January 31, 2023 • 48 mins
The Yap Lavish story has something for everyone: gold coins, private planes, contraband phones, up-and-coming Atlanta rappers. While in state prison, inmate Yap Lavish pulled off the robbery of not one but two billionaires. And he would’ve gotten away with it, if not for those meddling prison guards.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of My Heart Radio. Yo,
Elizabeth Dutton, Zarain Burnett. What is up girl? Oh? Nothing?
Just you know? Do you gotta second? I got a
quick question? Go ahead. Do you know what's ridiculous? We do?
I do? Share it with a brother. Now. You know.
Normally I'm all about the food mashups. Not today, thank god?
(00:22):
Today is it my birthday? No? Today I'm doing clothing mashups. Hey, Okay,
so you know that I love the Adidas. Yes, yes,
I do know. I own far too many pairs of
the Adidas um soda you dream about shoes? I do. Uh,
(00:45):
this is disappointing for me. Well because I usually like
pretty much anything Adidas puts out. But then they kind
of missed the mark on something worse than some of
the Jeremy Scott stuff. Yeah. Damn. Um. They have a
crossover with the Simpsons, and you'd think that it would
be all Bart Simpson like radical dude, cowabunga man, eat
(01:10):
my shorts. No, it's um Adidas and the Simpsons shoes
for International left handers Day. It's um ned Flanders Adidas
and let me give you the sea let me descriptions,
uh left handers rule exclamation point. These mccarton shoes pay
(01:33):
homage to a classic and timeless Adida's trainer and honor
our favorite left hander in Springfield, Ned Flanders. The packaging
and poster called back to the Left Orium. They're made
from smooth leather with a rubber outsol. They're ugliest, sin
like no, and like they all you know, I'm intentionally
(01:54):
supposed to be like bad, like you're supposed to look
like ned Flanders shoes and they do so. But you
know how like they always show they have the pictures
right on the website and it's only showing the right shoe,
right right. It's supposed to be for left hand, left foots,
multiple foots. Oh boy, this is melting my brain. So anyway,
(02:16):
I find this ridiculous and I concur okay, ridiculous. Well,
if you got a second, I got one for you. Yeah,
I'm sure it's better. No, no, no, this one is
is is strange, it's ridiculous, and it's criminal. I know,
I think you would like it. Once upon a time,
a Georgia inmate in state custody, he smuggled in a
contraband phone, which people do, and he gets it into
(02:39):
prison and he uses this phone to impersonate a billionaire.
But that's not all, Elizabeth. He also purchased six thousand
gold coins that were worth about eleven million dollars and
he did this with the billionaire's investment account. That's not all, Elizabeth.
I am not done yet. Next, he bottoms off a
multimillion dollar house with a billionaire's money on this phone.
He's still in prison. Wow, this is ridiculous. Crime of
(03:22):
a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heist and cons.
It's all murder free and ridiculous, Elizabeth, this story I'm
about to tell you. To be clear, I just wanted
you to know this from the get There are no
heroes in this story. There aren't even anti heroes in
(03:43):
this story. Yeah. For the record, I do not like
this inmate. He's not one of my dudes. Also, I'm
not rooting for the billionaire in this story. Surprised but
I know. But I promise you this is one hell
of a story. So buckle up, Buttercup. Before we dig
into this first story, though, I kind of wanted to
whet your appetite. I had an appetizer at a moose bush.
(04:06):
As you like to call them. Yes, so the headline
read a starter billionaire spends thirty five million to investigate
four hundred thousand dollar wine fraud. Wine fraud. Yes, spends
thirty five million to investigate four hundred dollar loss. Essentially. Now, Elizabeth,
you may be thinking, Sarah, I'm not the best at math,
but that sounds like a waste of money. It does.
(04:26):
You are right, Elizabeth, that is a percent of waste
of money. But all depends on what you're buying, and
in this case, he was buying I think peace of mind.
Wait a second, which one is? What's who is it? Yeah?
So the billionaire in question, I'm glad you asked, is
a member of the Coke family. Yes, I've seen this documentary. Yes,
Bill Coke Sary's brother of Charles and David Coke. So
so now this guy, he's not the failed son, the
(04:48):
one who makes those ugly shirts. That guy is Wyatt Coke.
He's the founder of Wyatt Ingraham, which is the shirt company. Um.
One story I found said is a fashion line. That
quote answers the question what if Tommy Baham his dad
had paid for him to go to Harvard are trying
to get into Harvard, I should get the quote, right.
So not that Coke brother, Paper Coke, which one's a
(05:10):
toilet picker, don't they have like the family, Yeah yeah,
yeah yeah, the family is big into papers. So this
Coke brother, the Bill Coke, he he owns these bottles
of wine, right, He's got these four bottles of wine
that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. If you've seen the documentary,
you know this. He spends four dollars to get them.
Come to find out they are not Thomas Jefferson wine,
(05:30):
just normal wine put into expensive labels. That's all up
in there, exactly a little boxed wine for the brothers.
So Bill Coke he gets all piste right, and he's
like discovers his figure. He's like what what this is outrageous? Right,
So he's like, I'm an idiot. I'm going to spend
a lot of money to good peace of mind. So
he hires a private investigator to check out the provenance
of all of his wine collection. Right, So he discovers
(05:53):
he's been do numerous times. A billionaire gets embarrassed. He
gets mad, so he pays this private dick to check
all every single bottle he owns his entire collection, So
a little bit. How many bottles do you think, dude have?
He had four hundred, four hundred fake bottles of wine.
I have vague memories of them, Like I said, I
saw the documentary, but I don't remember the Oh wow,
(06:16):
this quote, maybe you know, bring some bells for you,
Bill Coke said, and I quote there is a code
of silence in this business because obviously the faker doesn't
want anybody to know that he's making fake wine. The
auction house doesn't want to know that, and then the
collector himself generally doesn't want to know that, or if
he finds out, he wants to find a secret way
to dump it and get his money back because he's
(06:37):
a He's like, I'm going to drink any of this stuff, right?
Oh No, sometimes they do. I mean some collectors do,
most of the time. Not they will exhibit it to
other wine collectors, like look at my Thomas Jefferson bottles.
They will never get open. Right. So this cat he decides,
I'm going to break the wheel. So he goes and
he gets his private investigator, as I told you, looking
at all his fraudulent bottles. The dude tracks down the
(06:58):
guy who sold him the bottles of Thomas Jefferson fake wine,
right that guy loves in Germany. Bill Coke sues him.
He wins a one million dollar like just a judgment
from him right now. Any lawyer will tell you this.
Your mother's a lawyer, she'll tell you this. He's not
going to see that money. Yeah, that's just not happening.
So he's like, Nope, it doesn't matter. I'm rich already.
I'm not doing it for the money. I want peace
(07:19):
of mind. So he starts going again. He pays lawyers
to go after people. He's suing everyone he can, and
like some Cape crusader, he decides he's going to protect
all the other dumb, ultra rich people like him. And
he's like, I gotta protect us, so his private investigator
keeps working. The private dick finds that the bulk of
the fraudulent wine that he has purchased all came from
the same con man in Los Angeles. And this is
(07:41):
the guy who would take literally Fronsia common just wine
poured into expensive bottles and selitude foolish ultra wealthy people
this wine labeled conment. He gets tried, convicted, and sentence
So Bill Coke once again gets his some more justice.
But he's not done, Elizabeth. Bill Coke is on it.
He gets on his batman cow and he goes to
after the auction house. The auction house is like, oh man,
(08:02):
sorry about selling you the fig timas Jefferson Wine. He's
like all right, and they're like, oh yeah, here's read.
This is called the statute of limitations. Now blow. So
the auction house is in the clear because statue limitations
are up. Dudes, not done though, He's like, who else
can I go after? So Bill Coke says, and I quote,
I spent over thirty five million doing all that. I
was a dog on a bone. I wasn't going to
(08:23):
give up. Remember this, he's doing this to protect rich idiots.
And he said, yeah, he's spent four thousand. He's out there,
no million out Some people have too much money, yes, exactly.
Take the L dude, right, is a cheaper L. But
he's like, wants peace of mind. So when you have
that kind of money, this is what you can do
with it. This is the foolishness. And this is like
(08:46):
this multi year wine investigation. This is the kind of
behavior you can expect from billionaires. So I want you
to keep that in mind as I tell you this story.
I'm just thinking of, like, we got teachers working second
and third jobs, and then this dude's like my wines
fake totally throws the further class materials out of their
own pocket. I mean yeah, and this guy's like million
(09:07):
to make me happy. Anyway, enough of Bill Coke. You
ready for one of the biggest heist ever pulled off
from inside an American prison? Yes? Please, Elizabeth. I don't
want to like bust you out on this, but you
once taught in a prison. I did at a federal facility. Yes,
college English classes right right. So when you were doing that,
you had to go through all the prison security. It
(09:29):
was they would check everything. Even I think you once
told me an underwire bra was something they would check. Well,
it depends on what part of the prison you're going into.
So the yard, what you would is like the traditional
big prison. Yeah, that's like I couldn't have bobby pins
in my hair, the head couldn't wear an underwire bra. Um.
The camp, which is like where the trustees are um,
(09:49):
they didn't have. I mean I was supposed to go
through it, but it was just I just would show
up a much more trust and yeah, so I on
those days, like I could have, you know, bobby pins
in my hair and an underwear a brown. Let's say
one of your students when you were in the yard
asked you to smuggle on the phone so that I'll
give you ten grand. How difficult would it be to
smuggle a phone in? It would be pretty rough, I think, Like,
(10:13):
I don't know that I did smuggle something in once
because now tell me more. Um, they have a limited
library and in a book, I did, and a couple
of them. But it wasn't like you know, I mean,
I just said that was it was materials for the class.
It was outside of the materials for the class, and
(10:34):
it wasn't anything incendiary. It was just interesting books that
they couldn't get in their library. So technically I smuggle
that counts. That counts, I'll give you. And I used
to also bring them like highlighters, which I'm sure they
probably wound up using as like crack pipes, who knows,
but anyways, they needed him for my class, and they
these were good dudes, like my students were really good.
(10:55):
I like that now. The from what I understand, the
majority of the contraband comes into prisons, is brought in
by the correctional officer. Yeah, that is true, Okay, so
keep that in mind. Also as I'm telling you this story,
this story is going to take place inside the Georgia
Department of Corrections. So just you know one state south
of South Carolina, specifically, it's the Special Management Unit, which
(11:16):
is you know, the Maximum Security Wing. Okay, So he's
in the state's maximum security facility for the state's most
serious offenders and violent offenders. Right, and that's where this
dude is hardened criminals in May. His name is Arthur
Lee Cofield Jr. You can call him June the thirty
one year old because locked up on a fourteen year
bid for armed robbery. Right, he's like a career criminal
(11:38):
and he got his start young. Now, Cofield was a
documented gang member. He's has active criminal ties to the outside.
For instance, he from inside of prison he arranged to shooting,
so like he was like actively yeah, that's why he's
not my dude. But to do that, he had to
use a contraband phone. Right now, Cofield only had a
few more months left on his time for his armed
robbery and so he had a plan to set himself
(11:59):
up for once he gets back outside. So, as we've covered,
it's no great surprise that a prisoner like Cofield was
able to have the smuggled cell phone, because you know,
it's the prison guards who were getting it into him.
