Ridiculous crime.

It's a production of iHeartRadio.

Zaren Elizabeth?

How are you, Zaren Burnett?

How the hecky?

You've been so good?

It's been so long.

How are you?

How's your heart?

Do you get your Did you get your haircut?

No?

I don't have hair.

No, okay, you're just wearing a sloppy hat, a bit of hair poke out.

It's a good look for you.

You should do that more often.

Is that a chef's hat?

This is a chef's hat.

You don't normally see people wear those.

No, it looks good on you, though, Thank you.

I don't think I could pull that off.

Yeah, pretty special question, Yeah, please question.

I love those?

Do you know it's ridiculous?

I do American football?

That is so ridiculous.

Yeah, but not just the whole no idea how ridiculous.

I know it is for you, But like I grew up a football fan.

In fact, that's how I learned to.

I could multiply it by sevens before I could multiply by two or.

Three or four.

The football scores, Yeah, and I was I was my dad support team.

There's really bad.

So there's scores that get really high.

So I could multiply up to like fifty six.

But that's if they get that extra point, right.

Yeah, exactly, And that was usually happening.

So yeah, yeah, I'd be like fifty six to seven and I'd be like, that's eight seven, Dad, and he's like, they don't talk to me about this, but that's not what I want to tell you about what I want to tell you because it's now about to be NFL season or we're deep into the start of NFL season, and there's a lot of like things that are messed up about football, which I think we can both agree to, even though I'm a super fan of football.

Yeah, here's something that I found that was ridiculous.

In twenty seventeen, there was this former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, Erica Wilkins.

She sued the Cowboys for lost wages, right yeah, and she reported that the amount she earned for a full year's work as a cheerleader, which is more than just the games.

They do other stuff.

Oh yeah, they have like public appearances exactly.

She was a member of the Quote Show Group, an elite squad of the best dancers on the team, and they had to do stuff.

And there's a lot of like training and practice and rehearsals.

She got eight dollars an hour for rehearsals, which took place every night between and they lasted between three to six hours every night.

Yes, and she you know what she got for appearances one hundred bucks.

This is in twenty seventeen.

It was three hundred dollars when she like finally left.

Anyway bucks an hour.

Yes, so her full year's work, she got forty seven hundred dollars.

Wait, what as a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader she earned forty seven They means they all have other jobs, right, Yeah, but what I learned that was the most ridiculous part, Like, haha, ridiculous.

The team mascot, the guy who wears the big cowboy like hat and he has like this head and like the whole thing he's in like one of those like you outfits.

Right, he made sixty five thousand dollars a year.

Okay, okay, I just need a moment, right, just need a moment.

A whody's more famous, the cowboy mascot or the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.

I don't I'm not a football person.

I don't watch it.

Yes, I know that there's the Dallas Cowboy cheeroders.

I didn't know that.

I couldn't tell you.

The master exactly sixty five thousand dollars a year, one thousands for.

What be getting hot?

Like?

Oh, I got hot in my little outfit.

I mean, what do you How is that worth that?

I'm so angry right now, ridiculous.

I'm ridiculously angry.

Are you kidding?

Forty a year.

They got to have a day job.

Yes, and they rehearse every night, so they can't have much of a social life.

I'm not I'm gonna guess they like all their like makeup and hair extensions.

Gym membership isn't covered.

No, no, no.

Because they have to they have to.

Jerry Jones, the owner of the Cowboys, is notoriously cheap.

He just lost his star player because he wouldn't pay him a reasonable salary.

This is another reason why we just don't need football.

I thought you'd see me.

Yeah, this is ridiculously offensive, but it's ridiculous.

Oh my god, yeah, that's ridiculous.

Okay, I got to take a deep breath, deep cleansing breath.

Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

Damn?

Do I ridiculously good deals.

Yeah, this is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons.

It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

I know you heard that.

I think I mentioned a couple episodes ago about Aldi Supermarkets.

Yeah, it was when I was talking about their oasis Champagne, right, the Champagne supernova in the sky, but at a discount discount Champers anyway, So Aldi entered our consciousness, and it entered the consciousness of friend of the show Christopher McTaggart and more specifically, his lovely fiance Zophie.

Great name by the way, right.

So it's okay.

So see, Sophie was looking into Aldi as one does not because of what I mentioned, But you know, she stumbled upon something in their history.

What's that?

Something that would fit right into this show.

So thanks to them, Zophie for finding it and Christopher for tipping us off.

Yes, I continue with a good amount of further ado.

Have you ever been in an Aldi?

I don't think so.

It's they're kind of amazing.

It's your euro store, great deals on stuff, food, things like that.

They have their weird home brands like Trader Joe's.

More on that later, and even in the US they keep their euro grocery style strong.

Oh really yeah, So what I mean by that is that the cashiers get to sit on a chair, which is awesome.

Yeah, and then they ring things up as fast as they can, which whatever, and they don't bag anything, which.

Is all well a very German and Dutch.

Yeah, but you got to be ready to bag your stuff as it comes flying in rapid succession, and like, I can't tell you how speedy it is, and they're like you're shoving stuff in bags.

You're trying to like do sped up tetris work all the yeah, and then they total it out while you're still bagging and you have to like quickly step over and pay on the pin pad or whatever.

Sure, and like your groceries just like spin in place at the end of the conveyor belt while you're taking care of that, and the people behind you they grow restless even though they're on deck.

They're in the pole position to be part of the same speed change.

So you pay, and like you go back to bagging the last bits and putting the bags in your cart as like the next customer, stuff comes flying at you.

