D.B. Tuber: The Most Ridiculous Robbery in American History

[EPISODE 112] D.B. Tuber: Anthony Curcio and the most Ridiculous Robbery of the 2000s

Kyle Risi: [00:00:00] So of course, three weeks later, Alan hears that the bank was robbed by a man wearing a dust mask and a wig, and the same stuff that he'd found essentially behind the dumpster.

So he comes forward again. This time he brings with him a little piece of paper, which he had the foresight to write down the license plate number of the SUV.

Ah, essentially in an interview later on, Alan says, like, the guy probably thought that I was just an all tramp and wouldn't do anything, but he was wrong because Alan. Had a pen.

Adam Cox: Be wary a homeless person with a pen.

Kyle Risi: They do say the sword is mightier than the pen.

Adam Cox: Yeah. [00:01:00]

Kyle Risi: Welcome to the Compendium, an Assembly of fascinating things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

Adam Cox: We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history, and the jaw dropping deeds of extraordinary people.

Kyle Risi: I'm Kyle Rei, of course, your Ring master for this episode.

Adam Cox: And I'm Adam Cox, the onsite nurse for the circus.

It's a dangerous event. There's gonna be ouchies and ouchies

Kyle Risi: and you are responsible for o cheese and out cheese. I'm a indeed in this household anyway.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Like the, the fire person could get burnt. Mm-hmm. The snake charmer could get bitten by the snake.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Someone could get the tip of their penis burnt.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And then there's the contortionist who, probably has a dislocated shoulder that I probably need to help out

Kyle Risi: Okay, that's good.

See we're coming up with some good examples of actual legitimate, needed staff of the circus.

Adam Cox: I think every single member that I've suggested has been a valued member of the team.

Kyle Risi: Oh really? What about the butt scratcher hand out. Ridiculous

Adam Cox: people need their butts scratched Carl.

Kyle Risi: They do. Before we dive in, there's quick [00:02:00] heads up for our, our lovely freaks out there. Remember, they're signing up to our Patreon as a free member will get you early access to next week's episode, an entire seven days for anyone else.

And like I say, every week it's completely free of charge.

Adam Cox: And if you want even more, consider becoming a certified freak for a small monthly subscription. It will allow you to unlock unreleased episodes up to six weeks earlier, brand new, never been heard before, and straight off the press.

Kyle Risi: And we are expanding our Patreon benefits even further now, you can have access to all of our Vintage Compendium episodes from season one. These are all the episodes from back in the day when we were first starting out. They're all really great, but the sound quality might just be a little bit naff. So we've sequestered those for our Patreons

Adam Cox: and now you have to pay for them.

Kyle Risi: No, you get them free if you are a Patreon. I, sorry. Sorry, too. Cut that out. Please give us money. There are some really incredible stories in that collection. Anyway. For example, [00:03:00] we've got, the Voyage manuscript.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then you've got the Argentinian football team.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Two of my episodes. May I add? They recently did that, that documentary on Netflix. The Society of the Snow. Yeah. And we did it first. And people have literally written in, like my mom and my sister have said our version is way better than the documentary.

Adam Cox: Stop lying. Kyle, your mom's never listened to the show.

Kyle Risi: There's just so much content for you guys to get stuck into, and we'll also be adding even more exclusive episodes for our patron members as the weeks go on. So signing up for as, as $3 a month is literally the best way that you can support the show.

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And it won't cost you a single dime. [00:04:00] I'll be sending out a nice little batch of key change at the end of April. So stand by for somewhere in May, where you might get your key chain in the post in a nice pink envelope.

Adam Cox: And then we can always be near your crutch, near your crutch, while you're at it, don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast app and leave us a review. Your support really helps us reach even more people who like you, love a good tale of the unexpected.

Kyle Risi: Anyway, freaks enough for the housekeeping. Let's buckle up and get the show started because Adam, today on the compendium, we are diving into an assembly of lawnmowers, latex, inner tubes, and late stage Pokemon fraud.

Adam Cox: Yeah, you've got me. Lawnmowers, Pokemon guards? Mm-hmm. No, nothing.

Kyle Risi: So when we think of some of the greatest heists in history, several legendary robberies immediately spring to mind. Right? Last year in season one, we covered the great train robbery in England, probably like the granddaddy of all the heist stories, especially from the mid 20th century.

There's also the Bodacious millennium dome heist, [00:05:00] which we did a few weeks back, Which combine the genre of heists with something I love more, and that is a heist carried out by idiots.

There's also, of course, the mysterious and still unsolved story of DB Cooper, who we also did an episode on back in season one, where Dan or DB Cooper and his brazen jump from an airline with a bag of ransom cash cements his place in criminal history.

Adam Cox: Yeah, there were three really good episodes. They were, and now we're doing one about lawnmowers and Pokemon cards. It sounds like one of our neighbors has been burgled.

Kyle Risi: So in our last heist episode on the Millennium Dome Diamond heist, we brought you the most elaborately planned heist in British history. This week, we are bringing you the most elaborately planned heist in modern American history.

A robber that has been affectionately dubbed as DB tuba. Imagine for a second, DB Cooper meets Monty Python, an operation that literally dances on that precarious line between [00:06:00] genius and sheer lunacy.

Because the star of today's story is Anthony Riko. I believe I pronounce that correctly. I'm just gonna call him Tony from now on. So they'll be, they'll ask you, hear his surname. Hey, Tony, Tony.

Rigo. So he's like a small town big shot who has his entire life ahead of him as a pro athlete, only for the trajectory of his entire life to take a turn for the worst, leading him to a series of very unfortunate decisions.

Tony's plan, featured elements involving an escape using a tearaway disguise like a fucking stripper.

A jet ski down an improbable tiny creek. And when that didn't work, he settled on the next best thing, an inflatable rubber in a tube, but the psta resistance was that Tony employed 20 unsuspecting doppelgangers that he'd recruited from Craigslist to help him vanish seamlessly into a crown amid the confusion that he had created

Adam Cox: interesting.

Kyle Risi: And Tony's heist was successful, and it would've remained so if his ego hadn't have let him [00:07:00]overlook the humanity of an unassuming homeless man eventually leading to his downfall. Big mistake.

But Tony's story doesn't actually stop with a heist because his journey then continues into a redemption story where he becomes a celebrated motivational speaker and a notorious children's book author, only for him to fuck it all up by becoming embroiled in the dark and seedy world of Pokemon.

What?

Adam Cox: No,

Kyle Risi: it'll all become clearer. This is the same story or same person? It's the same person, the same story. But what makes today's story so brilliant is Tony himself, like he's just extreme, he lacks any sense of impulse control. Like we've all had those moments where we've just been like, I can see a security van coming along. I know there's like tens of millions of dollars in there. I could just rob that fucking thing.

But the thing that stops us. Impulse control, right? Uhhuh, Tony just has none of that. And that's what makes his story just so wild. So Adam, today on the compendium, I'm gonna be telling you about one of the most elaborately planned [00:08:00] heists in modern American history with the now infamous story of Tony Kiko, also known as DB Tuber.

Adam Cox: Okay. Brilliant name. I'm interested. Did he give himself the name or did someone else nickname him after DB Cooper?

Kyle Risi: Someone obviously nicknamed him after the actual DB Cooper. So Just like DB Cooper who inspired his name, Tony's Crimes also took place in the Pacific Southwest. And just like DB Cooper who skated by jumping out of a plane, Tony decided to escape on a large inflatable in a tube earning him that Monica DB Tuber.

Nice. I like it. So let me introduce you to Anthony j Rigo, who grew up in a small town of Monroe in Washington. His father had been a star football player and a wide receiver. That's like a position on the football pitch,

Adam Cox: I'm aware.

Kyle Risi: Are you? Yeah. You know, stuff about American football.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I have a friend who used to play in, American football team.

Kyle Risi: Okay. Then Mr. Smiley pants. Tell us what's a wide receiver.

Adam Cox: I don't remember, but he was, but he was a tight end.

Kyle Risi: He's a [00:09:00] tight end. That sounds sexual

Adam Cox: I think it is. I don't get it. I don't know. They're like, they're throwing a ball around. I don't know. It's it, they're like grabbing each each other and is tight. I don't pretend to know. I just know some words.