But he had a history of having smuggled cell phones
on him. He had even caught twelve times. Twelve times,
and they're not any better going. Maybe we should check
this guy, but you know whatever, Now, back in twenty sixteen,
(12:21):
I found a report that he had a Verizon LG
touchscreen phone and the charger. They were found concealed into
cofields crotch. Like he's like just gotten tucked in the
crotch phone. Yeah, he's just tucking a phone. But he
gets written up for the contraband phone. Cofield says, and
I quote, I don't give it about that phone. I've
had hundreds of phones, right, So he's like flexible. I
think that once the guy, once the guy has the phone,
(12:43):
like they're probably going to have more than one. I
had a student who um got transferred to a different
facility because they found four cell phones under his bed
and was he selling over those just his I don't know.
I didn't ask, you know, and cry, but yeah, that
was he had a little hash of them under there.
Apparently when I was doing my research into this, I
found all these stories about like just how good people
(13:06):
have gotten about smuggling in things into prison. They're now
using drones to you read the freak stories, Oh we
tied a phone to a cat, or we got this
pigeon trained to bring in drugs like meth there into
a prison. Right, those stories are out there, but the
drones are now the new crazy story about what goes
on in prisons. Right, But I don't think that really
is the point. You know, it's kind of like it
(13:27):
excuses the correction officers, So I think I want to
keep the focus on them throughout this. Well, there was
when I was teaching at the prison, they had an
outbreak of was it k too that synthetically um? There
were guys taking it in that not in my class,
but then that just general gen pop um who And
they were having like seizures and collapsing and hallucinations and
(13:48):
were hauled out and ambulances and um. I was told
by the guards that oh, it's coming in in the
spine of books like that they get from family, and
so we're having to tear up all the books that
come in, which I was like, didn't come from any
of my books, But then someone else told me, no, dude,
it's the guards. It's not coming in in the spot,
Like the families are not taking apart books and then
(14:11):
rebinding them to get k two in. I mean, that's
just come on. Now, it's time for me to tell
you the other person in this story Sidney Kimmel. Now
Sidney Kimmel is a California based billionaire. He's the nine
year old who was worth about one and a half
billion dollars. You may know him. He founded Jones New York,
the fashion label okay Yes, So he sells that for
two point two billion, becomes a billionaire. Right Other than
(14:33):
the Jones New York, Sidney Kimbel also goes insides, I'm
gonna make a name for myself in Hollywood. He decides like,
I'm done with fashion, I'm gonna go make movies. So
he's the money man behind a string of movies such
as Crazy Rich Asians, Hell or High Water Moneyball, the
flop that Ryan Gosling made about falling in love with
a sex doll lars and The Real Girl. All these
are his movies united, right, these are all he's just yea.
(14:57):
So Sydney Kimbell does this for a while, then he decides,
I'm gonna get into philante a piece. That's what he's
doing these days. He's all into philanthropy. Like the Johns
Hopkins University. They get a big endowment from him. So
now they have a cancer center that has his name
on it. And there's the going back to the early
winemaker of American history, Thomas Jefferson. Sidney Kimbell gave money
to the university to Philadelphia that carries Jefferson's name, and
(15:17):
it was the medical school now has the Sydney Kimmel name.
So when this scam went down, Kimmel was ninety two
years old, so he's always been years young. Really, yeah,
condescend So this aging businessman turn Hollywood philanthropist. He has
(15:39):
no connection to Cofield, he has no understanding. He doesn't
know he's about to be a target. Right, He's just
this ninety two year old guy. He's just trying to
give money away. Now, he had never met him, had
no reason to cross pass, would have no idea that
there was some prisoner locked up in Butts County, Georgia.
Who's got his eye on him? Right now, that's just
it's just defied his imagine. A Now, for those who
(16:01):
have never had the pleasure of traveling through Butts County,
I have not. Maybe I have. It's south of Atlanta. Okay,
I don't think I have, I have, I got, I
don't know. I don't know. On your way down to
way Cross, you probably come across. Let's say yes. Now
you may be wondering, Elizabeth, Sarah, how do you rob
a billionaire from inside a maximum security stage from how
do you rob a billionaire from inside a maximum security prison?
(16:22):
Great question, thank you, thank you. Well you use one
of the hundreds of contraband phones that you have, and
Kofield was able to then use this to contact a brokerage.
And these are smartphones. Yeah, these are smartphones. So let's
take a quick break and then I will tell you
how he used a smartphone to get stupid on this billionaire. Nice. So, Elizabeth,
(17:02):
we got our dude, I'm not right, dude, but Arthur
Cofield are. Yeah, he's a bad guy. Are bad guy
of the story. And then we got Sidney Kimmel, our target.
And mark of the story. And we're about to have
them meet your ready, not physically, but you'll get the idea.
They're gonna, Okay, they're gonna butterfly this. It's so cute.
So Cofield is able to contact this Charles Schwab brokerage
using a smartphone, right, so in June, Cofield pretends to
(17:26):
be s K. Yeah, so he calls himself. Now, this
is the billionaire investor Sidney Kimmel. So he calls Charles
Schwab up and he gets a broker on the phone,
and Cofield is able to sweet talk this investment firm
into transferring eleven million dollars off Sydney Kimmel's money. Yeah, exactly.
The federal prosecutors still can't exactly determine how it was
(17:47):
that Cofield was able to find Kimmel or his Charles Schwab.
How did he know he had to give his number,
his account number. Just wait, a nice kind of thing.
I mean, they do have to make those kind of
transfers over the phone. It's that is yeah, that is true.
So he had the advantage there. Now, So Scott McAfee,
he's a federal prosecutor on this case, he said quote
Mr coo Field had figured out a way to excess
(18:09):
accounts belonging to high net worth individuals, frankly billionaires located
across the country. Now we see why he said billionaires plural?
Is that because Coo Field also managed to hit up
Nicole worth Time, who I don't know, but she's apparently
the wife of Herbert worth Time, who was a Florida
billionaire who has uh he made his money on eyeglass innovations.
So yeah, billionaire eyeglass guy, so worth of them. Nicole
(18:31):
worth Time, she gives him two point to five million dollars. Here,
you know, he's basically transferred out of their account. He's
able to steal the funds and transferred to a second account,
then convert him into gold coins because gold coins are
apparently co Field's fiscal instrument of choice. He just loves
the double eagle, all right, So he uses that same
move on Sidney Kimmel. Now, interestingly, in the worth Time case,
they didn't want to press charges, so he's facing no
(18:53):
criminal charges for stealing two point to five million. I
don't know. I don't know if they want to be embarrassed.
I don't know if they don't want their finances like that.
That's probably it could be a little one, a little
bit of both. And how much did he transfer out
of fourth time? Two million? Yeah, they're like it's pocket change.
They like it's just an embarrassment. Don't tell people such marks.
So let's get back to our original question. How is
(19:14):
a bank robbing gang banger who's in prison able to
call up Charles Schwab and steal from the accounts of
billionaires with just a cell phone. How let's get into
the wise and what force Elizabeth arthur Ly Cofield. Uh,
let me back up just a second and tell you
a little b about his criminal history. You can get
an idea of who this guy is and then you
can imagine him on the phone. Alright, So, arthur Ly Cofield,
(19:34):
when he was fifteen years old, he robbed his first bank, right,
he goes in, he's not very good at it. It's
his first time. He walks into a branch of Choice
Community Bank in Douglasville, Georgia, and he robs them for
hole dollars. Right, So, when Cofield walks out of the
bank with his stolen loot, the die pack goes off.
I didn't even know they put a diepack in. Diepack
(19:57):
goes Yeah, he gets stay with the inc then metaphorically
is now marked form this point on right now our
career criminals. So despite his net beginnings as a criminal,
Arthur co Field, he gets better. He's got natural instincts.
He just is a criminal born right. His attitude, his ambitions,
his makings all aligned to make him this what will
soon be a master criminal. Now once he's locked up
(20:20):
on the inside, co Field insides, you know, I'm a
young man. I've been a bank robber. I think I
should go to my next move, which has started prison gang.
So he's just not a fan of the social contract.
So he starts out a prison gang and he names
his crew y a P. Now y a P stands
for young and paid and yet young in prison exactly.
(20:46):
He's apparently this y AP was inspired by his street name,
which was Yeap Lavish. Yap Lavish, That's what he was
known on the street. So Yeap Lavish a k A.
Arthur Cofield Jr. His street name game is weak week
according to me, I'll tell him to his face. You
(21:06):
tell ye lavish right to his face, Elizabeth, So yeah, Lavish.
Once he's in prison, he manages to have somewhat of
a normal life on the outside even though he's locked up.
On the inside. He's a young man. He gets himself
a girlfriend. Now. Her name was Selena Holmes. She lives
in Atlanta. She's being yeap Lavish's girl. She's got to
have a lavish lifestyle, so they mostly communicate by phone.
(21:27):
But he's sending her money. He's arranging her life with luxury.
When I say arranging, I mean girl got a Mercedes
from him. She is in a high rise apartment in Buckhead,
which is like upscale of the neighborhood in Atlanta. She's like,
like she's living. I was going to say she's like
the Queen of bad decisions when you said that she
hooked up with this stude in jail. But now I'm like, well,
maybe she's they've never met in person, she's never had
(21:47):
to be in the same room as now. She just
has to do some phone calls and she gets some Mercedes.
But that's not true. There's something else you also have
to do. Because yapp Lavish is a young man, so
he's interested in pleasures of the flesh. He has Selena
FaceTime him in prison and She then has sex on
camera with some man that he arranges her. Yes, they
were kinky couple time in prison watching her get down. Yeah.
(22:12):
And so when you know that he's not the only
one watching this, Oh, you think other guys in prisoners
sitting there, probably charging them to watch with him. You hustler,
I had not even thought about that. You've got me.
You need better negative imagination. I'm over here thinking that
he's a romantic, filthy, filthy, horrible people. We're moving on
(22:35):
from dirty Kofield and Selena Holmes is right around this time,
when he's got Selena doing all that she's doing for him,
that he decides, you know what, I need to set
up my life on the outside. So he decides, I'm
gonna go and buy myself a mansion. Now, being in
prison and having no money of his own, he's going
to need to do something about that. So he's He's like,
I'll get a billionaire to buy it. So what does
yapp lavish do? Summer? And this is, as I'm pointing out,
(22:59):
summer COVID is at its worst point. In the summer.
People don't remember everybody's inside, locked inside, acting weird, acting
wild and co Field is on the inside to also
acting weird and wild, just in a totally different angle.
So the people are not distracted. I'm not giving them excuses,
but the char shua people don't see them coming. But yet,
then again, billionaires act weird, so and they're they're all
(23:21):
working from home, and now we're a pandemic. Yeah, they
were like a cat walking behind them on the bookcase
exactly exactly. They're looking at their kids and don't wear that.
Oh no, what Yeah, of course I prove I proved
their transfer. So Elizabeth, what do you know about high
finances and what it takes to posees someone? You seem
like you're everything. Okay, so you said you needed a
bagged account number. I mean I'm just assuming, like for
(23:42):
security's sake, Like I can't call up and be like,
hey about it, it's me Bill Gates. Turns out like
I'd have to be like, okay, here's my account number.
I would assume there's some sort of pin that you'd
have to give them. These are all good things, so
I'll just lay it out for you. Co Field a
coordinated court documents. Co Field used a phone mask app
called text now so that disguised his location so he
(24:03):
wouldn't be like pinging as like, oh, an Atlanta area
code in prison, he shows up as a Los Angeles
area code, which is where Sydney Kimmel looked. So totally
works now using text now, co Field phones up Charles
Schwab and goes, hey, I want to open a checking account.
So he doesn't try to like directly just take the money.
He's like, yeah, take my account. Put some of my
money in a different account. Do you guys still hold
So they're less suspicious, they're not losing the money. Now.