It is stressful, at least for me, I imagine for you.

They also have this thing with the grocery carts or in the South as they call them buggies, where you put a quarter in to get it.

Oh yeah, the return you.

Get the quarterback and that keeps it from you know, people leaving them all over the lot, which is fantastic.

I love that.

Small amount to get people to do the right thing.

Yeah, exactly.

When I lived in Scotland, I learned that this is how it's done at supermarkets that speed checkout at all of them.

So it wasn't just a yeah, And I got into the habit of like self bagging at advanced speeds.

And when I came back to the States, like, I kept it up and sometimes the checkers appreciate it, and other times they look at me like I'm nuts, like I'm stepping onto their turf.

Like the bag boys.

They actually have bag boys.

That's a job.

They come up like, hey, well job security.

We'll take five pal Yeah.

You know, in California, if you don't bring your own bag, they charge you for each bag.

I think that's in a lot of other places.

But like you know, and I think the checkers also want to keep track of that or like make sure you're not being wasteful with them.

And there's also the distinct possibility that I am completely overthinking the whole thing talent that is a talent of mine.

So Aldi, I look to see if they have any in the Bay Area, because I was like, we could do like a live show.

Oh there you go.

No, in California.

It's only in southern California.

Oh it's like Maha bra palm desert, Like they're all.

Over These are not exciting.

I know, they're all making his hand palm desert.

Also what about oh yeah.

Blythe is on there.

It's totally like, seriously, those are the ones just stuck in my head beating.

Down in there East San Diego County.

Sure, yeah, yeah, exactly.

So anyway, they're only in southern California, in California, but they have them in all other parts of the country East, in the South.

They're a whole bunch of interesting but they are not an American invention.

As you can guess.

Aldi is the brainchild of two German brothers Germans guessing, Okay, two German brothers with a fascinating story, part of which involves a crime.

Oh so, Sarah and I would like you to meet Carl and Theo Albreck.

Carl in the family hair hair are me?

I don't even speaking.

They came from Essen, like the industrial heartland, in the rural valley, good Catholic folks.

Carl Arbrecht Senior he was born in eighteen eighty.

Six, eighteen eighties, Yeah.

The patriarch of the family.

He worked as a baker's assistant and then later as a miner, and then he got he had lung problems because of that, so then he opened a small bread selling business in nineteen thirty baking.

Yeah, so it wasn't like an actual bakery, but he just had like the shop.

His wife Anna, expanded that business into a corner grocery, and in nineteen nineteen they moved their shop into a larger space where Carl this junior, Carl Junior he was born in nineteen twenty and Theo who was born two years later in nineteen twenty two.

They grew up stocking shelves, helping customers and like.

The dadiest babies industry, the dad kept meticulous books like he was he was mount.

Yes, oh, get right, goes without saying, and so this like modest storefront became the seed of aldi.

Oh of course, yeah, she was not coming.

The family was working class and they were really shaped by Germany's interwar hardships, as you can imagine board.

Yes, you know because look born in nineteen, the brothers twenty and twenty two, so you know.

They're right at the end of World War and that period.

That is fascinating to me.

Between yes and that's what they know, that's their place of birth.

There was that hyper inflation of the early twenties.

And wheelbarrows with deutsch markt Yes.

That meant that their groceries like strict frugality.

Like the store they offered only the essentials.

They really tightly controlled stock, of course, and they kept the prices super low.

It's all by necessity.

It was a survival tactic, not just like a good business model.

Yeah.

No, I've heard an interesting joker that time is that somebody showed up with a whealebarrow of deutsch Mark's to do their grocery shopping, and then they got upset because they went out and someone had stolen the wheelbarrow and left all the Deutsche marks.

Basically, like the thing is like they've got this store and it's you know, bare bones and the cheap, so it's super popular people.

Yeah, of course at that time.

Then both of the sons they were drafted into service during World War Two, so like they would have later on run into my grandfather somewhere who'd say, where were you in the war?

Just that was my favorite thing.

A lot of uncomfortable conversation.

Oh my god.

Apparently like no, no.

My mom tells a story about going to Europe when she was a teenager and my grandfather who served in Guadalcanal, Like they go and they're in like Bavaria and then in like a beer hall, and he would turn to people and be like, so where were you in the war?

Like you just want to fight your way out of this place?

What's up, dude?

He scrap.

He's a navy man, okay.

So so they get drafted.

Karl fought on the Eastern Front and was wounded.

He took like something in the leg or something, I guess, and then theo he was sent to the Africa Corps and he was captured in Tunisia by Allied forcees like hoorayok for them.

And he spent years in the US pow camp before he was repatriated, so you know, like.

In Texas he lived, they send him.

I don't know, so, Zaren, these two boys were not on the right side of history.

I was just skipping past that because you said they were drafted.

I don't know how enthusiastic they were about the cause, and I would I'm just going to hope that they were reluctant troops.

Something came out of their wartime experiences though, besides a good drubbing, their time in the war reinforced their existing discipline and like this deep avoidance of waste, you know, like they were they became like really camp you know what I mean exactly, and so they hung on to even like the slightest little things, and that's what infused their business philosophy later.

So they get home in nineteen forty six and they took over the family store essen pretty much destroyed, which like course.

Yeah you got ball bearings factories they were going down.

But the shop remained.

The shop was still standing, and the discount force field was like strong, like it made a bubble around it when our boys went in there.

And blew it to smithereens.

No, it stayed the let's not forget that.

Post war Germany obviously faced shortages and rationing.

Oh yeah, a decade and a half.