Kyle Risi: Basically, a wide receiver is an offensive physician whose primary role is to catch passes from the quarterback, et cetera. And that's all I know. That's all I wrote down that that's it. That's as far as my research went into what a wide receiver is. But of course during his football career, dad ends up injuring himself, which of course forces him to then retire years before he was due to. And he has to find a new path and he does so with a successful landscaping company in Monroe.

And the family was very well known. This is a small, tiny town of just 16,000 people. And because the landscaping company that his father set up was so big, they were just incredibly wealthy, but also incredibly famous. Not only was Anthony's dad a star athlete back in the day, but also Anthony's grandmother, his mother and his older sister were all homecoming queens. So, you know, [00:10:00] they were very important.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I can imagine they would be.

Kyle Risi: It's very much like this all like American family vibe thing that you've got going on.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And they probably still hang out with like their high school friends and still wearing their like high school jackets and, exactly.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. A bit like Chip Monica's, crush from high school. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. I can get you some like, uh, the movie posters and she's like, yeah, no, thanks, I'm set. She's like 30 years old and he still has movie posters in his bedroom.

Adam Cox: That's right.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. So Tony's life was pretty much on the same trajectory as his father, and he quickly cements his status as like the big man on campus. And just like his dad, he was a star athlete. He led it in both football and basketball, and he was so good that basically he becomes the captain of the football team.

Throughout high school, Tony's girlfriend's, surprise, surprise, she was a cheerleader . So this is literally stuff of like classic American movies.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Classic nineties American high school.

Kyle Risi: Bullying people as they walk down, the corridors going to classes in your cheerleader uniform.

Actually, why do cheerleaders wear their cheerleading uniform as like their daily attire to school?

Adam Cox: [00:11:00] Do they or is that just the movies?

Kyle Risi: Is it just a movie thing? Or if you were a cheerleader, like you wore your uniform every day.

Adam Cox: I think it was just to show like they're the popular ones and I feel like that's just for tv. But I could be wrong, but,

Kyle Risi: but how many uniforms do they have? I don't know. because surely you just have one uniform. Surely if you're wearing it every day, it would be stinky.

Because you see other kids in school, they wear their regular normal clothes, everyday clothes.

Adam Cox: I'm sure that's just for TV and film, maybe it's just in case people forget who's popular. It's them.

Kyle Risi: Then they could just have a name tag. I'm the popular girl.

Anyway, eventually, Tony lands a scholarship to play football in college at the University of Idaho in Moscow. at university tony was a bit of a party boy. The transition from high school to college football was a major adjustment for him, he didn't quite comprehend the workload involved. He was expected to take both football and studies very seriously, but in the back of his mind, he was just like, you know what, I'm just here to party.

Which to be fair, you're at college. I think that's a pretty great call.

Adam Cox: Yeah. That's pretty standard, right?

Kyle Risi: but then Eventually there is a change in the coaching staff. And finally he [00:12:00] decides that he needs to pull his head in a little bit and he starts partying less. He starts working a little bit harder and he starts focusing a bit more on his football career.

But then Adam, something happens to derail Tony's entire future. He tears a ligament in his knee. I believe they call it like an ACL our friend George, he ripped his like a few years back and that like just screwed him up for like 18 months.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I think any sports person that gets that kind of injury, they can't really compete at the same level again.

Kyle Risi: And Adam, this is a really common story that sets us up as a rise and fall and then rise against story here. We have a star athlete who gets injured before turning pro. His life changes dramatically and then he falls into kind of a downward spiral leaving a sense that he's lost his direction in life.

And also. As Tony is recovering, he becomes heavily addicted to Vicodin, which of course if you know anything about painkillers, it's a very strong painkiller. Mm-hmm.

It's not like codeine where if you want a relaxing night in, you just pop a cup of codeine and have like six glasses of wine. [00:13:00] It's not like that.

Adam Cox: Is it like having some Lorazepam Raz Pam

Kyle Risi: pipe?

Adam Cox: She's brilliant.

Kyle Risi: She is genius.

Adam Cox: Uh, as more of a case of like, because she was out of Lorazepam. She's like, I'm gonna have to drink myself to sleep tonight.

Kyle Risi: I mean, the aim of drinking as someone in your thirties is to not be able to feel your emotions after 10 o'clock. It is for me at this stage in my life.

Adam Cox: You don't drink. Remember?

Kyle Risi: I know I don't drink, but I, I'm thinking about starting drinking again, Uhhuh, Uhhuh, because I just can't take the emotion. Okay.

So despite his addiction, he does actually manage to pick himself up and he starts his first business. Tony's Gaming, where he buys and sells casino tables, another kind of sort of gaming merchandise.

But within a few months of opening to the public, Tony's gaming is unexpectedly shut down. When the Washington State Gambling Commission and the local police, they raid the business and confiscate all his inventory stating that did not possess the necessary permits to physically sell these products.

Adam Cox: I was gonna say, I would've thought, um, 'cause America [00:14:00] takes gambling quite seriously, it's different by state. I would've thought, yeah, you needed like a license of some kind to sell that.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. So they were pretty much questioning whether or not he had the correct permits. I'm not sure if it turns out that he did, but it sounded like there was some kind of other rival that was involved here that just reported him to claim that he didn't, and therefore that would disrupt his business practices.

This is yet another setback for Anthony. His addiction to painkillers ends up getting worse. And when the doctors refuse to fill his prescriptions, he deliberately kicks a table to further fuck up his knee.

So the doctors will then just re-prescribe him the painkillers that he needs. Can you imagine that like this is a serious injury and because you're so dependent on these drugs, you're like, do you know what? My leg has been really well for the last. 10 months, what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna make it worse.

So they'll gimme painkillers.

Adam Cox: Yeah. That's really sad. And obviously the state of that he must have been in at that time. Yeah, that was just a quick relief. And I guess if things are going wrong in his life, then this is a way to escape that.

Kyle Risi: Eventually this tactic stops working and so Tony decides that he's gonna sit down at his computer and he is [00:15:00] gonna start forging prescriptions.

Adam Cox: Right. I mean, it's the logical step, right?

Kyle Risi: It is. This is just escalating. He's spiraling downwards, essentially. Mm-hmm. So his family and friends, they sense that he's staun to spiral. they pressurize him to kind of start looking for professional help. And he ends up completing an inpatient program at a drug and alcohol treatment facility before returning home to his small town of Monroe.

And because everyone knows who he is. Like they all know his business. So if you're like walking down the street, a dozen or so, people would know you by name. And even if like you haven't seen them for years, they'd be like, Hey Tony, how are you keeping you doing well?

Sort of that kind of sort of thing. Do you know what I mean? And I don't know why they're all Italian, but in my mind they're all Italian. That was Italian.

Re you could do better than that. I really can't. Right. That was what I had. Alright, moving on.

So of course now sober Tony ends up marrying his high school sweetheart, and of course ex cheerleader, Emily. Eventually they start a family. Tony finds work and success as a real estate agent, and [00:16:00] together him and Emily, they start flipping houses, which they make a ton of money doing. So much so that people in their social circles, they are convinced that they're going to eventually have their own house renovation show.

Adam Cox: Oh, really? Yeah. So they're that good at it,

Kyle Risi: apparently. I don't know what makes someone good, like I guess they're making money. That's probably a good sign.

And so throughout. all this success, Tony starts to becoming a bit of a douche bag, he becomes really super materialistic. It was always about what car he was driving, what bars he was frequenting, the clothes that he was wearing. He later says that this was a result of the lost promise of his life after obviously injuring himself.

And he felt that he needed to be as successful as his father. And if he wasn't going to be a pro athlete, then he was going to try and make up for it in other ways. And this is what he decided to do. He went into real estate and he was pretty damn successful.

Adam Cox: Yeah, but you can be successful without being a douche.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, he's a douche. I think his dad is a douche as well. I don't think being a douche was the problem here. I think for him anyway, I think that was just a natural recourse because [00:17:00] of who he was and how famous he was. And he was a big shot, essentially. I think he was always going to be a douche.

Adam Cox: And during this, does he have any sort of relapses

Kyle Risi: well, I mean this is a rise and fall and rise and fall and rise again. Story. So like a rollercoaster. Yeah, it is essentially.

Because the first relapse is about to happen because the knew it housing market begins to crash in 2007 and continues to do so well into 2008. Now I know you are quite business savvy, so you'll know that if your business revolves around houses and houses aren't doing very well, then you're not really doing very well.

