Episode Transcription

Made by robots for robots. Only read if you’re weird.

Hey, welcome to Things Alone last night. It's an educational comedy podcast where you're gonna learn a lot and laugh a little. Wait, no, you're gonna laugh. You're not gonna learn much. Sure. This week's episode it's about sand Cartel Sandfest. It's the sand Cartel. Yeah, allegedly, allegedly. We love the sand Cartel. We have no person with this. Some theories. There's some beaches that have legitimately just gone missing, the whole beach, all the sand gone. Yeah, and we discussed what happened and when the theory is behind it. Any show's coming up I do this weekend. I am in New Jersey on March fifteenth, so please come hang out. Also next month, April thirteenth, i am in Chicken Cord on Blue, Idaho. However, it's a Quardlaine. April April thirteenth, I'm in Quarterlane, Idaho. Would love it if you'd show up to some shows and come hang out. I've been begging you on this podcast for months and none of you show up. It's very awkward. Shows are just so desperately weird. I'm just on stage being like, so, y'all anyway, it's really bad. So solo. This episode's better, So we're gonna get into that. Hey, many, how's it. What's up? What's going on on this fine day? And we're recording a comedy podcast and educational comedy podcast, little and we learn a lot. Okay, have you heard of the Coral Sands Beach in Jamaica. It sounds like you're about to sell me, sell me a time share. Let's go to you want one? Yeah, all right, So the Coral Sands Beach in Jamaica, like any other beach. It well, there's it's a lot of sand, a lot of water, covers a lot of land, and this particular beach was a popular beach to you know, do beach activity beach. Yeah, but one day in two thousand and eight, group of people show up to the beach to do their beach activities and they find that this beach that they regularly beach at has no sand anymore. All the sand is gone. Okay. There are tire tracks, like big big truck tire tracks like somebody in the middle night drove up with a bunch of like big trucks and took the sand. This this roll, that theme song. Let's get into a baby, where'd you go, sand goes to the other side. I hate going to the beach and sand. I just can't go. Let's get this, it's the worst. Let's get this into a condominium. Chocolate goes on a pillow. Things I learned last night. They estimate that five hundred truckloads of sand were nabbed from this beach in the middle of the night. Five hundred, five hundred truckloads. And we're not talking pickup truck like, we're talking dump truckloads. We know, we know. Was the resolution of this or is this like a mystery? This is okay, this is a cold case. This is a cold cut combat. No way, this is a cold case. This is a cold Can we start a true crime podcast about it? What date? What night was this? What day happened? I can tell you. I can tell you that this is uh what was the exact date? I don't know for sure. If this is something we should start a true cry podcast. Dude, you're being so cryptic right now, but let's let's do it. Let's do it. So so, obviously all the sand disappeared, which is pretty crazy. This doesn't just happen, and so local officials started digging into it. They you're right. Sorry, So they started research and trying to I don't know, detecting. They started trying to detect. Well, there wasn't anything to take crime. Definitely subcribe happened. Now they started, They went out there and they tried to figure out what happened. Because it's Jamaica, it's an island nation. It's not like you can drive all this. Yeah, there's you would assume overnight five hundred runs of sand disappear. You can probably figure out where it went pretty quickly. Like, it's not like they got that far that fast. But uh, they didn't figure it out. There is a couple leading theories here. We're gonna dig into these real quick. I keep saying dig in. We're gonna, We're gonna. I don't know, we're gonna we can't dig there's no sand. Here's a leading theory. There was illustrated theories. This is all that happened. There's no other information about what happened. Well, hold on, there's more to this, but we'll start. We'll start here, Okay. So they they started. There was a new resort being built on the other side of Coral Sands Beach that was going to be a beachfront resort, and the advertising and marketing was like a white sand beach and the beach that they were at was a good beach, but it wasn't a white sand beach. And so investigators started coming over there after this case and investigating the sand. What are you doing but asking the beach worms where they came from? Wide worm? Okay, they were trying. They was looking at the sand, like, do we think this was here before this sander? Was this that sand? Well? I mean, golly dude, sure, all right, So they start they started trying to study the stand to see if they can choose to steal in sand. How much was left on my beach towel and in my swim suit. So they they were trying to study the sand to figure out that this sanders their sand or the other sand the missing sand, and the how far away is it? It's on the other side of the island, like it's it's nearby. It's nearby, but it's not like it's not far. Nothing