Podcasts about informants

Australia is experiencing a golden age of crime and thriller writing right now and Christine Gregory is a part of that. Her latest novel, The Informant, explores the world of bikie gangs, and in this episode, Christine discusses how she went about researching this subject, and how she balances dark themes as an author. And we love that she is an AWC graduate! 00:00 Welcome04:25 Writers in the wild05:52 Writing tip: Cut the first paragraph!07:14 WIN!: Out of the Blue by Penelope Janu09:15 Word of the week ‘Plicate’10:02 Writer in residence: Christine Gregory10:53 Plot of new book, The Informant12:28 Why bikey gangs fascinate14:28 On-location research16:20 Standalone sequels and balancing story18:39 Writing process and deadlines20:06 Why Australia suits crime23:46 Challenges writing the book24:02 Taming story rabbit holes24:51 Choosing the right POV25:29 How she became an author27:17 Courses that improved her skills|29:13 A realistic writing routine31:14 Day job and dark themes33:16 Writing without lecturing35:55 Practical advice for writers37:57 Book recommendations39:33 What‘s next?40:28 Final thoughts Read the show notes Connect with Valerie and listeners in the podcast community on Facebook Visit WritersCentre.com.au | ValerieKhoo.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike Johnson's claim that Donald Trump was an undercover FBI informant working to bring down Jeffrey Epstein is nothing more than political fan fiction. It comes after every other narrative—calling Epstein a hoax, smearing survivors, and demanding the public “move on”—has completely collapsed. The idea that Trump, who partied with Epstein, publicly called the scandal a Democrat hoax, and routinely defamed survivors, was secretly the Serpico of Mar-a-Lago is absurd on its face. If it were true, the files would already be released and Trump himself would be shouting about it from every podium. Instead, there's silence, spin, and desperate storytelling designed to distract from the reality: survivors were ignored, Epstein was protected, and the files remain locked away.At its core, this narrative is just another attempt to shield powerful people from accountability by rewriting history with Trump as the unlikely hero. But it collapses under even the slightest scrutiny—because the contradictions are glaring, the evidence is nonexistent, and the cruelty toward survivors is undeniable. Rather than offer transparency, Johnson offers a bedtime story, hoping the public will swallow it whole. Yet the truth is clear: if Trump really was an informant, then we should all be demanding the release of the files to see his supposed heroics. And since they refuse, we know exactly what this is—another cheap distraction to keep the truth buried, while the survivors still wait for the justice they deserve.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.com

Send us Fan MailAs another incredible season comes to a close, hosts Daniel Rock and Erin Anderson Williams sit down for a candid look at the major themes, tensions and breakthrough moments shaping our classrooms today. In this wrap-up episode, the team dives deep into how schools are redefining student data, shifting the conversation around classroom engagement and navigating the rapidly evolving world of AI in education. From powerful school success stories to personal reflections, this episode is packed with honest, practical insights to carry into the summer and preparation for the upcoming school year. Key Takeaways From This EpisodeData as an Informant, Not an Enemy: Hear how pacesetter principals are moving away from data meetings rooted in "blame, shame and anxiety" and instead empowering students to completely own and monitor their own academic growth. Compliance vs. Investment: Why true classroom engagement is much deeper than students simply sitting quietly or complying with instructions. The hosts break down how to spark genuine student curiosity and long-term investment in learning. The Calculator Analogy for AI: Does AI rot your brain? Erin and Daniel share a refreshing perspective, framing AI literacy not as a shortcut, but as a foundational tool that handles initial calculations so students can focus on deeper, high-level critical thinking. The Power of Transferable Skills: At the core of all school improvement is teaching kids how to think actively, analyze perspectives and master metacognition—skills that prepare them for workforce pipelines and for life. Resources & Links MentionedJoin Us This Summer: Explore the specialized tracks, learning communities, and immersive tours featured in this episode at sreb.org/conference.Connect with SREB: Learn more about our school improvement frameworks and coaching support at sreb.org/school-improvement. The Southern Regional Education Board is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works with states and schools to improve education at every level, from early childhood through doctoral education and the workforce. Follow Us on Social:FacebookInstagramX

Retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with former criminal and prison minister Bill Corum for one of the most unusual conversations ever featured on Gangland Wire. Bill Corum recounts his journey from car theft and prison escapes in the early 1960s to his deep involvement in Kansas City's criminal underworld in the 1970s and early 1980s. He describes his work around pornography, prostitution, stolen property, cocaine trafficking, and his connections to notorious Kansas City underworld figures. Gary and Bill discuss legendary Kansas City mob fence Sol Landi and his murder by assassins sent by the mob, the River Quay era, Junior Bradley, corrupt influences in local politics and the courts, and the explosive cocaine culture that swept through Kansas City during the 1980s. Bill also shares stories involving Weld Wheels founder Kenny Weld, cocaine trafficking operations, and the dangerous atmosphere surrounding organized crime in Kansas City. The conversation dives into: Bill's prison escape and stolen car career The prostitution business in Independence, Missouri Mob-connected fences and stolen property rings Cocaine trafficking in Kansas City during the early 1980s The murder of Saul Landy River Quay nightlife and mob influence Corrupt officials and criminal networks Kansas City organized crime personalities Prison life and criminal culture Bill Corum's dramatic religious conversion in 1983 His decades-long prison ministry work across America Bill also explains how he transformed his life after addiction, violence, and years in the criminal world, eventually dedicating his life to prison outreach and ministry programs throughout the United States. You can learn more about Bill Corum and his book at either The Ultimate Pardon or Bill Corum Official Website If you're interested in true crime, mafia history, and real law enforcement stories, this is an episode you don't want to miss. Subscribe for more mafia history and true crime stories every week. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. [00:00:00] hey, all you wiretappers. Gary Jenkins here, retired Kansas City police detective in the intelligence unit. Turned podcaster and author and documentary filmmaker. If you want to see any of my stuff, go to my website and look in the show notes or look in the I think the donate page. Of course, if you’re in the donate page, you might want to hit the donate button. We always use a little, can use a little support. And I have a guy that I’d heard of and I’d seen on YouTube and I have mu- we have mutual friends, but I had never actually met him. And I, so I g- I… Some people he knows asked me to be on their show. And so I was on their show, and Bill was on that show at the same time. So we started talking. We had lunch and we had all these… We were running in the same circles, but separate circles that then overlapped every once in a while. He was on one side of the law and I was on the other. So Bill Corum. Welcome, Bill. Thank you, Gary. Thank you so much. And we were running in opposite… We were running real close- … but I was careful. When [00:01:00] I got out of prison, it- You were. When I got out of prison in 1964, I had two goals. Yeah. Never go back, and never get caught. And I started breaking the law the day I got out of prison, and I broke the law for almost 19 years and didn’t get caught. I got caught a couple times at little things, and I got… I hired a high-powered criminal attorney that came out of Alex Peebles’ office who’s now a judge. I won’t even mention his name. He’s now a judge. I think I told you who it was. But and Alex got me out of a couple deals way back when. But little things. And I was still, doing everything. And I went for almost 19 years and didn’t get caught. Unlike many of my friends, I’ve been in prison ministry for 40 years now, and I run around with a lot of guys that did a lot of time. 25 years, 40 years. Li- they had double life without parole, now they’re out But I never got caught. Yeah. And I was speaking at a women’s prison just recently, and I was talking to the women, and I was telling that story, and I said, “I got out and I [00:02:00] went for 19 years.” She said, “You must have been awful smart.” I said I wa- I wasn’t too smart or I wouldn’t have been doing that stuff.” But I did know ways and one thing was ’cause I didn’t talk to people. I didn’t have a lot of… Kinda like the trench coat robbers. They robbed banks for 15 years- Yeah … and never got caught because they didn’t email, text, phone calls, none of that. Yeah. They would, they would- And they moved away too. Oh, yeah. Kinda moved away from their home territory, so they- Yeah y- they weren’t having their buddies come up to them say, “Hey, what are you doing? Where you been?” “I haven’t seen you for a while.” And then they turn around and tell some cop that they know, “Hey, I can’t remember the guy’s name now. Billy Kirkpatrick. Billy Kirkpatrick. He’s been out of town. He just got back.” And, you know- Yeah … then they put… Suddenly they get this notice about these bank robbers somewhere else. They… He didn’t do that. He stayed- … out of town. So Bill, let’s- No, that was me. Go ahead. Go, let’s go back and start you from the beginning. Introduce to who you are to my guys, ’cause they don’t know you. I didn’t know you, ’cause you were such a low profile in this world. You said you got out of prison. Why don’t we [00:03:00] start with that? Where, what were you in the joint for originally? I was originally in there for Dyer Act, which is, in the feds, that’s interstate transportation- Yeah of stolen motor vehicles. I was in the Marine Corps. I went AWOL. I got caught. I went back. I got back AWOL again. I went back. They put me on restrictions, said I couldn’t leave the base. I was at that point in my life where nobody could tell me what to do. And so I’s “I’m leaving the base,” and I left and I think I stole 10, 12 cars while I was out. And then I got put in the… When I got back the next time, they put me in the brig, and I escaped from the brig. And and I stole a car off the base back in tho- in the ’60s, early ’60s, ’62, 3. People left their keys in their car. Yeah. And I went out. I was in the parachute locker painting. When the guard came in to check on me, I hit him in the back of the head with a full bucket of paint, a full gallon of paint, and I went out the window and I got a car, and I actually had a guy with me. He said, “I’m going with you.” And so we got in the car, and when we got to [00:04:00] the gate, I said, “Now, if that guard steps out at the gate, I’m running over him.” And he’s “No, don’t do…” I said “Just shut up. I’m running over him.” And I got to the gate, and the guard stepped out and saluted me. And I’m like, “What in the world?” I drove into town, run out of gas, Gary. Got out and stole… I don’t know how I remember this. I stole a ’62 maroon Bonneville. And when I was walking away from the car, my buddy looked back and started laughing. I said, “What are you laughing about?” He said, “I see why they saluted us. That car had a colonel sticker on the bumper.” So then I stole that car, that Bonneville, drove into Mississippi. Because I always ask guys in prisons, “How many of you know when you escape from prison you need some different clothes?” Yeah. So I drove into a little town called Leland, Mississippi, and I was breaking in a clothing store to get me some clothes. It was 11:00 at night, and I looked down, I was climbing up on some boxes to get to the roof to go in the skylight, ’cause they had analog alarms, they were easy to beat. [00:05:00] And I looked down and I saw a flashlight coming down the alley. So I dropped down, ran the other way, and I turned the corner and ran into the biggest, fattest Mississippi sheriff you ever seen. And he had a gun, he had a gun about this long. And he stuck it right here, and he goes, “Where are you going, boy?” And I said, “With you, sir.” That’s what I said. And that was the end of the Marine Corps. So now I’ve taken a car across the state line, and the feds step in. And I went to… I got a six-year sentence. I got what they call a zip six. And back then, before ’86, now in ’86 they passed it to 85%. Yeah. But prior to 80- prior to ’86, you could get out of the feds at one-third of your sentence. And so I got this six-year sentence. I got out in two years, and when I got out, I said, “I’m never getting caught again. I’m never going back to prison.” And I went for ni- and I just started right then. And everything from then on was like, I got involved with pornography. I was promoting [00:06:00] pornography and prostitution. There’s a story in my book about me being a… I was a bodyguard and a chauffeur for a lady that had a cat house over in Independence. You know where Inglewood was in Independence? And guys- You know where- … In- Independence is a suburb of Kansas City, but it’s like whole, decently large city for a suburb- Yeah … but it’s connected to it. Yeah. That’s where Harry Truman was from- That’s right … and retired back to. Yeah. So y- you were over there probably on the east side of Independence. Inglewood’s kinda closer to Kansas City, over there- Yes … by Dogpatch, in what we call Dogpatch. That’s- The- … kinda totally lawless area. And so there was a guy there that I was friends with that had a record store. He was the first guy in Kan- his name was Tony Marino. He’s in my book. He’s dead now. He was the first guy ever in Kansas City to sell paraphernalia in a record store. And he was making 25,000 a month- Wow … back in the… Yeah, when it started. That was a lot of money. And he, right next to him was a [00:07:00] store, it’s still there. I go by it all the time, ’cause we eat at the Englewood Cafe all the time. It’s the only one on that little s- first strip there that’s got steps going up. And a lady up there had a cathouse for 12 years, prostitutes. And her main customers were executives from Ford Motor Company- … from General Motors, and from Hallmark Cards. And the reason, Gary, was because she knew if she had executives, they weren’t gonna talk. Yeah. And she had beautiful women. She didn’t have ladies like up on Main and Troost and Prospect. Yeah. The- these women had all their teeth, and they were- … and they were good-looking. Yeah. And so the first guy, a- actually, who got me the job was Sal Rello, that o- that owned he owned that deluxe deli down on 430, where the Erotic City is now. Oh, yeah. He owned that- Yeah … he owned that bar. Heard about him, yeah. And I told him for years, I said, “You need to open an adult bookstore here,” because Gary, he was the only bar in Kansas City, the only bar [00:08:00] in Kansas City that was open on Election Day. You know why? ‘Cause he was in the county. He was in the county. He wasn’t in- Wasn’t in the city, yeah … he wasn’t in the city. And he was open on Election Day. And I told him, I said, “Man, if you’d open an adult bookstore, you could make a lot of money.” He never did, of course. Yeah. And then they put Erotic City in there, and it went good for a few years and stuff, yeah. But so he’s the one that told me about her. I went to interview with her, and she said, “I just have one question. Do you carry a gun?” I said, “No, ma’am, I carry two guns.” And she said, “You’re hired.” And so G- Gary, I picked her up every day on the Plaza. She lived in a $2,000 a month apartment on the Plaza in 1976. Yeah. That was a lot of money. That’s five today. And, yeah, and I took her to get her facial every Tuesday. I took her to the beauty shop every Thursday, and read about her in my book. She was 80 years old. The name of that chapter in my book is 80-Year-Old Hooker. She was 80, 80 years old, and she [00:09:00] ran it like a business. I had, I, she opened at 9:00 in the morning and closed at 5:00 at night, and ran it just five days a week, just like a business. And I wouldn’t be surprised she didn’t pay taxes. She was legit, man. Yeah. And I knew you can’t operate something like that for 12 years in Independence, Missouri, and not have the police know about it. No, they knew about it. Oh, yeah. It’s that upper echelon, they were, they just steered people away from each other. Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about that. Oh, yeah. That’s right. So that was- So Bill, y- you, you moved from that- Into the drug business now, how did you, how’d you even get started in that? Where like 1960s, ’60, by the late ’60s, drugs are starting to, become more popular and there becomes a real market for it that’s among- Yeah a much larger constituency than ever before. So now, how did you- I re- … move into that? I, oh, I really, for years and years, Gary, years, I didn’t have a partner [00:10:00] because I knew if I had to run, I didn’t want somebody… I didn’t know if my partner would tell on me, so I did everything by myself. I did one thing one time and I had to have a partner, and I stole a computer out of a crane at General Motors down in Leeds. And I, and my fence, the chapter in my book, They Killed My Fence, that was Saul Andy. Yeah. And when Saul got killed, like they killed my fence, because anything I took to Saul, he’d buy it. Didn’t matter if it was guns or it didn’t matter what it was. And I didn’t never keep anything except cash. If I had money, I’d keep it, but I’d never keep anything. I didn’t keep diamond rings or… I got rid of all that stuff, ’cause I never wanted anything to be able to identify me and tie me to a crime. And Saul, when he got killed, of course, then I started dealing with another guy. But Saul was taking all that and selling it to Junior Bradley, most of it, the stuff that Junior- And, and- … would be interested in. And guys- But, J- Junior Bradley, I gotta explain who Junior Bradley was. Junior Bradley was the mob fence in Kansas City. He was probably the biggest fence in Kansas City I got a [00:11:00] feeling. He, and what he started doing was trading Dilaudid especially for stolen property, and he had a little deli right across from police headquarters and City Hall, and everybody knew Junior. Everybody loved Junior. Everybody liked Junior. He’s always doing favors for people. If you went in the penitentiary, you’d go talk to Junior and say, “Okay, what, what’s gonna happen when I get here? Can you help me out?” And he’ll say, “I’ll make some calls.” Or I, we had, we overheard him on a wiretap once saying- a, a father called him and said, my son’s got to report up here to Leavenworth to the camp.” He said, “Okay, I’ll take care of it. I’ll be somebody there to meet him there.” And I’ve had many other reports but Junior was the main mob fence. So go ahead- Yeah … and we’ll talk what you were dealing with- Yeah Junior Bradley. Yeah be- let’s back up. So you asked me about how I got into drugs. So all those years when I was married, I didn’t drink and I didn’t do drugs. I thought if you did dope, you were a d- I thought that’s why they call it dope, ’cause you were a dope if you did it. Yeah. So I didn’t do it, and I didn’t drink because I knew I had to always be able to think and make [00:12:00] decisions and… ‘Cause I cheated on my wife every day for 10 years, and I did crime every day for 10 years, and she never knew it till I wrote this book. And I gave her the first book actually. And so- When I got divorced and started smoking pot and doing stuff, hanging out with those people, and I started smoking weed, then the first time I bought an ounce of weed it was 40 bucks. And I’m like, “Okay, how much is how much is more if you buy more? You can buy a half pound for this or you can buy…” So I said then I’ll… Give me a half a pound and I’m gonna sell,” yeah. So I started buying pounds and selling ounces, and man, all of a sudden I’m, now I’m smoking free and I’m making some money. Yeah. And then I started sell- And by the time I ended, even when I was selling cocaine, I was selling 100 pounds of pot a week. I had one guy that would buy 100 pounds of pot from me every week. Yeah. And I’d just take him 100 pounds and he’d just bring my… Every day he’d stop by my house [00:13:00] with sacks of money, and that was, the way I got started in the drug world then. And everything. It was from pot, it was, meth. We called it crank back then, not meth. And then I never did get real addicted to crank, but I got real addicted to cocaine. And of course, I was doing a drug class the other day. I teach a drug class, my wife and I, addictions class at our church. And I said, when I started, I was only gonna sell it and not do it.” And because one guy said I was only gonna do it and never sell it.” And I said, “No, not me. I was gonna sell it and never do it.” But that didn’t last very long. And once you start doing it you’re in there, and, Yeah, really … and then, when I got arrested September 5th of ’82 the guy that I beat up I put 100 stitches in the back of his head with a ball bat, and it was in an active enforcement really. But he turned states. He’s the one, when Kenny… You remember Kenny Weld? I remember the name. Was you still on the force when Kenny got busted in ’83? [00:14:00] Yeah. ’80- Yeah, I would’ve been. Okay. So- I have some vague memory, I don’t remember the, all the details. At the time it was the biggest drug bust, it was the biggest just drug bust in, I know in Kansas City, maybe. They caught him out there in Blue Springs with 29 pounds of cocaine, and we were selling- Yeah … cocaine to the people that were selling cocaine to Kenny. And so the guy that I beat up gave a 20-page, which is like reading a book, 20 typewritten pages. Yeah. 20 typewritten pages, and he named every name involved in the circle that he knew, and that implicated us as being some of the leading cocaine dealers in Kansas City. Yeah. Now, when I go speak in churches and a pastor gets up and says, “Folks, today we’ve got the biggest cocaine dealer that ever lived.” I get up and say, “You know what? I don’t mean to correct your pastor.” But I was implicated as being one of the leading cocaine- I was not the leading cocaine dealer. There was a lot of people bigger than me. But that’s that’s how it all started and [00:15:00] of course my case, I never did… the drugs never came in. The lawyers that I had, because when I got busted it was on a Sunday, and that’s part of my story. I always ask inmates, “How many of you have been arrested on a weekend?” And every hand goes up. Yeah. And I say, and then I say, “What happens when you get arrested on a weekend?” They all yell, “Nothing.” ‘Cause you’re not going anywhere till Monday morning, at the very least. I got arrested 2:00 Sunday afternoon. By that time, Gary, I had three goals. When I was about 30, I got nicknamed by one of the key mafia figures Crazy Bill, ’cause I did some crazy things. Like I ran through a bar. You know where the old Club Royal was on Main? Oh yeah. There was a bar right ac- I’ve drunk there many times. Okay. There was a bar across the street that I had a girlfriend working in, and we got in a fight, and I was gonna cut the bar in half with a chainsaw. And I had my buddy drop me at the back parking lot. I fired the chainsaw up, I opened the door, and when the door… When I stepped inside, the door [00:16:00] closed with the closer, and the dar- the bar was totally dark. It was not a bar where you could even buy a bag of potato chips. It was strictly alcohol. And when you get- Yeah … in a bar like that, they’re dark. And that door shut, and I thought, “I’m gonna bend over and start cutting this bar, and somebody just shoot me in the back.” So I just wa- I just walked through the bar with the chainsaw running and went out the front door, and Kenny picked me up in the front, and off we went. And so because of that, I got nicknamed Crazy Bill. Yeah. By 30 years old, I had three goals: money, power, and influence. Now, I told you as we were selling a lot of cocaine. So I stayed in $500 a night hotels. I ride in limousines. I bought $20,000 worth of cocaine for a one-night party. So I had money, and I had enough power to make a phone call and have somebody killed, so I had power. And I had enough influence that when I got arrested Sunday afternoon, now I love telling this to a police officer. I was on a show in Texas with a cop, and we called it the Con and the Cop. [00:17:00] But I love telling this story. I got arrested September 5th. 2:00, 2:00 PM is when they booked us into the jail, and I made a phone call back to Kansas City to somebody who was in politics, and I said, “You know who to call.” And that person called the judge we were selling cocaine to. And I ask this question in prisons, “How many of you know when you’re selling cocaine to a judge, he don’t want you in jail?” And I walked out of that jail, Gary, at 1:30 Monday morning. Wow. I got arrest- less than 12 hours after I got arrested on a weekend. And when I walked out of that jail, I said, “Bill Corum, you’ve arrived. You got money.” “You got power, and you got influence.” But the one thing I didn’t have was peace. Yeah. I didn’t have any peace, man. No peace. Yeah. If I was in a restaurant eating and a cop walked in, I’d put money on the table and go out the door. If I saw a UPS driver, I got nervous ’cause he had a uniform on. I didn’t have any peace. And then after I became a Christian, I was reading in the Bible [00:18:00] one day, and it said, “A wicked man runs when no one’s chasing him.” And I went, “Oh my gosh, I left a lot of steak dinners sitting on the table.” And wasn’t anybody chasing you. Nobody. That cop didn’t even know I was in there. He probably didn’t even know who I was. Really? He just come in… He just came in there to eat, and I thought he was after me. So Bill, I always like to go into the, the nuts and bolts of some of these things. And we kinda left one thing hanging, is the Saul Landy story. Now guys, Saul Landy was a big sports bettor. And Saul Landy had a, wasn’t it a metal- Square Deal Junk- Square Deal Junkyard. Square… He had a junkyard. Square Deal. He bought a lot of scrap metal and dealt in scrap metal, but he also would buy most anything from, from- Yeah … thieves, from boosters- Yeah … and burglars and people like that. That’s where Bill met him. But he’s a huge sports gambler, and they thought he might testify against our boss, Nick Civella, because he had been allowed to bet down at The Trap, down with Frankie Tusa, who was the underling [00:19:00] that handled all the sports gambling for Nick Civella. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that the way that went down? Oh, yeah, and Bobby Maroon was running The Trap at the time. And- yeah … so do you remember the guy that, that paid for his murder? Remember that guy, Johnny Franks, Johnny Frank Avella? That’s what they said, yep. Yeah. Yep. He had, he had- That’s what they said. He had some connections. But he got… But Johnny Franks got the order from somebody else. Yeah. Yeah … the bug, the buck stopped with Johnny Franks now, didn’t it? Yes. ‘Cause he hired another guy, who then he hired a Black guy, which was- That’s right … truly unusual. Who then- That’s right … hired a couple of young Black street kids and that was even more unusual, and they killed this Saul Landy and his wife. So they keep a f- And then they sang and then they sang like The Temptations. Exactly, yeah. That, and that’s that w- some claim that Johnny Franks did that just on his own, trying to impress Nick Civella. Some people say that somebody else told him to do it. I don’t… It never, he never talked, so it never came about. Yeah. [00:20:00] Did you ever hear anything about that? I never heard anything except what you just said, that he- Okay … he never talked, and Nick, Nick never got convicted. He never- Yeah … but here’s the thing that, what you said. The guys that they hired to do it, because back in those days as y- you’d go to… i’d go to the electric chair before somebody, before I’d tell on somebody. Yeah. I’m not gonna tell on anybody. Go ahead and put me in the gas chamber, I’m not telling on nobody. But those guys would, they’d sing like The Temptations. They weren’t gonna, they- Yeah … they wouldn’t- Those street kids If they offered them a day in jail, they wouldn’t take it. If you’ll tell us, we won’t, we’re only gonna put you in jail for a week if you’ll tell. Yeah. They wouldn’t tell. So how did that work with you and Saul Landy? You weren’t a sports bettor you didn’t have anything to do with that. You were a thief. Yeah, and I don’t know- And- I honestly, you know what? Gary, I don’t remember who even told me to go to Saul with stolen merchandise, ’cause I was hitting a lot of construction jobs back then. [00:21:00] Ah. I worked construction, and I was in the union, and I was stealing off these jobs all the time. Big- Ah, yeah … big amounts of stuff. Like they’d start a brand-new job, and they’d have all brand-new tools, and I’d go over there and take everything they had. And then I’d take it all to Saul. And matter of fact, one time I did a job over in, it was a eight-story high-rise over in Kansas City, Kansas, down around Argentine, in the Argentine area. And I was on the job, I was working on the job, and we just started. And we had all this trailer, a whole trailer load of tools. And I went over and got all the tools, and the last thing I took out was the cutting torch. I cut the lock off the door, ’cause I had a key to get in. And so when I got to work the next morning, I had everything in my truck. I had a tonneau cover over my truck and had all these tools in the back of my truck, and parked in the parking lot. I got there and I called Johnny Myers, who was running the job, and Johnny’s been dead for years. I said, “Hey, Johnny, somebody hit our job last night.” He’s “What?” I said, “Yeah, they cut the lock off. They got everything.” [00:22:00] And he said call the police and I’ll be out there in just a few minutes.” And so the cops come, couple detectives and he was telling what they, what was going on. I’m standing there listening to the whole thing. And there was a generator, a big generator, and I was real strong back then, Gary. I was 6’3″ and weighed 275 and I carried this generator down the steps and this… and Johnny said, or the cop said that, how much that generator weigh?” And he told him, and he said it had to be at least two guys, if not three. But no, no one guy could carry that down them steps.” And Johnny turned around and he said, “Except Superman,” ’cause that’s what they called me on the job. And they laughed, and he laughed, and I laughed. Yeah. And then that night after I got off work, I took it all down to Square Deal and sold it all to Saul. Yeah. Interesting. So- All right. Thanks so much … and I did that stuff all, yeah, I did that stuff all the time. But I honestly do not remember who introduced me to Saul Landy. Yeah. But I know that for years and years we were buddies. And when I first met him, I used a, I had an alias that I always went by. I had two a- two aliases. One of them was a guy I [00:23:00] was in prison with that was from East St. Louis, and I knew everything about him, ’cause we were real good friends. I knew his middle name, I knew his mom and dad’s name. I knew everything about him, so I’d use his name. So if anybody ever asked me a question, I knew. The other guy was a cousin of mine that I hadn’t seen for y- I used his name, ’cause I knew everything about him. So what, the, when I first met my wife, we went to a dance one night. We weren’t married yet, and we were walking up the steps, and this guy walking down said, “Hey, Jim. How you doing, Jim?” And I said, “Good.” We got in, sat down. My wife looked at me and she said, “I thought your name was Bill.” I s- said, “It is. It is Bill.” I said, “He probably just had me mixed up with somebody else.” ‘Cause there was a lot of people in the inner circles, yeah. So when I met Saul Andy, something inside of me told me to… Because I met Saul, and I told him my name was Jim Gardner. Yeah. And he’s we did a couple deals, and then something inside of me told me to b- be honest with Saul. And so I sat him down one day, I said, “I wanna tell you something. I use that name as an alias. My [00:24:00] real name is Bill Corum,” and da. And I was so glad I did, because later I would be in the River Key in a restaurant or a bar with Saul, and some of the guys were in there, and I thought if I’d have used the… If he’d introduced me as Jim Gardner- Yeah … and then later they find out who I am, I might not be here. Yeah. You know what I mean? You might- So I- They might think you’re undercover cop or a- Exactly. Exactly. So I just- Informant or something, yeah … it, a- and that, I think that’s in my book. I told that story because I just, I felt like being upfront with him, and I, because I trusted him, yeah. I actually, in, in the book I think I said if Nick Civella trusted him, I thought I could trust him. Yeah. But a- apparently, apparently- Bet he didn’t trust him all that much … no. Yeah. Because right there, out there on Pennsylvania, or let’s see, where’d they… They lived right off 75th, right behind the what was that restaurant on 75th? The Italian place? Yeah … I starts with a G, I think. Yeah, I know. Just north of Ward Parkway Shopping Center. Yeah. Yeah. I know the neighborhood, yeah. Oh, Cat- was it Cat? [00:25:00] No. C- it doesn’t matter. But he lived right down that str- he lived on Washington. Yeah. Right there. Yeah. About 77th or 8th and Washington, in Washington, yeah. I remember that. Yeah. But that’s how I met Saul. And what, and guys, what those guys did that night, they tried to make it look like a home invasion robbery, but ended up killing him and his w- and I think they raped his wife too. But, They didn’t kill her. They left her alive they, they left her alive. But- Yeah … they really m- tried to make it look like a home invasion robbery, not a hit, which was, at least they were that smart. They just weren’t- Yeah … couldn’t keep their mouth shut, and they couldn’t, weren’t smart enough to not tell their friends, so they got caught. Good, good thing there wasn’t no Facebook back then, Gary. Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. Crazy world you live in, so- these kids- Bill … yeah. What happened? What happened? You had all this going. You had money, power, influence. Yeah, I- You caught a cocaine case. Now the thing about that cocaine case, that you said, I thought you said Wells. It’s Kenny Weld, isn’t it? The race car driver? W-E-L-D. Kenny Weld. W-E-L-D. Yeah. He was a race [00:26:00] car driver at that time. I, I- Kinda well-known, and he had a whole set of… He had a big company that sold wheels … Weld Wheels … fancy wheels. He was really doing well, and then he got involved with a b- huge, big cocaine thing. I didn’t know, remember you were part of that, but I remember that. A multi-million dollar- Yeah … wheel business. Yeah. I still am a big… I was a dirt track guy. I grew up on dirt. Yeah. I love dirt. I actually took his brother, Greg, who actually owned the company, I took Greg to his first… the first race that Greg ever raced in, I drove him to the races. And then Kenny and I and Greg, and they won the Knoxville Nationals. Greg raced in the Indianapolis 500 four times. Yeah. They were a big name in the country, the Welds. And making millions of dollars, Gary. Even back then, they were making millions of dollars. Yeah. And then Kenny got caught up in the cocaine and started messing with it, and next thing you know… he was making a lot of money in the cocaine too, but- Yeah … he got caught with 29 pounds, which was a large amount. But that statement that guy [00:27:00] made on me, ’cause I always felt guilty because Kenny got busted because the statement that he made, he named Kenny Weld in that statement, and it wasn’t long after that they arrested Kenny. But I’m sure they were already watching him, for sure. But then I, and I don’t know, Kenny got eight year, Kenny got 25 years. He went to Sandstone first up in Minnesota. Yeah. And he only did 52 months, so I’m not sure, because back then a third would’ve been eight, eight and a half years or something, right? Yeah. And he only did 52 months, so I don’t know how that, maybe it was money or whatever. I don’t know. Yeah. But he turned his life around in prison, but then what’s the sad deal, when I turned my life around, I tried to get in touch with Kenny Weld, and he wouldn’t talk to me. He- Yeah … he was avoid- I think he was afraid that I was gonna come after him because the guy I beat up was the guy that was… We were all involved in the cocaine world together. Joker John, I don’t know if you knew who Joker John Agrusa was. I [00:28:00] don’t remember that n- I don’t remember that name now. Was he- They had a bar out on, they had a bar on, out on 23rd Street. No, I don’t, I don’t- Joker John’s. John, his last name was Agrusa. He had a brother- Agrusa, yeah … named Nick Agrus. New- Nick Agrusa’s brother. Yeah, I co- do kinda remember that. He went down- Yeah … with that whole thing. See, I was- That was ’83. I was I was off into something else during those years. Okay. No- That was early in the coke, crack cocaine thing … no, John, w- after I beat up Pink Mike, John Agrusa left town. He moved to Arizona, ’cause he was scared of me. A l- a lot of people- ’cause I was crazy. I did some crazy things, and people were scared. And so when I got arrested on that deal, he left town. He went to Arizona. And then Kenny got busted, Kenny Weld. And the, some of the people in that… My dad read that 20-page statement, and my dad said… And my dad was an old guy. He was born in 1909, but he read that statement, and he said, “This guy’s worth, life ain’t worth a nickel, is it?” And I [00:29:00] said, “No.” ‘Cause the guy that wrote the statement. Then I got arrest- you knew Jim Smart was a judge? Yeah, I remember the name. I didn’t know him. Okay. Jim… back then, Jim was a lawyer, and then later became appellate court judge. Yeah. And he’s retired now, but a real good friend of mine. So when I, that happened, I got… My case ended in May of ’84. Started September 5th of ’82, and ended in May of ’84. And in June of ’85, 13 months later, I got sued by the guy I beat up. Me and the other couple guy. One of the guys that was with me is dead, Charlie Elmer. I don’t know if you ever heard that name, but he was a- No, don’t know that name … cocaine dealer. But anyway I was just gonna forget about it, and I showed that to my dad, that indict- or not indictment, the notice that I need to appear in court. Statement. Yeah. Yeah, and my dad s- no, not the statement, when he sued me. [00:30:00] Oh, the oh, okay. Then they filed charges. Yeah, the counter-suit. And I showed it to my dad one day and I wasn’t even gonna go. I said, “Oh, God will take care of it.” And my dad read it, and he’s “Bill, you gotta get a lawyer.” Yeah. You’re being charged, and so I went and got a lawyer, and I got Jim Smart. And and Jim tried to go and do a deposition on that guy, on Pink Mike. Could never find him. Ah. And I di- I don’t know, I honestly don’t know. I know I didn’t have nothing to do with… But nobody’s ever been able to find him. But I’m suspecting, ’cause my dad said when he read that 20 pa- he said his life isn’t worth a nickel. Because he named judge in there, a judge in there. He named Kenny Weld in there. He named a lot of other big-name guys, and he’s disappeared, so nobody know. I haven’t seen him since the day in court in 1982. So who knows where he’s at. Yeah. If he’s around. I don’t know. But- Interesting. What did you finally cop? Did you have a full trial, or did you go ahead and cop a plea in the end? That’s interesting you’d [00:31:00] ask because when we first, when we got out of jail at 1:30 Monday morning, the 3rd of the 6th of September, he wal- the lawyer came and walked us out with, we… we had left, we were staying in the Embassy Suites downtown. You know where that was at? Oh, yeah. It was 500 bucks a night, and we had left two s- two s- brief- briefcases there with one had cocaine in it uncut, and the other one had about $60,000 in it. And so we went down. We actually called… he’s dead now, so I can tell you who it was. Jerry Schanzer that owned Napoleon Bakery. And Jerry was a big… i’m surprised that you didn’t, you talk about bookmakers. Jerry was a big bookmaker. Yeah. Exactly. And Schanzer- I remember him, yeah … Schanzer owned Mother’s down on 18th and Baltimore. Not Mother’s. Granny’s. Granny’s, yeah. He owned Granny’s at 18th and Baltimore. Yeah, a lot of mob guys used- And then he- … to go down there and eat. Oh, every time I went in there I saw [00:32:00] somebody. Yeah. And then later he opened up one over in Mission shopping center there on Mission Road. And then they then they ended up opening up Napoleon, him and his brother Larry. And then they’re both dead now. But we, this is how much we trusted Jerry. We told Jerry, “Go…” We called Jerry from the jail and said, “Go down to the Embassy and get our, get a briefcase.” And Jerry went down and he drove halfway to Warrensburg and ha- something told him to open it- Oh, wow … and he opened the one, he opened the one that had the cocaine in it. Oh, shit. And he called us and said, “I got the wrong briefcase.” And it… No, he said, “I can’t come and get you with this.” And so he went back to the Embassy and got the right one. Came down, and we made bond that night. Then the next morning was… Okay, that was we got busted on Sunday the 5th. Monday we got out. The lawyer [00:33:00] said, Mike, I don’t know if you ever knew Mike and what was his dad’s name? The Fi- it was Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald was the name of the firm in, down in Warrensburg. Warensburg, yeah. I don’t know them. Yeah. And Mike and Charlie Fitzgerald. So ’cause I called People’s Office and said, “Hey, this happened.” And they said, “Stick with those guys. Those guys are the best in the county. They know the county. They know the prosecutor, the judges and everything. Stick with them.” So we went in. He told us, “Don’t come in tomorrow morning,” ’cause it was 1:30 in the morning Monday morning. He said, “Come and see me Wednesday.” Yeah. And so we went… no, he said, “Come and see me Tuesday,” ’cause that was 1:30 in the morning. And we walked in there that morning and he said, “Come and see me tomorrow morning, Tuesday morning.” And bring me $10,000 apiece. And I wish I had a video of it, because it can be on America’s Funniest Home Videos. I walked into his office with a white bank bag and dumped out $30,000 on his desk in cash, and he opened [00:34:00] his drawer like this and scooped it into the drawer. And I said, “Mike, there’s a lot more where that came from.” He said, “Bill, I can’t. It’s… I gotta do everything legitimately.” Yeah. And I said, “Okay.” So the first meeting, his dad was in there and he was in there, and the three of us, and he said, “Guys, Dad and I have talked, and you guys might wanna think about getting separate attorneys.” And I said, “For what?” He said, “Because if one of you take a plea.” Yeah. I almost jumped over the desk. I said, “There’ll be no plea. There will be no plea. We’re not guilty. We’re not gonna admit we’re guilty. They can send us to the electric chair. We didn’t do it.” Now, Gary, they took us out of the house at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon in broad daylight. First, they s- we sent the guy out the back. He was totally naked when we got there. He was laying in bed. He’d been doing Dilaudids and Quaaludes all night, and he was [00:35:00] blood from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. His whole back was red. We walked him out the door in- totally naked in front of the whole world and told him, “Go out there and tell them there’s nobody else in the house.” We were so jacked up. And here’s the thing, I have to tell you this. All those years that I got away with stuff is because I was smart, and now I’m snow blind. There was a song years ago by Styx called Snow Blind- Yeah … and it’s about cocaine. It’s about… And I’d been up for 86 hours when we went down to Holden. I had not- Okay … closed my eyes for 86 hours, so I was in m- I wasn’t in my right mind. Anyway, that was… So when we we said, “No plea bargain. There’ll be no plea bargains.” And for seven months… No, I’m sorry, for four months. That was October, November, December, January, February, March, April. No, seven months. For seven months. For seven months [00:36:00] we went to court multiple times. The whole police department, I don’t know if we can- I guess we’ll say it, because it’s done. It’s history. But I had a, I had two grocery sacks, the old brown grocery sacks on the couch that I’d inventoried. I had $62,000 in cash. I had… Because it was in envelopes, and I- they were $10,000. I was throwing them in there. 62,000 in cash, about four pounds of pot, three gallon Ziploc bags full of precious jewels. Er emeralds, rubies, and stuff like that. Some hash- a 12-gauge shotgun. I think that was all. Maybe maybe it… Whatever. When they, when… The first time we ever went to court and my partner had, the one that’s dead, Charlie, he had a leather Gucci bag that we always had with us, and it had four or five grams of cocaine in it. He took his diamond rings off, put them in there. His watch, he had a Rolex [00:37:00] watch he put in there, and about 3,000 in cash. That was in the car. That was never mentioned in court. No guns were ever mentioned in court. No guns were ever mentioned in court. I had a brand new, I had a brand new fif- not- model 59 nine millimeter. That was never mentioned in court. That 12-gauge shotgun was never mentioned in court. They said that they found a couple envelopes of cash, and they found a gram. Now, there was about, I think there was about probably a half a, maybe eight, eight grams or no more than that. It was ounces. Four or five ounces of cocaine. Oh, yeah. They said they found one, they said they found one gram of a, approximately one gram of a substance believed to be cocaine. Yeah. And my lawyer said… And they said they’d send it to Jeff City for analysis. And my lawyer said, “And what were the analysis of that?” They said they haven’t come [00:38:00] back yet. This is two months after they arrested us. They did- And they found approximately one gram, and there was ounces of cocaine in there. They found a couple envelopes with approximately $2,000 in cash. There was $62,000. The car I was driving, so when I got arrested, I had the keys in my pocket. So when they booked us into jail, when we walked out at 1:30 Monday morning, they gave us back our property. I had the keys in my pocket. So the car’s… Now, this is a brand new ’80, this was a ’82. This was an ’81 Trans Am. The car’s in Holden. The police chi- And they said they were gonna confiscate the car because it had Kansas tags on it, that they wanted to go through the car da. The police chief changed the ignition and was driving that car for his personal car. It cost my buddy, because it was a friend of mine, T- Ronnie M- Ron McGee, it was his car. It cost him $10,000 and an attorney to get his car back from them. So bottom line, every time we [00:39:00] went to court, several ti- my lawyer would say, “I’d like to call Officer Gary Jenkins up.” Gary Jenkins is not on the force anymore. He moved to Arizona.” “I’d like to call so-and-so up next time we go in.” He’s not here anymore. He moved to wherever.” So all the money and all the guns and all the drugs, they split it up and no, nobody ever… So the thing was so dirty. So what happens is we’d been going to court for that seven months, And then I become a Christian. I walk into his offi- and we’re adamant, we’re not plea bargain. We don’t want separate lawyers. We want you two guys to represent us. We’re gonna beat this thing. And, oh, and I told, because when that guy gave that 20-page statement after he got out of the hospital, this was a month later or something, he called us all in. We went in. He sh- hands each one of us 20-page statement. He said, “Guys, let me tell you something. I’m defending you on an assault with intent to kill charge. I’m gonna get that reduced, but if you get busted [00:40:00] dealing cocaine, you’ve got to stop dealing cocaine, ’cause if you get busted dealing cocaine while I’m on this case, it’s gonna complicate the case.” Yeah. “You gotta stop.” And I said, “Mike, I don’t tell you how to practice law, and you don’t tell me how to make money. You just keep doing what you do, and I’ll keep doing what I do, and I’ll keep bringing you money.” And he never said another word. Three or four months later, I become a Christian. I walk into his office by myself. And when I walked in the door, he said, “What happened to you?” If you look at that book on the picture of my, on the back of my book, that was four months before I became a Christian. And the Bible says the eyes are the windows of the soul. I had a very dark soul. Yeah, I can see. I had a very dark soul. Yeah. And so he goes, “What happened to you?” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “You don’t look the same.” And I said, “I’m not the same.” And I told him what happened. And he said… And I said, “We’ve got a problem.” And he goes, “What’s our [00:41:00] problem, Bill?” I said, “I can’t lie anymore.” He said, “You’re right. We’ve got a problem.” ‘Cause we’d been lying for seven months. We told… He knew the story. He said, “I just need to know this. I’ll defend you guys. I’ll beat this case, but I need to know.” So we told… And at this point now, seven months later, he said, “There’s no way out of this thing. You guys are going to prison.” He said, “I can help you figure out a way to get to the good prison, but you’re going to prison.” So when I go in that day and he goes, “What’s wrong? What what happened?” And I told him, and he said, “You don’t look the same.” I said, “I’m not the same.” I said, “We got a problem.” He goes, “What?” I said, “We can’t lie. I can’t lie anymore.” And he said I’ve got an idea.” And I said, “What?” He said if I enter a plea bargain, I think we can do this.” And he said, “You guys won’t go to prison.” And he said, “Talk to Mike and Charlie and see what they say.” So I called them. We went down, met with him. And this time they looked at me and said, “What do you think we should do, Bill?” [00:42:00] I said, “I think we ought to take the plea bargain.” We got five years’ probation and a $5,000 fine. Now, the crazy thing- that was on the assault. Yeah, they- That was on the assault. But you still got a cocaine case out here pending with the feds. No. No. No. That, if, that, that- 20-page statement that implicated me was never, he never got it out of his office. It never went out of Fitzgerald’s office. So it, he didn’t tell it to… He told it to whoever he told it to, but to the police, and the police were all crooks anyway . Yeah. So I don’t know who he told. I just know that our lawyer said if this cocaine thing comes up, it’s gonna complicate our case. It never came up. Oh. And so maybe it was the mercy of God, I don’t know. Because it was a 20-page typewritten statement naming judges, Kenny Weld, all these guys, and all these people started falling after that. And so anyway, we ended up getting a $5,000 fine and five-year probation. Now, the crazy thing, if you read my book, Charlie and Mike both went, they got called and they [00:43:00] went and reported. I never got a call. 13 months later, I had a nephew getting married up in in Wisconsin, and I wanted to go to that wedding, and I knew I couldn’t leave without permission, but I didn’t have anybody to ask permission from. And when that guy sued me, G- Gary, when that guy sued me and I went and got the lawyer that I told you I went and got, I said, “By the way…” He said, “I wanna take this case.” I said, “Great.” I said, “By the way, I got arrested September 5th of ’82. The case ended in May. I was placed on five-year probation, a $5,000 fine. I’ve never heard from anybody. What do you think I sh- should do?” He said, “Bill, you need to write a letter.” And I put the letter in the book. I wrote a letter and said da. I’d like to be supervised. Please contact me.” 13 months, and they, within two days they were knocking on my front door. And that’s when I started reporting. And Kay King was my first pr- [00:44:00] probation officer, and she asked me all the whole story, and I had sat with her for two hours and told her the whole story. She asked me how many drugs I did, what I did. I said, “I’ve done everything there is, from, marijuana to heroin to… I’ve done it all.” And I did massive amounts of everything. And I was drinking two quarts of whiskey at the end every day. And people are like, “You can’t drink two quarts of whiskey.” I said, “You never did cocaine, did you?” ‘Cause when you’re doing, ’cause when you’re doing cocaine, you can’t get drunk. And so anyway that… And I asked her when I left her office, I said, “So does my probation start now, or does it start back then?” She said, “No, Bill, it starts today.” Oh, really? I said- Wow. I said, “For 13 months I’ve been going to churches and schools and telling people how bad drugs are and how bad alcohol is and how bad this is.” And I said, “I’ve not had a traffic ticket. I haven’t had a traffic ticket.” The only ticket I’ve got in the last 43 years, I had a bad car wreck where I got T-boned at 70 miles an [00:45:00] hour. I pulled out in front of a guy. It was my fault. And that’s the only ticket I’ve had in 43 years. I haven’t been stopped by the police. And she said, “I’m sorry, Bill, it starts today.” Guess what? I did the whole five year. I went from then, I got off in ’89 or something, I th- it was almost five years I did. My partners, they only did a year and a half, and they let them off. And they were still dealing cocaine. They were still dealing. They were still dealing. Matter of fact, one of them’s brother his mama died, and the funeral was at Passantino Brothers over there on the avenue. And I went to the funeral, and I was sorry, and we were hugging. And me and him sat down and were talking, and he had a little leather Gucci bag. And he said, “Hey, I’m go- now listen.” He said, “I’m going to the bathroom. You wanna go with me?” I said, “No, brother.” Yeah. And I got up and left. He wanted to go do some cocaine. Damn. And that was years after, he’d been… Anyway. Yeah. But I’m glad I had to do the whole five years because I got to speak [00:46:00] in some… She called me once and said, “I got a friend that teaches a criminal justice class at a college, and they’ve had detectives and they’ve had police officers, they’ve had lawyers, they’ve had parole officers, but they’ve never had a criminal. Would you come and speak?” And I said, “I’d be glad to.” And I f- and then I called the professor and I said, “I’ve been asked to come.” And he said, “Yeah, we’re looking forward.” And I said I have to tell you one thing. I cannot come in there and speak and not tell your class that my life was radically changed April 15th, 1983, when I came into encounter with God through his son, Jesus Christ.” He said, “That’s okay.” And I went and told them, so I was glad I got to stay on parole for five years. So- So Bill what are you doing now? I know you- I’m just- you’ve got a prison ministry. Do you speak- Yeah … at prisons and, and- That’s all I do, Garrett. 40 years just- How does one get into that? Do you have an agent that booked you into different prisons- No … or how does that work? No. No. I started going in 1986 with [00:47:00] a guy named Bill Glass, who was a NFL player. Played for the Cleveland Browns. He was an All-Pro. Actually started… He got, he retired from football in 1968, so that’s how old he was. Started the ministry in ’72, and was the biggest prison ministry in the nation, had 30,000 volunteers. And I started going in as just a volunteer, and then he asked me to be a platform speaker, and I was a platform speaker for him for 30 years. And went to, I’ve been in over 500 different prisons in my life, and I do prisons almost every day, a prison or a jail almost every day. We’re getting ready to do, this will be our 17th car show up at Crossroads in Cameron, and this will be the biggest car show ever in a US prison, in history. Last year was the biggest. We had 80 cars last year, but this year we’re planning on- by car sh- car show, what do you mean? Like guys bring their classic cars up and…? And drive them in on the prison yard. Oh, wow. And the inmates get to come out, walk around and look at them. And last year we had 80 cars and bikes. [00:48:00] This year we’re gonna have 250 motorcycles and cars. Wow. And we’re gonna feed 2,000 people. We’ve got… W- we’re gonna have 2,000 meals that day for the inmates and the staff, all the staff. So that’s what I’ve been doing for all these years, and will keep doing it as long as I can, wow. But as far as… I was gonna ask you about old Joey Rags. I knew Joe Ragusa. Did you ever deal with that guy? Did you? Not directly. I followed him a lot and almo- we almost caught him too, in a hit one time. And then they saw us and they had boogied on out. But I know one story- That would have been a- … about him. He was, He needed to go… I heard this later. He needed to go to a meeting downtown, down to City Market with the other mob guys, ’cause, he was right next to Charlie Martina, and he went on several hits with these guys during the Spiro-Savella war. So he’s out at the plumbing place where he was working, so he… Guy comes in- Where was he at? Was he at St. John Plumbing? I don’t remember the name of it. It was over there by N- Jackson, Ninth and Jackson, or Truman and Jackson, somewhere over there [00:49:00] on the east side. I can’t remember the name of it now. And so he need… said… told this guy, he said, “Hey,” he said, “I need to go down to the market.” He said, “Can you give me a ride down there?” And the guy said you got your car here.” He said no, you give me a ride.” So he gets in, lays down in the back seat. So the guy takes him down there, then he gets out. No, he was a real deal. Boy, that old market was something, wasn’t it? Yeah. That old City Market. Oh, man. Yeah, heard mob guys out there. Yeah they had a pretty big… Hey, what about, I was gonna ask you about a couple guys that were big heroin kingpins, Sam Haley and Aaron Gant. Was you involved when they were really big in Kansas City? Y- I was a young policeman, ’72, ’73, ’74, and Aaron Gant and Sam Haley were like the big ducks. And they had this war going between the two little heroin organizations. And Gant was, he was in with some guys, and Aaron Gant called him Junebug. He was in with the God, there was a whole family, the Denmans. He was in with [00:50:00] these guys. And so they… And Sam Haley was… I never did understand the difference, but they had two different organizations and they hated each other is my understanding. Oh, they did. Yeah. How about Ramseys? Did you know who the Ramseys were? I don’t see. The Ramsey brothers? I remember that na- Huh? I know that name. I think one of those crime families that, that stole- they were- … money in the neighborhood and- They were the- … everyone else … they were killers, all of them. Yeah. I think there was eight boys, and at one time seven or eight of them were in Missouri for murder. And I was seeing… I was in Potosi. And Rambo, R- Roy Rambo Ramsey they called him, and he’s the one that they got a… Remember when the la- what’d they call them that you put on the roof of your car? Oh, Landau top. Landau top, yeah. Yeah. That wasn’t the word I’m looking for, though. Whatever it was, th- you could have them tops put on. Yeah. They got one put on in a poster shop over on Prospect. Oh. And [00:51:00] when they called and said, “Your car’s ready,” they went up there and killed everybody in the shop and took their car and left. And then they went out to Belton or Grandview, and there was an old couple that had a bunch of old coins and stuff, and they knew one of the people. They knew one of the brothers, and I think it was Roy. And they went out there and knocked on the door, and of course, they let them in. They told their girlfriend to stay in the car, and they went in and they shot them They were 65 and 66 years old. The little old lady was 65 and the old man was… They shot each one of them three times, and just for a few dollars worth of coins, man. They were murderers. They were killers. But I was up in Potosi and Roy asked me, he said, “Would you go see my dad?” And I was… I said… He said, “He’s in a nursing home.” And Gary, his father, was a hardworking man, had never committed a crime in his life, and he was in this nursing home. And I went and saw him and prayed for him and stuff. But here are these… He [00:52:00] had these eight sons that were murderers. They were killers. And the old man was in a nursing home dying. And, Roy asked me if I’d go see him, so I went and saw him, prayed for him. But yeah, they were something else, them guys. Interesting. You you mentioned Sam Haley. There w- we had, here just in your area, was a guy named Michael Cantu, who used to be a fire captain. Had… Was a, a big time cocaine dealer. During those years, he got into- Yeah … cocaine. He and his brother Joe and Joe Maggio, and they had a cocaine deal going, and he got back out. He had a body shop over on Independence Avenue, and two Black guys came in and executed him, basically. Left the employee there. There wasn’t anything to steal, and executed him. And the drawings, one of them we… There was a lot of speculation it looked like Sam Haley. So I think he was- Might’ve been … I think he was supplying Black dealers with cocaine I believe. I saw him meeting with some guys once that that- Yeah, they were- … I didn’t know who they were, but they all looked like Black cocaine dealers they were killers, all them guys. Haley and Gant and those guys. Did you, I asked you about, Yeah, heavy idea. [00:53:00] I- here’s a question. I just got an inquiry from one of Gant’s relatives of… They were wanting to know more about Aaron Gant getting killed. See, he got out of the joint. He went to Missouri State Penitentiary, I think it was for drugs. Yep. And he went to a club that night, and somebody walked in, was walked in, shot him, and walked out right away. Another Black dude. So this relative was asking me if I knew any more about it. I didn’t know any more about it. You remember that deal at all? I don’t remember that. Okay. I di- I actually, I was thinking that Aaron Gant and Sam Haley had been dead for years, but, that was- this was years ago. This was quite a while ago. Okay. This was probably- Yeah, I thought he might have died in prison or something, ’cause I knew they both had a lot of time. They did a lot of- Yeah … time in Missouri. Yeah. Yeah, they did. So did you- But they were kingpins. Their names are really well-known, feared names on the East Side in Kansas City. Oh, yeah. Really feared names. Absolutely. Did you ever go around Vic Fontana’s place when he opened up Fanny’s? Oh, yeah. I went in and out of several. He had several different places. He had Fanny’s. [00:54:00] He had one down on the Southwest Trafficway a little bit after your time, I think oh, God, I forgot the name of it. But yeah, the, all the mob guys went into his joints. He was mob friendly. Yeah. I was really s- I met him when he had when he had the one up on Main next to Butch’s, next to Mother’s. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He had that place yeah what was, Walter Midy. Must have been Walter Midy’s. Walter Midy. Yeah, that’s where I met Vic. And then I actually plumbed that Fanny’s when he opened up Fa

