S4E6 - The Scheme (B&B Worm Farm Ponzi)

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Kayla: Journalist Chris Bennett reported a number of other choice quotes about Greg Bradley. Bradley was a smart liar from the get go quote. In the end, there was nothing he didn't lie about. Con men are usually inveterate sociopaths. I believe Greg was a sociopath. Hey, Chris.

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Chris: Hey, Kayla.

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Kayla: Why are you laughing?

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Chris: Because it's the third take, and the first two are funny.

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Kayla: I think you're laughing because we got Covid.

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Chris: Oh, yeah, that's super funny. Our patrons will already know that because the most interesting bonus content went live last night where I talked roughly this monotone about finance, and it was very interesting.

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Kayla: Wow, you're making it sound just so scintillating and riveting.

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Chris: I don't know how to make it sound better.

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Kayla: No. Look, man, we have Covid. At the time of you recording that, only you had Covid.

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Chris: Yeah. And so were isolated.

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Kayla: We were separated. But now I have Covid, too, so we're just in the same room again.

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Chris: Yeah, but the good news is that because were separating, I had to get a substitute host, so I did that.

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Kayla: You did do that.

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Chris: So that's. You know, if you guys are curious about hearing me and a different host.

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Kayla: A special guest host.

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Chris: Special guest host. Yeah. Yeah. Then go check out our Patreon. And I think that despite not having you there to banter, I think I did an I.

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Kayla: You did a good job. I'm sure you did.

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Chris: Also, if you're interested in learning about things like present value of money and good debt versus bad debt, I figured I would like. The whole idea was that I would leverage my own sort of background with finance and business and stuff, because I could talk about that without doing a ton of research. Cause I was busy napping all week.

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Kayla: Yeah. You guys, Covid is no joke. Even we're both triple vaxxed, but hoo.

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Chris: Boy, it kind of blows.

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Kayla: So if we sound a little raggedy on today's episode, that's why we're just pushing through the. And also cause we're raggedy. Speaking of today's episode, considering that we're both pretty under the weather with the pandemic illness, finally, I wanted to do a topic that kind of related to both of those things.

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Chris: Oh, fun.

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Kayla: Yeah. And as I'm saying this, I'm now realizing that we never actually introduced the show.

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Chris: Oh, wow.

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Kayla: This is culture. Just weird.

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Chris: It is.

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Kayla: That's Chris.

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Chris: I'm Chris. I'm a game designer and data scientist in a Covid host.

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Kayla: I'm Kayla. I'm also a Covid host. And a tv writer. I am sorry for my voice.

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Chris: Your voice sounds fine to me. I don't know.

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Kayla: Okay, so like I said, I wanted to do a topic that, like, related to both of those things again, it's a loose relation. Just stick with me. We've talked, obviously, a lot about self care this season and the pandemic at large.

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Chris: We didn't have to do a lot of self care this week.

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Kayla: Yes, we did. Yes, we did. So let's do a self care topic.

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Chris: Yay. Kind of season theme. Kind of.

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Kayla: So when I sat down to think on some of the things that I have personally done to tend to my self care during the pandemic, I mean, there's a lot of things, but I landed again on composting, and I know I've talked about composting on the show before.

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Chris: You have? That was a while ago.

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Kayla: Oh, my God. I miss composting so much.

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Chris: That was like. That was early pandemic.

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Kayla: That was the beginning stages.

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Chris: I miss the lovely beginning stages of the.

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Kayla: I miss it. I miss it. Anyway. It really. Composting helped my mental health greatly during those pre vaccine days. I got to do something productive with our increased output of food waste because were cooking all of our meals and snacks at home, so there was more food waste. It gave me a new skill to learn, and it was something physical and kind of difficult to do with my hands that got me outside. I was able to sharpen my resourcefulness because we didn't have a yard or anything similar, so I had to, like, I was composting in storage tubs, right? We helped support our local bug population. You remember that?

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Chris: I think we helped create a local bug.

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Kayla: Yeah. But all of the bugs. Bubs.

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Chris: Bubs.

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Kayla: All of the bugs of the apartment went just into our composting tub.

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Chris: Oh, did they really?

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Kayla: Yes. Yes.

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Chris: I didn't even realize that.

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Kayla: It was great.

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Chris: Oh, shit. We were like the pied piper of.

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Kayla: Nasty little bugs, and it just felt good. We had to stop when we moved apartments, and I would like to pick it up again someday. And there's another kind of composting that I would like to try someday. A kind of, like, step up, quote unquote from the regular, like, let food decompose in a bucket and then mix it with dirt style of composting that I was doing one day. I would like to try vermicomposting.

