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Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Nola.
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis Cod named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. It is the top of the week, which means it's time for some strange news. Fellow conspiracy realist. We are going to learn some disturbing things in Sierra Leone. We're going to learn some crazy stuff in South Korea. We're going to have
a follow up to the Norfolk Southern East Palestine episode. Uh. We're gonna talk about Uh. I'm going to talk about some worrying stuff with zoonotic infections. Bugs. Baby. We'll get to a heist. But before we do any of that, have you ever gone by a different name? Fellas? Uh?
Ben?
No comment?
You know?
If not so much? I do like with this uh, with our little virtual recordings, we get to give ourselves fun nicknames every time we log in, so that usually is a fun thing to do. But I'm not really much of a giving myself a nickname kind of guy. It seems like something other people are supposed to do. Not the same however, as stealing someone's identity. That's that's very,
very different. And also, you know, when we think of identity theft oftentimes or so inundata these days, with like you know, life luck and all of these ways of protecting yourself and you know, getting alerts when our passwords have appeared and leaked data breach kind of situations, and almost to the point where it's like, Okay, it's just
another thing. It's part for the course. And if you're doing your stuff right, nine times out of ten, you've got two factor authentication on account or whatever it might be, and you're probably gonna even if someone does steal your data or steal your credit card or whatever it might be,
it's going to be mildly inconvenient at best, right. I mean, there's certainly escalated versions of that, but overall, I'm not really worried about having my life turned upside down by somebody swiping my credit card digits, you know, using like a skimmer or something like that. It's just probably gonna.
Well, I just had an experience with a potential skimmer at a gas station. It was not fun. But what I would say is, I think the thing people are most afraid of is that whole like, I'm gonna have to contact my bank. Somebody took a lot of money out of my bank or my you know, use a lot of money in a credit card that I have that I haven't looked at in a while, and now I've got to deal with this. But it is a sliding scale that goes pretty deep, right, Absolutely, there.
Are protections in you know, Like again, as we always say with these stories, the natural default state of your credit should be frozen. You should unfreeze it when you have to do the big things because it can be
a huge hassle. The onus is on the consumer. But to your point, Noel, a lot of times when we are talking about the idea of identity theft, then it's something like a skimmer, or it's something like someone has used a credit card or stolen that that information, and often credit companies have protections for you as the actual holder of the card. But this sure is only the beginning.
It's only the beginning. And you know the FD I see, you know ensures your bank deposits up to a certain amount and all of that good stuff. I'm not trying to dismiss any of those occurrences as being not worth worrying about. To your point, Ben, you should absolutely worry about it, if anything, more now than ever. But don't let it ruin your life. That's the whole point in terms of like ruin it with worry, let's talk about
how it could actually ruin your life. I don't want this to be a fear mongering kind of situation where people are afraid to live life for fear of having something like this happened to them. This is obviously an outlier and just a perfect storm of awfulness for one William Donald Woods, who it all started back in nineteen eighty eight when he was working at a hot dog
stand with a guy named Matthew David Kieran's. Recently, last week, Kieran's pleaded guilty to identity theft, admitting to having used Woods's name, identity, social security number in almost every single aspect of his life for decades. Essentially, Kieran's who is now fifty eight, used woods identity to obtain insurance, to obtain a Social Security number, a birth certificate, driver's licenses, credit, various jobs, bank accounts, all of this stuff. Apparently he
even had a child while using Wood's name. All of this dating back to that fateful hot dog stand you know, coworking situation in nineteen eighty eight. And this is I believe it started back in Iowa, Des Moines, Iowa. This is where the primary reporting on this comes from. So essentially what happened was set a certain point in nineteen ninety two, years after they met at the hot Dog, Stan Kieran's got a fraudulent Colorado ID with Woods's name and date of birth on it, and he continued doing
this for a couple of years. At the time, Kierans lived as Woods in various states, and Woods and you know this, completely ignorant of this, went on living his life. Kieran's racked up just tens of thousands of dollars in debt under Wood's name, again unbeknownst to Woods. And then in August of twenty nineteen, Woods, who was living unhoused in Los Angeles, and guy, I'm so sorry if I have mixed up these two guys' names. You can see how that could be easy to do.
Here it happened here.
Ins is the one perpetrating the fraud. Woods is the victim of the fraud. Woods is living unhoused in Los Angeles at this point in twenty nineteen, he goes to a bank he realizes something is a miss. We don't really know the story of Woods up to this point, but one could imagine that having been a victim of this identity theft at this point, while maybe things weren't going well for him in other ways, you have to wonder if some of that stuff couldn't have been what
maybe led him to being unhoused. But he gets win of something being a miss. Whether he had sought help prior to this, we don't know. But in twenty nineteen, he goes into a bank of a national chain of a bank which is not named in the lawsuit. This is where a lot of this boarding is coming from
as well. He says that he believes that someone's been using his social Security number to obtain you know, credit, and has racked up over one hundred and thirty thousand dollars of a debt in his name, and he says this to the bank teller, who then asks him to answer some security questions you know, which we know are great if you're the one who made them and you're the only one who can answer them. Doesn't work quite so well when the person perpetrating the fraud on you
is the one who made them. So when he couldn't answer them, they called the owner of the accounts, you know who the account belonging to, the person they believe is in fact William Donald Woods, who answers the phone, this, of course is Matthew David Kierance, the perpetrator or the fraud who successfully answers the security questions and then says, I'm not sure who would be trying to access my
accounts in Los Angeles. Whoever that person is, is trying to commit a fraud on me, trying to perpetrate it, a crime on me. You gotta, you know, send that person to the to the brig And so what happens basically starting at this point is this Perton, you know that that Woods is arrested and essentially goes through the justice system in such a way that he ultimately ends
up being institutionalized. He is institutionalized because he is all the while, as you would, claiming that someone is stealing his identity and has been stealing identity, that he is in fact the real uh mister Woods, and he doesn't know who this other person is. And you know that's I mean, talk about what would you guys call that being gas lit? Like when they don't even know they're doing it. But I mean it's I don't know, it's.