Ben Freedland, a former high-level trafficker, reveals how a near-death experience pushed him to leave the criminal world behind, become an FBI informant, and build a new life helping take down the very networks he once served, while exposing how top informants can earn life-changing money along the way.⁣ ⁣ Ben's links - ⁣ https://www.linkedin.com/in/human-intellegence-ledger/⁣ https://www.instagram.com/human_intelligence_ledger/⁣ https://www.facebook.com/HumanIntelligenceLedger/⁣ https://thehumanintelligenceledger.substack.com/⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. ⁣ ⁣ Shop my merch: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MatthewCoxCollection⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: insidetruecrime@gmail.com⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69⁣ ⁣ Chapters: ⁣ 0:00 - The Coconut King⁣ 6:20 - Trusted In The Underworld⁣ 10:06 - Choosing A New Path⁣ 15:24 - Professional Informant Life⁣ 21:40 - Working Different Cases⁣ 28:37 - Flying Undercover⁣ 41:40 - FBI Meeting Begins⁣ 49:49 - Sentencing And Prison⁣ 56:52 - Leaving Protective Custody⁣ 1:01:17 - Life After Release⁣ 1:03:35 - Teaching Law Enforcement⁣ 1:07:09 - Fighting A Growing Crisis⁣ 1:10:14 - Current Work Today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You have no right

