Bittersweet Infamy - #97 - URGENT! Exclusive Opportunity

Episode Date: April 14, 2024

Josie tells Taylor about the history of the Nigerian prince email scam, and the rise and fall of influencer/fraudster Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, a.k.a. Hushpuppi the Billionaire Gucci Master. Plus: a chess-playing robot attacks a child? A viral chess trend makes it to outer space? The truth isn't black and white in the April Fools' Fact or Fiction Minfamous!

Welcome to Bitter Sweet and Food. I'm Taylor Basso. And I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast, we share the stories that live on in NPA. The strange and the familiar. The tragic and the comic. The bitter. And the sweet.

It may not be April 1st when you're listening to it. It's April 1st, certainly, when we're recording this. Right now be April 1st when you're listening to it. It's April 1st Certainly when we're recording now April 1 and so of course we will be keeping with our Annual April Fool's tradition of our factor fiction Mimfimus, but before we get there We've got a few little update-a-rinos number one for our subscribers and you too could become a subscriber ko-fi.com slash bittersweetinfamy. The episode 5 of the film club dick has been updated. The upload previously was accidentally a rerun of the bittersweet mixate volume 2. Which is pretty good too. Pretty good too but not what it said on the

tin. We fixed that with our apologies and some besitos from us to you and we will tell you all about the movie we're gonna be covering next a little bit later. And look at all these little teasers that I'm dropping for later in the show. Yeah, ooooh. Mikhschl was just watching some promo for that new movie, Problemista. Have you heard of that? It's a Julio Torres movie. Okay, okay. I like Julio Torres generally. And it stars him and Tilda Swinton.

And he- Oh, fun. That's a fun pair. And the script is that he has to work for her in New York. She's like an art collector in order to get his visa to be in the US. And she's completely disconnected from reality. And he's just like, I have to do whatever and anything she says, or within the world of the story, he will literally disappear.

Be deported. Yeah. Oh. Deportation is just like, you dissolve. That's of course, because it's Julio Torres. But Mitchell was just watching some promotional materials for that, I guess. He described it as hot wings, but instead of eating chicken wings, they're watercoloring together. That's funny. And he was like, they started talking about cloning, and Tilda Swinton said the only thing

she knows about cloning is Barbra Streisand. And Mitchell was like, I had this like bittersweet infamy like wash like a song that you heard from childhood or smell from your grandma's kitchen. It was like, whoa. That's so cute. And I was like, oh, that's really funny. I feel, oh cool. We're cool.

That's cute. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Mitchell. No, interesting that you mentioned Barbara Streisand because Josie, we are on the road to the Melties. We are. We are.

The Melties, for those who don't tune in every 50 episodes, which is understandable because we're getting to our second 50 episodes. Yeah, that's fine. Every 50 episodes, we do an awards program. Yes. They celebrate the best in the, I guess, the best in the last 50 or so episodes of Bitter Sweet.

It's not an exact math. But really, this time too, it's not an exact, you know, what are numbers? Numbers are, we're just invented, period. So, so, just follow me. The trains, I slowly get into the station. There's been a brief detour into the weeds, but we've gotten back on track. We are going to be celebrating, in addition to the last 50 episodes, we're going to be celebrating 100 episodes of Bittersweet and Vy. For 100.

Whoa. This is the landmark that we've been building to, in me, for me, in my head, to the beginning. I've always been like, I wonder if we'll make it to 100 episodes. And God forbid, you know what? Unless something seriously fucked up happens in the next three episodes, I hope, I think we can do it. I'm confident, I'm optimistic about our prospects.

I don't know, you see those marathon videos where in the last 200 yards, somebody just crumbles? Yeah, you fall to the ground and evacuate your bowels. Yeah. So fingers crossed this is full of the truth. Yeah that's not us. We've got our anti-chafing nipple tape on. We took our vitamin IV before the race.

We think we've got these last three K in us and we hope that you root us along. And we invite you, the bittersweethearts, the bittersweet universe, the big glob of melting ice cream that we call home. We want you to vote on all kinds of sweet categories like bestminfamous, the bittersweetest episode. That's like that's juicy. That's the pinnacle, the juicy, juicy peak. Well, it might not be. We're also gonna be inducting people

into the bittersweet infamy hall of fame. Ooh. Now that, that is a very vaunted status to be a hall of fame, but that's like, we don't kick you out. Yeah. Asterisk. That statue goes into a China hutch that we purchased from the

goodwill. We don't let the grandkids touch it. It's special. It's for if the queen comes. It's true. It will be your inheritance one day, but don't sell it. We have some more categories with best special segment. So if you remember the choose Your Own Adventure that we did, or the Kill Fuck Mary, the Bittersweet Ambush. Bitter Sweet Ambush, come on. I mean, come on. Come on. There could be another Bitter Sweet Ambush coming at the end of this segment. You don't even know. That's why it should win Best Segment. Or should it? It's not my decision. It's yours. It's up to you. Also, we gonna have a category of best special series so if you enjoyed our stay in Vancouver we have Bittersweet 604, we've got our Bittersweet romance from

February, Trick or Treat, Infamy, a classic. Trick or Treat always a classic. So you just need to hop on hop on over to this Google form. It'll take a moment and Josie, where can they access that? Tinyurl.com slash infamy 100. And not only that Josie, but the fun of the melties will continue over on coffee. We're going to host the the melties will continue over on coffee. We're gonna host the the melties after party There's gonna be messy sloppy. No coasters folks the kind of place where you can

Draw dicks on the table with a sharpie. The hem of your gown will be muddy. Absolutely peanut shells on the floor. No shoes We really hope that you enjoy participating we're gonna be trying to you know Do some fun stuff along the way just know that now we are on the road to the melties hit that flourish again We are Excited to pepper in a few little surprises along the way so know that from here on out you're in the splash zone. Totally. We're in surprise territory. Get your plastic poncho on. Poncho's on. Once again Josie where can they vote? They can go to tinyurl.com slash infamy 100 100 with all of that said

Josie yeah, you ready for a minfamous? I'm ready for an april fools minfamous now Josie is uh as long-term listeners to the podcast Yeah, why is that such a funny idea you some people do listen to the podcast. Okay. It's not just our relatives. Okay. Yeah. Okay. It's we have a network. Where's the self- where's your pride? Oh, it's long gone. Fair enough. Me too. Me too. Well, you should be proud because in the long history of bittersweet infamy, which is actually not, at first it was kind of a gag, but we're over three years in now.

Yeah, we're a hit in a hundo. Centenarians. And yet, and yet, you have never once, not a single time, lost a game on the show. Is that correct? That is a contested correct, yes. How, what is the contest? What do you contest, and what,

in what way do you contest it? I feel like last April Fool's, number 68, Cult of the Clitoris, with a dear friend and guest, Lucia Mish. Lucia. My fake story was perhaps not as fake enough as it should be.

Irrelevant, irrelevant. It's not the, that's a qualitative analysis, and I respect you for that capacity for self-reflection and yes, it was dog shit, but you won, baby. Attain to W is still a W as far as I'm concerned. Just ask the asterisk. I'm from Surrey. Yeah.

Ask this and write like beautiful, exactly right. We love our cheatin' astros here on Bittersweet Infamy. The angel on our shoulder says the Padres, the devil on our shoulder says the Astros. And so it goes. I thought that perhaps to bring it back to the subject at hand, I thought that as part of our annual game, our April Fools Factor Fiction Mimphemous,

where I tell two stories and you can guess along at home with Josie trying to figure out which one is real and which one is fake. I thought that as part of that, perhaps I should go meta and bring my stories theme because you know I love a theme. You know I love to link the stories in some ways. The man loves a theme, it's true. I thought I might ask you Josie,

do you know how to play chess? Oh, okay. Okay. You know, my brother Pancho was on the chess team in elementary school and because it was an afterschool program, I also had to be on the chess team because that's when my mom would pick us up with after chess team.

Got it, got it. Your option was to watch people play chess or play chess, basically? But I was like the youngest one in the class and one of the very few girls and it was very like, it was very demoralizing. It's a little rough. Oh, was it demoralizing in terms of like, you were like a woman trailblazer in a male industry or was it demoralizing because you just happened to suck at chess? Yeah, I just, I sucked at chess. I mean, I was like three years younger than most people in there

I was in no way a chess prodigy But I think in general I just Great admission from Josie there. I'm in no way a chess prodigy Regardless of what you might have heard. Yeah, don't let the rumors get ahead of you on that one Yeah, I know damn I know how to play though. I know the characters. Yeah, okay, that works.