(24:26):
Co Field was told he would need to supply a
photo I d and proof of address. That's all he needed.
And when I say a proof of address, like, it's
like what they tell me at the d m V.
Do you have a utility bill? That's what they said,
Sydney Kimmel, do you have a utility bill? So he's like, yeah,
so I've got a water bill, literally shows them a
water bill. So this is what Coo Field does. He
phones an outside co conspirator and this person texts him
(24:48):
a photo of Sydney Kimmel's driver's license and one of
the billionaires utility bills his water bill. Yeah. So I
nobody knows how this person knows these things. I'm just
going to speculate and say that person works as his
house staff. That makes sense, That would make sense why
they choose Old Sydney exactly. That's my guest. There's nobody
(25:09):
who knows. I say, you're correct, I do know the answer.
And that's it. Next ye the Cofield. Hella convincing, super charming.
Must have amazing phone game. His phone voice must be
just perfect. He's like just hamming it up. The scenery
in the cell he's got like a cell make on,
(25:32):
like come on, keep going, stretching out, stretching out. So
Charles Schwab, the company rep, tells him, okay, yeah, we
can open checking account once he gets the photo I
d the water bill. So then they transfer money eleven
million dollars into a new Charles Schwab account. Right. So
then he's like okay, but you know he's not done.
He needs to get the money. So he's like, okay,
I'm not going to cash out the account because that
would you know, that would send bells and whistles going, right,
(25:55):
So he's like, okay, I got bigger plans I need
you to transfer for this money because I want to
buy some gold. You know, it's a pandemic. They're like, oh,
billionaires buying gold? That makes sense? Fine, right, He's like, yeah,
you know, the greedy man's first love gold. I need
me some. I do need to point out that I
really doubt that billionaires themselves are calling brokerage firms, like
(26:16):
wouldn't he have like finance? Yes, that's what I was thinking.
But then again, he also has his name on his
water bill. I wouldn't expect a billionaid have their name
or something whatever. So if there's a lot about this
that I don't understand about being a billionaire, I've never
been a billionaire. I don't want to be in a billionaire,
but I don't understand their lives. Yeah, I don't get it.
Would you if I gave you a billion dollars, would
(26:38):
you immediately give it away? Pretty much? I mean I would.
I'd want to live like a really nice life myself,
of course, like sure everybody does. But I that kind
of money that you're never going to touch. And again,
like I was saying with like teachers and stuff, you
can have multiple lifetimes and not spend all that money
exactly to take care of myself and my family, and
like we could be really comfortable and have like super
nice stuff, and I could still give that money to
(27:01):
people who really need salary. Cap your billion. Yeah totally.
So you know I would be greedy and have like
nice stuff for myself. I'm not saying turn it over
and then just drink thin soup for this. Yeah, but
like you know, when they're sitting on multiple billions of dollars,
like you said that in lifetimes, they would never ever time,
could not be able to spend. No, you know, I
(27:22):
say share it. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I
look at money like water and it does no good
being locked up. Anyway, back to the story, give everybody
a see it. Yeah, I let them with their beaks.
So Cofield manages to get this Charles Schwab rep to
not only transfer the eleven million dollars, but then to
transfer it to the account, but then to transfer it
to a precious metal broker in Idaho. He's like, yeah,
(27:45):
I want the money to go to Money Medals Exchange
in Idaho in Boise, and he's like, okay, we'll just
down that right over And so they send the eleven
million dollars over and Cofield then purchases six thousand, one
six gold coins, the American Eagle gold coin. You're familiar
with American ego. So the U. S. Mint starts making
this gold coin that is a like a few ounces. Well, here,
(28:08):
I'll just tell you this is how the U. S.
Mint was. It a special mash up between the U. S.
Mint and sovereign citizens and stand the Smithsonian Institute. And
you could get a plate, commemorative plate with it. Now.
But the end I quote this is from the U. S. Mint.
The U. S Mint produces American Eagle gold bullion coins
in four weights, one ounce, half ounce, quarter ounts, and
a tenth ounce. The coins are twenty two carrot gold
(28:28):
plus small amounts of alloy. The U. S. Mint does
not sell bullion coins directly to the public, so you
got to go to one of these brokers. So it
all seems kind of legit to everybody involved. Joshwab like, oh, yeah,
buying gold in the pandemic. Yeah, fine. The gold people
are like, yeah, eleven million dollars here, we'll take it.
Here's your six thousand coins. Nobody questions it, right, So
co Field manages to get all this going. He takes
(28:48):
eleven million, turns it into gold coins. So what does
he do next? Well, I forgot to tell you one thing, Elizabeth,
you were curious about the paper trails. They would need
it to get the gold coins transferred. To get the
money transferred to the gold broker, Cofield had to send
a disbursement request, and on top of that he also
had to sound a letter of authorization. So he forges
(29:10):
the letter of authorization and then manages this disbursement request.
I don't know how he's doing all of this off
of just a smartphone, it seems like. And once again
I gotta go that the co conspirator is helping him
with giving him an example of a signature whatever it is.
I mean, fellas get crafty behind bars in terms of
like making stuff amazingly crew No, yeah, to all the
stuff with toilet paper they can make. It's just ridiculous.
(29:32):
I can't imagine that he's forging documents that successfully. And
then does someone have to go to Idaho to get
the cold Well, yeah, we'll get to that in a
second jump in ahead. And I'm just constantly surprised by
all the paperwork this crime takes. It's practically like a
day job. I'm like, what did you doing this? Just
get a job? Like I want that anyway. So Cofield,
you know he's got his outside co conspirator, most likely
(29:52):
the one helps with the forgery. So you're asking, how
do you get the gold coins out of Idaho? How
did he get the gold coins out of idahos Ze
I got an answer for you. Yeah, and I'd like
you to close your eyes and picture. You're an Uber
driver working in the Atlanta area. You don't love driving
for a living, but you lost your job as a
(30:13):
dancing bear trainer at the Moscow Circus. So the strip
club you opened Slows also had its permits pulled after
it's discovered the two of your dancers are actually animatronics
purchased from a Chuck E Cheese Pizza What yep? So
now you're having to drive an Uber to pay off
all of your permit problems, pay back your debts from
the Moscow Circus. Now while you sort out all of
(30:34):
your permit problems so you can reopen slaws. You had
to do what you had to do, so you had
over to pick up your next runs. Will return, Yeah,
one day it'll reopen. Have faith, people, so you arrive
outside an expensive sky rise apartment in bucket. Your passenger
steps out of the lobby and walks towards your prius.
She looks statuesque, wealthy. You wonder why she called an
(30:55):
uber and not a private car, but whatever. When she
gets into your car, you marvel at the smell of
her perfume. It smells expensive. I wonder what it is. Yes,
I do too, Okay, I have no idea. I only
know once from like right before Christmas when they have
the like all the commercials. That's how I know what
goes on in the perfume market. White diamonds. Baby, that's right,
(31:19):
you know. I know this does So your passenger she
doesn't talk too much, like at all, so you don't either.
You're like thinking about what you can do. Should slass
out a better wing recipe? You're like trying to, you know,
think about Hey, look it's the grind cultures ar Rise
and grind Elizabeth. So you drive to the airport, but
you don't drive to departures and drop her off like
(31:40):
you would some normal shmow like me. You drive her
all the way round to the side to a little
private section airport called Atlanta Signature airport. Yes. She instructs
you to drive onto the tarmac and to head towards
a private hangar. You're starting to wonder if she's famous,
and you just don't know her because you don't watch TV.
So you're like, well, maybe maybe I don't know who
she is. Whatever. The private hanger you pull in and park.
(32:01):
Before your passenger gets out, she asked you to wait
a minute. You're like, I got an other ride. She's like, no,
I've extended my trip. And you looked at and you
see that she has. You're like, OK, just wait here. Now.
You watch an armored van pull into the private hangar.
Two armed men from a private security company get out.
They walk over to the charter plane parked in the
private hangar. You're like, oh, things are getting into and
(32:22):
your nose so you're loving right. You hear someone say
that the coins have arrived from Boise, like from Boise
and I don't even know what this means. But the
private security then meets two other agents after they step
off the plane and they exchange a locked case. You're like, oh, secrets,
and the private security then walks over to your passenger.
She opens the case and expects the content and then nods,
(32:42):
and it looks then that to be transferred over to
the other security guards. And you're so giddy watching all
this go down. Here is this international organized crime? What
if I watching? So your passenger she returns to the
car and says that she's ready to go now, and
you're like, shall I ask questions? But you don't. You're like,
I'm gonna be professional. You nod. You check the app
for your next destination. She says, okay, yeah, it's a
(33:02):
Randall Mill Road and you know right where that is.
It's all the way back across town in bucket and
you're like, okay, so money's money, money spends, You're gonna drive.
So you driver back across town. Traffic sucks because it's Atlanta.
But eventually you arrive at your destination Randall Mill Road,
and you're like, oh dupe. You pull up the sprawling mansion.
It's sitting atop a lush, green, sloped hill surrounded by woods,
(33:23):
piney woods. This health has to be worth at least
a million dollars to your estimation. Turns out you're wrong.
It's worth four point four million dollars. So your passager
steps out of the car. Thanks, you for the ride,
and you're about to like drive away, but you watch
for a moment and she walks towards a man who
looks to be an architect because he's holding like one
of those blueprint holder cases exactly, And so you're like, well,
(33:43):
maybe he's a foremant. You don't know, so you just
drive away. Right. What you don't know is you just
witnessed the transfer of the profits of the one of
the biggest robberies to ever occur in American to prison. Elizabeth,
you just saw Arthur Cofield managed to gank a billionaire
for eleven million dollars and get ready to buy a house, right, Yeah,
(34:04):
So I'm gonna take a little break, Elizabeth. I'm gonna
cool my jets, and then we're gonna come back and
I'm gonna tell you how this all goes horribly wrong.
Can we listen to some ads? Oh? Yeah, here, let
me hit play. So, since you never asked, I'll just
(34:36):
tell you, Elizabeth, your passenger it was a Liah Bennett. Okay, yeah, alright,
a Liah Bennett. She was house hunting for Arthur Cofield.
She is not Selina Home. She is a different co conspirator.
She meets with the owner of the house, which, by
the way, was not for sale. It was a new
home that had been constructed by an architect, the one
you saw in co Field. For whatever reason, don't ask
(34:58):
me how he saw this house. He wan at it.
So he made an offer on a house that wasn't
for sale. He went higher than market value. He offers
four point four million, and of course, it being capitalism,
the owner is like, I go, I gotta sell. So
he decides to sell. He can't turn down. He gets
seven dollars as a down payment in cash, and he's like,
all right, give me the remainder and the house is yours.
(35:20):
Now you're you're you're with me. You gotta think something
is hanky if you're gonna get somebody to offer you
a house, offer you money on house that's not for sale,
and then go, I'll give you cash on that. And
they show up their first from the three quarters of
million dollars and you're like here and by the way,
they showed up with literal duffel bags of cash. They
paid the owner in a duffel bags, like multiple duffel
(35:41):
bags of cash. Goes down, house gets purchased. The billionaire
is still none the wiser. His money is now being
completely transferred and has now been turned into a multimillion
dollar home in Atlanta. Doesn't know. It's like skimming cream
from the Milia. This guy has no chance exactly exactly,
but Arthur Cooke Jr. His good fortune is about to
(36:02):
turn sour, like say milk. Yeah, well, otherwise we wouldn't
be talking about, you know, the deal. The fun thing
to focus on this story, at least for me, is
all the people that took to pull off this scam. Yeah,
I'm constantly blown away, not just the Charles Schwab Reppy
have to sweet talk, but the co conspirators, all the paperwork,
the metal dealers in Boise, Idaho, the security yards, you're
(36:24):
you the driver. Well, it's kind of like the ultimate
where there's a will, there's a way, Like you're not
going to stop this dude because he's working from inside
prison and he's able to pull off. And where there's
a billionaire, there's always going to be a bunch of
people who are like, I know, this is some stupid
stuff I'm hearing, but I guess this is what they do.