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Chris: Vermicompost. I don't like to.

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Kayla: Do you know what that is?

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Chris: I don't like the prefix. You know, I don't care for it because it sounds like vermin.

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Kayla: Okay. So vermicomposting is when you take organic waste and decompose it using worms. Oh, earthworms.

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Chris: Are worms considered vermin?

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Kayla: I don't know.

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Chris: Or is it. I just. There's like, a.

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Kayla: They're vermi.

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Chris: They're vermin.

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Kayla: They're not vermins. They're vermese.

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Chris: Vermilion. Vermouth.

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Kayla: No.

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Chris: Okay. I'm not getting, like, worm.

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Kayla: It's wormy composting. Vermi. Verm. Wormy.

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Chris: Oh, like german ve used compost.

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Kayla: Yes.

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Chris: I see.

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Kayla: Basically, you feed a bunch of worms food, trash. They eat it up, they poop out what's called vermicast, or. Yeah, it's worm poop. And vermicast is a more nutrient rich fertilizer than whatever went into it and can be used in agriculture to grow plants, especially in organic farming.

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Chris: Yeah, like, worm shit. Like, soil is basically, like, all worm shit.

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Kayla: It's worm shit. So vermicomposting can also treat human sewage. So, like, we could put a bunch of worms into. And it turns into nutrient rich vermicast.

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Chris: Really? Are you gonna poop into a bucket, kayla, and put worms in there?

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Kayla: One day we will do composting toilets on this show.

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Chris: Oh, God.

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Kayla: You're lucky that we don't have composting toilets. They're disgusting, and I want them. Vermicomposting is pretty gross, but it's also pretty dope. And the process of raising said worms to use in vermicomposting and then selling them is called vermiculture. Like, it's a type of farming.

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Chris: Wow. Sell my poo worms online.

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Kayla: Yeah. Well, maybe. We'll see.

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Chris: So, how we're gonna monetize the podcast.

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Kayla: Yeah. With our branded culture. Just weird vermicomposting worms. I know folks who've done vermicomposting before. Like, my grandma was super into it for a while.

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Chris: Really?

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Kayla: Yeah. I remember her dad's side. No, my. My mom's mom.

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Chris: Oh.

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Kayla: I remember her worm bed. And she had it in, like, I could be speaking out of turn, but I think she had it in, like, an old vintage tub.

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Chris: Wait, I know that tub.

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Kayla: A claw foot tub. I think it was a different one than the one that, you know. Oh, but she had. I think it was in the old vintage claw foot tub outside.

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Chris: I love a good claw foot tub.

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Kayla: Oh, my God. Especially full of dirt. I definitely stuck my hands in the dirt, and it was just worm poop, but it was like, I remember it.

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Chris: Dirt is worm poop. It's fine.

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Kayla: It was dirt, but it was definitely different. Like, the pure vermicast has a different.

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Chris: Oh, really?

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Kayla: Yeah. Like, you can tell my brother in law, our brother in law also worked at it for a while during the pandemic, and.

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Chris: Oh, yeah, I knew that.

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Kayla: Yeah. And he said it was, you know, pretty easy and pretty enjoyable. Like, it's a fun way to get rid of your scraps.

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Chris: Yeah. Yeah.

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Kayla: And I definitely came across a lot of folks who incorporated it into their composting practice when I was learning how to compost it myself. So when, like, I was on forums or whatever, people would talk about composting and also vermicomposting.

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Chris: I should ask my cousin about this, because he's doing a lot of stuff with gardening.

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Kayla: Oh, yeah.

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Chris: There's, like, a shirt ton of compost. I think it's mostly, like, leaves and that stuff. But do. Do worms eat that?

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Kayla: I don't know. Vermes? I don't know.

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Chris: Does he only eat the human food and poop? Can I do that the whole rest of this episode?

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Kayla: Sure. But how exactly is this a topic?

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Chris: I. You know what? At this point, I've, like, stopped even asking that question. I'm just. I kind of just, like, go for the ride. I'm just like. I'm assuming that this is gonna get weird somehow.

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Kayla: It will.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: Because, my friends, one of my favorite things to do when looking for topics for the show is to pair, like, a seemingly innocuous word with the word controversy. And then, like, I plug those both into Google and wait for the magic to happen, obviously. And when you google vermiculture controversy, you're met with headlines like agriculture's darkest fraud hidden under dirt and lies.