And when's the last time you would say that you played a game of chess? If this counts, looking over Mitchell's shoulder as he played online chess with his sister. Did you contribute to his strategy? Probably in a really annoying way. Like, why would you do that? I would say that if you're contributing after the fact, it does not.

No. That's just called criticizing. Still not a prodigy, is that what you're saying? No, sadly. Well, you know what? You're never too old to be a prodigy. That's what I think. I think you can't be too old.

Well, for some things. If you were a chess piece, what would you be? Ooh, bishop. Diagonal, huh? That's how you see yourself. Holy, holy roller, diagonal holy roller. Yeah, just like, I don't know, like sleek. I love diagonals, I guess.

It's fun. Fair enough. Josie's self-assessment, sleek, semi-colon, not a chess prodigy. What about you? What chess piece do you gravitate to? Maybe a rook. I think maybe just kind of process of illumination. No, no, rook is good. I vibe with the rook. Very helpful piece. I enjoy a rook.

Knight is maybe a little too... I see myself as being quite to the point in a way that a rook sort of embodies. Yeah, yeah. No, I like that. It's sturdy. Scoogum. Scoogum. Scoogum piece. Holding down the corners of the board. Holding down the castle. Imagine, I like that. It's dirty. Scoog him. Scoog him. Scoog him. Scoog him piece. Hold him down the corners of the board. Hold him down the castle.

Imagine if someone said pawn. That's so sad. That's what I thought. I worried. I worried you might say that. And I was like really concerned. I was like, I hope she doesn't say pawn. She's worth more than that.

You know, you have to eliminate like three right off the bat. Cause pawn, you're just, you gotta, you gotta look at yourself in the mirror and like say, you can do this a little bit more. But also if you say the queen, then it's like, okay, queen, all right. Calm down, bitch. I'm sure, okay, you're the main character.

I mean, I don't know. I think the king is kind of like... A king isn't an apt man. A king lets his woman handle all his work and takes all the... But still claims the top of the hierarchy. There's no glory in being the king in a chessboard. And so Josie, the reason for all of this chess chat is because obviously,

as you may or may not have intuited, both of my stories today are themed around the game of chess. Oh, chess. That was funny. That is a good thing. I'm trying to laugh more when Josie tells funny jokes because Mitchell observed that I'm more commonly say that's funny. So I'm trying to be more generous with my laughter because it's a quality that I admire and it's a quality that I used to think was true of me, but apparently I lost it somewhere along the way. It might just be habitual. So Josie, you want to hear this first story? Yeah.

So one of the uh beloved institutions in American comics is Gary Larson. Oh of the far side? Of the far side. How would you describe the far side? Hows. Doing what? What are they doing? Um making kind of astute everyday observations that are... Yeah it's kind of sardonic dry little witticisms usually big usually one picture with a one-sentence caption in the style of what you might imagine a New Yorker cartoon to kind of typically... yeah yeah but they're they're like... but less less up its own ass yeah yeah they're funnier they're sort of they're sort of an everyman appeal yeah yeah I I enjoy the far side there's some funny far sides and some some ones that are still resident to this day which I'm just about to tell

you all about. Okay. The Seattle-based cartoonist got his start after mailing six comics to a newspaper in 1976. Eventually he'd get a contract with the San Francisco Chronicle printing his beloved comic, The Far Side, world famous for being taped to the doors of university professors of nearly every subject. Wow, nailed it, yes! The Farside ran, see I'm generous with laughter at my own jokes, it's bad quality. The Farside ran in the Chronicle from January 1st, 1980 to January 1st, 1995, nice clean run. The Strip is known for its offbeat sense of humor and for frequently depicting animals. Larson is an ardent environmentalist and worked as a

cruelty investigator for the Humane Society so perhaps a bit of spillover there. Okay. Yeah he's a big big animal in nature. If it's true. Okay continue. Both of those qualities are on full display in the comic strip that sparks this story. The October 3rd 1987 edition of the comic strip depicts what I would call a pair of woodpeckers and mind you I'm no birder. Very thoughtfully engaged in a game of chess on the bow of a tree in what seems to be a park. It's like a tree on the side of the road basically.

Down below, a couple, a man and woman, are watching with binoculars. The wife remarks to the husband, look Harold, they're mating. Okay. Does this joke land for you? Do you understand the chest? Yes. So if you mate somebody and yes. The simple gag with a decent punchline took on a life of its own when a user on the Usenet group, rek.games. going by the handle Dfalco posted a replica of the image that she had made with her self, her husband, their pet parakeets, and a doll sized chessboard. Oh cute! So like a live action version. Exactly, a replica, a replication of the scene.

Says Dfalco, real name Danielle Falco, looking back on her inspiration for the image. The birds were named Flavio and Sylvia. They were both really old parakeets, like 16 and 17, which is ancient in parakeet terms. In a silly way, I think it was a way of immortalizing them, at least subconsciously. Consciously, I just thought the far side was really funny. Alright. Other members of the group were delighted and quickly set about recreating the image in various ways in the week to come, with stuffed animals, people in mascot outfits, and more.

It was an amusing minor trend that lasted the better part of a year at its height and then was occasionally referenced afterwards amongst users as this epic thing that they had collectively done in the way that online communities mythologize their milestones. With the aging out of Usenet and ushering in of the internet, long live the Cernets, the trend was forgotten until 2020. COVID-19 is happening, no one can leave the house, and a fine nameless staff editor for chess.com is scraping the barrel for viral meme content. Look Harold, they're mating! Does a story on this old trend, and all of a sudden everyone is look Harold They're meeting at home submitting their own takes on the composition of the comic to chess.com or directly to Twitter Which was then called Twitter

The peak of the newer version of the trend came when ISS astronauts replicated the comic using a pair of personnel in place of The woodpeckers due to lack of access to birds in outer space This image was shared by Gary Larson on his official blog on thefarsight.com. He dubbed the image quote, out of this world. It's a decent little gag but is it really Gary Larson funny? Josie, that's for you to decide. Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeee eeeee eeeee eeeee eeeee eeeee e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e and labor and fact checking and royalty free depictions of Roald Dahl novels in the form of substandard live events. Certainly there have been many literary depictions of artificial intelligence and its capacity to overwhelm humanity by everyone from Harlan Ellison

to David Cage. Certainly Russian American science fiction writer Isaac Asimov is famous for his three laws of robotics. The first of which reads, a robot may not injure a human being or through an action allow a human being to come to harm. Good rule. It is perhaps a grimly ironic twist that Russia is the setting for our second story today in which a robot flagrantly disobeys that law.

Josie, a chess-playing robot has attacked a child. Is that so? That's a sensational way to put it for a storytelling effect But let me tell you how it actually went like psychologically attacked Robot gas lit a child You think you're good You never know you got these AI's are getting more and more sophisticated every day They're figuring out hands and once they figure out hands. They've figured they're once they get to the thumb we're done absolutely that's the most important one july 19 2022 moscow chess open one of the features of this event is a robotic arm playing three games of

chess at once so if you were imagining going in that this was like a Rosie from the Jetsons type like fully ambulatory chess robot it is it is tragically just a robotic arm. No vest, no cute hat, nothing. No doesn't even have a personality it's a heart but that's how you know this is the real one because I would have given that robot a name or a personality right? So one of these games this robot is playing three games of chess at once and one of these games is being played by a seven-year-old boy supposedly named Christopher, allegedly one of the best chess players in the under nines category. Prodigy. While patrons... a chess pro... you might call him a chess prodigy, unlike some people you know. I'm familiar with that as a known entity. We won't be asking you to be the arbiter of whether or not

this kid is a chess prodigy because I'm not sure. And you know what? Me neither. Let me be fair. Not that you asked me, but I suck at chess. I'm fucking terrible at it. Oh, I didn't even ask. Oh, we should play. Hold that thought. We need to make sure that we don't use one of these scary

robots that attacks you. While patrons are instructed to give the robot an appropriate amount of time between moves, our young friend apparently has not gotten that memo. The Guardian article on which I allegedly based this allegedly real story actually has a real video of the incident. And you can kind of see this child, he's just a little blonde kid in a white shirt. He goes to make his move and this Robie guy just clamps down on his hand real hard.

