Fakers, Fraudsters and Phonies: Everything's A Lie Now!

Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Elizabeth Burnett. Oh yeah, what's up? Well? I was just sitting in here talking to the interns, going do you think she's gonna show up today? And all of a sudden you breeze in and everyone's all happy to see Elizabeth.

Yeah, I go, you know what, it's a beautiful day. But it's not the heat. It's the pepperoni. That's what we like to say in the biz.

I'm sorry, I ate my pepperoni pizza in the studio. Get used to this, like.

A nineteen eighties round table.

Yeah right, and they're kind of good. The red plastic cups are by my touch to make it feel authentico.

It does. It does a picture of root beer, please.

I got a question for you. Yeah, along with your picture of root beer? Do you know what's ridiculous?

You sure do? I sure do. This isn't ridiculous. Independent baseball leagues.

Oh yeah, yeah. I love them because.

They're not affiliated with MLB, which I'm not a fan of these days.

Oh, because you're as.

Yeah, but they're more fun. It's like more immediate, authentic baseball, and so the you know, there's like the Savannah Bananas are part of that coastal league. It's like a collegiate league Oakland Ballers or Pioneer League. And then there's this team, the uh Madison Mallards.

Don't know them, I'm assuming Madison.

I wasn't. Yeah, I wasn't familiar with their game. And then a bunch of a bunch of rude dudes were.

Like, hey, look at this.

Okay, we are Oh so it's not a mashupdes but it is a lot it's similar. It's one of those weird promotions.

You hook me and you're no.

So the Madison Mallards for their July eighteenth game had this thing where if you buy a ticket and you enter in this promo code for twenty one dollars for a grand stand ticket or forty eight dollars for the bush light duck blind okay section the duck line, you can get this promotion thing. So you know, with like the a's used to get like bubble heads or little mini bat night not a good idea, like little blankets,

A hot dog alster like a gun on the side.

There's a picture. We'll have them put that on Instagram for it. And so yeah, it's like on the side where you it looks like a gun holster, but you put a hot dog in there, and then there's a little pouch next to it for your squeezes of ketchup mustard whatever. Yeah, so it has an expandable belt because they said it fits no matter how many wieners you put down. They there's the condiment pouch, blah blah blah. And so they said, what can we use it for?

So when you want to keep that foot long on you, you keep.

That thing on you. Yeah, so that's what they have. If you're in that area, try and score a ticket that you can't buy them. It's a promotion attached to the ticket. And uh yeah, wiener wallet.

You cased meats.

Well that's kind of why I brought it up.

Oh well, thank you. If you're looking out for me.

I think.

Every day, just stay strapped exactly. Well, I'll give you that. That is ridiculous, and thank you for your dudes for not letting that be a full mash up. Ely, Well, Elizabeth, I got one for you.

Sure I'll take it.

Now. I have a modern version of the children's cautionary tale Peter and the wolf kind of looks at the table.

Aolved not in this.

But pretend there are just imagine them, so you know. Peter claims he was attacked by an unseen wolf. Paul Village is an uproar, but the wolf claims he was framed. This always happened after a brief investigation. Please claim Peter did it for clout or perhaps a quick payout. This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Yes, Oh, Elizabeth Saren. You

I do love bears like.

You, legit love Alaska's Fat Bear. We do. You talked about this in an episode on the Fat Bear Week vote rigging scandal. Correct, now, I did. You've often told me that you would like to one day hug a bear.

I would love to hug a bear nuts.

Which is why I thought of you, And I also thought you might remember this story. So when I was reading it, I thought of you, and I thought, you know what, Lizbeth might remember this. Over in China, there was a story about a sun bear at a Chinese zoo.

Oh, there's like kind of light brown. Yeah, sun bear.

Now do you remember this news story from twenty twenty three about a fake bear that was in an exhibit at a Chinese zoo in eastern Hong Shiao City.

I have vague recollection.

Okay, lay it on me. When folks caught sight of videos circulating online, people were convinced that the alleged sun bear in a Chinese zoo is actually a man in a bear suit right now, According to the Associated Foreign Press back in twenty twenty three and I quote, a Chinese zoo has been forced to deny that its sunbear is actually a human in a costume after a video of one standing on a tined legs raised online accusations

Yeah, that does look like a dude in like he's got his belly out, looks like his hands are on his lips. I don't know. I'm not wearing my glasses and you're holding that up and I'm doing my best.

