Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren Elizabeth.

How are you ah doing well?

How about you?

I'm really good, look well rested?

Thank you.

I'm not, but I'm good.

You're faking it?

Well?

Yeah, how are you?

Have you?

Have you been sleeping?

No?

I gave that it's not it's not fashion.

I gave it up for lent and just kept on rolling.

Can never look back.

Uh, do you know what's ridiculous I do?

Friend of the show, Billy Idol, Yeah, you know you've discovered him, right?

Yeah?

Yeah, Well recently, just this year, he found out that he went through one of life's great transitions of menopause no becoming a father for the third time.

He rocked the Cradle of Love totally.

The sixty nine year old was not shocked to learn that he had a secret son named Brandt, because Billy Idols said, quote, He's had sex with millions of people.

Who brand title.

He also admitted that this is what I love is.

He threw in all of his colleagues in the rock world.

He's like, well, a lot of us probably of likely fathered children outside of our usual relationships.

So did he do a roll call of most likely suspects.

No.

I wish he did, but he did say.

The more I thought about it, I guess there must be something like that about learning about his child, something like that.

Oh, because quote, we were just going around in the eighties and seventies just having knockdown, drag out sex with a million people.

You didn't know.

The first thing I like is he does eighties, then seventies, he goes backwards in time.

And then also I like that knockdown drag out sex.

You don't think sex is not followed knockdown drag out, Like, Billy, do you understand what sex is?

You know what?

He's the original route.

Dude, dude, he is so ridiculous.

He's front of the show.

Shout out it is.

That is ridiculous.

And do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

These naked scamming Oh.

Oh, this here is a ridiculous crime.

A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heist cons It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

You damn right.

I am so damn right.

Look at you over there.

I think I've mentioned this to you before, but I have a friend in the diamond business.

That's right.

You know him, Paul from the Dims exactly.

I've talked a lot on You told me that every kiss begins with K.

I will never forget that.

And you know what he went to, Jared.

I've talked a lot on here about stolen gems.

Yes, you have.

You love them?

I do.

They're light and portable, yeah, very very valuable.

So it's like the perfect target.

I've heard this from my friends who sell drugs, not to.

Victim blank, yeah you know, but it's perfect target.

They're better than cash.

It's so glamorous to steal diamonds, like you don't steal them and then sell them out of the back of a van and in a gas station parking lot.

No go to downtown LA to the diamond districy.

You jet off to Antwerp with the diamonds in like a velvet lined briefcase and you wear you're wearing a sharp suit while you do it.

Love that.

Then you stay in a high end hotel and you have to go to Paris to meet up with another fence and you take a chauffeur Benz to like a gretty warehouse outside of town.

You meet up with another well dressed crook.

I got to get back in the gym.

You do, and then the deal's done.

You go to London sip a cocktail while staring out the window of a penthouse hotel room that overlooks the Tens.

This is like a James Bond movie.

But let people up, that's.

What it seems like.

Diamond theft is like based on movies or like crap TV shows.

All right, one would think, But there's another side of diamond crimes.

There are you about open my eyes?

I'm so about to open your eyes.

But I've told you this kind of thing before.

This is true a diamond hoax.

So yeah, remember those dudes that scattered the gems in the high desert, which there were cut gems, by the way, which is my favorite part.

It's like, oh look, major cut these perfectly.

They're ready for the market.

So the diamonds aren't stolen, but they're part of a con.

It's an accessory.

And that's exactly the type of crime I want to tell you about today.

It's a kN a glorious con and it all centers around Alri Numouan.

If you say so, yeah, how do I spell that with a lemon?

Okay, perfect.

I don't have a date of birth for this guy, but I'd estimate it to be in the late mid to late eighteen hundreds.

Oh wow, yeah, okay.

Maybe eighteen sixties, eighteen seventies earlier.

His dad was French consul in Trieste, Italy.

No good place to be a French console, right.

And that's where he met Ari's mom, and he eventually moved back to France, to the foothills of the Pyrenees near.

Tar Okay down south.

Yeah yeah, and they.

Had little Alri.

His dad out of the Foreign service, got a job managing a marble works.

Oh seems like a step.

Down, but maybe not.

What did little Unri like to do as a boy in the Oxtania region?

What did he like to do?

Elizabeth, Well zarn.

He would hop on an ox and teartail all over town at ox an ox like, ye.

Haw, that's a big slow animal the.

French, yeah souchon.

And so this led him though.

He wound up serving on the cavalry on horseback.

Oh good.

Yeah, and he was like an amateur bullfighter.

Oh heck, yeah, he knows ox.

And he became an adventure guy basically totally all about the feats of daring do, and he went like where the adventure took him.

So he traveled all over Europe, South Africa, the US of A.

And according to an article from the International Gemalogical Institute, quote at fifteen, he was already selling shares in non existent companies.

Thrown out of his parents' house, he frequented the arcades and repeatedly abused the gullibility of tourists.

He exercised at fairs with a certain talent, the trade of illusionist.

