translate a message across to a
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: judge when they were going in for you know, some
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: form of crime that they've committed. They'd want to write
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: something to the judge, not letting him or her know
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: why they should show leniency. And I think there was
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: I guess I was just living in this bubble where
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: I had no idea of what real society had or
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: was going on. And I think that you know, probably
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: for me that was a big wake up call.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Well it was. I guess it was a humble moment
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: where you could look at your life to that point
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and what it could be from here on in. And
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: I mean five years in jail is no joke, and
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: it's about punishment, but it's also about rehabilitation and theory.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: And you're there a gambling addict. You can still gamble
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: in jail if you want to. There's always ways to
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: do that. But was there any semblance of anything, A program,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: a person, a moment where you could confront your gambling
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: and start to make a plan about what would happen
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: after jail.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: I mean they ran a couple of things. When you
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: go into jail, they screen you, so they ask you
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: a load of questions and they say, are you addicted
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: to anything or whatever? I think it's mainly like they
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: ask you whether it's alcohol or drugs. You have to
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: nominate gambling if that's something that you've got a problem with,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: and I did, but I think it took like two
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: and a half years before I got into a program
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: to address anything around addiction. And they do this thing
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: called Equip's Addiction, which is run by a programs officer
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: in the jail. I mean it's better than nothing, but
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: to me, it was verging on a waste of time,
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: you know, and a lot of people have to do it.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: They make people do it in order to get certain
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: classifications and potentially even get parole or you.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Know, whatever it may be.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: So as a compulsive gambler or an alcoholic, you have
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: to sort of volunteer the fact that you want to
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: give it up, because otherwise it doesn't work.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: You have to be willing to admit that it's a problem.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Whereas this is kind of forced upon people who have
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: said at a screening question that they might have drunk
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: too much or taken drugs from.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Time to time. So really that was the only thing
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that was offered.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: And gambling's rife in jail in Australia, like it's everywhere.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I gambled in jail a lot. What would you gamble
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: on the footy?
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: The NRL, horses anything, play poker, play cards. You probably
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: gamble more in there than you would on the outside,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: to be fair, it's just that you've got to pay
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: whoever it is within the system, you know, or you've
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: got to gamble against one of your fellow inmates rather
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: than an app or a bookie.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's everywhere, which can be dangerous and frightening, and
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: jail is certainly both those things, but it's also incredibly
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: boring too, and you've got to pass the time somehow.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: You're facing this five year stretch. How you feeling each day.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: Well, I went in there very heavy and chubby and
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: bloated and a mess from all the drink and the
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: drugs and the bad food and the gambling. So I
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: pretty much said to myself that I've definitely wanted to
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: fix that up. So that was one of the first
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: things that I did, was fitness and got myself in
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: better shape.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: But I mean, you can only do that some form
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: of level.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: It depends what jail you're in, but you know, you're
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: locked in a cell a lot of the time. It
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: might be from three pm until eight am the next day,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: so you're very limited in what you can do.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: You're very limited in what you can eat.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: What you get access to you know, you have a
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: certain number of TV channels, whatever. But I think that
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: you're going to be able to reflect when you're in there,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: because that's a lot of your time is going to
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: be spent doing that, you know, especially when you're doing
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: a long stretch, because effectively there is nothing else to do.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: You know, you can read. I wanted to study when
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: I was in there. I wasn't allowed to. That was
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: a big bummer for me because early on in the thing,
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: I've really expressed an interest in looking into doing a
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: psychology degree.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: But there was no assistance.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just very They made it harder to
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: do it than not to do it, which, yeah, it's
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: just I think that's a reflection of the system itself.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Well, the system is there to punish you primarily, and
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: that's always been the notion of jail. If you can
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: make it a little bit harder than people like them,
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: that that's part of the whole ethos of jail. But
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: as you say, you get that time to reflect, and
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: I guess people can have these demoscene conversions, like bold moments, epiphanies,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: all that type stuff. But it's not like that, is
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: that it's a gradual coming back to yourself and closing
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: that gap between what you'd become and who you really were.
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: Well, a lot of people love going to jail because
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: they make money in there, or it's an opportunity for them.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, you learn from the best in there if
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: you want to become a career criminal. So there's two
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: aspects of it. You can either go in there under
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: the notion that you really want to sort yourself out
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: and get something from it, make it a worthwhile exercise,
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: or you're going in there and you come out.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Worse than you went in.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: And I think that's a part of the reason that
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: we see the reoffending rates and the returns into the
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: system is because of the lack of stability, or lack
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: of programs, or lack of help that there is within
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: that system. So you really have to be quite a
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: strong character, I think, to overcome that whilst in there
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: and actually try and do something with your times, especially
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: because I understand the people that are in and out
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: doing six month stretches. There's not enough time for them
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: to do a program or a business degree or.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Whatever it may be. But then the ones that are
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: in there longer term.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: You know, you pretty soon in you know that you're
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: looking a decent sentence. You want to try and put
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: some things in place where you're going to get something
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: from that.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: And that was my notion.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: And I knew the punishment fitted the crime, and so
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: I knew that it was about me being punished, and
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: you know, that meant going from jail to jail, and
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: that meant waiting a certain period of time to get
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: certain things. But I was a bit unlucky because obviously
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: COVID hit when I was in jail, and that diminished
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: any chance of any work release or early release or
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: anything like that. So that was all removed from me,
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: which is a normal aspect of prison for most people
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: these days with a decent sized sentence, that you will
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: get the opportunity to go out to the community prior
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: to your release and either work or you'll get day
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: release or weekend release, and all of that was removed
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: through COVID. So you know, I took a few knocks
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: on the way, and eventually when I got out, I
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: knew I just had to make some changes in life.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to this episode and supporting this story.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Independent storytelling that shapes the world is what pod shape
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: really cares about. Right now, there's thousands of people listening
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: to this show and our other True Crimes, and they're
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: completely engaged. More than ten million Australians listen to podcasts
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: each week. If you've ever thought about advertising your business
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: in a podcast, there's a link to reach out in
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: the show notes, or head to podshape dot com to
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: book a free call.