here is far right right, But I just know if you if you knew a kilometers know kilometers, but I do know it's close. The The what's suspect though, is this hotel had employed a group of beach boys. Is that what you call them? Yeah, that's what they were called. The people put them brothers out there. Beach boys, right, Oh, is that what they're called? I was thinking of the band. No, they did not either, the beach We stole your sad, Yeah, we took your Okay, that's my least favorite Christmas song of all time of all time, which is the Beach Boys. Uh uh, Mary Marry Christmas. That was Beach Boys, isn't it? The Beach Boys? Beach Boys Christmas? It's the right they got the little Saint Nick, Little Saint Nick, that sort of thing. I guess I didn't realize that was the beach Boys. Okay, an one. How old are the beach I don't know, one hundred. So they're singing right, Oh, this came out in nineteen sixty four. Okay, listen, okay, okay, sorry sorry sorry, the baritone voice, yeah, little yeah, little sat Nick and right, and then every time of the chorus comes, he goes Christmas comes this time each year. That's his whole contribution during the chorus. And it's like they were all like, let's rune a Christmas song and he was like yeah, And they got in the studio and they're righting. They're like in the same everybody's and they're like, like, what do you want to add? He goes, Christmas comes this time each year, and they're like, I guess that's factual. It does happen to come this time each year every December is Christmas. Christmas comes this time each year. You'll never listen to the song on the same way. I have to skip it. I'm so serious, dude, because you know why. It's because that's the part that gets stuck in my head, probably doing thees and I was saying, there, Christmas comes this time each I don't remember what Christmas comes is time each year? Lower Christmas comes this time each year? Where is miss I was trying, Christmas comes this time each year? Underwater? That's a beach boy right there. That's a beach boy. The beach boys were out in the middle of the night raking the sand. Where'd you say, saying goes to the other side. Yeah, that's what we're doing. But saying goes to the other side, I quit quit SA And you're saying that's so low. Okay, So they're they're raking the sand over. The boys are out there doing their jobs. Yeah, they're raking the sand, but it's in the middle of the night. It's a little suspect that they're out there like one of those gonna do during the day. The resorters are out there. I mean that. I don't know if you've ever been you've only been on like a road. Yeah. Yeah, but when you get to resort level, you'll notice a nighttime that the most of the stuff happens. Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen that. Yeah, they clean your room at night. They come in. They're wearing all black, tiptoeing around. They got gloves on and everything. They're in their socks. They turned on the vacuum. With the vacuum is also quiet. Chocolate goes on the pillow. They're like, what are you doing jockling? No, no, not lower your voice. Lower your voice. So it's stupid. Hey, thanks for being part of this episode. If you want to help us do more of this, you want to help us grow our show, one of the easiest and best ways to do that is to join our Patreon. It's a way for your financial to support the show and you get a lot in return. You get access to our discord channel. You get bonus content that comes out, you get exclusive merchandise, and like live Zoom hangouts where we're both just hanging out eating pizza, just getting to know each other. The biggest thing is is we want to know you more as an individual and as a friend. So thanks for supporting our show. If you don't support us financially, we're not pressed about it. We're not like mad, but I'll find you. So text till in the six six eight six six to keep yourself from being found, all right, because if you don't, I will want you down. So, yeah, they're out there. It looks like they stole the sand. It looks like they stole the sand, but there was not enough. You wouldn't take care of say it if it wasn't stolen, Yeah, you wouldn't steal a movie. They it looked like they were doing it, but they couldn't find any like real concrete evidence to point it towards them, and so they never got charged and the case kind of got put away as like a cold case, and it's been a cold case to this day. Here's what's crazy. A year earlier, in two thousand and seven, and Hungry Off the Tazizza River. It sounds there was a resort that had an artificial beach because the river they don't have actual oceans there, so they made a river beach and in the middle of the night, river beach, in the middle of the night, four hundred truckloads of sand. It was taken from this beach, and again nobody knows where the sand went. Similar story. They came. They tried to investigate, They tried to figure out what happened. They thought another resort down the river. They thought maybe there's a Yeah, they thought maybe another resort somewhere did this, but again there's not This isn't a beach area, like they're all artificial. So that was a little bit easier to kind of debunk that theory that it was it was a