Horsing Around for Millions

and it is ciculous. I like to feel special. Yeah, it's two things that I know you love too. Great taste that tastes great together. Yeah, horse racing and fraternity brothers. Oh yeah, top of my list on those. Yeah, it's gonna be great. This is a Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers. Heis and cons always free and ridiculous. Okay, Now, as I promised, Elizabeth, I have a hell of a story for your two great loves,

the American college fraternity system and horse racing. So let's just start at the top. Frat parties you love them? How many did you go to in college? Zero? Oh? Wow? I did not ever go to one, not even by mistake, not even like a friend dragged you. Did you try to avoid them? Were you? Do you have a rule against I just had zero interest in attending all. I worked at the print shop on campus and used to They all had accounts with us, and they'd come in

and make flyers. You knew about the parties, yeah, and like when they were when they were and they were hands down every single time, so crazy, rude to me and would just just say mean things to me when they'd walk in. When they wanted something from you, they would come in and be like hey, yeah, they'd be like, you know, like hey you freaquent, your frea waving money at you like you Now. I had blue hair that seemed to really like tick them off. I don't know.

There was funded by your freakish flag. And some of them were so rude to me and like offensive that if I saw them walk in, I wouldn't go to the counter and all my pals, all the guys. I was me and a bunch of guys, a bunch of dudes at the print shop yeah, and they were all just like like burnout, dude, Yeah, totally, and they've all look at each other and then they'd walk up to the counter and deal with them and they'd be really rude to the guys, Like I can do rude to

watch this. Yeah. So, I mean, I just but I never had any interest in going to those kind of things. Okay, now, second question, Yes, horse racing. How many days have you spent at the horse track? I have only seen one horse race. You've been to one? Well, it was at the County Fair. County Fair, and they you know, I was there and I walked up to the like I was right at the railing and it's so crazy when you feel the hoofs, like the hoofbeat as it goes by.

It's nuts. That's what got me to love horse racing is standing at the rail and feeling when they come thundering past, the ground shakes the speed. You're like, I had no idea how fast they were. And Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley or whatever, when you're on the freeway driving by, sometimes you can smell it. Oh yeah, Like I used to live there on the other side of that hill from the track. The smell went up the hill and down the other side the other exposure to horses.

I'm right there with you on that. Okay. Well, so then you have from some familiarity none with the frat brother party, so I'll have to do I know what the whole story is it. You've seen like an old beer can sitting out in the grass before, and you're like, I know this well, feel that all right, Now it's time to meet our fred bros. Right okay? Or Their names are Chris Harn like um Ham, but with an RM instead of an M, right, okay, like to do harm to someone? No, no, like with an ND no

no no like and like ninja. Yeah okay. Harn he's the brains of this. And then there's Glenn Da Silva. He's our good time guy. And finally there's Derrick Davis. He's also a fun Yeah Double d is fun time bro too. Now, all three went to Drexel University. You know Drexel, Yes, yeah, okay, so it's in Philadelphia. I have an honorary PhD from then, you know, it's so downtown Philly school. Their freshman year was to put this

in perspective, so Harn into Silva freshman year roommates. The two lived in the dorms together, you get to know each other. And I was thinking about this one was reading their story because I had a freshman roommate, but he was a transfer student and he was much older. He was like twenty eight years old, so we were not close, and I didn't always think about that. Poor dude.

He would come back to the room and I'd be like on his bed getting busy, and They'll be like yeah, because there'd be like my clothes or would be on my bed. I would so like I was, Yeah, I was the nightmare roommate for a twenty eight year old man. I was just like terrible. So I know if he was telling the story he would have a nightmare roommate. He could. But I always think about the boundaries Burnette, you know, right, I always think about that was terrible.

So the one thing I was thinking about, though, is that how many people I know who their freshman roommates either still are in their lives or was totally not in their lives. Like they had a very strong reaction me, like we got along and when we shared the room, except for like when you find me in his bed, But shy of that. Right, we're cool now for you, did you have a college roommate that had some impact in your life? I did. I had. I lived in a sweet so it was like three rooms a bunch

of you. Then you didn't, okay, you weren't like roommate and I didn't really mesh and she was never there, and so it wasn't like contentious, but it was just non existence ships passing. But one of my sweet mates, actually Laura. She became one of my closest friends in the world. To day, there you go, Well, that's what Harn and to Silva did, except for they also swirled in some crime and some cocaine, so we didn't. We

did neither. Yes, I know that it's funny to make a distinction between some you know, sunning ourselves in Chinese food. Perfect call. So this group and I've told you about to Silva is the party boy. Uh and then Chris Harn his roommate, so to Silva, he joins a frat his sophomore year. He gets his old roommate Chris Harn to help him. He's like, you're not help him, but to join with him. He's like, oh man, you gotta rush, I'm Russian Tao Kappa Ebsilon Man the tea. Yeah, you know.

