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Albert Spaghetti
449 Plays2 years ago
Fasten your seatbelts and put on your cheekiest grin as we dive into the scandalously amusing life of Albert Spaggiari, the cunning French #bankrobber who slipped through the fingers of the law like a well-oiled baguette. Grab some cheese and a croissant and holy shit, I must be hungry.
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Transcript
Introduction and Icebreaker
00:00:00
Speaker
Because you go on the website and it tells you that you can only wire transfer from your Fidelity account to your bank, right? Oh, God. I hope this episode isn't this boring. It's about my tax. If I don't get the money in the 401K. It's still boring. Shut up, Greg. History defeats itself as a comedy podcast. Kevin, John, and Greg are not experts, historians, or even all that smart.
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome to History Defeats Itself. My name is Kevin Rosenquist. Thank you for joining us. History Defeats Itself is a comedy podcast that wonders why do we never learn from our history? Why, why, why? I don't know if that was a good sentence or not. I don't have my notes in front of me. Anyway, only one of us knows the topic. The other two are left in the dark, right along with you. I think I already said my name. My name is Kevin Rosenquist. I am joined by two people who were completely snubbed
00:01:02
Speaker
for their best supporting actor, Oscar, John and Greg. I know. Good to see you guys. Aw, good to see you. For context, I guess the Academy were drawn last night, and unfortunately, Will Smith didn't smack Chris Rock.
Cocaine Bear and Oscar Humor
00:01:17
Speaker
There was no violence of any kind. We don't know that. It wasn't on camera. I didn't see the clip, but I did see that Cocaine Bear made an appearance, and Sheena and I saw that yesterday. How disappointed were you? It's fantastic.
00:01:32
Speaker
You thought it was fantastic. You didn't like it? Interesting. I thought it was awesome. Didn't Elizabeth Banks direct that? Yeah, she did. She did. I thought it was awesome. It was so like, it was just, it was very funny. It was very, it just, it, it totally like leaned into what it was. Just being funny and cheesy. That's the thing though. I didn't think, I thought it was like, I thought the first like 25 minutes was funny.
00:01:58
Speaker
And then it wasn't funny. But in fairness, John didn't like There Will Be Blood either. Everybody liked There Will Be Blood. Very similar movies. Yeah, I will say There Will
Daniel Day-Lewis Retirement Rumors
00:02:08
Speaker
Be Blood. Very funny movie. Hilarious. Daniel Day-Lewis, he was a comedic actor. Nobody really realizes that. He also played the bear, right? He did. Well, remember, he's done with acting. But he will as long as he's in bear costume. That was one of his stipulations.
00:02:28
Speaker
Oh, is he done with acting? Yeah. Yeah. He said Phantom Thread was his last movie. I think that was the last one. So he wanted to end on a really bad movie. Yeah. I didn't ever see that one, but I didn't. I love that. I don't want to get too often a change here, but I'd love that director and I love Daniel Day Lewis, but I just had no desire to see that movie.
00:02:44
Speaker
I don't know who that director was and I didn't see the movie. So I'm just making up stuff. I'm just really being mean. It's PT Anderson. Oh, okay. I didn't know he did Phantom Phantom threat. I do like PT Anderson though. Most of his stuff's pretty good. Hard not to. It's definitely, it's definitely out there. Although liquor is pizza. I was like,
00:03:01
Speaker
I didn't see that one either. I saw it. I'm not doing good with movies lately. I did see everything everywhere all at once, which won a lot of Academy Awards last night. Congrats to all. I won seven Academy Awards. I'm planning on seeing that. I didn't see it yet because I figured if it's everything everywhere all at once, it's kind of already around us all the time. So why see it? It won best original screenplay, best editing, best supporting actor male, best supporting actor female.
00:03:30
Speaker
Best actress. And then two others. Best costume. Best picture. That was one of them. Yep. Yep. That one. Best director. Yep. There you go. Cool. All right. Well, I'm glad, hopefully everybody's now caught up on the Oscars, which happened last week when you're listening to this. For information that's no more than two weeks old. And what's the weather like where everybody is? We like to go over that too.
00:03:57
Speaker
Well, there's a atmospheric river coming at you somewhere.
Engagement and Social Media
00:04:03
Speaker
Follow us on TikTok, on Instagram. Remember, all of these episodes are on YouTube as video podcasts as well. And sign up for The Mistorian, our newsletter. It's very funny. By the way, guys, we need to put something together for that for this week.
00:04:18
Speaker
But it'll be funny, I swear. I actually, I started something today that I think is gonna be my best work yet. Oh, that's bold. That's bold. Greg. That's big talk for you, John Banks. A little teaser. It involves pugs. Greg, you got a lot to live up to this week. Yeah. Yeah, I don't care. Does Greg actually contribute anything to it? I've actually never noticed anything that Greg contributes. Does he? Yeah, for some stupid fucking reason, my article's on the bottom. I think we all know why.