Yeah, it's the perfect milieu for discount retail, no good points.

So they built a chain of stores across the region by buying up these like bombed out shops on the cheap.

They refitted them, rehabbed them, and then operated with like that tight cost control.

And so there's like no frills whatsoever in these shops.

Decoration so spartan.

Yeah, it's just like and bare shelves.

No, like you're saying, no decorations, just things, you know, five boxes stuck.

Then they're like, you can have one.

They offered this limited assortment.

Most traditional supermarkets you've got like thousands of items.

They had like hundreds of items.

This reduced thing.

And then they had these private label goods that they started developing.

So they sourced directly from producers under their own control to cut costs.

Like McDonald's.

Yeah, their motto was, and I guess is quote the best quality at the lowest price.

It's like a very straightforward motto.

I say, they didn't spend any time on.

No marketing speak, no ad dies were paid for this.

There's no none of that like false sense of like community or family.

Just the facts, best quality money exactly.

So by nineteen fifty they ran thirteen shops.

By nineteen sixty they had over three hundred.

Yeah, they're expanded.

And that was the year that the brothers formally divided the empire.

So accounts differ, but the general consensus is that they got into a fight over whether or not to sell cigarettes.

What.

Yeah, Carl was opposed to it.

THEO was all for it.

So Carl was worried that if they carried tobacco products it would attract shoplifters and damage their profits.

Wow, that is not the angler, I thought he would tell not hell Or was like, let's roll the dice, buddy.

But like more broadly, they also had different management philosophies and expansion philosophies, so they had like it made the division natural and it was not contentious.

Oh really Yeah, So THEO took what would be called Aldi nord Aldi North for sure.

These were the stores in northern and western Germany, like going up from Essen.

Carl took Ald sued Aldi South.

All the Southern stores.

So it was in nineteen sixty two that they adopted the name ALD which is short for Albrecht Discount all brick discount.

So there's like this no nonsense brand reflects their strategy.

We got discount goods, minimal advertising.

Not as many letters as in other companies.

Pears efficiency, it's very German.

Theo's Aldi Nord expanded into Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and then in nineteen seventy nine he quietly acquired Trader Joe's in the US.

What, yeah, does he still own it?

Yeah.

Trader Joe's began in nineteen sixty seven in Pasadena, California.

Sure, founded by Joe Colomba.

In nineteen seventy nine, CEO bought the chain through a family trust.

But the thing is they always operated completely separately from Aldi.

Yes to do your own thing.

Yeah, So there's like separate, distinct leadership, merchandising, supply business, and it's under the Aldi Nord side of the family.

Joe Trader Joe himself stayed as CEO for almost a decade after the sale.

And you know they have like so they do that quirky private label, little heavy identity national cult brand.

But they're not as spare in any way as all they is.

But they're pretty spare compared to other American.

Groceries, most definitely.

Most definitely, I.

Can see the connection exactly.

So are you a treator Joe's Guy.

I've had friends who worked there.

My friend Jay, he worked there, and I really enjoyed it when he worked there.

I had my sister be a fan, so I used to do shopping for her and her family, so I had to go there personally, you know me, I can't stand the parking lots.

They drive me insane.

They never have good parking lots and people are always fighting and jostling for spots, and I'm like, I do not care.

I will go to any other grocery stores.

I don't have to deal with that.

Tr I to go get like one or two things and I'm walking by or on a bike, Yes, But if I'm in a car crowded, no.

There aren't really enough spaces, and I always feel like the spaces are narrower.

Yes, yes, and it makes people all.

Mad and there's just a bunch of angry liberals yelling at each other.

I'm like, super super violence.

I know a lot of people who worked there too, either have are now do and they love it For the company, I feel like it's more of a snack store.

Sometimes they have good like frozen stuff.

I like the frozen pizzas, but I have not had success shopping for fresh groceries there.

No, I know people who swear by it.

Oh really yeah?

Also I have heard complaints about their meats.

Saren I am particular about my groceries, Yes you will, And to be honest, I spread my purchases over a number of stores depending on the item.

And you know what I'm right or die for?

Though your your mini food farmer's markets.

You go to Costco baby.

Speaking of which, did you know that one of the house brands at Aldi is Kirkwood.

Oh, Kirkwood frozen breaded chicken stuff is like supposed to be a hit in the friar.

In my research, I kept seeing all these articles.

That's what the Internet told me.

I've never ventured into it myself, but Kirkwood hits a little too close to Costco's Kirkland.

If you ask me like shots, fire.

Yourself a fresh pair of kirk on elevens and have a good day.

Face off.

Let's take a break and I'm going to go heat up some Kirkwood chicken nuggets for you.

And when we come back, more Aldi zaren Okay, back to Aldi please, So Carl's Aldi sued they entered the US directly under the Aldi brand, So Aldi THEO went with Trader Joe's.

Carls like, you know what, you can't mess with all that, and their US arm like grew steadily from the Midwest outward.

Now it's like got this dense network, aggressive news store and remodeling.

That's like, where's the highest population and density of Germans?

Okay, from Chicago and Wisconsin.

They've been in the South.

They've been buying up a lot of the wind Dixies after wind Dixie closed and kind of doing.

Wind Dixie closed.

Oh yeah, I didn't know that.

They haven't been down there, but you know it still stands strong.

Past pig Wiggly Okay, nothing could take Pig.

I'm big on the Pig.

So they're they're like they're constantly expanding.

They want to open around eight hundred news stores by twenty twenty eight.

My father wouldn't let me shopping a place called Dixie, So yeah, of.

