An Offense to Forgers: The Fake Italian Amphitheater

0:00 Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

0:03 Zarin.

0:04 Elizabeth.

0:06 How are you?

0:06 I'm doing pretty well. Yeah, you know, honestly, I'm doing pretty well. How about you?

0:10 I'm doing grand.

0:12 Grand.

0:13 Look at you.

0:14 You are a grand dom.

0:16 It could be a whole lot worse.

0:18 Is it that scale?

0:19 You always have to tell yourself that. No, I mean, I think it's always good to remind yourself.

0:22 Oh, okay.

0:23 A question.

0:24 Yes.

0:25 For you.

0:26 You in the front row, Helen Thomas. No, Elizabeth Dutton.

0:28 Yes, thank you. You know what's ridiculous?

0:31 I do, and I'm so glad you asked. So this is a man after my own heart. And despite the physical description, this was not me. I did not do this. But last year in September, after a busy Sunday night, a man in a scuba gear swam up to the Paddlefish Restaurant, which was a replica steamboat. And if you're unfamiliar with the paddlefish, it is part of the Disney Springs Resort, like, you know, Playland or whatever. And it's a restaurant there.

1:00 In the Disney World or Disneyland?

1:02 Disney World in Florida, in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. So in Disney World. So this guy, he swims up in scuba gear at the paddlefish restaurant.

1:12 Little frog man.

1:13 Little after midnight, after a busy Sunday night, so like early Monday morning. And then he like stashes his wetsuit and his scuba gear. Which is like, that takes time. That's a lot, yeah. Then he walks into a manager's office where the cash from the night is being counted and deposited into a safe. And then he forced two employees to go to the corner room, told them, shut your eyes, don't look at me, right? And then the report, which is apparently heavily redacted by Disney security.

1:38 Oh, I bet.

1:39 Which I think means inside. Yeah, yeah. The man stole between $ 10, 000 and $ 20, 000. What? They wouldn't say. Somewhere between $ 10, 000 and $ 20, 000. Yes. And then he left within two minutes or like 90 seconds in and out the door, right?

1:53 90 seconds. But then he had to put his gear back on.

1:55 Yeah. Then they called 911 after they freed themselves. Apparently, I don't know if he taped them up or whatever. It's not clear. And then he didn't hurt anybody and he didn't brandish any weapons. I just think he just scared them with his like aura.

2:06 Probably. It was intense.

2:07 He just like crime-mogged them. And so then eventually, apparently the police, they had an image of him where he was spray painting a security camera. And the employees described the man as wearing tight clothing, a blue beanie. and being of slim fit, approximately 5'10 to 5'11. So I was like, not me. I know it sounds like it could be me, not me.

2:26 Wasn't you?

2:27 Sure? Yeah. So we were at the Paddlefish on September, mid-September 2015, 2025. The Disney police, I'm sure, would still like to hear from you.

2:37 Yeah, exactly.

2:38 I love that. He's just like inside job on Disney.

2:40 Yeah, scuba up and back.

2:42 Yeah, it's like, how do you come up with that, bro? It wasn't enough for an episode, but I just wanted to tell it to you.

2:46 That's beautiful. Thank you. It is ridiculous.

2:48 It is ridiculous.

2:49 Thank you. It is ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

2:51 Please.

2:52 Being an insult to forgers.

2:55 What?

2:55 What?

2:57 What?

3:16 This is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always 99% murder-free and 100% ridiculous.

3:28 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

3:30 Italians, gotta love them.

3:32 Oh, hell yeah. God bless them. I love Italians, north and south.

3:35 Oh, everybody.

3:35 And the ones in the middle.

3:36 And the middle, right, left, center, up, down. They are very serious about their culture, which is understandable because it's pretty awesome.

3:44 Oh, yeah. And it's long running. I mean, I know Italy only like unified like, you know, in the 19th century, but Italian culture, long running. Especially post-Columbian, once they got the tomato. Oh, yeah.

3:54 Marron. Yeah. They're protective of their culture. Yeah. Not like in the hypervigilant way of the French who guard language and culture with both passion and like a fabulous sense of superiority and disdain for all others.

4:10 And also a conservative streak like they're like they will not let their culture grow i hear that.

4:14 From french friends but this is also despite the fact that the french word for shampoo is le shampooing come.

4:21 On i don't mean politically i mean together culture like they want to conserve their culture very.

4:25 Much so very much so the italians tend to focus on two.

4:28 Things food and art Yes, and looking good.

4:31 And art, including paintings, architecture, design, sculpture. The cheekbones of both Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni.

4:39 Of course.

4:39 Right?

4:39 And you also, you left out the tailoring. Italian men and women and children, the tailoring, they look clean.

4:45 The little tiny babies in their suits. They're proud of both art and food. And they don't take kindly to fakers. No. In fact, they bring the hammer down.

4:56 How so?

4:57 Italy has been protecting the authentic for five centuries. Let's take a stroll back through time, shall we? Please. In 1515, Pope Leo X placed the painter Raphael in charge of overseeing the ancient stones of Rome.

5:16 I love this.

5:17 Should I make Pope Leo X my Mehmet?

5:19 Yes, do it, girl.

5:20 I'd have to learn more about him, but I think I need a Mehmet at the very least.

5:25 I think Pope Leo was a good pope, if I remember correctly. I can't remember.

5:28 Who knows?

5:29 I think a lot of the Leos were good.

5:31 Yeah, I hope.

5:32 Anyway.

5:33 Back to Raphael.

5:34 Yes.

5:34 So a few years later, he gets this job. He wrote this letter with a friend of his begging the Pope to stop the city's ruins from being burned for lime and then carted off for building material.

5:47 Okay.

5:48 So this was like the first act of preservation.

5:51 Ah.

5:52 And so then we jump forward in time. 1820, the papal states went even further. Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca issued an edict regulating excavations and restricting the export of antiquities.

6:06 1820.

6:06 Yeah.

6:08 Hmm, smart.

6:08 So that's like one of the earliest modern heritage laws in all of Europe.

6:12 Yeah. That's before, like, you know, Carter's raiding the King Tut's tomb.

6:16 Right.

6:16 People were like, wait a minute, we've got to— Hold on a second. This is getting crazy.

6:19 Yeah. So, like, you know, Italy unifies, like you said, and then they later regulated art and landscape, like 1939 was a big year for that. And then the post-war republic wrote The Protection of the Nation's Landscape— And it's historical and artistic heritage in the Article 9 of their 1948 Constitution.

6:42 They're like hands off Tuscany.

6:44 Yes, exactly. And it was extending a very old habit of mine. Right. So what the past left behind is held in trust. It's not owned outright.

6:54 The commons.

6:55 Yeah. So that habit eventually acquired a badge and a pistol.

