Put it on my Tab: The Crown Casino Heist

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, Saren Ware, you go, what do you know what's ridiculous?

Oh?

It is the time for the show. Yes I do. I was dreaming about it and I wanted to tell you. Okay, one of my interests is undergarments. Oh okay, dude, either the closest thing to you of your clothing?

Yeah?

Right, And I learned something new today about undergarments. And I'm not like reading about it all the time, but like, I try to keep a little facts and then I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Whale bones used to be used in bras. That's interesting, right, That's just interesting. Another bra fact while we're on the topic, turns out that, you know, the the clasp for the bra that hook designs like twelve year old boys have to practice with one hand on a Teddy bear to undo? Is that just me?

No?

Anyway, that clasp it was invented by who?

Who?

No?

Who was invented by Elizabeth I give you.

No, I give you a better guests. It was invented at the start or the end of the nineteenthentury early twentieth century. That period, I think who would be inventing stuff.

Then child al capine.

You know this person's name, Mark Twain.

Mark Twain.

Twain invented the modern clasp for the bra. We still using the clasp on the bra you're wearing now was invented by Mark Twain. Yes, wild right and ridiculous.

I guess, thank you. Wow, that is ridiculous. So you're interested. I like how you said it was undergarments, but it's really bras No.

No, like socks, all the whole thing, long underwear. I got opinions about all of it. You know this, I guess, dude. Yeah, the t tank tops. I mean, you name an undergarment I got.

Opinion to, well, that is ridiculous.

The lining of a like a sweatsuit. I'll give it my wetsuit lining. I got opinions about anything that touches.

My skin touches you.

We can't just be throwing anything on this. It is that's true. It is the integument.

It is.

You know, we just recently found the second biggest organ recently, like in the last ten years, we have another organ that's all through our body.

Yeah, like the juice.

Yeah, there you go, the juice.

So you know what else is ridiculous?

No, I'm out. That's it for.

You, booze that costs more than a used Ford Taurus. What this is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

Damn right. Australia, Yeah, down Under.

I can't stop telling stories about that fabulous land. Man. Did you know that gambling is legal in Australia?

I did not, but you know, I'm not surprised Australians spend more money on online gambling than any other country on planet Earth.

Really, yeah, why are they not known for this? Almost three you never hear about gambling as part of Aussie culture.

It is clearly almost three quarters of Australian adults hit the tables and machines within like the last twelve months.

Wow.

And then more than the tables or machines within a year.

I mean they're going to a place to be.

And then more than a third of Aussi's gambled at least once a week. Wow, Yeah, I had, there's stuff.

Apparently they're not good. No one else knows about this, not all, Like, hey, you should ask an Ozzie about that.

All this work on, like trying to counter acts like gambling addictions, that stuff.

There's got to be like corrosive.

So there are some really nice like hotel casinos.

There is a lot of money in Australia.

Yeah it is.

Everyone is gamming.

Oh yeah it is. Yeah. So I mean think like there are Vegas style casinos these places.

Okay, yeah, I'm imagining like the hard rock casino, Like the Seminoles are like.

Eight hundred hard rock casinos. It's only that's the only kind that's allowed.

They do they group them together like in Vegas Atlantic City kind of, or they're just sprinkled.

Around, sprinkled around? Is my understanding? Correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know. Obvious one in Melbourne is the Crown Casino and it opened in nineteen ninety four right on the banks of this river. The whole place there's a casino and like three hotel towers and I think like a mall. It takes up more than one point five million square feet.

It's a lot.

It's a lot. It's like two city blocks.

That's big.

It's the largest casino complex in the Southern Hemisphere.

Wow.

And it's also one of the largest in the world. Okay, huge. Did you know that Keanu Reeves has stayed at the Crown?

I did? He invited me. I was like, Kean, I can't.

You know who else has stayed there? Your boyfriend Tom Cruise?

Really?

Yes, dude, Why.

Are these guys not? Like they always tell me that I'm going to be there. I never believe them.

That's like the place to stay when you're there.

Into motorcycles and gambling.

Tennis stars Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, they stayed there during the Australian Open.

Yeah they never called me.

Yeah they didn't. It's the real deal. It's five stars, super luck is what you're talking It's fancy pants.

Yeah, this is like Monico. Yeah, that's all five.

Fingers, all four of my fingers. Even so, it has had its share of controversy. No, so, Chinese regulations wouldn't let Chinese citizens transfer more than like a set amount of money every year. So in that case, it's like fifty thousand US dollars or sixty nine point five thousand Australian dollars, is that.

Transfer out of the country. It transferred to Australia, out of their country.

