Scam compounds, sewing patterns and stolen dimes

0:00Big announcement, Planet Money is writing a book. It's been in production for over a year. And today, finally, it's available for pre-order at planetmoneybook.com. It's called Planet Money, A Guide to the Economic Forces that Shape Your Life. It has brand new stories, updates on some favorites, and beautiful illustrations. Almost everybody on the team helped make it. We think it's like the best of Planet Money turned into something you can hold or give to a friend. Each section is a little collection of stories that help you use economics to make life a little richer, from work and career, to dating and family, to retirement and food.

0:44And of course, we'll be doing some episodes about the behind-the-scenes things we learned, like this. Pre-ordering a book helps the author so much more than waiting to buy it, because this sends a signal to the booksellers to stock up, to promote it, put it on that front table when it publishes. So help us get those strong pre-order sales. By pre-ordering, you'll get a free gift and a month of Planet Money Plus if you aren't already a subscriber. Go to planetmoneybook.com. That's planetmoneybook.com. Thank you.

1:21NPR.

1:32This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. I'm Darian Woods. And I'm Adrian Ma. And we're all here to welcome you to our final installment of our week-long Vice series, where we've been exploring the evolving business of crime. And today, we are talking about our favorite pieces of true crime content with a little econ twist. Yeah, true crime is a super hot industry. A recent study found 84 % of the U.S. population ages 13 and up consume some form of true crime content. Obviously, we know it's big in podcasts. We've got cereal, my favorite murder, criminal. So we're going to have a freewheeling discussion going through each of our favorite pieces of true crime content.

2:15We'll bring you an economic lesson from it.

2:21This message comes from Vanguard. Capturing value in the bond market is not easy. That's why Vanguard offers a suite of over 80 institutional quality bond funds, actively managed by a 200-person global team of sector specialists, analysts, and traders. They're designed for financial advisors looking to give their clients consistent results year in and year out. See the record at Vanguard.com slash audio. That's Vanguard.com slash audio. All investing is subject to risk. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor. This message comes from Dell Technologies. Your new Dell PC with Intel Core Ultra helps you handle a lot when your holiday to-dos get to be a lot.

3:06Luckily, the Dell PC helps you get it all done. Get yours at dell.com slash holiday. This message comes from Capital One with the Capital One Saver Card. Earn unlimited 3 % cash back on dining and entertainment. Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. Details at CapitalOne.com. Darian, you want to start us off? Yeah, so my favorite true crime series that I've listened to recently is one called Scam Inc. It's a podcast series by The Economist magazine. And this one goes really deep into pig butchering. You've probably heard about pig butchering elsewhere. Yeah, I've heard of this. It's basically a long-term scam.

3:48Yeah, so instead of having just a single email saying, give me your money, it's like an ongoing relationship. And maybe it's a long-term business partner or a long-distance relationship from somebody you found on a dating website. And then eventually the call for money happens. Yeah, you know, I get these texts almost once a day. It'll be from an unfamiliar number and it'll just say, hello, how are you doing? And I think that's the beginning of one of these scams, right, to draw me into a bigger conversation. So I'm the pig in this scenario. If you reply to that, you are the pig or the piglet waiting to be fattened up.

4:25Oh, dear. Yeah. So this is why they call it pig butchering, right? Because they're sort of trying to fatten up their targets before they drop the axe. Exactly. And what this podcast showed me was this whole infrastructure underlying pig butchering. It is global. It is really confusing who the bad people are, because actually the other people on the line are victims themselves a lot of the time. So the podcast had interviews of people who had been promised well-paying call center jobs. They flew into Thailand from places like the Philippines or Uganda, and a driver picked them up from the airport.

5:01They're driven for hours and hours and hours until they pass the border with Myanmar. And they're escorted by people with guns. Their passports are taken away. They're threatened with physical punishments if they don't meet quotas for who they scam. There's division of labor, just like we see in aboveboard businesses. So somebody will be a specialist in setting up profiles. Others will do the initial chat to people. And overall... So it really is sort of like a, almost like a corporate structure to this scam operation. Yeah, it's made me appreciate just how much of an uphill battle this fight against scammers is for law enforcement all around the world.

5:39I'm going to have to put that on my listen list. Waylon, do you want to go next? Yes, I will say mine is much lighter and lower stakes. Great. Though no less full of learning. Are you guys familiar with the site Ravelry? Nope. It's an online community for knitters and crocheters. And it's also been the site of many a drama. And they're very good at like ferreting out, I would say, bad behavior within their own community. You could argue they're not sticking to their knitting. I dare you to make that joke in there. We've got sharp objects. I'm defenseless. So in 2017, there's a little discussion brewing on Ravelry.