00:04:47
Speaker
because I'm a bottom. Yeah. Well, you are doing those giggles. All right. It is my turn this week. We, uh, we did our three part episode, uh, our three part series on cheating. That was great. Loved it guys. Um, all right. So let's get going. My turn.
Unusual Bank Heist Stories
00:05:06
Speaker
I read an article. I said, is this going to be the fourth episode? No, no, no, no, no, no.
00:05:12
Speaker
I read an article last November about a man in Springfield, Missouri named Michael Conley Lloyd who robbed bank and was caught shortly after. He walked into a bank of America. He handed a note to the teller instructing her to hand over all the money in her drawer and stay quiet. He said his partner was outside in case anything went wrong. So she complied.
00:05:33
Speaker
There was no partner outside, but he jumped in the truck he had stolen and sped away. As he fled, he saw cop cars heading toward the bank, and he got freaked out for some reason. So he threw the $754 in cash, his ID, and the note out his window.
00:05:54
Speaker
The note he wrote was written in pink highlighter on the back of his birth certificate.
00:06:15
Speaker
So when he saw the cops heading for the, what did he think was gonna happen? Like he was like, oh my God, they called the cops? What the fuck are you thinking? But that's bizarre. Did he throw it at the cops? Threw it out the window. Of course, they found. Aw. And on top of it all, that's not even the best part. On top of it all, he was wearing a court-appointed ankle monitor from a previous robbery. So he was caught.
00:06:43
Speaker
He's one of these guys that really likes prison food. Yeah, apparently. I'll have to put a picture of him up. It was... You look at his picture, you're not surprised. Is his mother his sister? It's very possible. Especially looking at the picture of him. This made me want to do... Maybe he really likes Shawshank Redemption. Could be. And just wanted to go back to... You either get busy living or you get busy dying. Very good reference. Thank you. Yeah, they could get you stuff.
00:07:14
Speaker
So, this made me want to do something about bank robberies. It seems like this is definitely an area where humanity constantly defeats itself. I found a story that I thought would be fun to chat about and let's go. Research comes from our favorite news source Wikipedia and an article on todayifindout.com by Gilles Messier.
00:07:35
Speaker
Is that right, Greg? G-I-L-L-E-S? That's Gilles, right? Is that Gilles Messier? Yeah. All right. So I did good, right? Everybody knows he used to play for like Quebec Nordique. Okay. Okay.
Albert Spaggiari's Criminal History
00:07:50
Speaker
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. All that checks out. So tonight we're going to talk about Albert... Hey, you want me to knock off John Banks? No, not that. Sorry. That Irishman, they kept on saying, no, not that.
00:08:05
Speaker
Okay, well that's not gonna go in the episode, just so you know. Save the gems for later. No, not that.
00:08:15
Speaker
Loved Pesci in that movie. Oh my god. He was the best part. He's great. Everything. Yeah, he should have gotten I think he should have gotten the best supporting actor over Brad Pitt in one spot in Hollywood I never say that ever. I know say no I didn't it's not a handsomeness award. No great. Oh, I don't care. Yes it is Whatever Brad wants Brad gets and if he wants an Academy Award Did you see Babylon?
00:08:43
Speaker
I have not known why I didn't, and I heard it was terrible. It's supposed to be terrible. I want to see it. But I haven't seen it. I mean, Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt. That'll be fun to look at. Well, they were also in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Oh yeah, I guess you're right. I guess you're right. Okay. Tonight we're going to talk about- Back to Joe Pesci.
00:09:02
Speaker
Tonight we're going to talk about Albert Spaggiari. He was born in France in 1932. At 19, he enlisted as a paratrooper in the First Indochina War. While there, he and a couple buddies put a gun to the head of someone they claimed stole money from them. The military court determined they were actually sticking the guy up and he went to jail for four years.
00:09:27
Speaker
When he was released, he went to North Africa and joined the Secret Armed Organization, also known as the OAS. It was a right wing. Is it just assumed that everybody has arms? What's the secret about that? I thought it was Secret Armed Organization. I mean, is that your organization title? We're pretty much assuming you're armed. And you know what? We could actually be offending people without arms right now, but what the fuck are they gonna do?
00:09:56
Speaker
kick you in the face. They're going to look at their video keyboard and write a strongly worded email to them. I bite you with their toes. They can type with their feet. Yeah. Close. They got to get to you. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah. You ever watch those people with no arms play guitars with their feet? It's awesome. They're handy capable, credible, but it's disgusting too. Good job.