So he was a magician, yeah, Alrilemoir, Yes, teen illusionist.

This fall on CBS, and this comes on right after Watson, which Paramount plus seems determined to meet me.

Watch but you know what, I'd do what I want Zane.

So it was around eighteen ninety eight that he got bored of being like the nineteenth century version of selling NFTs and he found a new love, which is diamonds.

Diamonds were Ari's best friend.

They are forever right.

And so it was eighteen ninety eight that he met Maurice Coklan, an engineer, and his story of their early partnership was detailed in The New York Times a decade later he said that Ari quote was employed as a canvasser for an advertising firm.

One talked very glibly, announced that he too was a student of chemistry, and offered to ally himself with the engineer.

Succeeded, said the engineer in obtaining the brutal powder, which, while it was harder than Ruby's, was without the hardness of diamonds.

Hmm.

You know, every con man has a half truth.

Yes, so he's like someone who once bought a chemistry set from a toy store and these all of a sudden, he's bill ny.

But people of the time like he's talking about the birth of lab grown diamonds.

All right.

Yes, So that same engineer, very soon after he said that, he you know, he told that he was positive that Ari was making actual, real diamonds thanks to this formula he'd come up.

Okay, so I should say here that scientists in the late nineteenth century were obsessed with making diamonds.

The scientific alchemy.

Yes, yes, So the big dog of that was another Ari.

Ari Mois Sommes.

He was a French chemist best known for two groundbreaking achievements.

His first was the invention of the electric arc furnace.

Oh wow, yeah, and then.

That was around eighteen ninety two check, and it could get up to like thirty five hundred degrees celsius.

So this allowed people Hymns, particularly to study materials under conditions that weren't previously possible completely, including experiments with the synthesis of diamonds.

He also discovered fluorine.

Oh yeah, and that.

Got him the nineteen oh six Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Whoa big dog, Madam Carrie.

Yeah, exactly.

So back to his diamonds, though he didn't make gem quality synthetic diamonds, but he was the pioneer who first tried systematically using high heat and pressure to crystallize carbon, and then that directly influenced the eventual success of lab grown diamonds decades later.

Okay, but was he making like essentially like almost like industrial level diamonds.

Yeah, yeah, And so by at this time, like scientists are fascinated by diamond structure and they're like suspecting that it's made of pure carbon and that figuring like if it's under the right pressure and temperature, you know, you could create this.

Artificial Roman could do it in the palm of his hands.

Temperature heat there it is so son like his invention of this arc furnace gave exactly the tool to test the idea.

He mixed carbons so like charcoal or sugar carbon with iron in his arc furnace.

He melted the mixture at the super high heat, then rapidly cooled it, and then his theory was that the carbon dissolving in molten iron under high temperature and the rapid cooling that would be that sudden contraction.

Yeah, like a distillation processor, they separate and then yeah.

So instead of the enormous pressure of the Earth on it.

He's replicating that, really love this.

And he reported that he produced tiny crystals embedded in the iron globules, and the crystals were so like microscopic, but he's like, they're diamonds when you look at the microscape, the structure of it, and like later you know, when people analyzed it, some of them were diamond like carbon structure quite perfect, yeah, and so the others like carbon phases, so it hadn't gone there yet carbides yeah, and so but here's why we have moisenite.

Yes, I was wondering almost diamond.

Yeah, And so that mineral was discovered by him while he was examining rock samples from what's now Meteor Crater in Canyon Diablo, Arizona, and then they named the silicon carbide in honor of him.

So anyway, this was in the zeitgeist at the time.

Making diamonds was the new.

As you said, the alchemy.

People had notions.

They certainly did, and everyone wanted to be the guy who turned carbon into cash.

So there's Ali Limoim, an amateur bullfighter, soldier, traveler, basically like man of Mystery.

He's got this great backstory, and that takes us to nineteen oh five.

That's the year that already got in touch with Sir Julius Werner.

Sir Julius was a German born British owner of South American diamond mining companies.

Oh yeah, good.

I was the richest of the diamond guys, and just one of the richest of the guys period.

Beers in them.

He's like one of the owners of beers.

I got you, so, Alri, he.

Wanted to demonstrate this claim of his of creating diamonds to a guy who made his nut off getting these things out of the ground.

Yeah, I got an easier way to do that.

Yeah, Like Sir Julius, his company had that controlling interest into beers.

So we're talking like mega mega rich.

So Alri first approached him May nineteen oh five, but he was really sly about it.

Alrie sent two dudes that Sir Julius knew and like trusted to go talk to.

Him backroom meeting.

Yeah, and they're like, hey, we heard about this guy guy who made real diamonds on a commercial scale, Like they super exaggerated it, and they were like, if this is true, your company could be in serious trouble if he decides to compete with you.

Ah.

So Sir Julius is like, look, I got to bring this guy into the fold.

I got to catch and kill's totally.

So he's like, bring bring how Ari I'll meet with him.

Stoked, He's like, Sir Jules, gonna call you Jules.

He you mind diamonds, I make them.

