The Underworld Podcast - From Helicopter Prison Breaks to Missing Millions: The French Bank Robbers Who Became Heroes

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

On the face of it, Toni Musulin and Redoine Faïd couldn’t be more different: one a quiet, skinflint armored vehicle driver, the other a flamboyant gang leader who went on the lam in Tel Aviv disguised as religious. But the crimes of both men captured French hearts and minds, catapulting them to infamy and prompting some, in the wake of the global financial crash, to describe them as Robin Hoods. But neither man fit that particular bill—even if their money-grabbing plots could’ve been ripped from a Hollywood script. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. It's 11.15 a.m. on July 1, 2018, in the isolation wing of Rail Prison, around 30 miles southeast of Paris. Redouin Fayed, one of France's most notorious gangsters and a serial bank robber, is speaking to a family. member in the Wings visiting room. When suddenly a helicopter touches down on the turf outside. Two men emerge. They're dressed in black with police arm-bands and Kalashnikov rifles.

The men burst from the chopper and tossed smoke grenades all around them. Guards are stunned and then quickly overpowered. The men leaped to action. Using an angle grinder they force open the visitor's door room and grab Fai'id, dragging him to the chopper and escaping into the blue summer sky. It's all over in a few breathless moments. Fai'i is gone, the chopper's blades are thwucking in the distance, and Gallic Justice has been embarrassed in spectacular fashion.

Inmates celebrate, cheering and dancing, as one of their heroes pulls off his nation's most daring prison break. The helicopter is found soon after, burned and ditched in a field near Shalda Gould Airport. Its pilot will tell officers he was waiting to give an early lesson that morning when gunman took him hostage and forced him to fly the bird into Rio. Faide and his accomplices are long gone. They've hopped into a waiting car and they're sped far away before cops pick up the trail. Authorities' theories already left France, dressed as an Orthodox Jew and blending into a faraway underworld in Israel. It's not a wild

guess. Faid has done this before, twice in fact. He even said so himself. 95 days pass. Faid is public enemy number one, a self-styled getaway king, obsessed with Hollywood, who shamed the prison not once, but twice. It's bad timing for France's new president, Manuel Macron, who's in the middle of protest that soon erupt into violent,

so-called Gilles-Jean or Yellow Vest riots, up and down the country. Cops launched the biggest manhunt since the days of the guillotine. Almost 3,000 officers have put to task chasing Fayyed and his band of brothers, literally, as the 10th of 11 kids born to Algerian immigrants, across France. Fai'id's gang are violent. They're cop killers. That doesn't stop an outpouring of support online. God protect you, Redouin, writes famed actress Beatrice Dahl on Instagram. The whole of France is with you. I'm going to be dancing for hours to celebrate.

At the end of the 95 days, Fayette is recaptured, not in Tel Aviv, but in a nondescript apartment block, alongside a brother and two other men, just moments from his birthplace in Creole, just north of Paris. He's put back on trial days later, and handed a hefty sentence to go alongside the others. He's picked up over three plus decades of a life of crime. Still, huge swaths of the French public are behind Fayed,

and they'll get on the Robin Hood thing a few months later again, when, a few hundred miles away in a London currency exchange, another robber and cult hero is re-arrested, trying to change almost $150,000 worth of euros into sterling. Are these alleged Robin Hood's messires, or are they just very naughty and very French boys? Welcome to the Underworld podcast. Hello, greetings and welcome to the weekly crime podcast that gives you facts, sources, stories and top quality jokes. Of course, I'm Sean Williams, a features writer in Establish Number 5 batter, Brooklyn Cricket Club in Altearo, New Zealand, and I'm joined as ever by the inimitable,

indomitable Danny in New York City. My batting average is 25, Danny. What's yours? I think, you know, we lose enough listeners as it is with our love for banter, and now, you know, this guy wants to launch into five minutes of cricket rules discussions. Just unbelievable, unbelievable. Yeah, well, actually, I wrote this a couple days ago, and I got one yesterday, so my average has gone down quite a lot. Anyway, quick housekeeping. I know you don't need to be told to buy t-shirts or hats because you've all got them guys, haven't you? But we do need you guys to subscribe to all the channels, which apparently includes TikTok, although I'm scared of it,