Course no, not so how many stores eight hundred that's an addition to what they already have.

How many do they have, I don't know, but in an addition to what they already have by twenty twenty eight, they want eight hundred more, okay.

And so there are serious Aldi fans out there.

They love the products and seeing them online, dedication of good value, and they're those who like track the various products and promotions.

There's this thing called the Isle of Shame.

Is that a real thing?

No?

Well, it's like it refers to the middle aisle of the store that has all these like limited time non grocery what they call all de fines like home decor, kitchen gadgets, seasonal items.

Oh wow.

It's nicknamed the Isle of shame because shoppers like do impulse bies.

Oh right, and he's like discounted yet exciting fine.

Sure, And then like those said, shoppers like to share anecdotes online about these silly purchases.

There's a whole Facebook community about the Isle of shame.

Uh.

In that isle of shame or sometimes items that fans refer to as aldidas, it's the Aldi logo in the style of the Adida's logo, not the like leaf one but the triangle and it's on sports where like tennis shoes and tracksuits and I'm not gonna lie.

The pictures I found like awesome, No you can't.

You got to go into the stores.

It's got to walk.

Is of shame.

Yeah, exactly.

It's cheeky.

And Adidas doesn't seem to mind.

Really they don't really care.

Because they're like they're.

Like, yeah, well they're just like no one's going to make a mistake on this, and it's cute.

You want to be me so bad?

Exactly.

You know who does mind UK retailer Marks and Spencer m and S.

Why would they?

I love M and S by the way, it's a good shop anyway.

So the most it's like a like they got everything type thing.

Tesco's more groceries.

M and S is like they've got house wears and clothes.

It's like Target.

The most famous case was callin the Caterpillar versus Cuthbert, so it was a street it's a cake fight.

This is a cake fight.

I did not see any of this.

M and S claimed that, okay, M and S had call in the Caterpillar, which is like a rolled cake, like a it's a long roll case with a face on it looks like a caterpillar, and so it's like you can buy these.

It's a popular thing to children.

You chop up the caterpillar and you eat them, and everyone that's calling the caterpillar, well all the introduced Cuthbert the caterpillar.

And it was like the M and S said that the cake was so similar to Colin that it unfairly on Collin's reputation.

Wow, and it was a bismirching saren.

So the case became like an absolute meme fest.

And I remember this happening on social media.

There was like hashtag free Cuthbert because they were gonna have to like puddle from.

The shelves, taking the side of the underdogors.

Yeah, and everyone out and was buying as many Cuthberts as they could.

So the parties reached like this confidential settlement.

They declared a truce in February of twenty twenty two, and they could both go on selling their caterpillar cakes.

There was no court ruling on liability.

Yeah.

So I think that like all these just had to kick some up to M and.

S and I think emins had to realize the judge'll be like, why are you taking it my time with this?

And of course anyone can sell a caterpillar case.

Yeah exactly, I mean, and they did look a lot, they looked and then whatever, it's cute.

So then there was the snow globe gin bottle case from twenty twenty.

One Spencer, so they like marketing gin to children, like more kids.

Spencer claimed that that time that all these festive light up liqueur bough with a winter scene, swirling gold flakes an led base infringed upon their UK registered designs for their own light up snow globe gin range UK drinking.

Oh god, it's so good.

So this time the legal hook wasn't trademarks but registered designs, so like the protected appearance of the pressure.

In January of twenty twenty three, the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court held that all these bottles infringed four of Marks and Spencer's registered designs because to the quote informed user, they did not create a sufficiently different overall impression.

They could be mistaken for each other.

Yeah, So the Court of Appeals upheld that ruling dismissed all these appeal confirmed infringement of the Marks and Spencer designs commentators noted that this was like a significant design owner friendly decision for tackling supermarket lookalikes.

Oh so it set a precedent law.

Yeah, and so you know brand don't like they had this distinctive seasonal packaging and it was shots fired warning to discounters that like these closely, you know, get ups can cross the line.

So those aren't though the all the crimes I want to talk to you about.

I was curious.

No, I have a major crime, a big dog.

Let's go back to Carl and CEO Albrecht.

Yes, discount grocery magnates.

They were notoriously thrifty.

Yeah.

Ceo was once asked to inspect plans for a new store.

He looked them over, inspected every detail, and then he offered this comment quote, this layout is very good, but there's just one thing.

This paper you're using is too thick.

Use thinner paper to save money paper so the like, rather than wasting money on fancy fountain pens.

He would take notes at meetings with senior staff using pencil stubs that were like less than two inches long.

He wrote pencils down to like the erasers and everyone else to do the same thing.

He's like, why are you doing that?

Here?

No waste.

So as you can see THEO.

He's very involved in the day to day of his business.

He put in hours at HQ, just like everybody else.

Zaren close your eyes.

I'll want you to pick a little nervous.

It's the twenty ninth of November nineteen seventy one.

You are THEO Albrecht, the very wealthy head of Aldi North.

You are one of the richest men in the world, but you don't flaunt it.

You live more like old money does.

You prefer buying things that are built to last, and you wieschee flashy brands or homes.

That's not to say you don't enjoy the finer things.

You live in a large home, not a mansion by any stretch, but bigger than most.

You drive a gorgeous Mercedes two eighty sel.

It's an elegant sedan that's built like a tank.

Today you're wrapping up a long day at the office.

You're leaving all the North headquarters, heading out to the parking lot to make your way home.

Your shoes squeak on the immaculate, high gloss cement floors as you cross the lobby and give a wave to the security guard at the front desk.

He nods to you as you pass.