It's institutionally gaslight. Yeah, I mean there's this thing that happens sometimes where unfortunately, there have been cases where people have been declared legally dead and are very much alive and they have to try to prove that they are alive. And I mean we have to exercise some empathy for just how frustrating this must be. No, you're saying, I don't I can't answer these questions because I'm the me. But I didn't make the question how.
Am I not myself? It reminds me of that thing and I believe it was Oh gosh, I heard huckabees or there's Jason Swartzman's character that keeps repeating how am I not myself? I would feel like I was losing my mind. Not to mention things have been going poorly up to this point, it would seem Matt, what do you think?
Well, I just I think this is an impossible situation to go through. Imagine all of the legal and careful steps you would have to go through to prove your identity to someone, and if that or in some institution, and that institution makes the decision, oh, no, you're not actually the person that you say.
You are based on this criteria. This is our gold standard. You have failed the test. Therefore you are not you and you are so in a non grata at this point.
Well yeah, but then imagine that they say, oh, well, actually the thing that you were doing and saying the person that you say you are is actually a major crime, and we need to incarcerate you for that. And then you continue to say that, and do we get to the point where they put him in a mental health facility?
I said it led to that he was incarcerated for a year, roughly more than a year actually, and then, through various occurrences likely related to him refusing to just give up, he spent nearly one hundred and fifty days in a psychiatric institution, and I believe was even medicated.
Yeah, this is like psychotropic medication.
God, dude, can you imagine? This is like, I mean, there's going to make a movie out of this. This is like, you know, an absolute hellish experience. From the perspective of the dude who's just on a mission to get his life back but doesn't even know who did this to him. It's like old boy level maliciousness.
In a way. It reminds me of what was that film I think the actor was Angelina Jolie The Changeling or something where she knew the kid was not her own, but society did not believe her, and she was also
I think ultimately institutionalized. It's tough when you go against any bureaucracy, right, And and you know, if we walk through the mechanisms of proving one's actual identity, then we do see there is this there's this sort of feedback loop or snowball effect that occurs when someone has perpetrated this kind of fraud over time, because every single time you successfully steal an identity or take one that is not yours, every single time you get a little more
support for the next time you try something like that. Right, that's so like from the days of the hot Dog stand. Fast forward a few years, and now this person who has stolen the identity can easily appear to back up all of their claims. It's it's insidious, it's tough man, and hopefully is there a happy ending here North?
Oh yeah, yeah, no, please Matt, real quick.
Well, I just wonder how you go through all this stuff and you can't prove you are who you say you are with documentation? Isn't it possible nowadays to like take a sample from somebody improve Well.
That's where it goes. Yeah, that's where we're getting there. Oh okay, that is ultimately what what was able to kind of, you know, be the aha moment in this. So I really do feel like in many ways, this is there's a lot of ins and outs here, and it relates to a lot of the kind of things we talk about. Could well be worth an episode on
its own. But you know, Kieran's is institutionalized all the while his own counsel in the trial for when he's arrested, and a lot of this stuff is what happens in the interim before he goes on trial for identity theft of this other guy who he doesn't even know who he is at this point. He does at a certain
one the charges are filed. He now knows who he's up against, right because he knows whoever's on the other end of that phone, that's his ever green If you guys have seen old Boy, you know again, Sorry I keep referencing that, but it is just a pretty such a perfect nemesis example of someone just absolutely screwing you over. You can't see, you don't have access to you can't ask them, why did you do this to me and an old boy? There's a reason. The reason here is
that this guy's basically a sociopath. He just did it because it was easy, And all we know is that he continued to do it almost because it was just well, I'm already doing it, you know, might as well just keep the grift going. We really don't know.
Do we know whether the thief maintained their previous identity?
That we don't know. Again, a lot of this stuff is very new information, and I'm really looking forward to getting more details trickling out as things progress. It is not clear from anything that I have read why this guy did this in the first place, Like it just seems like it was like one of those what is it the banality of evil kind of scenarios where it's like, why did you do it? Why did you do this to me? It's because I could and because I yeah.
Made money, right, guess one hundred and thirty thousand, that's true.
But that's also one hundred and thirty thousand in He's he's maintaining this identity so that that debt is on him. He's not just trundling that debt off to somebody else and then disappearing into the shadows. He's living as this person. So so presumably that debt is also is kind of on him, even though this other guy is being affected by it, because it appears that that Kiaran's you know, who perpetrated the fraud was a pretty successful data analyst at least you know, as of the time of when
he was caught. So essentially what happened is in March twenty twenty one, Woods is convicted plenty no contests, meaning that he basically acknowledges the dire nature of a situation, refuses to admit that he did anything wrong, and in May later that year, the court order wouldst enough to
even use his real name anymore. Then several months later, Woods contacted police in Heartland, Wisconsin, which is where Kieran's was living at the time, and Kieran's found out and wrote to an LAPD detective saying that he felt that this individual who contacted his employers and was convicted of stealing his ID was trying to like stalk him or something.
So he's once again like doubling down on the gas lighting, and he's concerned that he's going to alter his bank accounts, knows where he lives.