00:10:22
Speaker
Good job. Be playing guitar players. Wait, what's this guy's name? Albert. Albert Spagiati. He's French to the French. He's French, Italian.
00:10:48
Speaker
So he joined the secret armed organization, also known as the OAS. It was a right wing group that wanted to prevent Algerian independence. So it was like a secretly right armed group. Yes, just right arms. He ended up getting charged with political terrorism and went back to jail for three and a half years. He had offered the group to go and assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle.
00:11:18
Speaker
The OAS declined, which is funny because it's like they're like, whoa, you're crazy. They're the secret armed organization, but they thought he was too crazy. It's really about getting together on a Friday night. They just wanted a chance to get away from the family, you know? Play some chess. Rock back a few drinks. Yeah, some Jameson.
00:11:40
Speaker
But he declined for some reason, or I'm sorry, but he decided for some reason to carry out a mock assassination.
00:11:50
Speaker
He got within five meters of de Gaulle with his rifle, but didn't pull the trigger and he was caught and then sent back to prison. Does he get his rifle and he just goes bang, bang, bang, bang? The whole thing is like, I was reading it going, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? A weird thing to do. So for the people in America, Burma, I think was it Lebanon? That would be about 15 feet.
00:12:16
Speaker
Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I did actually make a conversion later, but I forgot to do that one That was really funny John I liked it So after that he moved to Nice in France got married and started working as a photographer He and his wife raised chickens. They were active in the community people thought of him as a good quiet man So he turned his life around, right?
00:12:43
Speaker
No, I don't think he did. I don't think that's where this is going. And that's it, he turned his life around, this is one time history didn't beat itself, have a great night. On October 28th, 1976, Spagieri and his wife were having lunch on the patio of a bar, didn't say. His wife went inside to pay the bill. On her way out, she watched her husband being driven away in a police car.
00:13:11
Speaker
He went through a 48 hour interrogation and remained calm and collected throughout the whole thing. When the authorities threatened to arrest him. Did he get a poop break, you think? I think you gotta give poop breaks. Like some water? I love how they're always nice to you in these interrogations too. Hey, can I get you a pop, maybe a little candy bar? No, there's a good cop, bad cop. That's the good cop. The bad cop comes in and goes, he doesn't need a fucking pop. Look at him. He's like, but I'm never gonna be able to stay away for 48 hours. I need some caffeine.
00:13:41
Speaker
I'll tell you everything you know, Coppa, just give me some coffee. You guys would both be the good cop. There'd be no bad cop. You guys wouldn't get anything done because you'd both just be trying to make him feel the most comfortable he could be. I would be really nice the entire time, but my balls would be out. So that's the bad cop part. That's the bad cop part? Yeah.
00:14:00
Speaker
The good cop is waist up. Bad cop's waist down. No, no, no, no. My balls would be inside my pants. Penis would be out. So it's both waist down, just different body parts. Okay, gotcha. I don't think that either one of those are very appealing. That's why they're going to talk. We're going to get you to talk, see? See? So the authorities- That's why we flunked, John flunked out a police case.
00:14:30
Speaker
Well, and there was no Michael Winslow. I was going to say, you guys, you guys thought the police academy movies were how it was. There was a high tower though. It was not, it was not zany little, you know, it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't frat boy antics. It was just
The Infamous Heist
00:14:44
Speaker
a lot of fucking work. So not fun at all, man. Those were back days where you could look through the, in the orange showers. Hey, what are they doing over there? Oh, what a time.
00:14:58
Speaker
So the authorities arrest the authorities threatened to arrest and interrogate his wife. And then he finally confessed to the crime that he was brought in for, which was the biggest bank heist in French history. Oh, so on Monday morning, July 19th, 1976, France was getting back to work after celebrating the Bastille Day weekend at the as one would do.
00:15:24
Speaker
at the Societe General Bank on Avenue Jean Medicine, something was wrong. It's pronounced John. Thank you, John. Actually, it probably was. Did I say Jean? You said Jean. Jean. Oh, I did Jean? I was saying Jean. You said Jean, right? Jean. Yeah, shut up. Fuck you, John. Okay. So at this bank, something was wrong. They couldn't get their bank vault open.
00:15:52
Speaker
This wasn't the first time this happened. They've had problems with it before, so the staff called the safe manufacturer to come in and take care of it. Did they try getting some WD-40? I don't know if they tried that, but after two hours of work, they couldn't get it open. Did they try the code for the vault? The combination? Yeah. Is that what they're called? One, two, three, four, five. Nope. One, two, three, four, five, six. Nope. Two, three, four, five, six. It's just like the thing from your high school locker.