So fatiaks are like, you know, usually one of the big frats, right, So these guys are like stoked. But this is a tech first school. Drexel at the time was billed as the first wireless university in the United States. Right, So a bunch of these dudes, including the guys, were talking about they're like engineering students. I think Chris harn he was informations technology students, so he basically computer science. You love that. So in his and in his future

co defendant Derrick Davis, he was an engineering soon. So though all these guys, right, they're smart cats, except for de Silva Sila was more like a party boy. But even like these guys are frat boys, they're smart frat boys. So they think of Chris Harne is like one of their guys, even though he is the computer nerdy guy. All right, So these guys they managed to spend six years at Drexel. None of them leave the school with a degree. They're like super super seniors. Yeah no, but

they none. They then to make it out. So by nineties seven, barn is working at Auto tote. Now I didn't know what auto tote was. I doubt you have heard of it. No good, guess it's a cow many that's responsible for process of the US horse racing bets. So that was not a good It was in the sense it involved motions. So I'm trying to be nice, Oh, we don't waste your time. So off track betting in the eighties and nineties switches from It used to be that fifteen percent of bets came from off track, and

then it was we're on track. Now it's switched to the bets are off track and fifteen percent of bets are placed at the facility. So this was right when it was switching over, and so this is what inspired Chris Harn to go full outlaw. He's like, I see some stuff in this system other people don't see. He works his way up to senior programmers, so he's getting his eyes on all the technology. He's seeing all the

gaps and junctions in their system. He knows where the weak points are and he's like, I can exploit these. And there's a smart guys who's like, I want to exploit these, right, So he calls up his frat rogue Glenn Da Silva, who had moved to New York City and he was underemployed at the time because you know, not a college graduate, and he'd been kind of a party boy. So at this point he's developed a hell of a drug problem. He's now basically a coke head

in New York and just bouncing around. His life is spiraling. So when he hears some his old frat brother and roommate Chris Harn, who reaches out to him, was like, hey, man, to Silva, I bet you could like want to be get involved in this. I got this thing I want to tell you about. And he's like, what are you so? What is this? It's a great way to make some fast and easy money. He's like, fast and easy money, I could use some of that. It turns out I

have a coke problem. So yeah, he brings into Silva into someone's like down, he tells them all about scam. He's like, look, my idea is we can siphon off some of the hundreds of millions of dollars that are transitting through the off track betting system. He's like, I don't understand you're talking about. He's no, I got it all worked out nobody would ever notice two Silva in a word, curious. He's like, I got some coke to buy.

Tell me more. He's curious. So yeah, Harn explains the scam and some technological terms I want to get into here, and it comes down to this, They're gonna use uncashed tickets, so winning tickets that are in the system that never got cashed. He's able to find them. He can then print them up on some dummy tickets. Sends the dummy tickets to Da Silva. Now he's got straight up cash. He just has to go to a track or an off track betting the machine, which is basically like an

a t M for gambling addicts. He had to go to one of those and go, hey and cash in these tickets. They're like casino voutyers now where they it's like a receipt and it has a barcode the amount of money, so he can go in. Occasionally he would go and place the bet and then cash out the rest. Sometimes he would just cash it out, but either way they spend two thousand one doing this well. Basically if

they started in November two. This is a common thing that people place the bet and they never pick it up. Oh yeah, that that's common, just like the lottery tickets or people like they buy a lottery tickets scratching, they don't realize they've won, they drop it. People like will look for lottery tickets to see. This is often down. There's yeah, there's billions of dollars spent in gym memberships

every year that people don't use. The Americans are really good at spending money and then just forgetting about every year. So this is just one slus fund of money that he was like, hey, I could pull off some of this, right, so they start doing it. They travel around the tri state area in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania cash and tickets. It was working gang busters, right. They're able to make about nine dollars over the course of one year just

off of uncashed tickets. And nobody would notice this because Harn's pulling him out of the system, so they doren't really like it's not like how do I best put this? There is nobody looking for what he's doing because the money has essentially been paid out, So if the company doesn't have to pay it out, they're not looking for money that they didn't have to pay out, it just

gets kind of pushed forward. I would just think that someone's like disaggregating that data to have like a tracking unclaimed they would if the system wasn't as old as like d m V and I r S computer. Because that's the thing he knew, is that the system was super old, so it couldn't keep up right. So he works out this little nice side hustle for them that's about four grand a month each. And as jay Z would say, they were making it easy cheese like you know,

I checked chatted like a food inspectum. Right, they're pulling in all kinds of money, right, just slice with the cheese right now to silver. He's taking his easy windfall and he's like, I can turn this into cocaine. He's buying so much cocaine as like I just imagined, like a big block of cheese. And then he's Abra cadaver Bobby cadaver and it turns and doing some betting tickets

at it, and it turns into coaches. So he's buying coc Elizabeth liked he says this because and he's like, Okay, now, as he's blown through this money as fast as he can, he's like, you know what, we need to go bigger because I keep going down to Miami and Vegas in l A basically on like a douchebag Grand Tour of America, and he's blowing his money so fast. He's coming back to Hard and being like, hey, what are we gonna do that again? Man? That was great, We should do

that again. Hard's like, ah, man, uh uh, you know, like I'm kind of like, I work here. I can't be like to, you know, like I have things to protect. I'm not like you, a loose coke had just run around even fast money. So let's be smart about this. Four grand a month extras. I mean that's that's good for a guy. Good. Yeah, I mean that that's just extra cream for him. And if if he's a smart fella, he's banking it, yeah exactly. Well that's so we'll get

right into this. So they start basically wanting to go bigger, right, And this is an issue that happens whenever you're doing a crime and it works well and people keep doing the same crime, they tend to do one of two things, which is either they get messy, they get sloppy, they get lazy, cocky over confident. Whatever it is, they take their eye off the ball and they stopped acting like what they're doing is illegal. And then we'll ruin their

life if they get caught. Right, and then the other thing that they can do is they can get greedy. They can go I want to go too big, I want to go too fast. I want to grab too much that I can't carry. Right, these two excited to do both. All right, let's get lazy and greedy. God, so Hard is a plan. He's like, we need to go for one big score and then I'm out. That's always the one big score. Then I'm out, and then there's like I've reformed, I'm never doing that's the last time.