6:59 Wait a minute, what?

7:02 Because May 3rd, 1969, the Carbonieri founded a specialist unit now known as the Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.

7:11 They don't play.

7:12 They got a whole squad.

7:12 They're the ones walking around with machine guns.

7:14 That's one year before UNESCO's Paris Convention called for the creation of those kind of units. The Italians are like, Boom, we're already there. We already did it. Catch up.

7:24 I like it.

7:25 And so these guys were like pretty much widely described as the first police force in the world dedicated to art and antiquities crime.

7:33 Good on you, Italians.

7:34 Right? So it's investigators. They maintain a database of stolen objects that Arts Journal estimates at like 1.1 million items. And here's the thing.

7:45 That's a lot of items.

7:46 It also contains a dedicated section for fakes. They go after the fakes, too. Oh, okay.

7:53 Don't confuse the— It's.

7:54 Not just the stolen art, but it's like, here's all the forgeries. So the country that they protect is just packed with this thing that they have to guard. CNN describes Italy as narrowly ahead of China in the number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

8:12 Really?

8:13 Yeah. I'm talking sea to shining sea. From the theaters of Syracuse and Pompeii to Verona's amphitheater, which still hosts opera every summer.

8:23 Does it?

8:23 Yeah.

8:24 Go see some Verdi there, huh?

8:25 Exactly. So the same protective instinct extends to the dinner table.

8:32 They protect the pasta.

8:33 They protect the pasta. December 10th, 1925, UNESCO's Intangible Heritage Committee— had a meeting in New Delhi, and they enshrined the value of, quote, Italian cooking between sustainability and biocultural diversity. Really? So reports at the time noted that Italy became the first country to have an entire national cuisine recognized rather than a single dish.

8:58 They were the first.

8:58 They were the first. They're like, basically, everything's good here, you guys.

9:01 That is, I mean, that's kind of incredible. Yeah. And it's very on par or on brand, rather, for the Italians. I mean, they're like, look, we have the best food. Even the UN agrees.

9:10 You can't pick it. Exactly. Take that, Spain. The prime minister, Maloney, she told the world that for Italians, cuisine is culture, tradition, craftsmanship, heritage. Years earlier, 2017, UNESCO had already honored the art of Neapolitan pizza.

9:31 Yes.

9:31 It was its own thing.

9:32 That's where it started, right? Yeah.

9:33 And Italy has like this, these EU labels that have protected designation of origin for stuff like cheeses, hams, oils, you know, with the, they have to be from the place.

9:44 Do you know that when I was in Italy the last time they had, and I was shocked by this, and that was in Bologna, they were selling pizza. I eat a lot of pizza in Italy, as one might imagine. And a lot of gelato, a lot of pizza. But anyway, they had pizza that they were, selling with French fries, like big steak cut French fries on the top, like just a slice to go. And I was like, what have you people done?

10:08 Was it owned by a British family?

10:09 No, it was deep Italians.

10:11 The Brits put corn on their pizza.

10:12 Oh, yeah, I know. The Brits are wild. But I mean, like, I was just surprised that the Italians would allow their food to be Americanized like that. I'm like, I guess you actually like this. Or maybe enough of the tourists do that you're like, we like the money. Yeah, perhaps.

10:24 Wow.

10:24 Isn't that crazy?

10:25 I've never seen that. Fries on pizza. Well, you know.

10:29 Takes all kinds.

10:29 It's got all the good stuff.

10:31 Yeah, yeah. Who doesn't love a potato?

10:32 Potatoes, tomatoes, cheese. Fried. There it is. All right. So living in the U.S., we do need to acknowledge that a lot of Italian food outside of areas with direct Italian immigrants, like those who came over– like after 1950, it isn't really truly Italian food.

10:52 Oh, yeah.

10:53 You give me a bad time, Zarin, because I've never been to Olive Garden. But it's my understanding that it's Italian-American food.

11:00 It's not authentic. But Elizabeth, if you're there, you're family. I know.

11:03 And, you know, I have no family, no friends. So much of what we classify here as Italian full stop is Americanized food. uh, a version of a, a Italian dish.

11:13 Totally.

11:13 So in Italy, you know, they eat spaghetti obviously, but, and they also eat meatballs, but they don't eat them together.

11:19 Yeah. A lot of people, when they talk about like, my Nona has been making this dish. I'm like, not since before 1956 or whatever. It's like the seven fishes.

11:26 It's, it's exactly. That's an invention. I'm sad that they don't eat spaghetti and meatballs together though. Cause that's, that's a.

11:33 It's good stuff.

11:33 Fine dish, yeah.

11:35 All the Italian-Americans, they really refined, I think, some Italian meat. They pretty much redid pizza and brought it back. They redid spaghetti, brought it back.

11:43 Italian wedding soup with, like, the meatballs and the greens, that's not served at actual Italian weddings. It was made up here in the U.S.

11:49 Of A.

11:50 Italian dressing. They don't do that over there.

11:52 Italian dressing.

11:53 It was created in Missouri.

11:54 I never believed that one.

11:56 And then we have the God-tier dish, a heavenly concoction, cioppino. Oh. Tomato and white wine seafood stew. So it's got like Dungeness crab, clams, mussels, shrimp, squid, firm white fish. That is a San Francisco invention of Italian-American fishermen. They mixed all the leftover daily catch into like one big pot. Hmm.

12:17 So like the extras. It's like the hot dog of soups.

12:20 Precisely.

12:20 But it is- Just sweep the floor, put it in the bowl.

12:23 So good.

12:23 Oh my God, it's so good. You love that stuff.

12:25 I do love Trevino. But these aren't considered the real deal Holyfield of Italian food and culture.

12:31 No.

12:32 They're part of the diaspora.

12:33 Yeah, I get you.

12:34 Let's get back to Italians protecting their culture. It was in this atmosphere that the Carbonara affair erupted in November of 2025.

12:42 Carbonara?

12:43 Yeah. Zarin, do you Carbonara?

12:44 Yeah. Like the food, not the cops.

12:47 Yeah. No, that's carbonieri.

12:48 Yeah, I know.

12:49 It's very close to my ear.

12:51 Maybe that's a singular carboneri is a carbonara.

12:53 It's basically guanciale, eggs, pepper pasta.

12:57 Does that sound like something I would eat?

12:58 Heavenly. Like cioppino. Well, I don't know. It's got the pork.

13:01 Yeah, that's why.

13:02 So the carbonara affair.

13:03 That's the only problem with a lot of actual Italian food. Like the Germans, it's so pork heavy. I'm like, damn it, I can't do that.

13:09 It makes you sick. Okay, according to CNN, jars of Pale, creamy, quote, carbonara sauce produced in Belgium and sold in a store inside the EU drew fury in Rome.