00:16:20
Speaker
No, it's three times to the right, and then two times back. No, you didn't clear it. You passed it. You passed it. You guys, did anyone notice there's no back to the safe? Oh, God. Can I tell you something that my dumb ass did?
00:16:35
Speaker
Did you rob a bank? I did, yeah. Did you eat John Spaghetti? I went to, like, Courtheat. We have, like, a little shed in the back of our garage, and it's got, like, a latch and a lock. It better. You gotta hide a lot of bad shit in there. Yep.
00:16:52
Speaker
We really, we really do. So I go to get something out of it and then I lock it, but I don't put the latch on. I just put the lock in and lock it. So like anybody could have just walked up and opened it. And I just like went about my day and whatever. And then like the next day I was like, Oh, shit.
00:17:08
Speaker
So, because we had recently, we had like a homeless person come in to the house and steal some stuff. So, it was- Into the house? Yeah, they came in the house. Why did you leave the doors unlocked? Your story's not funny. No, I didn't say it was gonna be funny. Did I say funny? I like the ones where you fall off ladders. Oh, right. Those are better, those are really funny stories. Oh, wait, I got stabbed. Okay, this is getting funnier. This is getting way funnier. In the neck. You know you're not supposed to pull it out.
00:17:35
Speaker
Leave it in there. Wish you would have been there when I got stabbed. What helped? Well, I wasn't one stabbing you. You stabbed him in the neck. You're like, leave it in. Dumbass, leave it in. I get to take it out. I put it in.
00:17:51
Speaker
After two hours of work, they couldn't get it open. They decided to break through with a jackhammer. A few hours later, they finally broke through and the interior of the vault was in shambles. Hundreds of safety deposit boxes had been broken open and ransacked, covering the floor in a six-inch layer of cash, checks, bearer bonds, stock certificates, wills, and deeds. Is it possible they did that with a jackhammer?
00:18:16
Speaker
They got everything up. Yeah. Like when there was shaking so hard that everything just came out. Oh, oh, you think the thieves would actually take the cat. He was, he was there to steal a recipe, a spaghetti recipe, a secret spaghetti recipe. Nobody knows on the wall spray painted in giant letters. They found a message.
00:18:41
Speaker
sans armis, without weapons, without violence, without hate. Police found portable stoves, dirty dishes, empty wine bottles, and silver bowls that had been used as chamber pots.
00:19:06
Speaker
Police determined these thieves were there for the entire holiday weekend sifting through the contents of the vault. 12 detectives spent four days going through what was left in the vault and comparing it to what should have been there. And they determined that the thieves had made off with 50 million francs, which at the time was equivalent to $10 million, which today would be over $52 million. I only know maybe like two or three francs. I was gonna say 50 million francs is equivalent to 97 million Scots.
00:19:36
Speaker
108 million John's Where John's worth more? There's a lot more job. There's a lot of John's. Yeah, there's a lot more John's We have three very basic names. Oh, shut up Kevin. We do. Yeah, my name is Greg. Wah Right So we all might as well be named Josh. We could just be the three Josh's. Okay. Yeah, let's all change our name to Josh Yeah, I don't like that name
00:20:02
Speaker
The thieves had been careful to steal only those items which could not be easily traced, taking cash, gold ingots, and uncut jewels, but leaving behind tens of millions of francs in checks, bonds, and jewelry. There was also only one unidentifiable fingerprint to be found, so they did a pretty good job so far. Sounds good, except they left the chamber pots behind. They kind of test their poop. Yeah, they didn't do the DNA back then.
00:20:31
Speaker
You don't know that. Yes, I do. I do know that. That's why I said it. God. Oh well. You conceded. That feels good. I'm done. That's all I wanted. That's all you were waiting for. Took 106 episodes. Any questions so far? Are we all good? No, no, no. So far it's getting mysterious. Oh. Did they make a movie about this with Jason Statham?
00:20:58
Speaker
I don't know, I don't know, I didn't see anything like that from Jason Statham. There was some documentaries, but I don't know if they made a movie. All right, so the police did have some leads. Several days before the heist, Inspector Valentin Buschetti was... I guess this guy is not fucking telling you either. I don't like this fucking podcast up inside, man. Everybody's name's Spaghetti. It's confusing where we are. No, this guy's name was Bruschetta.
00:21:27
Speaker
It was a combination of bruschetta and spaghetti. Bruschetta and machete. He was an inspector. He was driving at night when he recognized Daniel Mishalushi, a career criminal well known to the niece police, in a car with an unknown passenger.
00:21:47
Speaker
suspicious, Bachete pulled Mitchell Lucy over. As he inspected the men's identity papers, he noticed a set of large chisels lying in the car's back seat of a type used for cutting through reinforced concrete.