Also noticed like the wrinkles around his posterior. Yeah, it kind of looks like, you know, is is that a bear suit? Because of how it just droops around, you know.

Missing judge, that's I see. You're doing a lot of body shaming for that bear.

You should have more thickness to him.

Yeah.

Well, I got to ask you, and you don't have to answer right away. I'll give you more time on this, And so what's your call? Is this a real sun Bear or is it a person in a bear costume?

Saren? I think I need more information.

I think you do too. It's debatable. I mean, honestly, if you look at the loose, wrinkled skin and the way it sort of bunches oddly around the bear's butt, as I've pointed out, it's you'd suspect, right, but this could easily be like a person in a bear costume, But it could just as easily be an actual sun Bear.

Yeah.

Now, despite all the online overnight bear experts in their opinions that it was not a real bear and instead it was a pathetic hoax that was giving fake bear, officials at the Zoo insisted at the sun Bear was a real, actual factual Bear the Bear debate crossed the seas, and eventually The New York Times had to weigh in on whether or not it was a real sun bear or a person in a bear suit. As The New

That's incredible.

So what's the truth. Is Angela the Sunbear reel or is Angela more like a college mascot? Well, folks in China had good reason to doubt that Angela the sun Bear was real. I mean, there have been multiple zoo hoaxes in China reported in the past.

Could they could be saying, yeah, it's a bear, but it's really like a very large hairy man inside the costume, so technically it's a bear.

In a costume. They're not lying your heads had now. Back in twenty thirteen, there was a zoo in the Hanan Province in China that claimed to have an African lion on display, but it turns out the purported lion was actually a Tibetan mastiff.

Oh, they kind of do a click lions. Did they have like a wig on it?

Well, they kind of like, you know, they cut the main to look a little bit. Yeah. So at the BBC report at the time quote Chinese media reports said the zoo had replaced its genuine lion with a Tibetan mastiff dog. A zoo official and Hanan province said the dog, owned by one of the workers, was put in the cage when the real lion was sent away to a breeding center. Outraged visitors to the zoo and lu Ouhu City said they had been cheated.

That those are those dogs. I've seen the videos of those dogs getting grooms.

Oh yeah, but they had just their first of all, they're normal, enormous. It is one of the biggest dogs.

And then the hair situation is just crazy. See I can see if you shave down the body and left the top.

I pay to see that the grooming all of it or the end result. Okay, well for the.

Grooming the after as long as they're treating the dog. Oh yeah, I'll give you five bucks.

I'm with you on that now. The way the deception came to light was kind of fun to picture. The story goes a mother brought her son to the zoo to check out the animals, like young kid, and she was having fun introducing her child to all the animals, and she was educating her son on all the different sounds that animals make. And then when they approached the enclosure with the alleged African lion, they watched this animal for a while and the mother's like, you know, doing

I give him credit for it. Look, lady, you can either go and have a sign that says, you know, exhibit closed, or you can go and see a cool your choice.

All the kid's not gonna remember a good point. Now, she may not have been wrong to level such accusations, because it wasn't just the African lion that was fake in the zoo. There was also a fake leopard. Visitors who looked closely at the animals stalking in the so called leopards den would notice it was actually a white fox. Yeah, it's a big difference totally. And in the enclosure that

Yeah.

Yeah, Plus, there were other incidents in China of doubtful wild animals going down, like for instance, uh. Unlike with that zoo, the other incidents did have good or at least reasonable explanations. For instance, there was a reserve in the Sechuan Province and the panda keepers. They would often zip up a human sized panda costume and then they would join the pandas in the enclosure. Yeah, in this case, it wasn't meant to fool the humans because it was

Well, you've seen the thing of the little baby panda that makes a snarling face when breaking. Oh yeah, because he learned not from an adult panda but from the zoo keepers how to snap the bamboo. But everyone have like a pained look on their face as they exerted to snap the bamboo. Yeah, so this little panda bear like snarls.

It is a rough one.

So they got to be careful. I see why they do it. They're so sweet innocent.

Oh yeah, just little I love pandas. The by the way the zip up panda costumes. They were often visually troubling for visitors to the panda reserve. And you can see why. This is what a human in a panda costume looks like.

That is disturbing. I feel like if he turns around, the butt cheeks are like cut out.