Wait, so this is the bad guy that guy saying.
Is coming out from me? Yeah, because he won. He won the court case. The perpetrator won the court case, and the other guy had to give up ever using that name again. It was basically granted for all in goods and purposes to Kieran's. But Woods kept fight even after the police didn't do anything about it because fake Woods aka Kieran's is able to give them just enough information to get them to back off. Woods continued, as you would have to or just I don't know an
end your life, man. I mean, I don't know how I would handle this if I just felt constantly like I was beating my head against the wall. I think you could follow into despair very very easily, you know, I just I can't imagine. So this guy really had some real perseverance, he continues. He files a second identity theft complaint. In September of twenty twenty one. Kieran's in responds, calling Woods Matthew Kieran's and saying that his identity is
still being threatened to this point. In January of twenty twenty three, Woods, the real was the victim here, reaches out to Kieran's employer again, saying, your employee is using my identity and has been a perpetrator of this for many years, and I need to look into it for whatever reason. This time there is an internal investigation launched. Kieran's then continues to double down on his story.
It's really interesting here that the University of Iowa, you know, has its own police force. I didn't know that that police force for a university would have detectives working for them. That's fascinating. It's always something that I assumed would go to a different jurisdiction, right, like a state police or a local I guess it is a local police force.
You know, I think you're right, Matt. Just to clarify, I believe there is an internal investigation launch and then the Iowa police were involved, and it was a signed the detective to help, you know, kind of look into this potential identity theft.
But that detective is the one that actually made headways.
But that's exactly right. So the detective then is able to actually match Woods DNA, the real Woods DNA with his fathers living in Kentucky, thanks to you know, I mean again, we've got all kinds of issues with these twenty three and meter things and these DNA databases, but here's an example of where it was actually, you know,
a positive. So that match takes place, and what would have happened if Woods, his father had not been living probably would have been another brick wall, and I don't know if the investigation would have been able to continue. So the Iowa detective then reaches out and asks Kieran's what his father's name was?
Uh?
Oh right, Finally he's being asked a question that he doesn't have the answer to, at which point the detective does the big reveal, showing him the DNA evidence, to which Kieran's responds my life is over.
Yeah, after sending a dude to jail for over four hundred something days and then a psychiatric facility for another one hundred something days, Yeah, your life is over.
Pell He's got another quote just saying everything is gone. This guy just seems like a This is the kind of stuff that to me is just tanam ount to
the sort of urges that drive serial killers. Well, you know, I said this the other day actually, when we were talking about the fertility fraud, the kind of urge that would drive a doctor to an impregnated one with their own genetic material, or just you know, perpetrate some sort of fraud around people that are in the most vulnerable stage of a marriage or relationship desperately wanted to have kids.
I think I said something like, that's the kind of urge that seems to me very akin to what drives serial killers. Same thing here. This guy absolute absolute monster. And I really look forward to hearing more about this. I think it is something that has more information comes out, maybe we sit on in a while. It could well be a full episode and I can't wait for the mini series. It really this is just too much. It almost sounds stranger than fiction. Do you guys have anything
else to add? I think that's about all for me.
Yeah, we just have to change the ending. It needs to be a Quentin Tarantino movie and it needs to have like that kill Bill revenge thing like at the end. Just rewrite the ending to where the real Woods gets a nice little revenge.
Do we know the real identity of the detective never mind?
Yeah, I don't know.
DNA tests all around.
DNA tests, you get a NA test, that you get a DNA oh test.
But that was that was the thing I wanted to say my whole point earlier talking about DNA. Yeah, if we can prove a serial killer is you know, this serial killer from the nineteen seventies or sixties by taking a tiny sample from a cup, then if there's ever an identity issue like this in the future, this should be standard practice. Oh my god, just take a DNA test. You're done, and now we can prove everybody is who they say they are. But bending, I guess do you have.
Any thoughts on do you think he was treated that way because he was unhoused and because and there were like do you think they were just people didn't take him seriously From the start because of socioeconomic things, like are these the kinds of options that are only going to be available to someone making a claim like this that they seem like they're part of society in a way that is acceptable to the person. I don't know, like what broke down? Why didn't that happen?
What Matt is proposing, absolutely, the serial killer think is a good comparison, because serial killers who get away for a long time to pray on disadvantaged or discriminated groups of in society. So this is part of the problem, the fact that this person was unhoused. This doesn't really happen as often to people who are better prepared or have the means to protect themselves. Again, as you said, Nol, this is probably an episode in the future. You know.
It's interesting because we don't know much about what happened between when the two met the Hot Dogs stand in nineteen eighty eight and twenty nineteen. That's a long time. We know that the real Woods was unhoused in twenty nineteen, but what happened, what transpired between nineteen eighty eight and twenty nineteen, and how did he go all of that time without realizing his life had been secretly kind of co opted by this other person, and is that what
led to him becoming unhoused. It's a lot of questions and then been last thing, I guess. Another one of my questions was why isn't there a procedure in place like what mattison and where there's instantly DNA tests we don't need to let let's just go ahead and do it. Is it just because there's just no it hasn't been established as a stand operating procedure. Yeah.
As I said earlier, the techniques DNA gathering did not exist at the time of the original identity theft, and the feedback loop is created by the paperwork, which further reinforces the crime.
Thank you, Yes, I agree with you, and excellent points from both of you. I think we'll put a pin in this one for now, take a quick break here, a word from our sponsor, and then come back with more strange news.