And then maybe just this once. So Hard's like, okay, I got a deal. He calls up to Selbody's like, it's called a pick six, And so I was like, I know what to pick six is? Man, And so if you don't know what to pick six is the way to bet on the races of one day, which is you pick in a row all of the horse races. You pick the winner of all six races, and if

you do that, there is a huge pot. And this can be you know, because of doing off track betting, you can be betting in New work on a race in Chicago, So then you can get like millions of dollars one tracks bets and if you're the only one or one of the few people to win this, it's like hitting it's like hitting a double parlay. Essentially, it's a it is a crazy, hard, astronomically possible thing of races when every single time, and so if you do that,

you're gonna like become a big fat price. And some of the races. Racing went through a hard time in the eighties and they started losing money, and so they came up with this thing to like, go, how do we imitate the lottery? So they kind of come up with this mega millions pick six pot. Nobody wins. They pushed the pot forward, so these pots get bigger and bigger. So they're like, you know what, we need to do that.

But Harn's smart, He's like, let's not go for the biggest pot, Let's go for the biggest day of the year. So instead they pick the Breeders Cup, which is the biggest race of the year, when all these betters will be putty good money if they can pick that pick six that'll be multimillion dollar paiday. So that's a lot different than unclaimed tickets though, yes, very different. In fact, people pay attention to this one as opposed to the

unclaimed tickets. So the you know, as as they days get closer to Silva's into it, and Hern's like, we just have to work this out. There's a couple of kinks, and then then he started to realize that maybe to Silva is not the best partner to do this, and he's like, we needed to bring in somebody else, and He's like, huh mean he doesn't like the loose cannons. Loose cannon cocaine is probably not the best plan. Which guy who's like, I'm a homeowner, I've got a job

i want to get, I'm recently married. You know this guy is not my guy. So after a short break, I'll tell you who he brings in to help seal this deal. All right, lizab So we're back with the frat bros who wanted to try to rig off horse race. Okay, so Breeders Cup two thousand two, that's going to be the scene of our crime. Harn into Silva, that's her big score. So far, everything's been smooth sailing, like in terms you would understand, it's like sailing on a sea

of velvita, right right. I figured you'd get that one. So you may be wondering, Saren, how do you rig a horse race? Honestly I am wondering that, Elizabeth, look at you. Yeah, and normally I'm moving. I'm glad you asked. You're like, I actually want to know. Okay, well, it comes down to another one of your favorite subjects, computer hardware, antibox steroids. No, remember I told you about the automatic off track betting machines that are like a t m

S for gambling addicts. Yes, okay, those they have a little how do we best say, a weakness in the link of technology and harness. Figured out that there is a timekeeping issue. But these machines, they will not send the answers to who has won the first races? When there is a pick six, they don't send the answers to race one, Race two, Race three, race four. After race five is one, then all those races are sent in as one big group, and then the machine now knows, okay,

who here is one all of these races. They're the only people who could qualify for the picks. It's a way to save computer memory and processing because you have to go every single race. It's just this very small pool of who could win. What that means is is there is a window of time where all five winners are known, and if somebody could get into the system, they could switch out a ticket. And Harn realizes this and he's like, all I have to do is just in that half an hour before the six races run,

switch out the tickets through the system. And as long as I've got my dude who's got the ticket in person, we can make this work. Now, there's a little bit more technological details I'll tell you about the autotote system, but we'll pretty much keep this tech light. Okay, thank you. So we go to the bets. There is a way

that they're going to do the pick six. So, as I told you, they want all the different races, and with the various races, it came down to the fact that the various systems that would report they had to go through a touch tone phone system, right, so that way they can electronically date and everything. But there was one track and the cats skills that was an off track betting facility that had old non touch tone phones

harm rotary phones. This is like two two. In New York there wasn't with a state law that you had to have. All the other places there was a state law you had to have these rotary phones for horse track racing, but for whatever reason, New York did not require it. So this place to just not done it. And Harn was aware of this. So there is there is his gap. There is one place that will not be able to if he puts his bet through cat skill, they will definitely not be able to be marked because

there's no touch tone stamp. Okay, So at this point in October, they decided to do a dry run. He still got his boy to Silva working with him, so he's like to Silva go up to the cat skills and so he does. He does this off track betting facility and they practice. He goes and he buys some tickets right, and he's going to place his bets with the tickets and then tell the results to Harn, and Harn then goes into the autotote system switches the ticket that Da Silva bought. So he had the first four

races already like put in as one horse. He just basically picking one horse to win all the first races. He switches that horse to the ones who did win, and then now Da Silva has has to pick six horses and then he'll automatically win. The pis limited the odds down to just pick the last horse race, right, so they work it out. It wins. He's like, oh nice. They pick like some easy like harness race something where there's not a big pot. Nobody's gonna notice. Two days later,

