Uncut Gems: The Great Diamond Hoax

killer whales can learn to speak bottlenose dolphin? Really, yeah, and not only that, sperm whales in the wild, like in the Caribbean, they speak with an accent that other whales can't. Do they when they speak Dolphin? Are they speaking in a heavy whale accent? I wonder, but sperm whales speak with their own specific Caribbean accent exactly like. I just would love to hear what that sounded like.

And Cats, you know, like we think like Oh, cats don't really like speak English like like well, it turns out they do. They understand their name, they just choose not to respond. They just ignore you when you say their name. But they do. And then also, like, for instance, cows, right. Cows. Did you know that they love Cool Jazz? Yeah, cows, if you played cool jazz, they will produce one point, one point five more pints of milk per day for Jazz.

For Yeah, well, for any like. You know, Cool Colm Jazz, smooth jazz, Cool Jazz, really calming music, often warm. Yeah, the quiet, quiet, wow, some animals are just like us. Everybody always thinks that we're so special. Human arrogance. Telling your ridiculous agreed, that is ridiculous. Do you know what else is ridiculous? Oh, you got one. Yeah, throwing a bunch of gems on the ground, calling it a motherload. It sounds like some one of my uncles would do.

Probably this is ridiculous crime. A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always murder free. And guess what ridiculous? I've talked about the California Gold Rush in the eighteen fifties before in my life, and also talking to you here, Um, Shanghai, Kelly and all that great episode to the UK. Right, yeah, and I've talked about the Yukon gold rush eighteen sixties, soapy Smith. Today I have the story of a diamond rush sort of.

I didn't know there were such a thing as diamond rush. This sort of by the eighteen seventies, right, the golden silver rushes of forty and fifty nine respectively had petered out. In the late eighteen sixties, diamonds were discovered in South Africa and so optimistic prospectors started looking around North America figuring look, we got gold, we got silver, diamonds were amazing. So a few were actually found near Plasserville, California, in

gold country. There were a few verbal accounts from Western explorers, but no one found like a huge mine a big load of them. Enter Philip Arnold. No, I don't really know about where you find diamonds, like in the what type of rock strata or like you know gold, you need certain granite qualities, right, you need certain rock formations with diamonds. Do we even have the geology? Isn't there one where you look for courts somewhere? Yeah, I thought

that was with gold. Yeah, basically like streaks. Of course I don't know diamonds. If there's a distinct smell, it's an ore. Right, you gotta Break Open the Rock and see the diamonds inside. So how are you going to know anyway. I just wonder what they were looking for. You look for Cay Jeweler's in the in the wild. Philip Arnold. So he was born in Kentucky in eighteen

twenty nine. Does it really matter when? But as a young man he dropped out of school and he wanted to apprentice as a hatter, but he found that it didn't suit him. So what did he do? He ran away. I was gonna became cobb when you take a job and it's not a good fit, you just straight everyone to abandon every flee arms of flaylan. So he lied about his age and enrolled in the army and he served in the Mexican war. So he was out by forty eight and after that he goes to California to

work as a gold rush forty niner. This guy's hitting all the big marks. Totally doesn't strike it rich, runs away arms flaalan. So he worked on all these Um, he worked on various mining expeditions in the West for decades. Right. Um, he did go back to Kentucky in eighteen fifty five and he got married and then he went back again in eighteen sixty two to buy some property he went back during the war. Wanna say suspicious timing. Property going cheap.

I met this real cheap property in Kentucky right about now, colonel. He's an opportunist. So he goes to Arizona and there he meets another dude from Kentucky named Asbury harpending. That's a hell of a Kentucky name. He's one of California's foremost financiers. I Bet Asbury harpending. Is it harpending harpending? I can't ask him, he's dead. It's all of them. So in the mid eighteen sixties he goes to work for Harpendings Lincoln Gold Mine Company in Plaster County California.

So PLASTERVILLE, plastic. One of the board members is an associate of harpendings and he is a dude named George Roberts. Are you writing all of this down? Taking copy's notes? Thank God, because I'm not. In a two thousand four article in Smithsonian magazine, which, by the way, is amazing. Shout.