We have returned, guys, if it's all right. There are a couple of short stories that I would like to share because I'm not sure how much news they're making out in the West. The first is a solid update good news in the continuing story of East Palestine, which we covered in an episode in the past. Remember the train derailment.
Absolutely and you travel out there.
Ben, That's true, man, that's true. Norfolk Southern has agreed to pay six hundred million dollars in a class action lawsuit for the train derailment in Ohio. This comes to us by Josh Funk, writing for AP News just yesterday as we we're recording April tenth. At first, this sounds like good news, right, Like Norfolk Southern is a huge company.
There was a lot of sound and fury about this when it occurred, and everyone sort of took as a given that there would not be serious consequences, I guess, because remember the it sort of faded from the news for a while. We were we were one of the few groups outside of Ohio that was still talking about outside of Ohio and outside of a courtroom, I should say, right, we're not in court yet.
Well, in the houses of everybody who was affected, I'm sure they were talking about it plenty, right.
Yes, that's a great pointment. And what you need to know, folks, is that there was a freight train with almost one hundred and fifty like one hundred and forty nine cars that derailed and just riddled the area with toxic chemicals vinyl chloride in particular, there were mass evacuations of a relatively small town and much later. Still right now in twenty twenty four, people are suffering from respiratory problems, unexplained rashes,
nose bleeds, And think about that. How scary it is to just have nose bleeds and you go to a doctor and the doctor says, I can write you a prescription for Kleenex. I don't know if there's a difference between over the counter Cleenex.
I want to know. I want, I want to get out. That's what's I guarantee.
Want too good? Yeah, yeah, the money's using it's like, uh, it's like quintuple ply or something. Right, So this agreement is something that Norfolk Southern came to on its own. And if the quarter proves, what they're going to do is why it may not be all good news. Is they're going to wipe out all the class action claims within a twenty mile radius of the derailment. And six undred million dollars is a lot to us. It's not
a ton to it's not a ton to a train company. Right, They already spent one point one billion in response to this derailment. They have sent like one hundred and four million in direct aid to residents of this town. And they made it. I feel like they kind of made a deal with US government because the Biden administration never declared it a disaster at all.
Wow, and it was very much was it means hard to believe that it wasable.
We saw the pictures. I mean, if that's not a disaster, what is right exactly?
And this is something you know, This is again just a brief follow up in our sort of interim cavalcade of strange news. We do hope that the residents of East Palestine and all those affected do get justice. We know again, if you listen back to our previous episode, we were very careful to say the bad guys here
are not the people who are operating the trains. There's still a huge debate right now over whether or not train companies should be required to have a decent amount of staff on a train, which is bizarro land crazy. I don't really have a segue other than saying, you know, we do keep an eye on stories, folks, and we do we we do want to share the updates when they are obstinative, and here's hoping this will lead to
I don't know, greater justice. It just seems weird to basically bribe you pay your way out of class action lawsuits and we'll see whether the courts approved.
Is it just kind of like that's the implication there, or I guess, I mean anyone can pay themselves out of an a lawsuit by just like you know, settle settling, And I guess I've always found that to be a little troubling because it allows people to not be held accountable, especially when there are large corporations whose actions affect not only the people who are part of a class action,
but actions moving forward. And it doesn't really ever seem there are any substantive regulatory what's the word I'm looking for, I guess consequences outside of just them paying a bunch of money that they really have to burn.
Lobbies and companies often have more money than victims. Unfortunately, not just in the US, but in the world. There is another national emergency, not in the United States. But this story is so crazy, I just wanted to I wanted to bring it to like, because I'm not sure how much attention it's getting in the West. Did you guys hear about the drug crisis in Sierra Leone? No? I have not. All right, Well, apparently there is a huge national panic because people with drug addiction issues have
resorted to becoming resurrection men. They are digging up graves to quote get high on drugs made from human bones.
WHOA, this reminds me of some of that crazy There are some like really gnarly drugs in Russia, like crocodile and like jenkam and things like that that were made from human excrement or something like that. How do you how does one make drugs out of human bones?
It's a good question. So this goes to let's start with let's start with the contact. A little while back, earlier this year, Tommy Trenchard, a journalist for MPR, wrote a good piece of primer about the drug that was taking over as Sierra Leone, which is called cush with a K. It's a synthetic cannabinoid. It also can contain acetone, tramadol, formulin, and even fittanol, a couple of nasty, nasty substances all
mixed together. And it was a hit because it was very accessible, and it was very cheap in comparison to other things. And I think when we name some of those drugs, that sounds like a wallop, right, Like, why would you take all of that at once?
Yeah, I just want to just not feel anything.
Well.
I imagine if you took it one time. I'm assuming there's a very specific series of effects that all of those in a concoction would give you. It would be something you probably chase overall.
It appears to be a depressant. This is something folks, if you live on the West coast right in because you love your first hand experiences, you can sometimes see the lean that people have in San Francisco and places like that when they are under the influence of very very powerful drugs.
I thought you were at first thing. I thought you're talking about Lean as in the Yeah, like.
Lean is also a problem?
Is that leans slight?
Yeah?
But lean is itself. I think the name probably derives from that very thing that you're talking about, because it does make you like, have these nods anything that's got opioid content. And I believe this is what lean is, like a mixture of I believe sprite and like codeine or something along those lines. So, yeahthe get that lean you're talking about for sure.