they do a second trial. This time they pick a bigger horse racing facility. They want to try it like a real run, right. They do this time, but the Belmont Track in New York, and if you know about horse racing, Belmont is one of the big three in horse racing. There's the Belmont Stakes, the Preakness in Kentucky, Derby RRK, the Run for the Roses. Right, So they're they're going like, let's go really try because they're gonna be real authorities, real investigations. So forth goes off without

a hitch and they're doing this at the cats Skills again. Yeah, they go through the cat Skills. That's where they placed the bet. But they're placing the at for a race at Belmont. But so they have to interact with the staff at the Cats. They just have to go through their system because remember they have these machines were like a t M S. There's no person. They can just

punch in a little they put the receipt in. No, then it goes through a rotary phone system because the person is going, I don't know how the bets are being placed, but they can go through the machine and then all of a sudden that is collated and then sent. I'm just curious if it this one like analog shop. They're like, why is this guy nailing the pick six? Yeah, so they will. They're not catching up to it because you know, some people are lucky whatever, and it's just

one win. It wasn't like a big deal. Well, the the the race at Belmont, they win a hundred and five thousand dollars boom. That would be enough to get out or for Disilva to buy mountains of cocaine, right, But Silva's like, no, I need more mountains of cocaine. Right, So he's like, by the way, he takes that hundred and five thousand dollars. They split it evenly, right, to Silva, goes out, he buys vodka, cocaine and some ubers or whatever. Right, he blows it real fast. Harm does what you said it.

He spends dollars to pay off his second mortgage he takes. He pays off the remainder of his car, and then he makes one mistake. He emails to Silva all about what he's doing. He's like, take this money, put it into my mortgage. Take this money, and he's telling them how to spend the winning So he creates a paper trail that will come back to bite him. Or as my man Stringer Bell from the Wire would say, never

take notes on a criminal conspiracy. Of course he said it more colorfully than that, but you get the idea. So things are going well for these guys, right, and they're like, oh we should you know, now go for our big one. We're gonna go and take on the Breeders Cup million dollar prize. But as with all things, there are the natural laws of crime. And now, Elizabeth, you know about gravity, one of my favorite subjects. Been in a lifelong feud with gravity of gravity. Yes, you

know as well, Harsh Mistress. Well, just like how there are the natural laws like of gravity. What goes up must come down. They are also the natural laws of crime. Okay. For instance, Newton's third law of motion states that for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. Well, there is also a third law of crime dynamics, which I'm making up as we speak. I'm in the third law of by imagining crime dynamics. It states that never steal more than you can carry. That's a good one, right,

pretty good, pretty solid. Now. Anyway, in this case, what that means is, don't try to gang something that's so big that when you try to get away with it, you wind up leaving a trail that leads right to you. That's what I mean. It's like if you bake up a bag of flour and it's just leaking. Yeah, So that basically good, very good. So what these two brain genius frat brows decided to do is rope in another frat brow because we're like, for our big score, we're

gonna need somebody else other than just so. So Harn's like because basically, you know, he's done to personality in dex he knows who is a former room. He's like, this guy is going to get me busted. Now can you imagine pulling off a billion dollar scam with a coquette as your partner? Right, Like, you gotta respect Harn for at least recognizing that one. But instead he's like, how about I pick my old former engineering buddy, Derrick Davis, who happens to be an undercover co kid. He didn't know.

Derreck Davis is more mathematical logical I told you, engineering student, than to Silva. But he's also, as I said earlier, a party boy too. He's a little bit of a snowstone. So October twenty six, the big day two Thou two the Breeders cup rolls around. Now we've got Harn, Da, Silva, and Derrick Davis all lined up to run a frat boy I don't way say triple team, but basically they're gonna they're gonna run a scam, all right, I'll just

leave it at that. So Harn contacts the Catskill off Track betting facility and he sets up an account for Derrick Davis. He then places his bets in Derrick davis name. Yea, it doesn't even go to the facility. He just got an account open for him. He's going through the autotote system, and you have to understand that he's able to do all sorts of crazy stuff I'll get into in a second,

But basically Harn does his normal thing. He had buys tickets for Derrick Davis, and each of the the first four races, he picks the same horses to win, and then for the fifth horse in the sixth the sixth race, he has a combination. He's like, we touched, decide will pick these, So they pick basically all the horses. Yeah, and what that means is that he would have like

nineties six combinations, possible winning combinations. Right now, the horses names that we're talking about, I think you would have a great time naming a race. Love racehorse names, right. I think I wish that that was a job that you could be like, you know what they say, dressed for the job you want. I don't know how to dress for I name horses. Well, I think your outfit now is pretty good, pretty close. Yeah, the black cowboy in the sweaty pick cowboy and the short shorts, yeah

on the crop top is so good. Thank you. I got dress up today. I want to look special. Thank you. So these racehorses, the winning horses. I'll just run down their names. Harren had a ticket with the names that he would eventually change too. So these are the not

the names he bought the tickets. These are the winning the horses that he would switch to once he dips back into the autotote system and he would correct it so that it reads take Charge Lady to win race one, Storm Flag Flying to win race two, Dome Driver in race three to beat the favorite of Gibraltar, and Orientate in race four to outpace Thunderrella. Okay, so for race five and six though, they just have the open spots. Although he's picked all of the horses right, so they

don't know. It'll just be one of them. And we'll get to that in a second. Right, So harn Davis has got his tickets. They purchased six tickets with all these combinations to cost them two dollars. Right now, it's time for harn to get busy. So what does he do? Pops over into his like recently paid off car drives to work. Now there's a problem with this. He's not scheduled to work that day. And if you've ever gone to work on the day you're not scheduled to working.