local, out't know resort stealing other resorts stuff. Sure, and so what's interesting sand heists, Yeah, and their entire beaches. That's what's crazy is it's not just like a couple of buckets like overnight. They're stealing the beach, which is pretty absurd, okay, and it's it's global. This is happening in beaches around the world with regularity. No, yes, how often this is we have record of this. These are probably the two most famous events, but we have record of this happening also in China, Greece, India, Mexico, Singapore, South Africa. Beaches in the middle of the night, just up and vanishing. Okay, and so ninety nine beaches. What are you You're trying to set up a joker. I was trying to get to one, but never mine. You can take that. I was trying to go we have ninety nine problems, but this beach ain't one. Oh my gosh. You know we were arguing before this about lizards. Oh yeah, I do think that you are one. No, what was your point? Oh you just want to get back into it like that. I just want to get back in I can't focus. I think it's weird that you adopted a lizard, all right, yes, and tried to raise it as a human being. I think that's weird, and you're you're going to bring up on the podcast. I'm want to argue about it, and I'm like, hey man, the school is something that I wanted to bring up in front of everybody. But you have a komodo dragon at your house that you're like, You're like Ah, it's like eating. You ate your neighbor's dog. It's only what they do. You thought it was weird. Do you think it's weird to adopt a pet from a shelter? Where did you get this lizard? Well, we didn't even know it was a friend. A friend didn't want it anymore. And how old is your lizard? Seven? Now? Yeah, we adopted it when it was three? Okay, it that's pretty telling. So she is seven, her name is Lexi, and you felt weird changing Lexi's name. Yeah, it just didn't feel right because I got to be honest. Yeah, the name Lexi for a lizard. It's just too too illiterate. A literate by alliteration, Yeah, not a literate like I can't read. It's too I can't freaking read. I hate that I have to. Why did you change the name? It just felt wrong. She was three years old? Three years old to just change the name. Sure, that's not it's not weird at all. Yeah, it's I told you. It's like it's like changing adopting a child and change the child's name. Yeah. See this is where you're stupid, dude. No, it's not. No, it's not the same at all you're okay, because well, first of all, you're about to say something bad. No no no no no no no no no. Well, I mean when you were about the child, you changed their name. That's what I'm saying. Like that happens, that happens. Yeah, but if they're if they're younger than three threes, the cutoff, three is the cutoff. I don't know what the cutoff is, but if there, if at three years old, they've been using this for three years, that's two pet Yeah. They don't speak English. They I don't speak any English. I don't understand. I don't understand. No, they don't like they isn't it like the sciences? Then that there they just understand tone a voice, that's what they say. The lizard doesn't understand anything. I can tell you for a fact that her name is. It just felt wrong, I understand. I know. When we adopted Omelet, his name was cold Front. Cold front, like the weather term. I love that. Why that sounds like a like a like a superhero, but not like a real superhero, like someone who's like someone who's pretended to be shown situation or whatever. Yeah. When I adopted Duck, his name was Duck Lenny was just found on the street man, and then you just chose you just choose a name that's different. That's different. That's like, that's the the show can give him shoes, but that's that's a different situation. The you know that analogy. Then let's say, because the show could give him shoes, right, but let's say that this kid shows up with ratty shoes named Lexi. Right, the shoes are named Lexi. You can change the shoes. Yeah, you can change the shoes. Shoes are inanimate objects. Yeah, the animals are animate. In the name animal you called you called her in it earlier. So yeah, because it's a lizard like it just I'm not gonna give her pronouns. What did uh? What did Meredith think about that? Who's Meredith? That's what I call your wife. I changed the name. See see how easy it is. See you just use a different one one. It doesn't care. She is a lizard. Uh, we're all why'd you brought that up the time? We're getting so many views? What are we talking about today? Okay, yeah, you want to talk about these beaches again. So here's a deal. Uh, there looks there's all of the world beaches are going missing. And it's not just beaches, it's it's not just beaches, it's rivers. It's the bottom of rivers. And I get my beaches down in Georgia and and that was a good joke, I respected. I get my beaches down in george And there is a there is a new cartel for me, for sand called the Sandman. I don't know if they got a name, but we do know that they appear to be violent. There are there are some journal lists that who beencaladors the story where they've been looking, they've been looking to figure this out, and they've they've found some connections in Jamaica where