Adam Cox: Yeah, that that makes sense.

Kyle Risi: So initially their early success put them in a good financial path, but after one house requires more money to renovate and kind of brought in less than expected, things start kind of looking a bit bleak for them. So to make ends meet, his father convinces him to work for the family's landscaping company.

And on the side he also takes up a job coaching at the local school with all the added stress, his pill addiction returns, and despite having completed four drug and alcohol treatment programs, it [00:18:00] gets to the point where he's literally spending $15,000 a month on painkillers as well as other drugs like cocaine and benzos.

Adam Cox: That is a lot. Mm-hmm. But how much are you taking a day for you to spend that much?

Kyle Risi: Maybe he just needs to quell all those emotions. The thing is though, he's doing everything though. He's doing uppers. He's doing downers. He's doing everything's, yeah. So it's literally, he cannot regulate his emotions at all. So when he needs to pep himself up, he'll take a bit of cocaine.

When he needs to bring himself a bit down, then he'll take a bit of Odin or whatever it might be, Uhhuh. So it's awful.

And to make matters worse, Emily turns to him one day and announces that she is pregnant once again. So Tony feeling really overextended. It didn't look like his real estate business was going to recover anytime soon.

And of course, his drug addiction was now costing him a shit ton of money every single month he decides to go down to the bank because that's where all the money is. And his plan was to rob the absolute shit out of it. Or rather he planned to rob the armored truck that collected the money from the bank.

Right. [00:19:00] Okay. So a little bit of a similarity there from, our Millennium Dome episode where their early heists revolved around robbing armored vans.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Things in transit. So he hasn't done this before? Nope. I don't feel like it's gonna go well.

I mean, It's quite, he's planned it. Uhhuh. Yeah. Yeah. What's he gonna do? What has he got? Tools. Has he got any backup? Is it just him that's gonna be doing this? Is he roped in his kid?

Kyle Risi: I'm going to tell you exactly what happened. Okay? So he decides to target the Bank of America branch in his hometown of Monroe. Now, I looked on Google Maps expecting there to be loads of branches, right? But it's literally the only bank in this town. Remember, Monroe has a population of 16,000 people, has everybody knows who?

He's everybody. Everybody. So they're like, oh, hey Tony, what are you doing? Uhhuh?

So for three months, basically what he does is he uses his job at his dad's landscaping company as a cover to scope out the bank, essentially. So they have a contract maintaining the landscaping around the immediate area where the bank is located. It's kind of like on like like a, a little [00:20:00] kind of mall strip.

So he makes sure to pick up the contract that they have mm-hmm. So that he can keep an eye on the bank every Tuesday.

And he picks a Tuesday because of course he knows that every Tuesday an armored van will come and pick up the money deposited into the bank from the last week. Sure.

So staff greet him, like they casually like, Hey Tony, how's it going? And he's like, shut up. I'm sticking out the bank. Scooter guards, they pay no attention to him because again, they know exactly who he is. They see him pretty much every Tuesday.

he He's blending in in plain sight. Exactly. And they know him by name.

So He notes down the security guard's usual routine. He closely watches the armored car drivers, how they exit the van, how long it takes them to collect the money from inside the bank, and then how they load the money into the actual armored van before then driving away.

He makes sketches of the location, like he marks out where all the cameras are inside and outside of the branch.

even estimates how much money was being transferred to the bank and how much is it also being withdrawn from ATMs that people are using. So like every person who approaches the at m, he's like, yeah, I reckon that's 50 bucks.

Adam Cox: How is he, I guess he's maybe taking an average or something.

Kyle Risi: May is he asking him? It's [00:21:00] Hey Ezekiel. How much you taking at the bank? And they're like 150. And he's okay, thanks. And then he writes it down and then that's how he gets an estimate

Adam Cox: that is very suspicious.

Kyle Risi: It's very suspicious. basically he's probably just estimating, roughly, maybe trying to look to see how much people are taking out.

He also then considers the location of the bank in relation to the local police station, where he also then calculates the probable route that the cops might take if they were called and figures out how much time he would have if they were responding.

He literally notes down everything. As Tony puts it in an interview that he does with a sportsman for like a month and a half every Tuesday, he watched and studied the routine of the bank and the people surrounding it, and he says there was essentially loads of planning and logistics that were involved in this.

He then needed to start working on a disguise. Again, this is his hometown of 16,000 people where everybody knows him, so he decides that he probably is going to need to wear some kind of disguise as going to cover up the fact that he is Tony Rio and everyone knows him.

Adam Cox: A ball carver at least.

Kyle Risi: Well, no, he picks [00:22:00] a wig.

Adam Cox: Just a wig so people can see his face,

Kyle Risi: other things as well. He thinks that if he also wears some kind of goggles and a particulate mask, he can use those to cover up his face and people won't really recognize him.

He then fashions an outfit, which is all held together with Velcro. And that way after the robbery, he can then just tear it away and then dump it. And the irony is not Romy, that he's basically disguising himself as a landscaper. The very thing that he actually is, and that he does every Tuesday.

Adam Cox: That's So how is he, he's disguising himself as a landscaper. The Velcro stuff is like a landscape uniform.

Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

Adam Cox: Oh, that doesn't make sense.

Kyle Risi: So he'll wear like a hives jacket he'll wear like blue jeans, which is obviously attached by a Velcro.

He'll wear a blue shirt. He's got a particulate mask on as well. He's got his wig on, but that's how he dresses on a day-to-day basis, minus the wig landscape. So is it a disguise? I don't know. Are they like, isn't that Tony in a wig? I know, that's what I mean. I know. I don't get it. Why would you come up with a disguise? Essentially, he's just wearing a wig and he's wearing his regular clothes that can [00:23:00] tear away.

Adam Cox: Okay. Maybe, I dunno, it's a small town. Maybe they're not that smart. It's just,

Kyle Risi: And he gets away with this and they're like, who could have done this? Um, maybe the fact that like it was a landscaper and there's a landscaper who has a contract on this bank. Maybe you should investigate them. But as far as I'm, where they don't.

So next he has to work out the most effective getaway method. So in classic high style, he decides that he was going to escape via creek on a motherfucking jet ski.

Adam Cox: Okay. That's, that makes sense. Is there's a stream or a creek I guess nearby

Kyle Risi: Exactly. His plan was to pre place the jet ski in the creek and then just zoom away after the robbery. The problem is the creek isn't deep enough to actually hold a jet ski.

Adam Cox: Right. Does he realize this on the day or.

Kyle Risi: weeks and weeks in advance.

Adam Cox: Okay. I don't know. He has to try something else, right? He can't use a jet ski,

Kyle Risi: So he decides that he needs to dredge the bottom of the creek to make it deeper. So naturally, obviously being a landscaper, he has all the equipment he needs. The creek was just literally mere yards away from the bank. So people can literally [00:24:00] see him for an entire week dredging out the creek and they're like, Hey Anthony, what are you doing? He's like, shut up. I'm planning my getaway.

Adam Cox: Okay. It does feel quite elaborate, but fine. All right. I guess it kinda makes sense.

Kyle Risi: When he's done. He loads the jet ski into the creek so that he can do obviously a practice run. Why? Nobody is noticing that the local big shot from a well-known family is literally riding a jet ski in a creek that he spent an entire week building himself is beyond me.

But anyway, While he's practicing, he hits a boulder, he cracks the bottom of the jet skis, fiberglass shell. And so he has come up with a new plan. I guess that's what we practice, right?

Adam Cox: Yeah. It's better than doing that than a natural day.

Kyle Risi: So His new plan was to create a pulley system using cables that he would string through the tree line from the creek, which he would then use to pull himself up the creek in a huge, bright yellow inflatable in a tube.

So normally tubes are like pulled by a boat in like water games or something like that. But he's going to use these cables himself and he's gonna pull himself up this creek.

Adam Cox: Hence DB tuber.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. So. What started out as an awesome escape plan turns into quite literally [00:25:00] the lamest escape plan possible and slow as well. Like you can literally walk faster. Then it would take you to pull yourself up this creek.

Adam Cox: Is he banking on the police being like really confused, no one could make an escape in the creek.

Kyle Risi: What he's actually banking on, which is really clever, is the police believing that he's gone downstream.

Adam Cox: Right, Okay.