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we tackle two topics. First, we examine Donald Trump's efforts to brazenly and blatantly steal a few billion dollars from the federal government. Trump sued the IRS, claiming they leaked his tax records (they didn't, but a former contractor for the IRS did). He sued for $10 billion, after he became President, which was effectively like he was suing himself as he got to decide the outcome. That was a first, because, despite there being plenty of crooks to inhabit the Oval Office, none are as brazenly corrupt as Trump. He then settled the lawsuit with two agreements: (1) His administration gets a $1.8 billion slush fund to give out to anyone who felt wronged by Biden, and (2) Trump and his family are immune from IRS investigation forever. Josh and Tom argue that Trump's lawsuit was legitimate, but otherwise agree with Ryan that this is blatant corruption and theft. We then turn to a new piece of federal legislation, the PROTECT Kids Act, that would force teachers to tell parents if their kids want to be called by a different name or pronouns. Josh is strongly in favor of the act and thinks it is the responsibility of teachers to inform on their students. Ryan disagrees. He argues that teachers are supposed to teach and make sure kids are safe, from themselves or others. This boils down to a disagreement over whether a kid exploring their gender is "safe" or not. Josh considers it evil. Ryan does not. Tom sees both sides. We don't agree!

A young mother from a tiny Kentucky hollow vanished without a trace in 1989, leaving behind her clothes, her makeup and her two children. She'd been working as an informant for FBI Agent Mark Putnam, so her family held onto one hope: Maybe she'd finally gotten the fresh start she'd always dreamed of through the federal witness protection program. It would take a year to find out the truth about what happened to Susan Daniels Smith. And it was worse than anyone had imagined.

SPONSORS: 1) BLUEPRINT: For a limited time only, our listeners get 20% off + free shipping at https://blueprint.bryanjohnson.com by using code JULIAN at checkout. #Blueprint #ad JOIN PATREON FOR EARLY UNCENSORED EPISODE RELEASES: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey CLIPPERS DISCORD: https://discord.gg/8QmWEKJ3BT (***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Stu Wexler is an author and researcher. Stu's investigative journalism work over the years includes the JFK Assassination, MLK Assassination, RFK Assassination, and CIA Covert Operations. STU's LINKS BOOK: https://a.co/d/0ego1NzP FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY IG: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://x.com/juliandorey JULIAN YT CHANNELS - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP ****TIMESTAMPS**** 0:00 - JFK Assassination Investigation, MLK & JFK similarity, Grassy Knoll 6:26 - Sewer Shooting Theory, Stu's history with case, Devil's Chessboard 18:31 - Case Complications, “Cut the head off the dog,” Stu's father's theory 27:58 - Castro & JFK, Lyndon Johnson, the Soviets, hijacked autopsy, JFK bombshell 38:58 - How JFK Case falls apart, Curtis LeMay, Felilx Rodriguez, Truman & JFK 48:08 - CIA Cloak & Dagger Ops, Alan Dulles, 1954 Guatemalan Coup d'etat 58:54 - CIA's mask off moment, Carl Jenkins, Iran Contra, JFK vs. Castro plans 1:10:41 - Danny Jones Felix Rodriguez Sitdown, Kiki Camarena 1:24:15 - Nuclear War Threat, Harold Malmgren, Bay of Pigs 1:37:35 - New JFK Files, Why Bobby Kennedy disliked, William Harvey, Rome & the Mafia 1:47:06 - Gap in Joannides Records, David Morales 2:01:31 - Daniel Pearl, Why Bobby Kennedy taken out 2:11:07 - Lyndon B. Johnson & JFK, American Revolution post JFK & MLK, James Earl Ray 2:23:14 - MLK Assassin James Earl Ray & the gov, MLK & Charlie Kirk, Extremist Groups 2:35:31 - Extremist influence, FBI & MLK, Donald Nissin 2:46:52 - FBI Investigation, Kathy Ainsworth, Stu's take on conspiracy 2:56:35 - What was Ray supposed to do, Ray's attorneys, “Dancing on streets” after MLK 3:05:34 - Fred Hampton, FBI War, Informant knew King was going to be shot, Tommy Terrance 3:15:37 - Stu's Work CREDITS: - Host, Editor & Producer: Julian Dorey - COO, Producer & Editor: Alessi Allaman - https://www.youtube.com/@UCyLKzv5fKxGmVQg3cMJJzyQ - In-Studio Producer: Joey Deef - https://www.instagram.com/joeydeef/ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 422 - Stu Wexler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Orange County's most prolific mass shooter admits his guilt, but a series of explosive hearings uncovers a longstanding jailhouse snitch operation that taints many other cases. Jailers plead the 5th, the judge makes a startling ruling, and a victim's husband forms an unlikely friendship with the killer's crusading defense attorney.

Diahn v. Blanche, No. 24-2066 (4th Cir. May 5, 2026)IJ duty to develop record; pro se respondents; no hearing notice; prejudice;  duty to advise about witnesses; exhaustion  Matter of J-E-L-, 29 I&N Dec. 605 (BIA 2026)CAT; FBI informants; evidence specific to applicant; unknown identity of kidnappers Matter of C-P-Y-, 29 I&N Dec. 610 (BIA 2026)LPR “arrival”; serious nonpolitical crime; return from abroad; sex trafficking; probable cause; Red Notice; Mexican arrest warrant; I-213; pro se admissions; due process; incompetent noncitizens; LPR cancellation Matter of V-A-B-, 29 I&N Dec. 621 (BIA 2026)Mexican woman unable to leave their marriage; particular social group; domestic violence; no presumption of valid marriage just because of kids; A-B- Prado-Majano v. Blanche, No. 25-60040 (5th Cir. May 7, 2026)material change in personal circumstances; time bar to motion to reopen; nationwide change required; equitable tolling; underlying ineffective assistance of counsel; pro se before the BIA; extermination group Mohammed v. Blanche, No. 25-1901 (7th Cir. May 6, 2026) &  Castanon-Nava v. DHS,  No. 25-3050 (7th Cir. May 5, 2026)untimely asylum; jurisdiction; Wilkinson; Guerrero-Lasprilla; Muslims in India; slaughterhousewarrantless arrest; mandatory detention for EWIs; consent decree  United States v. Singh, No. 25-1523 (6th Cir. May 5, 2026)denaturalization; ineffective assistance of counsel in criminal proceedings; collateral consequences; Padilla; Chaidez; Farhane Sanchez Gonzalez, et al. v. DOS, et al., No. 23-4205 (9th Cir. Apr. 30, 2026)doctrine of consular nonreviewability; Munoz; Mandel; First Amendment rights of U.S. citizen spouse; legitimate and bona fide reason; void for vagueness; INA § 212(a)(3)(A)(ii); tattoos  Urquia-Yanez v. Blanche, No. 25-1136 (9th Cir. May 8, 2026)in absentia motion to reopen due process; no requirement to provide NTA advisals in foreign language  Alvarez, et al. v. FDC Miami Warden, et al., No. 25-14065 (11th Cir. May 6, 2026)no mandatory detention for EWIs; Hurtado; seeking admission; INA § 235(a)(2)(B); Laken Riley Act; applicant for admission entry; canon of constitutional avoidance; plain text; statutory interpretation; longstanding agency interpretation; legislative historyKurzban Kurzban Tetzeli and Pratt P.A.Immigration, serious injury, and business lawyers serving clients in Florida, California, and all over the world for over 40 years.eimmigration"Immigration law software you'll love to use."get.eimmigration.com/IRP Gonzales & Gonzales Immigration BondsP: (833) 409-9200immigrationbond.com Stafi"Remote staffing solutions for businesses of all sizes"Click me!Support the show

Euphoria Season 3 is officially in its wildest era yet and we're diving headfirst into our biggest midseason theories, predictions, and fan conspiracies! On this episode of the Previously On podcast, Jillian and her husband Tyler break down everything we think is happening in Season 3. Could Nate Jacobs survive this season after all? What's Rue's fate? Why does Laurie keep watching episodes of Have Gun–Will Travel… and what does it reveal about where this season is headed? Tyler does a full deep-dive investigation into the exact episodes being referenced and how they may spoil the ending of the show.We also discuss theories about Lexi secretly writing the entire season as a screenplay, Cassie spiraling into Hollywood chaos on LA Nights, Rue's religious journey through her celebrity-filled Bible audiobook, and whether someone is about to rob Wayne's safe. Plus: Nate becoming his father, one wild face-swapping plastic surgery theory, Wizard of Oz symbolism at the Silver Slipper, and the internet's most unhinged Reddit predictions.Whether our predictions end up genius-level correct or completely crash and burn by the finale, we're having way too much fun trying to figure out where this chaotic season is headed.00:00:00 Intro to Pod00:02:19 Is this the final season of Euphoria?00:06:55 Jillian and Tyler's Theories00:07:06 Will Rue or Nate Jacobs die?00:13:43 Cassie gets LA Nights and hooks up with Dylan Reid00:18:35 Have Gun – Will Travel Theory00:29:57 S3 is a fictional Western Lexi's writing00:33:23 The Word of Promise Audio Bible00:39:12 Black Gunn (1972) and Alamo00:42:13 The Silver Slipper club and the Wizard of Oz00:47:12 Jules' plastic surgeon sugar daddy changes Nate or Rue's face00:48:46 Angel is coming back to help Rue00:50:06 Bishop is an undercover cop00:52:56 Cassie gets sold00:59:24 Magick (Rosalía) is an informantThank you to Matt Buechele (@mattbooshell) for creating our new theme song. You can listen to "Sunscreen" on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1gFHHF3QyQxjbbKXV3qLu9Buy our merch: ⁠https://www.etsy.com/shop/PreviouslyOnTeenTV⁠Follow Previously On Teen TV on Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/previouslyon_teentv/Follow Previously On Teen TV on TikTok: ⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@previouslyon_teentv⁠⁠Subscribe to our YouTube: ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe2lgvvZGKMrQ8v24FmDdWQ?sub_confirmation=1⁠

Ray Khan was the most unlikely confidential informant in law enforcement history, yet he found himself a fugitive, running from the same government he had helped.Ray Khan was born and raised in Gujarat, India, where his father was an officer with the Indian National Police. Wanting to follow in his footsteps, Ray took the entrance exam for the IPS three times but failed each time, so he followed his wife to the US to chase the American dream. However, things did not work out, and Ray ended up losing his wife and his legal immigration status. After moving to Georgia and buying his first convenience store, Ray unknowingly walked into an undercover ATF operation and purchased untaxed cigarettes. Shortly after, he was arrested and scheduled for deportation. However, by becoming a confidential informant for ATF Special Agent Lou Valoze, Ray was able to avoid deportation and quickly worked off his charges.Over the next six years, he would prove himself to be one of the most successful informants in ATF history. Valoze, recognizing Ray's unique skills, used him in several undercover operations, and Ray proved his worth by bringing hundreds of violent criminals who sold thousands of crime guns and hundreds of kilograms of narcotics to Valoze and his undercover team. Valoze and Ray would eventually develop a relationship that went beyond the usual agent and informant relationship. But, during the entire time he was working as an informant, he was being targeted by a corrupt, high-level officer with the Georgia Department of Revenue. After Ray and Valoze concluded one of the most successful undercover operations in history, Valoze's career imploded, and Ray found himself in the crosshairs of numerous corrupt Georgia officials.After being indicted on state RICO charges, Ray evaded the law and became a fugitive in New York City. Having learned many things while working with Valoze, Ray would eventually turn the tables on his corrupt pursuers.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.

