Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey it's Elizabeth.
Hey, it's Elizabeth Dutton. What's up, Burnette?
I got a question for you. And you're a cool felliny t shirt. Do you know what's ridiculous?
I do know it's ridiculous.
What shack shack diesel shack jackfu.
Yeah, Eel O'Neill. He's one of those celebrities.
Shoe well, yeah, that's what my friend's dad always says us every year.
Sequel. He's like a good Irish name. He's Irish. Yikes.
He he's one of those celebrities that's just like everywhere. We'll do an ad for anything. Oh yeah, yeah, you know, there's a handful of them.
If you can write the check to him and he can see that it clears. Huh.
So we got word that there was this thing called a shack pack shack pack, which then when I googled it, that was originally something that was called that was like a burger king deal.
That's what I thought, Yeah, in the early aughts.
It's like a sour dough burger. Shaquille O'Neill apparently endorsed, was particularly fond of so anyway, But now there's this new shack pack and it is a mash up, well but not.
Really was like a cryptocurrency, that's how bad it is.
No, it's it's a product. It's Icy Hot. You know he does.
Icy I mean, this.
Isn't that surprising. It's not truly a mash up. It's just a celebrity endorsement, okay, until until they go too far. So there's like a limited edition roll on Icy Hot for when you're curtain and a yeah, and then this is what the packaging looks like. So it kind of looks like a PEZ dispenservice that but the head is Shaquille O'Neill's giant.
Head that like removed from their body PEZ and.
It's totally going to go up someone's tutor holding it larger than I thought it would be. But so yeah, anyway, it's just kind of hideous and take.
That related is perfectly good. No, not really, I'm not saying, yes, you know.
He does what is it? The general all sorts of other ads and is long and so anyway, yeah, we got that from a few people on Instagram, thank you, and I think one of them, let me see, one was where's the email? That I got Scott Nelson. Scott his profile picture is some really cute dogs. So Scott, that's why we're going to pick you as the refer on this one.
Look you Yeah.
He also sent us a great picture that the interns forwarded me of Shilah boof doing gang science. So yeah, you know all around. Yeah, shock pack. I'm going to get one. It's limited edition. I didn't really look into how one would go about securing such a thing.
You should, I don't like, should get a pair of those shorts that have hot pocket pockets. Eric Buckolts sent me a thing on Blue Sky about that we talk about the hot pocket pockets.
I feel like we might have talked.
I'm trying to use this as a shield a defense. I'm holding this up here.
Trying to block my mash this like.
A magic cards like I don't know I'm gonna play.
It's not a real mashup though. It's just like a weak, weird promotional thing.
Yeah you know, I want saw Shaquille O'Neil outside of a restaurant in Beverly Hills the night before the season started at two am. It gets out of his like beautiful, like uh Bentley or no, yeah, Bentley. And he gets out and and I'm like, I'm walking out with this guy with a good friend of mine. Uh, and we both look up as this man unfolds from this car
right in front of us. I mean like we're walking out round the sidewalk and he's parked right there, getting out of the valet, and he just goes stretches, and I don't even know what to say. I just look at him and my head's going up, like I'm watching like Jack and the bean sprout stretch. And he gets up and he's just a full height. He's like seven three or whatever, maybe seventy five.
Of shoes on.
And he says like I'm like, he's like hey, I'm like, hey, shack. He's like, yo, push past me. I think he might have been self medicated.
So you know, it's like, how like, don't Lales have like the slowest heart? That's how he that.
It was really impressive, and.
You went on to write about him and for mel magazine.
Right wrote in the Size of the Little Shack.
Yeah, it's one of my red stories of all time.
I still get emails about it. Anyway, enough about already.
Too many ridiculous things abound.
Elizabeth, I got a story for you today. Okay, it's ridiculous.
My research into wigjackers, Yeah, led me down a different rabbit hole.
What I'd like to tell you about today.
Yes, specifically, yes, the story of the great trans Saharan Ostrich heist.
Oh yeah, this is ridiculous crime.
My podcast about absurd and rageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent motor free, that's right, and one hundred percent ridiculous.
You know that, that's right, Elizabeth Sarren. If I asked you, what would you say is your favorite bird?
My favorite bird, I would have to say I like redtail hawks.
Good answer.
In my backyard every afternoon there's a fight between crows and a red tail.
That's dope.
Yeah, it's pretty cool stuff.
Good entertainment too.
Oh my gosh.
You just go out there and they do it.
They do, they signal you do, they let you know it's on or you have to go out at a certain time.
Well, one of the mocking birds comes and taps on the windows.
Like Lizbeth, it's happening.
You better get out here.
I'm okay, good defeat this lapping.
It's happening. Well, I got a second question. Yes, what's your third favorite bird?
My third favorite bird? Oh? I got a great barn owl out in the tree outside my place too, so I can hear them on some night.
There's a lot of birds in your life.
I really. Do you have that Merlin app on your phone? Yeah?
You told me about them.
Yeah.
Sometimes I'm out there and I.
Just bird identify somehow.
Dude, I just go out there and I hit record, yeah, and just watch it. Rack them up, rack them all these lists of birds, bush tits, baller bush tits.
There is that recent the do fine?
Yeah, it's a recent one. But you know something, I don't know nothing about birds.
Okay, good news for you.
What's your favorite bird?
I'm not answering that question, a cop. What would you say is the weirdest bird?
What is even happening right now? The weirdest bird? What is that one with that giant bill that looks all crazy? Oh?
Yeah, like the stork thing. Yeah, but it's like huge and it has a clacking bill. It looks like a dinosaur illustration. Yeah, I don't know what that bird is.
Called the weird looking big bill bird.
Yeah, that answer is incorrect.
The correct answer that we were looking for is ostriche. The answer was ostrich. Elizabeth, what do you know about ostriches?
Long leg They stick their head in the ground.
That's true, they do. Yeah.
Now, if like me, you thought ostriches come from Australia, you would be wrong. They are not from down Under. I totally thought they're from down Under. Oh yes, a lot of those birds. Yeah, we'll get into that in a second. Turns out they're transplants. They're the common ostrich was brought to Australia, so you'll see a lot of them there and being bad asses, they caped captivity, they got free, got busy and created an enormous feral colonizers.
They're not native, sure, they were brought there, you know.
Now factually speaking, ostriches are criminals. No, they are not criminals. Well, they're free living, but they're they're from Africa, then they're There are two main species, the common ostrich from West and North Africa, and then there's the Somali ostrich, which is like from the horn. Now there's the subspecies, the rednecked ostrich aka the North African ostrich aka the Barbary ostrich.