this two thousand and eight case happened. And when they call and they ask about, uh, Coral Sands, Coral Sands was that name? Coral Sands Beach, carl Sands Beach, they they get met with hostility. Yeah, it's it's like we don't talk about them, or they get they hang up, or they say can tell you, yeah, yeah, it's like it's like you bring up the mafia, Like like these people are like, yeah, we don't talk about that, we're not we're not going to talk about that. And then they they back off. Particularly. What's interesting is in India this has become such a known thing that they have a word for it now, which there's so many beaches getting stolen in India. Yeah, well in India is not just beaches, it's like river beds, like it's anywhere where there's sand, and it really is just sand getting stolen. The term that they've come up with is monarchal i monarchal i okay, which I think means beach mafia, sand mafia something like that, because these people, this organization has been formed and it looks like it all ties back to India, but we don't know this for sure. That has started just taking sand to sell it obviously, but what's weird. But what's weird is we cannot trace it because there's no like normally when there's like this like undergroundstage. I mean, if you have a sand if you have a beach with no sand, you got to buy more sand from somebody. Well, here's what's interesting. There is no clear like normally when you have like black market goods and there's a black market for it. Sure you can find off on the dark web or like these these silk road situations of like here's how all this product is getting moved. You can track it, but we cannot find anything like this. And so it's either like what you said, like this sand is held up hostage. Somewhere someone's got all the sand and is holding it hostage. But what's more likely is they figured out how to get this into not the black market, but like the legal sand market, because right now you might remember for what the sand market, well, you might remember from our Glitter episode that sand is in the sand shortage right now. And the sand shortage is due largely to like a massive construction boom going on in particularly Asia, India, China, Malaysia, Singapore. Singapore is doing a lot of like land reclamation in the ocean, but also just general construction because in construction, concrete needs sand mixed into it, right, and sand is just a resource, and it's gotten to the point over the last thirty forty years, sand has become the second most used resource in the world, second only to water. And there's not really yeah, and there's not a lot of good sand. There are a lot of dunes of it. Well, that's what people say. They're like, why don't we just use desert because it's one of the largest buyers of legal sand in the world is Saudi Arabia, and it's like that doesn't make sense. They've got a lot of desert, but desert sand apparently is not good sand wise. They just want to keep what they want a hold on their sand. They go, oh, yeah, it's desert sand. It's no good. That it's no good. It's not good sand. Well, I mean like they've got all of it. You know, they're Saudi Arabia. Well, here's the thing, my camel poops in. I want different sand. Yeah, that's it's important for that. It's like a litterbox sandy. They they the sand in deserts as something about its makeup, like it's too course or something. You can't make concrete with it. You need beach sand or river sand to make concrete because it's too dry. I guess, yeah, I wish I would think you get a wet Maybe it's different. I'm assuming it came from the sand. I guess I assume sand is sand, but maybe we're wrong. No, it's different. I mean, you know, like you go to a beach on the East coast versus the West coast. It's different, true, or like the golf, golf beaches different. They're different and like even like like rivers, different sand in there, bad sand rivers, some bads. Okay, hey, May eighteenth, we're doing another till and live at several dollars City in Branson, Missouri. I would really love to see you there. Tickets are available right now at the description of wherever you're listening or watching, there's a ticket link. Your ticket gets you entry to the live show, but it also gets you access to the park for the entire day, so you can come in that morning, enjoy the theme park all day, and then that night we're shutting down the park with our show. So we can't wait to hang out with you. Please get those fast. We'll see you May eighteenth in Branson, Missouri. And so something about it, I don't know like the science behind it, but something about the desert sand is it's not usable for constructions and especially not usable for the land reclamation projects. Okay, And what's happening right now is China alone, in the last ten years has used more concrete than the United States used in the entire twentieth century. So they're building a lot of stuff. And it's not just them. Every country in the world's building a lot of stuff right now, but they're building the most and so concrete is moving at a ridiculously rapid pace. And the storyline that looks like what's happening is that there is not enough of this out there in the white market, or or what's