00:22:10
Speaker
There was no crime to charge them with, so Bachete let the men go, but when Bachete visited the crime scene after the heist, he recognized the same chisels lying on the vault floor. Chisels?
00:22:21
Speaker
Chisels. Oh, I thought you said chisels. Chisels? The Snoop Dogg? I thought that's what you said. Well, it's a chisel. It's Snoop Dogg Chisels. Chisels. That's another business idea, John. Put that on the list. Next to the kiosk. Greg will have a kiosk next to that kiosk selling Snoop Dogg chisels.
00:22:46
Speaker
You don't want to use one of those chisels to give a hand job. Don't combine the two businesses. No. Take your dick off.
00:22:59
Speaker
A week earlier, the French National Police had received a tip about a supposedly empty villa 15 miles outside Nice frequented by suspicious looking men. Officers were sent to investigate, but the occupants all gave convincing explanations claiming they were renting the property from its regular owner. After the heist, police returned to the villa where they found a muddy waterproof flashlight matching those found in the vault. Arrest warrants were issued for the occupants.
00:23:29
Speaker
So I just want to say, first of all, these guys are careless, but second, they're not very frugal with the things they buy. They're just leaving it everywhere, right?
00:23:39
Speaker
No wonder they had a rob a bank. That's the part that's weird and no character. Well, obviously they had a rob a bank because they keep leaving shit behind. They gotta fund other robberies? Yeah, that's expensive. Look guys, we gotta cut back on overhead. This is getting ridiculous. Our chamber pod budget is way to whack. Right, we left our stove behind.
00:24:04
Speaker
We could have recycled those wine bottles yeah five cents five cents piece in Maine But only in May we have to ship them to Maine Which will be expensive yeah? Set the environment man so police
00:24:20
Speaker
So police spent 100 days gathering evidence waiting for the moment to bring it all out. And on October 26th, Adrian Zepi and Francis Pellegrin were caught in a bank in the town of... The guy's last name is Zepi?
00:24:35
Speaker
Yeah, this is gonna be a hard time for me. No, that is the best last name ever. It's spaghetti, baked ziti, and fettuccine. And fettuccine. Well, this other guy's name is Francis Pellegrino. It's like Pellegrino. Oh, there you go.
00:24:51
Speaker
Hey, what are you gonna do? But they were caught at a bank in the town of Roquefort-Lapine trying to cash in gold ingots matching those stolen in Nice. Those dumb fucks. The next day the police struck arresting 27 suspects in Nice, Marcel, Marseille, and Paris and subjecting them to these 48-hour interrogations.
00:25:15
Speaker
20 were released without charge, the remaining seven being brought before a judge who indicted six, who indicted six for complicity in the heist. Well, it sounds like they get their men, but the, but the six were small time criminals. A mastermind had to be out there somewhere. They were convinced. I know who that mastermind was. Do you think spaghetti? Nope. No.
00:25:41
Speaker
It's the guy from that movie, the usual suspects. What's his name? Kevin Spacey? Yeah, Kevin Spacey. Yeah, but he had a... What was his name? Kaiser Soze? Yeah, it's Kaiser Soze. Moby Dick. Goddamn it. I know everything. Ahab Johnson.
00:26:04
Speaker
So then they got a lead and it was a bizarre one. The CIA reached out to authorities in France to tell them that a French citizen named Albert Spaggiari had contacted the CIA and offered to burgle a number of European embassies for the agency several months before.
00:26:25
Speaker
That Albert Spaghetti guy, man. Spaghetti's a little weird. Wait, is it bugger and that having sex? Yeah, that's like fingering. Yeah. But I said burgle, not bugger. I heard bugger. OK. It's not about what you said. OK, gotcha. That's fine. So the authorities on that tip went and grabbed our friend Spaggiari Spaghetti from that bar patio and hauled him in, and he eventually
Spaggiari's Daring Escape
00:26:53
Speaker
confessed. God, I wish I was in a bar patio right now.
00:26:55
Speaker
It does sound way better than talking to you idiots. Can we do an episode from a bar patio? Oh, that's not the same one Yeah, this one's really boring I wouldn't want to do it again not the same bars Did you guys see my microphone drop I said that karma I
00:27:22
Speaker
You need to go get some cialis. I'm just kidding. Oh, probably. Hey, hey, Kevin, I'm just joking. I don't care. It's fun episode. I know it's hilarious. I saw the, I saw the gleam in your eye disappear. He did. He stole the joy. You stole the joy, joy, joy, joy out of my heart. Now I'm starting to regret that I nevermind that I joined this podcast three years ago. How long ago was it?
00:27:51
Speaker
Four, almost. Jesus, you guys look terrible. Nobody's aging well. We have to sit through Kevin's podcast.