That's just it looks like a slender Man costume, but for a panda.

Well there's no padding and it's yeah, it's very droopy.

Yeah, exactly, It's just it's a low effort. It looks like.

Those seventies Halloween costume.

Yes, you know.

They would give kids like a plastic front, only mass hard hard plastic, and then like a garbage bag that had a like the outfit printed on it.

But only the front because the back would be a solid color.

And if I'm sure that if it got caught on a jack land and it would go up like like a Roman candle.

Pretty much everything in the seventies was flammable. It's very true, yeah, especially if it was for children. For children. So way back to Angela the sun Bear, we need to resolve this right, Yes, thanks to the fake lion, the fake leopard, the humans in a panda suit. You can see why Chinese zoogoers might have their doubts, sure right, and come to believe it was a person in America.

Houl bitten twice, shy.

Totally, It's totally fair and on their part, I'm not, you know, slighting them for being doubtful, suspicious, what have you.

I'm not gonna victim blame.

What's the truth. Was it a real sun bear or a zoo keeper in a bear suit? What's your call, Elizabeth?

Why not both?

Oh? Like that? I live in very diplomatic.

Yeah, it's live in the gray.

So it turns out it was a real sun bear. It was are so the zoo claimed. One of the zoo keepers took to social media to defend Angela, and they posted that quote, of course it's a real animal. It's definitely not a person in disguise. Our place is a state run facility. Such situations won't happen here.

But I could see where they're like, we're not some fly by night private But oh they're also like, Okay, Angela's got a weird body. You guys don't like, don't accuse her of being human. She's a real bear. She's one hundred percent bear.

Now that same zoo worker also offered some reasoning as to why I couldn't be a person in a bear suit. They reasoned that it was way too hot in the summer to throw on a bear costume just to con some tourists for a couple of dollars or you know you want.

If anyone's ever been to like Disneyland or a theme park, you know that no one cares. The owners of places don't care how hot. Oh yeah, they'll put you in a big old sweatsuit.

Yeah, as long as that sweaty stink doesn't come out of the suit. They don't care what's going on inside the exactly.

So that you know what, I discount that point. Give me your next argument, Chinese zoo.

Well, the zoo keeper wrote on social media, if you were to wear a suit, you definitely couldn't bear it for more than a few minutes. You'd have to lie down. So fun puns aside.

Does that pun translate from Chinese?

I wondered that too.

It's really interesting. Yeah, I don't think it does.

I don't think so. I think it just happened to be. It just lined up in English. But I could be wrong.

Maybe they're ready. I don't know. You know what, Now I feel like we've blown this whole thing wide open. I feel like that's a problem because was he writing it in English?

No, It's written in Chinese as far as I can tell.

And then translates like perhaps if Chinese speakers can clarify for it, it.

Could be the translator introduced the pun.

Oh took some liberties again. Now I'm just not I don't know who to believe anymore, Sar, I don't know what what's fake.

Well, all this gave me an idea. Whenever you finally open your strip club for ladies who just want to lie around on couches and robes slots, you should open a roadside zoo attraction that's just people lying around wearing half zipped bear costumes. Okay, right, just so for the outside, you know, it's like kind of like you're like, hey, look, we got a roadside attraction to bring in the truckers.

Sure, but I'll put the I'll put the fellows outside in the.

Yeah, totally outside exactly, and the lady's gonna be inside with the air conditioning robes.

Yeah, girl, Ladies to the front. Girls to the front.

So back to Angela that maybe or maybe not Sunbar. So what is the truth? Well, in order to convince the public that Angela Sunbear was a real bear, the zoo put out a press release allegedly written by the bear. I don't now convince.

Okay, So now who tells the truth around here?

Well do you check this statement? And I quote? Yesterday after work, I received a call from the park manager asking me if I was slacking off and had a biped replace me. Much to my surprise, I'm just sitting in the mountains and I go viral on the internet. Some people think I look too human when I stand up. It seems you really don't understand me. Previously, some visitors even thought I was too petite to be a bear.

Yeah, and I'm just okay, so what's it? Is he in their pocket too?

No, but he's the deciding factor in this one. So there you go in the sun Bear innocent. Which brings me to another big bad bear story where the nature of the bear was in question. When this story hit the press recently, a number of rude dudes reached out to us and sent us this story.