Kyle Risi: Which makes sense because if you're gonna escape by creek, you're going to kind of just let the go with the water. Exactly. But he's gonna pull himself upstream and that will essentially confuse the police.

Adam Cox: I haven't seen what this creek looks like, but it feels like he's not gonna be able to disappear quickly.

Kyle Risi: It does take him a long time.

Adam Cox: Okay.

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

I said this was the most elaborately planned heist. I didn't say it was the best plan. It's just is a little bit lame. he practices his getaway for a while.

He pulls himself up the creek in this brightly colored inner tube, while timing how long it would take him to escape. He also rehearses kind of ripping off his Velcro disguise right before obviously ditching it behind a dumpster. And then he would practice driving away.

So now with the getaway method in place next, he needs to figure out how to deal with the Yama security van explicitly [00:26:00] did not want to use a gun, thinking that if obviously he pulled a gun on the guard, the guard would then just pull a gun on him and lead to immediate stalemate.

So instead he looks for the most effective way to get the guard to drop the money while ensuring that the guard wouldn't see him and in turn wouldn't chase after him.

Adam Cox: So approach him from behind

Kyle Risi: The answer was pepper spray, it was non-lethal, and also meant that he could force a guard to drop the cash instantly after blinding him.

Plus if he appeared outta nowhere, the guard wouldn't even have time to react and then shoot him with his gun.

Adam Cox: Okay.

Kyle Risi: So to sum up so far, Tony's plan was to surprise the armored security guard pepper, spray him in the eyes, grab the money, make a run for it towards awaiting inflatable in a tube, and then escape by pulling himself up the creek to a vehicle that was arranged beforehand to then take into, I dunno the hell out of there.

So it's a foolproof plan. Especially in his hometown, in broad daylight where everyone knows him while he is dressed as a landscaper, the very thing that everyone knows him as.

Adam Cox: Yes. But he does have that wig. And it's true. So maybe [00:27:00] just, maybe he might pull this off, but I don't see does he pull it off?

Kyle Risi: He, I do. You know what? I just cannot understand why the police have to rely on other things like DNA. In order to crack this case, right.

When they know that, hang on a minute, there is a landscaper company that has a contract on the strip mall let's just go investigate them.

Adam Cox: Yeah, that makes sense. But I guess you still need to prove, like, have to rule out other landscape gardeners.

Kyle Risi: They're all there. They can be interviewed by the police.

Adam Cox: Oh, right. So they don't run away. Okay. So there's literally, there's only one person missing and it's Tony.

Kyle Risi: I just don't get it. Anyway, finally he needs to put the last piece of his plan into action.

He posts an ad on Craigslist offering short-term work as a landscaper for $28 50 per hour, which in 2008 is a fucking awesome wage, essentially.

Adam Cox: Yeah, that's really good.

Kyle Risi: And this of course guarantees that plenty of people would show up and apply for this particular gig. And essentially that's all he needed.

Adam Cox: Did he ask them to show up in the exact same uniform that he was wearing?

Kyle Risi: Exactly. The ad instructs everyone interested to meet at the car park of the [00:28:00] Bank of America on Old Owen Road on Tuesday, September the 30th at 11:00 AM He then told everyone to wear blue jeans, a blue shirt, work shoes, a yellow safety vest, safety goggles, and also a painter's mask.

That was explicit.

Adam Cox: And a wig.

Kyle Risi: I guess they don't need the wig, because they've got own hair.

Adam Cox: That would be, that would be quite weird.

Kyle Risi: After applying, he sends all applicants an email pretending obviously to be the supervisor of the job, telling them that if they arrive and there's no project manager there, they must not leave.

So finally, the big day arrives. It's of course, Tuesday, the 30th of September, 2008, around 11:00 AM applicants start showing up at the Bank of America. All dressed in the same outfit among them. Is Tony and he's already busy killing weeds outside the Jack in the box. In the same complex.

Applicants start gathering in sort of groups like wondering who they're supposed to report to and what they were gonna be doing.

Naturally they see Tony hard at work and they just assume that he must know what's going on. So they start following him around, tony realizes that this isn't good because now it throws a massive [00:29:00] wrench in his plan because he needs to be blending in with the crowd, not the crowd following him.

Demanding to know like, well, what is it that we need to do? Right, right. You clearly have started work. You know what you're doing. You're spraying weeds as someone told spray weeds, who's a supervisor, who's a manager, et cetera.

Adam Cox: Okay.

Kyle Risi: So realizing he's made this huge mistake. He kind of darts around the corner to try and get away from the gathering ground that is hounding him.

And once he's around the corner, he ditches his disguise. Comes around the side and just pretends to be a regular member of the public. Okay. So everyone knows him.

Okay. Like, oh, there's Tony the Ock, before he was in, oh, he was wearing a weird disguise before. Why is he, why isn't now just in his regular clothes?

Adam Cox: So that's just to try and get this, I don't know, this mob away from him, essentially. And does that work?

Kyle Risi: It does, but I also don't understand what he expected to happen in the first place. I guess they all just assumed that they would show up at all the exact same time and they would just stand there. Right. But of course, with so many people present, the first thought was like, this is a big gig.

It's $28 an hour, So they're thinking like maybe it's like first come first Earth.

Eventually the armor [00:30:00] truck shows up and Tony has to fumble around in the bushes really quickly to put his disguise back on. And I imagine people are like, Hey Tony, what are you doing?

He's like, shut up. I'm putting my disguise back on.

Then as the securities guard begins weeding bags of cash from the bank, Tony tosses aside, his pesticide sprayer sprints towards the truck, and pepper sprays the shit out of the guard. Of course, as expected, the guard immediately drops the money and starts clawing at his eyes in pain.

Tony grabs two of the bags of money and starts sprinting across the parking lot like a football player. He runs across two lanes of traffic. He then stops for a moment. He rips off his yellow vest. He respirator mask, and he safety goggles.

And then he just runs across this grassy verge and along the way, at some point he drops one of the bags of money. He doesn't even look back, he just keeps running with the remaining bag before disappearing into the woods near the creek.

Adam Cox: How much Ty would ever taken to go back? Because I feel like he's done all this effort. He's now just haled his prize money.

Kyle Risi: The reason why I dropped the bag of money is 'cause it was just too heavy to carry both.

Adam Cox: Oh, okay.

Kyle Risi: So suddenly the [00:31:00] landscapers all waiting in the parking lot, who have clearly just witnessed everything unfold, realize in that moment that they weren't gonna get paid that day, and that they had actually just been conned into serving as decoys for a bank heist.

And I dunno if this is genius or just plain stupid. Essentially though. He has just hired 20 witnesses and remember he sent them an email telling them what to wear. Oh no. I don't know if he used his own email address. He probably didn't. Oh God, I didn't even think of that. I know the police don't put this together, I just don't get it.

Adam Cox: But yeah, initially I thought, okay, he's smart, almost having these decoys around. But yeah, like they're gonna ask what were you doing here? I was told to be here. And then they look at the email address. So it's Tony. That's weird.

Kyle Risi: I don't, he probably didn't use his own email address. Probably. I doubt anyone Is that stupid? But the point is that it's known that his family have this contract mm-hmm for this strip mall. Right. And thus Heist has taken place with a bunch of people dressed as gardeners or workmen. Right. So I don't understand why they just didn't put those two things together.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I think the stupid [00:32:00] part of this plan is the fact that he hasn't led them down a different path enough. Like the first thing that they're gonna start with is his family's company.

Kyle Risi: but the cops don't put it together.

Anyway, I feel like this is a perfect time to take a quick break and when we come back we'll follow Tony into the woods and see how his inner two plan turns into one of the slowest, strangest getaways in criminal history.

Adam Cox: Oh God. It's gonna get worse?

Kyle Risi: So,

Adam, we're back. What are you thinking about our poor little mate, Tony?

Adam Cox: I think, well, so far he seems to have done a, he's fooled everyone. Mm-hmm. Weirdly. But, I don't know if he's gonna make it out. Like how is he gonna get upstream? I'm intrigued by this.

Kyle Risi: So Tony does get away with at least one of the bags anyway. But it was also the best bag because in that bag was $400,000. Oh wow. That's quite a lot. And that's just one of the bags. And just to think how wild that is in 2008, that a bank was handling that much cash in a single week. Mm-hmm. I find that really weird. Like, Who [00:33:00] has that much cash? Everyone uses credit. Right.