In this PART 2 episode, Mundo returns to tell the next chapter of his unbelievable story. After years as a high-ranking Mexican Mafia member involved in multiple murders and violent operations, he describes the religious experience he had in jail that changed the course of his life. What follows is a shocking account of becoming a secret informant while still surrounded by fugitives, gang politics, drugs, and murder. Mundo explains how he began working with law enforcement, why he felt driven to help bring down the same organization he once served, and how his undercover role pulled him deeper into danger. He talks about working around figures like Joe Morgan, Alfie, and Sailor, the chaos of double lives, cartel-connected drug operations, bank robberies, contract killings, and the moment everything began closing in on him again. He also reflects on the cost of that life, his Christian faith, witness protection, and how he later became a trainer and consultant for law enforcement. The conversation closes with a deep look at the Mexican Mafia today, its structure, cartel ties, Sureño influence, and how prison gang power still shapes the streets. This is a raw, intense interview about violence, betrayal, redemption, and survival from someone who lived at the center of it. For Part 1 go to https://youtu.be/BjPka7eDvoc Go Support Mundo! Books: https://www.policeandfirepublishing.com/ YouTube: @convictsandcops Movie: https://www.amazon.com/Mundo-Vince-Romo/dp/B07MMP45GC Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Recap & Introduction to Mundo's Story 02:00 High Standing in the Mexican Mafia 04:00 Religious Experience and Departure 08:00 Facing the Organization & Seeking Redemption 13:00 Decision to Go Undercover 18:00 First Steps as an Informant 22:00 Working with Sailor & Early Undercover Operations 28:00 Navigating the Dope Game Undercover 37:00 Bank Robberies and Growing Paranoia 45:00 Contract Killings & Legal Troubles 51:00 Plea Deals and Testifying Against Joe Morgan 56:00 Witness Protection & Life After the Gang 01:03:00 Mexican Mafia Structure Today 01:10:00 Modern Cartel Connections 01:18:00 Personal Life, Faith, and Final Reflections 01:21:00 Books, Resources, and Closing Inspiration Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rumble Link:https://rumble.com/v794hfu-are-you-an-american-or-an-americant.htmlUse Code BB5 here for your 90 Essential Nutrients:https://www.azurestandard.com/shop/brand/azurewell/2326The Azure Whole Food Essential Nutrients are 1. Whole Food Multivitamin, 2. Alaskan Cod Liver Oil, 3. Fulvic-Humic Energy Blend, 4. IP6 Supreme. I also recommend adding the Core Copper.Use code BB5 for your discount.Join Dr. Glidden's Membership site here:https://leavebigpharmabehind.com/?via=pgndhealth⁠Code: baalbusters for 25% OFFMake Dr. Glidden Your DoctorTwitter Account: https://x.com/KristosCastPodcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ba-al-busters-broadcast--5100262Follow Spotify Channel:https://open.spotify.com/show/0vtEmTteIzD2nB5bdQ8qDRBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ba-al-busters-broadcast--5100262/support.

In 2012, the judge presiding over Orange County's worst mass-shooter case gave a seemingly simple order. He told the Sheriff's Department to reveal information about a mysterious jailhouse informant. When defense attorney Scott Sanders probed deeper, he announced that he had discovered a wide-ranging and illegal cell-block informant operation—and a conspiracy to cover it up.

On the True Geordie Podcast, Part 2 dives deeper into the rise and collapse of a real-life “Goodfellas” empire. The True Geordie Podcast reveals how the mafia boss controlled a multi-million-dollar operation, enforced loyalty through fear, and kept authorities at bay—until cracks began to show. Informants, betrayal, and mounting pressure pushed the empire toward its breaking point. With detailed research and sharp analysis, True Geordie Podcast uncovers how power, greed, and paranoia ultimately led to the downfall of one of the most shocking criminal operations ever exposed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roger Reaves, a former pilot, rises from poverty to making millions flying for cartels, but after surviving violence, prison, and repeated close calls, he ultimately faces the consequences and begins to reflect on a life that nearly destroyed him.⁣ ⁣ Roger's links - ⁣ https://roger-reaves.com/⁣ ⁣ Check out Roger's books here - https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B076VW59WK/allbooks?_encoding=UTF8&ref_=aufs_ap_ahdr_dsk_ab&pd_rd_w=r2lrn&content-id=amzn1.sym.7e190e19-9f6f-4df8-807a-5a7608594741&pf_rd_p=7e190e19-9f6f-4df8-807a-5a7608594741&pf_rd_r=131-3567205-0800056&pd_rd_wg=6a31A&pd_rd_r=98391cc2-a53a-44b3-a1fe-ea8e301d14b5 ⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Upgrade your wardrobe with timeless essentials that actually lasts. Shop Quince with free shipping and 365-day returns at https://quince.com/true⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: insidetruecrime@gmail.com⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69⁣ ⁣ CHAPTERS: ⁣ 0:00 - Growing Up Poor & Early Hustles⁣ 3:00 - Crazy Youth Stories & Meeting His Wife⁣ 6:30 - Firefighter Career & First Taste of Smuggling⁣ 12:50 - Shot Down by Federales ⁣ 15:20 - Mexican Prison & Survival⁣ 17:10 - Meeting Cartel Leaders & Entering Escobar's World⁣ 34:00 - Arrest, Informants & Facing Life Sentences⁣ 1:03:30 - Prison Escape & Life on the Run⁣ 1:13:30 - Final Deals, Close Calls & Betrayals⁣ 1:21:00 - Life Inside Prison & Harsh Realities⁣ 1:28:30 - Life After Release & Trying to Start Over⁣ 1:32:00 - Dangerous Voyage Across the Ocean⁣ 1:42:00 - Getting Caught Again & Facing Consequences⁣ 1:48:00 - Reflecting on a Life of Crime & Lessons Learned Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Assassination Attempt - the SPLC "informants" - and MORE!! www.headlinesandopinions.com Conversations centered around the American Experiment and our Constitution and Bill of Rights! Our goal is to provide different perspectives - give historical context - model how to talk with those whom we may disagree with - tie foundational principals to today's headlines - PLUS, have some fun along the way. Please leave us a review and share with your friends! (A PODCAST PROVIDED AND OWNED BY DURING THE BREAK PODCASTS) Brought to you by Eric Buchanan and Associates: www.buchanandisability.com ===== THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: (Welcome to our NEW sponsor) Signal Investigations: https://www.signalpi.com/ Nutrition World: https://nutritionw.com/ Vascular Institute of Chattanooga: https://www.vascularinstituteofchattanooga.com/ The Barn Nursery: https://www.barnnursery.com/ Optimize U Chattanooga: https://optimizeunow.com/chattanooga/ Guardian Investment Advisors: https://giaplantoday.com/ Alchemy Medspa and Wellness Center: http://www.alchemychattanooga.com/ Our House Studio: https://ourhousestudiosinc.com/ Team Montieth Real Estate - Lori Montieth: https://www.findchattanoogarealestate.com/ Ballinger and Associates - Risk Management: https://ballingerandassociates.com/ AirSpace Acoustics: https://www.airspaceacoustics.com/ BWELL4EVER: Labs and IV Therapies: https://www.bwell4ever.org/ ALL THINGS JEFF STYLES: www.thejeffstyles.com PART OF THE NOOGA PODCAST NETWORK: www.noogapodcasts.com Please consider leaving us a review on Apple and giving us a share to your friends! This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Assassination Attempt - the SPLC "informants" - and MORE!! www.headlinesandopinions.com Conversations centered around the American Experiment and our Constitution and Bill of Rights! Our goal is to provide different perspectives - give historical context - model how to talk with those whom we may disagree with - tie foundational principals to today's headlines - PLUS, have some fun along the way. Please leave us a review and share with your friends! (A PODCAST PROVIDED AND OWNED BY DURING THE BREAK PODCASTS) Brought to you by Eric Buchanan and Associates: www.buchanandisability.com This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

They told you the Inquisition was about religion.It wasn't.It was a system.A permanent, self-funding enforcement machine designed to monitor, extract, and control a financial class operating outside the state's visibility.Surveillance networks. Informants. Sealed records. Forced confession.Not for faith.For intelligence.And once that system existed… it didn't disappear.It was refined. Secularized. Exported.Different names. Same architecture.Because power doesn't just need money.It needs enforcement.Welcome to Hidden Forces in History—where we don't study events.We break down the systems behind them.If you start recognizing the pattern… that's the point.CHAPTERS:00:00 The Lie About the Inquisition00:14 The System Behind Religion00:30 The Confession Machine00:52 It Never Ended01:23 Why Power Needs Enforcement01:59 The Financial Threat02:47 The Real Problem the Crown Faced03:48 The System Is Built04:02 Not the Church—The Crown04:30 Intelligence, Not Religion05:01 How the Network Was Designed05:40 The Power of the File06:01 A Self-Funding System06:15 Surveillance at Scale07:01 Behavior Control Begins07:30 From Religion to Intelligence08:06 The System Spreads08:36 Modern Intelligence Systems08:50 Surveillance Turns Inward09:07 The Real Function of Power09:25 The System Still Exists

Always leads to violence! PLUS, Nicole Georgas tells Shaun how the Southern Poverty Law Center harassed her and other women in Moms for Liberty, labeling them a hate group, after they stood up against having transgenders in the same locker room as their daughters. And Lou Valoze, former undercover ATF agent and author of the new book Ray Khan: The Betrayal of an Informant, tells Shaun about his two-decades undercover working with his greatest Confidential Informant and how the government betrayed them both.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of Finding Common Battle Grounds, we tackle two topics. We start with the oil/energy shock that has resulted from the double blockade of the Straight of Hormuz. We talk about the consequences for Americans, for the global economy, for car purchasing decisions in the future, and whether it will affect the mid-term elections in November. We largely agree on this topic. Josh even admits he is going to be going all-electric at some point in the future! We then turn to the recent indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) by the Department of Justice (DOJ's). Josh and Tom start by parroting the DOJ talking points that the SPLC was funding racist and terrorist organizations, so they would have a reason to exist. Ryan points out that they funded informants, and they admit that. He also argues that the lawsuit will drag on for years until there is a new administration, and then it will be dropped. In other words, this is a big "Nothingburger." Josh insists this was weird, and Tom seems convinced the SPLC was drumming up a problem. Ryan agrees it was weird, but the question is whether it was illegal.

TOPICS: SPLC Informant Scheme MrBeast Sued D4vd Celeste Cause of Death "Coffee Talk with David Eon" (LIVE WEEKDAY DAILY NEWS TALK) for Thursday, April 23rd, 2026.

Episode 5321: Were There SPLC Informants At J6; Fighting The Redistricting In Virginia

Grace opens the show discussing the Governor's race debate and asserting that the Democrat candidates are not serious people. Then, Grace discusses her favorite news story of the week: the SPLC's "informant program" which demonstrates how fraudulent the far-left is.  Visit the Howie Carr Radio Network website to access columns, podcasts, and other exclusive content.

──────────────────────────────────────── [00:02:09] 34 Iranian "Ghost Ships" Slipped Through Trump's Blockade — 49 Total Got Past the US Navy 49 Iranian tankers passed the blockade unimpeded — Knight: they can surveil every American citizen but they can't stop giant tankers in a 25-mile-wide strait. ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:08:45] Secretary of the Navy Fired Mid-War — Trump Donor Art Collector With No Military Experience and Epstein Connections The fired Navy secretary was a Palm Beach private equity investor who flew on Epstein's plane in 2006 and held Palantir investments whose contracts he then deepened while in office. ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:20:31] Report: Trump Wanted to Use Nuclear Codes Saturday Night — General Dan Cain Stood Up and Said No One report out of an emergency White House meeting claims Trump wanted to invoke the nuclear option against Iran and General Cain blocked him — photos show Cain leaving with his head down. ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:23:08] Declassified Documents Confirm US Bioweapons Program Created Lyme Disease — Centered on Plum Island Whistleblowers and declassified documents confirm the US bioweapons program at Plum Island contributed to Lyme disease — the CIA also dropped diseased ticks on Cuban civilians and released 300,000 radioactive ticks across Virginia. ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:34:24] Tony Arderman: M2 Money Supply Up 206% Since 2009 — 30% Created Since January 2020 The Rothbard-Salerno metric shows total money supply now tops $22.5 trillion — its highest level ever — with nearly 30% of all money in existence created since January 2020. ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:46:00] Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Have Quietly Moved to 20% Gold in Their Portfolio Model Both Goldman and Morgan Stanley recently shifted from 60/40 stocks and bonds to 40% stocks, 20% bonds, 20% gold — Arderman says mainstream financial media is suppressing this signal. ──────────────────────────────────────── [01:28:00] ICE Is Equipping Agents With AI Spy Glasses That Do Real-Time Biometric Identification in the Field The glasses secretly record, run facial recognition, and can instantly add someone to a domestic watch list — a DOJ attorney says the real target is not illegal aliens but protesters and dissenters. ──────────────────────────────────────── [01:34:36] San Jose Flock Camera Network Accessed 2.5 Million Times in Six Months — Also Predicts Future Vehicle Routes San Jose's 500-camera network was searched 15,000 times per day — it maps vehicle journeys, identifies movement patterns, and can predict where a vehicle is likely to go next. ──────────────────────────────────────── [01:51:06] Southern Poverty Law Center Indicted — Paid $3 Billion to KKK Informants While Claiming to Fight Them A grand jury indicted the SPLC for allegedly paying at least eight KKK-affiliated informants from 2014 to 2023 — one helped organize the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. ──────────────────────────────────────── [02:00:45] John Whitehead: The Pentagon Has Turned the Sermon on the Mount Into a War Manual Hegseth prays "give overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy" — Knight: Hegseth is not misunderstanding Christ, he is deliberately rewriting him as a mascot for empire. ──────────────────────────────────────── Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to https://davidknight.gold/ for great deals on physical gold/silver For 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to https://trendsjournal.com/ and enter the code “KNIGHT” For high quality made in America products go to HomeSteadProducts.shop and use promo code “Knight” for 10% off your purchases Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.com If you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-show Or you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

──────────────────────────────────────── [00:02:09] 34 Iranian "Ghost Ships" Slipped Through Trump's Blockade — 49 Total Got Past the US Navy 49 Iranian tankers passed the blockade unimpeded — Knight: they can surveil every American citizen but they can't stop giant tankers in a 25-mile-wide strait. ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:08:45] Secretary of the Navy Fired Mid-War — Trump Donor Art Collector With No Military Experience and Epstein Connections The fired Navy secretary was a Palm Beach private equity investor who flew on Epstein's plane in 2006 and held Palantir investments whose contracts he then deepened while in office. ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:20:31] Report: Trump Wanted to Use Nuclear Codes Saturday Night — General Dan Cain Stood Up and Said No One report out of an emergency White House meeting claims Trump wanted to invoke the nuclear option against Iran and General Cain blocked him — photos show Cain leaving with his head down. ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:23:08] Declassified Documents Confirm US Bioweapons Program Created Lyme Disease — Centered on Plum Island Whistleblowers and declassified documents confirm the US bioweapons program at Plum Island contributed to Lyme disease — the CIA also dropped diseased ticks on Cuban civilians and released 300,000 radioactive ticks across Virginia. ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:34:24] Tony Arderman: M2 Money Supply Up 206% Since 2009 — 30% Created Since January 2020 The Rothbard-Salerno metric shows total money supply now tops $22.5 trillion — its highest level ever — with nearly 30% of all money in existence created since January 2020. ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:46:00] Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Have Quietly Moved to 20% Gold in Their Portfolio Model Both Goldman and Morgan Stanley recently shifted from 60/40 stocks and bonds to 40% stocks, 20% bonds, 20% gold — Arderman says mainstream financial media is suppressing this signal. ──────────────────────────────────────── [01:28:00] ICE Is Equipping Agents With AI Spy Glasses That Do Real-Time Biometric Identification in the Field The glasses secretly record, run facial recognition, and can instantly add someone to a domestic watch list — a DOJ attorney says the real target is not illegal aliens but protesters and dissenters. ──────────────────────────────────────── [01:34:36] San Jose Flock Camera Network Accessed 2.5 Million Times in Six Months — Also Predicts Future Vehicle Routes San Jose's 500-camera network was searched 15,000 times per day — it maps vehicle journeys, identifies movement patterns, and can predict where a vehicle is likely to go next. ──────────────────────────────────────── [01:51:06] Southern Poverty Law Center Indicted — Paid $3 Billion to KKK Informants While Claiming to Fight Them A grand jury indicted the SPLC for allegedly paying at least eight KKK-affiliated informants from 2014 to 2023 — one helped organize the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. ──────────────────────────────────────── [02:00:45] John Whitehead: The Pentagon Has Turned the Sermon on the Mount Into a War Manual Hegseth prays "give overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy" — Knight: Hegseth is not misunderstanding Christ, he is deliberately rewriting him as a mascot for empire. ──────────────────────────────────────── Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to https://davidknight.gold/ for great deals on physical gold/silver For 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to https://trendsjournal.com/ and enter the code “KNIGHT” For high quality made in America products go to HomeSteadProducts.shop and use promo code “Knight” for 10% off your purchases Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.com If you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-show Or you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-david-knight-show--5282736/support.