You walk to the parking lot, whistling a tune I'm happy to call it a day and spend the evening with your family.

You open the door of the Benzo hop in and fire up.

The engine roars to life, and for a moment, your Creten's Clearwater Revival tape begins to play in the stereo, but only for a moment.

Then there's a scrambled, squealing sound as the tape deck each your cassette drat.

You decide to forego the stereo and supply your own tunes, whistling away as you hit the turn signal and leave the lot.

You leave the industrialized area and hit the leafy suburbs of Essen.

You wind down a narrow road, tall trees hugging the tarmac creating a bony fence.

On this almost winter evening, it's still beautiful.

As you come to a turn in the road, you slam on your brakes.

A van has pulled out into the road in front of you from some sort of alley or driveway.

Dundkov.

You yell as your tires screech on the black top.

A man hops from the van and heads to your window.

You roll it down and await his apology.

Instead, he shoves a gun in your face.

This is a curious development.

You think you are terrified.

The man demands you exit your car, but first he stares at you from behind a balaclava.

He asks to see your id.

You can fly.

He looks back and forth between your ID and your face that's slowly losing color.

He tells you he thought you'd be fancier, have a nicer suit on, maybe have a driver.

You shrug.

He holds the gun to your temple, yanks you from the car and drags you to the van.

The back doors pop open and shoves you in.

Another man is already back there, the driver, it seems.

He immediately begins binding your body with rope.

Your arms are tied securely to your sides.

One of them wraps wide tape around your head, covering your mouth and preventing any scream cries for help.

Then a piece of that same wide tape is slapped across your eyes, blocking out light.

You can no longer see their masked faces.

The van roars to life and speeds off this whole thing is so disorienting and frightening that you can't get your bearings.

You don't know which way the van is traveling.

All you know is that you're on the floor of a van with a gun shoved into your ribs, praying for the Blessed Virgin, all the saints, and the Good Lord himself to protect you and save you, because you know you can't do that for yourself right now, So zaren, Yes, THEO Albrecht was just kidnapped.

In case that wasn't clear, very clear.

Two men, a lawyer named Hans Jaquim Allenberg and an ex burglar, Paul Diamond, Paul Krawn.

They were the culprits.

Yeah.

So when THEO didn't show up at home after work, his family became worried.

With very tight schedule, very tight.

Yeah, they raised the alarm, contacted the cops, a search began in immediately.

THEO was a very high profile and wealthy individual, and it's important to remember that their lives and safety matter far more than ours priorities there very true.

Yeah, No waiting twenty four hours, no, no, you.

Get the call.

Everything all resources put towards that it's there.

They're worth more.

Yeah, they're pretty much the pedestals of the community holding all the rest of us up.

Their lives are more valuable than ours.

So Theo's Mercedes was found ditched about twenty five miles from his office, and the next day the kidnappers moved THEO between a couple of flats in Duseldorf.

He was made to strip down to his underpants each time they shoved him into a wardrobe like an amor at each place for various periods of time standing closet.

He wasn't tortured or treated too poorly, other than having to sit in a closet wearing nothing but his chonies, but like the kidnappers kept threatening it with harm in order to make sure he behave.

The next day, the first of the ransom letters arrived at the Albrich family home, and some were dictated by THEO under duress.

But it confirmed that he was alive.

But they aren't cutout letter.

No, it's his handwriting.

Yeah, So the kidnappers identified themselves as en fjor Rungsfrat Kidnapping Council, and so they're trying to sound like this structured organization.

Hey, it's us.

The Kidnapping Council.

We had a meeting and we decided on the price.

So they were demanding seven million Deutsche marks seven, which was the equivalent of two point one million dollars at the time.

So that's more than sixteen point five million dollars today.

Yeah.

It was the largest ransom on record at the time.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records.

It was international.

Yeah.

Oh so messages were also sent to North Rhine Westphalia's state premiere, hinting at more kidnappings if their demands weren't met.

Oh smart.

Yeah.

So THEO he asked his captors like, how did you choose me?

Why?

He wanted to know, my family is notoriously not the spendee.

Yeah.

They told him that they picked him for the abduction after reading this book called The Rich and the super Rich, a book chronicling the lives of the wealthy.

It was like a catalog for them.

Didn't know who to go.

Yeah, they're chatting it up by now and they're they're letting THEO read the paper, listen to the radio, and he's like advising them on negotiating, Like he's basically acting as his own negotiator with them okay, yeah, and he's like trying to Yeah, you know, he's not like, hey, get more of it exactly.

You know, I'm much more.

Remember, THEO came from a devout Catholic family, so in times of trouble, one leans on one's face, and Theo's family quietly involved the Catholic Church at this point.

Once the ransom letter was received, they reached out to Bishop Franz Hangbock of Essen and he agreed to mediate.

Suggesting okay, the cooler heads prevailed, right, So.

For three days communications continued via letters, phone calls.

The police were cautious, they ran surveillance and they kept the negotiations going.

They feared for Theo's life, like if it dragged on too long, the family and then all the all the executives.

They worked to keep the case out of the press for as long as possible.

Oh interesting, and the police.

They had the bishop pass along a message to the kidnappers.

If they produced THEO unharmed, the cops would give them twenty four hours lead time to make a run for it.

They give him a head start.

Yeah, I'll give you a twenty four hour head start, and then we're.

Going to come after you you know, this is like a Ron Howard movie.

Yeah, So the fifteenth of December, an agreement was reached.

CEO had been in captivity for sixteen days.