Yeah, And so we know that kush has this depressive effect. It's similar to how sometimes people resort to opioids or heroin right to feel a little bit of relief, to fill that float. Cush, however, can have really bad effects on your immune system. You'll get sores. People say their feet will swell, their lower legs will swell. They often get a pounding sensation in their head, pain in their necks and joints. And that's not even getting into the liver,
kidney and respiratory consequences of this. It's tough, right and a lot of people in Sierra Leone already struggle with poverty, with corruption, all this other stuff. Here is where we get to the very strange, i mean, still heartbreaking, even weirder, more grulish story. If we go to int n DTV World, we'll see an article by Bavia Sukja just from yesterday,
April eleventh. This psychoactive depressant also according to the streets, contains parts from human bones and by this point it's been around for about six years.
Uh.
The drug itself can give you a high that lasts several hours and they're cutting the drug with human bones. So drug dealers who are running out of the actual cush supply are putting this into their product. And the thing is maybe the most heartbreaking thing. This doesn't actually do anything. The human bone ingredient is essentially a placebo.
Yeah, where are they getting all this from? Are they robbing crematoriums? Like are there? You said, they're like digging this up? Or why? But why this versus baby laxative? It doesn't seem very tenable or or or functional.
Well, you can get the bones for free instead of buying the baby lax Oh jeesus.
That's once again the banality of evil is just that dirt simple, isn't it.
Yeah, I would say, I would say it's grave dirt simple. It's a it's again the motive involved and looking into this. You know, oftentimes we know that in the West stories about countries in the African continent they have a weird perspective. Sometimes they can feel like fear mongering or condescending. But we looked into this and it is real. There are very few opportunities or institutions for drug rehab services in this part of the world, and according to the few
we can find, like the National Psychiatric Teaching Hospital. They're in Freetown. They are inundated with push users, like there is money to be made for the drug dealers, and we don't know how far this goes. I mean, what are you going to do? Set up security guards for every graveyard? What's the answer?
Could be a job creator if you wanted to be, if you have.
So so, we don't want to leave you like that. We have we have enough time for one more, which is a little bit weirder, which I think will be interesting to you. Guys, you're both parents. What would you do if iHeart came to you and said, hey, we'll give you an extra thirty grand to have another kid.
I would start the process immediately, find someone, say do you want a baby in you?
No?
Okay, do you want a baby in you?
Bro? Do you know how? Do not recall how? I mean, maybe you're just a little younger, but fifteen years of paying for stuff, that thirty thousand they're going to cover it? Man, I'm sorry, I don't I don't think it's.
Oh it's twenty two thousand for the first one.
Yeah, for the first one. I'm good.
No, Yeah, I'll take it, and I just like being a dad.
That's great, but we want to and I just feel like that's quite the low ball offer, is all I'm saying.
So here's why I'm asking. In some nations, as we know, birth rates are in sharp decline, a lot of what we'll call developed nations, especially in the East Asian sphere right Japan. Our story here takes place in South Korea. There are South Korean companies, private industry, to be clear, not the government, that are offering their employees up to seventy five grand US equivalent to have babies because the
birth rate decline in South Korea is reaching a crisis point. Okay, yeah, one of them's an underwear company.
So how hard is it to become a South Korean citizen?
Oh it's a game of rock paper scissors. Three out of five.
Dang.
I guess I wouldn't count either.
So here's the announcement. And this is just one example of one company. On Thursday, a company named Song Bungle Underwear Manufacturers said, look, if you work for us, we'll give you twenty two four hundred dollars for your first child. We'll give you another twenty two four hundred dollars for a second child, and if you have a third child, we'll give you thirty grand pulling a lot of this from the Korea Herald. So all told, all told, that's
nothing to sneeze at. That's that's a pretty hefty amount of money. But to your point, Noel, children can be expensive right anywhere in the world.
I guess that is understand Okay, So it's about raising the population, don't we typically want to lower the population.
Well generally in some places, yes, But maybe.
I'm not proposing you know what I'm saying. Just you know, population tends to be out of control in a lot of parts of the world.
Well, we are all economic batteries, right, and ultimately we are workers, right, individual human being. Each child becomes a worker, a cog in the economy, which is why countries individually are probably interested in keeping their populations up, which is I think what we're dealing with here.
Yeah, the decline in birth rate, which again is becoming increasingly common in what we would call developed countries, is an economic danger, especially when you confront things like the cyclical aging of generations. Right there, are going the US is going to deal with this problem as well as a massive amount of people retire, there are fewer children
being born. It's society is kind of a Ponzi scheme to be honest, Like, you have to have more people created to maintain the institutions, laws and mores that sustain the previous or existing population.
So if the military has been you've got to maintain the military.
You got to maintain the military's map. And so in South Korea this is part of a larger issue. Fewer people are getting married in general or even co parenting because they feel that the environment in which they live is so hyper competitive, so unwelcoming, Like they're asking with a lot of validity, have a child in this.
Economy idiocracy, idiocracy and intuocracy exactly.
And there was another previous previous statement. The actual seventy five grand per child comes from a Buyoung group, which is a construction firm and soul and part of our pronunciation here, folks, it appears that they'll give you a seventy grand per kid.
That's more like it.
So you know, if you're done manufacturing underwear, go have kids with the construction firm.
Right, I just got a vision. Sorry to take it back to the military because construction thing is really interesting, like that company specifically wanting babies that in eighteen years or whatever, it can work for them, just thinking about militaries in the future that will give you money to have a child that and sign a contract that when that child reaches a certain age, he or she signs
up to military service or whatever. You know. PMC it is private military company and they even they even as part of the deal, you get certain like gene therapies, right and drug therapies, super soldiers.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, uh take care, take care of the kid until it's eighteen. It's a fairytale level.