Now I learned a whole lot about ostriches for this, so that way I could talk with some like at least the conviction of an eight year old with a new obsession.
So you didn't know this going into it, No, I didn't know most of this.
Love the research for the show.
This knowledge with you.
It's a gift I gave myself.
Beautiful, you.
Can't you damn right now.
The Ostrich Elizabeth is considered the largest living retit, and that is it was a new word for me. That's a term for the species of tall flightless birds. So EMUs are a tie It looks like it would be pronounced retight.
Yeah, but it's a red tit now.
Yeah, so this includes is his EMUs castawerries the rahah.
I just shifted way down into power nerd. Now I'm like trying to figure out like the word origin exactly.
It was all new to me. I was like, well, I've never been heard this reference.
What does it come from?
Well, ostro whatever, I'll look look up.
Yeah, they're the big daddies of the red tit family. The common ostrich stands nine feet tall. Dang, that weighs about three hundred and fifty pounds. Did you know that ostriches can run up to forty three miles an hour.
Wait, they're like shack exactly.
On two legs, it can run faster than a horse can on four what, Yeah, like a lot faster, like thoroughbreds running like thirty one miles an hour, So thirty two, you know, like they're running forty three.
I imagine it's pretty funny looking too.
Oh totally. And what ostrich run?
One single stride can be about six feet wide and from point to point.
Wow, exactly.
Ostriches are the largest heaviest bird on the planet, so heavy that they cannot fly.
They're like chickens.
They can kind of sort of hub or fly for a second, but instead ostriches run and like I said, faster than a horse, Elizabeth, they can also kick ass.
I'm going to I'm going to take one into the Kentucky Derby.
Right on the back of an ostrich. That would be dope.
The ostriches have these crazy strong legs and at the end of the of these clawed feet, which is two intense claws that can disembottle a full grown man.
This is perfect for the derby, right.
Exactly have you ever seen an ostrich like up close, like at a petting zoo or I.
Feel like I may have seen one at a zoo, but I'm kicking myself for not paying closer attention.
We saw one. We crossed country that time.
We stopped at the farm and like Arizona, and they had remember the eyelashes, how crazy long eyelashes were, huge eyes the memories.
Yeah, I know, I forgot.
Their eyes are two inches across. They have the biggest eyes of any land animals.
And honey, they pop, they do.
Mean, they're just stunning. Now.
Also their eyes are decorated, as they said, with these super long eye lashes. That's like reduce glare. But also because they're running at the speed of like an old Honda Civic, right, so they need to be able to see everything. Now, do you know about their eggs?
They're big, big ones, big ones, so they have these Okay, also let me I'll reverse it.
I'll tell you this. The adult male ostriches, they're covered in black feathers. That's who usually mean to see a drawing, it looks like that. Now for an accent, they have those little white wings a little tough to white legs. And then for they have the white tail fleather plumage, and then their legs are kind of pinkish.
You notice.
Okay, so the adult female ostriches they're not so striking. They have gray brown feathers instead of black covering them. There's a reason for this, these two feather colors. This isn't about mating selection. It isn't like, oh, the female ostriches prefer this. No, they've worked this out as an evolutionary advantage. It helps with egg protection. Ostriche daddies are super involved because they sit over the guard of the
nest during the night, so they're black. The females sit guard over the nest during the day, so they're brown like the savannah. So the black feathers disappear against the night sky. Brown feathers dis against, disappear against totally. And uh, you know, have you ever seen an ostrich egg up close? They're absolute units?
Are they the ones that the eggs that if you like, hard boil it.
It's clear I do not know. It sounds right, I did not, bigg I wish I knew the answer to that.
No. Yeah, there's one of them where if you had to hard boil it comes to crack it open. The egg white is actually clear.
That's cool, so the albumin doesn't turn like that.
Just imagine eating that is a double egg.
Well they came in China, would they age them and then the paper wrap almost clear?
But the would be like if someone's messing with you with like a jello. Yeah, ostrich could you imagine eating and ostriche deviled egg?
Yes, six inches long, five inches across. Hell, yeah, that's a meal for days. They weigh on average three.
Pounds three pounds.
Yeah, it's by far the largest egg of any bird or reptile on the planet. Not only did they lay the largest eggs, right, but these are the largest eggs since the days of the dinosaur, from the days of your Yeah, and they overlap with the days of dinosaur, but we'll get to that in a second. Yeah, they lay like seven to ten eggs at a time. Ten of those bad boys come out of your.
Twenty one pounds eggs exactly.
And each one of those eggs, if you were to eat them, like if they did, do your thing like boots cook them up, that's the equivalent protein to twenty four chicken eggs.
Each one is twenty one each egg twenty four chicken.
Eggsli, you have to very cool hand looke.
Does the price of eggs have you down? Have you considered ostrich? I also learned ostriches are, in your word, quirky. I mean they're poly like as they're into polygamy. They have unicorns and group dates. No, I'm kidding, they don't, but they are polygamous. Like the male will keep a bruta hens and then they'll like so then because of the egg laying issue, they pile all their eggs into one communal nest of all of his females, which is like the dominant female makes a nest and then the
I guess subdominant females. They put their eggs in her nest and then he sits on them. They got like a whole arrangement.
They're interesting exactly.
They're like, we're vegan.
Have you read Stacey, she's new to our ostrich.
They're annoying me. Now back out of this, put it into reverse.
I remember how he said the closest living relative to ostriches or the cassawaies and the Rayas and the EMUs, but they're all from Australia. I remember I said the red Hits. That's the name of the family. That's the name for that whole species group. But Australia and Africa are far apart. So how did like ostriches get there?
And there's a little thing called Pangaea.
Good quote, it's actually Gondwana. I didn't know about this, the super continent of Gondwana. Are you familiar with the super continent? I mean, I have to met. It's been a while since.
I've been reading up on super continents.
I'd forgotten more than I remembered about old deer Gondwana. The super continent of Gondwana was composed of four of the present continents, one the mostly submerged continent, and two subcontinents all together. So the four continents were Africa, Australia, South America and Antarctica. They were all pressed together. Now, the once submerged continent was Zeelandia New Zealand, and then the two sub continents were India and Arabia the peninsula.