Yeah.

Perhaps inspired by the Chinese zoos, a group of southern California men got some notions for how they they might pull off some bear bas crimes. First they got a bear suit, Then they played rock paper scissors to see who would wear the bear suit. Then on January twenty eight, twenty twenty four, they took three cars and drove out to Lake Arrowhead, which is up there in the mountains above Los Angeles, where they then proceeded to stage their crime.

Yeah, that just happened up in Tahoe a couple weeks ago totally.

And these cars, they were really nice, Like one was a twenty fifteen Mercedes G sixty three AMG, another was a twenty twenty two Mercedes E three fifty and the third car was a twenty ten Rolls Royce Ghost.

Itok, a Rolls Royce up to Lake Arrowhead.

I know right now. The men had a good thing going, that is until they got greedy with it. Because you see, they filed not one, not two, but all three different insurance claims reporting that a bear broke in and damaged their cars. And they filed the claims with different insurance companies on and two of the insurance companies seem to have been tricked. But the third company, the one that ensured the Rolls Royce wasn't so easy to cause.

To say, why did they go up there and then film themselves trashing the car? Well, now I get it.

Yeah, insurance for the insurance fraud. So their ruse was revealed on the video proof they submitted to polster their insurance claims, which means they made the mistake of filming their crimes one right, and then because you know, as you point out, they needed the video proof for the insurance companies. They also made the mistake of filing the claims on the exact same date at the exact same location and said, you know, here's how it goes, which

Oh no, I see videos like that all the time.

Oh, I'm sure, both from Tahoe and from southern California. So once the insurance frauds confirmed, charges were filed against the purps. The men, Alfia Zuckerman thirty nine of Valley Village, along with Reuben tamarazi In twenty six of Glendale, and Vahi morod Kanian of thirty two, also of Glendale, were all sentenced to one hundred and eighty days in county jail, and the men were also ordered to pay restitution which amounted to one hundred and forty one thousand dollars. Wow.

Did they rent these cars, like, did they own the They.

Own the cars. And then they were filing insurance claims on the damage done and basically saying, oh, my car has been total Exactly, a bear totaled my car from the inside out.

There's the one that happened up untill they showed they didn't have the picture of the bear in there, but the bear got stuck.

And it was a legit bear. Though it was a legit bear bears.

When they showed the inside of the car, I mean, like you see like the claw marks, and they just that thing went to town and there.

They do real damage to damage a human being could not do. Exactly, you just don't have the musculature.

No, no, So let's.

Unzip, step out of our bear costumes, and when we're back, we'll get into some more fake emergencies. There were actually ridiculous crimes, and we're back, Elizabeth, back, you're ready for round two of Yeah, dude, fake uh, fake fakers, fakers, fraudsters in this case, fake emergencies.

Oh oh yeah, that's not funny.

So this next one is another recent news story. I don't know if you saw this one on your news feeds or perhaps on social media. It involves those folks who pay large money to climb Mount Everest.

Oh those folks. Yeah, yeah, I try and ignore that stuff.

I figured, but as you might guess, people who are willing to pay a lot of money to climb up a mountain also make really easy marks to.

Con Oh, I can imagine. Have you seen the pictures of them, like the traffic jam, it's just a line of people. Oh yeah, and they're not even really like there's one step.

At a time, and they're holding onto the guide ropes and it looks like, you know, like a line for Disneyland, like you're waiting for Space mountain.

Yeah, and then they leave their trash and then dead friends all over the places. Bottles close it down, shut down the mountain.

So the story goes Sherpas the aka the mountain guides, who you.

Get treated like garbage by the way, largely Yes.

Yeah, yeah, they leave these mountain climbers up the face of Mount Everest, where allegedly now they are poisoning the climbers halfway up the mountain. They're poisoning, poisoning them. Why why would they do that, You may be wondering, is it because they're so poorly treated? Possibly? But mostly it's for the big payday.

Okay, like the big candy bar.

No, but actual like here's your check. Nice work, like poisoning the Western Yeah, like, how does poisoning your client result in a payday? That's great questions, Elizabeth. It was a classic case of insurance fraud because you see, if you have a medical emergency on Mount Everest, you can't just climb back down. You can't send up a traditional ambulance to go pick them up. And due to the often bad weather on the mountain and the lack of negotiable roads past a certain height, is only one way

Right.