and I'm never going to download it. And please do share your show with the friends and family, send your grandma a Facebook link, tell her she'll get good luck for 10 years if she shares it with at least 20 people in the old folks home or something like that. Am I missing anything? Yes, patreon.com slash internet world podcast, subscribe on iTunes or Spotify as well. Or Patreon, I have an interview just up with Josh Davis, who created a podcast Varnum Town,

which is about a small town in the Carolinas that made a deal with Pablo Escobar to be like a trafficking hub. Like everyone in the town was involved. So it's fascinating. And yeah, shout out to Lily, who does our TikTok because like Sean, I am also scared to download it

and she does a fantastic job and I'm always late paying her. Okay. Anyway, today's episode is, well, it's a little shorter than usual, maybe, because I'm actually sinking under the pressure of fatherhood, five different children.

Jobs and sleepnesses, of course, slept for about two hours on the son's bedroom floor a couple nights ago. It's worst night's sleep since Bergheim, 2016. Is this good chat? I don't know. Dad chat. I don't really have any other banter at the moment, unless you want to hear about my goal from the halfway line and five aside. No, no, you don't. Let's do some crime.

Yeah, for the 12 listeners still left that aren't tired under your diary, interludes. Thanks for hanging in there, guys. France. France, wine and whining. frogs legs and yellow bellies fraternity but also chauvinism, Frank Leberth and that funny thing they do with a hot towel and a dead baby bird. I've been rapture farm to hate the French from a young age and I proudly do. There's a reason all those lovely buildings in Paris escape the Nazis intact, isn't there? But now and then something Gallic pops up on the feed and I am fascinated by it.

And today it is the country's fascination with bank robbers, underdogs and this kind of near pathological obsession with calling everybody who points a gun in a policeman's face. Robin Hood. Guys, we invented Robin Hood. He chased down a tax man with a bow and arrow. Get it right. This show actually came about because I was researching Heights in the Pacific for something I want to pitch business week. But I typed in French Caledonia and heist in Google and voila. Some crazy-ass story about a guy who went on the run after an armored vehicle robbery comes up. Turns out, this guy is named Tony Muslin. And he's a bit of a cult hero across Le Mansche, and we're going to learn about him today.

he's not the helicopter guy right he's not the helicopter because that story yeah yeah yeah that story was that story was everywhere that's a crazy story i'm excited to learn more yeah he's a really interesting character but yeah so we're going to give you maximum value for money on this show because uh you do listen in every single week for nothing so i'm thrown in a second french bank robber redow in fide uh who's frankly insane prison break you just mentioned and you just heard about in the uh cold open i mean the whole thing just reads like the pages of a hollywood school script, which is very much not a coincidence, as we're going to find out soon. So, we've got two robbers, both French, very different characters, but we've both acquired this cult Robin Hood status in their

home nation via their crimes. Kind of like one of those compare and contrast high school lit exams, only this is a lot more interesting than romantic poetry. And, of course, the hero robber isn't just a French thing. I mean, you guys have got your Dillinger's and your Bolly and Clydes, Patty Hurst, Ned Kelly, the Gladbeck hostage takers, and Britain's no stranger to the exaltation

of street criminals either. You've got your craze, the Brinks Matt robbers, including Kenny Newe, who, if I'm correct, I think, used to drink my old man or something, before he got done for murder,

not after. And then there's the Hat and Garden Heights which I'll definitely do a show about, and of course, the great train robbers. Yeah, I mean, there's just something romantic, I think,

hundreds, hundreds, thousands. Who knows? A lot of years, basically, in terms of, like, I think what appeals to people just, you know, striking out against the man, robbing from the bank, obviously, from an service worker's nose. Is that, is that real, it's that real kind of I'm not saying, I'm not saying I endorse it, but it's like, it's very different. I think the way people view it is very different from, like, you know, the kind of guy who's like a stick up kid on the street, you know what I'm saying, or like robbing a bodega. Yeah. it's viewed very differently.