So they all get pushed up and but Australia and Zeland stay down and then South America on it just jets over to the side. Now, as you might expect, this various geographical regions which are now separated by oceans still share to this day many of the same flora and fauna aka same plant and man animal life. Sure back to ostriches, their ancestors diverged evolutionary back in this period of Gondwana land. So when they separated, this was like in the Cretaceous period days of the dinosaur.
Yeah, like t rex in the days of yours exactly. Now.
Then when Gwendana broke up, ostridges they become this evolutionary cul de sac in Africa and Arabia. But they split into a few subspecies. But they're more like an evolutionary planned community, right with one way in, one way out.
So one in Florida, Yeah.
Exactly, the glade, you know, the what is it called the something, the something something.
They always have golf golf parts they drive around. Yeah, I do not know.
I should point out that the ostriches have been around for roughly, if I put it, numbers sixty six million years.
Sixty six That's.
Why there's so wild looking. They are old.
It also means they're evolutionarily a super success. They're like sharks, like we got this down, don't mess with us. Sharks have survived the ecological collapse that took out the dinosaurs, so did ostriches.
Yeah, and then came humans.
While the other predators of the African savannah may like to snack on an ostrich when they can catch them, humans are their real primary predator, so we have been since we emerged on the savannah, so for the last like two hundred thousand years or so.
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, like, look at them.
They're tall. They can't fly and escape us. They can run like hell.
Right, I can shredge it with them totally.
With the two towls, but with some planning, most of that can be overcome. And plus, their eggs are equivalent to two dozen chicken eggs, and they lay intended a time in a nest.
Oh man, that's eat for days for.
The trus Now, if you can catch a full grown adult, that's food for weeks.
So this is how we began.
To ordering wings at a restaurant.
I want the leg, give.
You the leg at like a medieval time totally held up ostrich drumstick.
Just work on that. You got a turkey leg.
I needed the I need a whole table for my ostrich leg. So one point we found their skin made good leather, like then the Egyptians they.
Figured that out. Yeah, They're like, oh, this is dope.
And then we began to associate ostriches and specifically ostrich feathers with the god Matt. That's the Egyptians. Yeah, and accordingly, so this becomes like divine justice. It also becomes symbolized with ostrich feathers, so now they're associated with the divinity. And then the pharaoh war II ostrich feathers in their crown, so it's divine god given authority over men and women.
Ostriches start to really have a come up, right this time keeping it Mediterranean over in ancient Greece, they're freaks for the ostrich egg, right, they start offering them up to gods as.
A worthy form of devotion, like here, please have an egg. This will feed your family for day.
Yeah.
The Turks of the Ottoman Empire also keeping it Mediterranean, my dudes, right, They would hunt ostriches. It was considered great sport to them because think about it, you got a nine foot tall flightless bird that can run faster than a horse.
Yeah, that's good sports, that is, I guess right.
Well.
After anyway, after a successful hunt, the ostrich feathers and the plumage with sometimes be worn as a prize of the hunt. So once again it's now designer bravery and accomplishment. And so this is about the time Ostrich feathers become a fashion statement, not from the Ottoman Turks. But once again it comes down to one person, one specific woman. You want to guess who Elizabeth. No, if you said
Marie Antoinette, you were correct. Ostrich feathers are basically associated with royalty, dating back as I said to the pharaohs of Egypt, and this tradition continues through the Renaissance, when kings of queen and Europe they opted to use ostrich feathers to show their.
Associations with the previous divinity. They're like, oh, we're like the fare just like that old stuff.
Oh yeah, give me some Ostrich feathers, you know. At the same time, ostrich feathers also become mundane. They become the simple tool to express oneself. Ostrich feathers they become quills to write on parchment paper. So now the durability of Ostrich feathers also means that quills last longer, so people start writing longer letters, longer court documents. This commoner's technology lends itself to the creation of literature of the era. So the Renaissance is this is a huge part because
of Ostrich. Right, anyway, let's take a little break. Can I get back. We're gonna get back to my girlme Marie Antoinette, and connect this to the big wigs I told you about earlier, Yes, Elizabeth.
Arin, but no, before you begin, Yes, I did a little bit of work during the ads.
That's what you were doing.
You went to sleep. I did the responsible thing and I went to work. And number one, the place in Florida is called the Villages.
Oh right, like a horror film, Yes, very much so.
And then the clear Egg that's the penguin.
Oh, double down. That's why I was like, can't fly?
Yeah, okay, you can't fly, Clear Egg, never lose. Go ahead.
Well I returned into uh and I say this loosely my girl Marina's one night she was looking to find some new visual shock to signify her elevated status, and so she grabbed this brilliant, curling Ostrich feather. She shoved it into her big ass wig and she pairs it with his peacock feather. The look becomes instantly iconic. And this is in the air still when everybody's doing the big wig. So, as we covered before, so went Paris,
so went the world's fashion. So this look, for whatever reason, I guess they just did like a lithograph of it. I don't know how it passed around and everyone's like, oh, you got to soon enough. Ostrich feathers. They're the look of the day. And that day lasted and lasted and lasted into the nineteenth century, into the twentieth century. Ostrich feathers remained of the rage in women's fashions on both
sides of the Atlantic. It was crazy that meant the price paid for these fine, eye arresting architectural ostage feathers. Skyrocket's Elizabeth. Yeah, And by the end of the eighteen hundreds, from hats to funerals, Ostrich feathers are the thing. Okay, and as we've covered, this coincided, but they fall and the wigs is a mainstay and look for the rich of the you know, rich and decade and they're like, oh, no, I'm not doing wigs anymore. I'm all into big stupid hats.
Oh and those are those are very popular for big stupid hats.
Exactly as you know.
So now we get the elaborate hats of the days they're like, yeah, you should put some striking plumage in this fanciful exactly. So by beginning of the twentieth century you get these hats.
Oh, it's crazy decade in that's lovely.
Yeah, I thought you'd like that.
The one of the women there that I'm showing you on the right is Lillian Russell, the American actress.
Yeah, I'm not sure if you recognize that name.
Yeah, but anyway, as his cultural craze goes and the wealthy folks are exorbitant prices to outdo their peers, we both know what that means, don't we.
Crime?
Crime.
So that starts off the Great ostrich Heist of nineteen eleven, the Ostrich Yes, great Trans Saharian Ostrichized of nineteen eleven.
As opposed to the Great Northern.
The Trans Siberian, or the Transvall.
There's a lot of transd be very specific about when you're talking about your Ostrichized steamroller.
Yeah, you can't just cross anything. This is Transaharan.