I can create real, live, actual diamonds, ones that are going to fool any gemologists.

You can't tell them from the ones that are in the ground.

Yeah, because once you get alatt of structure, right, it's a diamond, it's a diamond.

It's a diamond.

And he's like, all I need super hot furnace and my secret recipe.

That's it.

So Sir Julius is like, can I see this secret recipe just, you know, take a little peek, and no, Henries says, of course not.

It's locked away in a safe deposit box Union Bank in London.

You shall not see it, well, said Sir Julius, Can I see you make them?

And you know, can I see the experiment in that?

Show me the magic in action?

We says Ari.

So they set it up for Sir Julius to come to Ari's workshop to witness awesomeness.

And you know, Sir Julius gets there and the place is all set up.

The furnace is like white hot, the all fired up, ready to go.

Are pulls out a crucible, you know, the vessel where you melt metals at height ten and he like turns away and adds a special mix, and then he places the crucible in the fire.

And I'm guessing that they made awkward small talk for a while, and then Alri removes the crucible.

After a while, he cooled it quickly, water sizzling, and then sifted through it.

He lifted out with some of those long science tweezers to the end a diamond, so obviously not a cut diamond, but the rough stone.

It would have been absolutely hilarious if you pulled out a cut diamond.

That's just me so.

But Sir Julius, He's like, I call foul.

He's like, I need to see this again.

I can't just see it once, and I need experts on hand to observe every detail of what's happening.

I need to see the process.

And A's like, no, I don't want more people knowing about that proprietary man.

And he's like if they find out, then they can really easily steal the formula and says A, no, go you know what, Sir Julius, I have boundaries.

Yeah.

So they're at an impasse.

But finally Ari is like, all right, I agree, I'll do it.

And then Sir Julius is like, well, I have one more request.

I want to see your dangler.

What.

Yeah, Sir Julius is like, you have to do this in front of all these experts, and you have to be in your birthday suit.

That way, you can't hide anything.

Oh no, magic up my sleeves.

Yeah.

So it's seems he literally did want to see the He wants to see the.

Danglar and it seems very dangerous with like a superheateding.

Well, you need clothing to protect from extreme conditions, and like naked founderies don't exist for a reason.

You know, it's hot, all those long gloves and the aprons and heavy apron.

No, instead, they're like get in there.

But you know, so there's Alri totally nude, totally he was willing to do it totally.

He puts out all the materials for the diamond and one of the expert observers was instructed to mix them together and then put the mix and the crucible and then he seals it up the expert and then they make Alred put the crucible on this shovel and load it into the furnace, likely burning off his pubic hair.

Totally naked.

So Joe's over there.

I like to watch.

He's like, this is something I've wanted to see for a very long time.

I mean, have the money.

I'm telling he's cooking it like multiple thousands of degrees.

And his shovel handle was only fifteen feet long enough.

No, so they like he you know, sticks.

The thing in hair.

Yeah, and they stood around, are still naked for like a half an hour.

Oh he doesn't get like a robe.

Right after they on to film, Stef.

Stand there want to smoke and they're like kind of looking him up and down.

Yeah, And then it was time to get the crucible out, and so the expert opened it and found twenty five little diamonds in there.

And then they ran the whole thing again, do it again like our man and so orson wells, and so they run all again and then this time they got thirty little diamonds.

Wow, and so Alri he hands them off to Sir Julius.

Sir Julius takes him to a jeweler in London.

That guy determined, you know what, these are good quality diamonds all right, but I'm not going to buy him because I don't have certificates of origin on anything.

Sir Julius, He's sold.

He's like, okay, you know, like there you go.

Even though he's.

Likelius, I got them out of the dirt, like personally, I got some kids to go down there.

But trust me, so of Julius is all about it.

So he invited other diamond magnets to come and see the experiment, and I'm guessing that Ari was allowed to wear clothes from that point forward, so it wasn't just like some weird rich guys show that he's putting on.

Each experiment gleaned larger and larger numbers of diamonds.

The rich guys were amazed.

Let's stop there, Let's let the furnace cool down, Let's make everyone put their clothes back on, or in my case, put more clothes on.

When we come back.

We're going to see what the fat cats do with this incredible discovery.

Zaren Elizabeth.

Okay, so where was I naked diamond guy?

Yeah?

Ah, re the naked diamond guy.

So he convinced the rich diamond guys that he actually could make diamonds at home.

Okay, he could best Mother Earth.

And so they all decided that Unrie would return the formula to be locked up in the London bank and it wouldn't be opened again until he died, and at that point the recipe would become property of Sir Julius.

So they planned to kill him pretty much.

But for this kind of catch and kill, there needs to be compensation for this source.

Yeah, of course, like if three, if he's like I'm not going to use this formula to make myself rich and then crash the diamond.

I need to get my beak wet.

Totally very wet.

Sir Julius paid him three hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the whole thing.

What's that?

We know what that is converted.

Eleven million dollars today.

I still doesn't seem like enough.