13:24 Yes.

13:25 Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollabrigida.

13:29 Get out of town, really?

13:31 Yeah. Posted pictures of the jars on Facebook, which is the place to do all government business, apparently.

13:37 Did you happen to get any sense of Lollabrigida as a common name?

13:40 No. Gina Lola Brigida is like the only Lola Brigida. The only one I've ever heard. Well, now we've got old Francesco here. I was going to say, so he puts this up on Facebook, which then made me think about how annoyed I get when I get an Amber Alert on my phone.

13:55 Why do you get annoyed?

13:56 Not because of the insanely loud alarm that rattles my delicately calibrated nervous system.

14:02 Oh, right, right.

14:03 It's the fact that the link to information on the abduction is like always a post on Twitter.

14:09 Oh.

14:10 When you go to click it, it's a Twitter link. I'm not on Twitter.

14:12 Really?

14:12 You can't force me to go on Twitter.

14:14 It's a Twitter link.

14:15 Yeah.

14:16 Obviously, I'm outing myself as I don't ever pay attention.

14:18 So maybe there I am sitting at the BART station getting an Amber Alert for some like adorable missing toddler.

14:23 Yeah.

14:24 And the poor thing sitting with the kidnapper right next to me, but I can't see something say something because I'm supposed to dive into Elon Musk's cesspit to get that information.

14:32 So it sends you to Twitter. That's weird.

14:34 I am so surprised. I'm sorry, baby Caden, that I can't rescue you.

14:36 I tried. Why don't they just put the information in the text?

14:39 No, I don't know. Anyway, Italians.

14:41 Okay.

14:42 So Lola Brigida, he objected that the label on the carbonara promised pancetta, where the traditional dish calls for guanciale.

14:53 The type of ham.

14:53 Gasp. Zarian, you're supposed to gasp. The audacity.

14:57 How dare they?

14:58 There's a big difference between the two. They come from different parts of the pig, so like right there.

15:03 So it was pig. At least I got that part right.

15:04 Yeah, they taste different, different textures. So, you know, up in Belgium, you waffle-eating bozos might as well just spit in the face of the most charming Italian grandma. Although I doubt she would be grandstanding for attention and favor like old Francesco Lollobrigida, but still. Anyway, so Lollobrigida, he called the products textbook examples of, quote, Italian-sounding food. And so that's the term they use for foreign goods that borrow Italian flags, names, imagery to imply Italian origin that they don't have. And the leader of that cartel?

15:37 Yeah.

15:38 Chef Boyardee.

15:39 Okay.

15:40 All right, so.

15:41 Whatever happened, that stuff fell off. You don't ever see kids having to slurp down Chef Boyardee anymore. It's like Alpo.

15:46 I don't know. Yeah, oof. They eat Lunchables now.

15:50 Yeah, no. When I would go to friends' houses and they'd throw that in a bowl, I'd be like, well, I'm going to throw this right in the trash because we're wasting the time here with Z.

15:57 I never had that growing up, but I was like... My fiendish, weird thing as a kid that I loved was SpaghettiOs.

16:05 Okay.

16:05 And everyone in the family thought it was absolutely disgusting. I don't know who makes that.

16:09 And.

16:10 I'd beg for it and they'd give it to me. And then when I became an adult, I tried them. And I'm like, I don't know how I ever ate this. And I think many of my problems arise from early consumption of SpaghettiOs.

16:22 You know, like the alphabet soup, you just take the letters from that, right? And you throw it in some like tomato soup and you got Chef Boyardee.

16:28 You got Chef Boyardee, yeah.

16:29 Or at least the spaghettios.

16:30 But that's like the raviolis, the canned raviolis.

16:34 Oh, you wanted that? That's what you wanted?

16:35 No, I didn't want that. I'd rather have regular raviolis.

16:38 Yeah, I figured you just wanted the noodle, like the spaghettis, the letters.

16:40 Yes, I don't know what was wrong with me. You want what you can't have. Isn't that the truth? like grape soda. That was my other addiction as a kid that I wasn't allowed to have.

16:50 My sister used to go nuts for white bread. She would just love it. We had sandwiches with white bread. It was so soft. It was like eating a cloud.

16:58 We ate like 18 grain bread.

16:59 Oh, yeah. We ate basically. It was like wood bark.

17:01 Yeah, it kept your teeth clean. So Brussels Times ratted out their countrymen, tattled that the jar carried an Italian flag and boasted of onions from Calabria. And so there's this organization of like agricultural representation, farmers, fishers, blah, blah, blah. They came up with a number. They're like, you know what?

17:23 The trade in fake Italian food costs Italy 120 billion euros a year.

17:31 I have a hard time believing that number.

17:32 And that carbonara ranks among the most falsified recipes abroad.

17:37 Really? Yeah. I would have thought it would have been like, you know, I don't know.

17:40 Jars got pulled from the shelves.

17:41 What's that vodka sauce stuff?

17:43 Vodka sauce? I looked that up. That's a hazy origin story.

17:47 I guessed. I was like, I don't think they had vodka in Italy.

17:50 But you know what? They pulled the carbonara from the shelves.

17:53 They pulled the carbonara. They're like, no more of that.

17:55 I just did the sign of the cross. A country that mobilizes a minister, a trade lobby, Brussels bureaucracy over a jar of sauce in a country where passing something off as authentically Italian is not a harmless prank.

18:08 No, it is not.

18:08 No, we don't mess. And that brings us to today's ridiculous criminal he's an italian he should know better but i would say that every single person you and i've ever told a story about here should probably know better with like a handful of righteous exceptions yes um so that was empty chatter on my part as usual today's criminal would be ridiculous anywhere there are places where i can see what he did not being a crime so much Like Eastern Europe or Wyoming. We'll get to that.

18:39 Have you ever had Italian food in the high plain states?

18:42 No.

18:42 Oh, man. Oh, dear.

18:44 Yeah. Chef Boyardee was at the helm. He would scare you.

18:47 Okay.

18:48 But if we had them there, it wouldn't have the same charm. We want crime. We want it to be ridiculous. And thusly, I present to you Franco Maloso.

18:58 Franco Maloso.

18:58 A.K.A. Franz von Rosenfranz. That's when he's like mingling with the artistic set.

19:04 Doesn't Maloso, I know in Spanish it means like bad bear.

19:06 I don't know.

19:08 Maloso?

19:08 Yeah.

19:09 Anyway, I just wanted to.

19:11 And then Franco Alessandro Maloso Maltarell Von Rosenfranz. That's another name that he uses when he's feeling heck of fancy.

19:20 Oh, okay. I thought that was like his brother-in-law or something. No, no, no.