And this, Elizabeth, is where I say, rather than me, tell you about the poison. Yes, Elizabeth, close your eye as I want you to picture it. It's a pleasant day on Mount Everest, or at least it was when you first began your ascent, But now after you've been at it for a long while, the weather has started to turn. You fight against strong gusts of wind that whisks snow from the mountain side, creating a dramatic white

In fact, that's cheaper than like if you don't have an insurance and you have to be airlifted after an action of this country.

Yeah, I forget about tie hundred thousand dollars exactly. Yeah, so I would rather call one of them. I'm like, flyover from the ball exactly now. In order to have all their ducks in a row, the purpse would also fake the paperwork, such as flight manifests and load sheets. That's the kind of paperwork that pilots had to fill out. Yeah, and at the hospital they'd have medical aid professionals doctor

Right.

So in the time between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty five, investigators found that there were over three hundred confirmed fake rescues. Oh no what Oh yeah. In total, those paid out about fifteen million pounds in fraudulent insurance claims. Wow, which is about twenty million dollars. Now what's curious is that this scam was well known. Like, in fact, back in twenty nine there was so much insurance fraud going down that policy reforms were put in place by NEPAUL

Oh you're kidding.

Yeah, just ask Minaj Kumar Casey, who is the head of the Central Investigation Bureau of the Nepol Police. He told the catman do post quote. The scam continued due to lacks punitive action. When there is no action against crime, it flourishes. The insurance scam two flourished as a result, and so now this year, rescue chopper fraud is once again making headlines, especially after thirty two people were charged

Is then it turns out of these poor innocent climbers exactly nasty locals.

Yeah, and it totally plays into all of our biases and some orientalism. Throw that in there, right. So, as these news stories around the world focused on the sensational allegations that mountain guides were poisoning their clients for big, big money, yeah, none of that ended up showing up in the seven hundred and forty eight page charging documents.

Well, and I would imagine that some of these guys who are just you know, really full of themselves and have the money to do Everest and if they they poop out they can't make it. Oh, then they're like, you know what, I think I was poisoned by this mysterious Sherpah they do.

They go into a subreddit and they see someone report this and they're like, that's what happened to me. Yeah, that's why I couldn't make it.

But I mean, like I think because that's what you were talking about, Like this sense of disappointment is the helicopter crests and the person wants to you know, push through. I could see that, But then I could also see them being jerks and being like, well, I'm going to blame someone. I'm gonna blame the.

She they poisoned.

Otherwise I would have be sprinted. The last half I was doing record time they were carried him. No one has gone this fast like I was carrying.

Two sherpas on my back and then they poisoned me.

Now, since Tenseig nor Gay have seen.

It made them look so bad, so as.

Were the actual insurance broud it largely stemmed from guides convincing hikers that they were experiencing a medical emergency and then calling a chopper to rescue them, and then charging the Western insurance companies for the medical emergency that actually was happening. Right like. For instance, consider the case of Tensing Sherpa. He's a guide for Panorama Himalayan Trekking expedition.

Well did she she took a helicopter ride?

She did take a legitimate She went to the hospital in you got the full trip ext So when she wrote her email to the CIB in Nepal, she told investigators her story, and in her email in January of this year, she wrote that she and her fellow climber were both duped, or she put it, we were denied the right to descend on foot as we intended. So

It might be you know.

That's the thing is, it's like you don't get to actually make the climb.

Well, I mean she was on her way down. I could see where they're just like they have to make that call of Joe. I want as someone who's going to keel over, and a lot of people don't want to admit.

Yes when they aren't.

They don't have anyben to finish something. And you can see the egos on these people to go do this in the first place.

Good point, and they're not going to.

Be the one like, yeah, you know what, I don't think I can finish this. They're oh, I'm going to do this. But there was a case recently where these climbers, you know, we're having trouble getting up or whatever. I don't know what happened, but one of them collapsed and the sherpa picked him up, put his own pack down, picked the guy up and carried.

Him back to back then a base camp, and.

Then he gave it was some well known person. So it was like a press conference, doesn't think the It's like I want to thank my team and I want to think the King of England, but like you're just naming all these people and the shirp is like, oh my god, I just carried this big, you know, sack of potatoes down here, and what am I chap liver?