No, when you look at the diamond, how much it's worth?

Yeah, so this would not want to have bill Oh yeah, give me like how much are you worth?

Cut me half?

Yeah, I'm terrible.

So this wasn't just going to lock up the formula, right, but it would also the money would establish a lab for Allri in the Pyrenees where he could continue to discover cool stuff and like hone this formula.

And then Sir Julius initially he's like, look, I just want to buy you off.

But Alri he's like insisting on this lab.

And he even sent the plans and like photos of it the building to the de Beers folks.

I don't think they cared.

They're like, gait, I love that for you, really nice, thank you.

So but Alri he convinced Sir Julius that he was honing the process and he needed investments.

It would all benefit Sir Julius, so he just needed to fund it, and that was Alri's logic.

So over the next three years, Sir Julius he like pours thousands of pounds into this quote secret process.

Alri went to other investors looking for funding for his diamond lab, and that irked Sir Julius because, like Alrea, getting outside funding would make the little secret deal public and he needed to put a lid on it.

He actually took i'lrie to court and that seemed to silence him and do the trick.

There was another incident though that may or may not have been related to all of this.

Right after Alri made the deal with Sir Julius, someone shot at him.

He was just like chilling under some trees alongside a road reading a newspaper.

It was like basically a drive by.

These unidentified tourists in a car drove by into the old street sweeper.

Baby ready to let it go real, simmy, shimmy, Coco, what listen to it?

Pound Thompson.

From a revolver.

They hit his coat and his newspaper, not him but here's the thing.

The diamonds weren't Alre's only hustle.

Remember how they said that he was like a canvasser for advertising agent.

He in that work.

Like he'd also kind of scammed someone on a car sale, so maybe it was like a disgruntled customer.

Slash former mark.

Yeah.

Anyway, at some point, Sir Julius, he becomes suspicious of a Yeah.

Alri was like constantly asking for money for this, and.

That I want to do a title mosaic floor in the laboratory.

We need upgrades.

And the more time passed, the more some of the people who were there for like the big reveal were able to reflect on everything and really think about how feasible was this.

The man was naked making diamonds right well.

Francis Oates, chairman of de Beers, who attended the experiments, he was one of the ones who's like, you know, the more I think about it, he went to Julius and he was like, I think this whole thing is hinky, Like step back, look at it as an outsider one like Allri and his story and his demands just don't pass the smell test.

Was he not asking for enough for them to believe it.

Perhaps, you know, sometimes where people don't think you really had something, you'd be asking for a whole lot more could.

Be so Oates and Julius they decide to road trip it and they pay a little visit to all Re at his diamond factory in Jelais, Like, let's go to Arsela.

So you're filthy, rich captains of industry doing like shoe leather detective in the absolute middle of nowhere.

With like baskets of food.

They're getting their hands ward three different guns of olive oil.

So I like to imagine them getting there like on a map like Indiana Jones Dash.

So they get to France because they're they're in England and then they go to Arjelais and they're all keyed up to confront Ari and his mad scientists layer.

So they make it to Lords and that's you know, the closest big and then they took a carriage a bit south to Arjelais.

They arrive in this small town and they ask everyone they meet, like do you know Alri?

And they're talking about him, like do you know him?

You know where I can find his lab?

And everyone's like I don't know.

So they pull out into a photo of like this impressive large factory nestled into the foothills, like surrounded by a lush forest, and the landscape looked right, but like people are like, I don't I don't know what that is exactly.

One person after another's just like shrugging.

They're like, I don't know what you're talking about.

And then they go to like the baker and the like, you know what, you should go to the police station.

That's a good idea, like if they know how to find.

Anyone, you know, cab drivers or cops, right.

And so their closure eyes, Oh yeah, I want you to picture it.

Oh, you are a gendarmes in jelais like your father before you.

You are, for the time, very tech savy.

You like to have all the latest innovations, and you often travel to Lords or even tarb to get copies of international papers and magazines looking for news of this exciting new world.

You are especially fascinated by the innovations in transportation.

The hot air balloons don't really do it for you, but the cars.

You have a buddy who moved to Paris a decade or so ago to work at Renault.

He got you a line on one of their new mass produced taxi cars, petroleum powered.

You keep it in your barn, covered in a tarp.

There isn't access to fuel here, so you have to ration what you get and it kind of freaks people out.

Everyone in town knows you're eccentric, but you try not to push things in their faces.

So there you are sitting at the counter in the Gendarmerie reading an engineering magazine, learning about new fabrication techniques used in factories.

In the back room, the captain is practicing his accordion.

It's only charming because it's so muffled, but there's a town festival coming up and he wants to make sure his performance is perfect.

There you see two men walk in and speak to a colleague of yours.

He hears what they have to say, shrugs in that beautifully French way, and then points to you.

I believe he can help you.

You hear him say to the men.

They shuffle over to you.

Their beard games are impressive, big hefty beards that come to a point.

Distinguished.

One asks you in French if you speak English, I do you assure them you're one of the few in town who do.