I love so many magazine it's really good. It's amazing. Roberts, in the article was described as, quote, the sort of businessman described in newspapers as prominent, but his was a prominence earned by moving fast and not asking too many questions. Move fast breaks down. So by eight seventy arnold goes back to San Francisco. He's working at the diamond drill company as an assistant bookkeeper. So he's mining adjacent right,

he's not actually out there in the field. James Cooper also worked at the Diamond Drill Company and Arnold knew him from earlier prospecting days. So Cooper teaches arnold about diamonds and gems. Well, yeah, and they're just, you know, they're working at the company together, yapping about diamonds. Now it was allegedly cooper who first brought up the idea of as salting a piece of land with gems. Do

you know what that means? I'm guess. So you gotta pepper round, you're gonna salt it, sprinkle it, sprinkly, sprinkle me. He didn't. He, Cooper didn't participate in the impending hoax, but he's just like, you know, be really cool. You guys being Super Fun for us to do. Just get a bunch of the Earth Hannibal Styles. So there's this book called diamonds in the Salt and it's written by Bruce Woodard. He said that Cooper also gave Arnold a

starting collection of leftover gems from the shop. So he's got he's got little scrappings, he's cut scrabblings from the bottom of the bin. It's like how it like fried chicken places they sell popcorn chicken, which is just the stuff that fell off the regular chicken and the Fryer. That's my dairy or like in a butcher's shop, like the stuff that comes off the table gets turned into hot dogs. He's got the hot dogs of gems. Yeah, exactly. So he's like, I'll give you all these scrabblings and Um,

enter John Slack, names, John Slack. Okay, Um, Cooper slack and yeah, so one note to go back a little bit. That this Dude Arnold, he likely purchased some of the non diamonds, which would be like rubies, sapphires, etcetera, from native Americans in Arizona. Okay, so they had more than like. That's just supposition on People's part. Okay, okay. I was wondering,

do they have these emeralds down in the southwest? I mean, I know they have, like you know, yeah, and I don't know what if, like Arkansas, there's a lot in Arkansas. There's all those places where you have the caverns. John Slack so arnold needs help, so he brings in his cousin, John Slack Action Slack Um. He was nine years older. He's also from Kentucky, is his cousin, and he was also a minor, forty niner. So cool if he was nine years old from his nine year old cousin for

his tiny fingers to dig in the dirt. The idea, man, it's so good. The plan. How could it fail? November eighteen, Seventy Arnold and John Slack Um they go to George Robert's office. The cousins are looking all weather beaten and they said well, Hey, George, we got something really valuable. They're like okay, Um, now it's too late in the day to go deposit whatever they have at Bank of California. So they're hoping that, Hey, can you store this for us?

We missed the bank is closed and it's just like a bag. Can you store this for us, which, if anyone comes to you and says can you hold this form, no, the answer is no, especially if it's dripping especially if it's dripping Um. So they're like, well, we got some like rough diamonds, but we don't want to tell you where we got them. We just have a bag of rough diamonds. So, you know, Robert says, I'll store it for you, and they said, please, don't tell anybody about this.

Is Their plan. Get him to tell one exactly. They know that if you say don't tell anyone about this, this man is going to turn around and tell everybody. So what does he do? He Turns Around and he tells William Ralston, the founder of Bank of California. Yeah, he's like, check it out, William, these dudes, these two Ding Dong's, came in bag of diamonds. I'm holding onto it. We got fresh marks in town. Who else does he tell?

As very harpending? Yeah, so Ralston is one of the richest guys in California and he made his fortune mostly from like the silver bananza in Nevada's comstockload. Yeah, that was discovered in eighteen fifty nine Sara, Nevada's that's why Nevada is called the silver state. That comstock looad kicked off all the exploration for silver in Nevada. UTAH. That cool weird town of Tonapon, Nevada exists because of the COMSTOCKLOAD. A lot of the big names in the California gold

rush had a piece of this action too. Switched over. Yeah, so Roberts brings in more interested parties. He's not supposed to be telling anyone. He tells all the big names. He tells William Lent in general. George Dodge lent had been a major investor in the comstock load. So this group comes together and they want to buy the cousins out. So they're they're doing exactly what the cousins thought. We want to buy you out. They're like no, no, sorry,