19:22 It was all just him. Just before 2016, into this world of cultural pride and protection, Franco began quietly shaping a hillside.

19:32 Quietly shaping the hillside.

19:34 Let's take a break. And when we come back from these ads, the hillside evolves.

19:58 Zarin. Elizabeth.

19:59 Welcome back.

20:00 Sorry, I was eating some cold Chef Boyardee.

20:03 I'm glad you made time for this today.

20:04 Yeah.

20:05 Thank you.

20:05 Of course.

20:05 Thank you for doing that.

20:06 I brought my lunch with me.

20:09 It smells so bad, by the way.

20:10 Don't be jealous.

20:10 Yeah, it's terrible.

20:12 It's cold.

20:13 I'm done. Cold. Cold chef weirdy. I'm going to crack open a cold can of beans.

20:17 They cook it at the factory, I think.

20:19 They should.

20:20 This kid's fine.

20:20 There's a lot of frozen foods that are already cooked that I wonder about.

20:24 The vast majority.

20:25 You could probably give, if you wanted to shut a baby up, give them a frozen chicken strip.

20:29 This is what you think about? If you wanted to shut a baby up?

20:32 Give them a frozen chicken strip?

20:34 How long is your list of foods to shut a baby up?

20:37 Yeah, how much time do you have?

20:39 It's a frozen chicken strip. Just let him suck on that bad boy.

20:42 Well, you like dip it in Benadryl and then you.

20:43 What the hell? I don't know.

20:46 I don't know what... I've had too many SpaghettiOs. I'm drunk on SpaghettiOs. I'm going to get a can and make you eat them.

20:54 As long as, you know, hey, I could probably actually stomach that.

20:57 As opposed to some of the other stuff I have planned.

21:00 It's such an old mashup.

21:02 Spaghetti and O's.

21:04 All right.

21:04 So I'm talking about fakery. Fakery in antiquity.

21:07 Yeah.

21:08 Italian fakery in antiquity.

21:10 How are you talking?

21:11 So the man at the center of this story, Franco Maloso, 69 years old, traveled under all these names. Euronews says he's described himself as, quote, philanthropist. entrepreneur, and orchestra conductor.

21:24 That last one's a curveball.

21:27 Well, it reminds me, I was going to make a fake business card for a friend and use the name and then under it say philanthropist, mountaineer, friend. I think that's a solid lineup, but orchestra conductor is a slick move.

21:39 Yeah, that's a real one.

21:40 You might have to steal that one.

21:40 That's culture, you know. It also means like I travel.

21:44 He has a website, you know, this guy.

21:46 I bet he does. All the best conductors do.

21:48 Yeah.

21:50 Enfiteatroberico.com.

21:52 What?

21:53 I'm not spelling that out. I didn't think you were. You got to go for your own ride on that. His bio is there. It's cached in archive.org. My second favorite website after newspapers.com, who should.

22:04 Be paying us for this. Golly.

22:07 All right. So this is all translated from Italian by Professor Google. Quote, a student of Dr. Beckstein, a musician awarded the Bundes, I can't say it, the highest German honor. Franco Meloso von Rosenfranz is a music academic, concert journalist, concert journalist, accredited researcher and writer. He was also an independent observer and war reporter. Gifted with an extraordinary historical memory and a multifaceted personality, he's also an undisputed pioneer in art and philosophy studies, as well as children's stories.

22:46 Promoted to diplomat in 1999 under the auspices of the UN, he held positions as a detective for military intelligence, pilot, and manager in studies and design for hypodermic facial and posture recognition dedicated to satellite telecommunications. He was the forerunner of, and then in all caps, teleworking.

23:09 He was the forerunner. He was. Before teleworking, there was Franco.

23:12 There was him. This is like a character sketch for a Wes Anderson film. Seriously.

23:17 And then also, I'm kind of wondering about this Google Translate, how much of this is correct.

23:20 You know, I think Professor Google, a little off the mark sometimes. But all I have to say to that whole thing, yes.

23:26 Of course. I'll take two tickets, please.

23:29 There's also a page called All Books by Franco von Rosenfranz.

23:34 I love the name.

23:36 And it says, essays and books by Franco Alessandro Maloso Malotrell, von Rosenfranz, have always been the fruit of tireless archival research, passionate and in-depth analyses characterized by a compelling narrative journalistic style that never takes an eye off current events or national contradictions, like one eyeball on each, as well as the private ones of which all humanity is a prisoner.

24:03 Hmm. A generous heart and a sensitive lover.

24:07 So delicate. There's a huge list of books and articles, very convoluted. I don't know whether to chalk the messiness up to Professor Google or the skills of someone who knows how to over-talk something in order to dupe folks.

24:20 Yeah.

24:20 Maybe both.

24:21 A little bit of both.

24:21 So that's the who. Let me hit you with the where.

24:25 Yeah, please.

24:26 Vicenza, Italy.

24:27 Oh, yeah.

24:28 Maybe 40 miles west of Venice, 120 miles east of Milan in the Veneto region.

24:34 I love northern Italy.

24:35 Yeah, me too. Vicenza is a culturally rich Italian city, Zarin.

24:40 This also explains the German in his name. There's a lot of northern Italy. You've got a lot of German.

24:44 Oh, yeah, he's right up there, yeah. And, you know, so here's all this richness, this cultural richness in Venice. A country full of cultural richness. Totally, completely. The place packed with churches, villas, palazzi, museums. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

25:01 The whole place.

25:01 Whole place.

25:02 There's like everything you see.

25:03 Stand in a circle, spin around, that's it.

25:06 World Heritage. If you can see it, UNESCO.

25:08 If you can see it, you can be it. It's funny, Zarin, because this reminds me of a recent post on one of the travel subreddits.

25:16 Oh, no. All right.

25:16 So there's this guy.

25:17 Yeah.

25:19 He posted a trip recap from the one that he and his wife had just, from which they had just returned.

25:25 Okay. Husband and wife trip. Yeah.

25:26 They went to Venice, Florence, Rome, and I think Sorrento.

25:29 It's a very classic trip.

25:30 Yeah. And they said the food was fabulous, but they had some complaints.

25:33 Oh, no.

25:33 And it was more just like, I want to give all the tourists a heads up.

25:36 Okay.

25:37 And so they said it was too expensive. But then they also said they stayed in five-star hotels and used private transport everywhere.

25:44 I'm starting to see why. Yeah.

25:45 They said there was a lot of walking. Not that they minded, but they worried about all the old people.

25:51 Oh.

25:51 And then they said there were too many museums and too much of a focus on architecture.

25:55 A lot of old stuff, a lot of old buildings.

25:57 Like my guy.

25:58 Where can I see the new?

25:59 You went to the wrong place.