So I got a question for you, if you had to guess when Ostrich feathers were at the peak premium price. Okay, how much do you think they were worth? You want to take a guess a pop, Yeah, I'll give you price. This is eighteen eighty two the feather trade.
It is eighteen eighty two dollars.
As an all feathers sold, including ostrich feathers in eighteen eighty two. I'm not going to ask you to do this. I'm going to put some frame on this for you. The whole feather trade was bringing in five million dollars a year. That would be roughly worth fifteen point seven billion dollars a year today with it being just for the global feather trade. The feather industry at the time was more lucrative than oil and gold. Wow, the second only to the Kimberly diamond mine.
Wow.
So by nineteen thirteen, which is like, you know, right around the point that this story takes place, at the height of their value, ostrich feathers were worth how much per pound do you think per pound?
Per pound?
Oh, gosh, there's a lot in the pound.
Yes, it's a lot.
I don't know.
One thousand dollars, good, guess, five hundred dollars okay, which if you convert. That would be sixteen thousand, two hundred and thirty five dollars for a pound of feathers.
Father, isn't that like this is not too far away from the time. Remember that guy that you talked.
About wrist, Yes, a feather thief.
Feather thief that was all autubond.
Yes, exactly the same feathers, overlapping feather.
So like everyone was all about the feathers.
They loved the feathers and they were so worthwhile and people they also liked it because they could go tramping off into exotic places. Yeah, exploit them, take the feathers and go back to where they're very valuable, you know.
Just as a quick aside, my nephew when he was maybe two, Sure he see feathers that have these pillows on my sofa that are down filled. And if a little feather came out of it and he noticed it, he'd pick it up and say, oh, my hair, and then tuck it back into his hair. He thought he's a smart kid.
Now totally get this. He is a smart kid, but he thought that that's my hair. I don't know what I'm doing my hair like this.
Let me put it back here.
Sorry, for the mess.
Yeah, so I always think about that with people tucking feathers in their hair.
My hair, my hair, Oh, my hair.
So you can imagine if these are so valuable that speculators, investors as well as smugglers and thieves would get into the ostrich feather industry. Right now, the most valuable ostrich feathers were from the Barbary ostriches. Those are the North African subspecies. They were known to have the thickest, most luxurious, resplendent plumage Elizabeth.
Yeah, it just curling, yes, really good body.
Now, far more valuable than the ostrich feathers that were collected from the South African ostrich which.
Were more numerous numbers. So there were more of those ostriches in South.
Africa, yes, right, So the South Africa is responsible for eighty five percent of the ostrich feather market.
Eighty five percent.
Now, if you wanted to get the more lucrative ostrich feathers from the Barbary region of North Africa, you had to rely on camel trained caravans that were bringing the feathers through the Sahara crossing. This vast trans Sahari trade ride. It totally dating back to antiquity. So you got proven nons and you got history. Now, due to this camelbacked nature of the Barbary ostridge feather distribution networks, Elizabeth, they were far more rare in the market and their quality
obviously was still more coveted. So you have these two factors that are causing the price to be valuable. But in South Africa, the British overlords down there, who just supplanted recently the Dutch Borer ethnic group as the main exploiters in the country, they were cuckoo for the ostrich feather industry.
They're like this guy like.
Basically, imagine one British fellaw said to another British fellow if these ostriches are so valuable, why don't we follow them?
And the other fellaws like rdio what they're.
Like, No, but people want scrubbed table, they don't want factory farms ostriche.
Dude, have you ever had ostrich meat?
No, I mean all the weird meats, like if you can make a burger out of it, I've probably probably probably tried it.
Really, Oh yeah, well I don't.
I don't think it's it's like turkey, It's very similar. You know, kind of a dry like gray meat, you know, like a cross between like a red and a white meat.
It's like a gray meat.
So at this point, ostrich ranches become a big deal in South Africa, right, So South African ostrich farms start to dominate the global market, and that's how they corner the supply maximizer profits with subpar ostridge feathers. Yeah, of course, so this bothers the ostrich farmers, so their feathers are considered subpar.
They're like, what's what's wrong with the arms.
We dominate the market, so they start to covet these barbary ostriches. They're like, we only get our hands with
those North African birds. However, the South African ostrich farmers, they you know, basically resent the fact that also there's this slippery truth to the ostrich feather market, which is the feathers passed through so many hands in middlemen and going across the desert, it's really hard to know on their way either to the European or the American markets, what is the real provenats are the exactly, So oftentimes
people didn't know where the feathers were. They only cared about the quality which means if they could get their hands on some of these North African birds, bring them down to South Africa, put them on their farms. Yeah, done, deal. It's not about where they're from. This is not like tear war for like, you know, we need to have them standing on the right soil.
Or maybe maybe.
So they say to themselves, what if we set up a couple of blokes up north, have them grab some barbary ostriches, We bring them back down to South Africa, set up a couple of breeding pairs, breed our own luxury line of ostrich feathers. It yeah, something Victoria.
These are wild ostriches they're going to catch.
Yeah. So in nineteen ten, South Africans they hear word from the Brits, who they've just are. They're getting spun off right, They're like, oh, you're on your own now, Union.
Of South Africa. Good luck.
Yes.
But so there's all these Brits are every where, and so the Brits are telling them like, oh, we heard in the council office in Tripoli that we heard a location of where you can find the barbary ostrich is located. Because they don't have like they're not really flying it.
It's nineteen ten.
There's no way to see the desert unless you go marching out there. So they get there's like word that there is we know where a flock of a big flock of these birds are eaten away from the world in an oasis near the sands of the Sahara. So
specifically these it was the high value ostriches. So everyone's like, oh, where they're like, oh, and in Southern Sudan, which is interestingly not the Sudan we would think of because okay, by this way, so you think of South Sudan, that's like below Egypt, right, yeah, okay, below Sudan, that's not this. Southern Sudan was the name for the French colonial holdings of West Africa, okay, and so the nations of Mali, Niger, that's what we're talking about, Okay.
Chad, that area. So this is yeah.
Anyway, So the Brits in the Triple Embassy, they say, basically directly south of us, on the other side of the Sahara is where there's all these birds, and so they'd go only tell their confederates in South Africa. The South African ostrich industry started small, but it quickly grew under a juggernaut. Right, so, but it basically it takes them about ten years from eighteen sixty five, the industry starts with like eighty ostriches. A decade later they've got
thirty two thousand. Oh they're kicking right so again still subpar varieties. They're like, okay, once we get our hands on this, we can take our skills. We now know how to farm them. They're not dying off like at the beginning. So they're like, okay, problem was there was a whole law about you cannot go, if you're British into French territory and just go grabbing our birds. It would be a crime. It would be like a real treaty violation. It could lead to a war just to
get these ostriches. Because right now the Brits, in the French, in the Germans, they're all fighting over Africa. They're very quickly descending and throughout the end of the nineteenth century carving it up.