There was a sketch on I want to say it was Mister Show in like a later season where Bob Oden Kirk Ye had to be Kirk. He plays like a like a basketball recruiter, but he's going to like elementary schools and even like kindergartens and stuff, and he like starting them real young.
You know.
And he's he always brings his famous potato soup to give to the parent. I brought you some potato soup. And he's just talking about watching these little kids on the playground and yeah, that one right there, is going to be a bruiser.
You know.
I'm sorry. That just made me giggle. It's what you're describing. Mat is horrifying and dystopian, af and plausible.
Yeah, especially as the future, especially as time when's odd, last player I want to make before a move odd this kind of stuff, some sort of support system is necessary. National fertility rates are a subject of intensive study. If you are for any entire country tuning in if you are, if you are trying to maintain your population, not grow it,
just not have a population collapse. You need a fertility rate of about two point one right now, right now, the national as of a few years ago, excuse me, a national fertility rate of South Korea was zero point seven eight. Over time, this can lead to population collapse, which is dangerous. This is an existential crisis for a country when it dips below a certain point. But the question is, and folks, let us know your thoughts. The
question is, how do you fix this stuff? Do you try to give people a lump sum per child that doesn't seem economically feasible. Do you crack some faustian bargain? What sort of incentives should there be? Do you increase immigration right. Let us know. Can't we hear your thoughts? Conspiracy? iHeartRadio dot Com one eight three three std WYTK. We're going to pause for word from our sponsor. We'll be back with a little bit more strange news.
And we are back. Guys. You in for a little heist. I'm always enterial heist, all right. We are headed to San Fernando Valley in California, and we're going to the Garda World to take the five.
You take the five to the four five?
Oh shoot, I don't know what would I take. I would take four or five, I think let's see, yeah, I would definitely. No, I would get on the five, I think probably, and then heads straight up to uh Silmar and to the guard World. I'd definitely get off on San Fernando Road my brother and take it right on Roxford Street because that's where this Guard World cash vault facility is that we're headed to.
Uh.
This is one of, if not the largest cash heist ever in Los Angeles, guys, as much as thirty million dollars we're stolen on Easter Sunday. Now, when I tell you, guys that a hole was punched in this concrete stone, if you will facility, and thirty million dollars of cash was emerged from that hole in the wall on Easter Sunday. That's feeling a little religious, don't you think a little biblical? A little like on the third day this cash emerged. Okay, I'm getting a little weird with it, but no, I
like it. A thirty million, there's a three in there. Two whatever numerology, let's let's do it. Okay. So so this was Sunday, March thirty first, twenty twenty four. This is an overnight heist and it occurred on that Sunday night and then it wasn't discovered until the next Monday morning when workers at the facility entered in their facility and opened the vault and found that it was empty. Now here's why it's crazy, guys. This is this is Garda World.
This is a.
Huge company that handles I mean, thirty million dollars there alone. Should let you know that they handle a ton of money. But that was just one vault where the cash was taken from. This is a huge facility that holds all kinds of valuables in cash, and somebody got in there without tripping an alarm. That alerted anyone like think about that that.
Should be they must have lowered themselves down from the ceiling and had those sweet, you know, little smoke things that show where all the laser trip wires are. I don't how do you do this outside?
Yeah, we know the step by steps or.
Do we don't know the steps? We don't know the step by steps. We know will rebelieve at least according to some people, you know, it's that whole Like a person was quoted that was familiar with the investigation, but it was not unable to say anything publicly, so you can't name who they are. But allegedly, according to the information we have, this facility was entered from the ceiling from the roof and they did kind of maybe what
you're talking about, No, lowered down into the vault. And then there was another hole that was discovered by a local chopper that was going around for news and looking at it. There's a hole on the side of the facility that it is currently unknown if it had anything to do with the heist.
Did you see what Sorry, I don't want to be tough on the people here unfairly, but did you see that kind of slap dash job of fixing the hole on the ground.
It puts a flyboard on that sucker and then like shoved it in with a lip too. By form, it looks like.
My drunk uncle just said, well, I'm not paying somebody to fix this hole.
Well, it's an active investigation with the FBI involved in the LAPD, so I'm assuming they're not really worried about anybody coming back into the vault.
Like all of my drunk uncle's YARDWORKI the LAPD is there, So okay, So this is this is insane. I think we were all reading about this separately. First off, check out our earlier brain Stuff episode on why you should never rob a bank. You will not get as much money as you think this.
As you get thirty million dollars.
And it's not a bank. This is Hollywood level heisting. Part of why Matt, I would imagine I was talking with some folks about this, I would imagine that part of the reason there is not more detail yet is because everybody who works for this institution is getting looked into pretty diligently.
Oh my gosh. The first comment I wrote in my notes here was it's a terrible time to be an employee of the Garda World Cash Vault in Silmar, California.
Yeah, I imagine the scrutiny turning people's lives upside down. Probably.
Oh yeah. There are so few individuals that would have known exactly how much money or even remotely how much money was in that vault at that time. Because this Garda World facility they offer cash vault services, which generally means you can go to their website, by the way, cash dot g ar da dot com to read all
about their services. Get it and and this is money that in and out of this facility, right, This is for companies often that have to keep cash on hand to operate, banks that have to have a bunch of money on hand to operate all kinds of organizations that will have, you know, let's say a couple maybe one hundred thousand dollars at your local banks branch. So this facility has a bunch of cash at times, but not all the time.
Right.
Somebody knew when it was going to be in that vault overnight.
And they knew the staffing cycles too.
