The New Yorker Radio Hour - The Long-Distance Con, Part 2

Episode Date: October 9, 2018

This is part two of a two-part series. Part one can be heard here.   On the day that Maggie Robinson Katz learned that her father had only a few days to live, she also found out that her wealthy family couldn’t pay his hospital bills. Her father, Terry Robinson, had lost much of his money in the real-estate crash and the rest in a business relationship, of sorts, with a man named Jim Stuckey. A West Virginian based in Manila, Stuckey claimed that hidden in jungles and caves in the Philippines were huge caches of gold bullion, uncut U.S. currency, and Treasury bonds; if Robinson put up the money to pay the right people, Stuckey could get the treasures out. It seemed absurd to people around Robinson, and the Treasury Department warns of scams that sound just like this. But Robinson, a successful retired executive, sent Stuckey hundreds of thousands of dollars, until he was broke. His daughter Maggie struggles to understand why and how, and finally goes to Manila to confront the man who took the money.   New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Today is part two of our story, The Long Distance Khan. Here's the deal, here's the problem. Always this problem. In order for us to go forward now, there is a accumulated chart, $70,000. We're listening here to a phone call recorded by a man named Terry Robinson in 2009 with his business partner. Now, I want you to raise that 70,000.

You're going to raise hell and say you can't do it, but think about it just for a minute. There's no way I can do it, Jim. Listen, I just don't say that. Just listen for a minute. All right. Robinson's partner was a West Virginia man living in Manila named Jim Stucky. And some of the things Stuckey is telling Robinson are kind of, Extraordinary.

What this means is we can get the monies that we've been talking about taking out of it plus $1 million. All right. Now, that is not the great advantage. The great advantage is somewhere in the vicinity of $20 to $25 trillion, counting the value of the gold and diamonds and cash and all these other things. If you can find even through your friends or something like that You heard him right, he said trillions. Stucky said he was involved in a project to get U.S. bonds, currency, and gold bullion out of the Philippines where the treasures were said to be in secret locations

guarded by poor tribal people. Now, if you're thinking, how can I get in on this? I should tell you that the story is very much like a number of scams based in the Philippines, including some investigated by the U.S. service, and Stucky himself once defrauded a bank in Maryland. Robinson recorded his calls with Stucky, suggesting that he might have been suspicious, and yet, for over a decade, up to the time of his death, he sent Stucky hundreds of thousands of dollars.

His kids lost their inheritance, and his wife lost the house. I said, you know, you cannot send that man any more money. You're enabling him. And after he died, I found out he sent him another 14,000, and we didn't have 14,000. Terry Robinson's daughter, Maggie, was left with the tapes of the phone calls, and she began trying to understand how her father, who had been so confident, so successful in business, had fallen for what seems like an obvious scam. Sometimes large sum of money makes a big difference.

A large sum of money will become a genius. and everybody will want to, you know, be close to me. Maggie decided to go and meet the man responsible, although against expert advice. In last week's episode, she talked with Maria Konnikova, a New Yorker contributor and author of the book, The Confidence Game. I mean, tip number one, don't go. Connikova thought if Jim Stucky were a con artist, he could be quite dangerous. And don't underestimate old men.

They are people who've been con artists. their entire life. And if you think they have end-of-life regrets, think again. I mean, I don't think Jim is going to assault you, but someone else might. And not only that, she was afraid that Maggie might get conned herself. And he's going to talk to you and he's going to seem nice and you're going to say, oh, like, you know, maybe he's not such a bad guy. Once that happens and they breach kind of the distance between the two of you, that's the thing. That's the the moment that objectivity stops. That's why it's always very easy to tell

when other people have been conned, but the people in the con can't tell, and we judge them for it. Here's part two of our story, the long-distance con. So what are we about to do? We're about to get on this plane, this plane to Manila to go meet Jim.

How do you feel about it right now? Right now, honestly. I feel good about it right now. In this moment, I feel good. I'm in the Hong Kong airport on a layover to Manila. I'm with my producer Daniel, who's asking all those questions, and my husband, Ben, who is a very nervous flyer. I really don't want to get on another plane.

This sucks. Daniel is worried about something else. Do you ever think about what, like, Maria talked about? You mean when she was, like, you have to remain vigilant? I have had to block that out. I just talked to the security guy. So if you're Jim, his point of view, why are you coming unless it's to get some kind of revenge for all day?