Oh yeah, so deciding guess what all of you don't know each other. You're a nation.
Yeah, we drew a map here it is you guys are now Togoland. So quick plug, there's this great coverage of this story from Atlas Obscura. I recommend the story and were largely that website. Great website, fantastic. So the man who gets selected to lead this daring trans Saharan Ostridge heist that they have planned and they're discussing down in South Africa is this guy Russell Thornton. He's like a British adventurer type. He knows the area since he was a veteran of the Boer War and he had
won the region for the Brits. Is South Africa I'm talking about. So he selects for his team two other experts a fourth man who he trusted with his life, and he goes, this is my heist team. We're gonna go up there and get them birds. The two experts that he pick were a pair of Ostrich ranchers. He's like, they know birds, they'll be able to tell me. Grab that one. He looks like a goer.
Yeah, guys names are Frank Smith and J. M. P. Bauker. Fourth man, the one he trusts with his life is his brother Ernest.
Okay, that makes sense right now.
So the two experts they travel up from South Africa to meet him in London to plan their adventure with the team leader Russell Thornton. They outfit themselves with all the various gear they'll need for their African adventures.
Yes, very Royal Society helmets.
Yes exactly. They're going around shopping for this. Imagine that, right, going around London, and they decide they need outfits for cold weather, warm weather. They need gear for the desert in the savannah. Right, so the ostriches that they're gonna be going after, they're located in a semi arid region, but they're gonna have to start like in Nigeria and go north. So they're like, it'll be hot and then it'll be cold and be aired. So we need clothing
for everything. We're gonna needed trunks of clothing.
And in their minds they have the montage of the travel.
Yes exactly.
You know you have to have like a nice dress shirt totally.
If they need to get invited to dinner, yeah, I go, doctor Livingston, I presume would you like drinks? So the two experts they travel to London, they planned their adventure and uh, at this point, the year is nineteen eleven, right, so this same year, there's a rumor that blows across the Atlantic and worries these folks. They in both South African contingent and in great The rumor is that there is this trader who's been spotted in America. Talk is
he's working with the Americans. And to assume this traders telling the Americans about the location of the Barbary ostriches. They do that the American gets their hand on it. Done deal, They'll just put them in Texas, in Arizona and California.
And be creating these beautiful things. Yeah, handover fist.
Also, the American market is the biggest market for ostrich plumage. This is where they're selling the stuff to the hats in New York. The ladies in Washington, d C. Philadelphia, Baltimore, you name it. They want these things. Even the River City Elizabeth They the Victorian ladies they want the plumage. Is how they tell people I'm rich and I'm important.
I just feel like Europe would have a much like deeper bench in mark. Oh do they do.
But the Americas is just so many of them. And they're also the nouvau riche, so they're they're willing to signal and to buy and also the prices because they.
Oh, we had to bring this over and then they just tell them about their berber to trade did they have to deal with They're like, oh, here's more money, So they're they're not smart buyers anyway. So all this means is big bucks if if the Americans get their hands on it, or big bucks that they'll be losing out if the Americans get their hands on it.
Yeah.
The trader who's talking with the Americans is allegedly a man from the South African Ministry of Agriculture. So he's in the no yeah, motivated by an abundance of fear and concern that they're about to be beat out on all these huge profits by the Americans. The South African Parliament holds a vote and they authorize the secret mission of Thornton and his team.
Secret.
Yeah, they're supposed to head to the saw hell and come back with the ostriches. It wasn't just business now, it's war.
Yeah.
So the trouble was that the alleged trader was Russell Thornton's own brother, Ernest, the man he trusted with his life. Yes, he'd been invited along h ostrate adventure.
I wonder waiting for him to.
Get to London. He's over there in New York going by the way, I got the maps. You want to point me outs? So they he Then he turns around he set sale, you know, from America back to London. Now South Africans are so worried, and their confederate British allies are so worried.
They also have to hope.
That none of this gets back to the nosy French that they're planning on sneaking into their.
Colonies and stealing their births, and can the Americans keep a secret? You know?
And they're like, I don't think so.
So the team leader's brother, right, it's over there in America. They're worried about that.
It looks like their secret plans are ruined before they even get started. But at this point, the Californians and the Arizonans are the ones they hear about rumors of talk of some ostrich thing. They send people to New York to hear about this. It's getting crazy, right. Their fears, though, aren't well founded, because it turns out Ernest baby brother of team leader, travels back to England and he goes a subterfuge worked perfectly he'd gone to America as a
double agent to find out what the Americans knew. He told them nothing of the Barbary Ostriches. He's purely on affect funding mission, very British. And then also it's to scare the South Africans into approving their adventure, so they get want brilliant right. So the problem though is that the French territory does begin to hear whispers, and so there is that one problem. But now at this point they are told, you know, with their official orders to sneak into French territory and.
Go do crimes.
Right, and they're basically like privateiers on the Spanish main right, but they're ostriche thieves traveling the seas of sand of the Sahara. Now, before they head off to the Sahel for their Ostridge heights, the team travels to Paris. This would be a key stop on their track.
Well that's just thumbing their nose at the French.
Well they needed because the French are like big because I remember they have a lot of the North African colonies, so they're big in the to this trade and a lot of the stuff comes through Tripoli. So the team travels to Paris to talk to people who are in the know, and then they need to win over the trust of one man in particular. They travel from London to Paris to attend a top secret meeting with this mysterious feather merchant named Hassan. The meeting, of course, was
about their planned ostrich adventure in Africa. But rather than tell you about Elizabeth, I'd like you to close your eyes and I'd like you to picture it.
Paris, France, nineteen eleven.
Elizabeth, at the moment, you are working in the home of Isaac Hassan, from the Hassan family of international feather merchants.
A deal went bad.