just as likely is that it's pretty easy to sell this white back into the white market, but to do it without having like a legal sand mine operation, and so you just go get it yourself wherever you can get it, and then you can sell it. And so what's most likely the case is that in two thousand and eight this beach got robbed and loaded onto some ship and now is a part of our streets and our buildings because it just got put into some home depot sand that someone bought to mix into their concrete and is now also the Coral Sands beach is sitting underneath my dad's leveled outdoor pool. Maybe it might be well, it could be in that hotel. It could be that hotel's beach. It could be it could be your dad's patio. Those are the two theories, those are the two most likely possibilities. Because here's the thing, But I mean, how do you even trade, you know, like ah, and there's such a shortage, there's such a shortage that they've resorted the what was that word that I said, really well, monarch coli monarchically. This this cartel in India, this is the most infamous one that we know for a fact, is in operation in India. They have groups of people that they have diving to the bottom of rivers to retrieve sand. So we've got actually a shot of this group. So they go out in this boat, uh, and they dive and they bucket up a whole bunch of it and load the boat up, which I cannot believe that boat floats, Yeah, and then I mean it barely, yeah, and it's it's this is an incredibly dangerous thing, Like people drown all the time trying to get this sand out of here. And we do have record of this group in India that does this. They have killed law enforcement officials, they've killed informants, they've killed uh, publicists and journalists. Uh. Like it's over saying it's a mafia, Like it's a legitimate mafia, and people locals are afraid of them, like the mafia and their drug that they're running is sand. And it's all because countries all over the world are building too much stuff and there's not enough sand to build what they're building, which is wild because we have solutions to make concrete without sand. Now, like we figured this out because it's not bad, it's obviously not good for the ecosystem. Right, Beaches are sandless and rivers have no bottom like that the one in Hungary. When the beach was taken from that, it had like these massive like ecological effects because that water wasn't being filtered through the sand. Yeah, exactly, and so it has all these these negative effects. So economists, that's not right. That's money. Ecologists is the word ecologists. I think that's right. Sure, Ecologists like you are up in our US about it. And India, whenever the Indian mafia hears about them, they kill them. They kill them for raising the red flags about it. And why okay with it? I love you know what My favorite thing is. I hate going to the beach and sand. I just can't go. Let's get this it's the worst. Let's get this into a condominium. This would be a whole lot better if it was in the city and I couldn't tell it was sand. I'm walking on sand. Yeah, lower this buildings made out of sand. So they hears what's wild though, So they're literally building sand castles. Here's here's what's crazy, dude. They because we're burning so much of it, both through like the legal like sand mining industry and also through this cartel that's just ripping beaches out just overnight. Uh. There is a serious concern that by the the end of like the two thousands, by like twenty one hundred, we might not have beaches anymore because we are burning through so much sand that we're going to have to start taking like every beach, and beaches are going to become like a luxury, serious luxury, because they're going to be so rare because we're But then what happens, because then like we're out of We're out of We're out of it. We have no more. We haven't we get we got to build. I mean, we have alternatives. But it's it's a sketchy situation. And these people are stealing full of freaking beaches. Which date do they do this all the time? And seven date on it? Eight? Let me, I mean, I'm sure there's an actual date. I don't know the day I just know it's in Jamaica. In two thousand and eight, everything just says oh no. July twenty, two thousand and eight. On July twentieth, two thousand and eight, in the middle of the night, sand thieves encroached on Coral Sand Beach and turned it into Coral Beach, to the dismay of local onlookers. The next morning, the beach was sparse, naked, afraid. This season, we explore and attempt to take down the alleged cartel that is stealing beaches across the world. Please join us for our eight episode series Footprints in the Sand, their trucks, the tagline truck tire, tire marks in the sand, tire prints, tire prints in the sand. You see those tire tracks. That's where I carried it. Jesus stole this. That's where God took our sins and our sands. He's preparing a place for us with white sand beaches. I came to take the sands of the world. We came to take the sin of the world. It was a misplat's asper. The guy didn't speak English. I don't know what you're saying with J. R. R. Tolkien didn't know how to write sands, and he wrote sins. Jesus came and he stole our sand