The man tells you that this French is passable, but he needs to provide detail that he's not sure how to translate.

You read scientific journals in English all the time.

You tell them please proceed.

He tells you, in a lyrical English accent, that they are there to locate enrie l'umoin.

You explain that you don't know of such a man.

They produce so photo.

You recognize it.

It's in arah Onladon, a small village not too far away.

But you tell them and that you aren't sure that's the building they're looking for.

They assure you it is and begin to debate each other as to how to get there.

They ask you how far it is.

You tell them it's about four kilometers away.

They ask you where they can hire a carriage to take them to it.

They'll pay whatever's asked.

I'll do you one better.

You say, I can drive you by motor coach.

They look stunned.

You tell them you have a Renow taxi.

Unbelievable, one of them says, follow me.

You tell them.

You get out onto the street, leaving the station in the accordion behind you, nod to shopkeepers as you pass, and head two blocks down to your cottage with its barn out back.

The men follow you and watch as you creak open the big barn door, then whip the heavy canvas cloth from a car.

One of them whistles.

Very impressed, you turn and raise one eyebrow.

This whole thing is turning out so much cooler than you could have ever imagined.

You crank the front of the engine.

It roars to The men climb in the back of the carriage, and you take your spot behind the wheel.

Can it be protecting you from the sun?

As you roll out into the afternoon, You pilot the car down the cobblestones of the town streets and onto the hard packed dirt road leading to a La Lavedan.

You jostle along the road, trees shading the lane and birds singing in the air.

You round a corner and come to a stop.

Towering above you is the building from the photo.

It's massive.

It's impressive.

The men climb out of the taxi and stare at the building a dog.

The building is producing a low hum.

How do you get in there?

They ask?

Oh, you don't really.

You tell them that it's a power station that supplies electricity to all the surrounding villages.

What they are irate?

Are you sure it's not a laboratory?

One asks?

Of course, you tell them, can you take us to the closest train station that'll get us to Paris the fastest?

They ask you.

You tell them you think you have enough gas to get them to a train station, provided you stop back in town to pick it up.

Of course, one tells you, while the other shoves an enormous wad of francs in your hand.

This is a matter of utmost legal importance, one says, Do you have a way for us to contact national security in Paris?

You can use the telegraph at the gendarmerie, You tell him Ali, He yells and hops into the car.

You climb behind the wheel and whip a U turn on the dirt road.

Dust sprang up behind you.

Best day ever.

So when they get to Paris, Julius told the French National Security Office that quote, by means of tricks and press, digitation and.

Conjuring magic, comes back that Alrie.

Had succeeded in inducing him to part with three hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the purpose of setting up this special laboratory.

When they did the calculations.

Auri took the De Beer's diamond company for about one point six million francs.

Nice And when Julius told the whole story, the authorities were like, how could Henri have possed simply faked the diamonds when he was watched so closely and was totally naked, and you know, with Allri and the wind, Julius and Oates had sent someone to investigate the original lab and found that the crucible that a re used had a false spot.

He's a magician bottom.

Everyone was distracted by this from Ari's real bottom.

Because he was he was showing, so.

Look at the real bottom, missed the false spot.

It's the classic distraction is al Re.

And that's I think why he then realizes when they'd say, look, oh, you have to be naked, and he's like, yeah, all right exactly.

So Alri he gets arrested for obtaining under false pretenses the money from Sir Julius, and then the newspapers ate the story up.

I bet they did everything from like the snooty intellectual papers to tabloids ran stories daily about it.

Oh yeah, Allri.

He hired Fernand Labori as his lawyer.

I don't know if I'm saying isn't the last name right, But he was the defense attorney with an impressive roster of clients, like impressive.

Clarence Darrow of He.

He defended Emil Zola in eighteen ninety eight in the Dreyfus trial, like the whole Jacquus, and then he defended Captain Alfred Dreyfus himself at his court martial in eighteen ninety.

Nine, just always like I'll take you on this time.

Yeah.

He was also lawyer for none other than Friend of the show Terrey Sumbert, the gal who pretended to be an heir of an imaginary American millionaire Crawford.

That's who Alri got to defend him, Like he's going up against de beers.

He's like, I need a heavy.

Hitter, Johnny Cochran.

Yes.

And so with the press watching like salivating over the drama, Alre stuck to his story of being this torture genius who became a pawn of the diamond fat cats, and he kept saying he could really make his own real diamonds, you guys.

He begged the court and the press to like, let me s ow you this is true.

Let me show you how I do this.

Give me another opportunity to get naked meat magic.

So there was this huge public debate, like is he a mad, misunderstood scientist?

Is he a scammer?

Like you got to prove it.

So meanwhile, according to The New York Times, Allrey Quote accused Sir Julius of conspiring with him to force the De Beer's company to buy the secret for twenty five million dollars.

It was alleged, on the other hand, that Lemoit was preparing to make money by buying De Beer's shares as soon as they dropped on the publication of the stories about his success.

He's gonna short them, uh huh.