Adam Cox: But maybe back then it perhaps wasn't as common.

Kyle Risi: It turns out that Tony specifically planned the highest for that week because he knew that affair would be in town. And also September is like a huge shopping month as well with loads of people getting ready to go back to school.

Ah, meaning that there was a lot of loose money around. As to why Tony dropped one of the bags. It was just because, like I said earlier on, it was just too heavy. He said though, that the adrenaline kind of definitely helps, but in the end he just had to let one of them go. Luckily, it turned out to be the best one.

he was expecting to have like had a haul of around about $330,000 based on his estimates of what should people take out money in the bank. Knowing that affair was in town, et cetera. So in the end, the fact that it contained $400,000 in just one single bag was essentially the jackpot for him.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: So Tony reaches the edge of the creek. This is where obviously the yellow in a tube is waiting. He loads the cash, he slowly pulls himself up the creek using the pulley system that he kinda rigged up through the trees. How long do you reckon it took him?

Adam Cox: How long has, has he [00:34:00] gotta pull himself up for?

Is it like,

Kyle Risi: It might be easy if I tell you how far he needed to travel.

Adam Cox: Okay.

Kyle Risi: 200 yards.

Adam Cox: That doesn't seem that many. I reckon he probably took about 40 minutes.

Kyle Risi: I think you're missing the bigger point there. Mm-hmm. he was gonna make this journey on a jet ski.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

Kyle Risi: He is traveling 200 yards. That's 180 meters.

Adam Cox: Could he have not just walked a bit further? That's what I said.

Kyle Risi: He pulled himself 200 yards as part of an elaborate escape plan. You're right. He could have walked.

Adam Cox: Yeah. So is it because. By going in the creek, he'll be out of sight. Whereas someone could see him walking on the riverside or whatever it is.

Kyle Risi: I, it took me so long to work out this needs to make sense to me. Mm-hmm. So I looked it up and honestly believing like I, I was wrong. But apparently, even though it wasn't long distance, the destination where he needed to get to wasn't easy, accessible by road. He had to go under a bridge and a highway, a bunch of buildings as well. So all in all, the [00:35:00] creek really was a justified way, but also it also acted as a decoy because he's putting himself upstream.

Mm-hmm. When people were like, oh, he ran towards the creek. They would go down to the creek and just assume that he went down.

Adam Cox: Right. But then surely are the police not gonna see this pulley system?

Kyle Risi: I guess as he's pulling himself up, he's gathering the road back up.

Adam Cox: Ah, okay, fine. I see.

Kyle Risi: So eventually Tony exits the creek behind several businesses onto the opposite side of the highway he removes his wig, he rips off his Velcro striper outfit, revealing an entirely different set of clothes underneath. then he jumps into a waiting getaway vehicle driven by a friend. And they drive off. He's got an accomplice. Exactly, yes. Mm. Of course it isn't long before the cops descend on the scene.

And the landscapers are now witnesses they tell the police that they just saw a guy running towards the creek. And so the police head down, they find the trail of discarded items long route, including the bag of money, and obviously the mask that is discarded. when they reach the creek, this is where it becomes clear how smart Tony was. Because like I said, the cops think that he's gone downstream. So not realizing that he actually pulled himself upwards.

Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. [00:36:00] Although he still left his, belongings, which I would've, thought about DNA, but,

Kyle Risi: ah, exactly. Of course. The cops realize the other landscapers all dressed exactly the same. Were in fact decoy they start making moves to contact Craigslist to try and see if they can track down who posted the actual ad itself. Eventually they realized that Tony actually went upstream because they discovered the discarded inner tube.

Adam Cox: Should have perhaps brought that into the car. I was with them.

Kyle Risi: I guess you just need to get away real quick.

Adam Cox: But they might have then realized, what cars were going past this certain direction that, or you know, around that area. That's why I feel like that was a bit of a stupid move

Kyle Risi: Also if few feet away they find his tearaway blue shirt and a two-way radio, which obviously makes them realize that actually there was other people involved in this because why else would you have a two-way radio?

they then replay the CCT footage from the bank surveillance camera, which shows obviously Tony's Pepper spraying the security guard, but since he's wearing a wig and glasses, it's not really that much to go on. Naturally, the story attracts interest from the local press who then end up dubbing this incident. DB Tuber, of course, as we discussed, and not to [00:37:00] DB Cooper when the press asked for a description of the suspect, they were looking for, the cops say, well, he's kind of like six feet tall, like he's white.

They basically say, it's really hard to describe, he kind of looks like the star quarterback from back in the day. From the family of homecoming, Queens. He kind of looks like that guy. Did they really actually say that? No. The thing is though, how could they not piece that together?

I don't know. He's got a wig. I, Adam, his family owned the contract for that strip mall.

Adam Cox: Okay. I don't get it.

Kyle Risi: Meanwhile, Tony is off. He's celebrating his $400,000 score. He buys himself a brand new Range Rover under a friend's name. He then invites a bunch of his mates and his mistress to a trip to Las Vegas to blow all the money.

He basically rents rooms at the Palms. He hires a guide for like $2,500 a night to get them into all the hots clubs and the strip bars and things like that. And he even attends a Jessica Simpson single release party, which I always think I'd like to go to the Susan Boyle album release [00:38:00] party.

Oh, Susan anal bum party. Yeah.

Adam Cox: and all the things that he blew that money on. Just went to Jessica Simpson

Kyle Risi: party.

Adam Cox: I mean, you know, I'm not knocking it at all. No. Do what you gotta do. So how quickly did he spend all that money in like a week or two?

Kyle Risi: He doesn't spend all the money. Oh. But he does get really fucked up and at one point he tries to jump over a coffee table. He ends up, he falls over, he breaks his arm, he gets patched up obviously, and then goes straight back to partying. Of course, don't forget, he's bailed and he's pregnant girlfriend. Oh yeah. Or his wife. Essentially.

Adam Cox: His wife more importantly.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Who has no idea where he is gone. When he finally returns back to Monroe, Emily is like, where the fuck have you been And injured? And he is injured. Exactly. And he tells her like he was off making a real estate deal and that he coming to some money and soon they wouldn't need to worry about money anymore.

And she's like, and why is your arm nestling?

Adam Cox: Yeah. I was like, I walked into a door

Kyle Risi: and he's like, I fell over playing basketball. And she's like, I thought you would do business. So basically he's just full of shit.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And you know, a business meeting playing basketball.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. It could happen. I guess so.

Meanwhile, the FBI, they arrive in town [00:39:00] because this is now a federal crime. They managed to get a DNA swab from the mask and the goggles that he had obviously discarded. So big mistake there. there's no match in the database. So as evidence, it's essentially useless. I see. But Tony makes one fatal mistake.

Basically, a patrol officer remembers a very odd visit that he received from a city worker a few weeks earlier who came in to report that a homeless man had found a disguise and a radio by a dumpster near a bank. Okay.

This ends up being a 53-year-old guy named Alan Dean, who tells the cops that he'd been at the mall near the Bank of America when he spotted a radio behind a dumpster. Mm-hmm. When he went to go investigate closer, he finds a painter's mask and a dark wig. And some sunglasses, and also a can of mace. Right. So, Alan homeless, but not an idiot is like, that's definitely a disguise.

Mm-hmm.

But because Alan had previously been convicted of illegally chopping down trees, he [00:40:00] knew that if a disguise was connected to something illicit, then his fingerprints now being all over it, might potentially implicate him inside a crime. Right? So Alan wondering aimlessly about what he should do next. He sees a city worker and this guy is named Randy Oosh or Oosh, He tells Randy what he had found and says that he doesn't wanna be implicated in a crime, but also wants to do the right thing by reporting it and asks Randy if he will go to the cops for him.

The rest of the day, Alan goes about his business as usual until he sees a silver SUV pull up behind the dumpster and he watches as a man gets out and proceeds to retrieve the disguise.

And Alan is like, I wouldn't mess with that mate. I've called the cops and they're gonna be over to collect it very soon.

And the man from the SUV turns to him and is like, what the hell did you do that for? To which Alan replies, well just look at it. It's clearly, dodgy. Right? Yeah. It's clearly something going on there. So the man studies the pile for a second. He then just picks it up and then he just dries off.

Adam Cox: So who is this man?