26:00 Yes.

26:01 Sandals, Jamaica is like right there for you. Italy, excellent transportation, very walkable, the most incredible art and architecture in the world outside of like maybe Fresno. Just kidding, Fresno. Love ya. Love ya, mean it. Anyway, Vicenza. All right. So as always, in researching these places, I want to go there.

26:22 Oh, I bet you do.

26:23 And I did find a gnarly little section in Wikipedia. If you'll permit me, I'd like to read from the forbidden site.

26:30 I'm already buckled up.

26:31 Quote, the inhabitants of Vicenza are jokingly referred to by other Italians as mangiagatti or cat eaters.

26:40 Yes, I thought that was.

26:41 Purportedly, Viceniti turned to cats for sustenance during times of famine, such as during World War II.

26:48 Oh, God.

26:49 Like this could have gone in so many directions from the very beginning.

26:52 That's the start. We call them cat eaters. I just apologize. Because of the war. I apologize.

26:58 So you know who's from there?

27:00 No, I do not.

27:00 Tulio Campagnolo, bicycle component maker and inventor.

27:04 Oh, hell yeah. The Campagnolo.

27:06 The Campagnolo, the originator.

27:08 Love Campagnolo. Iconic.

27:10 So we have the where. Now, what about the when?

27:14 What about the when, Elizabeth?

27:15 We're looking purely 21st century.

27:17 Okay.

27:18 Which I run the risk of these people being alive and wanting to talk to me. But I'm going to say he's Italian. He doesn't care. He doesn't listen.

27:24 Good call.

27:25 More on that later.

27:25 All right.

27:26 And now for the what. What? What was the dupe? Two words. Fake amphitheater.

27:32 How do you fake an amphitheater?

27:35 I would start at the beginning, but exactly when the scheme began is a little murky.

27:39 I bet.

27:40 So there's all these various accounts, but it looks like everything kicked off in the year 2000. In the year 2000.

27:47 I know you.

27:48 Yes, thank you for delivering. So there are these reports that it's... You know, the origins are uncertain. So everything starts off in 2000, but the legend that Franco created attaches it to 2005. That's when he said a landslide occurred on his land and exposed a forgotten ancient amphitheater.

28:14 Oh, that is how you could fake an amphitheater. It's been revealed.

28:18 There was no landslide as part of the problem.

28:21 No.

28:21 In fact, satellite imagery shows that he actually leveled a hill and then built the thing on that leveled ground.

28:27 People forget about the satellites.

28:28 Yeah, he graded it, put it up. He called it Berrico Maritime Amphitheater or Antifiatro Berrico.

28:36 Okay.

28:37 Maritimo's in there somewhere on some of the, he has a bunch of names. He said that it dated.

28:41 He loves names.

28:41 He said it dated from AD 393. That's an interesting choice. Anno Domini Zaran.

28:47 Yeah, 393.

28:48 393.

28:48 It's like, this is post-Council Nicaea, but, like, you know, it's still old.

28:51 I could rely on you to put that in. Because I'm like, that was a long time ago. And you're like, well, actually.

28:56 Yeah.

28:57 So I love that because I need that in my life. According to court documents quoted by CNN, the land sat inside the protected Berici Hills landscape. So that's the UNESCO. It's inside the UNESCO protected area. In Arcagnano, it's just on the outskirts of Vicenza. So that's where Arcagnano. So Franco presents himself as the legal representative, goes to the town.

29:26 says that he's the legal representative of a company in the British Virgin Islands that owns the land. And he's like, I want to apply for permission to build a garage.

29:36 What?

29:37 This is like before, this is like around 2000, before he says like... landslide hit. Oh, okay. And they're like, no. And he's like, all right, fine. He goes home and builds a theater.

29:45 So....

29:47 CNN reported he hired local builders. And according to one of them, he was like, give everything an aged appearance. Make it all look super old.

29:56 Use rusty tools. It's like 54,000 square feet, the whole area of it.

30:02 Yeah, it's huge.

30:03 So he really did it up. Oh, he did.

30:04 So there's a set of tiered stands that are made out of stacked work stones.

30:10 It's like big quarry blocks.

30:11 Oh, yeah. Cement columns, plaster statues.

30:14 Damn, son.

30:15 A pool dug beneath the seating.

30:17 He's going to get a call from Olive Garden. I think so. He's like, how do we get this?

30:21 And the Bellagio and the Venetian are like, get on staff. There's all this stuff in Popular Mechanics about how he used fiberglass to paper mache and modern building blocks and then treated it with putty and then weathered it to look old. They probably rubbed dirt on it. And then CNN's like, oh yeah, that's not even the half of it.

30:43 He used newly quarried stone from Puglia and then cement. And then he supported like that. One of the supporting walls was capped in polystyrene.

30:53 No.

30:53 It was giving triumphal arch.

30:55 Oh, God.

30:56 It was very Glasgow Willy Wonka.

30:58 It was like, I can dent this foam. Oh, yeah.

31:00 You could go up and karate shot like, hi-yah. And then like, I'm Hercules.

31:05 Your kids would be so impressed.

31:06 Oh, my God. Totally. But forget the physical amphitheater. The what is also the amphitheater of the mind. The legend of it all.

31:14 I like how you put that.

31:15 So, Moloso, he told visitors that he found one of the oldest and largest amphitheaters in the world. God.

31:22 At a UNESCO site. Like the whole place is UNESCO. You realize some people are going to come who know some things. Oh, yeah.

31:27 You'll see.

31:28 He's like, no problem.

31:29 And that Julius Caesar had stopped there on his way back from Egypt with Cleopatra.

31:34 Oh, man.

31:35 Zarin, do you know what year Julius Caesar died?

31:39 What is it? 23 B.C.? 44 B.C.

31:41 Very good.

31:42 Oh, my God. Of course. Oh, my God. What am I saying?

31:44 23.

31:44 44 B.C.

31:44 Let's go back. When did Franco say this ancient amphitheater was built?

31:49 393 A.D.

31:50 A.D. So we're off by 400 years.

31:52 Yeah, four centuries.

31:53 The ghost of Julius Caesar.

31:54 I can't believe I said 23.

31:56 I would not have been able to come anywhere near that, so bingo to you.

31:59 Oh, no, but I actually did know that one. I should have been. Anyway, I'll forget myself later. I'm disappointed in you, then. I am. Get in line.

32:04 Franco also said that Shakespeare's Juliet Capulet lived in an old church on the grounds. I'd like to read to you from the first two cupboards of Romeo and Juliet. Two households.

32:17 Both....

32:19 Alike in dignity in fair Verona where we lay our scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. So you know where Vicenza is? Halfway between Venice and Verona. They're like 50 miles apart. So wrong city. And then I also need to mention that Juliet, both the Shakespeare version and the earlier Italian versions upon which the big dog was based, is fictional.