It came out that before he went to Sir Julius Werner, Lenoir had obtained money from Edgar Cohen, one of the directors of Herod's stores in London, and had also gotten two thousand dollars out of an American named Segmuent upon the same pretext.

So he's just playing everybody off of everybody, Yes, and he keeps asking for an opportunity to prove himself with an experiment.

But then it came out that like his diamonds.

Even the raw had very small jewelers marks on them.

Oh, they'd been bought in Paris and came right from De Beer's own South African.

Minds, Like, look what I made?

You made?

Does this look familiar to this Parisian diamond dealer comes forward and it's like, there's this jeweler, Bordier, who bought a bunch of rough diamonds for me.

And then they did all this tracking and it turns out that Bordier is Ari And then like, but then there's the envelope, one of the envelopes.

What are the Elizabeth's take great questions?

We come back, We're gonna go searching for that envelope, much like with Teres Umbert right Zaren.

Yes, these names are killing me.

I can't repeat them back to you.

I'm like, I'm just gonna let.

Elizabeth Dear France, I am sorry.

So I just want to say I'm so sorry.

No, no, I would you don't want to say I'm sorry.

Henry Lemon was saying.

Dear my ancestors.

So anyway, he said that he was making diamonds, which turned out to be false.

He said he had a special secret formula for them, which was locked up in the London bank totally.

So this formula, right, Sir Julius is like, I want the envelope, like does he really have it?

And he's hiding it, Like I can't trust this because he could bring the beers down with this, And so he's.

Like, as long as that envelope is out there floating around its bread to the stock price, yes.

And so he's desperate to open it up and see what secret lives inside, already determined to keep that from happening.

Not even that's all I kept thinking about.

It's like the Coca Cola rest, it's KFC.

So in court, the judge said that he's like, you know, I don't really have jurisdiction in London, so my hands are tied.

Aure was thrilled, but then he doubled down.

Like so, according to the New York Times quote, Lamoin brightens up.

He takes a step forward and talks with great seriousness as follows.

I undertake to realize upon the whole of my property, including my household furniture, and to the amount thus obtained, I will add one hundred and thirty thousand dollars worth of shares, which I will place, and the keeping of the magistrate is a guarantee.

I will then carry on my experiments witnessed by experts selected by the Magistrate.

If I fail, Monsieur le suges, you are at liberty to hand the whole of the guarantee fund to Sir Julius Werner.

If I succeed, I shall ask that he pay me the sum mentioned in the contract, in addition to damages for defamation.

But in order to do this, I demand, first of all, to be released on bail.

Like I can prove it to you.

Just let me take these cups off for a moment.

Sir Julius fully opposed to bail, and the judges, like I too, am fully opposed to bail.

Yea.

But while Alri couldn't get out of jail to get to the bank and get the letter, his wife certainly could.

He's married, so she high tailed it to London to keep the bank from delivering the sealed envelope to the court.

Sir Julius gives Chase he wanted to get the envelope first before she could bring an injunction.

And then while Alri he didn't get bail, but he did get permission to send a telegram, and here's what he wrote to the bank.

Quote, this is to inform you that a registered letter follows forbidding you formally to hand to Sir Julius Werner or any other party, any branch or agency of your bank the sealed envelope deposited with you on June eighth, nineteen oh five, and to inform you that I have taken all legal measures to prevent you from authorizing the removal of this envelope.

That's a long telegram, super long.

Yeah.

So this held for a little while, but eventually the English court told the bank to cooperate with the French court.

Oh okay, I was wondering about that, the international cooperation between At that.

Point they're like, yeah, fine, alri.

He told the judge that quote, he had no objection whatsoever to manufacture diamonds to prove his ability to the court, but he could not consent to have his secret formula read and published.

Yes.

Yeah.

The judge is like, I'm intrigued.

I like this.

Take your clothes off.

I want to see science happen.

Take your clothes off.

So he granted nothing but mustache wax and just stand in the.

Corner of the courtroom.

I've heard a lot about you.

So anyway, he's like, you know what, I'm going to release you on bail for two months.

And here's the thing, though, you have to grow a gigantic synthetic diamond in that time.

It has to be bigger than anything on the market.

It has to blow my socks off.

Wow, judge, and you and you have to be naked, and you have until June ninth, nineteen oh eight to do it.

Okay.

So he's just like you keep saying, you keep begging to do this experiment.

All right, you got two months, but it has to be mega.

According to the New York Times quote on June Night's remember he had by June ninth, nineteen oh eight to do it.

Quote On June ninth, he appeared in court and announced that unforeseen circumstances had prevented the success of his experiments.

He professed still the utmost confidence and asked for an extension of time.

He was granted another week.

Okay, I think he's going to get that.

A week went by, there was no diamond.

There was also no only he'd done a runner.

So he's in Russia.

Do you know what was there the envelope.

Oh so, sir Julius, he's very eager to get this baby open.

How does he know it's the envelope because.

It came like it was seized.

By British court then brought in.

Ok he's just like squirming in his seat, all riggling and like drooling.