Oh? And also I mean there's like in the mountain climbing community, there's a lot of stuff about like your climbing partner. You have to like you have to recognize you both are facing life and death and decisions, so you have to be very honest very truthful. It's like a bond. You're literally tied to each other, right, and if something happens to them, they break their legs. You're supposed to be like, I'm not going to the mountain. I got to help you get down to Basecam. There's

And they leave their trash everywhere, including oxygen.

Bottles huge yeah, big break green.

And I think they're framing the Sherpas quite frankly, because if you have all these Western tourists who are like, oh this is you know, this is fraud.

They're making me do this.

The government, like you said, they want that Everest money, oh yeah, big money, and the communities need that money, So if they're gonna say, oh yeah, okay, we'll crack down on it. And then I think gets curious that they don't do anything, because it's not really happening. The justice for the spas now.

Also, I was thinking, if they can do helicopter rescues, why can't they clear the bodies of the dead hikers Just strap them onto the winch and pull them up, you know.

Just get one of those big old helicopters and say we're going to close the mountain for a couple of days while we clear up the body.

On the Soviet eraic cargo choppers. You can just like land in a field anywhere, like this field can be a swamp, doesn't matter.

But then they also have to be blaring the supremes like the beginning of China Beach. And then yeah, I just want, like I want to blend all that imagery, all the stuff.

And Cold war imagery a running rampant in current day.

I like it. Let's do it.

I like your imagination, thank you so much. So this story is bleak and ridiculous, right, so let's take them another little break, watch this one out of our heads, and when we're back, we'll dive back into another fake emergency for fun and profit, in this case influence. We're back, Elizabeth. Hello, So now are you ready for another fun with fraud and faked emergencies? Right? So, you know how you love online influencers and all that they bring to the world. Well, I've saved the best for last.

Great.

This is another modern one. This one went down recently, obviously since it's about an influencer. So the story goes twenty seven year old Brazilian influencer Monarchy Fraga had a big idea and so you can better picture her as I tell you the story. This is Monica Fraga.

Okay, so she's like a like a bikini model.

She's exactly that. You're correct.

Well, me, it's just like you say, like imagine like an influencer. So it's like she has.

A specific kind like she's not like doing the like I have. I'm involved in beijed life, you know, like some of them are right, some are like, oh, I'm a food influencer and they're just like, oh, they have like tattoo sleeves and they.

Have top hair that long hair.

Okay, I don't know the influencer.

I don't like you jes honestly, Like.

My social media feed, isn't it just not all influencers like yours?

Yeah, but influencers like Inina Garden, that's my my influencers. I don't think I could name an influencer. Can you name, aside from the ones you're about to tell me about, can you name an influencer right now?

Yeah, there's tons of them, all.

Right, give me a name, Give me one name.

Jake Paul Is that.

The boxer he's done about all they do, that's all he does, gets beat up for fun.

No, that's what his sideline is. But he started as an influencer and then he's just branched out, like mister Beast is not a game show host, but now he is.

He is. I think he's like a c I A oh.

He's got dead eyes.

There's something. There's something like and I don't even know like what he does or who he is, but he makes cookies or something.

Now I have no idea. I mean he does everything now, he just he has like an talent agency to stuff escape from this house I set on fire? How long do you live in this?

See? This is what I'm talking about. Man and the Jake Paul Guy. He came from that. He was an influencer, influencing people to.

Do be their worse self. I don't know it makes sense. It's you also have a mixture, not because you have like the people who do like like I Show Speed. He's like a streamer where he's just constantly I show speed. He's this young black athlete essentially, and he just goes around the world doing fantastic things like with professional athletes, and you're just like, how he runs really fast. He can like do a jump and they drive like a sports car under him. He can like you know, do

And he makes money doing this.

Yeah, But he's basically a streamer, not really influence. He's not like telling people like, hey, wear are these shoes? Or like here's where I go to eat to do get energy for my you know, crazy stunts.

So how does he make money as a street He does this on live Internet.

People like donate money and then now brand partnerships is a big part of it. People like fly him over to Dubai to like, you know, jump a camel or whatever.

I'm so old and I am so cranky.

So like, yeah, I can name plenty, but they've become I couldn't get her.

I can't just just something. That's the only one I like. But she's a comedian. She's the one who does your eccentric friend and okay, has all the crazy outfits. Oh right, I'm not sure she makes any money on it, but she's amazing and I love her. She's my favorite. She's like if my friend Sarah and I had a baby.