And into another jurisdic So Section sixty eight of the Australian Casino Control Act makes it illegal to provide money or gaming chips in a transaction using a credit card or debit card, and that's intended to reduce money laundering promote responsible gambling.

You have to have the cash.

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like buying lotto tickets here, I get it.

That's hard. You don't want to have people draining their.

Account or put it all on credit.

To do at least one more step. Yeah.

And then Section one twenty four of the Casino Control Act requires casinos to retain specific accounting records regarding like how they handle their money so that the proper taxes are all done. Oh yes, Like basically, you can't charge something as one thing when it's another. So all three of those elements came together. The Crown Casino broke all

It's like a credit line kind of thing.

Money would know it would make it look like, oh, you paid for six Hamburgers.

Through the hotel, so they're just like going, oh, yeah, you got twelve.

And then the Chinese gambler would pay the fake bill using their I.

Got you and then they would be given the money for the.

Yeah, and then the staff gives them a voucher they can trade it in for casino chips. The head of Australian Gaming Commission, fran Thorne said quote Crown's cup procedure was a covert, purposeful scheme that violated the Casino Control Act and was also designed to help customers circumvent China's foreign currency conversion regulation.

Oh yeah, they're trying to circumvented, at least to government exactly.

So she also pointed out that Crown knew this was shady.

Yeah they call.

They still kept it.

They came up away to get around it.

They don't need no stinking regulations and they tried to cover it up.

Okay.

So in all, they processed about one hundred and sixty four million Australian dollars in these payments and they made like thirty two million off of it.

Wow.

Yeah, And so they got busted and they were fined eighty million Australian dollars for this scheme. Oh wow, And it wasn't their only tangle with the Gaming Commission.

Did actual people who are involved actually go to jail or have to pay fine?

They just paid fines and that wasn't even their biggest fine. Oh damn eighty million. So in twenty twenty two they got pinched, and this time for a bunch of violations. And it seems that like for more than ten years, they were letting patrons gamble for more than twenty four hours at a time without a break.

How do you track that though?

I don't know, but there's apparently this law you cannot cannot let someone.

Get you need to go sleep, like you need.

To go get some water. Think about what you've done. They also were letting gamblers use these plastic picks to hold down machine buttons. It's like, you know how you see people at like video poker, which the Ausies call pokey machines, or like slot machines where there to hit them all quick.

I've gone to yeah casinas with my family members.

It's that and the picks. They let people play multiple machines at a time as well. Yeah, so in twenty nineteen, the Crown was told, hey, listen, you got to stop giving people button picks. This is their you have to take steps to make sure that people stop using them. And there the crowd's like, hmm okay, no they didn't. And so Franz Thorne, right, she steps up, she said quote. For a long time, Crown had promoted itself as having the world's best approach to problem gambling. Nothing could be

They got two million in fine.

Tundred million in fines, and the casino they released this statement quote, we are genuinely remorseful for the failings of the past, and we're committed to becoming a world leader in the delivery of safe and responsible gaming and entertainment. The recently appointed new leadership team at Crown is driving a whole of company transformation program designed to uplift the culture and build a better crown which exceeds the expectation of our shareholders.

I love the valley girl who works in the Australian gaming industry.

Right. They are in cities, They're everywhere. They're so hard to get away from. You know, they get these communications, this degree, they go wing top consulting. Next thing you know, they're running crowds. See they're like I graduated from Irvine and here I am okay. So you know that if they were hit with these kind of fines and they just kept rolling that they're taking in a ton of money in every amount. Yeah, casinos are basically money printing operations.

Well, some people have found a way, Elizabeth. There's like this one guy he found in Atlantic.

City, some guys. Yeah, so they had a crazy stick up there was on August twenty it did a crowned.

So people are like, oh, man, I gotta rob that.

They have so much money, let's do this. August twentieth, twenty twenty two. Recently, recently, Thomas Mangoes who made me think of that commercial that runs during football. I Am yours.

Mango Bring Back.

He had a pretty serious gambling addiction and he'd been gambling at the Crown Casino for like sixteen hours. I have gambling mango problems. Yeah, so he sixteen hour run, that's insane. Yeah, And at around five am he walks up to the cashier in the Mahogany room and he pulled out a gun and don't worry, it was a toy gun, but the cashier didn't cashier didn't know it. And he says, give us your hundreds. He tells her, and the cashier she starts handing over them honeys while mangoes.

Out of one hundred, had big pocket from a table.

He had from a cashier. Oh right, Yeah, so he walks out of the casino, hails a cab and takes him too.

For he walks out after doing this, huh.

Yeah, walks out, grabs a cab. He goes to Footscray, which is a suburb of Melbourne. You say, so he tips the driver seven hundred dollars, which is like really nice of him, but that's not the best way to avoid attention.