these are our special loose diamonds. We're not going to tell you where we got him. Slack, John Slack. He he says, okay, I'll make you deal. Give me fifty dollars now and then fifty dollars when we come back to our from our next visit to the quote unquote field. So he's like, acts like he's doing this side deal. I want you to please, I'm begging you to keep in mind that fifty dollars then is like one point

two million dollars now. So he goes to them and says, give me one point too cool, and I'll come back to you after I've gone and check the field and make sure there's more diamonds out there worth it. And this guy is like saying yeah, because I at the inside angle, like I'm planning, I'm buying this. Wasn't it for him? He's thinking that this, if they've located a place where there's all this these rough diamonds, are going

to be able to open a diamond mine. And they're thinking these guys are marks and they can make me move over on them. They don't realize what they've had. That okay with you. So July one that Arnold and slack they decided to go to London to buy more uncut gems, like London, London, London, London. So Arnold's calling himself Ondo. They're taking steamships to go buy Lord. I love this. They like flap their wings, and then slack uses his middle name, bircham. So they use these aliases.

They buy twenty dollars with rough diamonds and rubies. So they come back to California. They got sixty pounds pounds. Legitimately they've I'm imagining they put them in a crate like a chess and so it's like a cartoon. You open it up and he's like yeah, although they're rough. So it's like rocks Um. So they have the diamonds and the rubies, sixty pounds. They smuggle them back in and then they show Roberts and they're like, look what we found in the field, sixty pounds. So they said, okay,

we're gonna go back. We're going back to the field and they told the businessman we're going to bring you back a couple of million dollars worth of stones. So if they're talking millions, then think about the value. Now that's where we are right now. So we have huge crates of stones that everyone thinks is getting pulled out of the earth somewhere in the West field, undisclosed location. When we come back from this break, I'm gonna let you know how that delivery of precious stones went. And

and we're back hey, our pants on. I still got all my teeth when we left off Arnold and slack. Remember those two? Uh, they'd promised George Roberts, a board member of Kentucky Creep, Asbury Harpendings, Lincoln Gold Mining Company Plaster County California. George Roberts slippery businessman. So he says he's beat. He'll be quiet about the gems. Turns around tells the President of the Bank of California, tells Asbury, Arnold and slack. He basically goes back into the smoky

dark room and says, Hey, guys, I got a live one. Well, they're all doing all sorts of other illicit deals and the exploiting people and they're like, Oh, time out on this exploitation. We've got another one coming in Arnold and slack. They go to a remote spot in southern Wyoming. What they've decided is the field and that's where they salt the ground. So they have like they're like flower girls at a wedding, just tossing like little like fabric petals

all over the ground. They were wearing little pinafores and it was wild. SOTYO history, like Wyoming, abbreviated wyo history dot org. Quote. Arnold and slack had salted the Mesa which straddles the Wyoming Colorado border, about forty four miles south of rock springs, Wyoming territory, with low grade diamonds and other gemstones. To this day, the Mesa is officially marked on US Geological Survey Topographic maps as diamond field.

I wonder if you could go out there and still find a loose rock to they maybe, I mean if they spread around wide enough. But yeah, so it's just Oh, diamond field, that's where the diamonds are. So Arnold chose the location because it was so remote and the weather was so bad. No one's gonna want to go out there. No one's gonna pop in, you know, just like I was in the neighborhood, just a loot to check out diamond field, taking a walk and with my dogs and

Oh my look, Dang kids get a pail. So they even so right, they still don't want anyone tracking them. So they keep the trail hidden by wrapping the horses hoofs in Canvas and they wore moccasins. Damn, that's going the extra mile. They don't want anyone. I've never heard of anyone wrapping a horse's feet like that. I do it all the time, but go to the store. I

don't want to know. That's commitment. Thank you. So back in California, Um hardpending, Asbury harpending, he meets him at the train station when they come back, and he said, quote, both were travel stained and weather beaten men and had the general appearance of having gone through much hardship and privation. Slack was sound asleep, but, Arnold said, grimly erect, like a vigilant old soldier with a rifle by his side.