Yeah, I mean, I would probably think that too. The security expert said that if Jim was a big-time con artist, then he might be well connected in Manila's criminal underworld. Let me see the other thing the guy said. I wrote it down. And he says, if the guy is really scared, he can make people disappear for a couple of bucks. Cool. Jesus Christ.

He said we have to go with the assumption. The assumption that we're going to be murdered. Or just disappeared. We are now deciding into Ninoi, Aquino International Airboat. Please return to your seats and then show that hand baggage lose items in larger devices such as... Hey, yeah, we're just at the age. We walk out of the airport into the humid, manoeuvre. night.

Hi, how are you? All right. Oh, thanks, B'Bi Boi, our driver, picks us up. How are you? Good, good, good, good. I'm exhausted and nervous about being here. All I want to do is just sit in silence, but B'Boi won't let me. So I was, are you really into interviewing treasure hunters?

Yes. When Daniel first hired B'boy a few weeks of him, before our arrival. He explained a little bit of Jim's pitch to my dad, basically that Jim had a way to access hidden treasure in the Philippines. It's just funny because it's so weird that, like, we just hired you, and then it turns out you know treasure hunters. It's really a coincidence.

How are these people related to you? How do you know them? He's my landlord. Bois is the first person I've met in the Philippines, and it turns out he knows a ton about treasure hunting. I rent one room in his house. I mean, his landlord is the treasure hunter. He always tells me that you cannot find the gold if you're greedy.

You have to have a clean heart to get this gold. Maybe he's also greedy. Jim Stuckey presents himself as a middleman, between the people who want to buy the treasures and the people who say they know where the treasures are are. What's up? Trying to make a decision, Julian, to raise the money.

And they have promised to make the decision on which one they're going to have and be back here tomorrow with it. When I started learning about this hidden treasure story that Jim got my dad to invest in, it felt like there was no way this could be true. And the money and they go belong to the Malacca tribe. That poor tribal people have been watching over gold bullion and U.S. bonds all hidden in caves throughout the Philippines. You know, I got really excited about, I got really excited about the Maliki tribe thing last

week, but I'm sorry. I said I got really excited about that tribe of the north. There are lots of crooked, crook when it comes to gold, no. They will ask our money in advance. Because they will say, ah, it's the primitives that are guarding the gold. We have to pay them, something like that. But never deal with these people. They will really show you this money from the states that's Wells Fargo.

Do you know anything about that? Yeah. Jim talks constantly about Wells Fargo. The Wells Fargo has to be brought here. To do that, I have to get the Wells Fargo in here first, then bring the eight palace in, and that's going to cost. I couldn't find the people Jim claimed to be working with, but we did find one treasure hunter who would talk to us. Really? Yeah, it's the guy, so it's the son of this guy who claimed he found the gold in the 70s.

Ah, he's Rojas. He's Rojas's son. We're going to meet Henry Rojas, the son of the son of the most famous treasure hunter. in recent memory. Yeah, yeah, it was his father. Yeah, yeah, it's his father. It's a very known story because he had pictures of it to prove that he was the one who found the Golden Buddha.

And the Golden Buddha, you can open the head, and there's lots of diamonds there. After his father died in 1993, Henry took up the treasure hunting profession himself. Okay, guys, let's go. All right, awesome. Sorry for the place. Thanks so much for bringing us to your house. As soon as we got to Henry's house, he started showing off his loot.

This one is 18th century, 16th century coins. We get that in treasure hunting. This one, a violent. Wow. Like that. After looking at the stuff he found, we took off from Henry's home in the city to a nearby farm. The farms owned. had hired Henry and his crew and their metal detector to look for gold on their property.

Do you hear anything? Some metal. Can you tell what type of metal? This one is 40. Like an iron you said? Yeah, how you're... Oh yeah. Is that going to be something you could sell?

You cannot sell that one. So Henry found a piece of metal he couldn't sell. Always good luck. Only good luck, that's all I want. What did you think of Henry? Henry? For me, I believe him 50%, and I don't believe in 50%. What was unconvincing about him?

He's not rich. You should have been fucking rich right now. And you're doing that ever since... I think it was about to talk. 25 years, 20th. 35? Yeah. Imagine that. Doing that for 25 years.

And finding nothing but helmets and helmets and lamps and Japanese bionets. If I am to find gold. Just like B'Boy isn't sure about Henry, I don't know how I feel about Jim. I don't know if he was actively scamming my dad or if he himself was being conned. The way to find out was to stop putting off what I came here to do.