So it was really a great mark. I mean, if
you want to like, excuse odd behavior. Tell people you're
(36:48):
a billionaire, I guess. Anyway, back to its summer, the
world mired in a pandemic cope is moving fast. So
is Arthur Cofield. Right now, he secured himself his mansion.
He's about to be released from prison. It's all needs
to do is to just you know, make it through
a couple more months. I mean, at this point, he's
in a maximum security prison and he's got an architect
on his payroll. He's paying that architect to make changes
(37:09):
to the home. The architect calls him Archie. The architects like, oh, yeah,
he's Mike dude. Right. So the architect was the one
who originally designed and built the home. And so then
when he gets sold, he's like, yeah, let me can
we connect with that guy? And so then he's like, yeah,
you built a home, here's what I want. And so
he's talking to Archie on the phone. The guy's name
is Scott West, and Scott West is like and I quote,
the whole thing was weird. He disappeared for a couple
(37:32):
of weeks and calm me and say sorry, I was
in Mexico. Blah blah blah. So he's writing off, everything
is weird. He's like, yeah, this is how billionairess like,
it's weird, but I've got money in my pocket from it.
Exactly that it really offers the one excuse he needed.
The owner of the house is this dude, Michael Zambilas.
And Zambilas he said that when Archie A k Arthur
(37:53):
k field a ka Yeap Lavish, we contacted him, you know,
and I told you the house wasn't for sale, but
he just couldn't say no to all that money. He's like,
I gotta give it to him. The reason why he
believed that the money was legit is Yapp Lavish told
him that he was a music scout and that he
worked with emerging artists, upcoming rappers, and that he'd also
invested in bitcoin. Oh god, exactly, it's like a trifecta.
(38:16):
So that but this is enough to be believable for
his MBS. He's like, oh, yeah, of course, I mean
this is so investing in bitcoin at that time was like, oh,
this person is rich and smart. It's not like, oh,
this person is stubborn and committed to being a bitcoin holder,
which is what we would think now. So the rappers
in the bitcoins cover story works well enough that nobody
questions co Field or his money in Duffel bags. I mean,
(38:38):
it's it's Atlanta, after all, was heep in mind? Where
we are? It's not there, But there are plenty of
young bitcoin millionaires in Atlanta and plenty of up and
coming rappers to make this seem legit, is what I'm saying.
It's not that you know, Yes, cash deals, though, should
always be a suspicion. So the whole criminal enterprise, it's light,
it's flexible, it's moving, it's operating, it's working inside and outside.
(39:01):
Everything is going great. But there's one problem because while
he's working on this inside and outside, his whole criminal
plan is it has this one aspect, which is it
is really vulnerable to sudden exposure. It's like a soup
lake and it's kind of fall if anybody learns anything
about it. And one day Cofield's bad luck drops right
into his lap and he was like, oh, the day
(39:22):
is June, and the prison guards decided to just do
a surprise inspection of the whole prison right and so boom,
co Field is found with two cell phones. One of
the phones is just sitting on his desk and he's
got a dusk in his cell, so it's just sitting
out on the desk. The other one was hidden in
his armpits, so they had to like find it, and
so he's got these contraband phones. They hand him over
(39:45):
to the prison forensics, those guys that don't doesn't take
him long examine the phones. They were like, cursory check
reveals this plot to buy a mansion, and so they're like,
you're gonna need to check more on this phone. So
they start going diving deeper and they discover co Field's
whole message history, all the d M s and whatever
text messages he sent, all call logs, the whole bit,
(40:05):
and they find all of the evidence they need to
keep him in prison for another fifteen years. Like, yeah,
he's basically caught dead to right now. Personally, I'm kind
of curious what caused this sudden inspection. I mean, like,
did he piss off the prison guards, did he cross
the wrong person in prison? Was it a power play
between gangs? Because this just seems like a really weird,
(40:26):
suspicious and suddenly the phone will the above. Yeah totally
also could just be dumb luck. I mean, I really dumb,
but I still think it was a CEO anyway. So
the inmates who are smuggling in contraband, you know, usually
we're told like, oh, it's spines of books, like you're told,
or like in movies it's like the bodily orifices. But
you know, or you know the news story say oh
Drone flew it in. But as I pointed out, it's
(40:48):
mostly the correctional officers. And from what I've read, this
is known by the prison industry. Yeah, so Adam Myers,
this expert dip guy, he uh, he studies things for
a site called prison Ology, and it's it's it's a
firm and they made up a retired prison warden's prison
executives and so forth, and so they have an insider's
view of this. They know what is how this is
going down. And he said, and I quote, this is
(41:09):
a pretty widespread problem, and it really comes down to
guards not being paid enough because it's a big amount
of money that's hard to turn away from when they
smuggle the phones in. So, you know, just like John Lennon,
Cofield needed a little help from his friends, and the
prison guards were only too happy to offer it right.
So that's that's my thought. I once, I don't know.
I'm not necessarily saying it was guaranteed. But how else
is he going to get this phone and contact with
(41:30):
Charles Schwab. No, Elizabeth, I know you, so, I know
you're probably wondering, You're a little worried. What about Sidney Kimmel?
Did anything? Did he find out? Did he know he
got robbed? Did he lose get his money back? You
don't care, well the money, the money was returned to him.
He got his eleven million dollars back. Because Charles Schwab,
when they found out what they had done, they needed
(41:52):
to make sure that none of their other investors would
hear about this, and and hear about it in some
glaring negative time hearing about it. Yeah, Jos Schwab was
in a quote. Schwab was aware of suspected of fraudulent activity.
We launched an investigation, initiated measures to protect the client's account,
and notified the authorities. As you can appreciate, this is
an ongoing investigation and as such we cannot comment further.
(42:15):
They took the approach were handling this. Don't you worry?
So now to ensure all their other investors. They say
all this, but people still can't figure out. I can't
figure out. The Feds can't figure out how did Kochfield
find all the information that he needed to access this
billionaire's account? And you know that's the great mystery that
I have no answers for you. But we found our answer.
We think it's the CEO is how they got the
(42:36):
the co conspirator. Yeah, but once again, I'm just speculating
that they're in the house staff. If they're not, who
is that anyway? You know how some kids are murder
with a computer. This dude was like straight up doing
like I don't know, gang land activities with a flip
phone in prison. And that's just so impressive to me. Anyway,
his Blackhead dream home, it's still sitting there, empty, unsold. Yeah,
(42:57):
it's quickly depreciating in value. It's right now it's no
longer worth four point four million of the original asking
price that he paid. It's not worth about three point
five And people are suing to try to like manage
it because the house will quickly turn into a wasted Yeah.
So one last thing about contraband phones, Elizabeth. Now, as
we've gone over prison guards are probably responsible for most
of them, right, And this also allows prisons to have
(43:20):
a reason to roust prisoners and to search their cells.
And it also allows them to kind of give like
a little uh black market pay to their prison guards
so they don't have to do pay increases. But I
don't want it to sound like these contraband phones are
all negative. I was just going to say that I
think it's important that we make a distinction that some
contraband phones are used for crimes and some are used
(43:40):
look like, well the journalists carry blanket. I'm not sure
if you know. Okay, great writer Great Journalists has written
a lot about this, and she makes the point that
smuggled in phones are also how whistleblowers are able to
report on the prison document excesses of the bad behavior
inside the detention facilities. Also, some inmates have been known
to self published books. They've been known to take college
(44:00):
classes on smuggled phones. They also contact prison reform advocates
their family members when they're having a crisis. It's it's
really often a lifeline. It's a form of communication, of
a connection education. It's so much more than just when
there are poor conditions and the outside world doesn't know
about it, um, And we've seen that multiple times. And
then you know, you look at the fact that the
(44:22):
absolute robbery of how much they charge for phone calls.
California's best really can't charge him exactly, and it should
be blanket nationwide because you know, I don't understand, well
I do understand, but I just it's disgusting to me
how much they skewer these guys. They're doing their time,
(44:44):
and I think that you know, they're paying things back
in a multitude of ways, and part of prisons rehabilitation. Yeah,
but like there's the whole I think it's part of
the dehumanization that is that is in our prison you
know industrial complex that you know, you reduce these guy
is they don't have a name, they're a number, um.
And then you take it away where you don't get
(45:04):
the like satisfaction of being able to talk to your
family without some pain inflicted monetarily. Um. We need to
talk to people. We need to talk to our family.
And like you're saying, if you want to rehabilitate someone
like you have to let them have a support and
reconnect to the world outside. This should be part of
the plan I think it's just important, an important point
to make, which is that smuggled cell phones save lives.
(45:26):
That's essentially what I want. Arthur Cofield, he's one example,
but he's not a good example of all that you
would find in prison. So cadger band phones keep rolling. Basically,
there's just never one side to the story exactly. Yeah,
for every for every uh that what's his name again,
Arthur yapp Lavish yapp Lavish. You know there's someone who's
(45:49):
actually like just trying to be a human being surviving,
and we have to be able to consider them and
not just be hung up on oh drone smuggling phones
in so yeap Lavish can order that his hits and
billionaires anyway, what's a ridiculous take. I think you're right.
There were no heroes, no anti heroes. It's just a
bunch of well I mean, like, I guess the billionaire
(46:09):
isn't so bad. I mean he's just sitting on too
much money, but like you know, he didn't do anything. Yeah,
but like man, these you know, I always I think
we're probably the most criminal friendly podcasts. We're definitely not
like copagandas UM and I like to kind of find
(46:29):
the humanity and people and give people the benefit of
the doubt. And we've said it before that you know,
most of the people that we talk about are just
like they've made a series of bad decisions. And you know,
because we don't talk about murder, we're talking about mostly
financial crimes or other kind of ridiculous things. Um, you
can find you can find a little redeeming quality for
(46:52):
most of these people. Um, except for like the ones
who are really cruel about it. The woman who scammed
the town out of all the what was Rita saw?
She was terrible. This guy is terrible. So I think
it's interesting when we stumble across the people that's really
hard to to you know, find it a sweet spot, yes,
or anyone to root for. Yeah, but I'm also you know,
(47:13):
you know, my ridiculous takeaway. Once again, thank you for
asking Elizabeth welcome is the worth time family being able
to write off two and a quarter million dollars like, well,
that's just a learning experience whatever to anyway, thank you
for listening. That's all I got for you. Thank you. Well.
You can find us online a ridiculous crime on both
(47:33):
Twitter and Instagram. Twitter. That's where we dropped the words Instagram,
we dropped the pictures. We got you know, hype for
episodes on both and also you can reach out to
us if you would like. Email us at Ridiculous Crime
at gmail dot com. You've got a story, idea, a
family confession, a personal confession. Hit us up. We love Dan.
Thanks for listening. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton,
(47:59):
end Aaron Burnett, produced and edited by Atlanta's pre eminent
producer for up and coming gift rappers, Dave Coustin. Researches
by Marissa Young, Loco Brown, and Andrea Hotlan. Bling is
my favorite song, Sharp and Tire. Our theme song is
by Thomas laars Lee and Travis The Real Girl. Dutton
Executive producers are Ben Hell Bolden and Noel high Water Brown.