Serious allegations are raising new questions about the Southern Poverty Law Center and its practices. This episode explores claims surrounding payments, the use of informants, and how “hate group” designations are determined and applied. We also revisit public statements from Charlie Kirk and examine broader concerns about influence, accountability, and the role of organizations in shaping public narratives.

A court decision appears online with almost everything blacked out: no registry, no lawyers, no location, no hearing date, and even the judge's name is removed. All we're left with is a disturbing question at the heart of Canadian criminal law: can someone become a confidential police informant without ever being clearly told they are one, and if so, what does that do to open court principles and public trust?We walk through confidential informer privilege from the ground up, including why it is treated as near-absolute in Canada and why it can protect informants who are unreliable or acting for personal gain. Then we get into the moment that triggered the whole fight: after hours of a stalled interview, a detainee asks for a pen, writes “informal” on their hand, hides it from the camera, shows it to an officer who nods, and the recording suddenly goes off. The judge ultimately finds an implied promise of confidentiality on a balance of probabilities, despite the Crown's opposition, raising real-world issues about secrecy, disclosure, and how policing actually works.Then we shift to the Court of Appeal of British Columbia and a practical courtroom battle with huge stakes: when should a witness be allowed to testify by Zoom or Teams under the Criminal Code? In a referred murder conviction appeal after 17 years in prison, an officer who admitted recording key gunshot timings incorrectly wanted to testify remotely to avoid travel. The court said no, stressing the presumption of in-person evidence when credibility and fairness are on the line.Subscribe for more Canadian legal analysis, share this with someone who cares about open courts, and leave us a review. Where do you draw the line between necessary secrecy and the public's right to see justice done?Follow this link for a transcript of the show and links to the cases discussed. 

Ray Khan was the most unlikely confidential informant in law enforcement history, yet he found himself a fugitive, running from the same government he had helped.Ray Khan was born and raised in Gujarat, India, where his father was an officer with the Indian National Police. Wanting to follow in his footsteps, Ray took the entrance exam for the IPS three times but failed each time, so he followed his wife to the US to chase the American dream. However, things did not work out, and Ray ended up losing his wife and his legal immigration status. After moving to Georgia and buying his first convenience store, Ray unknowingly walked into an undercover ATF operation and purchased untaxed cigarettes. Shortly after, he was arrested and scheduled for deportation. However, by becoming a confidential informant for ATF Special Agent Lou Valoze, Ray was able to avoid deportation and quickly worked off his charges.Over the next six years, he would prove himself to be one of the most successful informants in ATF history. Valoze, recognizing Ray's unique skills, used him in several undercover operations, and Ray proved his worth by bringing hundreds of violent criminals who sold thousands of crime guns and hundreds of kilograms of narcotics to Valoze and his undercover team. Valoze and Ray would eventually develop a relationship that went beyond the usual agent and informant relationship. But, during the entire time he was working as an informant, he was being targeted by a corrupt, high-level officer with the Georgia Department of Revenue. After Ray and Valoze concluded one of the most successful undercover operations in history, Valoze's career imploded, and Ray found himself in the crosshairs of numerous corrupt Georgia officials.After being indicted on state RICO charges, Ray evaded the law and became a fugitive in New York City. Having learned many things while working with Valoze, Ray would eventually turn the tables on his corrupt pursuers.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.

This informant double life story reveals the dangerous reality of living between two worlds—and what happens when it all falls apart. In this episode of the STS podcast, we break down how this informant double life story unfolded, from secret cooperation with authorities to the moment the very people he helped turned against him. The informant double life story highlights betrayal, risk, and the high stakes of undercover work in real crime situations. We also explore how cases like this connect to broader true crime news, similar real crime stories, ongoing cold cases, and powerful survivor stories that expose the human cost behind these decisions. If you're into gripping, real-world cases, this episode delivers a direct and compelling look at trust, deception, and survival.Key Points from the Episode: Inside the informant double life story and how it began The informant's role in helping authorities The turning point when allies became enemies Risks and consequences of undercover cooperation Connections to broader true crime news and similar cases Support the show & be a part of #STSNation: Donate to STS' Trial Travel: Https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/GJ... VENMO: @STSPodcast or Https://www.venmo.com/stspodcast Check out STS Merch: Https://www.bonfire.com/store/sts-store/ Joel's Book: Https://amzn.to/48GwbLx Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SurvivingTheSurvivor Email: SurvivingTheSurvivor@gmail.com   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

April 2nd, 2026 Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X Listen to past episodes on The Ticket’s Website And follow The Ticket Top 10 on Apple, Spotify or Amazon MusicSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

During Jeffrey Epstein's unraveling legal saga, former Congresswoman Jackie Speier formally pressed the Department of Justice on whether Epstein had ever served as an FBI informant. The inquiry came amid mounting suspicions about how Epstein managed to secure his notorious 2008 non-prosecution agreement in Florida, which effectively shielded him and his alleged co-conspirators from serious federal charges. Speier's question cut to the heart of a mystery that had circulated for years: was Epstein given unusually favorable treatment because he was providing intelligence or cooperating with federal authorities in some hidden capacity? Her request for clarification highlighted the unease in Congress about possible institutional complicity in protecting him.The DOJ's response was carefully worded, neither fully confirming nor decisively denying Epstein's possible informant status. Officials leaned on the secrecy of law enforcement processes, pointing to restrictions on disclosing confidential sources. This non-answer only deepened speculation and public mistrust, as critics argued it fit the larger pattern of opaque deals and unexplained leniency surrounding Epstein's case. Speier's intervention signaled congressional recognition that the Epstein scandal raised broader questions about the integrity of federal law enforcement, particularly whether the justice system had been bent to accommodate a wealthy, well-connected predator.To contact me:Bobbycapucci@protonmail.comsource:https://nypost.com/2020/02/29/democratic-congresswoman-reportedly-asks-doj-if-epstein-was-fbi-informant/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

Die Regierung denkt über die Abschaffung des Ehegattensplittings nach. Der Intendant der Salzburger Festspiele soll Frauen schikaniert haben. Und das Verteidigungsministerium jagt neuerdings Maulwürfe. Das ist die Lage am Donnerstagabend. Hier die Artikel zum Nachlesen: Klingbeil-Vorstoß: Was die Pläne zum Ehegattensplitting für Ihren Geldbeutel bedeuten können Möglicher Machtmissbrauch: Salzburger Festspiel-Intendant Hinterhäuser nach Streit beurlaubt Leak im Verteidigungsministerium: Auf der Jagd nach dem Informanten waren Pistorius’ Leute nicht zimperlich +++ Alle Infos zu unseren Werbepartnern finden Sie hier. Die SPIEGEL-Gruppe ist nicht für den Inhalt dieser Seite verantwortlich. +++ Mehr Hintergründe zum Thema erhalten Sie mit SPIEGEL+. Entdecken Sie die digitale Welt des SPIEGEL, unter spiegel.de/abonnieren finden Sie das passende Angebot. Alle SPIEGEL Podcasts finden Sie hier. Den SPIEGEL-WhatsApp-Kanal finden Sie hier. Hier geht es zu unserem SPIEGEL Shop. Alle Newsletter vom SPIEGEL finden Sie hier. Hier geht es zur SPIEGEL Akademie. Sie möchten den SPIEGEL mitgestalten? Registrieren Sie sich bei SPIEGEL Perspektiven. Informationen zu unserer Datenschutzerklärung.

Chad Marks, a former fraudster, reveals how inmates are exploited for millions through prison scams, while reflecting on the mindset that once drove him and how he ultimately turned his life in a different direction.⁣ ⁣ Chad's links - ⁣ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2BfsAN7eb-76zlPmVbetgQ⁣ https://www.instagram.com/chadmarks101/⁣ https://www.freedomfighterspc.com/⁣ Email Chad: bloodontherazorwire@gmail.com⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. ⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: insidetruecrime@gmail.com⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69⁣ ⁣ CHAPTERS: ⁣ 00:00 - From 40-Year Sentence to Prison Consultant Scams⁣ 02:00 - Violent Childhood & Escaping His Father⁣ 08:30 - First Hustles: Fake Drugs to Real Money⁣ 15:00 - First Arrest & Entry Into State Prison⁣ 22:30 - Life Inside Prison: Violence, Race & Survival⁣ 30:00 - Building a Drug Empire & Street Operations⁣ 40:00 - Informants, Wiretaps & The Case Builds⁣ 55:00 - Betrayal, Arrest & Facing Federal Charges⁣ 01:10:00 - 40-Year Sentence & Reality of Federal Prison⁣ 01:30:00 - Reflection, Redemption & Life After Release Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After dismantling his own drug trafficking network and agreeing to cooperate with federal agents, Ben entered a world few ever talk about from the inside. The deals, the dangers, the mental toll, the paranoia — and the unexpected truth about the people supposed to protect him.Ben is now a law enforcement consultant and informant expert — training handlers on what they're getting wrong. His insights are changing how agencies across the country approach informant management.

Conversation on the "Red Green Alliance" between Leftists & Islamists, centering around the recent IED bombing attempt by Ibraham Kayumi & Emir Balat, their "activation" through Iran's IRGC & the emboldening of such acts through the Leftist Islamist mayor of NYC, Zohran Mamdani... himself a Twelver Shiite just like Iran's current theocratic leadership.Talking w/ Brian O'Shea, former US Special Forces Intel on how this alliance functions & how high up politically it goes. Neal (Gnostic Informant) joins in on the background behind Islam's creation & rise, as well as the alternative path he proposes for society to stop from going backwards.Brian O'Sheahttps://x.com/BrianOSheaSPIhttps://consumerdiligence.substack.com/https://brianoshea.substack.com/Gnostic Informanthttps://x.com/Gnosisinformanthttps://www.youtube.com/GnosticInformantLev Polyakov (Host & Editor / Animator)https://twitter.com/Levpohttps://levpo.substack.com/http://youtube.com/levpolyakov--Consider Supporting BTR by:Becoming a Parton: https://www.patreon.com/breaktherules