00:28:03
Speaker
Remember when my beard was black? Yep. Was it ever? Yeah, I've been eating a lot of squid ink. So how and why did he do it? The why isn't really known. He seemed to have a nice humble life. Some think he got the idea after reading a book called Lupole, the plot being similar to the heist that he pulled. Others think he thought of it when opening an account at the bank. But we do know the how.
00:28:31
Speaker
He spent a long time secretly photographing the entire bank, including the vault. I don't know why I said it like that. Including the vault. I had to put this episode together really fast. Including the gumball machine. The little thing that has the suckers in them. A lot of ashtrays. A lot of ashtrays back then, yes.
00:28:58
Speaker
He opened a safe deposit box and put an alarm clock in it to see if there were any sound sensors. Because the bank arrogantly thought the vault was impenetrable, they didn't have any sort of alarms on it. How do you know that was arrogant, not lazy? Well, that's true. That'd be a weird thing to be lazy about. What would there be arrogant about? Maybe the vault maker was like, no, you don't need any sound things. This vault is impenetrable. Those vault makers are so kind. Impenetrable.
00:29:27
Speaker
Maybe it just said impenetrable on the outside and they were like, we're fine. Impregnable. Yeah, that would work too. You just have to go from underneath. As long as nobody tunnels in and comes up from the bottom, you can't get in this thing. You know how this is happening. Well, because they didn't go through the still door.
00:29:49
Speaker
They didn't go to the sides. I'm guessing, yeah, I'll bet Greg 1,000 pesos. All of a sudden, John's Ocean 11. They went through the bottom. John Ocean. John. You look at him quickly, you're like, George Clooney? George Clooney? So clearly, that must be Brad Pitt, because it's not going to be Brad. What'd you say? It was Billy Ocean's crew, right? That's what those three movies were about. Billy Ocean's crew. Yeah.
00:30:18
Speaker
Get outta my dreams! Isn't that Vilyushin? Yeah. And I'm obviously... I'm obviously Elliot Gould. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Hey, we should let you beat Matt Damon.
00:30:32
Speaker
Why are you saying that so emphatically? Because it's just the way it is. You're a dick, Brad. He got the blueprints of the bank from the public records office, and he noticed that the vault was only 10 meters, about 33 feet, from a sewer line. The sewer line lay only 400 meters from a service road running alongside the underground Pelon River. Somebody walked through your shit.
00:31:01
Speaker
With this information in hand, Spaggiari traveled to Marseilles and presented his plan to mob boss Jacques Cassandry. You didn't say there was a mob boss. Was I supposed to give you all the plot lines before we got into this? No. Well, I mean, I just feel like it's a little late in the game to find out there's a mob boss. I've been making fun of the guy the whole time. Now I'm guessing you know I got the French mafia on my hands. Yeah. Now somebody's going to jerk us off or get whacked. What is it happens?
00:31:30
Speaker
I hear you've been talking about us. I'm gonna give you a hand jump now. That'll learn ya. Listen here motherfucker. I've been using lotion. These hands are soft and supple and you're gonna come so fast you're gonna regret it. You put on this beret and you. I like how the French mobsters sound just like Jersey mobsters. It's the only voice I got. I got one mobster voice here.
00:32:01
Speaker
Hey guys, I'm a mobster. Is that a better voice? Yeah, sure. So the mob boss Jacques Cassandre immediately expressed interest and supplied the necessary men and materials. Two teams of 10 thieves were organized, one made up of mobsters and the other Spagieri's old friends from the OAS.
00:32:23
Speaker
The equipment was driven in a van to the service road, then transported through sewers in inflatable rubber rafts. They ran a whole bunch of electrical wiring for lighting, and over two months, the men painstakingly bored through 10 meters of concrete, stone, and soil to the bank vault, digging by hand to avoid making too much noise. Did they keep covering up their hole with that poster? With a poster?
00:32:48
Speaker
As I was reading this I was like I mean and I don't I don't know much about French sewage sewer systems surprisingly But I mean like nope they weren't worried at all that someone might like have to go down there for maintenance or something I don't know you know what I mean like
00:33:04
Speaker
They're reckless. I want to hear Morgan Freeman narrate it. The mob guy had to go through 400 meters of shit to get into a vault. Maybe they were on French meth and they didn't care. Is French meth different from regular meth? Yeah. It's a lot more arrogant. It comes with a nice little coffee on the side. French meth only comes from France. OK, champagne.
00:33:37
Speaker
The date of the break-in was set for the morning of Friday, July 16th after the bank had closed for the long weekend. But after chiseling through the final half meter of reinforced concrete, the thieves discovered that they had a major problem. Their tunnel had emerged right in the middle of a large, freestanding, safe, weighing several tons.