(48:24):
We Die Say It One More Time. We Dequius Crew.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio. Four more
podcasts to my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of My Heart Radio. Yo,
Elizabeth Dutton, Zarain Burnett. What is up girl? Oh? Nothing?
Just you know? Do you gotta second? I got a
quick question? Go ahead. Do you know what's ridiculous? We do?
I do? Share it with a brother. Now. You know.
Normally I'm all about the food mashups. Not today, thank god?
(00:22):
Today is it my birthday? No? Today I'm doing clothing mashups. Hey, Okay,
so you know that I love the Adidas. Yes, yes,
I do know. I own far too many pairs of
the Adidas um soda you dream about shoes? I do. Uh,
(00:45):
this is disappointing for me. Well because I usually like
pretty much anything Adidas puts out. But then they kind
of missed the mark on something worse than some of
the Jeremy Scott stuff. Yeah. Damn. Um. They have a
crossover with the Simpsons, and you'd think that it would
be all Bart Simpson like radical dude, cowabunga man, eat
(01:10):
my shorts. No, it's um Adidas and the Simpsons shoes
for International left handers Day. It's um ned Flanders Adidas
and let me give you the sea let me descriptions,
uh left handers rule exclamation point. These mccarton shoes pay
(01:33):
homage to a classic and timeless Adida's trainer and honor
our favorite left hander in Springfield, Ned Flanders. The packaging
and poster called back to the Left Orium. They're made
from smooth leather with a rubber outsol. They're ugliest, sin
like no, and like they all you know, I'm intentionally
(01:54):
supposed to be like bad, like you're supposed to look
like ned Flanders shoes and they do so. But you
know how like they always show they have the pictures
right on the website and it's only showing the right shoe,
right right. It's supposed to be for left hand, left foots,
multiple foots. Oh boy, this is melting my brain. So anyway,
(02:16):
I find this ridiculous and I concur okay, ridiculous. Well,
if you got a second, I got one for you. Yeah,
I'm sure it's better. No, no, no, this one is
is is strange, it's ridiculous, and it's criminal. I know,
I think you would like it. Once upon a time,
a Georgia inmate in state custody, he smuggled in a
contraband phone, which people do, and he gets it into
(02:39):
prison and he uses this phone to impersonate a billionaire.
But that's not all, Elizabeth. He also purchased six thousand
gold coins that were worth about eleven million dollars and
he did this with the billionaire's investment account. That's not all, Elizabeth.
I am not done yet. Next, he bottoms off a
multimillion dollar house with a billionaire's money on this phone.
He's still in prison. Wow, this is ridiculous. Crime of
(03:22):
a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heist and cons.
It's all murder free and ridiculous, Elizabeth, this story I'm
about to tell you. To be clear, I just wanted
you to know this from the get There are no
heroes in this story. There aren't even anti heroes in
(03:43):
this story. Yeah. For the record, I do not like
this inmate. He's not one of my dudes. Also, I'm
not rooting for the billionaire in this story. Surprised but
I know. But I promise you this is one hell
of a story. So buckle up, Buttercup. Before we dig
into this first story, though, I kind of wanted to
whet your appetite. I had an appetizer at a moose bush.
(04:06):
As you like to call them. Yes, so the headline
read a starter billionaire spends thirty five million to investigate
four hundred thousand dollar wine fraud. Wine fraud. Yes, spends
thirty five million to investigate four hundred dollar loss. Essentially. Now, Elizabeth,
you may be thinking, Sarah, I'm not the best at math,
but that sounds like a waste of money. It does.
(04:26):
You are right, Elizabeth, that is a percent of waste
of money. But all depends on what you're buying, and
in this case, he was buying I think peace of mind.
Wait a second, which one is? What's who is it? Yeah?
So the billionaire in question, I'm glad you asked, is
a member of the Coke family. Yes, I've seen this documentary. Yes,
Bill Coke Sary's brother of Charles and David Coke. So
so now this guy, he's not the failed son, the
(04:48):
one who makes those ugly shirts. That guy is Wyatt Coke.
He's the founder of Wyatt Ingraham, which is the shirt company. Um.
One story I found said is a fashion line. That
quote answers the question what if Tommy Baham his dad
had paid for him to go to Harvard are trying
to get into Harvard, I should get the quote, right.
So not that Coke brother, Paper Coke, which one's a
(05:10):
toilet picker, don't they have like the family, Yeah yeah,
yeah yeah, the family is big into papers. So this
Coke brother, the Bill Coke, he he owns these bottles
of wine, right, He's got these four bottles of wine
that once belonged to Thomas Jefferson. If you've seen the documentary,
you know this. He spends four dollars to get them.
Come to find out they are not Thomas Jefferson wine,
(05:30):
just normal wine put into expensive labels. That's all up
in there, exactly a little boxed wine for the brothers.
So Bill Coke he gets all piste right, and he's
like discovers his figure. He's like what what this is outrageous? Right,
So he's like, I'm an idiot. I'm going to spend
a lot of money to good peace of mind. So
he hires a private investigator to check out the provenance
of all of his wine collection. Right, So he discovers
(05:53):
he's been do numerous times. A billionaire gets embarrassed. He
gets mad, so he pays this private dick to check
all every single bottle he owns his entire collection, So
a little bit. How many bottles do you think, dude have?
He had four hundred, four hundred fake bottles of wine.
I have vague memories of them, Like I said, I
saw the documentary, but I don't remember the Oh wow,
(06:16):
this quote, maybe you know, bring some bells for you,
Bill Coke said, and I quote there is a code
of silence in this business because obviously the faker doesn't
want anybody to know that he's making fake wine. The
auction house doesn't want to know that, and then the
collector himself generally doesn't want to know that, or if
he finds out, he wants to find a secret way
to dump it and get his money back because he's
(06:37):
a He's like, I'm going to drink any of this stuff, right?
Oh No, sometimes they do. I mean some collectors do,
most of the time. Not they will exhibit it to
other wine collectors, like look at my Thomas Jefferson bottles.
They will never get open. Right. So this cat he decides,
I'm going to break the wheel. So he goes and
he gets his private investigator, as I told you, looking
at all his fraudulent bottles. The dude tracks down the
(06:58):
guy who sold him the bottles of Thomas Jefferson fake wine,
right that guy loves in Germany. Bill Coke sues him.
He wins a one million dollar like just a judgment
from him right now. Any lawyer will tell you this.
Your mother's a lawyer, she'll tell you this. He's not
going to see that money. Yeah, that's just not happening.
So he's like, Nope, it doesn't matter. I'm rich already.
I'm not doing it for the money. I want peace
(07:19):
of mind. So he starts going again. He pays lawyers
to go after people. He's suing everyone he can, and
like some Cape crusader, he decides he's going to protect
all the other dumb, ultra rich people like him. And
he's like, I gotta protect us, so his private investigator
keeps working. The private dick finds that the bulk of
the fraudulent wine that he has purchased all came from
the same con man in Los Angeles. And this is
(07:41):
the guy who would take literally Fronsia common just wine
poured into expensive bottles and selitude foolish ultra wealthy people
this wine labeled conment. He gets tried, convicted, and sentence
So Bill Coke once again gets his some more justice.
But he's not done, Elizabeth. Bill Coke is on it.
He gets on his batman cow and he goes to
after the auction house. The auction house is like, oh man,
(08:02):
sorry about selling you the fig timas Jefferson Wine. He's
like all right, and they're like, oh yeah, here's read.
This is called the statute of limitations. Now blow. So
the auction house is in the clear because statue limitations
are up. Dudes, not done though, He's like, who else
can I go after? So Bill Coke says, and I quote,
I spent over thirty five million doing all that. I
was a dog on a bone. I wasn't going to
(08:23):
give up. Remember this, he's doing this to protect rich idiots.
And he said, yeah, he's spent four thousand. He's out there,
no million out Some people have too much money, yes, exactly.
Take the L dude, right, is a cheaper L. But
he's like, wants peace of mind. So when you have
that kind of money, this is what you can do
with it. This is the foolishness. And this is like
(08:46):
this multi year wine investigation. This is the kind of
behavior you can expect from billionaires. So I want you
to keep that in mind as I tell you this story.
I'm just thinking of, like, we got teachers working second
and third jobs, and then this dude's like my wines
fake totally throws the further class materials out of their
own pocket. I mean yeah, and this guy's like million
(09:07):
to make me happy. Anyway, enough of Bill Coke. You
ready for one of the biggest heist ever pulled off
from inside an American prison? Yes? Please, Elizabeth. I don't
want to like bust you out on this, but you
once taught in a prison. I did at a federal facility. Yes,
college English classes right right. So when you were doing that,
you had to go through all the prison security. It
(09:29):
was they would check everything. Even I think you once
told me an underwire bra was something they would check. Well,
it depends on what part of the prison you're going into.
So the yard, what you would is like the traditional
big prison. Yeah, that's like I couldn't have bobby pins
in my hair, the head couldn't wear an underwire bra. Um.
The camp, which is like where the trustees are um,
(09:49):
they didn't have. I mean I was supposed to go
through it, but it was just I just would show
up a much more trust and yeah, so I on
those days, like I could have, you know, bobby pins
in my hair and an underwear a brown. Let's say
one of your students when you were in the yard
asked you to smuggle on the phone so that I'll
give you ten grand. How difficult would it be to
smuggle a phone in? It would be pretty rough, I think, Like,
(10:13):
I don't know that I did smuggle something in once
because now tell me more. Um, they have a limited
library and in a book, I did, and a couple
of them. But it wasn't like you know, I mean,
I just said that was it was materials for the class.
It was outside of the materials for the class, and
(10:34):
it wasn't anything incendiary. It was just interesting books that
they couldn't get in their library. So technically I smuggle
that counts. That counts, I'll give you. And I used
to also bring them like highlighters, which I'm sure they
probably wound up using as like crack pipes, who knows,
but anyways, they needed him for my class, and they
these were good dudes, like my students were really good.
(10:55):
I like that now. The from what I understand, the
majority of the contraband comes into prisons, is brought in
by the correctional officer. Yeah, that is true, Okay, so
keep that in mind. Also as I'm telling you this story,
this story is going to take place inside the Georgia
Department of Corrections. So just you know one state south
of South Carolina, specifically, it's the Special Management Unit, which
(11:16):
is you know, the Maximum Security Wing. Okay, So he's
in the state's maximum security facility for the state's most
serious offenders and violent offenders. Right, and that's where this
dude is hardened criminals in May. His name is Arthur
Lee Cofield Jr. You can call him June the thirty
one year old because locked up on a fourteen year
bid for armed robbery. Right, he's like a career criminal
(11:38):
and he got his start young. Now, Cofield was a
documented gang member. He's has active criminal ties to the outside.
For instance, he from inside of prison he arranged to shooting,
so like he was like actively yeah, that's why he's
not my dude. But to do that, he had to
use a contraband phone. Right now, Cofield only had a
few more months left on his time for his armed
robbery and so he had a plan to set himself
(11:59):
up for once he gets back outside. So, as we've covered,
it's no great surprise that a prisoner like Cofield was
able to have the smuggled cell phone, because you know,
it's the prison guards who were getting it into him.
But he had a history of having smuggled cell phones
on him. He had even caught twelve times. Twelve times,
and they're not any better going. Maybe we should check
this guy, but you know whatever, Now, back in twenty sixteen,
(12:21):
I found a report that he had a Verizon LG
touchscreen phone and the charger. They were found concealed into
cofields crotch. Like he's like just gotten tucked in the
crotch phone. Yeah, he's just tucking a phone. But he
gets written up for the contraband phone. Cofield says, and
I quote, I don't give it about that phone. I've
had hundreds of phones, right, So he's like flexible. I
think that once the guy, once the guy has the phone,
(12:43):
like they're probably going to have more than one. I
had a student who um got transferred to a different
facility because they found four cell phones under his bed
and was he selling over those just his I don't know.