Yeah, yeah, they knew staffing cycles, and they knew how to get in through the roof. Is somebody had access to lightar. I guess if they weren't, if it wasn't an inside job, somebody like saw through the facility or got a hold of a blueprint Hollywood style and made this thing happen to it.
You just don't break Look, with a facility like this, you don't improvise, you don't just bring in you know. These guys were not and it was more than one person. They were not just driving by and said, hey, man, when's the last time we did something fun and spontaneous activity?
Man?
Oh yeah, everyone is saying that it was some kind of sophisticated crew Ocean's eleven style, if you will. There were probably individual intros for each of the characters, you know what I mean.
Yeah, there's a mortage. There were several twists. Also, if you're a fan of sketch comedy, this reminds me of a group called Chris and Jack. I say, a group. It's these two guys, Chris and Jack doing an amazing sketch comedy. I think they're gonna blow up pretty soon. They have this run of heist sketches, Matt that you would love. I'm I'm gonna send some to the group after this. But yes, I'm picturing a cartoonish level agglomeration
of heist. I hope that they got people who are each part of the crew because of one specific speciality, you know, and that's I want one guy who's like, man, I'll know a lot about heist, but I've worked in roofing for you know, fifty years.
You're the perfect man for the job. Come on in, all right, Freddy, let's go. But they're the one of the craziest things here, guys. There was a single alarm that was tripped in the facility when they entered. In the way they did. That alarm, though, was not connected up to reach the LAPD or the local sheriff's office or you know, the county police the way most do.
When you when you get an alarm system in your house, like if let's say you use simply Safe, which is you know, an organization that has sponsored us before you. If you have that system active in your home, you're not required to, I guess, but it is highly encouraged to connect that system up directly to your local police department so that if that alarm goes off, they're immediately alerted.
You don't even have to be there, and they will send somebody out to your house to like check up, make sure everything's okay.
Because otherwise it's reduced to like a neighborhood alert or a or your audible disincentive.
Well, yeah, you might get an alert on your phone that says, hey, someone's broken into your house. Congratulations, it finally happens. Uh sorry, but you know.
Hartle World doesn't answer their emails or check their text on Easter right.
Well, well yeah, but it makes me think again when you're talking about an inside job kind of thing. I don't know if you could maybe disconnect that specific alarm from that, you know, that larger system.
Well, I mean tough, but if you have some sort of hacking capabilities and are able to infiltrate the system, I bet you there would be some way you could do it by rerouting something within the software. You know, I'm just kind of talking out loud. Usually when they do it in movies, somebody snips something, you know, outside, usually in like a breaker box as or a panel
or something. But as far as like we've talked about the dangers of being in a smart home situation where everything is Internet connected, because if it's connected to the Internet, then people can access it as well. So I just got to wonder if there's a way of doing that virtually.
Like this is okay, if I understand this correctly, Matt, this is right now the largest full cash heist right in the history of Los Angeles, which is saying something because there have been other other folks who heild that record before.
But yes, nineteen ninety seven, nineteen point nine million dollars from another like armored cash facility, this time a dunbar armored facility.
The question is, at this point, it's pretty likely that someone's going to get caught or at least implicated in this, because even to the point about using system admin privileges to like re route something or snipping snipping a cable seems easier or seems smarter, because I feel like if you are working at the if you're working in it or any software affiliated thing, you just lost a month of work. You're going to be hanging out with the LAPD for a while.
Yeah, it's a messy situation there. So our hearts go out to all of the Garter World cash employees there in Silmar, all the ones who were not involved in the cash hes. Yeah, but there's a whole other thing in here I wanted to talk about, but we don't have to. It was something that I think we mentioned, at least to ourselves. I don't think we ever put it on Mike. But there was a there was a heist of a truck. No, we did talk about it, the heist of a truck that was carrying a bunch
of jewels. Do you remember we talked about this from the Gem Show?
Wasn't it from a Gem sactly exactly? And while the guys were going in to take a leak at a truck stop, which did kind of make it feel like a crime of opportunity as opposed to this one that you're talking about today.
You guys, when is the last time we did something spontitious and fun? That's my favorite. I what a heartwork. Also, there were no injuries, none that we know of. There were no fatalities.
But that one occurred a while back. You guys are twenty twenty two, and that case is still open. Nobody has been charged, nothing has been found. It's just like, oh, well, I guess that one hundred million dollars worth of jewels is gone now. But in this case there's still you know, It's only been what ten or eleven days since this heist as the day were recording on Wednesday, April tenth, So who knows, But I guess weirdly, like, nice work, guys, because you were you've pulled it off.
So far that there were no known injuries or fatalities.
Yeah, exactly, nobody got hurt. And then the insurance companies get involved, I guess.
Which is weird because there's a story we didn't get to. I had learned recently that there is a growing trend of private insurance companies seen drones to keep an eye on like property values and assessments and stuff. So maybe maybe the I mean the insurance companies will be left holding the bag on this one, right, they have to pay the piper here.
Yeah, well, did you have you guys noticed the Afflect drones? Have you seen the Afflect drones yet? No, the ones that follow your car as they like fly above your car as the highway.
Like the duck.
Yes, yeah, the insurance companies will follow your car to ensure that you are you are driving safely and maintaining correct speed and all this stuff. That don't that just guys, Hey, everyone listening, I'm just kidding.
I really believe you. If you are weird enough, if you don't look closely enough, you can mistake them for birds, because those AFFLEC drones do have feathers ducks. And look, we're not ornithologists, but some stuff is just true.
I'm quite the contrary. I am whatever the opposite of an ornithologist is, That's what I am.