00:34:01
Speaker
Fuck. Not good. That's a problem. Did that stop them? Nope. Actually, I did the stories. It sounds like it crushed them. Did it stop them by killing them? It definitely did not stop them. They did not give up to that. They fell into that trash compactor from Star Wars. They were running a time fast.
00:34:23
Speaker
Not what happened? No. They used hydraulic rams to tip the safe forward just enough for a person to crawl through, but not enough for it to tip over. And they got in. Just like this, yo, we're in. Wait a minute. I'm confused. I can tell the confusion on your face was a dead giveaway. So the reason there was like a safe inside a safe.
00:34:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean it was a vault. It's a giant huge vault. And the vault was where people would have their safe deposit boxes in there and stuff. So people would go into the vault to take stuff and all that. And there was a safe inside the vault. And they just happened to tunnel under right where the fucking safe was. Which had to be just like a...
00:35:12
Speaker
Come on, man. Got a moment, you know? We've been in for too much. We've been standing and shit. Maybe it's a storm sewer. That's true. We've been standing in la cocky. That's how they say shit in France.
00:35:29
Speaker
That's got to be racist. It's got to be bad, right? Let me do it when we do our Italian voices and we go, boo-ka-da-ba-ba. I don't know, is it racist or is it more xenophobic? There's something. It's probably not racist, yeah. It's something. Well, I mean, it's because Italians are a country. I mean, I guess they're a race too, but are Italians a race?
00:35:56
Speaker
I'm literally asking to seriously go, I don't know. It's a country. It's a country. Can't be erased from the country. Let's move on. This is really awkward. This is great. So they spent, they got in, they spent three days of the holiday weekend looting the vault. Then they scrawled their message on the wall, welded the vault door shut.
00:36:22
Speaker
and ski-daddled. That's what you gotta do. You gotta ski-daddle. Wait, they welded it shut? They welded the vault door so it couldn't be opened. That's the hard part, hard time getting it open. They didn't say why. I never found anything that said why. My only thought was it gave them more time. It would just take a long time for them to realize what had happened.
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah, but they left evidence everywhere, so shouldn't they take more time getting rid of all the evidence? What evidence did they leave? They left a flashlight, they matched the flashlight, got it chisels in the back seat, I mean... Well, that's just stupidity, like who's driving around with chisels, you know? They left fingerprints everywhere in the vault! They did not.
00:37:02
Speaker
Oh, is it one thing? There was one unidentifiable fingerprint. So they had one fingerprint, but they couldn't make, there was no, there was no way to tell the way I heard that was they're able to identify all the other fingerprints. So that was just like cookie way that makes sense. Actually it kind of does that. Yeah. I probably should have reworded that, but, uh, it's just how my brain processes things in a dumb way.
00:37:29
Speaker
So that's the story. And then of course he got, you know, as we know, he got caught and he confessed. He took the, he took the police, you know, the police brought him into the vault and he pointed everything out of what they did and all that. And in full confession, now for my favorite part. Spagieri, Spagieri was indicted and sent to jail while he awaited trial on March 10th, 1977. He appeared with his lawyer before a judge at the Palais de Justice in Paris. That was good, huh?
00:37:59
Speaker
Is that next to the Louvre? Is it everything? I don't know. It's at the base of the Eiffel Tower, John. I don't know. Insert French landmark for crap. Exactly. I don't know. His lawyer was Jean Baguette.
00:38:23
Speaker
So he's appearing before the judge, and Spaggiari hands the judge a document, which he claimed contained evidence pertinent to the case. But when the judge read the paper, he found it was written in an indecipherable code. So the judge is sitting there trying to decipher this code and figure out what it means, and he was distracted.
00:38:44
Speaker
While he was distracted, Spagieri proceeded to leap out the window landing on the roof of a car nine feet below. This fucking guy, man. His training as a paratrooper helped prevent breaking both ankles. Don't paratroopers usually use parachutes? Although it did not prevent him from breaking his spine. He could run away because his ankles were fine.
00:39:11
Speaker
I mean, it's so, it's so like crazy. Like here, read this. What's his middle name? Coyote. Look over there. I'm jumping out the window. Probably the last time I left that window open too. Oh, this is a Chrysler LeBaron. It was driven by Jean-Pierre Cressant.
00:39:40
Speaker
Jean-Luc Picard, my bad. I like Jean-Pierre Lacarde. Spagieri then left onto a motorbike driven by an accomplice, taking a moment to shout au revoir to the stunned judge before speeding away.