32:45 Yes.

32:46 This is a fictional character.

32:47 Even I know that.

32:49 Either way. So never let the truth get in the way of a good story. According to CNN, Franco started advertising his site in 2014. He wrote to Arcagnano's Mayer. to explain, like, look, we can make so much money off this thing. Like, you, me, the town, let's do this. And so, what's it called? Amphitheatroberico.

33:12 Okay.

33:12 And then, well, hold on. Like me, it has two other names. Uh, Nice. I'm loving that. They're going to arrest me. There's an arrest warrant out for me right now in Italy for that.

33:31 Once they get done with the carbonara.

33:31 The Angel's Gate. So it's the amphitheater of the Angel's Gate.

33:35 Oh, that's what that means.

33:36 Maritime amphitheater. Don't forget, this is solidly inland.

33:40 Yes. The maritime part I was curious about. I thought maybe it's near a river.

33:43 No, not at all. He dug a big pond.

33:45 Old Roman aqueduct.

33:46 He dug a pond. I don't know. So promotional materials presented the place as an authentic archaeological gem of pre-Roman Veneto. He hosted concerts and performances and conferences there.

33:59 Wow.

33:59 Like total Andrea Bocelli standing there all.

34:03 He's got all three tenors. One of them's dead.

34:06 All with the different names. Euronews said that he persuaded local authorities to include it in Vicenza's EU-funded tourism guide and app. So it was being promoted.

34:19 And no one checked.

34:20 It wound up in all these guidebooks. And, like, tickets were the payoff. So all this local media report said that out-of-town visitors paid 12 euros.

34:30 Okay.

34:31 Locals got charged a 40-euro fee.

34:34 Wait, he charged the locals more? Uh-huh.

34:36 Because he's like, that way they won't come and check it out.

34:39 Just about to say he's incentivized it.

34:40 And if you want to do private group tours, 600 euros for 45 minutes.

34:45 He's like, if you're American, three euros to come in.

34:48 Come on and tell a friend. So the reviews are split. CNN had this thing about all eight TripAdvisor reviews were glowing. One visitor calling it a place unique on the planet. Well, I went and looked.

35:01 They do.

35:02 There are 10 reviews now. There is, as of August 2026, a one-star scolding that reads, this was a fake scam site according to the news. And then it has a URL.

35:13 Well, wait a minute then. That's not a review.

35:15 I'm so glad I saw the Roman Colosseum in Rome instead of this. Why does it have five stars? Well, thanks for chiming in, Y3671TPPeters.

35:26 Damn.

35:26 I know, right? Then there's a five-star review from Miguel P. That's a solid one.

35:30 Okay.

35:31 At last, an historic experience that sends the world's bougie into apoplectic palpitations. We knew, once we felt the atmosphere, tasted the light rains, and smelled the fruiting vines, that this theater was like no other. Okay, it doesn't have the selfie-taking, duck-lipped tourists of the Alhambra or the faded curtain glory of Buckingham Palace, but... It does have a very practical and comfortable concrete seating that has always been popular amongst ancient Greeks and modern ones. We missed the daily serving of dolmades, but very much enjoyed the evening performance of the Demis Rousseau's tribute act. As the Demis drag king said at the end of the show, authenticity is the classical travelator to hell.

36:18 That review was like if a drunk, self-satisfied, somewhat condescending, Roger Stathoris could write a review.

36:26 No, that's the stuff. Like, if you're going to troll the reviews, that's the way you do it. Like, you don't rat it out with a link to a news story. You lean in.

36:33 Oh, I'm with you there.

36:34 And he's making a nod to the fact that Franco didn't just say, oh, this is a Roman amphitheater. He said it was also a Greek amphitheater.

36:42 Oh, it's everything.

36:42 It's everything you want to be.

36:43 It's whatever you need to be.

36:44 The amphitheater of the mind.

36:45 This is the ancient.

36:47 Now, over on Google Maps, things were better.

36:49 Nice.

36:50 First of all, it is now listed as falso amphitheatrobarico, false amphitheater.

36:56 Yes.

36:57 But the reviews. I mean, one guy, like one star left a month ago, and he normally leaves very sincere reviews.

37:05 Okay.

37:06 The place was already closed, but it has all these shouting about no gladiators, no guided tours. He's trying to lean in on the trolling. That's not funny.

37:14 Not hitting. Do you got any good trolls?

37:16 There's a local guide left a five-star review in Italian a month ago that translates to... Heroes, Italian boss level.

37:25 Wait, what?

37:26 I don't know, but I love it. I want that on a shirt.

37:28 Is that what Italian bots sound like?

37:29 Heroes, Italian boss level. All right, but let's get down to the bits here.

37:34 Okay.

37:35 It may not be ancient, but it's also not an amphitheater. Because, like, a bunch of outlets, CNN really harped on this, that the building is a fan-shaped theater, not an oval amphitheater. And there was much mention by Franco that this was a place for both the Romans and the Greeks before them. Now, here's the big problem with that. The Greeks never made it that far in Italy, up north. They didn't colonize that far up. But, you know, it's the facts get in the way. It's great stories. Let's stop for ads.

38:06 And I also need to go sell some tickets to the prehistoric excavations I discovered in my backyard. May or may not actually be where one of the interns got a case of the digger mans and like went to town creating a hole in the ground for no reason. I'm going to have to bring in an archaeologist for confirmation.

38:22 Yes.

38:23 But actually scrap that because we're about to find out that that's not a good idea. Zarin.

38:48 Elizabeth.

38:48 Franco Maloso. Philanthropist, writer, orchestra conductor, chocolatier, ballerino. Ballerino. Okay, this is another aside, which is where my brain lives most of the time. When I was like in fourth grade, I was in a class and I asked if a male ballet dancer is called a ballerino. And it was totally apropos of nothing. And the teacher said, probably not.

39:15 But the word ballerino was like sending me into gales of laughter. And I kept saying it sounded like a flat basketball. And that made me laugh even harder. No one else laughing.

39:25 You're just cackling to yourself.

39:27 I couldn't stop like crying, wheezing laughter. And that's how I spent. 15 minutes sitting in the corner of the room. Told to pull myself together.

39:34 I'm fairly certain that you are correct. It is ballerino.

39:36 Many years later, basically yesterday, I learned that in Italy, they do actually say ballerino.

39:43 That's what I thought. Okay.

39:44 The French call them un danseur.

39:46 Yeah.

39:47 But the Italians, they know a flat basketball when they see one.

39:49 Yes. And they have more fun.

39:51 Vindicated me. Okay. So Franco, he's got Anfiteatro Berico. Berico.