You wound up owing the family a rather sizable amount of money. The resolution of this debt requires that you now work for the Hassan family as their personal assistant. The French say valet. The britsay valette. I say, we call the whole thing off anyway. You're a valet working in an impressive, established Parisian manner. At the moment, you're carrying a silver tray with a jostling tea service setup
balanced atop the tray. You make your way into the grand seating room and set down the tea service tray. Seated like an emperor on his decorative couch, is the host, Isaac Hassan. He's busy discussing business with his guests, a pair of brothers named Thornton, Russell, and Ernest, and a pair of rough around the edges South African ostrich farmers named Smith and Baker. You didn't catch their first names. You know how mister Hassan likes his tea, so you
prepare his tea cup first. For pouring the hot contents into the delicate bone china teacup, You add a splash of milk a touch of honey. You add a teaspoon to the saucer and hand the tea to mister Hassan in mid speech. He accepts the tea with barely a glance, old habit as he addresses his guest. You ask Russell Thornton if he'd like tea. He nods in the affirmative. You pour his and you ask if he'd care for milk or honey.
He says both. As you add the splash of.
Milk and a teaspoonful of honey, you overhear the most salient.
Points from their conversation.
You don't know it, but these men have come to have a top secret meeting with your boss, prominent feather trader Isaac Hassan. Obviously, being in the feather business yourself, you do know that Hassan is a notable Parisian feather merchant who hails from a distinguished family of feather merchants dating back for at least a century, generations of Hassans have traded feathers in the markets and stalls of Paris.
Over that time, the family has developed personal connections to trade networks that extend from North Africa across the Sahara Deep into the French territories of Sub Saharan West Africa.
After you hand Russell Thornton his tea, you hear mister Hassan boast for his guests that over the century of his family's involvement in their lucrative international feather trade, the Hassans have watched as the trade that once passed through countries and territories controlled by the Ottoman Empire have witnessed this once vast empire crumble into independent satellite nations, now ripe for the European powers to pick over all. Very sad you ask, Ernest.
Thornton if he'd care for tea? He shakes his head.
You step to the veteran South African ostrich farmers who wear their dirty leather boots in the sitting room. You know you're going to be cleaning up dried mud clumps from god knows where later today. You politely smile and ask if the ostrich farmers would care for tea. They
both nod in the affirmative. As you pour the tea, You listen to mister Hassan continue his boasts as he just describes how the Hassan family of feather merchants still operate their trade network with the help of North African officials, but the trade through Tripoli has fallen off, and now they must deal with the layer of French bureaucracy and
a layer of bribes for those same bureaucrats. This is all eating into the family's once great profits and they would like to move on from the international feather trade. Times have changed. You ask mister Smith, the ostrich farmer milk honey. He nods violently, Your boss. Mister Hassan continues to sing the praises of his family. They're savvy, as it explains that the Hassan family plans not only to get out of the feather trade, but to sell out to get out while the getting is good. Do you
think that should have been my choice? You concentrate on handing the tea to mister Smith. Next you begin to approach mister Boucher with tea as Isaac Hassan tells this gathered heist team that he is fully prepared to help the South Africans with their African ostriche adventure.
For a price. He tells him he is prepared to sell what he knows he will arrange safe.
Passage thanks to the family's network of contacts across North and West Africa, but again for a price. Then he dangles the best he has to offer. He promises to connect these adventures with the Emir in the land, a powerful man who will provide them protection, and promises that if he can find and buy ostriches, they can safely get them out of the country. Because finding and buying
them is only half the challenge. The harder part will be the ostriche drive from North central Africa south to the rail lines and onto the coast, he says the bandits, he tells them, the raiders African highwaymen, nomads. They will all pose challenges. The protection of the Emir will be most necessary. And again for a price. You hand mister Baker his tea, but he's not looking in your direction. Instead, he's focused on Isaac is Shan and his cheshire cat Grin.
The irritated South African ostrich farmer is short tempered, apparently also kind of cheap.
He asks how much is all this going to cost?
And he gesticulates wildly, hitting the tea cup you're offering. The teacup goes flying. The hot, milky sweet contents hit you right in the moomoo.
Because you're wearing a very tasteful silk and mumoo.
Now there's a hot stain blooming right in the center of your chest, and the ostrich farmer sees this. He doesn't even apologize. Instead, he starts to laugh. That makes the other ostrich farmer start to laugh, which makes the other two from the heightst team also burst into up Rorya's laughter.
You stand there wondering what have you done to deserve your fate?
You try to make a little money in the international feather market, and now look at you. So there you go Elizabeth, the taste dore we have in store for us. Take a little break and after this we will get to Africa.
Elizabeth.
After tessful meeting with the mysterious feather merchant, your former boss, Isaac Cassan, and after they meet his price, the great Ostridge heightst team is now ready for their raid. The team set sail for the coast of West Africa. They arrive in the British colony of Nigeria. From there, they travel north on a riverboat, Very Colonel Kirks, It's a five hundred mile trek up the Niger River. After that arduous leg of their adventure, they step off in this
little town of Borrow at the river's edge. From there they board a train and they travel to a city called Kano. It's a major trading point for the mini trans Saharan camel caravans that are crossing.
So do you think they just have like trunks and trunks of stuff.
I think they do, so picture that just like a camel caravan behind them. So when they arrive, Russell Thornton starts inspecting the local ostridge feathers on offer to see if any of them are close to the quality he's looking for, and he recorded in his journal those from Zinder are the right type. According to all evidence, the right type of feathers are from the French territory. So he finds out that the ones being traded and filtering into this area from further north over the line in
French territory are perfect. They have confirmation, right, Yeah, they got that good good. So, emboldened by this, he sends word back to his bosses in South Africa. He reports that their trek has found success. They ask for official permission to sneak over the border into the French territory and steal these prize barbary ostriches, and then they wait for word from the folks back home in South Africa.
Now at this point, they're languishing right on the edge of the French colonial border, hoping nobody hears about them, and they're killing time in the top of Nigeria and British territory, yeah right, and buying up ostrich feathers, trying to lay low and not let anyone find out about.
Their true Everybody knows they're there, like the word has to have spread.
Oh totally. I mean, they stick out like the preferbial sword thumb Yeah, yeah.
And their pith helmets walking around going anybody have any ostrich feathers now. Thornton and his team, as I said, they're chilling, trying to keep busy, and they're buying up everything, so they're kind of marks. But after six weeks of this, their impromptu shopping spree INDs because they get word from the South African officials they are approved for.
A clandestine operation into French territory. They're told that they're operating budget is seven thousand pounds sterling. That's estimated to be enough to buy a flock of one hundred and fifty high quality barbary ostriches if need be, otherwise grabbed them.
Yeah right.
The South African authorities also informed Thornton that if he or any of US heist team are caught in French territory, the mission will be disavowed and the government will disavow.