Mouth is wet.

So the paper inside was read and there are conflicting reports as to what was in it.

Pretty much everyone was like it was just kind of this like jumble of gibberish.

There are varying reports and it's somewhere in between.

There are three.

I'm going to read them to you, Okay.

So the first one was his formula quote iron boron animal charcoal equal thirty fifty five fifteen one hundred.

I placed this mixture in a crucible, which I then into an electric furnace before turning on.

The current passed through the crucible for a certain time carbonic acid CO two so as to drive out all the oxygen.

I then turn on the current, continuing to pass carbonic acid through the mixture.

The time of heating depends on the quantity of the mixture used.

It's like close enough, you might believe it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Second option to make diamonds, it will suffice to employ the following process.

One take an electric furnace.

Two, take some powder of carbon obtained from sugar.

Three, place this carbon in a crucible.

Four deposit it in a furnace, and raise the temperature from fifteen hundred degrees to eighteen hundred degrees with a tension of one hundred and ten volts.

Five.

When this temperature is attained, to apply pressure through the cover.

Six.

The diamonds are now ready, and it only remains to take them from the furnace.

Signed Lee.

I've heard like bread recipes that I have more detailed than that.

My favorite report is the one that said the paper in the envelope red quote, it is very difficult to manufacture diamonds.

You can try by crystallizing carbon, which you must subject to the desired heat and pressure.

That's it.

That's it, good mind, not, that's some that I like.

It's like so basically, you know, you probably could do it, but you'd have to, like.

You need a heats carbon like this, like a planet.

Would you'd have to put it inside planet.

Yeah, and then that's probably.

The best way to do it.

So the cops like, okay, so all Rey's gone.

They read this garbage.

The cops are desperate to catch him.

He's high.

It's like the whole thing is high profile.

And then you get these wealthy victims because like, that's how it works.

Are you new, here's Aaron That's how it works.

It's not my first rodeo.

I've ridden an ox before.

Yo.

So some were like, you know what, I think he went to Romania like that was like.

I'm guessing Eastern Europe with Russia.

Others were like, I heard he went to Greece.

And still others were like, you know what I hear he's in Egypt.

Oh he likes the weather.

Yeah, so like he has all these kind of exotic places.

His wife was meanwhile, like you know what I heard.

I'm not married to him anymore.

He divorce.

She's like, guess what I'm done.

And then he was found guilty and sentenced in absentia for his crimes.

He had ten years.

That's a fine, Okay, it's good things.

She ditched April nineteen oh nine.

They got him where rusted?

Where in the world did they find him?

Yeah?

Where is this Carmen San Diego?

Where did these professional trackers finally nab him.

I'm guessing America Paris.

He had he was inis on the left back.

He was just the press reported of his quote, freely showing himself on the streets naked, That's what I want to know.

And in the music halls with no other disguise than a shaven chin and a mustache trained upwards.

He's like plowing it up totally.

He's got a little fresh mustache wax.

And they caught him with the guy who used to be his assistant, and then at least like he pretended to be as much back in the day.

I don't know if it was like an accomplice like another, like he didn't resist.

In fact, they're like he's like, may we yes, what do you want?

Hey?

But he hadn't been in Paris that long, like just a few days.

He was staying at a hotel.

He was using the alias.

Hans Lightna, are you kidding me?

A London merchant.

My name is Hans the London.

Of Dutch or German origin, but of special magic origin.

And he only had twenty francs on him.

That's it.

Wow.

He told authorities that after he ran from Paris, he went to Sofia.

Yeah, and then he went to Budapeste and then Vienna and then Trieste, you know where his parents met.

Beautiful.

Then he hit up London, took a river up the Danube.

Oh yeah, and then he went back to Paris.

He's like, you know, just scooted around for a year.

He'd been given a ten year sentence, but they moved it down to six and apparently served it.

And where he went after is anybody's guests.

There's no record of anything after that.

He would likely have been forgotten were it not for Marcel Proust.

Why Marcel Pruce, Captain of Memories.

He was so himself because yes, he was so fascinated by what he called, quote the prestige of a momentary diamond, that he wrote about the whole fiasco in a series of pieces for La Figaro.

Oh yeah, February March of nineteen eight.

Okay, so he was doing like deep magazine dives.

Yeah, so he wrote and then he wrote this book of creative nonfiction.

Yeah.

It was collected in a book called The Lemoin Affair that, according to its Penguin Books summary, was quote inspired by the real life French scandal involving aure Lemoit, who claimed he could manufacture diamonds from coal and convinced numerous people, including officers of the De Beer Diamond Company and Proust himself, to invest in the scheme.

In a series of pastiche imitations written in the style of other writers, Pruce tells the story of the embarrassment rippling across high society Paris in the wake of the scandal, poking fun at himself.

In one story, a character declares that Marcel Preuss is so embarrassed he's suicidal, while lampooning some of France's greatest writers, including Flaubert Balzac and San Simon.

H interesting, so he seems like a literary exercise.