I didn't ask, you know, and cry, but yeah, that
was he had a little hash of them under there.
Apparently when I was doing my research into this, I
found all these stories about like just how good people
(13:06):
have gotten about smuggling in things into prison. They're now
using drones to you read the freak stories, Oh we
tied a phone to a cat, or we got this
pigeon trained to bring in drugs like meth there into
a prison. Right, those stories are out there, but the
drones are now the new crazy story about what goes
on in prisons. Right, But I don't think that really
is the point. You know, it's kind of like it
(13:27):
excuses the correction officers, So I think I want to
keep the focus on them throughout this. Well, there was
when I was teaching at the prison, they had an
outbreak of was it k too that synthetically um? There
were guys taking it in that not in my class,
but then that just general gen pop um who And
they were having like seizures and collapsing and hallucinations and
(13:48):
were hauled out and ambulances and um. I was told
by the guards that oh, it's coming in in the
spine of books like that they get from family, and
so we're having to tear up all the books that
come in, which I was like, didn't come from any
of my books, But then someone else told me, no, dude,
it's the guards. It's not coming in in the spot,
Like the families are not taking apart books and then
(14:11):
rebinding them to get k two in. I mean, that's
just come on. Now, it's time for me to tell
you the other person in this story Sidney Kimmel. Now
Sidney Kimmel is a California based billionaire. He's the nine
year old who was worth about one and a half
billion dollars. You may know him. He founded Jones New York,
the fashion label okay Yes, So he sells that for
two point two billion, becomes a billionaire. Right Other than
(14:33):
the Jones New York, Sidney Kimbel also goes insides, I'm
gonna make a name for myself in Hollywood. He decides like,
I'm done with fashion, I'm gonna go make movies. So
he's the money man behind a string of movies such
as Crazy Rich Asians, Hell or High Water Moneyball, the
flop that Ryan Gosling made about falling in love with
a sex doll lars and The Real Girl. All these
are his movies united, right, these are all he's just yea.
(14:57):
So Sydney Kimbell does this for a while, then he decides,
I'm gonna get into philante a piece. That's what he's
doing these days. He's all into philanthropy. Like the Johns
Hopkins University. They get a big endowment from him. So
now they have a cancer center that has his name
on it. And there's the going back to the early
winemaker of American history, Thomas Jefferson. Sidney Kimbell gave money
to the university to Philadelphia that carries Jefferson's name, and
(15:17):
it was the medical school now has the Sydney Kimmel name.
So when this scam went down, Kimmel was ninety two
years old, so he's always been years young. Really, yeah,
condescend So this aging businessman turn Hollywood philanthropist. He has
(15:39):
no connection to Cofield, he has no understanding. He doesn't
know he's about to be a target. Right, He's just
this ninety two year old guy. He's just trying to
give money away. Now, he had never met him, had
no reason to cross pass, would have no idea that
there was some prisoner locked up in Butts County, Georgia.
Who's got his eye on him? Right now, that's just
it's just defied his imagine. A Now, for those who
(16:01):
have never had the pleasure of traveling through Butts County,
I have not. Maybe I have. It's south of Atlanta. Okay,
I don't think I have, I have, I got, I
don't know. I don't know. On your way down to
way Cross, you probably come across. Let's say yes. Now
you may be wondering, Elizabeth, Sarah, how do you rob
a billionaire from inside a maximum security stage from how
do you rob a billionaire from inside a maximum security prison?
(16:22):
Great question, thank you, thank you. Well you use one
of the hundreds of contraband phones that you have, and
Kofield was able to then use this to contact a brokerage.
And these are smartphones. Yeah, these are smartphones. So let's
take a quick break and then I will tell you
how he used a smartphone to get stupid on this billionaire. Nice. So, Elizabeth,
(17:02):
we got our dude, I'm not right, dude, but Arthur
Cofield are. Yeah, he's a bad guy. Are bad guy
of the story. And then we got Sidney Kimmel, our target.
And mark of the story. And we're about to have
them meet your ready, not physically, but you'll get the idea.
They're gonna, Okay, they're gonna butterfly this. It's so cute.
So Cofield is able to contact this Charles Schwab brokerage
using a smartphone, right, so in June, Cofield pretends to
(17:26):
be s K. Yeah, so he calls himself. Now, this
is the billionaire investor Sidney Kimmel. So he calls Charles
Schwab up and he gets a broker on the phone,
and Cofield is able to sweet talk this investment firm
into transferring eleven million dollars off Sydney Kimmel's money. Yeah, exactly.
The federal prosecutors still can't exactly determine how it was
(17:47):
that Cofield was able to find Kimmel or his Charles Schwab.
How did he know he had to give his number,
his account number. Just wait, a nice kind of thing.
I mean, they do have to make those kind of
transfers over the phone. It's that is yeah, that is true.
So he had the advantage there. Now, So Scott McAfee,
he's a federal prosecutor on this case, he said quote
Mr coo Field had figured out a way to excess
(18:09):
accounts belonging to high net worth individuals, frankly billionaires located
across the country. Now we see why he said billionaires plural?
Is that because Coo Field also managed to hit up
Nicole worth Time, who I don't know, but she's apparently
the wife of Herbert worth Time, who was a Florida
billionaire who has uh he made his money on eyeglass innovations.
So yeah, billionaire eyeglass guy, so worth of them. Nicole
(18:31):
worth Time, she gives him two point to five million dollars. Here,
you know, he's basically transferred out of their account. He's
able to steal the funds and transferred to a second account,
then convert him into gold coins because gold coins are
apparently co Field's fiscal instrument of choice. He just loves
the double eagle, all right, So he uses that same
move on Sidney Kimmel. Now, interestingly, in the worth Time case,
they didn't want to press charges, so he's facing no
(18:53):
criminal charges for stealing two point to five million. I
don't know. I don't know if they want to be embarrassed.
I don't know if they don't want their finances like that.
That's probably it could be a little one, a little
bit of both. And how much did he transfer out
of fourth time? Two million? Yeah, they're like it's pocket change.
They like it's just an embarrassment. Don't tell people such marks.
So let's get back to our original question. How is
(19:14):
a bank robbing gang banger who's in prison able to
call up Charles Schwab and steal from the accounts of
billionaires with just a cell phone. How let's get into
the wise and what force Elizabeth arthur Ly Cofield. Uh,
let me back up just a second and tell you
a little b about his criminal history. You can get
an idea of who this guy is and then you
can imagine him on the phone. Alright, So, arthur Ly Cofield,
(19:34):
when he was fifteen years old, he robbed his first bank, right,
he goes in, he's not very good at it. It's
his first time. He walks into a branch of Choice
Community Bank in Douglasville, Georgia, and he robs them for
hole dollars. Right, So, when Cofield walks out of the
bank with his stolen loot, the die pack goes off.
I didn't even know they put a diepack in. Diepack
(19:57):
goes Yeah, he gets stay with the inc then metaphorically
is now marked form this point on right now our
career criminals. So despite his net beginnings as a criminal,
Arthur co Field, he gets better. He's got natural instincts.
He just is a criminal born right. His attitude, his ambitions,
his makings all aligned to make him this what will
soon be a master criminal. Now once he's locked up
(20:20):
on the inside, co Field insides, you know, I'm a
young man. I've been a bank robber. I think I
should go to my next move, which has started prison gang.
So he's just not a fan of the social contract.
So he starts out a prison gang and he names
his crew y a P. Now y a P stands
for young and paid and yet young in prison exactly.
(20:46):
He's apparently this y AP was inspired by his street name,
which was Yeap Lavish. Yap Lavish, That's what he was
known on the street. So Yeap Lavish a k A.
Arthur Cofield Jr. His street name game is weak week
according to me, I'll tell him to his face. You
(21:06):
tell ye lavish right to his face, Elizabeth, So yeah, Lavish.
Once he's in prison, he manages to have somewhat of
a normal life on the outside even though he's locked up.
On the inside. He's a young man. He gets himself
a girlfriend. Now. Her name was Selena Holmes. She lives
in Atlanta. She's being yeap Lavish's girl. She's got to
have a lavish lifestyle, so they mostly communicate by phone.
(21:27):
But he's sending her money. He's arranging her life with luxury.
When I say arranging, I mean girl got a Mercedes
from him. She is in a high rise apartment in Buckhead,
which is like upscale of the neighborhood in Atlanta. She's like,
like she's living. I was going to say she's like
the Queen of bad decisions when you said that she
hooked up with this stude in jail. But now I'm like, well,
maybe she's they've never met in person, she's never had
(21:47):
to be in the same room as now. She just
has to do some phone calls and she gets some Mercedes.
But that's not true. There's something else you also have
to do. Because yapp Lavish is a young man, so
he's interested in pleasures of the flesh. He has Selena
FaceTime him in prison and She then has sex on
camera with some man that he arranges her. Yes, they
were kinky couple time in prison watching her get down. Yeah.
(22:12):
And so when you know that he's not the only
one watching this, Oh, you think other guys in prisoners
sitting there, probably charging them to watch with him. You hustler,
I had not even thought about that. You've got me.
You need better negative imagination. I'm over here thinking that
he's a romantic, filthy, filthy, horrible people. We're moving on
(22:35):
from dirty Kofield and Selena Holmes is right around this time,
when he's got Selena doing all that she's doing for him,
that he decides, you know what, I need to set
up my life on the outside. So he decides, I'm
gonna go and buy myself a mansion. Now, being in
prison and having no money of his own, he's going
to need to do something about that. So he's He's like,
I'll get a billionaire to buy it. So what does
yapp lavish do? Summer? And this is, as I'm pointing out,
(22:59):
summer COVID is at its worst point. In the summer.
People don't remember everybody's inside, locked inside, acting weird, acting
wild and co Field is on the inside to also
acting weird and wild, just in a totally different angle.
So the people are not distracted. I'm not giving them excuses,
but the char shua people don't see them coming. But yet,
then again, billionaires act weird, so and they're they're all
(23:21):
working from home, and now we're a pandemic. Yeah, they
were like a cat walking behind them on the bookcase
exactly exactly. They're looking at their kids and don't wear that.
Oh no, what Yeah, of course I prove I proved
their transfer. So Elizabeth, what do you know about high
finances and what it takes to posees someone? You seem
like you're everything. Okay, so you said you needed a
bagged account number. I mean I'm just assuming, like for
(23:42):
security's sake, Like I can't call up and be like,
hey about it, it's me Bill Gates. Turns out like
I'd have to be like, okay, here's my account number.
I would assume there's some sort of pin that you'd
have to give them. These are all good things, so
I'll just lay it out for you. Co Field a
coordinated court documents. Co Field used a phone mask app
called text now so that disguised his location so he
(24:03):
wouldn't be like pinging as like, oh, an Atlanta area
code in prison, he shows up as a Los Angeles
area code, which is where Sydney Kimmel looked. So totally
works now using text now, co Field phones up Charles
Schwab and goes, hey, I want to open a checking account.
So he doesn't try to like directly just take the money.
He's like, yeah, take my account. Put some of my
money in a different account. Do you guys still hold
So they're less suspicious, they're not losing the money. Now.
(24:26):
Co Field was told he would need to supply a
photo I d and proof of address. That's all he needed.
And when I say a proof of address, like, it's
like what they tell me at the d m V.