39:57 Berico.

39:58 A fake Roman amphitheater in the heart of actual UNESCO historical site territory. He's telling everyone this crazy mixed up history of the place, which is weird because he's also this self-styled historian when you look at his massive bibliography, but well. He's got this illusion going and he's saying that it's one of the oldest and most important Roman amphitheaters in all the land. He's getting into guidebooks. He's charging money. But then the illusion only lasted until Italy's own institutions looked at it.

40:28 Finally, I was wondering.

40:29 Finally.

40:30 I mean, get done protecting the food.

40:32 Carbonara sauce, hey, over here. All right, so 2016. There was this complaint from the town of Arconiano, and they decided they were going to do an investigation. He didn't have any planning permits, landscaping permits. You know how governments get about planning.

40:48 They love paperwork.

40:50 So how did they make this determination?

40:52 How, Elizabeth?

40:54 Zarin, close your eyes.

40:55 Oh, you stuck it up on me. My eyes are closed.

40:57 We're running out of time here. I want you to picture it. You are a member of the Arconiano Heritage Board. For months, local residents have complained to you about this. It's a scam, they say. It's marring the beautiful landscape, they say. It's, they say, tacky. You contacted the Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in Rome. They referred you to the office in Venice that oversees the Veneto region.

41:33 And here you are today in the parking lot of the amphitheater with two inspectors from the command office in Venice, as well as two fine-ass Carbonieri in their blue uniforms and military berets, and the squad's commander from northern Italy, Lieutenant Giuseppe Marseglia, the big dog. They are taking this seriously.

41:54 The birds chirp in the trees around you as the six of you walk across the gravel lot to the front gate of the amphitheater. One of the inspectors is an expert in archaeology. and one is from the Forgery Group. Today, they've joined forces to get to the bottom of this mess. You all pause at the large information sign next to the arched wooden door that leads to the inside of the amphitheater. The enormous brown and white sign is jam-packed with Wayfinder information. The lists are comprehensive. The path to the ruins of the Great Theater, mountain bike parking, the surviving arches of the Great Lake, area reserved for visitors' pets, free internet point, It also tells you that the area is under surveillance via satellite. On the ground beside you,

42:38 a large piece of poster board is attached with packing tape to a sandwich board display. It claims the site is connected in some way to the UNEU Environmental Protection Department, as well as unnamed archaeology, tourist music, and astrolytic observation departments. Marseglia sniffs and scoffs. The large wooden entry door creaks open.

43:12 Before you stands a man with gently curly gray hair. He's wearing a safari shirt, shorts, and green Wellington boots. He introduces himself as Franco Meloso. He turns and heads into the theater. As he walks, he babbles about various historical facts that are obviously made up. The archaeology inspector turns to you and rolls his eyes. You pass through the dark, cool archway and survey the scene. Before you lies a sickly green pond, maybe 40 feet by 60 feet.

43:43 Weeds grow from between the obviously distressed cement seating that stair steps up a slight grade, creating this half bowl in the hillside. Your group climbs the stairs to the top of the theater. The view is spectacular. In the distance, rolling hills are coated in the green of soft woods and dotted here and there with spires and tiled rooftops.

44:04 Below you, though, sits that sickly pond. A smattering of obviously reproduced Greek and Roman statues surround the water. A four-foot rusted iron candelabra circa 1997 stands beside you. You all descend the steps at Franco's direction and meet at the edge of the pond. He launches into a lecture about the site, explaining with loosely conjured lies that the site appeared after a landslide. What luck, you think. A crow swoops in and lands on a nearby cement statue of a puto, a naked chubby cherub, its wings tucked gently behind it. Lieutenant Colonel Giuseppe Marseglia raises one finger to silence Franco. He stops mid-sentence. and freezes, mouth agape.

44:49 Marseglia tells Franco to retreat to his office, that your group will be just fine on their own to complete the inspection. The inspectors from the art squad pull notebooks from their pockets and begin scrawling notes while strolling around the grounds, occasionally poking at a surface with the end of a pen or feeling the edge of faux stone cut marks with their thumbs. After a few hours, you depart the site without word to Franco. In the parking lot, Marseglia stands in the sun, the badges and stripes and service bars and epaulets and insignias glistening in the daylight.

45:22 He clears his throat and announces to the group, Of all criminals, forgers are the ones with the most talent, because they are able to create works of art. Then there are scammers. I have no respect for him. Calling him a forger is an offense to forgers. muttering a series of curse words, he and the Carbonieri head to their van. You get into your Fiat 500. You have a lot of constituents to call and deliver some good news to.

45:53 I love the respect for forgers.

45:55 Oh, I know. That's like a direct quote from him, too. He's just like, this guy has no talent.

46:01 This is an insult.

46:03 It took the group less than a day to do the inspection. And as you can guess, it's usually a much longer process.

46:10 Yeah.

46:10 But it was just comical. And so then, you know, everything starts to become expedited. By October of 2016, prosecutors ordered the area sealed. Moro Pudo, who is a Roman world specialist at the University in Siena, he told CNN that a properly monitored excavation would at most reveal one row of seats a year. Like if this was legit, it.

46:37 Would take— That was my thought. I'm like, did he have like a power sander out there? How was he clearing all this?

46:44 A landslide could never have delivered a finished theater.

46:47 No, even if you then went in with like a hose and were just like wiping down whatever rock, you wouldn't see the rest.

46:53 And so Franco's story shifted as the pressure rose on him.

46:57 He.

46:59 El Pais noted that he first sold the place as a genuine site with remains from all these different eras. And then once the investigators rolled through, he was like, oh, no, actually, it's a reconstruction of an older theater that was supposedly buried under the hill.

47:16 Yeah.

47:16 It was half Greek, half Italian.

47:18 The heritage superintendency, they rejected that, too. And they're like, there are no... Archaeological remains on this site, only modern structures.

47:27 The Italians never used polystyrene.

47:28 Exactly. So the courts, they just kept moving forward. Vincenza Court, they convicted Franco in 2019 of illegal construction, forgery of artworks, and unauthorized works in a protected landscape.

47:43 And insulting Mother Italy.

47:44 And insulting Mother Italy. He appealed, and he lost that appeal in 2020. Based on what, bro? Then he took it a step up. He went to the Court of Cassation. He argued, among other things, that the forgery was too crude for anyone to believe.

48:00 He insulted his own work to get out on his— I did such a crappy job. Who could believe this?

48:06 No one should have believed my lies. This is an intelligence test. Yeah. basically all right so that appeal failed so he got sentenced to 28 months in jail plus he had to pay a 3 000 euro fine wow and then 3 500 euros in legal costs and then since then italian law has been tightened up to allow for up to five years for forgery i was about to say if we could have put them away for longer we would.