Seems to take it like a real trooper. No, no, it's not a graphic video. You wouldn't know something was wrong unless you knew something was wrong, but it's clear that he's in a bad situation and an adult kind of scoops him out. Says Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, the robot broke the child's finger. This is of course bid. However, he stresses that this is an extraordinarily rare occurrence and he can't name any other such instances. This is the feeling echoed by Russian chess Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin who put the incident down to some kind of software error or something, adding, this has never

happened before. There are such accidents. I wish the boy good health. As for young Christopher, he seems to have taken it in true Russian style with a stiff upper lip and I assume several gulps of vodka. Only several, he's just seven. He got on with the Moscow Open and finished his chess games for the rest of the weekend with his finger in a plaster cast. The whole thing seems to have been treated as a freak accident by all involved, as far as I can tell. No legal action seems to have been taken in the aftermath. A fascinating tale that makes one moral clear in black and white We would be April fools to let robots put our physical well-being in check.

Ooh, I heard the black and white and the April fools. So which is it? What do you think? So those are your two options. You've got my first piece, Noelle, that is the far side, look Harold, their mating saga. And then you've got this second saga in which a chess playing robot breaks a child's finger. Nobody really seems to care all that much. Those are your options.

Okay. What do you think? Let us in on your process. So I love how the Russian chess robot is kind of a non-story in some ways because it's like, there's no big deal. Why would we even report on this? And that makes me think like it's not real, maybe. Okay.

So there's that. The Gary Larson, it feels like kind of wonderfully every day, you know, like a lived-in story. Like it could be real because it's like, oh yeah. But you know I'm capable of producing a lived-in story. Yeah. I'm also thinking that like the far side and NASA, like that intersection would have pinged on at least Mitchell's radar and maybe I would have seen it? Not necessarily. Very possible. Yeah. Is it something he might have told you about before? So maybe that's the tell. Maybe I flew too close to the Sun in creating this story. I'm also trying to imagine

the graphic, like what it actually would look like to have two people being the birds playing. Like, does it even translate in the small space of- It's difficult because in both of these stories, I offer you a fictional artifact, right? I offer you either a fake comic or a fake video. Yeah, yeah. And they're both relatively recent too. So there's like, yeah, they're kind of of the same era, a COVID era.

COVID slash gently easing out of. Yeah. Oh, maybe that's the tell though. Why would there be a Russian gathering? 2022. 2022. Okay. Realistic, I think.

Yeah, yeah. Or at least that's what I thought when I was fabricating it. Right? Oh good, I've put together a puzzle then. This makes me happy. Yeah, this one's good. This one's good. And I will, if I don't... Thank you. I finally did something. Hopefully. If this breaks my record, I will be... I'm proud that it will be this one. Okay. I think... I think the far side one is fake. I think you made up the far side one. The street continues.

No! That is correct. The far side was made up. And the chess robot did actually break a child's finger. That jerk-ass chess robot! No, they should have put a hat and a vest on it and then we would have had it. Dude, they were very, everyone was very blase about this. I was very taken by that glib quality that nobody, nobody blamed the robot. Everyone was like, this fucking child hurries a robot. Who gives, what, he's a stupid kid. Yeah. You know, whatever.

But it did in fact happen there is in fact a video you can watch this robot arm mash this it's not like I say it's not graphic but it sure does show a chess robot snatching a child's hand. Jeez Louise. And I hope you enjoyed my take at a little bit of Gary Larson-esque humor in that first one with the La Carol there meeting. It wasn't bad! It's not Gary Larson, funny, clearly. But that comic you made up?

Yes. That's pretty cute, dude! That's pretty cute! That's not bad, right? That was not contested in my book. I was like, that's a Gary... Really? You thought it was a real comic?

I thought that would have been real, but then the progression of it... No, I will confirm for you, since it was something that you specifically questioned, Gary Larson is in fact an environmentalist who worked as a cruelty investigator for the Humane Society. That is legit. That sounds like a hard job. No wonder he became a comic.

All of the biographical information that I gave you about Gary Larson and the far side generally was absolutely true up until this made up comic and everything that unfolds from there. So yes, and I did think that I was flying again, not to belabor the space puns here. I did think I was flying a bit close to the sun,

including the ISS, but I decided to take the risk because God damn it, life is worth living, isn't it? It's true. It's definitely true, yeah. That one was close. I just I had to I had to kind of turn my brain off to really know. It's a good sign. That's such an indictment of my work. No no because it's like based on pure vibes dude. Like that's true that's true okay good good yeah you just have to feel it out. I didn't I thought you would get that one. I thought my Gary Larson story was a bit too tidy. Oh.

You know, but that's not the end of my challenge to you today Josie, because I'd like to challenge you to a game of chess. Okay. And this will be a souped up game of chess. I've got some ideas in my head. I want like a wheel. Minestrone. A chaotic minestrone.

This will be for all of our coffee supporters and it will come after the melties we're quite busy up until the melties so forgive us if we delay it until after episode 100 but after episode 100 Josie. A summer chess game. I challenge you. Let's do it. I shake your hand. Hands shaken. The streak, I genuinely, genuinely impressed. I am surprised. Genuinely impressed. I'm defeated still. I'm defeated still. Man, Gary Larson.

I am surprised. Man, Gary Larson. I am surprised. Man, Gary Larson. I am surprised. I am defeated still. I am defeated still. Man, Gary Larson.

I am surprised. I am defeated still. I am defeated still. Man, Gary Larson. I am surprised. I am defeated still. Man, Gary Larson. I am defeated still. Man, Gary Lo-i-f-n-f-i dot com slash bittersweetinfamy for the Bittersweet Film Club.

Not only have we actually posted Dick this time, but we... Posted Dick! Yup! Well, Dick is... Okay. You heard it. That's true. You heard it here first. We are going to next be tackling for our sixth episode the 2018 film Anna Kendrick Blake Lively a simple favor. Do us a simple favor. Yeah do us a simple favor. watch our child And also sign up at a at coffee calm become a monthly subscribe. I'm so excited to hear anything Yeah, I watched it I watched a lot interesting movie a lot going on I'm excited to have a chat with it

No, I mean like in some ways Kind of what I expected based on the conversation that we had at the end of the last kind of what I expected based on the conversation that we had at the end of the last film club. But also in another way, a lot of really weird stuff going on there and we'd love to have you in on the discussion. To watch just for the outfits alone, for the costumes, the fashion, pretty fly.

Yeah, we always, we pick good fashion movies broadly. That's what they say about Bittersweet Film Club. The film discussion is rank, but the wardrobe is immaculate. The wardrobe on the podcast is... Yeah. Depthier. Visually sumptuous. Josie.

Take me away, a better place. You know. Yeah. And so forth. And so forth. The place that I'm gonna take you is the late nineties and your computer, your desktop. Did you guys have a... Sorry. I was gonna ask, did you guys have a shared

desktop, like a family desktop that you went to? Yeah. All right, let me paint a picture for you. We had, which was what is a, I'm sure this is an observation that has been made a thousand times over by I'm sure this is an observation that has been made a thousand times over by parched Millennials trying to get their ex-hearts or whatever the fuck that thing is still doing these days But there was a real institution the computer room. Yeah It was a thing to have a computer room. Yeah, a nook. Yeah, a built-in some sort of something with a computer We had one with a computer that ran Windows 95 and it smelled of printer paper always, it was lovely. Had its own sort of ambient cold temperature

and Cory and I would play Clue on the PC. It was like a dope version of Clue actually. If you ever look up like Road to Damascus, it had like live action shit. It was really, really good. And then yeah, it kind of moved out into the other, it sort of outgrew the computer room and moved into a more central area of the,

still the basement though, but we had like a lower floor. Okay, nice. Yeah, but everybody, the whole family was meant to access that one, right? Yeah. Yeah, ours was in the attic. Yeah, I think you might've told me this by the King Tut poster, right?

Yeah, oh wow. Yeah, I can remember that. Look at that. Throwing it back to Melty's one. Throwing it back to Melty's one. Steals trap. So you get home from school, you log in onto your family computer in the basement. You know the sound of AOL stand for, sweetheart? Oh yeah, America Online. We didn't have COL, baby. Oh. MSN Messenger was the shit, the popular communications thing up here.

