Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Colombian Kid Stole Millions - The Juan Carlos Betancourt story

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

This is the story of Juan Carlos Betancourt, the con artist from Colombia

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Now, his name is Juan Carlos, and he lives in Columbia, and so far, he's had a really hard life. But Juan Carlos is about to do whatever it takes to succeed. So one day, he sets out to make that happen, and he heads to the local airport to catch a flight to Miami. But little Juan Carlos, he can't afford a plane ticket. So he sneaks onto the tarmac, and he climbs onto a cargo. plane and he hides out in the wheel well and he allegedly holds on real tight while the plane takes off and flies three and a half hours from Cali Colombia to Miami, Florida. Then the plane lands and allegedly Juan Carlos falls out of the wheel well and he just lays there on the tarmac unconscious.

In airport staff they eventually find him and he's shivering and he's disoriented and he's just a wreck. But he tells them not that his name is Juan Carlos but that his name is Guillermo and that he's 13 and from Columbia, and that his parents had died, and that he doesn't have anyone else, so he fled to America. And his story just blows people away, because they feel sorry for him. And so the local media, they start covering it. Then a police officer in the area, this guy, Lozano, he's driving home one day, and he hears the story on the radio, that they found this 13-year-old kid who had been hiding in the wheel well of a plane. And Lozano is so moved, he goes and he volunteers to be Juan Carlos' temporary guardian while the state figures out what to do with him.

So Juan Carlos goes and he lives with Lozano and his family. And this changes his life. Suddenly, he's not living in poverty anymore. And this middle class lifestyle feels like wealth to him. And they've got all these nice things. And so he tells himself that soon he's going to have nice things too. And within a few weeks of living with Lozano's family, Juan Carlos starts stealing. And things around the house go missing. Plus, he's been disappearing for days at a time. And Lozano and his wife, they start thinking that something isn't adding up about this kid. Then one day, they get a call. And it's the Colombian consulate, who had just gotten some important information. Turns out, Juan Carlos isn't actually named Guillermo. He's named Juan Carlos. And he isn't some innocent

kid. He's actually got a criminal record. And he isn't 13. He's actually 17. And his parents aren't dead. They're actually alive and well back in Columbia. And he probably didn't ride in the wheel well of that plane. It's more likely that he rode inside the plane with the cargo. And he just lied about it all because it made a better story. So Juan Carlos is just a little con artist, trying to con his way into the United States so that he can have a better life. And so, bam, they immediately detain him and they deport him back to Columbia. Oh, but this isn't a over for Juan Carlos, because for a moment, he got a taste of a much better life, and he'll do anything to get that back. So over the years, Juan Carlos tries his best to scam his way out of Colombia

and get back into the U.S. and other countries, using different aliases and fake IDs, but he ends up getting deported, like a bunch of different times. And while all this is going on, Juan Carlos, he's there developing the perfect con. Here's his perfect con. Juan Carlos dresses up really nice, pretending to be a rich man. And he goes into a five-star hotel, and he tries to make it look like he's a guest there. He hangs out in the lobby and at the hotel bar, and he'll chat with the staff a little bit just to make sure that they notice him. And as he's doing this, he also takes note of other guests. He'll memorize their name, he'll memorize their room number. Then he'll go to reception, pretending to be that guest. And he'll say that he lost

his room key. And reception, they'll recognize him like, oh, this guy, he's been hanging out in the lobby for a few days. Of course he's a guest here. So the The hotel will let him in the room. And while he's there, he'll steal money and credit cards and jewelry and whatever he can get out of the guest luggage. Then to make it worse, he'll then call the hotel security desk and tell them he's locked out of his safe. And security, they'll come up to the room and they'll open the safe for him.

And they don't question anything because he's already in the room. So of course they think it's his room. So then Juan Carlos takes everything from the safe and he leaves the hotel, a slightly richer man. And this con works. In fact, it works really well for him. So Juan Carlos does it repeatedly, hotel after hotel after hotel, just raking it in. Until one day in London, boom, he gets arrested for using a credit card he had stolen.