Them as well. Oh wow, it's very ostriche based mission. Impossible, Yeah, real to.
Something like It's really something like that, the impossible mission family.
Now it's co time, Elizabeth. So the expedition, they sneak over the French colonial border. They travel one hundred and fifty miles more north into the semi arid landscape right below the Sahara Desert. They arrive at a place called Fort Zender. This is now basically in Niger, what we would think of his niche. They pretend to be ranchers who've heard about ostriches and just innotantly looking to buy a few for their place back home. And yes we
are English. The French authorities hear about these strangers looking by ostriches.
They zoom over.
Now, this could be big trouble for them, obviously, because they're gonna be disavowed. The Ostrich heist team gets lucky the French authorities. They don't arrest them, which they could have done. Instead, they just tell the prospective Ostrich farmers, no get going. So the French is already they're rightly suspicious, right, They just tell these like Ostrich appreciators beat it now. The Ostrich high team they get turned away without their
coveted flock of one hundred and fifty ostriches. They're forced to leave French territory. They literally like take them back. They're like get out, yeah, and they're turned back. They have to march south to British territory with French spies following them whole time. They may and possibly there's rumors that American spies are also following them, trying because they've been kidding, they're piggybacking the operation, trying.
To find them ahead of them.
So there's also American spies that are shadowing them the whole time.
If they're not traveling incognitio.
There's like groups of white men following each up to the ground. Central Africa. Yeah, in the arid areas where there's nothing on the horizon until you just see like just out of the heat that's dissipating. All of a sudden, people on.
The show up with this caravan of all their stuff.
Exactly a train of stuff.
Buying up Ostrich feathers.
If they're lucky that bandits just don't rob them every day.
Talk an Ostrich everywhere exact rather than being like I'm sorry, what is that. No, I'm not familiar with that. I don't know her, and then you just go about your business and then zoink he grab some.
Frenchworn legion runs them out of the country. So somewhere along the way, the Ostrich ized team they do manage to score some ostriches, not the flock they wanted, but at least they don't come away empty handed as far as what they get. The flock they came away with. Many suspect that their business partner Hassan coordinated with contacts with the local emir. Yeah, to sneak around and get some barbary ones. And it's like, don't worry you guys messed up, I'll take care of it.
Yeah, yeah, that's the idea, right, so.
And then they would owe him big yeah.
But apparently it was sketch getting back, because there are reports in letters home from like one of the expert ostrich farmers, they one named Smith Totally. He rides back to his family like, dearest Emily, I survived the raids into French territory and then racing back to British territory with our legal ostriches. We were set upon by no mad tribes, possibly the Berbers, I'm not quite sure. And then he also mentions conflicts with the French army. They
were shooting at them. Apparently whatever did happen as they made their raids and snuck back and forth across the border, because apparently that's what they had to do.
The Ostrich team eventually procures.
All the ostriches thereafter, and once they have their birds, they take this ostridge drive and trek hundreds of miles south back to Nigeria. So imagine a cattle drive, but it's all ostriches.
Oh god, right.
Now I have to remind you ostriches can run faster than horses. Yeah, so you have to imagine that was a.
Crazy ostriche drive to back to Nigeria.
Who's like, did they pick up a local?
They definitely had some.
Look the long sticks beating the earth and going not that way, not that way.
Imagine pick up you know, some sheep dogs.
You definitely need some better.
You can't just rely on two South African Ostrich farmers. So so we do know it was this whole thing's fraught with challenges, right because also heist team leader Forton, he gets cut down by malaria.
So now he can't walk, he can't ride a horse, he can't do it.
Hes to be carried.
So now they got to get more people.
They PLoP them into a hammock and have to heft him hundreds of miles back to friendly British territory.
Crazy everyone that's malaria. But like really, he's just tired of walking.
I think I've turned my ankle. I'm gonna have to have a lie down.
So the Ostrich's ized team they make it back over the border with their crazy Ostrich cattle drive and uh, we make it back into what's now Nigeria. They load up a flock of their contraband ostriches. They border train to Lagos. That's what the big port is. So the train cars are modified to carry these ostriches. I like to imagine it like a circus train where the ostriches are poking their heads out of the top right, just
like a blossom of ostrich heads. So up the one hundred and fifty ostriches they set out with one hundred and forty survived the Ostriche cattle drive, the train ride to the coast, and then the ship voyage down to Cape Town.
Not bad.
One hundred and forty eight hundred put if you can believe it. When they arrive in South Africa, the ship is met and feted like the arrival of conquering heroes. Oh yeah, they had done it. They'd trekked off into unknown thens and come back with a flock of coveted ostriches. Everyone knows this marks the birth of a new wave of generational wealth for the South African ostrich industry. Except Elizabeth, life is funny, fun Just when you think you have
it all figured out. You've done the hard thing, the illegal thing, the impossible task, you survive the trek, You've come home, the conquering hero, and then just two years later, the bottom drops out of the ostrich feather market and you'll lose everything. It's like a modern Creek myth, like a Paul Thomas Anderson Marietta. The twist of fate was there to be seen for those with the right eyes to see it, like Hassan getting out of the industry,
or ears to hear it, you see, Elizabeth. At the time, there was a little something called the birth of the animal rights movement. Energy for the movement was the wholesale slaughter of birds around the world to power the wig and later hat industries with their brilliant and exact feathers. So whole bird populations were being extincted in pursuit of their fine feathers. So as a result, when photographic evidence to go gets published of this industrial scale bird slaughter
that's happened now where people can't see it. The response from animal lovers and decent people is tremendous and it all comes down to this Australian ornithologist named Arthur Mattingly.
He no relations to don He tramped into the wild.
He photographs this widespread devastation that's occurring in the natural environment.
Right.
I've been talking like these feather hunters are just wrecking shop. And he photographs the slaughter of adult egrets and herons them in Australia.
Like killing them and then pulling the feathers.
The chicks don't have good feathers, so they leave all these chicks to die. So he has all these empty nests with the adults have been taken and it's just starving. Photos get published an article called Plundered for their Plumes. It's syndicated published around the world. Huge uproar in Europe, mainly in the UK, USA, France, Spain, Netherlands, Denmark responsor. The article it galvanizes a movement. It changes the opinion
of these delicate beauty of the feathers. Yeah, they become like blood diamonds, is blood feathers.
Or like a fur code totally exactly.