People notice a little suspect. They're like, what's up with that? I hate this place. I'm not coming back here. Where are you here? Some people notice and they did any Meanwhile, Frat brother Derrick Davis calls up Harn on his cell phone, so there is a trail between the two of them, constantly contacting each other. On this day. Another thing you don't want to do, so Harn meanwhile, is that work suspicious?

Is all Hell talking on his cell phone with his future co defendant, and the two men go over every last minute detail right what they hadn't planned for though, because they got everything nailed down. The only thing they hadn't planned on this thing. Always I always recommend people pay attention to. It's something called the unexpected or random chance, or what gamblers like to call bad luck, the known unknowns, the unknown unknowns exactly. Rumsfeld new It's one thing I

got to give him credit up. So the horse that I mentioned earlier, Dome Driver, he was a twenty six to one long shot, twenty six to one right, he wins an early race against Rock at Gibraltar. This ruined most folks chance at winning the picture. Almost all of them had picked Rock at Gibraltar. Right now, the track officials assume that means about of the four point seven million dollars worth of tickets sold and the bets, they're all invalidated. Now it's only the bets that continue pass

like the third race. Okay, so there's now no really large legitimate group of betters for harn Davis and Da Silva to like hide out in right for or thirty The fourth race starts and after that race is one, the winner gets announced. Now it's time for the final horse needed for the Harns racetrack betting scam to work. Right, So he's had this autotote desk, he accesses the off track betting system, he accesses David's tickets, he changes all the bets that he needed to change, and now they

have all their four winning horses. So now it's half an hour to work. He's got to do a couple more things because they're at five oh one the fifth race will start and he's got to be all set by then, right, So to make sure that there's no record keeping of any of the things that he's doing, he erases the fingerprints of their crime. Brilliant, right, Yeah, I was thinking there's the digital fingerprints on this. I mean, he has to be logged into a system. You can't

just change things. So what he does is he knew that all these transactions at the Catskills were recorded on a backup tape, right. So he then goes into the autotote system and I don't understand quite how he did this, but he was able to hack the system so that the Catskills backup tape was ejected from the VCR that was recorded on. He then calls the Catsules and said, hey, man, I made a mistake at work. I ejected your security tape.

Could you reboot that system? And so they reboot it, and so now they've erased any record of what he's just done. There is no evidence of their crime. It's like kind of genius, that is right. That's cool that he can inject tapes right now again. So all that was left to do now is have race five and race six run. So Race five goes, the winner is announced, Race six comes up, the Classic, the Breeders Cup. This is the race, Elizabeth. Yes, I would like you to

close your eyes gladly and picture it. I am You're ready. You're at a racetrack. A horn blas announce him that his time for the next race. You're standing at the rail at Arlington Park. It is a beautiful palace dedicated to horse racing. It is a temple to betting. It is the house that the vig built. Now it's a cold day in October. It's a slate. Gray sky stretches above you, but they're you are. No storm clouds present,

just a gray sky above you, gray Chicago day. You forty people all there to enjoy a race at a k the biggest payday and horse racing, the Breeders Cup. So you've lost track of the French couple who invited you to this race track and who brought you there. Theyveon wandered off, but you found this perfect spot to it. What did they? So? You found this perfect spot to watch the races. You're alone at the rail, just the way you like it. Right there before the finish line.

You look across the track and the horses are getting loaded into the race gates. There's war emblem that's the Kentucky Derby winner and a Preakness winner. He was the morning line favorite at this point. He's now three to one favorite. Powerful animal and very delicate legs. You've gotten into the spirit of things and you're just decided to

place a bet on this last race. You look over at the odds and all the horses you're running, and the Breeders Cup Classic, and you're like, Okay, there's Mandaia Auro at seventy two odds. There's some other favorites. There's Came Home at four to one, hawk Wing at five to one, even a Gutires eight to one. Then, of course there's at the middle of the pack. You got Harlan's Holiday ten to one, e Do Bibe twelve to one, Milwaukee Brew fifteen to one, if you want to get

a little saucy. But then there's the group that your eyeball, and you got Macho Uno at one, perfect Drift and dollar Bill the thirty to one favorite. Finally Volponi one long shot. You allow to your horse. You know there's no connection between the names of the horses and the odds, but the more ridiculous to the name the worst of the odds, you're like, huh, that's my kind of right. Like Bob cass Is calling war m America's horse, and you're like, no, no, I want Vulpony. That is exactly

how I would bet on you. Volpony is your horse and atty one long shot. He's had twenty two starts, six wins, seven places, three shows. You're super excited to see him take off. Milwaukee Brew is the last horse in the gate. The horses are loaded, You're ready. Everybody's hyped. The crowd is cheering. Boom and the starting pistol is fired. The race is underway. In your hot hand. You look at your ticket, says Vulpony, and your Volponi is racing,

and they're off. The announcer booms. Horses thunder out of the gates, crushing dirt into the soil et by the early leader. When the dali Ora is a front runner, war Eblem is running in second. When they reached the first turn, Fillipony is on the inside rail and fit just behind Perfect Drift, Macho and it was in eight Milwaukee Brown, ninth, ma Hawk Wing is unhurried in twelve twelve links beyond the leaders, the last horse of all, Dollar Bill. Perfect Drift comes along in third. Medalia I