What I was frankly scared to do. I had to go back to Manila and meet Jim. That's Maggie Robinson Katz. Our story concludes in a moment. And by the way, if you missed part one, which we aired last week, you can find it on our podcast or at new yorkerradio.org. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around.

Welcome back to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. We've been listening to Maggie Robinson Katz's story about her late father, a successful businessman who lost a fortune in a very bad business relationship or possibly a scam, in which he sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to a man in the Philippines named Jim Stucky. Maggie went to meet Stucky, who agreed to an interview, and we'll pick up with Maggie, her husband, and a producer in a car in Manila. And riding along with them is a security consultant.

The most common threat in Manila traffic, so called Tandem motorcycle riding shooter, which would be coming on that side. So explain what a tandem motorcycle shooter is. Basically two guys on a motorcycle, one driver and one shooter coming up on the side of the car. Sitting here, I have much better view of what's happening behind, and I can also pull you down to the ground if it's necessary. That's great. Whoa. The security experts we talked to, there were several, all had really clear advice about meeting somebody like Jim.

Meet him in a public place, hire security guards, and do plenty of recon beforehand to figure out the safest possible location. Is this a safe area? So me, Daniel, my husband Ben, and some security guards went to check out some spots where we could do the interview with Jim. One of them was a fancy mall. Yeah, no, this seems like a good option. It's a world, Seattle's best coffee. As we walked along, I kept noticing old white guys, thinking every one of them could be Jim.

What's that phenomenon where you like hear about a certain car, and then you just see that car everywhere? Like, there's a guy over there. He's reading a John Grisham novel. Like, he's got some intel. We left the mall plaza and drove a few minutes to an opulent hotel called the Shangri-Law. Is this like the nicest hotel in Malau?

I know this place. I've seen the hotel name on documents Jim Fax to my dad. Is this the place where Jim took some of his phone calls? Sitting in this elegant marbled lobby as my dad pleads for money. That's the same guy. He stood next to us, looked at us, and then went up. He followed us. While I was talking to the security guards, Ben noticed that one of the old white men I thought could be Jim,

the one who had been reading John Grisham book at the mall, he was suddenly in the lobby of the hotel. How long did he stand near us? Like a committed or two. Holy shit. Yeah. It's the same guy. Yeah, it's the same guy who we saw. At the Seattle coffee place.

It's definitely the same person. Ben then saw the man was on the second floor of the lobby. He's right up the stairs sitting there. There's like a live string band playing and he's like sitting in front of him reading his book. Um, do I just ask? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Excuse me.

Does your name happen to be Jim Stucky? No. No, okay. What is your name? I'm Todd Smith. Charles Wolfe? Todd Smith. Todd Smith.

Todd Smith looks nowhere close to 92 years old. He doesn't have a West Virginia accent. He's not Jim. I'm going nuts. We leave the Shangri-La Hotel and drive back to ours. I sleep badly. I swim. It's about 3 a.m.

I record my thoughts. I just, I don't know. I just like wonder what he does all day. I drink at the poolside bar and try to think about and think about it. to think about and not think about meeting Jim. Um, I don't know if I'm afraid anymore. And then one morning. Oh, man, I am feeling...

I go back to the Shangri-La Hotel. I'm feeling a little nervous today. Two undercover security guards go ahead of me, blending into the lobby. I don't see them as I walk in, but I do see an old man, with white hair, white skin, white clothes, and a big belly. He's staring straight ahead. Are you Jim Stucky? Yes.

Hi, I'm Maggie. Maggie. Hi. She's been 90% blind. I need an operation. In about two weeks, I have an operation. Maria warned me that he would say he had a health issue. Is this a trick to get me to sympathize with him?

Or am I being unfair to an old man? Is that okay? It's okay. I don't have an appointment until almost 1 o'clock before I have to. We have all the time in the world. Okay. Catch up like old friends. Yes.

Really, it doesn't matter. I'm happy to be able to participate and tell you how Terry and I were involved in these things over here. Depends about how much of it you want to know. I mean, I want to know everything. You want to know everything. That's why I'm here. Well, all of this really started back. You could go back when God created the world.

When God created the world, he also chose... Wait, we're really starting at the creation of the world. Not only that, but when the war ended in Israel, the Ark of the Covenant and 5,400 gold artifacts was brought here. And we know within a general area, and we have a brochure. It's not for publication because it's not clear.