In this episode of Gangland Wire, I sit down with retired FBI agent Geoff Kelly, a specialist in art theft investigations who inherited one of the most notorious unsolved cases in American history—the 1990 robbery at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. He recently wrote a book about this theft titled 13 Perfect Fugitives: The True Story of Mob, Murder, and the World’s Largest Art Heist. Kelly's law enforcement career began as a New York City transit police officer before transitioning to the FBI. Like many agents, he initially sought violent crime work. Instead, he was assigned to economic crimes before eventually transferring to a violent crime squad. It was there that he encountered the Gardner case—a cold case largely untouched by senior agents at the time. The robbery itself remains extraordinary: two men posing as police officers gained entry to the museum and stole 13 works of art, including masterpieces by Rembrandt. More than three decades later, none of the works have been recovered. Inside the Gardner Heist Geoff explains how art theft is often misunderstood. Popular culture portrays refined, sophisticated criminals orchestrating elaborate capers. The reality, he says, is usually more opportunistic and frequently violent. Art theft often intersects with organized crime, drug trafficking, and even homicide. Massachusetts has a documented history of art-related crimes, and several individuals connected to the Gardner investigation met violent ends. The criminal underworld surrounding stolen art is less about wealthy collectors hiding paintings in private vaults and more about leverage—using artwork as collateral in criminal negotiations. The FBI's Art Crime Evolution Following the 2003 looting of Iraq's National Museum during the Baghdad invasion, the FBI formalized its Art Crime Team. Kelly discusses how intelligence gathering, informants, and international cooperation became central tools in recovering stolen artifacts. He emphasizes that solving art crimes often depends less on forensic breakthroughs and more on human intelligence. Informants remain essential, especially in cases where organized crime overlaps with high-value theft. Kelly also discusses his upcoming book, 13 Perfect Fugitives, which explores the intersections of mobsters, murder, and the illicit art market. Organized Crime and the Reality of Stolen Art Drawing on my own experience working organized crime in Kansas City, I found clear parallels between traditional mob rackets and art theft networks. The same structures—intimidation, secrecy, and violence—apply. Once a painting disappears into criminal circulation, it becomes a liability as much as an asset. Kelly challenges the myth that thieves profit easily from masterpieces. High-profile works are difficult to sell. The black-market art world is volatile and dangerous. In many cases, the artwork becomes bargaining collateral rather than a cash windfall. A Case Still Waiting for Closure More than 30 years later, the Gardner Museum still displays empty frames where the paintings once hung. Kelly remains committed to the idea that public awareness may eventually generate new leads.  The Gardner heist stands as both a cultural tragedy and a criminal mystery—one that continues to intersect with organized crime, violence, and international intrigue. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [0:00] Hey, you guys, Gary Jenkins back here in studio Gangland Wire. Y’all know me. I’m a retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective and now podcaster and documentary filmmaker. I have in the studio today… Jeff Kelly, he’s a now-retired FBI agent. He was an expert in recovering stolen artifacts and art pieces. He was involved. He wasn’t involved in the original theft of the Boston art theft, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but he ended up inheriting that case. So welcome, Jeff. Hi. Thanks, Gary. Nice to be here. And guys, I need to mention this right off the bat. Jeff has a book, 13 Perfect Fugitives, The True Story of the Mob, Murder, and the World’s Largest Art Heist. Be out on Amazon. I’ll have links down below in the show notes if you want to get that book. I think it would be pretty interesting. I was telling Jeff, I just interviewed Joe Ford, the million-dollar detective, the guy that goes after classic cars, and I read that book. I love these kind of caper kind of books and caper crimes. Those are the ones I like the best is the caper crimes. And Jeff is an expert at working caper crimes. And that’s what these are, capers. So Jeff, how did you get into this? Now you came on the FBI. You were a policeman before, I believe. So tell the guys a little bit about yourself and your FBI career. Yeah, I started out with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police in New York City. It was a transit cop. I did that for three years. And then I got into the FBI in October of 95. [1:30] And my goal was always, I wanted to work violent crime. That’s what drew me to law enforcement in the first place, working bank robberies and kidnappings and fugitives. I had to do my five years on working economic crime, telemarketing fraud. It was interesting, but not all that exciting. And finally in 2000, I got my transfer to the violent crime squad. And I loved working it. And I did it for my entire career from then on, right up until my retirement in 2024. But back then, art theft was considered a major theft violation, [2:01] and it was worked by the Violent Crime Squad. And so in 2002… My supervisor dumped this old moribund cold case in my lap. It was the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. [2:15] Nobody wanted it on the squad, so they figured, let’s give it to the new guy. I was ecstatic to get it because I’d heard about it. I went to school in Boston. I went to Boston University and graduated the year before it happened, but I knew about it. [2:28] That’s how I started working this case, this particular case, and then the following year during the U.S., there was a, the U.S. And coalition forces invaded Baghdad in Iraq. And during a 36-hour period, more than 15,000 objects of very, very important cultural history were looted from the National Museum of Iraq. And it’s really one of the most important museums in the world in terms of our shared history. Kind of the cradle of civilization over there in the Tigers and Euphrates River. Yeah, and that was the time when the FBI kind of belatedly realized that there was no art crime team to investigate this. And of course, FBI agents have been working art theft like any other property crime since the beginning of the FBI’s existence, but there was no codified team. So they did a canvas for the team in 2004 and I applied for it because at this point I’d been working the Gardner case for a couple of years and really was fascinated by it and made the team. And so then over the next 20 years, we continued to expand the team both in size and in scope and in our intelligence base and knowledge base. And when I left the Bureau in 2024, it was and still is a tremendous team with a lot of very dedicated and professional agents and professional support. [3:51] Now, guys, if you don’t know about the Isabella Stewart Gardner case, there was a Netflix documentary on it a few years ago. It was an art museum in Boston. [4:01] Two guys showed up. They had Boston police uniforms on, and they got in. They basically, it was an armed robbery, and they took control of the museum. The guards were in there late at night and took these really valuable paintings out. I believe you told me earlier they were Remington paintings. We’ll get into that. And it was a violent crime. It was an armed robbery of paintings, and you told me about other armed robberies of paintings. I think you got into some other armed robberies of paintings. You always think of, as you mentioned before, the Thomas Crown Affair character that goes out and does these sophisticated art thefts. That’s not always true, is it? It’s never that way, but it doesn’t matter. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story. Everybody wants to believe that art thefts are pulled off by the Thomas Crown Affairs and these gentlemen thieves repel in through skylights and do all that fancy stuff, put it in their underground lair. That’s just not the way it works. But if you look to art theft. [4:55] Massachusetts really is a cradle of art theft in this country, and it’s very unique. The first armed robbery of a museum occurred in Boston in 1972. It was committed by a guy named Al Monday, who was a prolific art thief. And they stole four pieces from the Worcester Art Museum in central Massachusetts with a gun. They ended up shooting the guard. And one of the pieces that they stole was a Rembrandt called St. Bartholomew. [5:26] And in keeping with the milieu of true art thieves, the paintings were stored on a pig farm just over the state line in Rhode Island. And when this Connecticut safecracker by the name of Chucky Carlo, who was looking at some serious time in prison for some of the crimes that he committed, when he found out that Al Monday had these paintings, he just simply kidnapped Al Monday and stuck a gun in his ribs and said he would kill him if he didn’t give him the paintings. which is no honor among thieves. And Al turned over the paintings, Chucky returned them, and he got a very significant break on his pending jail sentence. Right here in 1972, Boston thieves see Rembrandt as a valuable get-out-of-jail-free card. [6:09] And then if we jump forward three years to 1975, there was a very skilled art thief, really a master thief by the name of Miles Conner. I interviewed Miles for my book. It was very gracious of him to sit down with me for it. And he had robbed or committed a burglary of the Woolworth estate up in Maine, the family, the five and dime family magnets. And he got caught for it because he tried to sell those paintings to an undercover FBI agent. And so he was looking at 12 years in prison for it. And he was out on bail. And he reached out to a family friend who was a state trooper. And he asked him, how can I get away with this one? How can I get out of this? Because he was in serious trouble. The trooper’s response was meant to be hyperbolic. The trooper said, Miles, it’s going to take you a Rembrandt to get out of this one. [6:57] And so Miles said, okay, I’ll go get a Rembrandt. And he got a crew together and they did a daylight smash and grab at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, just across the street from the Gardner. And they stole Rembrandt, the girl in a gold-trimmed cloak. [7:12] And he was able to return that painting. Instead of doing 12 years, he did 28 months. And he even managed to, he told me he even managed to get the $10,000 reward in the process. So you have this atmosphere in Massachusetts that Rembrandts are a valuable commodity, right? They can help you out in a jam. And so I think it’s no coincidence that in 1990, when the Gardner Museum heist came down, the Gardner Museum had this array of motion sensors all throughout the museum. It would alert to wherever you went, every gallery, hallway, whatever. [7:49] And we know from these motion sensors that after, as you said, the two guys went in disguised as cops and bluffed their way into the museum, they made a beeline for the Dutch room, which is the room of all things Rembrandt. They stole three Rembrandts. They stole a fourth piece called Landscape with an Obelisk, which was actually by Govard Flink, but it had been misattributed to Rembrandt until the mid 80s. And then they took a large Rembrandt oil-on-panel off the wall and it was recovered the next morning leaning against a piece of furniture. We believe they just overlooked it in the dark. So out of the 13 pieces taken, three were Rembrandt, a fourth was misattributed to Rembrandt, and there was going to be a 14th piece taken, which was also Rembrandt. It definitely falls into that theory that this was going to be a hold-on to these pieces for a while and see if you can use them for a break. [8:48] Interesting. Now, back in the 70s, for example, when somebody would work in an art robbery like that or an art theft, you got your tried and true ways of working a crime. You got to have sources, you got to have witnesses, and hopefully you can get a crime like this. You can get a source that says, hey, this guy, we had a guy in Kansas City that he was a fence for these kinds of guys. He had an antique auction and he took all this stuff and got it somewhere else. So at the time, just use your regular police methods. And what changed over the years as you’ve done this? Yeah, certainly we’ve become much more sophisticated with the techniques that we use. But at the end of the day, it’s always still going to be intelligence. But I found from working my entire career in violent crime, virtually my whole career in violent crime, the sources are crucial. Having a good informant can make and break a case. And working art theft investigations, you’re certainly going to have the same types of fences of informants, fences for stolen property and what they’re hearing about what organized crime guys are doing and what drug guys are doing. But it also opened up a whole new avenue of sources for me as working in art investigations, because now you’ve got pawn shops and gallery owners and auction houses, and they’re in a position to know when not only when stolen artwork is coming in, but also fakes and forgeries. We spoke about this, that. [10:16] Somebody comes in with one valuable piece that would be very difficult for somebody in his or her position to come across one piece like this, let alone a dozen of them. That really points to probably a fake. And so that’s really the key to solving these things is just having a good intelligence base who’s going to let us know about when something comes up that’s either stolen or it’s been forged. [10:43] Brings up a question. In my mind, did you ever work a gallery owner or a gallery [10:48] that then would filter in, knowingly filter in some fakes every once in a while? They couldn’t do it 100% of the time, but you could certainly make some extra money by filtering fakes out of it because many people would get it and they’d never know. Nobody would ever know. Listen, it is a really difficult thing when you’re working these types of crimes because unlike bank robber, you go into a bank and you stick them up with a gun and take them on. It’s not up to the government to be able to prove at trial that you knew that the bank was insured by the FDIC. You went in and you robbed it, you committed the offense. When you’re talking about interstate transportation of stolen property or possession of stolen property, there are what’s called specific intent crimes, meaning you have to prove the element of knowledge. You have to be able to prove that the person knew that that item was stolen. Not that it said it was stolen. and you had to show that they knew it. And that’s a really high hurdle to overcome. And typically what we do to try and prove that specific intent is we’re going to go through. [11:53] Recorded statements made to a source or to an undercover or emails or texts or something that we can show that this person knew that item was stolen. And so we would see that a lot in auction houses and galleries. There’s a lot of willful blindness where a lot of gallery owners and auction houses, they’re going to look the other way because it’s too lucrative to pass up. And in fact, in 2015, the art crime team, once we received information that ISIL or ISIS was using looted cultural property from Syria and Iraq as a form, a viable form of terrorism financing. And we put auction houses and gallery owners on notice in 2015, and we basically told them that if you’re selling objects of cultural patrimony or cultural heritage with a dubious provenance, like a wink and a nod, you may be unwittingly or wittingly funding terrorism. While we never charged anybody with it, hopefully it was an eye-opener that when you’re getting into this world, it’s not a victimless crime. There are very real victims involved. [13:07] And that’s one of the things that really is interesting about working our crime investigations. And I used to get ribbed by my friends who were not on the art crime team about [13:18] where like the wine and cheese squad were raised and everything. But our subjects are far from it. We’re dealing with organized crime, gangs, terrorists. This is no joke. These are serious individuals and the stakes are high. And in the Gardner case, three or four people that we believe were involved in the heist were murdered a year after the Gardner case crime occurred. Yeah, I was just going to go back to that a little bit, as we said before, a little bit like the Lufthansa case. All of a sudden, everybody that was involved in the theft. Started dropping like flies. So tell the guys about that. That is really interesting. [14:00] Yeah. So the two individuals that we believe went into the museum dressed as cops, just a week shy of the one-year anniversary, one of the guys was found dead in his apartment of an acute overdose of cocaine, intravenous. And his family admitted that he used Coke, but they said he was terrified of needles. He was scared of needles. So it really looked to be like a hotshot, an intentional overdose of cocaine. Two weeks later, the other guy who we believe went into the museum with him, his wife reported him missing. And a couple of weeks later, his bullet riddled body was recovered in the trunk of his car out by Logan Airport in East Boston. There was another member of that crew. These were all part of the same crew. This Carmelo Merlino, who was a Boston mobster, had an auto shop down in the Dorchester section of Boston. Another member of his crew, a guy named Bobby, six weeks after the heist, he brought in, he visited a jeweler in the downtown crossing jewelry district in Boston. He came in with this object and he unwrapped it. It was an eagle. [15:03] It was the finial from the Napoleonic flag that was stolen in the Gardner heist. And he asked the jeweler, how much is this thing worth? And the jeweler looked at it and he said, it’s worth nothing. Because he immediately recognized it as one of the people that had been stolen six weeks earlier from the Gardner heist. And then a few months later, Bobby was stabbed to death and nearly decapitated on the front porch of his house. And the responding police saw that his house had been broken into and ransacked like his killers had been looking for something. There was a fourth guy, Jimmy, who bragged to his girlfriend a few months after the heist that he had a couple of pieces from the Gardner Museum hidden in his attic. [15:47] And in February of 1990, 11 months after the heist, he was executed on his front porch in what the local police called a mob hit. So, yeah, these are the types of crimes that have a tendency to have a chilling effect on anybody who harbors any aspirations to come forward with information. Yeah, and we talked earlier a little bit about, like, the crime itself, and the statute of limitations is up on that, what you said, and the crime itself, but how we talked a little bit and explained to them about how this could be part of a RICO case. And you’ve got the murders and you’ve got the actual theft and whatever they did with the paintings, then maybe you could get over after a Bob boss as a Rico case. Tell the guys a little bit about doing that. Yeah. [16:32] I’ve heard it so many times in more than two decades that I worked the case and people would say, geez, why don’t people come forward? They’re just paintings. There are so many times they’re just paintings. They’re like, yeah, they are, but there’s two things about that. Number one, there’s some dead bodies on these paintings, three or four, and that there’s no statute of limitations for murder. And so if you implicate yourself in the theft or you implicate yourself in possessing or transporting these paintings at any time, the fear is that you’re then implicating yourself in a homicide. And the other aspect of this, which I think has a chilling effect, is the fact that transportation of stolen property is one of the predicate acts for RICO, racketeering influence corrupt organization case. And RICO is basically, Gary, is basically an entire organization is corrupt. Yeah. There’s no legitimate purpose. It’s what we think about the mob and the [17:27] FBI has taken down the mob in the past. So if you implicate yourself in stolen property and you’re part of organized crime, that’s one of the predicate acts for a RICO. And that’s basically life sentences. And so one of my goals in the years and years that I worked in this case was to try and convince people that you could come forward with information and the U S attorney’s offices, whether it’s up in Boston or new Haven or Philadelphia. [17:58] Would be willing to figure out a way to get the paintings back with immunity from prosecution for a RICO case. Look, that’s a high hurdle. That’s a high hurdle to convince somebody that if you come forward, you’re not going to get charged and you’re eligible for millions of dollars in reward. That’s a tough bill to swallow, but it’s the truth. I’m retired from the FBI now. I can tell you that it was, it’s a, it was, and still is a bona fide offer. And that’s one of the goals that I’ve always tried to impress on anyone is the opportunity to become a millionaire without going to jail. There you go, Jeff. Can you, now you’re not with the Bureau anymore. Can you go out, if you could go out and find them and bring them in, could you collect that reward? I would certainly hope so. [18:48] I can’t tell you how many of my friends thought that I had some of these paintings stashed in my basement. Waiting for retirement to go turn them in the next day. I think half the guys I worked with were expecting to see me pull into the parking lot of the FBI. [19:01] Big package, but no. But yeah, I suppose I could. By this point, I can tell you the amount of my very being that I put into this case over two days. Yeah. I just would love to see these paintings go back just because they need to be back at the museum. That’s where they belong. Now, these crimes, they seem, You said there’s a lot of murders attached to this. They seem a little boring. Did you have any exciting moments trying to pop anybody or do any surveillances? I know we did a big surveillance of a bunch of junkies that were going around stealing from small museums around the Midwest. And we follow them here in Kansas City. And they would have been pretty exciting had we had a confrontation with them. Did you have any exciting moments in this? It actually was a fascinating case. And for the first, there’s the really boring aspects of this job and tedious aspects. And I would say that in my, two decades working this case, I probably did, I don’t know, 50, 60, 70 consent searches, searching in attics and basements and crawling through crawl spaces and just getting sweaty and covered in cobwebs. But the break in the case for me came in 2009 when one of the guys who was part of Merlino’s crew who was deceased, his niece came forward to me and told me that the paintings. Some of them had been hidden up in this guy’s hide at his house up in Maine. I went up to Maine with Anthony Amore, who’s the director of security for the Gardner Museum. We worked on this case together for years. [20:29] And then we found that hide. And then we interviewed, right from there, we went and interviewed Guarenti. That’s the guy, Bobby Guarenti. We interviewed his widow and she broke down and admitted that he once showed her the paintings and she gave them to a guy down in Connecticut. And we identified that guy and we interviewed him. My name is Bobby Gentile. He’s a made member of the Philly Mob. He got straightened out with his crew back in the late 90s. [20:54] And he refused to cooperate. And then that’s where we really just started getting, using a lot of ingenuity to try and break it. And an agent down in the New Haven office, a guy by the name of Jamie Lawton, he joined our team and we started working this case. And he had a source who knew Gentile, Bobby Gentile, and the source started buying drugs from Gentile. Ah, there we go. We ended up arresting Gentile and we did a search warrant at his house. And it was crazy. Like we recovered, I want to say seven handguns, loaded handguns lying all over the place. He had a pump action shotgun hanging by the front door. He had high explosives. We had to evacuate the house and call him the bomb squad. But the interesting thing was he had the March 19th, 1990 edition of the Boston Herald with headlines about the Gardner heist and tucked inside that newspaper was a handwritten list of all the stolen items. With what looked like their black market values. This is in the house of a guy who swore up and down that he’d never heard of the Gardner Museum. And we were able to figure out who wrote the list. It was written by none other than Al Monday, who’s the guy that did the first armed robbery of a museum, of a Rembrandt. And we interviewed him and he told us that he wrote that list for Bobby Gentile and his buddy up in Maine, Bobby Garanti, because they had a buyer for the paintings and they wanted to know what they were worth. [22:24] So yeah, and then Gentile took 30 months. [22:28] He wouldn’t cooperate. And while he was incarcerated, we turned two of his closest friends to becoming sources. And so when he got out of prison in February or April of 2014, they started talking to him and talked about the gardener and they said they might know somebody who’d want to buy him. That’s how we then introduced an undercover agent. Gentile was introduced to Tony, this undercover FBI agent. Over six months, they had long talks about selling the paintings. Unfortunately, before Gentile would sell the paintings, he wanted to do a drug deal first, which we couldn’t allow to happen. We can’t let drugs walk on the street. So we had to take it down. And although we’d seized all these guns from Gentile back in 2012, he told the sources the FBI didn’t get all of his guns. Because of that disturbing comment, one of the sources asked Gentile if he could buy a gun for him. And Gentile sold him a loaded 38. So we arrested him again. And he still refused to cooperate. I don’t respect what he did for a living or a lot of the things that he did, but you do have to respect his adherence to his values. However, misguided they may have been, he took the code of omerta, the code of silence to heart, and he took it to his grave. He died, I think, in 2021 after going to prison a second time. [23:50] While we never got any paintings back, it was a tremendous ride, and I’m confident they will come back. It’s just going to be a question of when. Yeah, that kind of brings up the question that you hear people speculate. Did you ever run across this? Is there actually any rich old guys or an Arab sheik or somebody that buys stuff like this and then really keeps it and never shows it to anybody? Does that unicorn really exist? everybody wants that to be true i know virtually it’s not yeah there’s there’s never been a case of some wealthy what we call the doctor no theory some some reclusive billionaire with his underground lair filled with all the illicit stolen treasures of the world yeah that’s it’s never happened yeah i guess you never say never but but no look the majority statistically about three-quarters of everyone that collects art in this country does it for, and I assume it’s probably worldwide, does it for the investment potential. There’s a lot of money to be made in collecting art. It rarely, if ever, drops in value. So that’s why people collect art. If there’s somebody who has a particular piece that they want so badly that they’re going to commission its theft, it’s more the stuff of Hollywood. It could happen, but we’ve never seen that happen yet. Interesting. [25:14] We did have one case here where we had a medical doctor and he had it on the wall of his house. And it was, I believe it was a Western artist named Remington that these junkies stole out of Omaha. But it was such a minor piece that he could show it to anybody and they wouldn’t. They would say, oh, that’s cool. You got a Remington. [25:30] There’s plenty of those around. And he could afford a real deal Remington anyhow. So it wasn’t that big a deal. And that’s really what it comes down to is that art, high-end art does get stolen. It gets stolen quite often. The art market is about $60 billion, and the FBI, we estimated about $6 to $8 billion of that is illicit, whether it’s theft or fakes and forgeries. It’s a tremendous market, but it’s mostly second and third tier items. [26:02] Really valuable, well-known pieces. They do get stolen, but that’s the easy part. The easy part is stealing it. The hard part is monetizing it. That’s why you very rarely see recidivism among art thieves, high-end art thieves, because you do it once, and now you’re stuck with the thing. It’s easier to steal something else. You got to go out and boost fur coats and stuff to make a living. Exactly. Do a jewelry store robbery down there and make a living. And that’s exactly the point. That’s why you’re seeing a sea change in terms of art thefts, museum thefts. The Louvre was a great example of that. Dresden green vault robbery where 100 million euros in gems were stolen back in 2019 yeah. [26:45] Gems and jewelry, it can be broken down. It’s going to greatly diminish their value, but you can recut a gem. You can melt down the setting. You can monetize it for a greatly diminished value, but at least you can monetize it. You can’t cut up a Rembrandt into smaller pieces. [27:02] It’s only valuable as a whole complete piece. Yeah. I’m just thinking about that. We got a couple of guys, Jerry Scalise and Art Rachel in Chicago, flew to London, robbed a really valuable piece, the Lady Churchill’s diamond or something, I don’t remember, but really valuable piece and mailed it to somebody on their way to the airport and then got caught when they got back to Chicago and brought back to London and did 14 years in England and they never gave up that piece and nobody could, it never appeared anywhere, but it was just cut up and they didn’t make hardly any money off of it. Yeah. Look, there’s a, there’s much more profitable ways to. Yeah. To make an illicit living than stealing high-end artwork, but it does still get stolen. And that’s one of the cruel ironies when you’re talking about art theft is if somebody has a $20,000 piece of jewelry or a very expensive watch, they’re most likely going to lock it up in a safe in their bedroom or something. But you have a $10 million piece of artwork, you probably got it on the mantle. You’ve got it over the fireplace or in the front foyer of your house and probably doesn’t have a passive alarm system protecting it or security screws to keep it from being taken off the wall because people want to show it off. Yeah. It’s way too enticing. [28:24] Really? So, yes, you need to keep the word out there and keep this in people’s minds. And I’m sure the museum tries to do this in some ways in order, hopefully, that maybe somebody will say, oh. Yeah. [28:38] I think I saw that somewhere in this news program or on this podcast. [28:42] I’ll put some pictures on the podcast when I end up editing this. No, please do, Kerry. And that’s the thing. That’s the basis for the title of my book is it really is a fugitive investigation. And that’s how I work this case is fugitives and perfect fugitives because they’re not like their human counterparts. They’re not going to get tripped up on the silly things that we need to do as human beings, getting a driver’s license or whatnot. Yeah. [29:09] And so that’s how I worked the case. The FBI was really, I was always impressed with the FBI’s support that they gave me on this investigation. We did billboard campaigns and social media and a lot of things to get these images out there to the public, hoping it might resonate with somebody. And that’s really my goal for this book. I felt it should be written. I felt it’s an important case. Certainly, it’s something that I wanted to write about. It’s something that’s very important to me. [29:42] But it’s yet another attempt to apprehend these fugitives. And I’m hopeful that somebody, it might resonate with somebody. Somebody’s going to see something. And there’s so much disinformation and misinformation that’s out there in the media about this case. People are endlessly, all these armchair detectives, and I don’t say it in a deprecating way. Good for them. Work as hard as you can. But if you want to work this case from your armchair, great. but you should be going off accurate information because there’s a lot of bad information that’s out there on the internet. And if you want to help out, if you want to collect that $10 million reward, great, but you should be going off the most accurate factual information that’s available. Yeah. And you probably ought to go down to the deep seamy underbelly of Philadelphia or Boston or somewhere and get involved with a mob and then work your way up and make different cocaine deals and everything. And eventually you might be trusted enough that some might say, oh yeah, I’ve got those in this basement. I would suggest there’s better hobbies. [30:47] That could be hazardous to your health. I wouldn’t recommend it. Yes, it could. All right. Jeffrey Kelly, the book is 13 Perfect Tuesdays. Those are the paintings that were stolen that you’ll see on the podcast on the YouTube channel. The true story of the mob, murder, and the world’s largest art heist. Jeffrey, thanks so much for coming on to tell us about this. Thanks, Gary. Thanks for having me.