Yeah, yeah. And we're going to hear about like an interesting part of this today. I mean, we're all looking for that bad old boy with a heart gold, right? Which is Robin Hood. And France has got tons of them, writes Time magazine, quote, generations of French children have been enamored with traditional Guignol puppet shows in which the protagonist, Gwignoll, so that's a shock,

fights with a rotten, bumbling policeman. The nation is also obsessed with the comic book hero Asterix, a puny but cunning gawal warrior. who always gets the better of Julius Caesar's Roman armies despite being overmatched and out-numbers. I mean, that is a sweeping generalisation, especially from a country that's colonised half of Africa. And there is a guy called Albert Spagiari,

if you want to look up to someone else interesting, who definitely will get his own underworld episode in due course because his spectacular 70s heist of a Societ-General Banque in Nice was a great caper. But we know you don't like too many names here. So one French robber gangster stands out among all of them. His name is Jacques Mesrine. Petty criminal, turned armed robber, turned murderer, turned Quebec,

freedom fighter, turned martyr. I've been wanted to do a show on him for a long, long time because those movies with Vincent Cassel are brilliant. I've got to find a good angle in, though. So by the 1970s, all of these stories are swilling about in the French national conscience. You've got the May 1968 General Strike, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist riots, Trade unions are rock solid. You get your glass of wine every couple of hours or whatever it is, but anti-establishment France at this time is heavy on the lookout for cowboy heroes.

And both the protagonists of this week's show are born within two years of each other. Tony Muslin is born in 1970 on the outskirts of Grenoble, which if you know France is in the southeast, a gateway city to the Alps, crammed full of insufferable Canadians and other nice people with skiing look healthy and happy and other disgusting things to my eye. His father Vinko came to France from Croatia as a young man and he worked as an electrician and his son Tony follows his old man's footsteps

into the trade. Now just two years later over 400 miles north in Creil a town about an hour from central Paris Redouin Fayed is born the 10th of 11 kids I mean just saying that makes me give heart palpitations

God 11 kids to Algerian immigrant parents So, both men are second generation French, and their families hail from parts of the world that while white French society often turns its noses up at, and as a young kid, Fahide in particular, gets the shitty end of that stick. So we're going to follow him now. He commits his first theft, age just six, stealing clothes from a store where a security guard taunts him as a little Maregesse, referring to a North African sausage. age 12, Fade writes in a biography called Outlaw, Author Armed and Dangerous, quote, I knew that robbery would be my career. And by age 14, he's committed almost 80 robberies.

Robberies or, you know, like burglaries or shoplifting? Like, what are we talking about here? It seems from what I was reading that he kind of makes his way up and sort of solidifies this gang around him and his brothers. So he's kind of just learning the trade at this point. But pretty small-time stuff for the most part. but it's not going to stay that way. Here's Scott Johnson writing Air Mail, which I think is Grading Carter's

Post Vanity Fair thing. I never quite figured that magazine out. Anyway, quote, in the mid-90s, while in his 20s, Fayed sets his sights on banks. He bought a shotgun, several barretta pistols, and a holster, much like the one Clint Eastwood wore in Dirty Harry. Police estimate that Fade and a local crew,

whose numbers varied depending on the job, had robbed around 30 banks within a few years, stealing millions. He moved to an apartment in the upscale neighborhood of Shantilly, where he was living with the bankers he robbed. I think that's Shontali of Shantily lace, maybe, I don't know. It's fair to say that Fade rates himself pretty highly. And he says he brings something, quote, scientific to bank robbery. I mean, he's clearly very good at it, right? He doesn't drink or do drugs, and he claims to live by a thief's code of honour, never hurting anybody in the process of his crimes. He's got tips and hacks on all kinds of robbery-related things

like surveillance, logistics and survival on the run from the cops, which, to be fair, would be a far more exciting bell-grill show, town-hopping through suburban France, begging and living off little pink macaroons. Writes Faid in his book, quote, You are desperate for the adrenaline that you get from the hold-up. Your body leads it like it needs a drug. In the end, you're not even doing it for the money. I mean, it's almost like he's going to do it again at some point.