Kyle Risi: The guy is Tony. Ah. And he had obviously left the disguise there while he was doing a practice [00:41:00] run where he'd obviously tore away his clothing and his wig leaving everything behind. And of course, this is when a homeless man's thumb was upon it and he reports it to the police.

Adam Cox: Fine. So yeah, I was just trying to work out the timeline. So this is before he robbed the bank? Yeah. Or the, the vehicle like three

Kyle Risi: weeks before. Yeah. Fine.

Adam Cox: And he was just doing a dummy run and it just looked a bit suspect.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. So of course, three weeks later, Alan hears that the bank was robbed by a man wearing a dust mask and a wig, and the same stuff that he'd found essentially behind the dumpster.

So he comes forward again. This time he brings with him a little piece of paper, which he had the foresight to write down the license plate number of the SUV.

Ah, essentially in an interview later on, Alan says, like, the guy probably thought that I was just an all tramp and wouldn't do anything, but he was wrong because Alan. Had a pen.

Adam Cox: Be wary a homeless person with a pen.

Kyle Risi: They do say the sword is mightier than the pen.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I mean it's weird that he got convicted of cutting down trees. Yeah. But it's good that he's still an upstanding [00:42:00] citizen of the community.

Kyle Risi: So the FBI they on the plate and they discovered that the SUV is registered to Tony's wife. Basically. He used their car to do the practice runs.

Adam Cox: But that's still, yeah. Still a bit stupid.

Kyle Risi: It is stupid. So he's now pretty much implicated. They're gonna know it's him, right? Yeah. So now the cops have a suspect. Unfortunately, the unmatched DNA and the license plates aren't enough to actually arrest Tony, and they don't wanna approach him. In case of course, he gets spooked and then decides to run off or flee town. So they have to be strategic about the next moves.

The FBI, they start surveilling Tony everywhere. Eventually they follow him to a gas station where they see him discard a Gatorade bottle that he'd been drinking from, when Tony pulls out, they grab the bottle and they're running for DNA and surprise surprise, it comes back with a 100% match for the DNA that they find on the recovered items.

Adam Cox: Okay, so they've got him right.

Kyle Risi: Essentially by this point, a couple months have passed and so on the 3rd of November, Tony is driving his new Range Rover to a target parking lot in Monroe and he was basically arranging to hand over [00:43:00] $17,000 to a buddy or whatever, for some illicit reason. Essentially, remember he's also cleaning the money as well. So the $400,000 that he's got, he needs to make it clean.

So he is filtering it through different kind of, businesses to clean it, and this is all part of that process. Got you. So the FBI roll up and they arrest him.

Adam Cox: They've got him,

Kyle Risi: they have got him. And just to show you how quietly confident or stupid he is, he's in total shock.

Adam Cox: So I did wonder, did he expect that, they would ever catch onto it? No, he didn't Or was he that arrogant, like I've got this in the bag.

Kyle Risi: He was so arrogant that he is got this in the bag.

Adam Cox: Yeah. And he is got all this nice stuff all of a sudden. Although he is from a rich family anyway. That's true. So maybe that's not quite suspicious,

Kyle Risi: but like I said, he's in total shock. He's not panicking. He's, he's just shocked. And because he's such a deuce, he's, he's just like, you know who my parents are? You'll never have your lawn cut in this town ever again.

Adam Cox: Do you know who my dad is? Exactly. I'll get him after you.

Kyle Risi: Do you know who My mom is homecoming queen and my grandma, homecoming queen. My sister, homecoming queen. [00:44:00] Wow.

Adam Cox: The fact that he thinks that he has that much clout that he could, he's above the law.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, and so just like that, Tony's perfectly planned, executed robbery just goes bust all because he discounted the humanity of a homeless guy.

Adam Cox: And he shouldn't have threw away his stuff.

Kyle Risi: I don't know. They would've cracked it

Adam Cox: probably.

Kyle Risi: They would've,

Adam Cox: yeah, they probably would've done, I don't think he's that smart.

Kyle Risi: No. Of course, Tony goes to jail for first degree robbery. Initially he's released on bail, but then like an idiots, he tries to contact a witness and that one witness immediately runs the cops. Then he's busted essentially for witness tampering, and he's sent straight back to jail.

Adam Cox: What witness? One of the decoy people, I

Kyle Risi: have no idea who it was, but some Adam, 16,000 people, he was staking out the bank for weeks. Mm-hmm. And they're like, Hey Tony, what you doing? Shut up. Staking it out. The bank, someone has gone to the cops, they've also seen him dredging the lake, practicing a jet ski inside the creek.

Someone has seen him.

Adam Cox: Maybe this is normal behavior for him. What is he normally up to when he is not scouting our bank?

It's just [00:45:00] Tony doing his thing. I

Kyle Risi: don't get it. I don't get it. So eventually on May the fifth, 2009, he pleads guilty to all charges. He's sentenced to 72 months in prison. And in prison. Tony seems to really reform himself, like he gets busy writing and illustrating a bunch of children's books. One aimed at children with incarcerated parents called My Daddy's in Jail, which I think his daughters would've really appreciated.

Adam Cox: Was it generally for his kids? Initially, I think it was just for any kids that have their dads in prison. Yeah. But did their dad. Dress up and rob a bank?

Kyle Risi: No, they didn't. My daddy is in prison for a better reason than your daddy's in prison.

Wow. That's, that's some that could escalate. And so while in prison, connects with the author. They're interested in writing a biography about him. They start exchanging letters back and forth.

And when he's released, he ends up writing a book called. Heist and high a cautionary tale, essentially warning people not to make the same mistakes that he did. He's like, don't even bother with the jet ski. It doesn't work.

Adam Cox: So what, this is like a how-to guide for those that are looking to rob a bank?

Kyle Risi: No. In all seriousness, [00:46:00] it's like dels into kind of the psychological and emotional toll of like addiction and making kind of some pretty seriously flawed decisions in your life and what that can potentially lead to.

Adam Cox: Oh, so he's come to the realization that actually he's made a lot of a long series of mistakes.

Kyle Risi: Yes, exactly. He then turns this book into a hard hitting redemption story and eventually he lands his own Ted talk and bam, he carves out an entire career as a emotion speaker working with various youth groups, giving presentations on drug abuse prevention and the importance of making positive choices.

And he gets back into football by coaching the local youth team all and all, he's essentially turned his life around a little bit.

Did he ever have to pay back any of the money? I don't know. I guess they just took all these assets, right?

Adam Cox: Oh, he's like having to pay it back with these, like speaking gigs.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, possibly. And basically in his presentations he explains that his time in prison forced him to ask, how did I get here?

How did I get here? Who put me here? Whose fault is this?

Adam Cox: Well, it's his

Kyle Risi: exactly, like Tony, it's your fault. it's not that [00:47:00] deep.

Eventually he realizes that it was of course, his fault, nobody else's. And through that realization, he learns to hold himself accountable for his situation, understanding that he could control the direction of his life and just him alone.

Adam Cox: Yeah. It all start from the ACL tearing. So is this like a warning to those that expected a career in sports or something like that, and it's been taken away from them. Sure. It's a warning.

Kyle Risi: I think that's very niche. If you're targeting specifically sports people who have torn that ACL, you're not gonna sell that many books. Probably not. You need to probably target a wider range of people, just general people. Just don't go into life of crime.

Adam Cox: Not just ACL like tennis elbow. Carpal tunnel. Yeah. Sprained wrist.

Kyle Risi: So through this realization, he starts to realize that he needs to stop focusing on himself. That his life now wasn't about him it had to be about his kids. that's when the transformation happens.

He essentially redeemed himself and began showing others how to do essentially the same thing. That wasn't until Tony got busy in the black Pokemon trading [00:48:00] car markets, scamming buyers out of a total of $2 million through fake PSA gradings.

Adam Cox: That is a 2 million. Mm-hmm. And like he's probably scamming kids.

Kyle Risi: No, I doubt it.

Adam Cox: I guess they're not really getting their Pokemon cards graded. No, they're not. But I reckon he probably is. I reckon he's going to like schools and I reckon he's doing some like dodgy dealings, swapping some fake Pokemon cards.

Kyle Risi: What do you know about PSA gradings?

Adam Cox: Am I right in saying that you send it away? Mm-hmm. It gets graded by an independent authority. Yeah. Something like that. And then it comes back and it's got a certain star, if it's got any scratches or corners bent or whatever.