Yeah, it's not.

And so from there he goes to Geelong. And this is a city on the other end of corey O Bay. It's like a big city in its own right, not really a suburb of Melbourne. So in Geelong he checked into a hotel under a false NAMEID. Then he shaved off his mustache. I forgot to tell you as mustache. He cut his hair. I forgot to tell you it had hair, hair and anyone out and he got tattoos.

So you also forgot to tell me he had no tattoos.

This is exactly why why am how I got all my tattoos? Job cover up?

Seriously, his idea is that he's going to have these tattoos, and like, clearly I can't be that guy because I've got all this press police.

He's really fresh covered up in the plastic.

Don't touch that, it's healing.

He gets all this done, he's a new man.

Sure.

He goes to sky City Casino in Adelaide, he says, and he checked in under a fake name, spent two weeks there, and in that time he turned over more than a million dollars, but he lost almost one hundred and one thousand, so he only has like, wait, out of his one hundred and thirty six thousand, he loses one hundred thousand, nine hundred.

Dollars, and in the meantime he builds up to a million and gets back down exactly. So he makes he's got like twenty grand something. He's like exactly.

So, ye, he's left like thirty six thousand dollars September twenty seventh. And remember he pulled this job on August twentieth. He turned himself into police.

He just had to get this jag out.

His defense was that he had PTSD after a video shop that he owned since nineteen ninety burned down after an armed robbery in nineteen ninety three.

So two decades later, yeah, he's likely also, he's like, and then seven years after that, my marriage fell apart and I got divorced in two thousand and that was just all too much for me.

So twenty two years later, I'm going to pull this weird oh hic.

I had to like act it out, get it out of my system. I'm going to wash that pt sest out of my hair.

You know what, your ghost, You demonstrated remorse. You show some shame, and we love shame.

Oh, we do love the shame.

And so he ordered him to serve non parole period of three years, basically probation.

So he's just out, just out, just be a cautionary tale telling people about.

There said quote, all of this behavior endorses the fantasy world and surreal nature of the entire event.

So I don't even understand what that means.

There were bigger let's criminal elements at this casino though, Oh yeah. So in twenty twenty one, so this is before the stick up, the Finkelstein Report was released, and it's a six hundred and fifty two page document on an inquiry into whether the Crown Casino should be able to keep its gambling license six hundred pages, six hundred and fifty two pages.

And then can you imagine the movie Martin Scorsese can make out of that six hundred page report.

I'd love this. It's like an upside down casino. So it just ripped into the Crown for all sorts of illegal activities. There's a list in the document. I'll give you some choice. Once they facilitated millions of dollars of money laundering. They allowed operators with links to organize crime to arrange for junket players to gamble at the casino.

Okay.

One of the quotes, for many years Crown Melbourne has engaged in conduct that is, in a word, disgraceful. They called it illegal, dishonest, unethical, exploitative. They said they have the catalog of wrongdoing is alarming, but more so because it was engaged in by a regulated entity totally.

And when you've gone past litany into catalog, this thing just goes hard.

And then they bring up the whole China stuff. And so the report recommended that they be put under a special manager for two years and that would let them keep their license to operate, but they'd have to make major changes, and they did. They got an all new board and senior staff, and then they brought in a different inspector to monitor whether the money laundering the loan sharking and the drug deals were still going on.

We'll do whatever as long as printing machine running.

It looks like they're in full operation right now. Click and they might be riding the ship. But they're still underwatched from the government, but you wouldn't know it from their website. It's business as usual. So let's hold up, wait a minute for some ads, and do go there because I am with it. When we come back, I'll explain how the forementioned activities are not the most ridiculous crimes up in there.

Nice all right, Zaron, good eye, Elizabeth.

Sorry, I'm getting in the mood.

Crown Casino. Crown Casino, So a lot of hanky shesh has gone down there, and maybe they've been able to smooth things out.

What I'm saying is, let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

Suomie, Crowned Casino, That's what I'm saying. Here's a quick question. Apropos of nothing, Yes, I love those. How much do you think the world's most expensive cocktail is?

I'm sorry, what how much is the world's most expensive cocktail tail? This is like one of the things like whoa, we put real gold in there whatever. Oh, it's not about the actual research that okay. So I'm imagining how much would it cost to make a really fine drink five for I don't know, a few grand.

Twelve thousand, five hundred Australian dollars. And that's back in twenty thirteen. You were close.

No, I was more than seven at all. That's like three times is what I was saying.

More than seventeen thousand dollars American today in the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty four.

I like how generous you were, Like, you were close, Elizabeth. If the speed limit was twenty five or.

You would have said forty dollars, I would have been like, you're close.