honestly he's kind of selling me on it and you know that that like it's one of those crimes where i feel like the most people who do bank robbies aren't that smart like if two smart guys like me and you really put our heads together and took like a couple months to plan something out like maybe maybe we can be good at it i'm just saying although cameras these days so it's it's got to be the pumps and dumps right it's got to be the crypto scams that's that's what you're doing these days i want to sit behind my laptop in a dark room i don't want to get involved and all this shit. Anyway, this guy, yeah, I kind of agree with you, right? It's getting pretty romantic at this point. He loves the movies. He's a big fan of Jacques Mesrine and he's

always fixed at a TV screen. It's packed to Johnson's article, quote, as a boy, Faheed idolized the outlaws of Hollywood crime films. In his autobiography, Fade writes that movies were a quote, dream and a lesson in gangsterism. His crew crib tactics from Point Brink. They once rob the bank while disguises former French presidents and reservoir dogs when they use colour-coded names for each other. I mean, that's great. But also, like, doesn't every boy, for the most part, idolize the outlaws of Hollywood crime films? Exactly.

Like, who watches Oceans 11 and is like, I don't want to be like those guys. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this guy also thinks that Michael Mann is his, quote, professor and mentor. And he loves heat, which is obviously good and correct. And when the director is in Paris promoting his movie Public Enemies, Fide actually comes up to him and says, quote, you were my technical advisor. I mean, that's an amazing story.

And a side note, I just started watching the original Miami Vice, which I think man-made. And it's incredible. But like low-budget special effects and over-the-top in an 80s way, but really good so far. I mean, I just started watching a few episodes of the original Batman. And, oh my God, it's so good. What's his name? Adam, Adam, uh, the guy.

Adam West, Adam West. Man, that guy should not have been slipping into a leotard, but I don't know, man. It's pretty cool. It's better than these, like, pumped up guys these days. Anyway, Fai's criminal powers even nickname him Doc after Steve McQueen's character in the getaway. And giving even Premier League footballers a run for their money, he watches Scarface 10 times and he memorizes the characters' lines and shouts them out during raids. I mean, despite or perhaps because of this, Faid is said to be a millionaire by the age of 23, and cops refer to him as the Terror of Creil, his hometown. But he's also well known to them, right? Which isn't a major hindrance as he simply goes on the run in Algeria for a while, where he plots a mega he believes will catapult him into the, quote, League of Champions of Gangsters.

So he's gone on the lamb for a bit. He's known to them, but he's, yeah, he's planning something. big and in 1997, Faied and his crew, they pull it off. Whatever your thing, it could be anything. Canva helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things. You can social media your thing.

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Sounds unbelievable, right? But it happened. And that's just one of thousands of stories waiting for you on Morning Cup of Murder. Hi, I'm Karina B. Minas Durfer. And every single day on Morning Cup of Murder, I bring you a real, chilling, true crime story connected to that example. exact day in history, from killer cannibal brothers to the Boy Scout who was obsessed with the occult and the strange story of the bloody hammer in the frozen cabin. These aren't the cases you've heard

a hundred times. They're the ones that make you stop and think, how have I never heard this before? With over 2,500 episodes and a brand new story each and every single day, morning cup of murder becomes part of your routine fast. If you like your coffee hot but your bones chilled, then sit back and start your day with a morning cup of murder. Go listen to Morning Cup of Murder wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay safe. Cribbing again from Heat, they don't ice hockey masks and rob an armored van in Paris, equipped with assault rifles, machine guns, and even a rocket launcher.