And so like the grade A or the best grade, it then says, yeah, this card or whatever is worth 10,000. Sure.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. So surprisingly you've got a really good handle on it. 'cause this is all completely new to me. So for context to help explain what we're talking about to our listeners, there is a company that functions as both a card authenticator and a grader.

for a fee you send them your collector's card and they verify it, whether it's like a baseball card or a basketball [00:49:00]card, a hockey card, or even a Pokemon card. Mm-hmm. They rate it on a scale of one to 10 based on this condition. So one would mean that it's in terrible shape basically. You just throw it away, And if it's a 10, it basically means it's imperfect condition. Of course. The higher the grade, the more valuable the card is. Yeah.

So after they inspect the card, they seal it in this really distinctive, tamper resistant plastic case to kind of preserve its condition.

They apply a grading along with a certification number on the barcode, and then they send it back to you.

So for example, like the 1986 flour brand, Michael Jordan card graded as an eight. That card in that condition would fetch $7,000 at auction. Wow. But if you had the same card graded as a 10, so just two points higher, what do you expect that to go for?

Adam Cox: Uh, 15,

Kyle Risi: 185,000. Wow. That's only, so actually 185 to 203,000.

Adam Cox: That is quite a big jump. That's a huge jump. What is so special? What's like an eight and what's a 10 like?

Kyle Risi: How do you, it's like pristine condition.

Adam Cox: [00:50:00] But then what's an eight? 'cause eight. Eight feels like a good condition.

Mm. So that's got I don't know, one little scratch and it like knocks down, I don't know, a hundred thousand.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's wild. It is crazy to me that people spend their money on, on the Australian cards.

Adam Cox: Well, I had a friend who used to send, who, yeah. The same person who was, uh, a tight, the footballer.

Yeah. The tight end. I think he was, um, so he used to send, I think it was there in lockdown when Pokemon kind of came back again round again. I remember they would have to send them away and there was like such a backlog. Like your cards could be with them for like six months.

Kyle Risi: Oh wow. It was just one person working on them.

Adam Cox: I dunno. Yeah. But that was just like how big and popular it was and people were getting their Pokemon cards graded.

Kyle Risi: We went to our friend George's house, the other, and I was surprised that in his bedroom he's got like loads of Pokemon cards on the wall. In cases on the wall. Yeah. He's a collector. Oh, it's weird. There are more, you know about your friends, the less you wanna know about 'em.

Yeah. So this is where Tony comes in.

He thinks, [00:51:00] rather than sending my card over to you, this grading service, I'll just do it myself. So he buys a bunch of equipment to help him do this, he buys like a protective grading case. He buys barcode labels, a magnifier loop, a handheld inkject printer. He gets like a lock cut kit, electrical grading pen, abrasive buffer, essentially Adam, he is setting up a counterfeiting operation . And he does this all online. Everything online. It's easy peasy.

Adam Cox: So he's going all out at this then like getting all this equipment.

'cause he is not, it sounds like he's actually trying to. I can't work out if he's intending to do a good job of grading these cards,

Kyle Risi: he's not gonna be grading the cards on behalf of other people. First of all, he isn't making fake cards at all. They're all real cards. But they're just ordinary cards. Maybe they're like grade, like at a six or something. So what he's gonna do is spruce them up ever so slightly, and then he's gonna pass 'em off as like nines and tens Right. Is okay, so like Ken mm-hmm. Essentially he's gonna make them a 10, and then when he is done, he wants to sell them for insane prices [00:52:00] because he knows that if he can afford like a grade eight card.

Right. If he can just make it pass off as a 10 or even just make someone believe that it's a 10. Oh, then he can sell it for like 180,000.

Adam Cox: So he's selling them on Yes. He's getting these cards and selling them on, he's not like getting them sent to him, grading them and giving them back to the person. No.

Okay. Now I get it.

Kyle Risi: So once he has these fraudulently graded cards he'll then list them on this huge trading marketplace called the Manhattan Marketplace.

He also will attend various card shows and card shops, which are just filled with people who just don't know any better basically. So they're like low hanging fruit. He can make a few thousand dollars by selling them like really great kind of graded, fake, graded cards.

Sometimes the buyers will receive the card and they're like, this is clearly not the grade that I paid for. Right? So they know what they're talking about. So naturally they threaten to report him Tony just says, sorry, we just sent you the wrong card. Send the back to us and we'll return your money. Then when the card is returned, he'll then just sell that to the next sucker that comes along. Ah,

of course he does this all under the fake name of John Steele. Because if you obviously Google Tony Rigo, it turns [00:53:00] up that he's a fucking bank robber.

So it's not good for maintaining that trustworthy reputation. But the irony of using the name John Steel is not lost on me. John, of course, the most generic name you can possibly find and steel I. Mm-hmm. Like, really? These people are like asking to be scammed.

Adam Cox: John Steele sounds like a, a, a real person.

Kyle Risi: It's a powerful name, but it's clearly fake to me. John Steele. Like Max Power.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Where'd you get it?

Kyle Risi: Hair dry.

Occasionally though when someone would complain about receiving a fraud and greater card, Tony gives them the phone number of a literal Hell's Angel motorcycle gang member. So when those buyers calls, get a refund or whatever. Basically they just scare the shit out of them in the hopes that they'll just cut their losses and just like, I'll take it any further.

Adam Cox: Does he say like, oh, you need to speak to Diane in customer services.

This is bloke. It's like, whoa,

Kyle Risi: what you want?

Adam Cox: Hi Diane,

Kyle Risi: meet me down in the office. Bring the card with you.

Adam Cox: So we just like would threaten them and so people would like back off and not take it any further

Kyle Risi: essentially. Yeah. So the question is, where does all [00:54:00] these Pokemon cards fit into all of this? So there's this 90 99 Pokemon Venison card. Do you know it?

Adam Cox: Um, oh yeah. Like the one that evolved from Bulb saw.

So do you

Kyle Risi: know the significance of that particular card, the 1999 OL card?

Adam Cox: Oh no.

Kyle Risi: Okay. There's also a 1999 Pokemon Charizard card.

Adam Cox: Ah, so the Charizard? Yes. I actually have a Charizard card. I dunno where it is though. Is it a grade 10? Probably not. What do you think it is? It's, it's, it's probably like a seven

Kyle Risi: a liar. I bet you that you get that graded that like, just throw this away. No, it's in, we just, we'll just put in the bin for you.

Adam Cox: It's a decent condition, but it's definitely not a 10.

Kyle Risi: Where is it then?

Adam Cox: It's in my, it's not at my dad's house.

Kyle Risi: When I was doing some research for this episode. I did come across someone on Reddit that had found at a garage sale, like an uncut like reel of Rizzo cards.

Mm-hmm. So do you understand what I'm trying to say there? Like the not cut cards are still in, they're still juice be cut like money. They're coming in these big sheets. Ah, got you. So it's a [00:55:00] bunch of Rizzo cards that just needs to be like punched out and people all over this Reddit thread were like, delete your account right now and go and get this graded.

And do not accept any dms from anyone. Like it's serious stuff

Adam Cox: that could be like, we had a lot of money. They're

Kyle Risi: talking, they would literally say, and it had the date on it, I think it was like 1998 or something. So Rizzo cards, a whole reel of them. Some of the most famous cards that you could possibly get.

in that state.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I remember. I remember when I first opened the Pokemon Pack and it was the cha out. I was so excited. Really? But then I didn't tell anyone because I remember reading the newspaper and like kids were getting robbed in the playground.

Kyle Risi: Ah, were you robbing them?

Adam Cox: No, but I was scared that I could get robbed. They robbed by Chinese kid, but back then they were only like worth a hundred quid. So they have gone up in value?

Kyle Risi: Yeah, they have. So clearly you are familiar with these characters. If you have one of these Ps graded like 10, you're essentially in the money. In 2023 operating under the name of World Buddies, Tony lists both of these cards. He finds a buyer for the Venice or card, which he then sells for [00:56:00] $10,500.

The buyer puts up the money and when the card is received, it turns out that the buyer was an undercover cop. And so Tony is arrested and basically a bunch of people have been complaining about his practices saying that he keeps selling these cards that he says are, tens. Mm-hmm. When actually they're not. And so they call the police, they investigate they buy one of these cards.

And just like that, Tony is now facing a maximum of 20 years behind bars for wire fraud and mail fraud because he sent essentially the card in the Post I.