H You're really close. I was like, imagine if someone's going seventy five and a twenty five mile an hour like zone, that's how far away I was. It's three times more anyway, I mean says this is like.

That's what the most expensive cocktail. It's in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Why is it so expensive?

I'll tell you it was made on February seventh, twenty thirteen.

It's made is not constantly being made.

By a man named Joel Heffernan.

This is like the biggest cocktail ever made?

Is that?

It is the Giants swimple?

Yeah, the whole town in Milwaukee help make this.

Yes, how do you know Joel worked as a bartender slash mixologist?

Oh?

I love that term.

I know what do you do?

And you're liked?

You just hit me in the face. It's at a place called Club twenty three. And as you've probably guessed, the Club twenty three was located inside the Crown Casino.

Okay, there we go. So is that for Jordan because he's a big gamblers Club twenty three Michael Jordan. But all that is gambling, it's not about sports at all. Yes, they're like his pictures of him and other casinos and then him.

Leaving the NBA.

Why so.

Uh it's still this is still listed as the world's most expensive cocktail ever sold. Okay, And in this world of TikTok excess for drink videos, no one has tried to unseat it.

Really, even all those glow Gold schlogger people.

Apparently. So the pre the Vius world record for a single cocktail was held by Salvator's legacy. Okay, and that drink was developed by famous. I guess to like booze aficionados and hospitality folks. This famous guy, Salvatore Calibres.

Oh, Salvatory Calibreci, Elizabeth, you tell me you don't know sal Calibre.

He made it. He made Salvatores legacy.

Can you say that?

I love saying it with Claude des Griffier view Coniac from seventeen seventy eight.

Like I know what that is?

That drink Conaksting sold for fifty five hundred pounds in October twenty twelve at the Playboy Club in London. Oh wow, funny story about that cocktail when Salvatory tried to make it for the world record in July of that year, like things went south. Oh that bottle of seventeen seventy eight cognac, which was worth about like fifty thousand pounds at the time. Are you yeah, got dropped the bottle? Days someone dropped the bottle and he was going to like open it to poor to make the cocktail, and

He put on, you didn't have any like real alcoholics, Like, I got a tow, Let me get on a straw. Would like the put like.

A cigarette filter at the end of the straw in a.

Little red cocktail straws like they're sipping on like a Roy Rogers.

So Salvatory. He like takes the shards of the bottle and he puts it in this glass cabinet that also holds like more than a million dollars worth of vintage kgnacs. So anyway, are kidding?

That's like putting the four hundred and fifty million dollars in Leonardo da Vinci painting on a yacht, Like why would you put all that there? I mean, you're just asking gravity do it. Gravity.

When he actually made the drink, he got his hands on another bottle of this stuff, and so then he made he makes the tipple with the Kognak, a seventeen seventy bottle of Kumel liqueur, an eighteen sixty dub orange currosow, and a tiny bottle of nineteenth century anguester of bitters. Okay, so back to the Crown. Yeah, February of twenty thirteen,

What is in the Winston?

Elizabe, I'll tell you. It's made with eighteen fifty eight vintage kroy Say couve leone Cognac.

And by the way, when you're saying all this stuff, I got some of the words. I know something I don't, But the eighteen fifty that is the year, and not like some name for.

That's the year that's from. And I gotta say, I'm saying these words. I don't know them. Yeah they mean nothing, sounds like you. No, they don't.

No much more than in there. You don't want to hear me, try it?

Okay. So this is this, this eighteen fifty eight, that's the same cognac that Winston Churchill and Twight D. Eisenhower sipped when planning the D Day landings. I imagine them like drinking black coffee as they ponder the fate of Europe in the free world. The hands imagine brave Allied soldiers. No, they're sipping on yak and just like looking at each other all the crazy their.

World leaders debating something that may be the end of the world. You're gonna have coffee stuff you can.

Find or steal. The fun fact about that batch of conyak is also the cognac that was stocked on the Titan.

Okay, So, like, are you thinking about crossing the Atlantic? I've got the Kodiac for you.

So you've got that quisette cognac dating back to eighteen fifty eight, it's already a world record holder because a bottle was valued at one hundred and fifty seven thousand dollars. That is nuts And they're like, there too, two nips of that are in this drink and that's normally it's normally six thousand a shot. Yeah, there's.

I've owned less than that. Shop.

Then there's gramoy A quintessence. Total Wine and More describes, as the quote, a premier blend of extremely rare cognacs, some over one hundred years old, sourced exclusively from Grand to Champagne, the most prestigious growing region of cognac. Double distilled wild tropical orange essence and aged in French oak casks, limited annual release.

Very nice. What did BEVMO have to They wouldn't comment the orange cat. I've never heard of orange cast. That's nice, yeah, but.