Faye gets shot in the shoulder during the assault, but they escape. And French society even starts praising the gang's professionalism. Some even copy them in Stimilar knockoff heist all over the country. But as he might have gleaned from all of this, Fayyed's so-called thieves code is about as flimsy as a French infantry line. Later that year, French authorities charged seven of his eight-man team for armed robbery, dual theft, and extortion all over Paris. And the eighth of them, by the way, he makes it out and over France to Algeria. Faid, meanwhile, goes on the run for three years, in, he later claims, Switzerland and Israel, where he says he disguises himself as a Hasid and even says he's learned firearms technology.

from an IDF soldier. Fayed is said to have close ties to Israeli mafiosos, speaks Hebrew, and expresses a desire to live there someday. So is he, he's not like an Algerian Jew, right? I feel like that's the only thing that makes sense here, but even though it doesn't, because, you know,

Algerians aren't usually like that. He's also got to be the only person in the world to have ever gone on the run in both Algeria and Israel. Yeah, it kind of reminds me of shine a little bit. but yeah he's caught eventually right so after these three years

and faide is sentenced to a cumulative 31 years behind bars various robberies he's carried out over the previous years but in 2009 he's let out for good behaviour because France and he writes his biography claiming he's turned his life around and he goes on a mammoth media tour I mean so French Faii tells a local radio station that quote when I was on the run, I lived all the time with death, with fear of the police, fear of getting shot. A pretty crazy early life then, almost as mad as yours was, Danny. Yeah, and look at me now,

you know, down to knockback 2.5 McGroney's once every three weeks and call at 1130. Sounds beautiful. Tony Muslin, then, our second guy. I mean, he really couldn't be more different. In fact, his early biography verges on Dole, but carry on listening, guys. He grows up in the Hotservoir department near Grenoble, which is a beautiful area not far from Leon on the banks of late Geneva and the Swiss boulder. And he's a pretty normal kid too. I mean, he's into sports and cars and most of all money. I mean, I like all of those things, but I only got one of them. And towards the end of the 1990s becomes a cash delivery guy for a pretty huge Swedish firm called Loomis. If you live in Europe or the United States, you've seen their boxy security

vans with this red triangle logo hauling stuff all over major cities. It's a blue collar job. but a well-paid one. So, congrats Tony, and he develops a taste for, quote, beautiful things, according to a friend speaking to a magazine. Tony lives in a working-class neighbourhood in Greater Leon, which is France's third biggest city, with about two million people in it. He's low-paid, though, and he hates his job. He fills his traps with no future,

even though he almost never calls him sick, and he's always on time to shift. But then he starts passing himself off as somebody else, namely the manager of a luxury car company which he gets away with mostly thanks to the fact he owns a Ferrari F430 You know if you hate your job, don't buy a Ferrari Just put money into like ETFs and sit on it

Because that's just uh you know you're not gonna I don't know it's just uh it's bad decision making to be honest with you Yeah I feel like this is one of those can someone help me with the economy Like 500 euros on rent 250 grand on a Ferrari F430 what's going wrong So this is, I mean, this shows that he is incredibly stingy with his cash, right? Despite this modest salary, he's able to buy a car like a six-figure car. He saves a huge amount and he's tight enough that friends and colleagues call him the, quote, pliers. He's also not the kind of guy you're going to call bullshit on with this stuff.

Tony's a shade under six feet tall. Love that. I'll call myself a shade under six feet tall from now on. He weighs almost 16 stone, which is like, proper rugby player territory. He's fit, he lifts, he runs, and he's keen on Krav Magar, which is the Israeli martial art that's all about efficiency and movement and absolutely destroying your opponent from what I understand. He's not a man to mess around with, but he's also just a really quiet guy and he keeps to himself. Well, on November 5, 2009, that's just as

Redouin Faye is running about France boasting of his new and improved character, 39-year-old Tony's life changes forever. It's morning and raining in Leon, and Tony and two Loomis colleagues are loading a little more than 11.6 million euros, around $17 million at the time, into their Mercedes van at the Leon branch of the Bank de France. That's Bank of France for our non-Francophone listeners, you're welcome. Then they fire up the ignition and they head out on a 10-minute journey to Rue Paul de Vivier, where they're scheduled to pick up more sacks. Tony is, of course, quiet. He's with two guys, one in the cabin, the other in the back with the cash. Yeah, you know, half the hell, that job just must be like nonstop temptation to just make a run for it.