Who's is she the one who does like I'm going to punch you that that thing?

No?

I love her. What did she say?

I don't know what her name is like, but yeah, she like quietly threatens to punch. I haven't seen her in a long time. Okay, but no, this one is she's just jolly or something like.

She's probably a comedian. I got cha.

Yeah, and she she just like wears really outlandish outfits.

Well that brings us back to Moniky Franco whole thing, which is she wears outrageous outfits. They're just always bikinis.

Okay, yeah, no, that's not what this count does now.

A year ago, in April twenty twenty five, Rakha posted to her forty eight thousand followers that she had gone through it in the jungle. She informed her fans and followers that she and her husband Lucas were near their home in Karasu, Burbazil, when they were accosted by three well armed men and what followed was a veritable nightmare Elizabeth and her video explainer of the attack. Sure when she told everyone what she got.

For the first thing I want to do after an emergency, Yeah is a video.

Explainer, so monikey. She claimed that the three well armed men kidnapped her and her husband. They were then dragged into the jungle where they were beaten and tortured. Her husband, Lucas, was allegedly beaten until he agreed to hand over valuables like some gold chain or something, and she had been posting about it before. That's what alerted them, Like you've got that gold chain, we want that anyway in other

Yes.

Yes, the twenty seven year old mother of small kids told her fans and followers through tears, Elizabeth, Yeah, but and I quote, I spent hours in the woods. I didn't know if I'd make it back.

Where were her kids when this was happening.

Behind the camera. She also claimed that from what she could recall, there was a river there and the whole time, I thought they were going to kill me and throw me in there and I'd never see anyone again. All

But everything, Zaron, everything's sake.

See, I go both ways on my things. I'm like, this could be fake. It might not be fake. I'm like that old Taoist story about the horse, like when they they go, yes, this happened, I'm like, it could be yeah, maybe, I don't know.

Every time you say to me, did you see like when celebrities like get into relationships, I'm convinced they're all fake.

Yes, you always say that this is pr and I believe on this set and they were both reading the same book Nothing's real. So in this Brazilian influencer's case, her story wasn't as believable as a Kardashian tail. So because when the Brazilian police investigated the alleged attack, they found that there were no well armed bad men who beat and tortured the couple instead, the police claimed it was all a stage stunt meant to build online cloud

Smoke screen of likes.

Instead of lies. Likes is a one. Yeah, so I guess.

Go back, start from the drawing board on this. We need to workshop the tel.

Maybe it sounds better than the original Portuguese Perhaps, as Detective Anderson told local press, the investigation suggests she's not only knew about it, but agreed things in advance and stayed in contact with one of those involved afterwards.

She like hired her boyfriend.

That's what I'm thinking. See, now we're on the city.

I like to imagine them just sitting in the woods, punching each other in the face. Her husband cooked it out, maybe with the rock.

Yeah, try this one.

Oh oh that's too hard, too hard. But yeah, now okay, yeah, so let's just say I'm gonna put on my.

Detective hat please.

She she had her boyfriend beat him up.

I like that. I like where your head's at, good and suspicious.

Yeah.

So, once thirty officers were taking part in the operation Smoke Screen of Likes, then it came a series of arrests and property searches as the truth of the stage attack began to come to light. It was revealed that it was partly true since the influencer Frago's husband was unaware that the beating was fake, because it sure felt real to him when he was getting beaten and tortured.

When his teeth were all over the floor.

Yeah, he was legit beaten. She arranged that part, like beat.

Him up, but didn't she she supposedly got beaten, but yeah, not really, we've.

Been She didn't walk out with the the way he looks, yeah, exactly. So back to Detective Anderson, as he said, at all times, he has maintained that he genuinely believed it was a real kidnapping. Now, meanwhile, despite evidence that she arranged the kidnapping of her and her husband, she was also in contact with one of the three alleged kidnappers, her boyfriend, and she insists that she's innocent and she knows nothing

Wow.

Trouble for her is one of her alleged accomplices is now behind bars and another one is facing charges for receiving the ransom cash her boyfriend. I'm willing to bet that one, if not both, oh yeah, are likely to testify against her in exchange for lesser charges. So there you go. A quick around the world survey of faked emergencies for fun and profit and fraud with tourists.

That's incredible.