00:40:02
Speaker
Oh, right. There was a rumor going around that he so he he you know, he jumped and landed on a car. And there was there's some people say that that the owner of the car was sent five thousand francs for the damages. No, that's not bad. I mean, he seems like a nice guy. I don't know. You'll never catch me. I'm going to the Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate.
00:40:31
Speaker
Those were bigger trance in the 70s. Yeah, they were. I've got to play a ski ball. I want to see the animatronic robots sing their songs. They were Chuckie Bree. Chuckie Breeze. That's good. That's good. That's good. So how do you get caught?
00:40:56
Speaker
Don't wait, he got caught, he didn't get away. No, he didn't get caught. He was never found. What? Yeah, he was never found. He spent 12- That's because he's in Chuck E. Cheese. He spent 12, you know what it takes to look there? He's just hiding in the ball pit. Go away, go away. Hey you, get me another diaper. I need a diaper, a slice of cheese, and please give me a coca-cola.
00:41:22
Speaker
He's in a Pac-Man game. He's like, Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba, Abba. He just makes that noise. And he comes out at night. Wait a second. Wait a second. What does your Pac-Man say? Abba, Abba, Abba. And then when it goes, Waka, Waka, Waka, dude. Oh, he's French. He's French. Waka, Waka, Waka, Waka, Waka. Is it Waka? It's like Fuzzy Bear? It's not Abba, Abba, Abba. What the fuck? What the fuck? No, it's not. You're not French, are you?
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah, I'm fucking, they didn't change it for France, man. What if they did? Okay. I can't prove it. Exactly. So Albert spent 12 years on the run in South America and Europe, and he even made it back to France a few times to visit his wife.
Life on the Run and Legacy
00:42:10
Speaker
He wrote an account of the heist called the Sewers of Paradise.
00:42:14
Speaker
He finally died of lung cancer in 1989 and his body was buried at his family home. Very little of the stolen money has ever been recovered. Do you think you can't do that anymore? Be buried in your backyard? On the family plot. I thought you were going to say get 50 million francs. I don't know how many, I really don't know how that translates into dollars. Well, if you'd been listening earlier, you would have heard me say 52 million. He did.
00:42:43
Speaker
You don't even have Frank's anymore, right? Wow, you're really boring. That's the second time you're like, well, I wish I would have known this, and I had said it earlier. I don't listen to you. I wish I would have retained this. Yeah, maybe that's it. I wish Kevin would be more thorough and say this guy's name. I don't even know what this guy's name is. It's spaghetti. We know who it is. It's Al Spaghetti.
00:43:06
Speaker
That's poor guy. Had to live in a ball pit for 13 years. He never fully got to touch the ground. He probably got lung cancer from breathing out of that sewer air for two months. Or all the smoke and the Chuck E. Cheese. Because you know people were smoking in Chuck E. Cheese back in the day. Smoking baguettes. Like every good Frenchman does.
00:43:27
Speaker
Apparently, I mean, I think it's clear. We don't know a lot about French culture. Well, I thought Greg might know more. Isn't he from Montreal? Isn't that France? Different fucking continent, buddy. That's where the Louvre is. That's where the Louvre is. Thank you, Jon. You're welcome. I'm glad we got to the bottom of that. All right, guys. That's the story of Albert Spaggiari and his bank heist. I like that story. Yeah.
00:43:57
Speaker
Yeah, so my toast is to all the bank robbers out there. I don't realize that Frank was so strong. There's a lot I can't believe about this story, but
00:44:16
Speaker
I still can't believe he was able to just jump out the window. They never found him. It was 1976, not like 1912, you know what I mean? How is that fucking possible? It's kind of nice to know it could happen. Yeah, I know. It gives me hope. I'm drinking an Italian liqueur because this episode's been in Spanish.
00:44:40
Speaker
Okay, all that checks out. So a toast to all the robbers out there. We all want to be rich without working, but the risk of going to prison just ain't worth it if you ask me. Unless you can jump out an open window at your court at your hearing. We don't mind if you're robbing shit, just don't kill anybody. Yeah, I like that. Cheers, gentlemen. Well, don't kill anybody and don't throw your plans with your verses and forget your ID.
00:45:09
Speaker
out the window. Yeah, I probably would recommend to anybody out there thinking about robbing a bank with a note to not use any state-issued forms of identification to write on. Use code names. By the way, this isn't mine. This is my birth certificate.
00:45:28
Speaker
I know it's got my name on it. I'm going to use Greg's bird certificate. I'm going to write my note on his bird. Yeah. You'll never find it. The whole time I'm like, Greg Mitchell, Greg Mitchell, Robin a bank. Greg Mitchell, Greg Mitchell at this address, Robin a bank. It's catchy song. It's not bad. It's not bad. All right, everybody. Thank you very much. See you guys next time.