and we let him. We just let him take it. They say that that that one, that one beach, the Coral Sands million dollars with the sand was taken. So what do they do do they they? No, it's just a broken like it's just this. What does it look like? Now? It looks like that that picture I showed you. It's like all these rocks and like it looks like have you ever got what it looks like to this day? Yeah, have you ever gone to a bad beach? That's what it looks like. So the the other picture you have was the day of Yeah, we got the tire trucks in there. This is what it looked like after the sand was taken. Yeah, this is well, this is just another angle. So like different areas of the beach, Like there's areas that have more sand than other areas, and so like you could flatten out some of this and maybe salvage a beach, but there's areas where like they took it down to the rock and like it's not you don't have a beach there, Like that's a this this is kind of like a lake beach is what this looks like? You know, like it's just not good. Yeah, I thought this was like the day of like this is what it looked like, which is also crazy. Yeah, so it's it's it's it's a beachless beach now. And yeah, they shipped off probably made a million dollars off of it, and they're doing the beaches all over the world and home e Bo is complicit. Yeah. Well that's the thing. That's what's tough is like it's so hard to know, like you get sand, like how do you know, like was this sand legal resort did it? And now they're like, guys, it was the cartel. It was the sand cartel. And now they're way too deep. They're so deep, and now they've had to go to other continents in other countries and they're having to repeat the crime Mozark situation where like now now they're taking the operations into the I'm saying they're making it. I'm saying there is no cartel. It's like they have straight up they've taken the sand from one beach, they've moved to the other side, and to avoid getting caught, they went to India so much and they stole some sand because they're like, look, it happened over there too. It happened over there too. Can you believe it? It's like a big underground cartel. What is going around? This is insane. How they know where to find it. It's pretty bonkers that they're like, and it happened to Hungary a year before. Man, it seems pretty sketchy. But like by the end of it, like they they did actually start a card. I mean, like it's still got to be called Coral Sand Beach, right, we can't rename it. It's three years old. Yeah, we can't just give it a new name. Give it a new name. Yeah, if it was two years old, like that's close enough to where like we probably could have just Coral Sand waterfront, you know, it doesn't have to be a beach anymore, but shore, Coral Sand shore. But yeah, now it's just too late. We're in too deep. It's pretty shallow now because all the sand's gone, but you get it. Yeah, we can't do it. So, Yeah, the sand cartels are real thing. They're out there. They are offing people because of it, and they are making millions selling sand to home depot because it's there's laws about this. You can't illegally harvest sand. But it's so hard to like actually justify that. Yeah, it's if you're driving around five hundred truckloads of sand, it's hard to prove where you got it. Like, you can't tell me I took it from the beach. That's missing five hundred truckloads of sand right now that you can't tell. You can't say that that was that is the same sand. All sand is just sad. Where just saying come from. I don't know. I went to the beach with the kids and came back and I just had that much sand. This is what gets everywhere, find in different crevices for like weeks. It's like a freaking oil, like the whole tanker. So much sand just it just sticks to you. Man, I don't know what to tell you. I don't know that. You're not gonna let us go. You're not gonna you sure about that? You sure you're not gonna let us go? Are you sure sure about that? You know who we are? Let's go where the sand boys, Sandy boys, Sandy boys. Yeah, you know, it took me a long time to realize that Sandy Cheeks was a it was a bud joke. It's a joke. It was a booty sand joke. Yeah. Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. If you like this, we got another episode of Are You Sleeping? I was trying to get a quick power in app before your next episode. If you liked this episode, we got an episode about the suburbs. You should check that one out. You can see it in the description. Uh. It's a great episode, all about how cities are built and why they're built the way that they're built. Uh. And more importantly, we're in a hot tub, so you can see a shirtless a couple of years ago before we were in decent shape. So it's a great, great episode to check out. And hey, next week's episode is available right now on our Patreon and you you can become a patron by checking out the link in our description, or you can text Tillin to six six eight sixty six and join. That's a gat opportunity for you to support the show and also get episodes ad free early, join a discord with our host and producers. It's super great. But we'll see you again next week on Tuesday for another episode. Things I Learned last Night