Adam Cox: Really. Oh

Kyle Risi: really? That's how they get him with that 20 years. That's the thing. They always catch you with mail fraud.

Adam Cox: Yeah.

I love the fact that the policeman that, had to, I dunno, go undercover to do this, that was his job. Yeah. Of like, well, what are you doing today? You like staking out like some kind of robbery or whatever it's gonna be. It's like, no, I'm playing Pokemon.

Adam Cox: Yeah. I'm online pretending I'm a 12-year-old boy. Like, what?

Kyle Risi: I don't think there's 12-year-old boys out there that have got $10,000 to buy a ven or so card.

Adam Cox: I reckon they, if they traded right, then they will have [00:57:00]

Kyle Risi: anyway, So that's how he got busted. Basically. A bunch of people complained, and so, all of this is still going on at the moment he hasn't been convicted yet. So we'll have to wait and see whether or not he actually gets 20 years.

And you know, I dunno if I feel sorry for him.

Adam Cox: I mean, he's, he's committed a crime, so I mean, I, and he's scan, getting money outta people.

Kyle Risi: I don't know. I. Always agree with people sticking up to the man. Mm-hmm. That kind of mentality. But because he seems like such a douche, I almost don't feel sorry for him, purely for that reason.

Adam Cox: Is he sticking it up to the man? I don't feel like he's, doing this and trying to like also give back to the community or anything like that. People

Kyle Risi: stick it up to the man aren't giving back to the community. He's not a Robinhood.

Adam Cox: I know, but I just feel like he's selfish. He is a douche and Yeah. All those things. He's, he's scamming people outta money at the end of the day. He's not giving, he's not sticking up to the man.

Kyle Risi: We have to wait and see what happens. When this court case all wraps up, which of course we'll keep you updated about, but he's likely to be going away for a long time.

Adam Cox: For Pokemon cards.

Kyle Risi: For Pokemon cards.

Adam Cox: What did [00:58:00] your dad get for prison? For trading Pokemon cards

Kyle Risi: and Adam, that is the story of DEB Tuba, the most elaborately planned bank robbery heist in American modern history.

Adam Cox: Yeah. He's he's quite an entrepreneur in a way, like all the wrong reasons. Yeah. But yeah, I feel like if he does go to prison or he does get outta prison, he's just gonna do something else.

Kyle Risi: I mean, for me, I find it difficult to understand his line of thinking? He did do an MMA on Reddit a while back, and someone asked him like, why after the bank heist didn't you just quietly take the cash and move to another state? ' cause remember, like I said, he stayed in Monroe, the town where he committed the heist where everyone knows him.

And so he was really brazen when staking out the bank and dredging out the creek. Like he was bound to get caught. So why didn't he just leave? I don't get it.

Adam Cox: They would've caught up with him though, right?

Kyle Risi: yeah, but I think it would've made it harder if he did just leave town. But he says that he didn't wanna live without his family or be on the run, but honestly, he could have just taken his family with him.

He was also asked why after coming outta jail, he went back into crime, especially after building an entire brand on being this [00:59:00] reformed criminal, like warning others not to make the same mistakes that he did.

And basically he says that after he robbed the bank, he tried to invest the money in legitimate businesses to clean the money. But obviously that's much harder than using dodgy businesses because of course none of 'em really want to get involved. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If you are willing to clean some money for someone, then you're probably a criminal yourself, right?

Adam Cox: Well, yeah. You're taking a cut of that, surely.

Kyle Risi: Exactly.

he says because of that, he just wasn't ever able to escape a life of crime

Adam Cox: But he is just a phony then when he was giving all these TED talks and stuff.

Kyle Risi: Exactly. Exactly. He also talks about how a psychologist physically diagnoses him as someone who's extreme, which I didn't realize was a thing extreme. Yeah, you're extreme. You have an extreme personality.

Adam Cox: Well, he does seem a bit over the top,

Kyle Risi: uh, jet ski. Hello.

And that's the thing though, he just doesn't seem to have any impulse control. Like we've all seen those armor trucks and thought to ourselves like, yeah, I could just literally just press my fingers into the security guards eye sockets and then run off of the money. Do you know what I mean? But the thing that stops us is the fact that there's consequences. To our actions.

Adam Cox: I'm more [01:00:00] concerned that you don't have enough self-control.

Kyle Risi: What do you mean? '

Adam Cox: cause it feels like this happens a lot to you.

Kyle Risi: I mean, I have these thoughts, but I don't act on them. Otherwise,

Adam Cox: you'd be rich. I would've, I would've run off with your jet ski.

Kyle Risi: And so with Tony that he just doesn't have any of that. And it's just such a shame because he did redeem himself after the heist only to then turn a corner and then commit more fraud with fucking Pokemon cards. So it seems like he has learned nothing.

And so the takeaway here is so often the people that are doling out this advice on how to better yourself and how to be the best version of yourself are normally the ones that are like the biggest hypocrites.

Do you know what I mean? The ones that are physically doing the crime or the ones that continue to fuck their lives up even more. so I generally do not feel bad.

Adam Cox: No. And it makes me think that anyone that gives me advice, I'm like, what are you up to?

Kyle Risi: Exactly. That's why you should always be dubious or like suspicious of people out there on the internet that are like, try out like 10 ways to make yourself a millionaire.

Well, are you a millionaire? I don't know.

Adam Cox: Yeah, they've [01:01:00] just got like a course or something. Yeah, exactly. That's what it is. I just, us at the moment, it's all about YouTube automation and stuff like that. Have you seen those? Mm-hmm. Where they're like, oh, you can just, um, create like an AI video, stick a voiceover.

Oh,

Kyle Risi: That's what I hope this podcast becomes at one point. So we can just write it, produce it, record it, let emulate our voices, and then we just watch the money rolling in. Right?

Adam Cox: Yeah. One day maybe episode 300, that's where we'll be at.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Maybe.

There is, however, in this story, a little small, happy ending to all of this. Thanks to Alan, the homeless man who unraveled this entire case. Basically, Alan got some reward money for helping bring Tony down and decided that he was gonna use the money to by himself a Nissan Pathfinder.

And he plans to drive back to his family in the Ozarks where he'll finally be off the streets for good. But the irony isn't lost to me that the guy who resorted to a literal heist out of fear of losing his house, got busted by a man who didn't even have one.

Adam Cox: No. Well, now that's good that you got a happy ending though. Yeah. And drawing [01:02:00] back to the Ozarks of all places. What if you run into Wendy? Yeah, Wendy and Marty and Julia Garner.

Kyle Risi: I, who was the other chick though? The badass woman who's gonna be Professor McGonigal in the new Harry Potter, HBO series.

Adam Cox: Oh, yeah. I can't remember her actual, it was a

Kyle Risi: Helena.

Adam Cox: I can't remember the actress's name.

Kyle Risi: She was, yeah, but she's the lawyer basically.

Adam Cox: She was also in that God show with, the Greek God show.

Kyle Risi: Do you remember?

Adam Cox: She was,

Kyle Risi: that's what I was saying. She was Helena in Yes. In chaos, wasn't she? Yeah. She was a brilliant actress. And she's gonna be Professor McGonigal. I see it interesting. I think she'll be good. I think so. But she's maybe a little bit too aggressive.

Adam Cox: She's no Maggie Smith though.

Kyle Risi: No, she's not. No one will ever be a Maggie Smith, but yeah. Shall we run the outro for this week?

Adam Cox: Let's do it.

Kyle Risi: And that brings us to the end of another fascinating foray into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things. We hope you enjoy the ride as much as we did,

Adam Cox: and if today's episode sparks your curiosity, then do us a favor and follow us on your favorite podcast app.

It truly makes a world of difference and helps more people discover the show.

Kyle Risi: For our dedicated freaks out there. Don't forget, the next week's episode is already waiting for you [01:03:00]on our Patreon, and it is completely free to access.

Adam Cox: And if you want even more, then join our certified freak steer to unlock the entire archive, delve into exclusive content and get a sneak peek. And what's coming next. We'd love for you to be part of our growing community.

Kyle Risi: We drop new episodes every Tuesday and until then, remember if your master plan includes craiglist, decoys, a jet ski, and Pokemon cards, maybe rethink your career path. See you next time.

Adam Cox: See ya. [01:04:00]