He's like, this is fantastic.

I love the magic.

I love it that I fell for it.

Yeah, I'm the biggest one.

I almost killed myself.

And what of sir Julius, what of sir Jay Well, Sir Julius died.

I mean, we all do.

But he did it in nineteen twelve.

In nineteen fourteen, he wasn't.

Yeah, imagine he was yet agen.

In nineteen fourteen, his estate was valued at more than fifty seven and a half million, which was at the time was the record for South African businessmen.

That's one point eight billion today.

In two thousand, Christie's auctioned off his silver collection and they described it as quote the late Medieval and Renaissance silver a mass decades ago by a diamond millionaire, Julius Werner.

The New York Times wrote, quote the collection was a mixed bag which included outright fakes.

A beaker in the form of an owl with a body made from a coconut, fitted with silver gilt head, wings and legs, looked like a spoof of late Renaissance silver.

Another vessel shaped as a parrot perched on branch was just as unconvincing.

Several other pieces of that ilk peppered the catalog.

Trickier than outright fakes were pieces that gave the impression of having been tampered with.

A German cup, made from a turbo shell with parcel gilt mounts, was topped by a monster head that clashed with it and failed to convince connoisseurs, such as the London dealer Charles Truman, formerly of the Victorian Albert Museum.

The catalog dated the object circuit to sixteen thirty it made one hundred and sixty eight, seven hundred and fifty pounds.

Did the buyer choose to ignore the problem raised by the cover?

Possibly?

Other buyers were certainly willing to buy nineteenth century imitations described as such by Christie's at the price of an authentic piece.

The coconut and silver gilt owl mentioned above went up to a staggering one hundred and two thousand pounds, and the parrots sold for thirty two nine hundred pounds.

Nor were those isolated cases.

An Ostrich, estimated by Christie's to be worth three thousand pounds to five thousand pounds, climbed to ninety one thousand, seven hundred and fifty pounds.

It was as if esthetic perception had ceased to function.

Great kicker that he's been a of like.

Being snarked on by the New York Times.

Yeah, God bless.

But here's my thing is, does that not also scream money laundering to you?

I'm just about to say any time you hear about that.

Yeah, like I still buy that.

I don't care.

Yeah, but they're just doing it to like the estate, right, So are they trying to curry favor?

I don't know.

I don't know, and that was like, you know, that's in the year two thousand, so oh right, so this is like descendants of.

His Yeah, doesn't that it's I don't you.

Know what I'm taking just like Diamond, just like him back in the day.

I'm taking a step back.

Yeah, I'm looking at it seems hanky.

It does seem hanky.

I'm going to go investigate the laboratory, Zaren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?

I love like this whole story.

It reminds me of the Prestige, the story about the magicians, and then around this period of time.

I love this time because it's people are scientific, but they're not quite to the level of science.

They can always prove everything, but yet they're so into it that they can be both conned but also convince themselves because science and magic have not quite separated yet.

So there's still in like a medieval Renaissance period of thinking where it's like, well, you know, da Vinci had a way to make gold out of like, they can be told anything as long as it has the patina of science on its exact Really, it's always still just magic underneath, and magic is ultimately a con well I.

Love so magical and it's and especially if you don't quite understand the whole thing, how quickly things happen or you know, things seem incongruous and then it comes together.

It's intoxicated, and then Einstein comes along in nineteen fifteen.

It just makes everything like we don't know anything, but trust me, it's still magical.

Exactly.

So that's ridiculous.

Take on exactly good one.

I need to talk back Dave, please and thank you.

Oh God, I love you.

Hi, Zaron, Hi, Elizabeth High Team.

I just got off of listening to your re release of an episode where you talk about Jack Shepherd and Spittlesville, and I wanted to come and let you know that my parents live in the town of slate Lick, which is in western Pennsylvania and is named after deer licking salt off of the road.

They licked the slate and they got to be in the name slate Lick, Pennsylvania.

Look it up a little fun fat.

Yes, one of the greatest states.

In the nation.

That's a great way to name a place.

That's more things should be named after animals licking.

Yeah, and not like you know, Pleasant Valley.

That's not pleasant or like pig knuckle.

I feel about it.

That's what happens.

The deer lick the salt.

Hooray for them there, thank you.

That's my takeaway.

That's us for today.

You can find us online at Ridiculous Crime dot com.

Zarah, I have good news for you.

We've been nominated for an MTV Music Video the category Dream is Happening Juiciest Booty.

So keep your fingers crossed.

We'll find out.

Yes.

We're also at Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky and Instagram.

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You can email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and then you can leave us a talk back on the iHeart app.

It's free, Please do it reach out.

Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Sir Dave Kusten, CEO of de Beers in the Fridge, starring Amalie Rutger.

Research is by Blood Diamond shamer Marissa Brown.

The theme song is by Naked ironworkers Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.

Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.

Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre.

Executive producers are Hapless Diamond Vending Machine investors Ben Bohlen and Noel Brown.

Ridicous Crime Say It one more Time Piquious Crime.

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

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