Honestly, it must be so boring and so tempting. This is a piece of cake job. But unbeknownst to his two colleagues, Tony has disabled the Mercedes two GPS detectors. And at around 10 a.m., while the other two head into the premises to pick up their second job, Tony puts his plan into action. He gets behind the wheel of the van, he drives it just around the corner to a nearby rue, then he parks it to a white Renault-cango, which is like the most French car of all time, I don't know, maybe Citrin 2 CV and the Twingo faults to our Gmail account guys, opens the Mercedes rear door and he carries 51 bags of cash from one vehicle to the other. Tony then leaves the van, engine running, doors wide open, windscreen wiper is still on, while he drives the kangoo to a lockup he'd rented

eight weeks previous under a false name, and into which he's built a false wall with an almost invisible trapdoor. Then he mounts a BMW 800 motorbike, one of those huge big touring things that incredibly cool people ride with huge panniers, and he heads off into the sunset. He's not carrying the whole stash. It's pretty ingenious, right? Thus begins an 11-day fugitive run. the details of which nobody can quite piece together. According to the newspaper Le Parisienne, Tony passes through France on the BMW, apparently through the massive Mont Blanc tunnel

before reaching Turin in northern Italy, where he leaves the bike in the train station parking lot and then hops on a train to Rome where he claims he eats ice cream, rents a hotel room and buys a briefcase. But it will later say he forgot the name of the hotel, and prosecutors say there's no hard evidence for the stop in Rome. Then Tony says he makes it all the way down to Naples

where he says he quote walks around and quote Does Things, what an interview La Perisienne pieces this together and has a theory of its own In Naples his passage is proven Sorry I'm translating for the French obviously The Odian Hotel has kept his name in a register A seedy establishment in a bad neighbourhood A stones row from the central station

Why Naples Muslin said he wanted to admire the bay isn't it a place of car trafficking with Montenegro? Hmm, chin scratcher. Maybe there is something to this though. Anyway, according to Tony, he runs out of money in Naples, where apparently walking around and doing things are pretty expensive, and he gets back on a train to Turin via Milan

and retrieves his rented bike. I mean, you really do got to hand it to European trains. No Mussolini jokes are just really love and miss trains. Tony then rides along to Monaco, where, on the morning of night, November 16, 2009. He hands himself into the Monagasc Cops. I bet he didn't know that was a demon in for Monaco. He's erased the BMW's GPS data, just like he did the van, and he's ditched his phone's SIM card. All the cops find on him is a European roadmap. What's more,

he remains firmly silent under questioning. It's his decision, his lawyer says. Tony Muslin is a responsible person who commits a fence, not a crime, and he decided to face his responsibilities. I mean, I'm having trouble with the strategy here, though I'm assuming he's counting on the typical, like, European slap on the wrist for his crimes, you know, getting out in four years, especially because he's turning himself in and just retrieving all that hidden cash that he pretends. He has no idea where it is.

Yeah, I think you're pretty much on the money. We'll see. There's a few more little wrinkles to whine out, but it's a pretty strange tale, I like this quiet guy, like accumulating huge amount of wealth, but then also, you'll see, so robbing a armored car and going on this odd journey. It's like it's a really, really strange story. And now we're going to switch back because we're going to go back to the narcissistic Redouin Faye. I mean, Tony Muzzlin's polar opposite.

And his tale is about to get a lot more Michael Mann-esque. Remember that conciliatory book tour? All the I've changed my ways. I'm a different man stuff. Oh yeah, obviously it's bullshit. And not long after he's tasted freedom, Fayed goes back on the ponds. with his guys. Within a year, his backing court with a raid on another bullying carrying an armoured vehicle he plans goes wrong, and one of his gang shoots dead a policewoman. Fai's brother Faisal

goes on the lamb after the killing and is later convicted of killing the cop, who's a 26-year-old. In 2011, Fahid is sentenced to 25 years for his role in the slaying, but in April 2013, he stages his first prison break. He's been held near Lille, which is in northern France, when he's he takes four guards hostage with a smuggled pistol and he uses explosives hidden inside tissue packets to blast his way out of the building. I mean, it's pretty crazy. Then he ditches the hostages and he runs. But he's caught six weeks later at a hotel while trying to obtain false documents to get out