And then in terms of like- What about email? Email? Email was hotmail. We were a hotmail territory. Okay. I think that all the shit that AOL did for American Centralized, we just scavenged

from different largely Microsoft based services. That's fair. AOL now is just a it's a marker of like a boomer. It's like, oh, cool grandma at AOL.com. Great. I love cool grandma. Quit shitting on cool grandma. So anyway, you get to your family computer, you rig up your Hotmail, you open up and you're like, oh my gosh, I have mail. Cranberry underscore J at hotmail.com. Okay. Whoa. Wait, cranberry underscore?

J. J? No, not a single one in my name. It was the nineties, bitch. What up? And you see in your list of unopened emails, this subject line, urgent, exclusive opportunity. You're like, Oh, my God, this is serious. This could be my next move. I don't have to.

I'm taking too much time to open this email. It's urgent. Okay, hit it. Urgent opportunity. You open it and read. Attention esteemed recipient. Hope this message finds you well. My name is Prince Obi Okonkwo, scion of the illustrious Okonkwo dynasty in the heart of Nigeria. Okay, yeah. I reach out to you in dire need and utmost secrecy

seeking your assistance in a matter of utmost importance. As you read this, my family's riches are under siege by corrupt officials and political adversaries threatening to strip us of our legacy. However, I refuse to let their greed extinguish the flame of our fortune. Rightly so. Bold move to preserve our wealth,

I have devised a plan to transfer a massive sum of 5 million USD out of Nigeria, safely tucked away in a clandestine account. But I cannot do this alone. Where do I come into this though? Oh. I need a fearless ally who dares to defy conviction and embrace adventure.

You, my friend, you possess the audacity, the cunning requirement for this audacious endeavor. I don't think of myself as audacious, but I guess if the prince thinks maybe. Together we shall navigate the treacherous waters of international finance. An adventure. Mm-hmm.

Rest assured this operation is shrouded in secrecy. Shh. I'm not an idiot, of course. Layers of protection against prying eyes and meddling bureaucrats. Your involvement will be handsomely rewarded with a lion's share of the spoils awaiting your brave soul. If you dare seize this opportunity and join me in this daring escapade, reply to this message immediately.

Oh fuck. Time is of the essence. Oh, so you could pick someone else. And the window of opportunity is closing fast. Josie, shut up! We need to tell the prince that we're in! Let us embark on this wild journey together to emerge victorious on the other side, triumphant and untamed. Ah, fuck yes. With unwavering resolve. Unwavering. We don't flinch. Obi-oh-kon-wo. Fuck yes.

All right, Taylor, you're in? Are you fucking kidding? But like 500 bajillion dollars in escrow, no prying eyes. This makes perfect sense that he would reach out to me out of the fucking blue. He needs to pick someone random because otherwise they'll know if he picks someone that he's close to, they'll know where he put the money. I don't know how he knows that I'm so brave and audacious, but those are both true about me. I love adventure. I want, I need the money. Let's go. Totally, totally. He seems super trustworthy. He's in a bad spot. Yeah. I, I, maybe I'm a Christian. Maybe I have a big heart for charity. Maybe I da da da da da. Maybe you want to take all that money and run.

Maybe I'm, yeah, maybe I'm a greedy Christian. Maybe I got a big heart for money. Who knows? Or a greedy person if any really doesn't have to be Christian. Yeah. But yeah, I know I feel you. This is a this is a real thing. The the Nigerian Prince sort of a Nigerian Prince, a sort of an interesting follow up to your Florida man imaginary character series. Yeah. Yes. Well, this story has a few twists. There's a real Nigerian Prince at the end. That would be mind-blowing. Oh man. A prince just for you. A Nigerian prince and just love at the end of it all. The system works. Well, because you have chosen to assist- I didn't even know this had branches. I was just, I was, I, there was never a question.

Well, it doesn't, the branch isn't very, pretty smart. It was, it was an elliptical, it was a little almond-shaped branch rejoin the main river. I got you, those are fun too. So you reply back, I eagerly anticipate our collaboration and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be part of this noble cause. And I've got a lot of ideas. And I've got a lot of, let's spitball... Cranberry underscore J. Yeah, yeah. At theopital.com. Why are you laughing at me? The prince is in trouble, dude. You're laughing and they're killing him. Through a series of exchanges, our dear prince asks you for more personal information, including

your address and eventually, yes, a bank account or perhaps a social security number or social insurance number and bada bing, bada boom, your mom's account is empty, your dad can't get a loan. Oh, dad. Oh, dad. Oh, dad. Coming for his fillings, this is terrible. Taylor's in trouble.

I fucked up. I want you to know that in my head, I was like completely an adult making these decisions. I forgot I was supposed to be a child. I was like getting that email in 2024. You like pulled it out of the spam folder. You're like, whoa, an amazing opportunity in there. What are you doing over there?

I had you in a, in baby bitch mode. And that's what we call the small window of Zoom, baby bitch mode. I had you in baby bitch mode and I was looking at my email and you were reading along as I was reading it on the screen and I was, it was great. The blood rush through me.

Yeah, sort of interesting character, the Nigerian prince takes advantage of the fact that a lot of Westerners kind of actually don't know much about Nigeria, I bet. Like the fact that Nigeria never has and does not currently have a royal family. Well, that's one of the big things. That's one of the big things. But perhaps to like the uninitiated, super white European descent, whatever, or even

just doesn't have to be European descent, but a person educated in a Western educational system that doesn't really spend much time discussing the many, many things that have happened in the very, very rich cultures of the... They're not hanging out on Ankarta like they should. They need to be on Ankarta listening to world music and looking at pictures of boobs. Yes.

The... Sorry, you've distracted now now I'm thinking about boobs. No, but like in an ignorant capacity, you could say to me, you could respond, well, Nigeria now doesn't have a royal family, but perhaps the various tribal entities that once blah, blah, blah, and I would be like, huh, okay.

I feel like it's easy to convince someone who's not research oriented or critically thinking, or even just kind of doesn't have their guard up. You can convince people of things that are untrue pretty easily even if it's not sort of like this like I guess geographical falsehoods and yeah kind of vague and untrue statements about Nigerian culture and whatever. It's easy to convince people. It's easy to scam people I think. Yeah the The other thing too, like it is called the Nigerian Prince scam because it's relative at that time, especially in the late 90s, was relatively common. But it's just a regular run-of-the-mill scam, what they call an advanced fee scam, which is this idea that you promise

the victim a large sum of money in the future that will come in the future in exchange for a small fee today. So it's built on the premise of like an investment. Like you give me this information and then later I will pay you out. I know very well people who have been affected by scams like that. I am close to people who have been affected

by scams like that. Were they older folks? Yeah. Are they? Yeah. Yeah. That age group is extremely susceptible to scams. Absolutely. For a lot of different reasons. The technology, just everything feels kind of new and strange. And so your like legitimacy scale, your radar is off. Someone like preying on you from potentially another country via email, that was not something

that you were like kind of, I guess, initiated into at a young age the way that a generation that grew up with the internet has been. Yeah. I know there's a lot of research that came up on AARP that's like, how to spot a scam. Just don't say yes. Just think about it. Sit on it a little longer. It's an important thing. And you know what? I want to say too, we're talking about it in the context of older people, but I don't think you need to be older to fall for something like this. I think I've told this story on the podcast and maybe we of older people, but I don't think you need to be older to fall for something like this. I think I've told this story on the podcast, and maybe we edited it out. But I was looking for jobs when I was like 22 on Craigslist, and I totally got roped in to a job that like an interview process that I thought was totally legit. totally legit. And I like responded and we like had an exchange and it was like okay meet me at this public park but I don't have the money to get there I need

some help with the money can you send that? That makes me... partly why I remember it is I like told my mom I was like whoa this job seems really rad it's only part-time and it pays like $25 an hour and I'd be like a personal assistant. That's so oh ooh, that's so scary. And my mom was like, that sounds fake. And I was like, I am a smart person and I deserve to get paid $25 an hour for 20 hours a week. Like what, I know.

And then turned out to be a scam. She was right and that was really painful. Oh, the worst feeling. We talked about this worst feeling when your mom's right about things like that. It happens so often. My I got scams story is I was just working at this is like not that long ago four years ago maybe I was working at my desk job and someone called purporting to be Shaw who actually happened to be our cable provider. They were able to say, I think, some vague enough things that sounded true. They were kind of quote, confirming details

that after the fact, I'm like, oh, they could have just got that information from our website, right? Yeah. It's not such a crazy thing. But they were wanting to do some sort of account upgrade and they were purporting that it was free. And I was wondering, at some point,

it started feeling weird and I wondered if it was a scam, but I couldn't see the end game if it was a scam because they weren't offering, like there was no monetary anything in what they were purporting. And then I happened to get suspicious enough to Google the phone number and they said, like, here's my experience with this phone number.