I'm struggling to focus on what he's talking about. The original association between Terry and I was profit-motivated. However, when we got into the Philippines and we saw what was going on over here, than our interests changed from profit motivated to humanitarian services to try to help the people. Every tribe needs millions of dollars and the money is available. I have some things here.

I can show you that it's probably got two to three million tons of gold in it and probably that much in other assets such as Chase bonds, a currency called Wells Fargo, other things like this. So taking it back just to like the pure relationship between you and my father, I'm curious in like how would you describe my father? Very generous, well educated and well-inducated and well-indexam. informed. Do you miss his daily phone calls? Oh, yes. I missed the wisdom that he had. He was a good business partner in addition to a good friend. And how did you find out that he was sick? Oh, he called me. Do you remember what he said? Yes. He called me one day and said he had been to the doctor. And the doctor had told him to put his house in order that he was going to pass on.

And in about a month, he did pass on. How did it feel in that first, when it kind of sunk in? Well, to tell you, it was anything other than a sad feeling, I would not be telling you the truth. You cannot work that long with someone without the moment. being an intricate part of my life. You know, we always wonder what is God's plan when he takes somebody that is so active

in trying to help others. I also ask myself a similar question. Why did he take Terry and let me live this long? I'm now 92 years old. I'm in good health. mentally, physically, work every day. How much do you think my dad lost in the end in this project? I have no idea. No accounting really was ever made of it.

I can only say that the two of us together put in several millions of dollars. Would you say that... My loss was roughly $4 million, not loss, investment. The only one that was supposed to return money was an estate that placed some $34 trillion in the state for the use. It's just such insane amounts of money. Insane amounts of money, but I'm telling you it's real. I mean, I just have to ask, because it sounds so fantastical when you lay it out. and I just have to ask, did you con my dad?

Did I call your dad? Many times I've called your dad. No, I'm asking, did you con him? Did I con him? I guess that would depend on the definition of a con. If you think that I caused him to do something without his 100% knowledge, no. Did we get into things that did not work out? Yes.

was it a loss for both of us? Yes. And just to be clear, the statute of limitations are up, so I'm not, there's nothing legal, I'm not going to sue you or anything. So I just want to ask you again, did you con my dad? No. Is that a straight enough answer? If you have any reason to believe I did, then lay it on the table. Just the amount of money that was put in.

I don't understand. You know, he retired. He had a nice life. We both had a nice life until we came here. I mean, in the end, you know, I lost my inheritance. He left my stepmom with almost nothing. She had to foreclose her home. Well, I understood that.

I understood the last few conversations we had. He talked about his financial status had depleted. How do you feel it all turned out for my family? Well, I think at the end of the day, your family is going to be very happy and very proud. And unless I'm sadly mistaken, the financial assistance that Terry put into this thing will be multiple times repaid to his estate. I have no obligation to do that, but I'm going to see that it's done. In this moment, I feel like my dad.

getting told by Jim that the money is coming soon. I've heard it all before. Are we finished then? We're finished. Check, check, check. While I was interviewing Jim, my husband Ben had moved all our stuff to a new hotel. The security guys told us to do this in case Jim had been a master criminal.

When I got to the new place, I told him what Jim was actually like. Yeah. I mean, that's like the thing that's so fucking nuts. It's just, it's like Indiana Jones shit. Like, that's, like, every, like, every word. Ancient secrets, like, going back to biblical times, like, the Ark of the Covenant. Like, these are all, these are all here and I alone know where it is. Like, he brought up the Ark of the Covenant.

Oh, my God. He did say that he had a bunch of paperwork, but that he, like, wanted to show, but I'm sure it's like the same gobbly cook. before. The next day, we leave Manila. Was I expecting Jim to confess? Maybe a little. But I think I just wanted Jim to convince me,

even for a moment, that the gold bullion and the treasury bonds and the caves filled with cash were real. So I could get why my dad believed him for so long. All right. You know, it's just, it's all. in for me. My dad died with almost nothing, and he lied about his losses to the people who loved him most. It's driving me crazy. Yeah, well, it's destroyed me. This call is from July 2010, the year before he died.