Also a bulky looking buckskin package. So they come back and they're like and see, like they're in character, like you know, they're just lounging in the train. We're getting close to the station, rumful up those one to three sleep pretends. So in the package, in that bulky looking buckskin package, large collection of diamonds. The cousins said they had originally had two bundles but they lost the other

one crossing a river. So it's like, you think, this is a lot more guys, much more of what a trip? So way too many just to carry. I love how they're playing these guys. Oh, they're amazing. So the Group of investors, they decided to get the diamonds inspected by a third party. You think they bring ten of the gems that Arnold had given them to New York and they head over and talked to none other than Charles Tiffany, damn, founder of the eponymous tiffany. Go right to the top.

The New York meeting participants also included civil war generals George McClellan and Benjaminer, the coward, George mcquean. That's what he's doing. He got into the Emerald Business. So Benjamin Butler, he's a US representative from Massachusetts. He was recommended as someone who could help with issues regarding the land, like I can grease those wheels, um. And then Horace Greeley coune. He was there, but who knows why? Well, you know, chrony is m he just liked to watch. So Um

tiffany praises the stones corruption. It's my cank. Tiffany appraises the stones at a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which is three point six million dollars today. Yeah, that's a lot, that's a fair bit. And please remember, I'm begging you, please remember, these are just ten percent of a collection that had been purchased in London for dollars exactly. This isn't incredible. It's quite the come up. So these New York jewelers that they're having, like, is there any way

that they're in on this. No, they can't be. No, they have no idea. That bad at their jobs completely and they're rough. So it's not like I can tell that these were cut somewhere or whatever. So, Um, it was later revealed because tiffany's expertise was in cut stones, not in uncut ones. But still, I mean like it's like if you're a farmer and you grow corn and I bring you baby corn and you're like, oh, that looks just like corn. I mean like you've got to

be able to Parse a couple of these things. I don't know. I don't know, but you know what act like you know. That's what tiffany's up in there acting like he knows. So the group values the most recent bounty brought in at one point five million and then officially forms the San Francisco and New York mining and commercial company when in doubt form a company. December eight seventy one arnold goes back to London. It was like,

come on, I need somewhere. I'm good. Jumps Dude. He spends there between eight thousand and thirty five thousand dollars on uncut gems. We know how this is going. To come right. I'm wondering, like there's obviously no communication between London and New York. That's what surprising me is that they're not like they're going over there making a major purchase and they don't. None of this is filtering ring back across the Atlantic. has either from just well still though,

a major purchase. I mean like the jewelers. You think there'd be some like, you know, price change, like, oh, we got a big plant. There's this whale in London constelling, buying up jewels. Why don't they come to New York? Who are they? Whatever? Good questions. And if they're Americans going to London, the Brits would know that. Maybe they used fake accents. That would be amazing. Do you have any diamonds? And then people trying to speak French to

them and they all UM, okay. So they start this company, legal paperworks in place. They decided to take their first visit to the diamond field. I mean it makes sense. You've now created this diamond field. So they hire a well respected mining engineer named Henry Jannon to come along for the ride. Hop in Henry Jannon, total protogists. Yeah, he had inspected hundreds of minds really conservative in his assessments as well. So he's like Hurst or like the

color talks to him. No, I think he's like science guy and because he'd done all these conservative assessments so that the owners would wind up getting way more than a thought out of all of these minds. So it's like a good guy to come in. He's not going to overstate it. He's basically internationally known for being the

final boss of mine inspection. They bring in the final boss Spring of Eighteen, Seventy two, Arnold John Slack, harpending, Asbury, Jannon, a general dodge, and then a British acquaintance of harpending's named Alfred rubery. They get together in St Louis and they head on a train to Wyoming. Now, fun fact Asbury and rubery they first met in the United States during the civil war. Both were sympathetic to the south. They outfitted a schooner in San Francisco Harvard to plunder