The family put seven million Deutsche marks in banknotes into two large suitcases, and the police had like prepared, they had marked all the notes, like there were covert tracking things, but like it's nineteen seventy one technology, so there are limits.

But all of the cash was marked.

On the seventeenth day of his captivity, the plan went into motion.

It was the sixteenth of December nineteen seventy one.

So in the dim light of the evening, Bishop Hengsbach drove to this rural area outside of Duseldorf.

Following instructions he was given, he put the two suitcases filled with ransom money out.

The kidnappers collected the cash, and then the next morning, THEO was released near Essen, physically unharmed but like obviously shaken.

Yeah, cops standing on the corner.

The cops lied.

They immediately began the man hunt.

They're like, you're stupid for falling for that.

Wow, and like they had it was kind of a ridiculous thing.

We'll give you twenty four hours don't worry.

We're making a game of the day, like.

You promise, you like to tell you wants to do this.

They had recordings of the phone calls and they played them for the public and asked the public he recognized the voice and oh my god, so many people called in.

But that wasn't where they got their first break.

It was the money in the wild, oh, betting spent.

It was only days later after theo got freed that Diamond Paul drew attention to himself by paying a shop debt with five hundred Deutsche mark notes that came from the ransom handover.

So the tip from the dealer gave police this concrete lead.

Diamond Paul right arrested in Germany on the twentieth and December nineteen seventy one.

Did the dealer like know Paul, Like there's a regular place he went, I'm like yeah this time.

Yeah, the lawyer Oleenberg he fled.

He figured Diamond Paul was going to rat him out, and so the cops like rushed to Ollin.

Now.

Remember, so he's this lawyer.

They go to his law office in Duseldorf, but he's already in the wind.

There was evidence there that implicated him and the kidnapping, since that's one of the places they kept THEO in the office.

So this manhunt follows.

Ohlenberg gets picked up in Mexico City who and flown back to Germany by around New Year's So this is like end of November, beginning of December and it's New Year's they bring him back.

This is German efficiency.

I'm telling you.

Soon enough, the pair stood trial.

I'm going to pause here, check out some ads.

Hopefully there's good deals.

I hope they're not too offensive to the senses.

And when we return court time Zaren Elizabeth, welcome back.

Man the bush Us.

I could not believe.

I'm still kind of like tripping out that they didn't have any like wherewithal to not spend the money.

I mean, I guess they didn't have I guess Diamond Paul didn't have it like that.

Well, Diamond Paul was like, he's not like the best, No, even though he's Diamond Paul.

Yeah, Well, nicknames don't always tell you it's true.

That's true.

But let's talk about the law.

Part of law and order court.

So the kidnapping case of THEO Albrecht was heard in Essen's regional court by three professional judges plus two lay judges.

Apparently, as was the custom of the day.

The trial opened in January of nineteen seventy three, so like thirteen months after the abduction.

The newspaper Der Spiegel they described an absolutely overflowing press and public gallery because here you've got this family that's so secretive and then there's this huge event, so everyone wants to, you know, to learn more about.

It, crack open the walls of the family, what's going on.

In contemporary coverage, like they classed it as a robbery style extortion plus unlawful deprivation of liberty.

So that was basically the kidnapping for ransom pairing in German law at the time, and there was a statue tory maximum sentence of fifteen years.

The prosecution had key evidence, right, so there were those marked ransom bills.

Remember, just days after the release, he goes to the shop.

He's like, here, here's some five hundred deutsch mark bills.

And then that was the tip that led to his arrest.

So that's part of the evidentiary chain.

Then there was that runner that Ollenberg did, and then there were the confession slash partial admissions.

From both men.

Yeah, so the court noted that both men were quote vit Gen gesstendis largely confessed.

Oh, I'm not saying any of this right, and I was going to just skip it, but I thought, why not aim for the stars.

Elizabeth was in your life.

Dershpiegel's week one report paints this super vivid scene, like the courtroom is packed with TV crews, photographers, the two defendants are sparring over like who masterminded what, and then the article also records testimony about how the targets were selected because he was like they had others, just just those two, because they had that they're rich and the super rich, and then pressless that they found.

Then THEO shows up, so like the regional coverage marks like his own testimony mid January, and there are photographs, captions, but there's so little information about what was said, and I think that they could maybe manipulate the press into not talking about it too much.

And so in the end, each guy gets eight and a half years in prison.

About half the ransom was recovered in bank accounts and safe houses, only half, but yeah, three to three and a half million Deutsche marks vanished without a trace.

So there's so much speculation around that.

There's talk about offshore stashes dimonds.

No, not that I know of.

So we have to keep in mind who we're dealing with in terms of the victim.

Right.

So THEO lifelong account and son, notorious miser.

His family had just shelled out all that money and he wanted justice or at least financial balance.

So old THEO tried to deduct the unrecovered ransom as a business expense on his taxes.

The government, I want to write it off.

So the government was like, no, we don't agree with that or that course of action.

So the Duseledore Finance Court ruled that it could not be classed as a business.

As a business loss essentially, well, they did.

Allow it as part of a quote extraordinary burden against income tax.

Oh yeah.

So this very unusual action by the court and the new president drew wide attention in German legal and financial circles because there's all sorts of ways that you can, you know, ful with that fake it.

So anyway, already known for his secrecy, THEO became even more reclusive.

He rarely granted interviews, he avoided photographs, seldom seen in public his addresses and movements were really tightly guarded.

Hero in an armored car to work and he changed his route every day.

Yeah, lightning striking twice according to Ye.

Yeah, so this reinforced all these culture of anonymity, like the executives also stayed low profile.