of France and into, yeah, Tel Aviv. In the spring of 2018, staff at Rio Prison, where Freid is being held, notice drones flying over the premises. It seems like they're casing the joint. have no fear, Philippe Veroni head of France's organised crime task force says he's unsure there's a criminal link. Next minute, all hell is breaking loose. Fai'i is getting whisked out of Rio in a stolen chopper with his arm pales

and the country's biggest manhunt is getting underway. But you knew that already, because you love the cold opens, don't you? 90 days later, of course, Fai'id is caught in his hometown of Creel. At his next court appearance, a couple weeks later, prosecutors are keen to tee up Faye's charisma to the jury, describing as a, quote, gifted manipulator. On one occasion, Faii taunts a police officer standing behind him. You better let me go, he says, I like escaping.

I'm sure that sounds better in French. Jacques Mariani, a well-known Corsican mobster call to testify, says that meeting Fai'ed is, quote, an honour. Faii turns to the public gallery upon this glowing endorsement, and he smiles. I mean, he does sound charming. You know? Yeah, I really wish he hadn't killed that 26 year old cop for, for more reasons than this.

But, yeah, it would be my story. Faii describes himself as a quote, freedom addict. Yeah, I mean, who, who, like, I don't know. He's always in prison. I feel like most of us are. But yeah, but if you're always in prison, it's a weird way to describe yourself. Like, maybe you would do stuff that doesn't get you into prison if you're a freedom. You know, just, just throwing out ideas here.

Yeah, I'm a freedom addict. I like walking my dog. and not robbing banks. But at the end of October, age 51, Fade is handed a further 14 years inside, which, in addition to his previous convictions, means that he could be locked up until 2060, or, of course, whenever his remaining brothers

managed to hijack another helicopter. There is Faye's wild third act dealt with. But what about Tony Musilin? Last time he checked on him, he turned himself into cops, and he's kept Stum about everything that's happened over the past 11 days, since his own daring raid.

Media speculate that it's almost as if he's hidden his loot, content to take a few short years behind bars for his non-violent crime. What he's unaware of, however, is that a few days previous the owner of the lock-up he's stashed his kangoo in recognizes Tony off the news and alerts cops. Tony hadn't had time to put all the cash behind his false wall and police confiscate it. Oops.

Although, actually, 2.5 million euros, which is, I don't know, like three and a half, four million bucks, aren't there at all. They're gone. Tony's apartment is empty, and thanks to switching off the BMW's GPS, they don't really know everywhere he's been on the lamb. And they reckon the bike's massive panniers

are easy big enough to carry all of the 35,000 banknotes that would have comprised their remaining money. Here is some more good, old-fashioned speculation from Le Perizien. Quote, By comparing the trip he claims to have made and the mileage of his two-wheeler, investigators believe that the account is not correct. Muslim would have driven 672 kilometres more, in which direction though? The journey from Turin to Trieste on the Slovenian border is approximately 550.

The road to Rheca, Croatia is 620. But what about the return? If the man pushed as far as former Yugoslavia, he did not go there on a motorbike. He denies having gone there at all. When he turns himself into the police, he only had a hundred euros in his possession, a few hundred dollars and some pounds sterling. I mean, these guys are desperate to pin some kind of

of balkan criminal conspiracy on the man, as we all are. In addition, something pretty amazing is happening online. This is 2009, after all. It's the aftermath of the global financial crash, and tons of French bankers and even leading politicians have been caught with their fingers in the cookie tin. There's huge public hatred of banks and politicos

and Tony quickly becomes Francis' latest anti-hero. Here's Time magazine again. So far, over 100 Tony Muslin Facebook fan groups have been created with names ranging from Run Tony Muslin Run to Tony Muslin for president. The domain named Tony Muslin.fR was also promptly bought by a web designer who is now peddling muslin t-shirts, featuring his mugshot under palm trees, and alongside catchphrases like

I'm your girl, Tony and bumper stickers reading Tony Muslin without hate or violence and like don't Instagrammy crimes is better and there are T-shirts there guys this heist though illicit made an impression on us because this was happening in real life we're only used to seeing this sort of sophisticated plots in movies says founder of the Tony Muslin site

the context of the financial crisis has also fostered sympathy towards this type of enterprise. His story reminds us that the society that we're living in. It's precarious even when you've got a job, getting up every morning to earn a salary that barely covers your needs. This is an example that people are cracking. So it's pretty clear to see where that guy's loyalties lie, but rarely are stories in reality so simple. And at his Leon trial in 2010, Tony pours cold water on his newfound anti-hero status. Quote, people told me I was Robin Hood. but I'm not. I'm normal. I had a problem with my boss. It was not the right choice.