Apparently what they do is, what made me specifically Google them was they were wanting me to say specific phrases. And they're like, it can't. It won't activate unless you say this specific phrase. And I was like, that's weird. And apparently they take those clips and they frank invite you into agreeing to something that you didn't actually agree to. And then they send collections after you and invoice you to Kingdom Come.

Oh shit. And it's just a big old scam. And I got weirded out and I hung up the phone and I made, like I sent an email to my boss because I had already answered a couple of their questions and I was like, if they have enough to do this, I'm so sorry. If this comes up, we need to know and just.

And it never did. It never did. But it was a real fucked up. I'm so sorry. And it never did. It never did. But it was a real fucked up. I felt like gross, I felt so stupid. I felt so, and like that's not the only time, that's the only time something has happened in like a Nigerian Prince Vane, but I've been deceived before it.

It's just a gross feeling, monetary or not. You do run through the situation, like is this a good idea? Am I, you know, like I'm paying attention. I've got my, you know, I've got my radar on, but then like usually in my case, I'll like kind of turn it off because I'm like, oh, well, this is a person.

I should listen to, it's a person. Yes. I owe this person the courtesy of- Exactly. And they're not thinking of you in that way at all. It's a very violating feeling. You're a fucking mark, yeah. Your interpersonal trust gets really ransacked

in that equation. Yeah. All this to say, I think I feel sympathy for the victims of the Nigerian prince, even though it is such a campy character, and even though it has this rap of like, oh, you must be an idiot to fall for the Nigerian prince. But one, sometimes they deliberately make things shoddy

so that they can weed out people who are smart marks. And then two, it's not right to scam in this way. These scams have racked up over $2.5 billion USD. And it's waiting in a secret account for you. Yeah, just give me your name and... But this scam, which can also be called the 419 scam, which I like particularly because that's named after the Nigerian penal code for fraud, the 419. Cool fun. The Nigerian Prince scam is an old scam There's an earlier one made popular at the turn of the 20th century called the Spanish Prisoner Swindle which is essentially the same thing the idea is that a wealthy foreign nobleman from

Spain essentially but it kind of continent from Spain, essentially, but it kind of like the continent. Yes. They're imprisoned for political reasons. Think about the early 20th century, all of that. And this nobleman comes to you saying, I know the whereabouts of a treasure. And if you can just pay my bail,

give me this money to get me out of here, out of prison, then I will take you to this treasure and we can split it or, you know, share it in some way, shape or form. Which is what could go wrong. Exactly. It is similar in principle to the Nigerian Prince scam, but the Nigerian Prince scam is also though this hallmark of the very beginnings of globalization, right? Because we're internet, we can reach all different types of people all over the globe.

Yeah, Nigerian Prince wasn't able to get in contact with Aunt Sheila before. Right, yeah. And now he's got direct access through her inbox. Through friendlycatlady, underscore, one, nine, five, nine five six underscore that's my birthday Hayden mom. So it has this more I suppose kind of surreal vibe to it because it's like reaching further to people who might not be as familiar with each other. Taylor, you talked about earlier how like, yeah, oh, Nigeria, sure. Yeah, they have royalty, right?

Like maybe they don't have it now. Yeah, big country, lots of people. Yeah. Oil, I faintly feel like I know something about oil. It might be gold. Yeah, some type of resource. Maybe you could name like a city that you could name Lagos. You've maybe heard of Lagos, but what do you really,

when it comes down to it, listener, what do you know about Nigeria in your heart? If you look in there and the answer is lacking, then perhaps you could be susceptible to a scam like this. That's true. The trick in the scam is called social engineering. When a scammer can convince somebody to reveal sensitive data. And they do that by kind of exploiting a human trait, right? That like, oh, this is a person,

I need to treat them with respect. And I want to listen to what they have to say and have some type of exchange. And so then you're like, yeah, my name is, yeah, my middle name is Margaret. Yeah, it was my grandma's name. You know, my mom's maiden name. And there's a way that the Nigerian prince scam in particular, because it's also, you know, it's a written form. It always comes in a written email. There's this way that typos and broken English can infuse it counter intuitively with more authenticity.

Because if you don't know much about Nigeria, you might think, oh, well, they might not speak English very well there. So that makes sense why the grammar is a little bit off. Or they don't, maybe they don't have many computers there or something like that Yeah, depending on what your idea of it is as a as a person not from there Yeah in the late 90s, but there's also this idea

That's slightly more nefarious on the part of the scammy where it's like if they're trying to scam me They're not very smart and maybe I can like out can come out with them. Yeah and maybe I can out-scan them. Yeah. Oh my God. But again, presupposing that this $5 million is real to begin with or whatever. No, exactly. And I think baseline for the Nigerian print scam

is that there is no royalty in Nigeria. Never has been. But also there is no recorded cases No recorded cases of someone receiving a large amount of money. Thanks to a random email sent to their inbox This is not that can be that has to have happened at least one time Spanish fucking noble and it'll happen to you Taylor So you're saying that I should hold that before I send that email to our friend from the beginning. You should flag that email. You should put it in your spam folder, delete it.

You should not send any follow-up emails. None of it. Do not, Taylor, click any links that are on that email, too. That feels important to stress. Do not open any documents. Yes. The fact that the Nigerian Prince scam originates, or at least is tied to Nigeria, is kind of interesting because Nigeria has one of Africa's best cyber security and data protection policies.

Okay. That doesn't mean that it always translates into action though. So even though there's a lot of groundwork and there's a lot of people thinking about it and, you know, great minds planning things out. Wait, wait, but it's all a thought experiment? A little bit, yeah. Wait, wait, but it's a solathot experiment? A little bit, yeah. Oh, damn. What a shame. There's the National Information Technology Department

Agency in Nigeria that is responsible for monitoring cybersecurity within the country. And they have the ability to impose fines if there are any cases of scamming that happens, but the agency rarely enacts this privilege of finding folks. And then even when stuff is reported to them, which is not frequently, if it is reported, then there's not a lot of communication

to the wider audience that like, hey, like how you mentioned Googling a number and it coming up and being like, oh, someone had a negative experience boarding on a scam or in fact, a very real and detrimental scam. I'm not going to continue this conversation. So that type of communication is lacking. So yes, they do have excellent plans and folders and like flowcharts of what to do. The post-it notes are immaculately color-coded. The PDF files are all very well labeled. The

file tree is amazing, but in practice there's a lot of Nigerian princes just coming out of the royal family every day. And it affects, it's not just this kind of like Nigeria out to the wider world, it does affect companies and organizations and individuals in Nigeria itself because the scams don't care where you're from as long as you're willing to give some money. According to a 2022 report by Sophos, 71% of Nigerian organizations were hit by ransomware in the past year. And yet some of Nigeria's worst cybersecurity incidents are still not reported to the government entity that's charged with. Right, so it's interesting to note that the Nigerian Prince email does actually originate

out of Nigeria. Yeah. It's not, you know, Cameroon pretending to be Nigeria. No, and that is interesting too, because like, why is it that Nigeria is the place where this happens? And they can trace it back to a boom of cyber cafes that were being established during the 1990s. Ah, okay, okay.

The power of the internet cafe, baby. Yeah. You don't have your own home computer, but you can come down and use the public access one for a small fee. Mm-hmm, get your hand sanitizer out and go to town. Oh, we didn't even care then. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, no one cared. Those were the good old days. You just spit right in your hands and drag it along your face. It was amazing. So more cyber. We all did that. Yeah, because I was four. Right. The good old days. A boom of cyber cafes also coincided with falling oil prices in Nigeria,

which meant that unemployment was on the rise. So there was a really big percentage of Nigerians who had to find a way to get that employment. It was side hustles, gig work, physical labor. The king was kicking him out of the castle. And most notoriously, cyber crime. Cyber crime. You might be thinking, well, isn't this, I don't know, there's most notoriously, cybercrime. CYBERCRIME. Shhhhhhhaaa. Chachachacha. You might be thinking, well, isn't this... I don't know.