I'll never recover from it. Pray to God, only does, even though none of them are going to be talking to me. None of them are talking to me. But that's not true. None of my friends are talking to me. Just alone. He wasn't alone then. His family talked to him. He had friends. He wasn't talking to us. That's sometimes where it gets me the most angry is I just wish you just would have been like,

I'm doing bad. This is my brother Patrick. Like, we got hit bad. Yeah. I think it would have been so nice for him to know that we loved him even without money. That was the moment that we didn't get, I guess, It's just finally just being like, money doesn't define us as a family. We should just be people that like care about each other and just understand each other.

And I think step one would have been just dad being straight up about when things went bad. But he didn't know how to. Hi, Maggie. This is... Two months after getting back from Manila, I got this voicemail. Yes, I would like to talk to you. And that I... I hope, not that I hope, but I'm scared that your father was Terry Robinson that died so early.

I had reached out to many of Jim's relatives. Through phone calls and letters and Julia, that's the name I'm giving her, was the only one who wanted to talk. That's why I didn't invite you to the house, because we just do not talk about James Stuckey. Julia's husband despises Jim. So I met her and her son in a studio close to her house instead. It happened to everybody something, right? That's why I wanted to meet you.

And, you know, you're not left alone. Yeah. Julia knew Jim well. She was Jim's stepdaughter. Her mother was married to him until she died in 2008. She loved him. And love is blind. In 2000, she says Jim and her mother

went to the Philippines for the first time. I told my mother what I think about it, but my mother, she went also so deep with Jim that she had to believe, but then at certain point she gave up. Yeah. What were those certain points? Always tomorrow, and never anything else.

Always tomorrow, tomorrow. In 2002, Julia's mother came back from the Philippines, while Jim stayed behind. And my mother never understood. You know, there were times when she wrote in her diary that that's it. If you're not coming back, then I'm applying for a divorce, but unfortunately she died before that.

Her mother wrote about my dad in her diary, too. This is in Polish, my mother's diary. Your father spoke with Jim, and Jim introduced him to the business, which one he is doing. Um, who was my dad to Jim? Who was your father to Jim? I think an investor. And, yeah, sorry, he just was very struck.

Um, what did you think about Jim? Uh, he was an interesting character. This is Julia's son. Did you, did you ever hear anything about the Philippines? I remember hearing about the Philippines. I remember them always going. I even remember my mom coming to me asking for money for Jim. I took his money.

Really? Yeah. Birthday money, anything that he had. I took the money away from him and give it to my mother. Because my mother was on my back and she needed the money to send to Jim because Jim didn't have anything to eat except crackers. My mother came to this country. She had a dream like everybody else.

she started working for New York Life Insurance Company she bought herself a beautiful car she bought the house she helped me to buy a house and then she ended up going to a dollar store for hot dogs so she could have food

so she could send gym money but that's okay it happened maybe maybe that's what she wanted to do so do you do you think that Jim believes that there still is something? He wasted his beautiful life, you know, chasing dreams. For me, that's what I think, chasing something that does not exist.

You really think, like, deep down he 100% believes in it? Yes. What makes you think that? I don't know. I really don't know. Maybe I don't want to believe that he took my mother and all of us for a ride. I don't know. You know, at this point, you have your own feelings.

Believe what you believe. I believe what I believe. But don't chase. Don't dig. It was, it went, it's not coming back. I appreciate the advice, but I have spent 15 years not digging, not understanding my dad and his late night phone calls. So I will ignore Julia.

I'm going to listen to the tapes again and re-examine the photos Jim sent my dad and keep calling people, all in the hope that this will start making sense. I keep telling myself it will. One day, maybe tomorrow. Maggie Robinson Katz.

Our story, the long-distance con, was produced by Daniel Gimett of WNYC Studios with Ben Katz and Mack Montandon. And if you missed any part of our story, you can find it at New Yorkeradio.org or on our podcast. Now, for the record, Jim Stucky disputes a couple of points in our account. For one thing, he says he never asked Vivian Cobb for money after the death of her husband. and he also says his own family never sent him money from the U.S. while he was in the Philippines. Maggie Robinson Katz leads a cover band called Doll Parts, and she recently got her friends and family together for a kind of tribute concert for her father, where they played some of his favorite songs.

I'm David Remnick, and that's our podcast for today. I want to thank you for joining us. I hope you'll tune in for our next episode. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. Our team includes Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Cario, Riannon, Corby, Jill Duboff, Karen Frillman, Calalia, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, Sarah Nix, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Emily Mann and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported

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