6:23There are people who have created knitting patterns. So this is when you design, let's say, a shawl or a pair of socks or something and you put up the instructions. And people who have created these patterns notice that there is a business based in my town that is using their patterns without permission. This business was selling memberships to like a monthly fiber arts club where you would be emailed these patterns, right? And so it turns out that this business was taking patterns from people without compensating them. And so, yeah, the original creators then found out and then the sleuths on Ravelry pieced together this huge Excel spreadsheet of over 100 designers who had their patterns kind of co-opted by this business.

7:10and the whole thing came tumbling down. They raised a huge stink about it. There seems to have been some kind of mediation process with the Illinois Attorney General. There were complaints filed. The business was eventually shut down. I am seeing a legal issue here of copyright infringement. Yes, that is exactly right. And what's so interesting to me is that, you know, knitting patterns are not explicitly mentioned in copyright law. I don't think they've historically risen to the level where there would be kind of like a huge body of, I guess, like jurisprudence around this kind of stuff. Also, I know that clothes are not copyrightable as well.

7:48Right. Clothes are not copyrightable. So this is like one of those kind of mind-bending things, right, where a knitting pattern can be considered a work of visual art if there's like a picture or a graphic attached to it. But the clothing you make from that knitting pattern, the scarf, pair of socks, that's not copyrightable. And so clothing is a very funny area of copyright law. And then if you did what this local business did, which is not compensate the original creator of these knitting patterns, that can be a problem. Don't mess with the knitting nerds, I guess is the lesson of this story.

8:21No, absolutely not. I mean, there's like more stories from Ravelry I could tell you too, but I'll save that for a different episode. Well, Adrian, we come to you. Your favorite true crime podcast movie newspaper article. My favorite piece of true crime dates back to April 2023. A large truck is pulling away from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. It's carrying very valuable cargo. The truck is headed for Miami. But along the way, the driver decides to stop for the night and pulls into a Walmart parking lot. Overnight, a group of people break into this truck. They swing open the doors, and what do they find?

9:05High-end Danish furniture. They find... The Declaration of Independence? That would also be good. But in fact, they found$750 ,000 worth of dimes. Oh! 7.5 million dimes. That's so many dimes. I bet they were both equally excited and disappointed at the same time. They tried to make lemonade out of lemons and they started loading these dimes into bags and trash cans and then made off with them. Think about just the amount that that many dimes would weigh. Apparently, the amount of dimes they made off with was about$234 ,000 worth, which is about six tons of dimes. And they just roll it away in trash cans?

9:54I think some of it ended up in like cars. And there's actually a photo from a Philadelphia Inquirer article this year, which shows a photo of one of the alleged thieves just lying in the back of a car on top of a pile of dimes, like Scrooge McDuck style. Just loose dimes. So they actually tried to convert these dimes by depositing them in various banks and converting them at those like Coinstar machines. Oh my gosh. Imagine going to the grocery store with a trash can full of dimes. Totally legit. Totally legit. Yeah. So this plan did not end up working out for the alleged burglars because, well, they were caught and they were arrested and they were charged with theft, robbery and conspiracy to commit racketeering.

10:45And here is the sort of the mystery that still lingers from this story, which is a large portion of these dimes, according to the Philly Enquirer, are still unaccounted for. So out there somewhere may be hundreds of thousands of dimes just like waiting to be discovered. All right. I'm buying a metal detector and heading to Philadelphia. This is our new spinoff podcast, The Dime Hunt. The Dime Hunters, get rich or dime trying. That wraps up Vice Week. Thank you, everyone, for your loyal listening. And we will be back to our scheduled programming on Monday. Stay in school and don't commit crimes.

11:24Our series this week on the evolving business of crime was produced by super producer Cooper Katz McKim with engineering by Jimmy Keely. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Cake and Cannon edits the show in the Indicators of Production of NPR.

11:41This message comes from Mint Mobile. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no hidden fees. Plans start at$15 a month. Make the switch at mintmobile.com slash switch. That's mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for a 3-month 5-gigabyte plan required, equivalent to$15 a month. New customer offer for first 3 months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. This message comes from EasyCater, committed to helping organizations order and manage food for all their business needs. With search tools to help accommodate dietary preferences and stay on budget, plus flexible payment by credit card or invoicing.

12:24EasyCater also offers employee lunch programs, tools to see and control food spend, and 24-7 live customer support, all on one platform. Learn more at EasyCater.com. This message comes from Capital One. The Capital One VentureX Business Card earns unlimited double miles on every purchase. Capital One, what's in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at capitalone.com slash VentureX Business.