ships for the cause of confederacy. However, that went overwhelm I bet the San Francisco whalers and gold ships are just like, Oh yeah, come with it. So well, they could both get arrested and convicted of trees. I was going to say that did not last long. Harpending did ten years. Well, he was sentenced to ten years in Alcatraz, damn, and after four months he was released, though, because Lincoln granted amnesty to all political prisoners who would agree to

take and keep the oath of allegiance. So rubery was also sentenced to ten years, also pardoned. So he gets by on the whole, mouth towards none. So here we have. This is who we're dealing with here. Um Anyway, Arnold and slack. They're about to head this group up to this spot where they say that they've just been picking gems. Willing, Willy, Um, they purposefully take the group on the super roundabout path

to the field, trying to confuse them about the exact location. Finally, on June four, after four long days on horseback, they arrive. The group they begin digging. They find gems almost immediately because, yeah, there's like everywhere, harpending Asbury. Harpending later writes, quote, I had not been on the ground three minutes before I found a large diamond. I got off my horse. That day we got over five hundred diamonds, rubies sapphires and emeralds.

Arnold would generally tell me where the best places were to dig for the gems, the Easter egg where. This is right in front of the cage, like, I don't know, look under that room. So over the next few days the group continues to look successfully surprised gems. Jannen, don't forget final bosses. He surveyed three thousand acres, although the salted area was only like an acre. So he surveys it. They head back to San Francisco. They left slack and

rubery to guard the grounds. Right unknown reasons, who knows those two? They bail out after a few days. The ones guarding it. Slack, he had been paid his hundred thousand. Remember the fifty and then fifty. He was never seen by the group again. So smart he's like, I think I've gotten as much as I can. I'm going to tap out now. So Jannon, though, he submits a report of his findings to the group. He estimates the value of the company's stock at around forty dollars share and

the property at least four million. Right. So, as part of his deal, Jannen, who just assessed the value of the stock, he purchases a thousand shares at ten dollars each. He's saying that the shares or forty, but they're going to let him buy a thousand at ten. Yeah, so this is his like payback from the group. It's like he gets in on the ground and then he sells him. He later sells him. He gets around thirty grand and becomes the only non swindler to profit from this scam. Oh,

I'm glad the honest man made an honest profit. Everyone was sure that this diamond field was legit. We know better, Saron, do we ever? Yea. So let's listen to some ads. Just hear him out, okay, just listen to him and when we get back I'm going to tell you what happened when it's discovered that a gem rich field in the middle of nowhere is in fact to legit to quite well, hello, Hey, I'm back. Hey, where was I? Ah, yes, French, yes, okay.

So it was decided, based on an assessment by legendary mining engineer Henry Jannon, that the field was indeed swollen with gems, just like a tick, and everything was on the up and up. I mean, I was just kind of surprised Jannon went for the like. You know, if he knows this industry, he knows how rocks are, he

knows like where you're gonna find gem fields. When you go out and you find like diamonds three inches into the dirt or maybe just sitting there, lightly custed but covered with dust, you have to be like, this is not normal. We didn't have to like get out axes and cut into yeah, like, where's my Rock Hammer? What Thee? Where are the children I can send down this hole? Um? So remember Jann and he says the stock in the company's worth forty is share and then he buys it

at ten. Arnold was paid hundred and fifty thousand dollars for his fine and then he also got three hundred thousand dollars worth of stock right which he sold off. He sells it to Asbury. In all he makes about five hundred fifty thousand dollars. Take away the thirty five or to fifty he spent on gems in London. So he makes five and fifty thousand dollars in eighteen seventy two is something like thirteen point three million dollars today. Damn. That's liked by this point the news of the find

and Jannon's report becomes public. No one knows where the land is still and although many tried unsuccessfully to guess its location and send their own parties out there to look. So people are sneaking around. In the fall of eighteen seventy two men from the San Francisco and New York mining and commercial company and Jann and they made another trip to Wyoming to try and secure the land. Hie Up loose ends and then they purchased this land. Yet

I don't think so. Okay, Arnold sides not to join them. He's like you guys, go ahead. He's already moved back to Kentucky. At this point he's like, you know, I'm going home. On the train back to the bay area, Jannon runs into two geologists, Samuel Emmons and James Gardner. Now those who worked for Clarence King, a recognized geologist who some years before had persuaded the US government to fund a survey of the land between the rockies and

the SIERRAS. So this guy, he's got the government looking at stuff. He and his team, including Emmans and Gardner, surveyed the fifty miles on either side of the parallel. So they know this area. They are, you know, they're like the final final bosses. They're quite intimate. This is like the back of their hand. So emmans and gardener right.