Do you have a utility bill? That's what they said,
Sydney Kimmel, do you have a utility bill? So he's like, yeah,
so I've got a water bill, literally shows them a
water bill. So this is what Coo Field does. He
phones an outside co conspirator and this person texts him
(24:48):
a photo of Sydney Kimmel's driver's license and one of
the billionaires utility bills his water bill. Yeah. So I
nobody knows how this person knows these things. I'm just
going to speculate and say that person works as his
house staff. That makes sense, That would make sense why
they choose Old Sydney exactly. That's my guest. There's nobody
(25:09):
who knows. I say, you're correct, I do know the answer.
And that's it. Next ye the Cofield. Hella convincing, super charming.
Must have amazing phone game. His phone voice must be
just perfect. He's like just hamming it up. The scenery
in the cell he's got like a cell make on,
(25:32):
like come on, keep going, stretching out, stretching out. So
Charles Schwab, the company rep, tells him, okay, yeah, we
can open checking account once he gets the photo I
d the water bill. So then they transfer money eleven
million dollars into a new Charles Schwab account. Right. So
then he's like okay, but you know he's not done.
He needs to get the money. So he's like, okay,
I'm not going to cash out the account because that
would you know, that would send bells and whistles going, right,
(25:55):
So he's like, okay, I got bigger plans I need
you to transfer for this money because I want to
buy some gold. You know, it's a pandemic. They're like, oh,
billionaires buying gold? That makes sense? Fine, right, He's like, yeah,
you know, the greedy man's first love gold. I need
me some. I do need to point out that I
really doubt that billionaires themselves are calling brokerage firms, like
(26:16):
wouldn't he have like finance? Yes, that's what I was thinking.
But then again, he also has his name on his
water bill. I wouldn't expect a billionaid have their name
or something whatever. So if there's a lot about this
that I don't understand about being a billionaire, I've never
been a billionaire. I don't want to be in a billionaire,
but I don't understand their lives. Yeah, I don't get it.
Would you if I gave you a billion dollars, would
(26:38):
you immediately give it away? Pretty much? I mean I would.
I'd want to live like a really nice life myself,
of course, like sure everybody does. But I that kind
of money that you're never going to touch. And again,
like I was saying with like teachers and stuff, you
can have multiple lifetimes and not spend all that money
exactly to take care of myself and my family, and
like we could be really comfortable and have like super
nice stuff, and I could still give that money to
(27:01):
people who really need salary. Cap your billion. Yeah totally.
So you know I would be greedy and have like
nice stuff for myself. I'm not saying turn it over
and then just drink thin soup for this. Yeah, but
like you know, when they're sitting on multiple billions of dollars,
like you said that in lifetimes, they would never ever time,
could not be able to spend. No, you know, I
(27:22):
say share it. Yeah, I'm right there with you. I
look at money like water and it does no good
being locked up. Anyway, back to the story, give everybody
a see it. Yeah, I let them with their beaks.
So Cofield manages to get this Charles Schwab rep to
not only transfer the eleven million dollars, but then to
transfer it to the account, but then to transfer it
to a precious metal broker in Idaho. He's like, yeah,
(27:45):
I want the money to go to Money Medals Exchange
in Idaho in Boise, and he's like, okay, we'll just
down that right over And so they send the eleven
million dollars over and Cofield then purchases six thousand, one
six gold coins, the American Eagle gold coin. You're familiar
with American ego. So the U. S. Mint starts making
this gold coin that is a like a few ounces. Well, here,
(28:08):
I'll just tell you this is how the U. S.
Mint was. It a special mash up between the U. S.
Mint and sovereign citizens and stand the Smithsonian Institute. And
you could get a plate, commemorative plate with it. Now.
But the end I quote this is from the U. S. Mint.
The U. S Mint produces American Eagle gold bullion coins
in four weights, one ounce, half ounce, quarter ounts, and
a tenth ounce. The coins are twenty two carrot gold
(28:28):
plus small amounts of alloy. The U. S. Mint does
not sell bullion coins directly to the public, so you
got to go to one of these brokers. So it
all seems kind of legit to everybody involved. Joshwab like, oh, yeah,
buying gold in the pandemic. Yeah, fine. The gold people
are like, yeah, eleven million dollars here, we'll take it.
Here's your six thousand coins. Nobody questions it, right, So
co Field manages to get all this going. He takes
(28:48):
eleven million, turns it into gold coins. So what does
he do next? Well, I forgot to tell you one thing, Elizabeth,
you were curious about the paper trails. They would need
it to get the gold coins transferred. To get the
money transferred to the gold broker, Cofield had to send
a disbursement request, and on top of that he also
had to sound a letter of authorization. So he forges
(29:10):
the letter of authorization and then manages this disbursement request.
I don't know how he's doing all of this off
of just a smartphone, it seems like. And once again
I gotta go that the co conspirator is helping him
with giving him an example of a signature whatever it is.
I mean, fellas get crafty behind bars in terms of
like making stuff amazingly crew No, yeah, to all the
stuff with toilet paper they can make. It's just ridiculous.
(29:32):
I can't imagine that he's forging documents that successfully. And
then does someone have to go to Idaho to get
the cold Well, yeah, we'll get to that in a
second jump in ahead. And I'm just constantly surprised by
all the paperwork this crime takes. It's practically like a
day job. I'm like, what did you doing this? Just
get a job? Like I want that anyway. So Cofield,
you know he's got his outside co conspirator, most likely
(29:52):
the one helps with the forgery. So you're asking, how
do you get the gold coins out of Idaho? How
did he get the gold coins out of idahos Ze
I got an answer for you. Yeah, and I'd like
you to close your eyes and picture. You're an Uber
driver working in the Atlanta area. You don't love driving
for a living, but you lost your job as a
(30:13):
dancing bear trainer at the Moscow Circus. So the strip
club you opened Slows also had its permits pulled after
it's discovered the two of your dancers are actually animatronics
purchased from a Chuck E Cheese Pizza What yep? So
now you're having to drive an Uber to pay off
all of your permit problems, pay back your debts from
the Moscow Circus. Now while you sort out all of
(30:34):
your permit problems so you can reopen slaws. You had
to do what you had to do, so you had
over to pick up your next runs. Will return, Yeah,
one day it'll reopen. Have faith, people, so you arrive
outside an expensive sky rise apartment in bucket. Your passenger
steps out of the lobby and walks towards your prius.
She looks statuesque, wealthy. You wonder why she called an
(30:55):
uber and not a private car, but whatever. When she
gets into your car, you marvel at the smell of
her perfume. It smells expensive. I wonder what it is. Yes,
I do too, Okay, I have no idea. I only
know once from like right before Christmas when they have
the like all the commercials. That's how I know what
goes on in the perfume market. White diamonds. Baby, that's right,
(31:19):
you know. I know this does So your passenger she
doesn't talk too much, like at all, so you don't either.
You're like thinking about what you can do. Should slass
out a better wing recipe? You're like trying to, you know,
think about Hey, look it's the grind cultures ar Rise
and grind Elizabeth. So you drive to the airport, but
you don't drive to departures and drop her off like
(31:40):
you would some normal shmow like me. You drive her
all the way round to the side to a little
private section airport called Atlanta Signature airport. Yes. She instructs
you to drive onto the tarmac and to head towards
a private hangar. You're starting to wonder if she's famous,
and you just don't know her because you don't watch TV.
So you're like, well, maybe maybe I don't know who
she is. Whatever. The private hanger you pull in and park.
(32:01):
Before your passenger gets out, she asked you to wait
a minute. You're like, I got an other ride. She's like, no,
I've extended my trip. And you looked at and you
see that she has. You're like, OK, just wait here. Now.
You watch an armored van pull into the private hangar.
Two armed men from a private security company get out.
They walk over to the charter plane parked in the
private hangar. You're like, oh, things are getting into and
(32:22):
your nose so you're loving right. You hear someone say
that the coins have arrived from Boise, like from Boise
and I don't even know what this means. But the
private security then meets two other agents after they step
off the plane and they exchange a locked case. You're like, oh, secrets,
and the private security then walks over to your passenger.
She opens the case and expects the content and then nods,
(32:42):
and it looks then that to be transferred over to
the other security guards. And you're so giddy watching all
this go down. Here is this international organized crime? What
if I watching? So your passenger she returns to the
car and says that she's ready to go now, and
you're like, shall I ask questions? But you don't. You're like,
I'm gonna be professional. You nod. You check the app
for your next destination. She says, okay, yeah, it's a
(33:02):
Randall Mill Road and you know right where that is.
It's all the way back across town in bucket and
you're like, okay, so money's money, money spends, You're gonna drive.
So you driver back across town. Traffic sucks because it's Atlanta.
But eventually you arrive at your destination Randall Mill Road,
and you're like, oh dupe. You pull up the sprawling mansion.
It's sitting atop a lush, green, sloped hill surrounded by woods,
(33:23):
piney woods. This health has to be worth at least
a million dollars to your estimation. Turns out you're wrong.
It's worth four point four million dollars. So your passager
steps out of the car. Thanks, you for the ride,
and you're about to like drive away, but you watch
for a moment and she walks towards a man who
looks to be an architect because he's holding like one
of those blueprint holder cases exactly, And so you're like, well,
(33:43):
maybe he's a foremant. You don't know, so you just
drive away. Right. What you don't know is you just
witnessed the transfer of the profits of the one of
the biggest robberies to ever occur in American to prison. Elizabeth,
you just saw Arthur Cofield managed to gank a billionaire
for eleven million dollars and get ready to buy a house, right, Yeah,
(34:04):
So I'm gonna take a little break, Elizabeth. I'm gonna
cool my jets, and then we're gonna come back and
I'm gonna tell you how this all goes horribly wrong.
Can we listen to some ads? Oh? Yeah, here, let
me hit play. So, since you never asked, I'll just
(34:36):
tell you, Elizabeth, your passenger it was a Liah Bennett. Okay, yeah, alright,
a Liah Bennett. She was house hunting for Arthur Cofield.
She is not Selina Home. She is a different co conspirator.
She meets with the owner of the house, which, by
the way, was not for sale. It was a new
home that had been constructed by an architect, the one
you saw in co Field. For whatever reason, don't ask
(34:58):
me how he saw this house. He wan at it.
So he made an offer on a house that wasn't
for sale. He went higher than market value. He offers
four point four million, and of course, it being capitalism,
the owner is like, I go, I gotta sell. So
he decides to sell. He can't turn down. He gets
seven dollars as a down payment in cash, and he's like,
all right, give me the remainder and the house is yours.
(35:20):
Now you're you're you're with me. You gotta think something
is hanky if you're gonna get somebody to offer you
a house, offer you money on house that's not for sale,
and then go, I'll give you cash on that. And
they show up their first from the three quarters of
million dollars and you're like here and by the way,
they showed up with literal duffel bags of cash. They
paid the owner in a duffel bags, like multiple duffel
(35:41):
bags of cash. Goes down, house gets purchased. The billionaire
is still none the wiser. His money is now being
completely transferred and has now been turned into a multimillion
dollar home in Atlanta. Doesn't know. It's like skimming cream
from the Milia. This guy has no chance exactly exactly,
but Arthur Cooke Jr. His good fortune is about to
(36:02):
turn sour, like say milk. Yeah, well, otherwise we wouldn't
be talking about, you know, the deal. The fun thing
to focus on this story, at least for me, is
all the people that took to pull off this scam. Yeah,
I'm constantly blown away, not just the Charles Schwab Reppy
have to sweet talk, but the co conspirators, all the paperwork,
the metal dealers in Boise, Idaho, the security yards, you're
(36:24):
you the driver. Well, it's kind of like the ultimate
where there's a will, there's a way, Like you're not
going to stop this dude because he's working from inside
prison and he's able to pull off. And where there's
a billionaire, there's always going to be a bunch of
people who are like, I know, this is some stupid
stuff I'm hearing, but I guess this is what they do.