There's a lot of baggage when it comes to, like, especially this term that is very recognizable, the Nigerian Prince Scam. Right. Especially when it's being exported to, say, the US or Canada or Europe. Right, it creates a stereotype that people unfairly come to associate with all Nigerians. Exactly, yeah. And at least I can speak for the states, it feeds on an American racial bias. It takes advantage of a general lack of understanding of Africa and of Nigeria in the West. And that this is like obviously an aspect of their,

let's call it cyber reality that they are struggling with, but also they have a vibrant culture independent of this and are not all cyber criminals, et cetera, et cetera. It's true. It's very true. Some of them aren't even princes. It's crazy stuff. So the stereotype, of course, has negative consequences for Nigerians in tech. According to Professor of International Relations at the University of Abadan, Olu Bukola-Stela

Adesina, she says, and I quote, Nigerian bank drafts and checks are not viable international financial instruments. Nigerian internet service providers and email providers are already being blacklisted and email blocking blacklist systems across the internet. Some companies are blocking entire internet network segments and traffic that originate from Nigeria. Wow. End quote.

Wow. Wow. To further illustrate this, PayPal, which we use, it's a pretty helpful way to internationally transfer money. PayPal has historically banned Nigerian users from using the platform. Wow. Both frustrating to the individual users,

but also it frustrates Nigerian tech. It frustrates an industry, if you know what I mean. Like that must create a real ceiling for you if like resources are no longer on the table for you that are available for like, how do you grow an industry then? Which is a bummer, especially when you consider that access to banking institutions,

access to the internet happens mainly now on mobile devices. But Nigerians don't have all the access to the internet happens mainly now on mobile devices. But Nigerians don't have all the access to that. What does it matter? What a shame, yeah. And also like it has implications in the global marketplace. Not to, you know, I know everyone gets sick of me going all finance bro on the podcast all the time,

but we must think of the implications on the global marketplace. This makes you, it makes you unable to compete in certain ways, right? It's annoying. It's, I'm not even a Nigerian tech guy and I'm annoyed. Yeah, yeah. Much like Josie is not a chess prodigy,

I am not a Nigerian tech guy. And yet, and yet we make a podcast. Just two ordinary folks. And of course, this stereotype exacerbates an industry bias that already only has 9% of cybersecurity professionals who self identify as black. Wow, I know it's really low. In America, you mean? Like globally. Jesus. And so Nigerians are continually flagged and blacklisted. Oh no. Not just like being able to use devices or use communications or financial technology, but even being professionals because there's this negative connotation that's like,

well, I don't wanna hire you to be my cybersecurity IT guy. You're the Nigerian prince. Yeah. That's not fair. No, it's totally racist. Yes. And this stereotype of the Nigerian prince scam is so destructive, even within Nigeria itself,

that in 1992, a special anti robbery squad was developed. It's a police force. It's shortened to SARS. Yeah. Ooh, rough. Ooh, well you couldn't have snuck a tea in there for SARS. Nope. You could have found one.

So this police force, they are meant to monitor crimes, right? But the rise of crime of like general robbery and crimes within Nigeria, but with the rise of cybercrime in the 2000s, in the 90s into the 2000s, they turned their sights on cyber criminals. And I should say, however, they don't really investigate these crimes digitally. They essentially just profile young Nigerian men on the streets who fit kind of the descriptions. Are they looking kind of fly and good that day? Are they looking like a prince? Yeah. Did they have a regal demeanor? Are they wearing like, are they wearing gauntlets? Are they wearing upper shawl? Is their crown upright?

In 2020, a report made by Amnesty International found that the unit, SARS, was found guilty of 82 counts of illegal stop and frisk arrests, sexual harassment and extrajudicial killings. Extrajudicial killings? Yeah, they go hard. They go way too hard. So they're just vigilantes basically. Essentially, and they're like, you're a hacker,

but I don't know how to turn on my phone. Like it's like. They don't even have like a computer probably at their headquarters. What the fuck is this? Yeah, yeah. I know, yeah. Wow, I had no idea.

It's pretty rough. But that's why this stereotype and the perpetuation of the Nigerian prince scam is so harmful on so many different levels, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It fucks everyone over. And so the story of Ramon Olarunwa Abbas can be counted as pretty destructive. It perpetuates the stereotype of the Nigerian prince scam, but maybe it's a matter of perspective. Perhaps the story of Ramon Olarunwa Abbas functions as a cautionary tale. Taylor, have you heard of this figure?

No, they're brand new to me. But he has an alias that you might know him better by. Oh, Snow Queen's Ice Dragon? What's his deal? Hush puppy. I don't think so, but don't hold me to it. I love how similar the Snow Queen's Ice Dragon kind of felt to Hush Puppy though. That was nice.

Yeah. That was good. I love it. Listen, I love his screen name. I'm all about his screen name. I should note it's H-U-S-H Hush Puppy. P-U-P-P-I. Saucy.

Yeah, a little saucy. A little... Dot that with a heart. Yeah, a little swagger in there. So Hush Puppy was born in Nigeria in 1982. He grew up in a pretty rough and tumble neighborhood of Lagos. His father worked as a taxi driver and his mom sold bread. He didn't come from a wealthy background, but the boy hustles.

He rises, he grinds, cold showers. Gets that bread. In 2014, he moves to Southeast Asia. And then from there, three years later in 2017, he lands himself in the richest spot on Earth. Dubai? Yeah, dawg. Yeah!

Okay, okay, okay, okay. I was considering, I was considering, but then I was like, what's rich? What's obnoxiously rich? Dubai. Yeah, yeah. It nailed it, yeah. So Hush Puppy often refers to himself as a successful businessman, a real estate developer. I think that's kind of the official title

is real estate developer. But details about his legitimate sources of income have always been unclear. Stacks of cash simply appear. Oh, that's a fun power to have. Mm hmm. Yeah. Make the cash appear. You might be wondering like, okay, if Hush Puppy, which you

would rightly assume is perhaps involved in some scammy situations, how is it that we know anything about him? Shouldn't he be like laying low, chill as a cucumber? I've done too many episodes of this show to think that. He was highly active on social media platforms, most particularly Instagram and Snapchat. So he's got that little like an amenity on Snapchat. He disappears every once in a while.

But Instagram stays the fuck around. So don't air your shit out on so you know if you when I'm a criminal you will know because you will not be able to find me. That's a very good point. He is essentially a social media influencer. Right. He amasses a huge following that tunes in, is that even the word? I don't know, that scrolls and hearts and likes and comments all the time. And envies and buys lifestyle courses about and idolizes. Exactly.

Because he has, and he showcases often, this very luxurious lifestyle. He flaunts expensive cars, designer clothing, lavish vacations, exclusive parties. He, you know, takes a helicopter so he can have dinner in Paris and all this kind of stuff. He earned himself the nickname Gucci Master due to his fondness for the luxury brand. The guy is kitted in Gucci, in Louis Vuitton, in other names.

Yes, yes. So did he earn the name Gucci Master or did he give himself the name Gucci Master? That's a very good question. And we chicken or the egg, you know? It's a real chicken or the egg on that one. Does it really matter? Does at the end of the day?

So I'll send you this link and it's kind of long, but it's a... Okay. This video is kind of patched together reels from Instagram. Okay. And Instagram has since at this current time has taken down Hushpuppies. Pussies. So we cannot see it. But YouTube is amazing. God bless.

In this first clip, he's like bathing in a palatial like pool while singing that he has decided to follow Jesus Yeah it looks like Nice place rooftop pool actually outdoor rooftop pool I'm also gonna watch a second clip now. He's pulling up in a white Ferrari. It looks like Yeah, he's flexing a white Ferrari Okay, I'll click around some more. Click around some more. Oh, before I click around, his watch came into frame and it damn sure matches

the car. Yeah, and that's his face. So as if to say, yes, these are in fact my cars. Yeah, yeah, I want you to know this face, this car, this car this car me in this car face He's wearing an outrageous Gucci striped suit while a dancing in a lobby He's flying with Louis Vuitton I like it first of all this is a man of discernment. He orders the fruit plate on a plane just like me Thank you he he's got a nice little breakfast spread in front of. He's got a nice, thank you. He's got a nice little breakfast spread in front of me. He's got a Louis Vuitton pillow. He's clearly on the PJ, you know, the private jet.

And it looks like some, maybe a Louis Vuitton, some sort of designer sweater as well, and he's loving life. Yeah, yeah. Very aspirational. I, this looks like a good breakfast, really. Yeah, I love the way he's like kind of like very casually eating it like.