I mean, incredible quote, and you got to love a guy who just like pours water all over a BS media narrative. But also, wait, you know, I mispronounce everything, but is it, is it Leon? How do you, how do you say that? Leon. Yeah, you don't even, I don't think you say that. I don't know. Like, say it as nonchalantly and without as many letters as possible, and you probably got it right. Tony maintains he also, shock, doesn't know where the rest of the cash is

and he instead focuses on his dead-end job and his crappy bosses. He tells the court that Loomis often made mistakes on his wage payment and short-changed him on leave. A colleague says that Tony was always warning the quote, the bosses are going to pay and Tony himself adds that

as I was single, I couldn't have holiday during the summer. They didn't pay me all of my hours, we were not respected. I respect the law But at a certain moment, I crossed over to the other side because of all these injustices. Yeah, see, that's just, I mean, that's classic, right? Everyone can identify with hating a boss at one point or another. So who's going to get mad at that?

You know, it's just like, it's like one of my favorite, yeah, and one of my favorite journalism tactics is like when I'm interviewing someone or following someone who I know is going to hate someone I've got to ask or something I've got to do, it's like, you know, I don't want to do this. But, you know, those bosses back home and their fancy. offices, they're making me do this. And you know, it works, works every time. It's like the, I'm sorry, it's my first day, you know, of journalism.

It's just a great mood. Yeah, I like the old, some people are saying, what do you say to the people who I've heard saying that you are a shyster and a fucking loser? I mean, I do that, I do that a lot too, but it's also, it's, uh, the dude, the barstool dude Caleb, who has like the funniest five minute interview show on Instagram with celebrities. He always does stuff like that. I think he has a T-Share.

Yeah, he's great. I mean, he's made that into an art form. Yeah, definitely. Tony gives another, like, brilliant quote. That's, like, proper movie. So he says, it's always the little guys who have to take it. So I decided to rebel. I mean, that is Tony Montana, opening scene, like, voiceover.

It's great. Robin Hood? No, of course. Hero? Maybe. I mean, Tony admits to his misdeeds. and a judge finds him the equivalent of $57,000 and sentences him to three years prison. Far less than Chief Prosecutor Mark Dissert tells press, quote,

For the justice system, the case is not over. I can assure you that Mr. Muslin would not be able to enjoy in peace the 2.5 million euros he has or he thinks he's put in a safe place somewhere in Eastern Europe. I mean, you want to make a joke about just desserts or icing on a cake or something? I don't know. I feel like we don't even need to. Mark dessert, folks. Anyway, Tony very much does live in peace.

He drifts into obscurity, other than a 2011 book about his life called 11.6, which gets turned into a movie in 2013, which just sheds another round of media light on the case. It's not a very good movie, by the way, don't watch it. Then comes a 2019 affair in London, we mentioned at the top of the show, where Tony tries exchanging almost 150 grand,

which he says, He's gotten from the sale of a Ferrari, which according to a newspaper is, quote, strangely reminiscent of the car involved in the story that hit the headlines in 2009. It's a nice touch, I'd say. It's almost making me like the guys, despite his nationality. So, there you have it. Two French robbers, two very different lives, but both of whose mystique has vaulted them into the public spotlight and anti-hero status.

Neither of them, by the way, is a Robin Hood character. So I reckon we haven't found one still, despite about a thousand mentions. But interesting stories nonetheless. Some might even say great subjects for a podcast about global organized crime, but I'll let the fine folks who write two-star reviews have their say on that. Yeah. Until next time, member patreon.com slash down the world podcast, YouTube, TikTok, pay for us on Spotify and iTunes. And, yeah, until next week.