Everyone really all potentially learned from his loss.

Yes, And then there's four four in the nineties, the brothers Theo and Carl.

They retreated to a remote North Sea island.

Four is one of the North Frisian islands off it's the second largest German island.

Yeah, you're another nothing against you.

Your pronunciation was throwing.

Oh it's terrible.

So it's well, here's the thing, Like I go online, I get online.

Yeah, you know, I surf the web, I surf the net, and I was doing the pronunciation for how to pronounce his place and they are like six different ways and none of them are right, you know what I mean, Like he hit won and it's off.

No, that's on how they are four.

F O with the two little like yeah, h r fu su I think it'd be like I think it is fures.

Oh yeah, okay, so fure he's on fear O, he's on fear Hey, little girls, your daddy home.

So seriously, it's a great song.

The boss maybe go back and fix them.

I don't know.

Uh.

So Fure is this second largest German island.

It's this quiet thatch roof cottage kind of place with like this long North Friesian cultural history and a twenty seven hole golf club online, but like discrete.

Uh it's in an area called the Frisian Caribbean.

Oh yeah, it is to their aim and high accounts describe this as like semi retirement living from that.

Yeah, so from like the nineties onward, because like THEO stepped back from daily operations in ninety three and Carl in ninety four.

They just like puttered around the island.

They went back and forth to like Essen, but they were mainly there and like the intense privacy that they had makes it really hard to pin down dates, but like you know, you can kind of guess based on obituaries and stuff like that.

Okay, So the sources that we have like link this island life to these private, really low key hobbies, golf collecting, antique typewriters.

That was like a long running THEO quirk.

That's a Tom Hanks quirk too.

Yeah, all like, so THEO did that for a long time.

Orchids.

THEO was also super orchids.

Yeah, they both like to go hunting.

That's fun.

So THEO.

He died in July of twenty ten in his hometown of Essen.

The family provided no details about it and they delayed reporting it for a while, like delayed telling the press.

Carl passed away four years later in twenty fourteen, and that year he was listed as one of the richest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of twenty three point one four billion.

Damn lost count grocery.

Yeah, so when he died, he was named the richest person in Germany and the fourth richest in Europe.

Yeah.

Ceo and his wife silly.

They had two sons, Theo Junior.

He went on to work Aldi Nord and then Berthold and his branch of the family remained involved through like foundation work.

So control of Aldi Nord was vested in three family foundations, Marcus, Lucas and Jacobus.

I don't know where they got the names, so there's so little information on their background and they're thinking of stuff.

So this was designed for like tax reasons.

And to enforce long term stewardship.

So after Theo's death in twenty ten and then his son Berthold ied in twenty fourteen, a fight broke out among the heirs.

So these like disputes became really public, and they were overwhelmingly on the Aldi Nord side, and it centered on the control of those foundations that you know, Aldi Nord and then Trader Joe's by extensions.

Oh yeah, So there are very specific, let's call them like flash points in this.

So first was Theo's death and then a couple of years later his son, and it was later revealed that his son blew out his liver drinking himself to death.

But at the time of his death, like it was just this mysterious he's had fifty but when he died, he and his brother had an estimated net worth of almost eighteen billion dollars.

Wow.

Yeah.

So the next flashpoint was the resignation of the Aldi Nord CEO Mark Heiberger in twenty eighteen because there was all this like shareholder turmoil.

Now, then there was silly the mom's will that accused Berthold's will Babet and their five children of siphoning more than one hundred million euros from one of the foundations.

Not bad, bet ba.

Bet love that.

Why wasn't I named Babet?

That'd be so much more fun.

People call you Babs.

You'd hate that.

I could do that.

You could do that, Babs.

No, I couldn't do that.

Think So then the next year there was a criminal complaint this is twenty twenty, filed by the grandson Nikola against his mom and his sisters.

Yeah, yeah, he's like babbet uh.

Prosecutors later dropped an embezzlement probe and to like check everything out open books.

By January of twenty twenty three, the camps like they, you know, they we've put our feud to rest.

Yeah, it's crossing us to legal fees.

But not before more than a decade of like reporting on the feuds in the tabloids.

It's like the Daily Mail had a field day, mainly because of all these popularity in the UK.

They always mentioned that in the articles and the details were wild.

There's like the drinking, all these accusations and then is incredible eye popping amounts of money.

Are they doing like that underground German stuff?

Or they do the sword fighting and cut each other's cheeks.

Probably Now let's say they did.

It is like perfect tabloid father, which is exactly what THEO would have hated.

Yes, like this would have been He's he is spinning in his grave.

He's like crypt He's yeah, like just drilled a hole.

Yeah, further, you could play a record.

Hated it.

Another major scandal touching the air was the Helge Achenbach art fraud case in twenty fourteen.

If you say so, right, bless me, a prominent art dealer was convicted of defrauding Berthold and then drunk son.

Yeah.

Later civil rulings awarded damages to the heirs on the Aldi suit side, Carl the heirs bit to Hayster and the late Carl Arbrick Junie.

If they had any disputes, they kept it private.

Oh real quiet.

There's no comparable public legal brawls over controlled.

No, yeahind closed doors with lawyers.

The Theo's abduction is one of post war Germany's most infamous crimes.

I met, and it really hardened corporate Germany's security culture and made the name synonymous Albrecht not just with like frugality but secrecy.

What about the kidnappers.

Arin what about them, Elizabeth.

They both died in twenty seventeen, together a few months apart, so Paul Diamond Paul he passed away in a care home at the age of eighty seven, and heinz Olenberg he died at the age of ninety three same year.