They suspect that Jannon and his crew are coming from the mysterious gem field that everyone's been talking about and they wondered if the field was near the land that they surveyed. So they asked the group like kind of, you know, innocent, innocuous questions. So where are you coming from? What did you do there? What longitude and latitude of you guys coming from? What was the quality of the dirt where you were hanging out? Um, and they're able to figure out where the field is based on all

their secret questions. So then they go back and they tell Clarence King, the geologist, final final boss, about this encounter they had on the train. King says, you know what, let's go look for ourselves. I think I can find the land. I want to corroborate Jannon's findings, just, you know, academic expertise. A big discovery, but I mean, if you think about it, this is a revolutionary thing that there's this incredible not just diamonds but rubies and Sapphire, everything

you can imagine. Just he's like, I want to see this. Native population had noticed it in the thousands. They had been there. But you know, you know as you do. So the group sets out right. They didn't tell anybody else about the real purpose of their trip and instead they were telling people that they were going to look for carboniferous fossils instead of diamonds. That's one of the scientific non laws. So they get to Wyoming, they get off the train. They continued on for a few days.

They find the site. Zaren, I want you to close your eyes. I was wondering my eyes over here permanently open and stuff. Okay, one second. Are Closed. I want you to picture it. Yes, the three geologists, Samuel Emmons, James Gardner and their boss, Clarence King, stand in Rock Springs, Wyoming territory. They've stepped off the train and have secured horses for their forty odd mile trip into the desolate distance.

The Sky is so incredibly vast. Above and before them, the hills are like a mustard gold velvet, the shrubs and grasses all crisping in the fall air, just waiting for that cold ight of winter. The wind howls around them as they set off dust swirls. They consult the rough map they've drawn up of the approximate location of this so called gem field. After a number of days, they locate the spot. They tie up their horses, they

get out their equipment, they begin their search. This is a most American moment, people looking at a barren, deserted or silently empty landscape before them, hoping beyond hope to find fortune where others would just walk on by. But these guys are part of a most modern American moment. They are the cynics, they're the specialists who want information confirmed before they'll believe anything, and these are, unfortunately, the very rare Americans. So one of the men stoops over,

scraping away at this arid soil. He finds gems. The other men dig they find the same gems. It seems to them that these came right from the ground beneath them, the product of Wild Wyoming. They were thrilled, they were surprised. They logged their fines into the evening and they bedded down for the night. I can only imagine that the sky above them, so clear on an autumn evening, was just thick with stars, the Milky Way Tucking him in the endless night full of diamonds reflecting back to the

riches that slept underneath them in the dirt. However, looking more carefully the next morning, they realized there's kind of a pattern to how these gems are distributed. For example, this is my favorite. King found a diamond, quote perched precariously under a slender rock. So like tossed a diamond on the ground that set a rock on top of it. Like ya trying to catch a mouse with a diamond,

you put a little rock. Yes, so they're like how, how could this have been like this for hundreds, nay thousands, of years? A scientific mystery. And there also seemed to be sort of a uniform ratio of one diamond found with around a dozen rubies. Yes, are also what I imagine is that there is a pathway if you follow it, and they kind of are cast from that pathway side. Um, they also found gems in ant hills, but they were only in the ant hills that had footprints, are disturbed

dirt near them. So all this dangerous? Well, first of all, why would there be in the middle of an ant hill wouldn't the ant hill is unearthed. They would move the earth around. Yeah, that's part of the earth they'd be kicking out anyway. Um, so the geologists they go further afield. They dig holes where diamonds should be based on what they've been seeing. But the earth is clearly undisturbed and they found no diamonds. That's all. So king

concluded quote summing up the minerals. This rock has produced four distinct types of diamond, a few oriental rubies, garnets, spinels, sapphires, emeralds and Amethysts, an association enough minerals of impossible occurrence in nature, and some mimerals that are only found in India, some others only found in Iran. It's very curious. It is fascinating. So a few days into their work, a man on horseback approaches them. He introduces himself as JF