was in fourth. Your horse soul Pony isn't fifth. As they approached the far turn came home is coming up empty. The announcer proclaims, calling attention to the quietly quitting resource. Hark Wing has made his movies pacing horses on the outside with him his Milwaukee brew war Emblum takes over the lead. Mandalaiora is right there on his side. He looks like sunshine on his shoulder. As they round the fourth turn, Phillipony makes his move hard, charging through the

middle of the back. Faull Pony moved to the inside rail. Full Pony passes war and bum Ful Pony passes the Dalia Deoro. Fullpony takes over the lead. He's on in front by himself. Oh Dilwaukee Brews run his ass off to take over third. And there's Macho Uo. He's moved into forth. All the crazy names are passing the favorites. The horses charge on the final straight away. Full Pony stretches his lead all the favorite He's got four links ahead and the final straight away all the Diora can watch.

Bull Pony has won by six horse legs. Your, of course, is the winner. Bull Party Quack time out. That was amazing, So you're forty to one long shot. He wins this huge upset. No one saw this coming, no one but you and the three men who ragged the betting. That's it. You guys are the only winners. But what you don't know yet, but what you will soon learn is you just quitness the biggest betting scandal and horse racing in

the last twenty years. To go down and after this break for some sweet sweet ads, I'll tell you how Harns, Silver and Davis got caught. Okay, Elizabeth, you're a brand new horse racing fans, right, that's just the excitement. But you know you've been on the rail. It's gonna set that aside over here that goes there. I love trains, That's what I know. That's what you meant. I didn't think you meant the cocaine, did I trains? Can I talk to you about trains? Yes you can, but to

Silva would like to talk to you about the cocaine. So, of all the millions of dollars that were bet on the Breeders Cup Classic the Megapot, of the Pick six millions, there were a total of six winning tickets. Six people picked all six. The weird part is all six tickets belonged to Derek Davis was gonna say kind of a

red flag to a lot of people. Like for instance, one of the stories I was reading, there was a guy named Jim Quinn who was billed as a veteran racetrack handicapper, which I they think means he hangs at a horse tracks. But anyway, he said at the time quote, when you heard that a payoff that was supposed to be three millions a little more than four hundred thousand, you knew something was up. So this is like the racetrack communities vibe. They're like, this ain't right. Well, yeah,

I'd say. So. The problem was that there was not just um the war emblem lost and Medallia the oral lost the two favorites. If I either favorite had one, no one probably would have noticed because people would have picked this right. But it turns out that this means Davis had picked four long shots out of his six winning horses, because remember there was early long shots. All the six races, four of them were won by long

shot six tickets. That said this, and all the the first four races he picked all the right horses, and then in the second last two races he picked six horses. So that was it was a bunch of hinky stuff in these tracks, right, these bets. So people at the racetracks were like, I don't know about this. Meanwhile, David's like, pay me my money so really quickly, exactly, I got places to go. So you're a horse, the winner of vul Pony, the greatest horse, the greatest horse, yes, other

than Zendia. That's the greatest horse of all time. The six planning tickets, Uh, they are a total of three million, sixties seven thousand, eight hundred twenty one dollars. That's the winning pots or three guys spent all get a mill all right, So four days after his stunning pick six back, Derrick Davis it gets interviewed by the New York Post, which is not the place I would go to for an interview if I was somebody trying to hide a crime.

That's just me. They're suspicious as all. Sorry, but I mean think about like with the lotto, never go public with it. You don't want anyone to know who you are. You don't never go public. You know what do they say, like he shouldn't have your name in the paper only like birth, marriage, death or whatever. I say, zero times, keep your light under a bushel, sh out of the paper. So he always he tells in the ear post, Look I'm just lucky, and they're like, I don't know about that, man.

How somebody's like, look, I was researching racehorses and that's just what I do. And people are like, no one believes you. Right, So vull Pony, did you know that name comes from? Then? I didn't know this. I had to look it up. V O L p O N. I Oh, is it like a I keep thinking like, do pani's silk? Is it like a fabric? Now? It was a post World War two modern Italian poet and

writer Pony right, and I looked him up. He had one book called Il planeta irotable publish the n In that book, voll Pony tells the story of a dwarf, a goose, an elephant, and a baboon who all survived a nuclear holocaust that afterwards they all trek off together in search of a safe kingdom that they can all live in peace together. They brave dangers together, they battle the elements. They crossed the world. They survive biblical rains and floods, but they never find a safe place to

live free from nuclear war. It's this really amazing premise attention too, like this desolate, depressing book and it sounds like it's my new favorite pot. It's like the opposite of the Life of Pie, but just like the like the bummer life of Pie, right, my new favorite place exactly. So there's this quote about vol ponies work. They said everything is pointless. Volpony is the Samuel Beckett of science fiction. I love this guy. So there's the inspiration for Volponi.