48:30 Yeah they really took that one seriously two and a third year to Book him away in prison in Europe? That's a hell of a sentence.

48:37 Although he probably gets out on the weekend. So under the 2019 ruling, he was also told to compensate the town and restore the hillside.

48:48 Okay. And then— He put the dirt back.

48:49 Yeah. He had already moved. By the time he got busted, he had moved to Ventimiglia. And then he went to prison, whatever. He requested probation instead of jail time. They said, absolutely not. Get your narrow ass in there. The structure, though, has outlived his freedom. It was supposed to be razed and then restored to its previous UNESCO pristine glory of just a hillside. Nothing has been done as of yet.

49:20 You can still go there and see like the huge blocks.

49:22 Oh, yeah. The mayor told the local papers that he's not going to spend public money on it.

49:27 Of course. Yeah.

49:28 I don't blame him. Because like the mayor priced it out and a full restoration is somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 euros. That's actually less than.

49:37 I would have thought.

49:38 To clear this stuff. Same. But his whole budget for the entire area is seven million a year, his annual budget. Euro News said the town filed a claim of 560,000 euros in damages. And there's like some reports say that it was a request. Some say they were asking for this award of it. But there's no reports of anything getting paid on this.

50:04 Now, if I'm not mistaken, Elizabeth, there is an organization in Italy that is pretty much cut out for doing this work. I think they're called the Mafia. Yes. They're like, look, can you make this disappear? They're like, we do that. We got the dirt. We've got the men. We can make this happen. What's in it for them?

50:22 They got to get paid.

50:23 No legal consequences. We're like, look, pick one of your guys and we'll take 24 months off his sentence if you bury this.

50:32 Got to make a deal.

50:33 Yeah.

50:33 I like it. I like it.

50:35 Nonviolent crimes.

50:35 They've got trucking contracts. Yeah, exactly.

50:37 Some kind of like hijacking crime. Like, okay, look, we'll make this go away at both ends.

50:42 I like the way you think. That's creative problem solving, too.

50:44 I like it.

50:46 So Italy's institutions spotted the fake within a day, pulled the guy. They got him erased from all the guy books and apps.

50:54 Burn it.

50:55 They convicted the builder, but the stones still stand on the hill. You know, there's really no way to erase this lie right now. So a nation can defend its Carbonara sauce, its constitution, its coliseum. But they still end up with a counterfeit ruin that no one can afford to demolish. Oh, man. This is Erin. What's your ridiculous takeaway?

51:20 I've got two.

51:21 Yeah.

51:22 I do believe my mafia plan would work. I'm like, dude, you guys get some shovels. You get the young guys in the crew with the good backs. You get them up there.

51:32 Yeah, I like it.

51:32 Yes, okay, obviously you're going to need some heavy equipment to move some of the blocks, but the rest is just like throwing dirt on a hill, moving dirt, bringing some trucks of dirt in, bringing some heavy equipment, and we'll take care of you next time down the line. There it is. Now my second one is I realized where the Julius Caesar thing is still bothering me. I know that he died March 15th, 44 BC. And I was like, why did I say 23? He died from 23 stab wounds. And so when I panicked on the, when you put me on the spot, I was, I went to like my file of facts and I grabbed like one like row down of Julius Caesar fun facts.

52:07 That is.

52:08 And I was like, 23 BC. No, Zarin, that's 23 stab wounds, 44 BC, whatever.

52:14 That is so much deeper. I was like, you know, I know he died. That's how the brain works. I know he died.

52:19 Yeah.

52:20 I don't know when it was. Do you do that when.

52:22 You go to like, you know, grab a fact from your head? Like I have like a file effect system. So if I go to Caesar, it's like I can like almost see the library card and it's just like all these different things.

52:32 No, I have a series of piles of paper and I have to shuffle through them and then knock some of the piles over and then go, oh, never mind. That's how my brains are arranged.

52:41 And then blame a cat.

52:42 That's how it looks in my brain pan. Yeah, exactly.

52:45 What's your ridiculous takeaway, Elizabeth?

52:46 I just, you know, I feel so bad for this town. And it's such a beautiful area. And this guy's such a, like, a scumbag to do this. But it is very, very funny to me.

52:56 Maybe they'll have an earthquake or, like, a flood that just kind of, like, you know, the earth will take care of its.

53:01 Yeah, or they could build a data center there. He's got the pond.

53:07 The look on your face when you said data center.

53:11 It hurt coming out of my face. All right, here. Dave, please, please, I beg of you, talk back. Talk back.

53:22 Oh my God, did he just say that?

53:27 OMG.

53:30 Okay, you guys. I finally did it.

53:33 I finally downloaded the free iHeartRadio app just so I could leave you guys a talk back. I love you guys for what.

53:43 You do in these very somewhat dark and disturbing times.

53:47 It's nice to be able to.

53:50 Listen to some lighthearted criming.

53:55 Thank you, guys.

53:57 You're very welcome. It is our pleasure.

53:58 And trust, we also live for the lighthearted priming in these very dark times.

54:02 This is how you do it. You get like this guy. You go, you know what? I'm going to download this app so I can talk to these people. Thank you.

54:09 Yeah, thank you. Good luck on that, brother.

54:11 Just as much as it helps you, it helps us. Believe you me.

54:14 For real.

54:14 Yeah, we got to keep it light. So that's it for us today. I could also ask you if you have another ridiculous takeaway, but I won't. That's it for today. You can find us online at RidiculousCrime.com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Blue Sky, Instagram, email RidiculousCrime at gmail.com. Leave a talk back. Get that iHeart app. Leave us a talk. I sound like I'm on like a PBS fundraiser.

54:40 You know, go ahead and get that iHeart app.

54:43 You often sound like you're on a PBS fundraiser. Call in.

54:45 Call in. I'll get you a DVD of Peter, Paul, and Mary.

54:50 Singing with capital steps.

54:56 You're going to love it. All right.

54:58 That's it.

54:58 Reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zarin Burnett. Produced and edited by head of the Carbonieri's Spicy Meat the Ball division, Dave Kustin. Our Ridiculous Assistant is up-and-coming ancient Coliseum designer, Terry Maldonado Fong. Research is by pancetta defender, Marissa Brown. The theme song is by the members of the Fart Crime Squad, Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Host wardrobe is provided by Botany 500. Producer Dave Kustin's wardrobe by Mr. Guy of Beverly Hills. Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and Mr.

55:36 Andre.

55:37 Executive producers are tourists whose Instagram feeds embarrassingly contain a large section of photos breathlessly extolling the majesty of Anfitriatro Berico, Ben Bolin, and Noel Brown. Ridiculous crime. Say it one more time. Ridiculous crime.

56:02 Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.