So they kept really low profiles after their release.

And regarding the ransom, Diamond Paul said that Ollenberg was the brains behind the abduction and only gave him like a few thousand Deutsche marks for his participation in it.

Ollenberg the lawyers like no, no, no, no, I beg to differ.

He swore they had split the money evenly, and when he was busted, he returned his half.

That's the half they got.

Oh, and that's why they were That's what they have and so that's that's why we have.

Yeah, that's why they have the three and a half deutsche marks missing Diamond Paul.

But here's Diamond Paul.

He talks to the press and he's like on a pension, like a pensioner's allowance.

Like he's not rich, but does he have some like you know, this is forgive me for being a romantic, but does he have like someone who he's like protecting an illegitimate daughter and he's just giving her all the money.

I have no idea, And I'll tell you what's really interesting is like, I really think that the Albrecht family had such a grip on German media that they could get these little bits and pieces.

But the details are just scant, and it gave me the impression that a lot of it was just clamped, that they don't want too much stuff out there.

But Diamond Paul, he said, he told the press, quote, Honestly, I don't know about it.

I only got ten thousand Deutsche marks from Ollenberg.

He was cleverer than me.

Who do you believe in this between the two of them.

I believe I believe Diamond Paul.

I want to you know that, like, yeah, he got stiffed, he got ten grand.

Oh, I believe it the other way.

I believe that he was like, I guess I split it.

I guess I don't believe him.

That's the better way of saying it.

I believe that Oldenburg split it with the Diamond Paul, and that Diamond Paul is not telling the truth about the ten grand or the ten thousand he got, and that he is he's hidden it away somewhere, but for somebody else who he doesn't want anything bad to happen, and he's going to live as a pauper.

Olenburg.

He was living out by the Polish border and he was living in this like spare life.

Yeah, East Germany.

He would not talk to the media at all, had nothing to do with them.

But like local talentspeople they like had the whispers about, like stash money in Switzerland, like that was the rumor.

So in twenty twenty five, the police in Essen, they announced that they had recovered a box of misplaced case files in the basement the cellar of a station.

A misplaced pop had like total for the most.

Important Yease, it wasn't just them, there's a bunch of but in the box we're records from the all record kidnapping.

Sure, so they think the files might shed light on the ransom handover and the fate of those missing millions, and so like the publics that getting all jazzed up about it, you know, more than half a century later.

And if they're marked, they're still marked, I know, I know.

So stay tuned, Saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?

Oh man, like this couldn't be a more German story the way everybody is involved in like, and I'm not trying to like, I know that it's a wide culture.

Not every German falls under the stereotyps.

What I'm saying is our understanding as Americans of the German cultural personalities, if you will.

This is very much like I'm like wow at every turn, like that he drives himself in his own car, and then that they judge him for driving himself, like we would have thought you would have a better suit to driver, and he's like, well, you would be wrong, you know.

It's it's just very interesting to me.

And then also the family splitting in the North and South.

I have to admit, just because of understanding of latitudes and the tendencies of latitude, that the South family would be the messier one in the North family, and it flips.

I find that interesting too.

What about for you, Elizabeth?

I again, I love the I know a good number of Germans and those who are from there live there, those who are immigrants.

Yeah, and it's and it's it is a very German story.

They're all these really endearing coat qualities of it.

And I'm fascinated by having this money and like his house, like you can only I was able to kind of like sneak away to find his house with these like coordinates.

Oh, but you can't do a street view.

It's just like there's a huge thing, but like from the footprint above, it's not.

It isn't a mansion.

I mean it's huge, so I mean i'd put it at maybe like eight thousand square feet.

It's huge, but it's not this palatial estate and it's not like got huge grounds around it.

It's in a neighborhood and there are smaller houses around and all that kind of thing a neighborhood to it's I find that fascinating.

This guy is like a billionaire and this quiet life and that he and his brother too, their joy was finding this like isolated island and so all of the stuff that they lived through and saw and like fought through, you know that, Uh, to come out with that in this frugality.

That then the secrecy is also like a huge thing, like to keep their name out of the press, and then how their family blows that entirely.

Yeah, I mean there's the Daily Mail articles are nuts.

So that's my takeaway.

I would really love a talkback.

Hell yeah, oh god, I went get.

Zaran.

This is story from Asto, Minnesota, home to three people, and you need to take your Bluetooth pack into Elizabeth Forrester.

Get over to Krispy Creton right now, because happening for a limited time only is Harry Potter Donuts.

That's right, pick your house of ill repute, grab a ratchet and get over there now.

Thanks guys, Bye.

Round trip for coming to.

See you, babe, and thank you for the deepole on the ratchet.

I need to get Elizabeth properly.

I do need to get a ratchet and Bluetooth.

That forester.

Is so good.

Uh.

That is it for today.

You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.

I was just named employee of the month there really so thank you Saron.

Congratulations, Thank you Eric.

I'm so proud of you.

Thank you.

Uh.

You were also a Ridiculous Crime on blues Crime Instagram.

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Leave a talk back.

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Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett.

Produced and edited by loss Albreck brother Dave Kusten, starring Annale Rudger as Judith.

Research is by Frugal shopper Marisa Brown.

The theme song is by Discount Musical Instrument Emporium pioneers Thomas Lee and Travis dunt Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.

Guests Haron, makeup by Sparkleshot and Mister Andre.

Executive producers are Scheming Kidnappers of the One Percent, Ben Bowleen and Noel Brown.

Disquime Say It One More Time, Gee Crime.

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