Like that's Gremoier is orange?

Oh yeah, of course the flavor. I just hadn't thought about orange cast. I was like, oh, that's great, and so no oak casts.

Yeah, but you say they're orange, tropical orange essence, French oak cast.

About that orange, I imagine the essence inside of the cast. Yeah, we've oiled the cast.

Probably did. Don't trust me.

My imagination is probably wrong.

Diaper, Total Wine and More will sell you a bottle right now, cash on the barrel head for nine ninety nine dollars ninety nine cents. No, no thank you, no thank you. Next up Shartruse VP. They don't sell that at Total Wine and More. In fact, I had I had trouble finding an English language website that would talk

Earth and sweet.

Cleansing, antiseed, peppermint, spearmint, angelica, lime, peel, tobacco, ginger root, and turmers.

It's got everything.

The aftertaste is called zy pine and peppermint fresh with enlivening cracked black pepper.

If you ever wanted to drink just.

To eat the forest floor. Yeah, and then while a fairy peas on there, it is down' have like a dash of anguster of bitters in there because apparently you can't do it. And then that comes from you know, Trinidada drink. Yeah, and then but I'm sure that that those particular ones are like super fancy under the light of the harvest moon, like a bed of hibiscus flowers or something. And to top it all off, the drink has a pop rocks rim and a slink gym swizzle stick.

What they turned it into a kid's that's.

For my imaginary pina colade of.

Bread bowls, Like are you kidding this?

This drink has a presentation of chocolate, nutmeg dust, essence of poppy seed, yeah, tele rim now, essence of poppy seed and roses, hints of coconut, passion flower and oranges. So the hints are just like it winks at it.

Yeah, we put we put the passion fruit on the same count.

Comes in a cut crystal glass with a diamond encrusted stirstick, and it takes the bartender two days to make the twelve five hundred dollars drink.

So I gotta ordered on Thursday for the weekend.

It's like a crazy soufle. I have no idea what he's doing that whole time, but I think he needs help with time management.

I mean, like I thought there was like you've seen some of those Japanese bartenders where they have like they make the drink with the cube and on fire and all this. I'm like, no, I just want to drink like this guy's like two days, we've.

Had an anvil down in the basement.

He's got to crystal the drink that was really close.

To my drink that I call Elixir of the Gods. It's a drink that is sugar free lemonade and pineapple juice on the rocks.

You keep talking about this is it good?

So what does the Winston taste like?

Money?

Money?

Well?

I was trying to think of someone who could walk us through it, and then I remembered that our ridiculous crime bar keep in the basement saloon. Yeah, he'd be the perfect person to tell us all I did. Come on in and Rascal Jack, it's good to see you, and you brought your parrot that plays the steel drunk.

You can't sit there, No, it's fine.

You're gonna us a song.

Oh okay, let me tell you that a little drink called the Winston.

It's a little bit doney, it's a little bit short, drenk. If you give me more, I might get sick. You put a little in a cup. Go ahead and put a little more in that cup. I need to get drunk. I just spent twelve thousand dollars on a drink. Have you ever felt like you've been getting ripped off? My friends? Just remember there's a guy who's been twelve contail.

You know what.

This isn't enough, zaren. I want you to close your eyes.

And picture it.

You heard the man, You heard the man clothes. It's February seventh, twenty thirteen. You are a bar back at Club twenty three at the Crown Casino. The place has been a buzz for days now in anticipation of the creation of the world's most expensive cocktail ever sold. The place is packed mostly with reporters, but also with high rollers and onlookers. Wanting to witness a gross display of excess. People chat and laugh as swanky, down tempo early ats

I'm still so confused to Elizabeth, I've been thinking about the entire commercial break better.

He took one sip, so they just served the world's most expensive cocktail to the world's least interested casino cast one sip, sets it down, walks away. Why well, what was that about?

Right?

Is this a magic trick?

James Manning? Why wasn't he there? Who is James James? Where are my pants? Who stole my pants?

Why am I wearing your pants?

No?

Okay? So Manning he described himself as a quote substantial gambler. He's a whale. Okay, he's a property he was a property developer from New Zealand.

And he was staying it doesn't it seem like hippos instead of whales should be the term for gamblers because whales are not known for a reading. But it's hippos. We always think it was like hu hippos, right, And that's like, oh, you don't want to mess with a hippo. You don't want to get in the water with the small.

Fish in the pond and the whale comes in like was it.

Yeah, yeah, never made sense to me anyway, Sorry, go on.