That's no big, this is just everyday for Hush Puppy, isn't it? Yeah. This isn't, this might be a big moment for you or I, but Hush Puppy, he's PJ Pilled, man. He does this every day. Exactly. PJ Pilled, indeed. So the man has a huge social media following, especially in his

native Nigeria, because he is living the life. a wild place of imported Italian marble in the desert. And huge rooms and all this stuff. And actually some staff of Palazacio Versace were interviewed later in Hushpuppi's story and they reported that he did not tip at all. Not at once. Now before we judge, is tipping common in Nigerian culture? That's a good question. I think it might be common in Dubai culture. Well, and also it's like, I don't think you can be the kind of person who flies around

in a private jet and pretend not to know about the concept of gratuity too. Yeah. That doesn't quite... Yeah. Passmuster? Okay. I don't think he was particularly nasty or mean because... Just cheap.

The staff also reported that he was always wearing like designer PJs as they described and like Gucci slides. He was always just like very low-key, very chill, always alone. He was, it was always just him. He rarely had a friend or a lover or a wife with him. That's why he has to send the email to the random person. Maybe it was the no tipping that really was the straw that broke the camel's back. It sunk his ship! Well, just karmically speaking. Oh, I said yes. Important. Because in June 2020, the Dubai police raided Palazzo Versace using tips from the FBI in

the States and Interpol in Britain. They arrested Hush Puppy. So the tips were his undoing in the end, ironically. Tip has two meanings in this context. So the tips were his undoing in the end, ironically. Ha ha ha! You can catch this. Tip has two meanings in this context. The Dubai police created a very intricate operation called Fox Hunt 2. I never saw Fox Hunt 1. I'm going to be all lost.

The entire Operation Fox Hunt 2 was meant to pinpoint and weasel out cyber criminals around the globe and Hushpuppi was in their purview and so this is how he was weaseled out of plotto for Sakshi. But in a strange move that kind of resembles Hushpuppi's style. The Dubai police have body cameras on them and film the whole raid and arrest, which is relatively customary with modern policing. But then they go and they make a highly stylized four-minute video. Okay. For like as a press release. I mean, I like it because yeah, as you say, you kind of want Hushpuppies audience to know in their language what's happened here, right?

Yes, yes, yeah. It's a bit of cultural translation, right? Yeah. You get in there, put your Gen Z cap on and you fucking make a little TikTok about it, right? Yeah, you get in there put your gen-zed cap on and you fucking make a little tick talk about it, right? You add a cool filter. So it looks like a camcorder POV you just Hushpuppi I read a little bit about it before I saw it and I was like, oh, this is gonna be like cops This is gonna be like I'm gonna be watching like CSI Dubai, like this is gonna be good. Okay. Visually, there's a lot going on,

but I think narrative wise, pretty tame, pretty slow. Oh, that's a shame. So I'm not gonna make you watch the whole thing, but again, if you wanna like plunk around in there to take a look, cause I think just the graphics that they use are particularly tick tockish. I'm, oh, it's sort of styled like, I mean, I kind of,

I guess take objection to your claim that this isn't CSI like. Okay, okay. I find it quite CSI like. It's got a board with some red strings. Yeah. It's got a picture of the globe in black and green while various like numbers and clocks run over it without you know These aren't real. These aren't real clocks. This is stock footage, right? Let me look at the actual raid footage here

hmm I'm not as down on this as you are Okay, this is a fun little piece of arrest propaganda to me. Maybe I got too hyped up reading it and stuff. I was like, whoa. Yeah, a little scroll over his social media feed. Hot suit to me, to me. This is a little confidently made.

It works better for me than like standing in front of a table with a bunch of bricks of cocaine. Then I just think you're stupid because you could get a lot of money for that. Or you could have a lot of fun. Or a lot of really tedious conversations. Let's be real. This is June 2020.

Hushpuppy is arrested in Dubai according to the CSI graphic piece of police propaganda, as you point out. And he's arrested for fraud and for money laundering. That sounds right. Part of some of these cyber crime scams that he's using to enact fraud and money laundering is this business email compromise, which is a scam, a new scam, BEC,

where fraudulent emails are used to deceive individuals and businesses, so wealthy individuals and businesses, into making wire transfers to accounts controlled by criminals. Right. It's a very similar, like, Nigerian prince scam vibe, but it's just in a bigger pond. Right. They're not reaching for individuals. Aunt Stella. They're reaching for people like me who happened to pick up the phone at the office that day, or happened to be the info at the office or whatever.

Kind of like your office situation. They come in with knowledge knowledge and maybe some of that is like count numbers and like passwords maybe. They come in with that information and so the bank teller or the cybersecurity expert at the bank is like okay yes this passes let me go ahead and send the account and we'll go ahead and wire transfer thousands sometimes millions of dollars. It was reported that Hush Puppy's criminal activities allegedly resulted in the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars from victims around the world.

Yeah, well, that PJ doesn't pay for itself, does it? When he was arrested at the Palazzo Versace in Dubai, police found 40 million dollars in USD cash. Okay. 13 luxury cars worth 7 million dollars USD in total. Yeah. 21 laptops. Yeah. 47 smartphones, 15 memory devices, and five external hard drives. Never trust a man with 47 smartphones. That's a red flag, man. Hushpuppies, storage devices, and external hard drives carried 800,000 emails of potential victims. That's a lot of balls to keep rolling. 800,000 emails of potential victims.

That's a lot of balls to keep rolling. At some point you gotta make like Jen Shaw from Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and you know, delegate some of that. Hush Puppy was just living the sweet life and working hard, rise and grind. Rise and grind, work hard, play hard. Summer in the Maldives.

Some of his larger schemes included frauding a U.S. law firm out of 40 million dollars USD. Wow. That's ironic because that's illegal. It's called irony folks, irony. Well, at the time of his arrest, he was in dealings and had targeted an English Premier League club with the goal of stealing $124 million USD from them. I admire it. No, there's like... That's very ambitious. It's a bold fraud. You must give it that. Yes. Yeah. And then to be like in that Gucci suit yeah

looking like a criminal looking for all the world like a total criminal on social media so perhaps his in my opinion gnarliest scam was he was not the only one he was a cog in a larger mechanism, but he is held responsible for illegally transferring 14.7 million US dollars from the Bank of Valetta, which is a Malta, baby. I'm still that good. I'm still that good. Third grade geography Vs, motherfucker, and I'm still that good. Third grade geography B's, motherfucker, and I'm still that good.

I know flags. Let's name some fucking flags, bitch. Let's go. Get them at me. Yeah. This is like, it rang a very distant bell, but like banks in Malta had to shut down. Malta, a small island in the Mediterranean.

Thank you. Known for tourism and beaches. Falcons. Falcons. No, no, I don't remember this. My Maltese baking lore, not so good. Identification, excellent. Yeah, oh yeah. It's a red and white flag, I can tell you that, but that's as far as she goes. This happened not too long ago on February 14th, so it's Valentine's Day.

Oh, bittersweet romance. It's at the end of the workday and so a lot of locals are like hitting up the little mom and pop shops and the little bodegas to grab something for dinner, a bottle of wine, a bouquet of flowers to share with their loved ones, you know, a box of chocolates, whatever. All of a sudden, across the island, all the point of sale mechanisms, so like where you can stick your card and pay by credit card or debit card, they're not working. Or uh-oh. None of the cash machines are working. All the money in Malta is frozen. Cash is king, baby. And after COVID-19, the king died. Yeah, but I have

no one to carry his cash anymore. What had happened was it was a pretty classic BEC scam, the business email compromise, where somebody from Hushpuppies' network emailed somebody in the bank and gave them strategic account information and convinced them, well, if you know that, then I can give you this, you've passed all the cybersecurity, okay, here you go.

And Hushpuppi and his associates swept in and unlocked all of the money transferring opportunities and wired money out of Malta. That's very Carmen Sandiego-esque. Like I love a bank heist. I love a bank heist movie. It's so good. Very digital digital age too has got that modern twist, you know? It caused, obviously, a huge stir. The prime minister had to talk to, you know, blah blah blah. A lot of people, I'm sure. I'm sure the prime minister had to talk to fucking several people for a while, yes. So with the Dubai police arrest of Hush Puppy, He's extradited to the United States, and he's got some really hefty counts on his record,

including shutting down the banking system of a small island in the Mediterranean. To say the least. He is taken to Los Angeles. Hush Puppy makes a claim that his girlfriend's uncle lives in Illinois, and maybe he could just stay there with him. And the...