It's very og furs murder. Yeah, right, So soon organizations are formed to protect birds. In particular, these two American women, Mental Hall and Harriet Hemanway, who founded the what Audubon Society you called it now, they led popular boycotts of feathers and the hats that people wear them. And they also had no imitation feathers, the whole thing. We're against it right right over in the UK they have the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. They're together, working
with both sides of the Atlantic. They lobby against this wholesale slaughter. The millinery industry and the wigmakers take it on the chinch.
Sure.
This leads to a wave of pamphlets, public lectures, magazine articles, books. The whole tide turns against them. Now remember the Transaharan Ostrich heist. Yeah, went down in nineteen eleven. Yeah, by nineteen thirteen, the international feather market is in free fall. Feather markets, yes, the feather markets are once huge, selling bird plumage. Right, like flower markets would sell flowers, they close up shop. You can't even find them happening anymore.
The buyers just aren't there. The popularity is on the wane. But a couple factors other than the animal rights that killed it are all they all convene at.
The right time. Because one year later, in nineteen fourteen World War One.
All those big ornate, brightly feathered hats, they look really at it taste right, The splendor of a feather seemed at odds with the industrial horrors of trench warfare, mustard gas attacks.
Right.
Do you know what also became the big new bird based energy in the culture bird watching?
This is when bird watching becomes a thing.
People decide, rather than wear the beauty of the birds, why don't we tramp out into the wild, get a bit of a walk, experience it for ourselves, bring some binoc there's maybe a camera, record the beauty, share it with others.
And so the people who did this becomes a thing.
Right.
Another cultural trend was all those crazy big Victorian era hats and the insane plumage. Yeah, well that gets killed off because of something with five wheels that goes beep beep. The advent of the automobile kills off Victorian fashions, tons of them, right, in particular, crazy big ornate hats you can rock around in your model tea or your open top Duzenberg with some stupid big hat. Another fashion trend that also kills off the feather industry, women decided to
chop off their hair. So when the bob haircut becomes a thing in the nineteen teens, that left no purchase for those crazy big Victorian hats to sit. So between the Great War, the event of the car, and women changing fashions and hair and stupid big hats going out, and the feather industry just implodes in like two year's time. And so you know what, who's left holding a very expensive bag? That's right at the South afric agains who'd launched their trans Saharan ostroch type to corner the ostrich
feather market. Oopsies and now of the original flock of contraband smuggled ostriches that some survived in South Africa for another two and a half decades. The last one, an old male, died during World War Two. It's reported he died some time between nineteen thirty nine and nineteen forty four, and it's also reported he was killed by a lightning strike. I love that they know the cause of death really clearly,
but the time of death five year window park. Yeah, we're like, hey, look, there was a war on and we were not doing the best of keeping records on the deaths of our awn. Yes, yes, I think we remember that one. So those highly sought after ostriches that were near Fort Zinder and what's now modern Niger. The French authorities who never really gave a feather a fig about them. Apparently they'd blocked the raiders and the speculators, but they didn't safeguard the ostriches.
So the flock died off.
Dude over like habitat loss and over hunting. Thanks to colonialism, this once prized flock is.
Now no more. It's extinct. Oops. So this whole story is very much Have I ever told you about my time in the dark court of Africa?
You know it just reads of colonialism, exploitation, international games being played in far away places. Yes, exactly, and so ends our story of the great transaharent ostracized.
What's the ridiculous takeaway, hey, Elizabeth, it's.
You know, you mentioned blood diamonds, and you think about, like how you can grind this feather industry to a halt by showing images of starving chicks, and you can you know, grind the fur industry to a halt with the imagery for that, but we really haven't done enough to grind the diamond industry. And it's like those are children that they're sending in there, and when you read like accounts of it and you see photos and you know, it's so affecting, but it's you know, we're all I'm
guilty of it too. Where I don't like to watch movies where the dog dies. We're a soft touch with it when it comes to animals, but the human beings and kids, you know, people are able to kind of abstractify things.
We have all these animal rights activists working looking for animal animals at this time while children are working in factories losing their fingers.
Yes, exactly exactly. But you know, we like, we like kids in theory. I find when it actually comes to saving a kid, not so much.
Take away, Oh, Elizabeth, I feel so refreshed. Man, I can't believe me. Ask my ridiculous takeaway is fashion? Man, it's a killer. Huh, that's good. I just kind of find it really amazing.
I was, you know, I went from one rabbit hole or one you know, wormhole or whatever holes to another of like fashion crimes, and I think I found a couple others while I was doing this research. I'm not going to immediately jump on them, but like it's just amazing, like once something has value.
Yeah, so that's why I just don't trust crypto. So there you go.
Yes with you anyway, it's the feather market right now. So do you in the mood for a talkback?
Yes?
Can you favorites with one? Please?
Oh?
God?
Hell, Hi Elizabeth, Saraen, and Dave. This is your friend Renee thinking about your episode on Parkour. I've been watching Vertico today and the first scene teaches us that Jimmy Stewart is really really bad at Parkour. Hope you guys are doing good bye bye.
It is it is. That is the lesson every Windows cock wanted us to know. Yes, yes, yes, yes, so as always.
Yeah, you can find us online at Ridiculous Crime on the social media, it's mostly Blue Sky and Instagram.
I think we also have a Ridiculous Crime pod on YouTube. Go check that out. They're dope. They're animated. You can listen and it's fun.
And we have a website, ridicular Crime dot com, which just won I believe an award from Willie Nelson for the best certified pot on offer on the Internet.
You're kidding, Yeah, we beat Willie's reserve. We beat his own pot. Yeah. Yeah. We can't sell itator anywhere, but we just offer it. You come over there, we'll give you some exactly. So.
Also, we love your talkbacks emails if you'd like it, Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and as far as the talkbacks, go to the iHeart app downloaded. If you don't know about it, Yeah, you can record a talkback and maybe hear your voice here. And if you don't know about gmails, you just go there and you type in ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and whatever email app you use and just send us letter.
But start it out, do you. Producer d thank you for listening. We will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton, that's her and Zaron Bennette.
Let Me, produced and edited by the Trans Siberian Orchestra Heist team leader Dave Kustin and starring an Alis Rucker as who did research is by Less of a bird Watcher, More of a bird Listener Marissa Brown. Our theme song is by Our House band Feather and the Hunters aka Thomas.
Lee and Travis Dutton.
The host wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred guest tarn, makeup by Spartacle Shot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben. I used to sell feathers at the seashore until that Gal Sally with the Seashells muscled me out of the market.
Bowling and no, you know I don't believe you.
Brown, Why say it one more time? We cry?
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts. My heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.