Wired on Wall Street: The Rise and Fall of Tipper X, One of the FBI’s Most Prolific Informants by Tom Hardin Tipperx.com https://www.amazon.com/Wired-Wall-Street-Prolific-Informants/dp/1394348878 Thrilling tell-all of a prolific informant in the FBI's largest insider trading investigation of a generation Part financial crime thriller, part personal transformation story, and part redemption memoir, Wired on Wall Street: The Rise and Fall of Tipper X, One of the FBI's Most Prolific Informants tells the riveting true story of Tom Hardin, a young hedge fund analyst turned FBI informant. Known as “Tipper X,” Tom wore a covert wire over 40 times, helping the FBI build more than 20 of the 80+ cases in Operation Perfect Hedge, the largest insider trading investigation in a generation. As the youngest professional caught in the sting, Tom navigated the psychological toll of betrayal, secrecy, and public disgrace. What followed was a powerful journey through shame, fatherhood, and ultimately, personal transformation. In this gripping memoir, readers will explore: Tom's shocking first encounter with the FBI, when agents revealed chilling knowledge of his most private personal details Tom's high stakes game of psychological chess―wearing a wire for years including terrifying close calls Tom's redemptive journey from public disgrace to resilience, fatherhood, and rebuilding trust with his wife, whose love held strong when most marriages collapse Wired on Wall Street: The Rise and Fall of Tipper X, One of the FBI's Most Prolific Informants is a thrilling, entertaining read for anyone drawn to financial crime investigations, ethical dilemmas, and the possibility of personal growth even after deliberate choices that carry lasting consequences. About the author Tom Hardin helps organizations identify and close the blind spots that quietly push good people toward bad decisions. As founder of Tipper X Advisors, he partners with Fortune Global 500 companies, boards of directors, financial institutions, law firms, business schools and leadership teams to deliver keynotes, tailored workshops, interactive courses and advisory engagements on behavioral ethics, culture risk and organizational conduct. Beyond his corporate work, Tom volunteers with organizations that support justice-impacted individuals in rebuilding their lives and careers and he is active in his local church. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and two teenage daughters and stays grounded through running, boxing and community involvement.

Gnostic Informant on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCtdweFMJ5DGj7_q5IcpQhPQNeal and I do a deep dive into the origins of the term "demon"/"demonic". What was the original meaning of the term "daimones" in Ancient Greece? How does the understanding of the term change, from the Hellenic to the Hellenistic to the Christian eras? We also discuss the imagery associated with the demonic, deriving from Pan, and discuss the anecdote from the ancient world, from which we get the phrase, "the Great God Pan is dead!"

Kwame Christian and Tom Hardin (Tipper X) explore why ethical breakdowns happen before anyone can see them—inside private rationalizations. Tom explains how to reduce risk by addressing the Fraud Triangle and creating a culture where people feel safe surfacing pressure, uncertainty, and gray-area requests. Negotiate Anything:Take your personal data back with Incogni! Use code ANYTHING at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan:⁠⁠⁠⁠https://incogni.com/anything⁠⁠⁠⁠ incogni.com ⁠⁠⁠Personal Information Removal Service | Incogni | Incogni⁠⁠⁠ Data brokers are collecting, aggregating and trading your personal data without you knowing anything about it. We make them remove it. Connect with Tipper X tipperx.com Order the book: Wired on Wall Street: The Rise and Fall of Tipper X, One of the FBI's Most Prolific Informants by Tipper X Contact ANI ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Request A Customized Workshop For Your Company⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Kwame Christian on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠negotiateanything.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to buy your copy of Finding Confidence in Conflict: How to Negotiate Anything and Live Your Best Life!

Tom Hardin, also known as Tipper X, was a rising Wall Street analyst when he traded on a few insider tips leading to the FBI knocking on his door. He decided to cooperate with the FBI, and became a key informant in Operation Perfect Hedge, the largest insider-trading investigation in U.S. history. He is also the author of the book, Wired on Wall Street. In this episode we discuss the following: Tom's experience reads like a case study in an ethics textbook. Tom felt like he was on the outside looking in. So when given an insider tip, he traded on it. When Tom's boss looked the other way, while simultaneously applying pressure, Tom started rationalizing his behavior. After all, he was trying to be a good dad and husband, which made him feel like he had moral credits to spend on illegal trades. Once caught by the FBI, Tom turned his scars into service, contributing to an investigation that resulted in dozens of guilty pleas. Our ethical failures rarely come out of the blue, rather they are the predictable result of surrounding ourselves with the wrong people and making seemingly small ethical compromises.  

40 years inside the Hells Angels. Federal murder conspiracy charges. Bombings, informants, and a courtroom showdown with the U.S. government. In this raw, unfiltered interview, longtime Ventura Hells Angels leader George Christie tells the inside story of outlaw biker life — from the brotherhood and early motorcycle culture to violent club wars, federal investigations, and the high-stakes legal battles that nearly destroyed his life. He reveals what it was really like to: • Rise through the ranks of a legendary 1% motorcycle club • Survive assassination attempts and clubhouse bombings • Face multiple federal prosecutions — and beat them • Navigate informants, undercover operations, and government pressure • Witness the evolution of biker culture from brotherhood to organized crime conflicts This is a rare, firsthand account of one of America's most controversial subcultures — told by someone who lived it for decades. Go Support George! Website: https://www.georgechristie.com/ IG: https://www.instagram.com/georgechristiejr/ YouTube:  @GeorgeGusChristie  Join The Patreon For Bonus Content! https://www.patreon.com/theconnectshow 00:00 Meet George Christie: Outlaw Legend 02:00 Early Days & Biker Culture Origins 06:00 Joining the Hell's Angels 10:00 Brotherhood, Bikes, and Old School Rules 14:00 Outlaw Clubs: From Bonding to Violence 21:00 Criminal Elements & Club Evolution 26:00 Club Wars, Prison, and Peace Efforts 33:00 Bombings, Feds, and Surviving the System 38:00 Government Tactics and Lawfare 45:00 Murder Conspiracy Case and Beating the Feds 55:00 Life After the Big Trial 01:03:00 Entrepreneurship, Fame, and More Heat 01:09:00 Running Ventura & The Power of Reputation 01:13:00 Dealing with Informants and Police 01:19:00 Courtroom Battles, Sons of Anarchy, and Pop Culture 01:29:00 Club Exit, Reflections & Writing the Story 01:34:00 Modern Times, Legacy & Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A fun, energetic exchange with GI on the Crucible on a wide range of topics. Be sure and follow Crucible here: Send Superchats at any time here: https://streamlabs.com/jaydyer/tip Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnt7Iy8GlmdPwy_Tzyx93bA/join Order New Book Available here: https://jaysanalysis.com/product/esoteric-hollywood-3-sex-cults-apocalypse-in-films/ Get started with Bitcoin here: https://www.swanbitcoin.com/jaydyer/ The New Philosophy Course is here: https://marketplace.autonomyagora.com/philosophy101 Set up recurring Choq subscription with the discount code JAY60LIFE for 60% off now https://choq.com Subscribe to my site here: https://jaysanalysis.com/membership-account/membership-levels/ Follow me on R0kfin here: https://rokfin.com/jaydyer Music by Dr Evo the Producer, Jay Dyer and Amid the Ruins 1453 https://www.youtube.com/@amidtheruinsOVERHAULBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jay-sanalysis--1423846/support.

On July 4th, 2003 Ashley Laney walked down the aisle to become mrs. Ashley Humphrey. The very next day, she would become a killer. What started as a romance at a Florida gym spiraled into a shocking display of stalking and jealousy when her new husband's ex-wife, Sandee Rozzo became targeted in a plot of murder.Timestamps03:44 The Case of Sandee Rozzo12:25 Captivity and Assault17:56 A Night of Celebration20:12 The Discovery of a Crime31:14 The New Wife 41:26 Building the Case51:46 The Informant 1:08:56 Ashley's First Attempt1:21:45 The Trial and Sentencing#unspeakable #podcast #Ashleyhumphrey #sandrarozzo #crime #truecrime #florida  

Brian Watson spent over 20 years as a special agent in the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. In this episode, he explains how he got into the IRS, what the job is really like, and how criminal tax evasion cases are built from start to finish. Brian breaks down common myths about the IRS, how payroll tax cases work, what restitution actually means for defendants, and how investigations move from audits to criminal charges. This conversation offers a rare inside look at IRS criminal enforcement from someone who spent decades inside the system. _____________________________________________ #IRS #TrueCrime #GovernmentSecrets #Whistleblower #InsideTheSystem #RealStories #LockedIn #podcast _____________________________________________ Thank you to PRIZEPICKS for sponsoring this episode: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/IANBICK and use code IANBICK and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! _____________________________________________ Connect with Brian Watson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-watson-625532179 _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 How Major Tax Evasion Gets Flagged 00:57 Inside the IRS Criminal Investigation Division 02:57 What IRS Special Agents Actually Do 06:36 An Unlikely Path to Becoming an IRS Agent 12:13 IRS Special Agent Training & Academy Life 16:13 The Reality of Criminal Tax Cases 20:21 How Tax Evasion Cases Really Begin 23:43 Following the Money: Real Case Examples 29:09 Technology, Digital Payments & Modern Crime 31:58 Cash Businesses, Informants & Undercover Work 34:50 Money Laundering Explained Simply 36:33 Crypto, Digital Payments & Financial Trails 39:52 Building & Organizing Financial Crime Cases 43:00 Managing Multiple Investigations at Once 45:44 Payroll Fraud, Cash Wages & Tax Violations 49:47 The $10,000 Rule, Banks & Structuring Crimes 53:38 Casinos, Reporting Requirements & Paper Trails 56:17 Working Joint Cases With Other Federal Agencies 01:00:34 Celebrity Cases, Media Pressure & Reality 01:04:17 Financial Damage & Empathy for Defendants 01:07:39 Asset Seizures, Restitution & What Rarely Gets Recovered 01:10:12 Preventing Internal IRS Fraud & Embezzlement 01:15:04 When Managers or Accountants Commit Tax Crimes 01:18:48 IRS Myths vs. the Human Side of Investigations 01:21:51 Do the Wealthy Actually Pay Their Taxes? 01:24:13 State Tax Agencies & Federal Coordination 01:25:04 Reflections on the Criminal Justice System 01:29:00 Biggest Lessons & Advice for Students 01:31:13 Final Thoughts & Closing Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Murph continues his gripping conversation with Seamus McElearney, a former FBI Special Agent fighting organized crime from the inside. This episode dives deeper into the deadliest phase of mob investigations: informants, witness protection, betrayal, and survival.Seamus pulls back the curtain on the real-world Mafia behind The Sopranos, revealing how the DeCavalcante crime family—the so-called “Sixth Family”—operated in plain sight while federal agents worked tirelessly to dismantle it. He explains why flipping a capo is never as simple as it sounds, how trust becomes a weapon, and why one wrong move can get people killed.

In this episode, we unpack the latest revelations surrounding the controversial Arctic Frost investigation, where the special counsel's office approved a $20,000 payment to an FBI informant providing information on Donald Trump and his supporters. John Solomon discusses the implications of this payment, raising questions about the potential weaponization of the FBI and the civil liberties of American citizens.Joining the conversation is Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, who shares significant updates on the VA's progress in reducing the backlog of delayed benefits by 60% and expanding services for veterans. Collins highlights the opening of 20 new regional centers and the increase in veteran appointments, emphasizing the commitment to better serve those who have served our country.In the second segment, investigative reporter Mike Howell, now leading the Oversight Project, provides insights into strategies for addressing illegal immigration and discusses how President Trump can enhance efforts to remove undocumented individuals from the country.Finally, we shift gears to focus on health and wellness, featuring our friends at Pure Health as they explore new trends and natural products in the health sector. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.