You're winning horse, and Volpony is perfectly as the one to doom these frat bros. Everything is right anyway, You and your horse are dooming these frat bows race fixers because their plan was perfect. It was so perfect, only random chance doom them. They had erased the evidence of their crime before they committed the crime. That's amazing. Yeah,

all they had to do was collect their winnings. But when Derrick Davis went to the track and he's like, look, man, pay me my money, they're like no, yeah, because we are bad men. Maybe you don't know this, but racetracks are run by real criminals, and we who are not giving up the money. We don't care if you have a winning ticket. In your hand, because we think this is suspicious as all hell, and until we have an investigation, I think anytime there's that big of a payout, they're

going to have to they're gonna drag their feet. They will drag their feet exactly. We have to make sure everything is And the racetracking community also, I remember they're all in a snit about this to fix his in and this is off track betting, so everyone's convinced that this means they're always having to deal with this. This is not just one time. This is questioning the whole future of the betting. Six winning tickets and he holds all and he thinks he's gonna he's just gonna go

up there and through all this. I like researching the ponies one six and they all have the same weird random pattern. So the company that's a charge of off track betting, they're like, this is not good for us, this big, this is bad. This is bad business, alright. So they're like, we need to get to the bottom and say tell the off track betting people were on this, don't worry. They go and they fire up an investigation.

Doesn't take them long to find hard there's like's this guy. Right, So they call hard and like, man, we need to talk to you, and he's like, no, I can't. I'm busy. I got a lot of stuff to do. And they're like, no, your your job, man, you need to come in. He's like okay. So it comes in and he's like super like argumentative, standoffish. The company's like, yeah, we're thinking this is kind of like a sign of guilt, right, So then he goes home and then this boss calls him.

He's like, hey, harn remember that the last day you came in for work. And he's like, yeah, it was. You're fired. So he's fired and uh. Then it's like, you know, at that point he gets real argument to be difficult. But then boss is like, man, it doesn't matter anymore. We're also going to tell the authorities about this. Yeah. Now keep in mind at this point Harne is now married, he has a two year old child. This is not

good for him. He's got home and now the first one to get busted is Derrick Davis because his name is on the tickets. Doesn't take long for the track investigations and the AUTOTOE people to get together with the federal investigators in the FBI, who all decided to look into this, and putting their heads together, they go, these winning tickets are bunko. And plus there's Derek Davis out there giving interviews to the New York Post. He decided trying to answer why it's his win was so suspicious,

which is never a good thing to do. But here's one answer he gives that I found just a amazing. They're like, so your tickets were weird because you spent this much and did that, And he's like, I can explain that, and I quote from The New York Post. His fingers slipped on the telephone keypad and he inadvertently punched in bets of twelve dollars instead of two dollars. Then he confirmed a total of one thousand two and bets when he meant only wager two. Whoop. See finger

my fat fingers, He says. You know he'd been eating chicken. Yeah, I got lucky, but these greasy little digits. I got coke on this finger. It slips sometimes. So Derreck Davis ties like, you know what, I'm gonna go on the aggressive because you know I do coke and I'd like to be aggressive. It's what I know the secret coke guy. Right, Yeah, Derrick Davis is a secret cok guy. Da Silva is

the real hard cook, two wolves within him. Derrick Davis is like that, you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna go hard in the paint with the coke and not tell anyone. He comes up just passed out somewhere. He starts saying things like and he has his lawyer saying this too. He's like, look, if they got proof that I did something wrong, then show it to me. If not,

give me my money proof you want now. The New York Times goes and talks to his family and they're like, hey, congrats, And then his father's like, I know a lot of people are asking questions, but this is legit. And he says, and I quote, I know in the bottom of my heart that it's a legitimate. Bet. I got bad news for you. Pops Han into Silva. They get dragged into this when they also get named in a federal criminal complaint. It's co defendants. So now all three are co defendants

under federal charges. Straight state lines, right and on the wire, Enrico, they got all of it. They're they're hitting they're hitting switches on this one right, So two weeks about two weeks to the day hitting the pick six on it. Hey, I saw what you did about This is about two weeks after Halloween, which was the day that harm was fired on all three. Was he dressed as like a bumblebee. That would be amazing you go in to get fired,

you're dressed in the costume. You just see him walking out of the office park with his bumblebee costume and his head down in a box stuff. So he's still got there, like the b head on into the securities, come on stuff in getting into the central like it's that would be amazing. Let's just say that happened. That happened. So he couldn't get his bubble wee wings and he closes the door, broke his wings. He gets home all sad, right, just wife's honey, what happened. He's like, I gotta go

turn myself in tomorrow. And she's like, that's not good. I'm going to get a lawyer of my own. So the three men they all get charged and released on bail. Two in bail. Right the next day, the men are all scheduled to appear in federal court. So when they arrived they're asked to perform apparently something that is routine, but I didn't know this routine drug tests. Both Derrick Davis and Glenda Silva failed their drug tests. They both

get payed for cocaine frat bros to the end. Well, they figured, they're like, look, as long as we're here, let's do so when you said they have to do a routine, I thought was like a dance routine. I didn't know that number. They're like, do the thriller dance? Like do you guys know the old sauce shoe. So Derek Davis, Gonn Silva fail their drug test, and uh, Elizabeth, can you guess? Just because you know something? I tell

the stories often the U S attorney is someone famous. Again, we have a famous U. S attorney two thousand two who is a prosecuting US attorney in this case on the East coast. East Coast. I'll give you a hint if you want, please, you would later run the FBI. Come yes, James Comey is the U. S attorney and he's in charge of bringing justice to this case. And he decides, you know what, I'm gonna do a little