This leaves me to ask you, Elizabeth, Yeah, what's our ridiculous takeaway here?

Everything is fake, that is, and it's only worse now with AI, like, because we were already bad just on our own.

And now we've introduced the worst bad actor you can.

Oh yeah, we have. We've had like lies about you know, world events from governments. Oh okay, so we have like the top level bad lies. And then you can just it just keeps going.

Influences start lying about their like what their lives are like. But oftentimes they're.

Your whole thing is a lie. And then you have you know, I think everything is a lie.

Also small time lies like oh yeah, boss, I'm at work, I'm working remote. And then they like use like whatever like however they do with your cursor to figure out whether or not you're really logged on. So they are alling even on the most smallest levels. Right, it's just lies everywhere.

But it's also you know, it's we have built up this public persona of you know, not even just the influencers, but you know, you look at people's social media persona is a lie most of the time.

I totally agree.

You know, there are friends that I'm close with and I see like what they put on social media.

True, yeah, it's like, well I was with you that day.

Well no, it's not even like a lie, but it's like a misrepresentation and so you know, some of them are more egregious, where you're like, I know that your life is falling apart and you're looking like happy mommy. It does, and I feel for you, you know, and like mine like you. All of us curate, which I hate that word, but we very carefully release like what people can see.

I don't. I just I neither post things, right, don't. The curation is what you post and what you don't. Well, no, the don't is just like the picture didn't turn out. Like if I take a picture to share it, I share it. Yeah, there is no like, oh I want to show people. I just take a picture of my life.

Right, it's not you're not trying to give a narrative.

No, I don't. I don't care what people think about me. That's that's that's the big secret for me.

It really is.

I'm very honestly sharing. I'm like, look, I want you guys to see this. Yeah, I mean it.

We create narratives, and we've always done that, even prior to to social media. We create narratives to people that we know.

See like I need traffic.

Yes, we're like, no, I swear to God, like I wasn't doing that no, I really do have my seatbelt on.

I turned the music down. I make sure my seatbelt is not behind me and actually over my shoulder.

Yeah. So we we've always done that, right, but it gets magnified with social media so that you can create a narrative. And then the extreme of it are these influencers who are going to create a narrative that doesn't exist in reality of not even just like what they look like. Like there was a thing that I saw today about this this Chinese influencer who had a face o filter on and it was slitching.

That the one in the car with the kid. Oh no, that's a different one. She was in Chinese.

Yeah, yeah, this this woman was like she's like a streamer, influencer whatever it was. I think she's a streamer and she was doing her thing and her face filter started flitching, so it was like normal person anime figure. I went back and forth, back and forth, and she lost all these subscribers and all stuff, because it's like that's not that's not reality.

No, and a lot of people who've been wearing the filters, it's it's very convincing too.

It was a lady who got abducted really and the problem that the police had is that all the photos that our family had were social media that were so heavily filtered anything like yeah, just but yeah, I mean that's the thing. And like that's another thing. You you know, you know people who you see their social media feed and you're like, none of these.

Are years I saw you on Tuesday. That's not what you look like.

That's not what you look like. And it's either the filter or they hide behind like the kitty cat face or whatever.

Sure, it's just strange. Well, so, I mean I kind of go back to when you're in school and their teachers will tell you about using a calculators, like, well,

Good, that's glad. I'm glad you were able to get that out.

Now that we've done that, are you in the mood for talkback?

Always in the mood.

Produce a d Can you favors the one? Oh my God, I love cheek.

Hi Elizabeth Zieron and producer D. I don't know if I just sent you a message or not. I got very confused. It's the Messa from Texas. I listened to your Dolphin episode. I really wanted to tell you that. When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was this horrible movie called Dave of the Dolphins starring George C. Scott is awful. You must see it. He teaches the dolphins how to talk, and they talk like this podcast mackness back and as an adult I realized how bad it was.

But it's full of intrigue. There are hush the dolphins are trying to silence her. That's amazing.

Anything with George's gottall watch anything with dolphins. I will watch if they're together. This hit it's on.

It's on.

So thank you for this. So if you would like to reach out to us, you can go to Ridiculous Crime. On social media, Instagram is usually the best one to reach out to, so it send a DM there if you'd like. Also, you can see pictures from all of our episodes, or you can go to Blue Sky and you can see links to the episode, so you can

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