He spends a lot of money there, he stay, he's staying at the casino February twenty thirteen. He's spending and he's winning lots and lots of money. So the casino reaches out to see if he wants to buy the world's most expensive cocktail of course, as long as you're here, And he's like, yeah, why not, So I'm down. And so he and his family had been staying there already for a couple of weeks. They're in like one of the high rollers swite.

Sure, they have like their own cabana.

And when he had his own VIP services person that was waid on accommodate his every win for our crew.

So he liked to be a psychiatrists.

He liked to play at the card tables. And I have to say I couldn't figure out exactly which game like they just talking.

About or like game poker, Oh yeah, poker.

Yeah.

So the night like a lot of different games over in the Asian game.

I think they have all sorts of yeah, so just card games.

Okay, Poker's let's go with poker.

So the night before this cocktail event. Manning's at the tables, right, He's at the high stakes tables, not the nickel slots, and he's on a roll and he's winning hand after hand, like and that kind of luck. Can't hold out like.

Ten thousand hand minimum, that kind of table kind of stuff.

And but this is what makes him a whale. And so he's been having terrific luck though for a while he's just been raking it in, which is why the casino they were really eager to get him in on this cocktail stum spread some of the money around, get them away from the table off. But that night, so this is the night before, they have their eyes on chains on the floor as well as through the camera. At this point, there are more than two thousand cameras

They saw, well, he can't.

Quite make it out. So they watched him play eight hands, and he played him really quickly and they were all winners. And so then like he gets up and he retires to his luxury suite.

Did she get that guy from casino with the cattle prod?

The hammer? And security They keep their eyes on him the whole time as he goes back to the sweet they're trying to work out what was going on because they have all these high resolution cameras and it looked like someone had hacked the system and was relaying that information to James through an ear piece. Okay, and so he's using the casino's own system against it.

And they can't like unzoom their cameras, like they have no control over those cameras. Like these people have.

Hacked in deep, they've hacked indep and here he is, he's raging against the machine he's using it against. So there's this woman, Linda Hancock. She's a professor. She wrote a book about the Crown Casino, so she knows the place. She said that his winnings, all this winning, didn't draw attention right away because he's this big whale. You know, win big, bet big and like Pitt, you know what you're eventually the house is always going to win. This

Please, I love people.

A casino consultant named Baron Stringfellow.

What come on, that's a stringfellow.

Look, it's so much better. He used to be based in Las Vegas, but now it looks like he operates out of Hiawatha, Kansas.

Wow.

And I'm fascinated by him. I am his and his amazing Barrenstringfellow Dot.

Com website, I find the most interesting people.

Here's some bio information from his website, and there's random capitalization.

Oh, of course.

Barn performed his first page show at the age of thirteen in nineteen seventy three. He is from Las Vegas, Nevada. He has been in casino as his profession for a bit less time than magic. I'm trying to give you the exclamation prints here. The two careers intertwined nicely into one amazing job. His combined works have been seen internationally and he may be the quote best kept secret in magic cheaters.

Beware.

Baron is an international casino scams expert and entertainer. Calls come in worldwide to solve casino crime and get Baron's insight into scams. Twenty years in tribal gaming, fifteen of those with our own consulting firm. We don't just train casino personnel, regulatory staff, and state federal government in a multitude of casino solutions. We enter train what intertrain events

I bet he's got great stories about how Penn and Teller are like dicks. Yeah.

Probably one time he does seminars in Macau. Oh really yeah, one of his he's like a big name. One of his big topics is he says, so this is vicious activities and casinos, And like I said, he is fascinating and I would love to hear all of his stories.

I would like to take a road trip with him.

Be amazing. Anyway, So when they ask him about this heist, the press, they're like, who do we go to? We go to the number one guy, Barren Strings. So they talked to him. He said it took fewer resources than what you'd imagine for like an Ocean's eleven type.

Thing, ocean thirteen type.

Yeah quote, intercepting them the surveillance signals is simple as going down to a local radio shack. That's what he told Australian broadcast.

He used radio shack. Yeah.

Wow.

I wonder if there's still a radio shack in Iowas.

I bet they're internationally too, though, Like you know, I hear that they.

Maybe he still exists. I don't know, but I need to take one of them.

I don't want to go there again.

I know. So this is how he described the operation.

Please quote.

The player wears an earpiece that's fed information from an accomplice sitting somewhere in the casino or outside of it. This person would have access to the casino's surveillance feed and would be watching the action on the table. They would then relay the best plays and bets to the player and stringfellows and stuff like. This is actually like kind of common and that the casinos know about it. Yeah, but they don't report it because it would generate so much bad pr and encourage other people.

Sure, I mean there's a lot of cheaters, and we see that this is usually the plan, which, yeah, how do you get eyes on whoever, either the dealer or your other opponents, and then how do you get into the person's ear or like with electronic like did he do it on their schedule?