Family, God bless family. It was determined that he would be a flight risk considering the charges laid against him, just the gravity of his crime. But he would document his flight on social media. So it's not like you couldn't find the guy. It's true. And that is exactly how the FBI and Interpol, with all of their advanced knowledge, were able to pinpoint where Hushpuppi was. It's because he was constantly posting his shoes, his cool suit.

Look at this helicopter. Look at me, a piece of strawberry on a PJ. You can do a lot with people's social media indiscretions, man. For sure. In October 2020, after his arrest, Hushpuppi pleads guilty to charges of conspiracy to engage in money laundering, among many other offenses. So that's part of his plea deal. He just says, yep, you got me.

I mean, fair. He did write a very heartfelt letter to the presiding judge detailing his scams and crimes. So giving them sometimes even more information than they had investigated. Okay. Through that, he revealed the name of a high level government official back in Nigeria who was profiting off the money laundering schemes.

Okay, Takashi. Martha Stewart never dimed on anybody, I'm just saying. Well, maybe Hushpuppi was like trying to come back and- No, I know you're trying to give the guy a redemption arc. I'm saying snitches get stitches. We just diverge on opinion. But in this letter, in this heartfelt letter, he does also apologize to his family for bringing shame to them and also congratulates the FBI on doing such a good job of finding him. Okay, now I'm back on his side here. Now, I think I like that.

You guys did pretty good, yeah. You got me. Wow. Slow clap. Slow clap. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know.

One minute, one minute I was eating strawberries in front of a Cinque Media marble. The next minute I'm being filmed by the Interpol social media intern for their little video. It's a hard knock life, man. On November 8th, 2022, so not too long ago, he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 11 years in US federal prison. Hush puppy, no. In addition to that, he was ordered to pay millions to- Yeah, more money than he'll ever be able to pay back.

Right, yeah. To compensate the victims of his scams and crimes. Yeah, well, you live by the sword, you die by the sword, don't you? As you said, a cautionary tale. Yeah, and his lawyer maintains, even though Hushpuppi did plead guilty, his lawyer maintains, and I think it might be an interesting point, that the mechanisms that Hushpuppi was a part of are much larger than him. And on the grand scale of things,

Hushpuppi functions much more as a middleman than he does as a kingpin. He's a bishop, a rook. Oh, look at that. It all comes together, folk. Full circle. Checkmate, as they say in chess. Yeah. According to an article in Bloomberg Business Week by Ian Ratliff, it's called

The Fall of the Billionaire Gucci Master. Right, that is a Gucci master's a good one. Yeah. I see how that, that. Yeah, it just falls off the tongue. Ratliff writes, Ramon Abbas, AKA Hush Puppy. AKA Gucci master. AKA Gucci master.

Perfected a simple internet scam and laundered millions of dollars. His past says a lot about digital swagger and the kinds of stories that get told online. I hadn't thought about it in the sense of like perfecting a scam, but he really was a master at this particular craft, hey? Imagine if he had used that that power for good, you know what I mean? It's an interesting thought. It was a very simple idea, the Nigerian prince scam, and he just like

truly ticked it up and ticked it up and ticked it up and he updated it for a modern era he said we're not looking big we need institutional money and he apparently was right before his arrest when he was still this like media influencer darling of Nigeria look-and-fly and his Gucci slides yeah there was a really wonderful song written about him. So this is a song by Tamaya and it's called Teleperson and it is a f***ing banger and do I know all the lyrics? No. Do I know that it is about Hush Puppy and this sly Gucci master. Hell yeah. We say all my stuff, they ain't tell you, you know.

What I'm back here, you know, yeah. When the time is like my brother. Tell me person, tell me person. Over and over, tell me person. Cool, interesting, interesting, interesting. We love our songs about our infamous subjects, don't we? From the fucking wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald to fucking Bebito Fufu, man. It's a proud tradition.

It's pretty fun. But yeah, the cautionary tale of Hushpuppi. There is no recorded explanation for his name, for his alias Hush Puppy. Let's leave something to the imagination, huh? Yeah. Maybe the answer is within. Now that you know a little bit more about Nigeria, when you consult your heart again about Nigeria, you can also look to yourself for the answer to why Hush Puppy with an I.

Yeah. Yeah. Why? Why? Why? I, actually. With an eye. Yeah. Maybe, maybe, I mean, Taylor, the question still remains. Was there a prince in the end? He kind of is at a certain point, isn't he?

Yeah. Maybe not of royal lineage, but of his own creation. Like, I look at this man in a gucky suit, and I'm like, what is, living in Dubai in the Palacio Versace, and you're like, what is this, if not a prince of sorts? Yeah, besides the whole swindling innocent people out of millions and sometimes billions of dollars of money, he seemed pretty affable. You know what?

I will forgive. Yeah, fuck it. I will forgive all of that billions of dollars of fraud on innocent people for someone who will like give me a kind conversation. You know what though, he's a bad tipper. So he's not that nice. That's true.

That's true. So maybe, maybe he actually, you know what? He might actually be a bad guy. I'm starting to believe he might be a bad guy. Believe it or not. Interpol, FBI. I think you might be on to something. This is a toe zone, Interpol. Ring ring. And that's the thing too. Maybe if the sting doesn't work, they can always bring you in. It's always the taxes, right? It's always the tow truck. Yeah, they always get you down. It's always the small shit that brings you in for the big shit. Yeah. Glad I never wrote back to the Nigerian Prince. Thanks for stopping me. I nipped that in the bud, for sure. Thank you. My finger was twitching on Reply All.

But, but no. With your social insurance number. Yeah, I had it all just written out. I had it all just written out. And now I'm gonna erase it, so thank you. Great stuff. And by the way, in case you forgot, we are on the road to the Melties.

So now that you have finished this episode with all the bitter sweetness in your heart. I have a bandana over my hair, just like Belmond Louise. Big, beautiful sunglasses. Yeah, oh sure, yeah, absolutely, absolutely, yes. A gun in the glove compartment. Sure, fuck it, sure. Go vote, go vote, go vote, go vote.

And Josie, what's that magic URL again? Tinyurl.com slash infamy100. Sweet, okay, rock and roll. ["Infamy"] Thanks for listening. If you want more infamy, we've got plenty more episodes at bittersweetinfamy.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the podcast, shoot us a few bucks via our Ko-fi account at ko-fi.com forward slash bittersweetinthemy.

But no pressure, bittersweetinthemy is free, baby. You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing, leaving a review, following us on Instagram at bittersweetinthemy, or just pass the podcast along to a friend who you think would dig it. Stay sweet. dig it. Stay sweet. My source for this minfamous was Chess Robot, Grabs and Breaks Finger of Seven-Year-Old Opponent in The Guardian by John Henley, Sunday, July 24th, 2022. And the Gary

Larson information came from Wikipedia. The sources that I used for this episode included an article from Hacker Noon entitled the Nigerian Prince Email and the History of Social Engineering Techniques, posted August 21st, 2023. An article from the AARP called Nigerian Scams published December 31, 2018, updated December 15, 2023. An article from Wired by Olatunji Olagbe entitled The Deep Roots of Nigerians' Cybersecurity Problem published September 19, 2022. An article from CNN, a man who flaunted private jets and luxury cars on Instagram gets 11 years in prison for money laundering.

Written by Faith Karimi and Larry Maddowell, published November 8, 2022. An article from FBI.gov, entitled Business Email Compromise, an article from Bloomberg Business Week, The Fall of the Billionaire Gucci Master by Ian Radcliffe, June 2021, a podcast from the BBC World Service called The Lazarus Heist, season two, episode. The song from Tamaya Teleperson was posted to YouTube August 15th, 2017 by official Tamaya and the song featured Fino and Olamide. A big shout out to all our subscribers Jonathan Mountain, Erica Jo Brown, and Lizzy D. Thank you so much for all you do and if you as well

want to contribute to the podcast, head over to coffee.com slash bittersweetinfamy, k-o-f-i.com slash bittersweetinfamy and become a monthly subscriber to access the Bittersweet Film Club and all our other exclusives. Bittersweet Infamy is a proud member of the 604 Podcast Network. The interstitial music you heard earlier is by Mitchell Collins. And the song you're listening to now is T Street by Brian Steele. you