We got to get in front of the email here. Yes, there have been experiments that are true where people are taking dead bird bodies and using them as drones. They're putting drone technology. That is true.
Oh birds and their you know realness. That's it's been an age old thing.
Give me a bird anytime over the sinastagia pokes out, man, anytime over a truckloaded jewels. Count me out for that one. I'll be I'll do the keyboard stuff for that one.
But you know, I think you should have been. Hey, guys, have we done a full Cicadas episode? I know we did three three o one, but did we deal a full episode on Cicadas?
We have not.
Cicada thirty three oh one. Is it was an online cryptic kind of possibly ar game. We talked in twenty twenty one. I think about another brood of cicadas, and just recently there was something making the news and it's sad hilarious.
He's talking about those horny dead mofos.
Yeah, hyper sexual quote zombie cicadas. I don't think we have time to really unpack this. This is why I'm saying I kind of want to just talk about hyper sexual zombie cicadas for a full forty five minutes with y'all, but just because I think it would be fun. Sure, But you know, I guess let's just put this out there.
You can find articles on this right now. CBS News is Kaitlin o'caine wrote about this specifically on April fifth, and it's talking about these weird std fungus layden cicadas that are going to be emerging as part of these two major broods, Brood nineteen and Brewed thirteen. They're coming out in like the southeast here in Georgia, and then I think the other one is coming out in like
a bit north from here. But these are two massive broods of cicadas that come out every thirteen or seventeen years, and unfortunately, when they go into the ground, they burrow down there for all that time, thirteen or seventeen years. They they get infected with this fungus and it's on the back like the sexual parts of the cicadas, and it basically it basically takes off a piece of their body and then a plug, what is called a fungal
plug emerges. This white looking, nasty, mushroom like thing comes out. And this fungus has amphetamines that get released into the cicada system, which make it, I guess. According to this article, it says it gives them stamina, which you know, we're not talking sexual here. It just means they're excited about life in a weird way.
It does make them hypersexual. That's the reason they're getting up in the first place. Massive Papora cicadena I think it's called.
Yes, massive propora cicadeena, which as a baby but yeah, massive masso po massospora.
Sic adina. Yeah. Shout out to Miles jack Over on Daily's Eeichgeist. Miles hit me to this. The last time these two broods emerged at once, it was the year of the Louisiana purchase. So this is like a big deal, like a total total eclipse of the suden. But it's like a fungus. But I don't know, man, it's gonna be weird. We live in Georgia, so should we stay inside or what do you think?
Well, just so the cicada's emerging is one thing on its own, right, and that is one like, Oh my god, it's gonna be loud. These things can hurt your hearing. They are so loud, which is already horrifying. And they're going to be in your backyard if you live in the southeast, and a lot of them just bad. Yeah, because they're they're going to It is mating times. They come out, they emerge to mate, and then they go back in the earth and they hang out for a while.
They come back and they just get it on again. But with this STD like fungus, and it's STD like because it's spread in the same way because they don't actually have sexual organs anymore if they are infected, so they cannot mate, but they rub the fungal plugs what once were their mating bits on each other and it spreads the fungus and now more and more of them
have it. It is really it's messed up too. It makes the males that are infected do the mating rituals that the females do in order to get other males to come down and again just rub up against the fungus. So it is like it's it reminds me of some of these minds controlling other funguses that we've talked about in the past, Like.
Last of Us Man is exactly that's what Last of a Zombies were based on.
But like, yeah, it's really creepy. The scariest thing is something that has not been proven yet but is a possibility. In the same way when we talked about the zombie deer disease pretty recently on the show. It is not zoonotic. It is not jumped from cicada to other things yet, specifically humans, not jumped to us yet. But there are there are a ton of other species of various shapes and sizes and forms that eat these cicadas, like as a oh my gosh, it is buffet time, y'all, let's
eat cicadas. Look how many there are. They are going to be ingesting this fungus, and it is unknown how it is going to affect certain species.
We could say it's a non zero chance technically true, but that's always The risk with so fungus is amazing. You've heard of previous episodes on it. Humans still have a lot to learn about fungus and the question of whether these so this thing probably will not will not traverse the zoonotic gap just because it is so specifically adapted to the cicada. How Ever, there's always a chance.
Oh agreed that this whole concept of spending thirteen or seventeen years underground in the soil is what I think you're talking about, so specific to that life cycle of being underground, dormant, away from basically everything but the soil and the biological material of that cicada. I don't think it's going to It won't work well on a creature that's in the sunlight, you know, most of the time. All Right, Well, hey, that's all I have. Guys.
Yeah, if you are a cicada hearing this, check your check your back end. How's your butt? Yeah, let us know, check your butts. And we also want to know, want to know your reaction to these high stories. Unfortunately speak of a heist. A lot of people have encountered identity theft in some way. Last, but not least, please don't dig up people to do to use their bodies in drugs.
For the moment.
God where I think we're agreed on at least that, folks, and don't steal people's identities and ruin their lives just for yucks. It's a jerk move.
Or for profit, you know what I mean. It's okay to be yourself, is what we're saying, and we can't wait to hear from you. Folks. Join us, give us leads for new episodes in the future. Join the show every week where we do a listener mail program. How can I find you? You might be asking. Well, unlike the people who pulled an amazing heist in Los Angeles, we try to be easy to find online.
That's right. You can find us in the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist on YouTube, where our video content exists, rolling out every single week. Where's George Washington going this week? Find out soon? We've got another one coming that might be I think one of my favorites. You can also find us in the handlic Conspiracy Stuff Show on Facebook and on x FKA, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. We're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
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