But the casinos they're like he said, quote, the problem with casinos is that they believe they are unbeatable, and we see over and over again that they are not unbeatable. If casinos would monitor for wireless transmissions, they would be able to thwart these plans on set.

I bet because they have to use them themselves, that they can't use blocks.

So the casino have clocks, like why would they not exactly, So the casino now knows what's going on. They know that Manning's up in his villa in Crown Towers, and they did the math and they figured out how much he'd taken them for. Okay, thirty three million dollars.

Oh yeah, buddy.

So they head up there in the middle of the night and they gave him the boot what They kicked him out. They did not call the cops, They didn't beat it. They were like, sir, you need to leave. And he's like, my children are asleep. I don't care, sir, you need to leave.

Isn't it a wild how? Like you can take the English culture and you get America, or you can get Canada, or you can get Australia. America were like, beat his ass Canada, Australia Like, well, sir, you need to get out. You can't be stealing, like we.

Say, like you reach a certain threshold of money and consequences are different.

I think that that guy, if he's not on the inside or doesn't have a lot of money, if he's just taking him for.

A lo lot of money. He's a whale.

Yeah, I don't know though, I think I don't think this play goes in America.

They did do something to him. They hit him with a withdrawal of license. Notice, yes, it meant that he couldn't come into the entire Crown complex, not even into the luxury shops.

Darren, Wow, he can't do the shopping. He will know, And he.

Said okay, and then he went back with his family, presumably to New Zealand.

No duty free goods for you, that's it.

Sorry, And so that's why he wasn't there to drink the world's most expensive cocktail ever. So he just taken the casino for thirty three million dollars and had been evicted.

And Wynn knew this. That's why he takes the silly Yeah.

Well, the casino that he's another whale. They just grab another whale, only this one doesn't give a tinker's damn about a cocktail he just wanted to get. He's not even like his buddy, No, no, no, so like the casino made a deal with when and he you know, they said, you you signed for the drink and then we'll pay you back later.

Are you kidding.

And then the casino it turns out they never charged him for it in the first place, so technically no one paid for the world record, right, the casino just ate the cost.

So was it?

Is it the most expensive cocktail ever sold? Still holds the record when you go to the Guinness website to this day, it holds the record.

I'm calling hijinks.

Yeah, me too. So anyway, the casino fired the VIP services manager that was someone to Manning and his family because the thoughts were that he was the one. Yeah, and so Victoria Police they did confirm that they were involved in the investigation, even though they didn't receive a formal complaint. So there's nothing on file. Everything's on the hush hush and.

Away.

And it looks like Manning and the casino came to some sort of deal. Speaking of deals, I'm not saying you're wanting this man to be heard?

How how different the reactions you get to just do what you want.

Linda Hancock, she's the one who wrote the book on the crowd.

Yeah huh.

She thinks that Manning and the VIP manager had a deal of their own. Okay, she's a quote. How it could happen is that they assigned someone to look after all the needs of the premium player. Sometimes they can be quite demanding. Sometimes they drink, sometimes they don't. They may have a particular food they like. This person was accommodated in one of the luxury villas up on the very high floor of the Crown Casino. There's the Versace villa.

Oh I need to pick my job out.

I thirty thousand a night. It's just yeah. So the press got a hold of the story in March of twenty thirteen, one month after it went down, and the casino told the press it was pretty sure they'd be able to get most of the money back. Stringfellow, our hero, he said, that's pretty much impossible. Yes, Like they let you walk out. He was like, quote chances or zero if they let you walk out of the casino game over, Well, you.

Can still get back illegally, you can send the viper after May.

Right, Manning denied the charges and I had trouble tracking him down after the heist, but I think I found him, did you. Well, there's a James Manning who's a bitcoin baron in Australia.

Okay sounds.

He was the CEO of Masson Infrastructure Group, which is like a bitcoin mining operation that was based in Pennsylvania and a right and so that he was the CEO up until May of twenty twenty three, and he got the boot when he failed to disclose related party transactions. He founded a hedge fund based in Sydney and in twenty twenty two he and his wife, who's like a former fashion designer of course, have like four kids. They sold their house in Wallahara, a Tony uh the suburbs

Down the street it was like next door because they didn't want to have neighbors and he was down the.

Street like they just buy up the neighborhood. So apparently bitcoin bosses are buying up a ton of high end Australian real estate. There are stories about this, and I imagine the same thing is happening all over the world. You know, they're a good number of properties in San Francisco that sit empty because owners buy them as investments. That's what everyone says.

You don't even want to know the numbers, like it's you know that it's like I think right now, it's in America. There are twenty eight unoccupied homes for every homeless person. Yeah, okay, the numbers are stupid.