So it was really a great mark. I mean, if
you want to like, excuse odd behavior. Tell people you're
(36:48):
a billionaire, I guess. Anyway, back to its summer, the
world mired in a pandemic cope is moving fast. So
is Arthur Cofield. Right now, he secured himself his mansion.
He's about to be released from prison. It's all needs
to do is to just you know, make it through
a couple more months. I mean, at this point, he's
in a maximum security prison and he's got an architect
on his payroll. He's paying that architect to make changes
(37:09):
to the home. The architect calls him Archie. The architects like, oh, yeah,
he's Mike dude. Right. So the architect was the one
who originally designed and built the home. And so then
when he gets sold, he's like, yeah, let me can
we connect with that guy? And so then he's like, yeah,
you built a home, here's what I want. And so
he's talking to Archie on the phone. The guy's name
is Scott West, and Scott West is like and I quote,
the whole thing was weird. He disappeared for a couple
(37:32):
of weeks and calm me and say sorry, I was
in Mexico. Blah blah blah. So he's writing off, everything
is weird. He's like, yeah, this is how billionairess like,
it's weird, but I've got money in my pocket from it.
Exactly that it really offers the one excuse he needed.
The owner of the house is this dude, Michael Zambilas.
And Zambilas he said that when Archie A k Arthur
(37:53):
k field a ka Yeap Lavish, we contacted him, you know,
and I told you the house wasn't for sale, but
he just couldn't say no to all that money. He's like,
I gotta give it to him. The reason why he
believed that the money was legit is Yapp Lavish told
him that he was a music scout and that he
worked with emerging artists, upcoming rappers, and that he'd also
invested in bitcoin. Oh god, exactly, it's like a trifecta.
(38:16):
So that but this is enough to be believable for
his MBS. He's like, oh, yeah, of course, I mean
this is so investing in bitcoin at that time was like, oh,
this person is rich and smart. It's not like, oh,
this person is stubborn and committed to being a bitcoin holder,
which is what we would think now. So the rappers
in the bitcoins cover story works well enough that nobody
questions co Field or his money in Duffel bags. I mean,
(38:38):
it's it's Atlanta, after all, was heep in mind? Where
we are? It's not there, But there are plenty of
young bitcoin millionaires in Atlanta and plenty of up and
coming rappers to make this seem legit, is what I'm saying.
It's not that you know, Yes, cash deals, though, should
always be a suspicion. So the whole criminal enterprise, it's light,
it's flexible, it's moving, it's operating, it's working inside and outside.
(39:01):
Everything is going great. But there's one problem because while
he's working on this inside and outside, his whole criminal
plan is it has this one aspect, which is it
is really vulnerable to sudden exposure. It's like a soup
lake and it's kind of fall if anybody learns anything
about it. And one day Cofield's bad luck drops right
into his lap and he was like, oh, the day
(39:22):
is June, and the prison guards decided to just do
a surprise inspection of the whole prison right and so boom,
co Field is found with two cell phones. One of
the phones is just sitting on his desk and he's
got a dusk in his cell, so it's just sitting
out on the desk. The other one was hidden in
his armpits, so they had to like find it, and
so he's got these contraband phones. They hand him over
(39:45):
to the prison forensics, those guys that don't doesn't take
him long examine the phones. They were like, cursory check
reveals this plot to buy a mansion, and so they're like,
you're gonna need to check more on this phone. So
they start going diving deeper and they discover co Field's
whole message history, all the d M s and whatever
text messages he sent, all call logs, the whole bit,
(40:05):
and they find all of the evidence they need to
keep him in prison for another fifteen years. Like, yeah,
he's basically caught dead to right now. Personally, I'm kind
of curious what caused this sudden inspection. I mean, like,
did he piss off the prison guards, did he cross
the wrong person in prison? Was it a power play
between gangs? Because this just seems like a really weird,
(40:26):
suspicious and suddenly the phone will the above. Yeah totally
also could just be dumb luck. I mean, I really dumb,
but I still think it was a CEO anyway. So
the inmates who are smuggling in contraband, you know, usually
we're told like, oh, it's spines of books, like you're told,
or like in movies it's like the bodily orifices. But
you know, or you know the news story say oh
Drone flew it in. But as I pointed out, it's
(40:48):
mostly the correctional officers. And from what I've read, this
is known by the prison industry. Yeah, so Adam Myers,
this expert dip guy, he uh, he studies things for
a site called prison Ology, and it's it's it's a
firm and they made up a retired prison warden's prison
executives and so forth, and so they have an insider's
view of this. They know what is how this is
going down. And he said, and I quote, this is
(41:09):
a pretty widespread problem, and it really comes down to
guards not being paid enough because it's a big amount
of money that's hard to turn away from when they
smuggle the phones in. So, you know, just like John Lennon,
Cofield needed a little help from his friends, and the
prison guards were only too happy to offer it right.
So that's that's my thought. I once, I don't know.
I'm not necessarily saying it was guaranteed. But how else
is he going to get this phone and contact with
(41:30):
Charles Schwab. No, Elizabeth, I know you, so, I know
you're probably wondering, You're a little worried. What about Sidney Kimmel?
Did anything? Did he find out? Did he know he
got robbed? Did he lose get his money back? You
don't care, well the money, the money was returned to him.
He got his eleven million dollars back. Because Charles Schwab,
when they found out what they had done, they needed
(41:52):
to make sure that none of their other investors would
hear about this, and and hear about it in some
glaring negative time hearing about it. Yeah, Jos Schwab was
in a quote. Schwab was aware of suspected of fraudulent activity.
We launched an investigation, initiated measures to protect the client's account,
and notified the authorities. As you can appreciate, this is
an ongoing investigation and as such we cannot comment further.
(42:15):
They took the approach were handling this. Don't you worry?
So now to ensure all their other investors. They say
all this, but people still can't figure out. I can't
figure out. The Feds can't figure out how did Kochfield
find all the information that he needed to access this
billionaire's account? And you know that's the great mystery that
I have no answers for you. But we found our answer.
We think it's the CEO is how they got the
(42:36):
the co conspirator. Yeah, but once again, I'm just speculating
that they're in the house staff. If they're not, who
is that anyway? You know how some kids are murder
with a computer. This dude was like straight up doing
like I don't know, gang land activities with a flip
phone in prison. And that's just so impressive to me. Anyway,
his Blackhead dream home, it's still sitting there, empty, unsold. Yeah,
(42:57):
it's quickly depreciating in value. It's right now it's no
longer worth four point four million of the original asking
price that he paid. It's not worth about three point
five And people are suing to try to like manage
it because the house will quickly turn into a wasted Yeah.
So one last thing about contraband phones, Elizabeth. Now, as
we've gone over prison guards are probably responsible for most
of them, right, And this also allows prisons to have
(43:20):
a reason to roust prisoners and to search their cells.
And it also allows them to kind of give like
a little uh black market pay to their prison guards
so they don't have to do pay increases. But I
don't want it to sound like these contraband phones are
all negative. I was just going to say that I
think it's important that we make a distinction that some
contraband phones are used for crimes and some are used
(43:40):
look like, well the journalists carry blanket. I'm not sure
if you know. Okay, great writer Great Journalists has written
a lot about this, and she makes the point that
smuggled in phones are also how whistleblowers are able to
report on the prison document excesses of the bad behavior
inside the detention facilities. Also, some inmates have been known
to self published books. They've been known to take college
(44:00):
classes on smuggled phones. They also contact prison reform advocates
their family members when they're having a crisis. It's it's
really often a lifeline. It's a form of communication, of
a connection education. It's so much more than just when
there are poor conditions and the outside world doesn't know
about it, um, And we've seen that multiple times. And
then you know, you look at the fact that the
(44:22):
absolute robbery of how much they charge for phone calls.
California's best really can't charge him exactly, and it should
be blanket nationwide because you know, I don't understand, well
I do understand, but I just it's disgusting to me
how much they skewer these guys. They're doing their time,
(44:44):
and I think that you know, they're paying things back
in a multitude of ways, and part of prisons rehabilitation. Yeah,
but like there's the whole I think it's part of
the dehumanization that is that is in our prison you
know industrial complex that you know, you reduce these guy
is they don't have a name, they're a number, um.
And then you take it away where you don't get
(45:04):
the like satisfaction of being able to talk to your
family without some pain inflicted monetarily. Um. We need to
talk to people. We need to talk to our family.
And like you're saying, if you want to rehabilitate someone
like you have to let them have a support and
reconnect to the world outside. This should be part of
the plan I think it's just important, an important point
to make, which is that smuggled cell phones save lives.
(45:26):
That's essentially what I want. Arthur Cofield, he's one example,
but he's not a good example of all that you
would find in prison. So cadger band phones keep rolling. Basically,
there's just never one side to the story exactly. Yeah,
for every for every uh that what's his name again,
Arthur yapp Lavish yapp Lavish. You know there's someone who's
(45:49):
actually like just trying to be a human being surviving,
and we have to be able to consider them and
not just be hung up on oh drone smuggling phones
in so yeap Lavish can order that his hits and
billionaires anyway, what's a ridiculous take. I think you're right.
There were no heroes, no anti heroes. It's just a
bunch of well I mean, like, I guess the billionaire
(46:09):
isn't so bad. I mean he's just sitting on too
much money, but like you know, he didn't do anything. Yeah,
but like man, these you know, I always I think
we're probably the most criminal friendly podcasts. We're definitely not
like copagandas UM and I like to kind of find
(46:29):
the humanity and people and give people the benefit of
the doubt. And we've said it before that you know,
most of the people that we talk about are just
like they've made a series of bad decisions. And you know,
because we don't talk about murder, we're talking about mostly
financial crimes or other kind of ridiculous things. Um, you
can find you can find a little redeeming quality for
(46:52):
most of these people. Um, except for like the ones
who are really cruel about it. The woman who scammed
the town out of all the what was Rita saw?
She was terrible. This guy is terrible. So I think
it's interesting when we stumble across the people that's really
hard to to you know, find it a sweet spot, yes,
or anyone to root for. Yeah, but I'm also you know,
(47:13):
you know, my ridiculous takeaway. Once again, thank you for
asking Elizabeth welcome is the worth time family being able
to write off two and a quarter million dollars like, well,
that's just a learning experience whatever to anyway, thank you
for listening. That's all I got for you. Thank you. Well.
You can find us online a ridiculous crime on both
(47:33):
Twitter and Instagram. Twitter. That's where we dropped the words Instagram,
we dropped the pictures. We got you know, hype for
episodes on both and also you can reach out to
us if you would like. Email us at Ridiculous Crime
at gmail dot com. You've got a story, idea, a
family confession, a personal confession. Hit us up. We love Dan.
Thanks for listening. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton,
(47:59):
end Aaron Burnett, produced and edited by Atlanta's pre eminent
producer for up and coming gift rappers, Dave Coustin. Researches
by Marissa Young, Loco Brown, and Andrea Hotlan. Bling is
my favorite song, Sharp and Tire. Our theme song is
by Thomas laars Lee and Travis The Real Girl. Dutton
Executive producers are Ben Hell Bolden and Noel high Water Brown.
(48:24):
We Die Say It One More Time. We Dequius Crew.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeart Radio. Four more
podcasts to my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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