Berry from New York City. He'd followed them there and been watching them. Creepy the whole time. He's like hiding, he's like so he says like hey, you guys found gems. Creepy one of them. Let slip that the site is a hoax. He's exhausted, he's been digging in ant hills. He's like yeah, we found gems and it's all garbage. He's nursing his hand blisters. So then, but then they're like they get worried that the news is going to blow the whole thing wide open and put their colleagues

at risk. So the geologists they high tail it back to San Francisco so that they can tell the mining and commercial company what they've discovered. More November, seventy two they arrived in San Francisco. Now K out of respect, first goes to Jannon, not the company. I like that night things that in terms of like respect for your colleague. That's done because he knows this is going to ruin you. Many like man, you may want to go to India

look for the gems there. So Jannon, at first he stands by his findings and he's like no, I you know this is I know what I saw. So then they talk all night and finally Jannon accepts like he was duped. That's got to be hard. You know, people get really tired. It's really hard for most people to admit mistakes or admit they don't know. It's also really hard to use reason and rationality to correct emotions. Those are two different languages, so you can't use one to

usually correct the other. You can use belief to correct emotion, but you usually can't use fact to correct emotions. If he's committed himself to it, he will not be swayed. No, and I think that's like, that's a really hard moment. I could see how it takes all night to bring him to that point. Um So, the next morning, King and Jannon, they go to the mine and commercial company directors and they tell them you have been victims of fraud.

I hate to break it to you. The directors asked King the geologists to take a few of them out there with Jannin. Go out to the field they go. Now they're seeing it all with new eyes. They have all this new information. They're like, Oh my God, how do we not this is totally a hoax, as there's like one gem perched on top of it's in a plastic Easter, like, how did this get out her? We

don't have plastic yet. Um So, the newly hired general manager of the company said he saw ruby scattered in such a way that, quote, it would have been impossible for nature to have deposited them. As for a person standing in San Francisco to toss a marble in the air and have it fall on the Bunker Hill monument right, he's painting a beautiful picture. So the directors like, raise your hand if you want to dissolve the company. All the hands went up. Some people raised two hands and

a foot. So Arnold and slack they get indicted for fraud by a grand jury. Case never goes to trial. They indicted in mcentia but they never went to trial. Arnold gets sued by William lent remember, he was the big investor in the comstock load, the big money man. They settled out of court for a hundred and fifty

thousand dollars, though he said Um he paid. Arnold says he paid not because he was guilty but because the lawsuit was time consuming and he wanted to move on with his life and he was tired of the Pinkerton's harassing. He's like here's your one fifty boring A. I'm onto greener pastors. You guys. Back in Kentucky Arnold had bought a house, obviously from the money he made the hoax. The House had marble fireplaces, had really crazy, chandeliers, high ceilings,

beautiful wallpapers, always very nice, good touch. To this day there are locals who are convinced that there are still diamonds buried in the basement a house. Such a typical local Lord exactly. You know, there are kids who like stare from the bushes of the he also bought five acres in his wife's name where he bred thoroughbred horses and he raised sheep. There's a real wealth in this story. We know about the Horse Trade. There he invested in real estate, became a banker. He became what he was

trying to take down. Um in the spring of eighteen seventy eight, he was in dispute with another banker, but that banker had insulted Arnold in a letter, doubting his trust, trustworthiness because of the possible involvement in the diamond hoax. There was a shootout and Arnold was hit in the shoulder. It did not kill him, but in the winter of eighteen seventy nine he caught pneumonia and he died in

the hospital in February eight. So was that like a Kentucky Colonel Duel like so I write in a letter. So you insulted me and I think you're a fraud, and drop a white glove and you smell like dukie and he's like, well, I never and then so what about slack? What about John? After abandoning his duty guarding the field, slack went to St Louis. He worked. What would you do if you had the money that he had? You bailed out on guarding the supposed diamond field. You