stand up routine. So every time he talks with the christ he starts like, you know, working too a quick five, all right? So he's like, Darren, things like they're they're asking him about, like do you guys have the evidence to bust these people? And he's like, yeah, well you have to understand. He starts comparing these guys to Robert Redford and Paul Newman in The Sting because he's like, I want you to understand what kind of guys are. They're like the guys in the Sting right. The press

are eating it up. I'll tell us more. And so they're like, hey, hey, comey, these are frat bros. Would they one day being a movie? Will we all see you guys on the big screen and come me? He's like, no, the movie was already made, but with much better looking people. Oh my god, he's killing m so Comy he's he loves a fresh burn, you know. He's like, So he's in there, and Harn decides it if he ever wants to see his wife and young child again, he needs

to take a plea deal and listen to Comy. So he takes Comy's offer, and that means the Mastermind has now rolled over on his frat bros. Some bonds just don't last. I guess his frat brow to Silva, right, he's been heated this whole time, just like Derrick Davis. Both of them are on the aggressive side. He's like the scant evidence, they can't prove this. He's like, no, I deny it, right, his lawyers denying it everything, until Harn decides, I'm gonna flip and tell the feds everything.

But why do you say everything? He told them crimes they did not know about. So he he tells them about the unsold tickets. He tells them everything, so Hard is like, yeah, he spills his like He's like if you took up a glass of milk and just spilled it, right, But then he took another glass and threw that one down, and then you're like, where's the bottle? Right? So Derreck

Davis immediately pleads guilty. The Silva pleads guilty because they don't have a leg to stand on them Hard he gets sentenced to one year and one day in prison because his judge has a sense of humor. He had a minimum security prison. To Silva gets two years in a federal prison. Derrick Davis catches the worst of it he gets thirty seven months, So three years one month in federal prison. Boom, I bet you learned your lesson now son, right. So what happened to the winnings? Did

the track get to keep it? Did the mob go what money? We're just roll I would imagine just rolled over to the next one. No, they had to pay it out because of all the bad blood. So they decided breaking all traditions. There were forty two people who had guessed the correct five of six winners. They got to split the three point million dollar because they had to have some winners. I thought they'd give it to like the s A. No, no, they're not you. I got one lass surprise for you in this course of

the course of this case. Okay, So the racetrack industry they're facing a problem because now the future off track betting looks like it's insolving and not legitimate, and that's going to be a big issue. So they say, how do we save the dignity of our sport? So who do you think they call in to save the dignity of horse trek racing? Rudy Giuliani, Yes, Judy Ruliani makes an appearance. Remember November two thousand two. This is a

very different Rudy Giuliani because now we think of America. Now, I will forever see the hair dye rolling down the side of his face. And one of my favorite things the four season Worse landscaping. I have a T shirt for four seasons landscaping that they were all the time because that's that was the greatest thing, and I like, I needed it. It's the gift that keeps giving. So that's the Giuliani we know, but that's not the Giuliani. He did the job back then. Everyone's like, yeah, he's

saved horse track racing essentially because he restored dignity. He did, like this whole report. He had his security team because he was he was had Giuliani and partners. They're basically, we do security. It's like him and like Bernard character got into security after nine eleven, right, So he's sitting there doing that and so they're like, oh, yeah, this is a security issue. So he has his team is cracked team security going there the Judy rule, any seal

of approval. He was like, you need a horse track bettings are and you need to update your technology. They're like, oh, we're on it. Right, So then everyone else the betters were like, well it's been fixed, so horse track betting and racing was able to continue on. It was like a real crisis, and then all the horses started dying. That that's the modern crisis. Yes, that's why you do not like horse track. Guess I understand. Well, I got one last one for as I told you. Yes, so

this is a final irony of this one. The very next year, someone want to pick six at the Breeders Cup. No, no, everyone lost their minds. This cannot be happening again. And one exactly know. It turns out that it was a better was a businessman. He was a regular better. He walked into a adding parlor in South Dakota where he normally placed bets on races all across the country and stretching to Dubai and Australia. He was a better, right, So when his bed hit, naturally everybody knew him. He

was investigating. They're like, oh, yeah, that's just soaked him for that amount, and he's pretty much he basically not he broke even so he won two point six million and broke even exactly that one. What is our ridiculous takeaway from dis one. Well, we have a couple lessons learned. Don't steal more than you can carry, yes, good one. Don't do business with cokeheads. That's another good one, which is just you know, pretty standard. Um and I don't know.

And then Rudy Giliani will stay for us. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that one. I did very much, so thanks for listening. You can find us online a ridiculous time on both Twitter and Instagram. Twitter is for the discords. Instagrams where we put up the photos and the funny, funny stories and h you know, if you like giggles, I go there. You also get sneak peaks for new apps on both Twitter and the Graham emails. If you want a ridiculous crime at gmail dot com.

Thanks for listening, ye. Ridiculous Crime is Hopted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaron Burnett, produced and edited by the horse whisper Dave Cousting researches by the winning list jockey in the history of the Belmont Stakes. For Rissa browns our theme song is by notorious horse traders Thomas Lee and Traps. Duddon's executive producers are Dirty Grand Marshall Ben Bolan and Noel Browne Say It one more Time. Dequeous Crew Ridiculous

Crime is a production of i heeart Radio. Four more podcasts to my Heart Radio, visit the i heeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.