And then the city like you'll see in those big high rise like luxury apartments, like most of whole floors.

Oh yeah, San Francisco's ridiculous.

Yeah, because it's a good front.

Who just pays attention to that? And he'll point out yeah, yeah, the you know, the.

Way that the property values keep increasing everywhere. You know, it's a good investment, which is just disgusting. I don't like that either. So that may or may not be the same James Manning. But the details and I mean Manning was described as a Kiwi in all the heist reporting, and this dude is in Australia, but I can't find a bio for Aussie James Manning to see if he's.

Easy for a keiwave to go from New Zealand Australia.

I mean, and it's it's weird that there's just like nothing about him. I did. I did find SEC filings that refer to Manning as having property development experience earlier in his career, so that lines up anyway. If that James Manning isn't the same one as the Crown Casino one, I apologize, and please don't sue me. I'm just basically asking people not to sue me today.

And if you are related to the Manning brothers from football, please call me because I'd like to be on the Manning cast.

Yeah exactly. We both have ridiculous takeaway. Oh no, I got what you ridiculous takeaway?

Pepe? Ask me Elizabeth. I'm so glad. I've been sitting here holding my fingers crossed for like five minutes. I can tell you this now. I don't I pick on the bitcoin guys because I think that what they're doing is, you know, just basically speculating. You're just creating this money that we don't need and then selling it to someone who's an idiot, and then they make me make money. I'm like, I don't see any value here, right, But at the same time, I spend a lot of time

Right.

You know, me, I got my one computer, I plug in a couple of numbers and I go look for these. A month later, I go, oh, not that one, and I do it again. Right, this guy has cloud computing doing it, all these numbers all the time, twenty four hours. He spent two million dollars doing this. You would think, man, it paid off, you did it, your planned worked, you found the next biggest mercy and prime. And then they're like talking to him and he's like, yeah, I did that, and he.

Didn't care excited about it.

Why did you spend the two million if he doesn't give you any joy.

Here's the thing about like bitcoin and that kind of stuff, is the environmental impact.

Oh yeah, I was trying to side step that make.

The electricity is.

Maybe you've prepared that for a lot of the crypto coins. So you can't say that anymore about him other than bitcoin.

AI.

Sure, definitely pretty much. If you're trying to cool something, you're taking water or electricity, either you know, for the stand or for the cooling. But shouldn't these things get these people joy? If you're gonna be denying my grandchildren a future on the planet, shouldn't at least get joy out of this?

Exactly?

Well, there, that's my ridiculous tahaway. Would people would at least get a moment of joy, as I said, of like a moment of like I got this. He didn't, because that's not joy.

That's not joy.

Joy.

That's my takeaway that was I was watching this thing the other day about what joy is, and then it doesn't have to be like this amazing like fireworks of things it's just simple pleasantries, like simple things in life that and it's our tasks to stop and like think of that joy. And when you think about this this bartenders, I mean the alcohol cost a side of just like

Like I checked the box.

There, I did it.

Saw me do it exact guys, Like that was two days of my life you to go there, I did it.

Yeah.

And because it's so expensive, apparently the casino said like we're going to be making like twelve more of these or something. They'll be available for a certain amount of time. And I don't know if they ever made them or anyone cared, but.

Just these like flagrant, gross displays of well and now when you google.

That bartender's name, this is all that comes upon I know, right, poor kid. Uh, you know what we need to as a palate cleanser. What Elizabeth a talk by?

Hell yeah, I went cheat.

Elizabeth Zarin close your eyes. Treasure Island being robbed. I was in the floor where the cops repelled down. I'm watching the TV to see what's going on. Hurt. All the helicopters saw my husband hit the floor with the gunfire on the news.

Thought he was shot.

He was right next to the security guards and I was five months pregnant and about had that baby that night.

Great episode. Oh my goodness.

So glad everything was fine for you and your family.

Wow, so you're like witness to history. Yeah, I'm so glad everyone wound up. Okay, and the little bibs, Oh my god, that's crazy. Thank you for sure. Uh, that's it for today. You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime dot com. Go there and check out the merch. I think it's hilarious.

It's dope. There's some great and there.

We're going to keep putting more stuff in h so always keep checking back. We've been remiss, ye there. Yeah, They're not like campaigns anymore now, it's just always always.

There, set it and forget it exactly.

We're at Ridiculous Crime on Twitter and Instagram. You can email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, and most importantly, as I always say, leave a talk back on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited by world's most expensive VIP services manager, Dave Kusten, starring Annals Rutger as Judith Cocktails, conversation and crooning by Rascal Jack.

Dis Crime, Say It One More Time Crime.

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio four more podcasts My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.