But Juan Carlos, he's ready for this. He's been thinking about it a while. And he gives police a fake name and he skips bail and leaves town. And then a year later, he's back in London. Pulling off his same con and then bam, he gets arrested again for using another. stolen credit card. This time he gives them a different fake name and a fake ID. And he ends up getting off with a small fine because they don't realize he's the same guy they arrested the year before. So Juan Carlos continues with this pattern. He travels the world using fake names, fake IDs, and robbing

hotels. But a few years later, he makes his way back to London again. And there he hits four more hotels and leaves with over $100,000 worth of cash and jewelry. Now, at this point, a couple of A couple of London detectives have started to take notice. This detective, Swindell's, and this other detective, Plowman. So Swindells and Plowman, they've started to piece a lot of this together. And they end up connecting a bunch of these robberies back to the thief, Juan Carlos. Meanwhile, oh, Juan Carlos, he's already fled. He's living a good life.

He's got money, he's got clothes. He finally has nice things like he's always wanted. But it's just not enough. So Juan Carlos keeps going. And within a couple of years, he ends up in Las Vegas, where he pulls off his infamous scam and he ends up stealing $350,000 worth of cash and jewelry. And one of the hotel rooms he robs is allegedly Celine Dion's room. So that's fun.

And then, about a year later, Juan Carlos is back in London again. And he hits up even more hotels. But then, one night, Swindells, he's out and he's walking back from a bar he was just at. And he just happens to stop outside of a supermarket. And he sees a man leaving that supermarket, a man wearing a long leather jacket. And Swindells recognizes him because by sheer fucking coincidence, he just crossed paths with the Juan Carlos. Now, Swindels has never seen Juan Carlos in person, only in mugshots. But he's been working on this case a long time and he knows it's him.

So then, pow, Swindells arrests him. And he goes to trial and he's sentenced to three and a half years. in prison. Oh, but this story isn't over because Juan Carlos really likes his nice things. So three months later, he's in prison and he happens to have a dentist appointment. And he ends up charming the prison guards to let him go out to his dentist appointment alone. I guess this is some kind of like open prison where they're not as strict. And so they just let him go to the dentist alone. And of course, he flees. And from there, somehow he makes his way to Dublin, where he steals a credit card and pulls his infamous scam in yet another hotel.

And that is where he screws up. Because that puts this Irish detective on the case. This guy, McGlynn. Now McGlynn, he goes and he looks at CCTV footage from some of the stores that Juan Carlos had used that stolen credit card at. And pretty quickly, he identifies the thief in the footage. He knows it's Juan Carlos, the same guy who had walked out

of prison not too long before. So McGlynn investigates further. And he concludes that Juan Carlos must have just gotten to Dublin. So he's likely staying in a cheap hostel in the city where he can keep a low profile. So McGlynn spends two days searching all these hostels in Dublin. And then he finally finds Juan Carlos hiding out in a hostel with tons of items he had already stolen. And so, kapow, he gets arrested again. Here's one of his mugshots.

And he gets sentenced to two years in prison, but then an Irish judge rules that he can be extradited to France. To face even more charges there, because he robbed a bunch of hotels there too. But then, while he's there in France, he's released temporarily, and then, just like that, Juan Carlos disappears again. A few years later, he's busted by a customs agent at a gas station in Vermont after he had entered the U.S. illegally. And he's sentenced to two and a half years in prison. And after that, he gets out and he's arrested again in a hotel in Hong Kong.

Then he's arrested in France again for robbing another hotel of over $200,000 worth of cash and jewelry. And from there, he's sentenced to prison again for 15 months. months. This dude is allergic to freedom. But now he's out and his current whereabouts are actually unknown. But I'm just going to take a wild guess and say he's probably still out there robbing more hotel rooms. So shout out to Columbia, London, Miami, Dublin, Las Vegas, France, Hong Kong. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistants assistants switch you to

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