go to St Louis. What would you do? M Go to St Louis late eighteen hundreds by a stockyard. He worked as a carpenter at a coffin company. What not in my top one choices. And then he eventually became president there he worked his wing did I'm not kidding. Then he goes to New Mexico and the job he had in New Mexico was adjacent. He became an undertaker. Now he didn't get into the Topaz business. No, he became an undertaker. He died in eighteen ninety six, at

the age of seventy six. So Arnold pretty much pulled it off. Slack would have too, but he cut and ran and wound up doing a lot of death work. He still had a little bit that Szaren, what is your ridiculous takeaway here, Oh man, Um, one that rich people are easy to scam, especially if you can tell them that you're dumb. You know, I just don't know these things, but a big, strong, strap and gentleman such

as yourself, you probably could. You know, like you play that up, but like, in terms of finances, I think they're gonna go. They'RE gonna go for it, and this apparently has been true for aons. I mean, you can just goes back. You know, this is exactly the thing that we saw in the DOT com boom. This was

the thing that you see in real estate scams. Is the thing you saw in l a, the Owens Valley River, I mean like everywhere you go you will see this, like somebody comes along necks like, I just don't know what to do, and then they scam these rich people who are so certain. So usually, I mean it's the it's the traditional act of the confidence artists. They work

on your confidence. So it's it's a flawless scheme. I'm just so surprised that these people who, you know, they know money, they know wealth, but they don't know anything about jewels or gems and they don't stop to think. So I'm just struck by how many times they had to go out there with experts before they could actually see the truth, because they're so convinced by what they wanted to believe. But they think they're pulling a scam to what I'm saying. So they're like, oh, we're getting

one over on them. So they're so busy thinking about the scam that they don't actually check their own beliefs. Their scam is based on a faulty belief, but there's nobody looking at the greed that they don't check that. I'm like that's the parts. That's ridiculous. I'm like, come on now, how did you get wealthy? Right, well, I said it earlier about that being the most American moment. You know, when Americans are at their best, at their

most sort of Whitman esque, they see possibility everywhere. They're expansive in thought, they're curious, adventurous. Yeah, they don't get sidetracked by the like base animal tribalism of wanting to just be with people that look and think and sound and believe like they do right or do things in the old way. Yeah, they're open, they're eager. Life is vast, it's exciting, it's full of possibility. That's the America, that's

the dream America, the sort of fiction. So in this story we have like the sad underbelly of that moment. That's the one driven by greed. I I like Arnold and slack, right. So they used the big wigs greed against them, the bank owners, the mining magnets. They're so eager to get money off the backs of individual miners, just like they've been doing. It's what made them so

unbelievably wealthy. I mean, like it is so hard to comprehend how much money these guys got, all the like the big four, all the railroad barons, everything, like you talked about that with old billy minor, the train robber. Right. So the fat cats in this case, they didn't think critically,

like you said. They never asked. They thought greedily and then they acted in haste because they're so quick to take advantage of Arnold and slack and, as I used to exploiting people, and they see someone and they go a quick read. It's like, Oh, we can exploit this person. Yeah, well, surprise. So once again I'm not being too critical the criminals here at all. No one was hurt or killed. Are

My favorite. They just lightened the pockets some fat cat and then the cool scientists cracked the case, that they got out there and actually like, Oh hey, let's just go walk this and see what we find. Yeah, and I think those are like the true winners here, even that they walked away with no money. They won. They beat them, they beat everything. That's it. That's all I have. Thank you. You can find US online at ridiculous crime on both twitter and instagram. Got A tip for us

about a ridiculous crime you want to hear about? Email US ridiculous crime at Gmail Dot Com. That's it. Tune next time. Ridiculous crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett, produced and edited by Chairman of the big board, Dave Kuston. Research is by seasoned gemologist Marissa Brown. The theme song is by Minor Forty Niner Thomas Lee and wizen saloon keeper Travis Dutton. Executive Producers Are Skeptical appraisers Ben Bowen and Noel Brown. We dis say it one

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