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Chris: Somebody really earned their money writing that headline today.

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Kayla: I want to talk about one of agriculture's most notorious Ponzi schemes from the last, well, ever.

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Chris: Oh, so this is an MLM episode, though.

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Kayla: I want to talk about the great vermiculture Ponzi scheme of 2003.

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Chris: Okay. Yeah. I don't even have a prediction. I don't know. I have no idea.

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Kayla: Now, we've talked before on the show about the inherent cultiness of Ponzi schemes, largely because, as you mentioned, they really overlap with mlms in their models. They're basically the same thing.

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Chris: They're very similar.

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Kayla: Do you want to explain what a Ponzi scheme is for our audience? And if you don't, that's okay, because I also explain it. But you're like, mister money man, so. Mister finance.

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Chris: Okay, look, my understanding of Ponzi schemes without refreshing my memory, is that. So the main difference between a Ponzi scheme and a pyramid scheme is that a Ponzi scheme is just more of like a pay it, like, you know, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul type of thing, right. You don't necessarily need to, like, keep expanding the base of people to bring in cash. It's just like, you know, as long as I. So, like, I offer you some. Some crazy rate of return if you give me your money. And the only way I'm able to pay you that crazy rate of return, it's not because I'm actually earning it through some sort of, like, you know, stocks or something. It's because I'm. At the same time, I'm also borrowing money from Steve over here.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: And I'm giving you Steve's money. And then the way I pay back Steve is I'm going to go borrow money from Alice, and the way I'm going to pay back Alice is I'm going to go borrow money from Jeff. And then you keep doing that. Except I skim some off the top every time. And then. My name is Bernie Madoff.

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Kayla: Mister Madoff. So, yes, that's basically my understanding. I have a little bit of a researched description. So a Ponzi scheme is a type of fraud that brings investors in who pay into what they believe is a legitimate business or investing situation, and then their investments are paid to earlier investors. There's no legitimate business activity, just new people being recruited and their money going to early recruits who expect returns.

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Chris: Yeah. Which is. I mean, that's essentially what's happening in a pyramid scheme, too.

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Kayla: Right?

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Chris: It's just in a pyramid scheme, you also have that structure of the later generations of rubes paying into the earlier generations. There's more of them. So you have a widening base of people.

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Kayla: I think Ponzi schemes include a widening base, do they?

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Chris: I think it actually might be one of those things where it's like.

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Kayla: It definitely looks like a pyramid.

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Chris: I think it's like all pyramid schemes are Ponzi schemes, but not all Ponzi schemes are pyramid schemes.

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Kayla: Something like that.

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Chris: I think it's one of those.

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Kayla: Yeah. From Wikipedia, quote, a Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non existent assets they are purported to own. End quote.

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Chris: Bitcoin.

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Kayla: Generally. Yeah. Generally, those recruited believe it's a real thing and they are unaware the money involved only comes from further down recruits. So, again, the structure ends up looking similar to our old friend the pyramid. And like you mentioned, the most recent high profile Ponzi scheme where listeners might recognize is the one perpetrated by Bernie Madoff. Discovered in 2008, his was an investment scam that grew to become the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Do you want to guess how much it was worth?

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Chris: I listened to a whole podcast thingy. It was either a podcast or an audiobook. I don't remember what it was, though.

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Kayla: $65 billion.

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Chris: Damn.

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Kayla: Remember he died.

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Chris: Oh, he did?

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Kayla: Yeah, he tried.

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Chris: What's rip? But, like, good riddance, Pip.

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Kayla: I don't know. Ponzi schemes eventually become unsustainable and crash, much like mlms, leading to a lot of people who invested, losing all of their money. So Ponzi schemes are bad, terrible criminal endeavors. Like, don't do one.

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Chris: Yeah, it's hardcore fraud.

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Kayla: They usually rely on a charismatic leader at the top who convince followers to invest in financial systems that seem too good to be true. And because those followers invest so much money, they become so bought into the scam, they are in denial of the warning signs. So it's like, charismatic leader, chain of victims, expected harm, anti factuality. Like, Ponzi schemes. Check a lot of the culture. Just weird criteria boxes.

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Chris: So one of the. I don't know if this guy was a victim or if he ended up making off with money, because I don't. It's been a while since I've listened to the Bernie Madoff thing, but one of my. The thing. One of the things that I remember from that story is how there was, like. Because he had, like, really rich clients. Like, he had some of the clients.

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Kayla: And big Wall street people and.

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Chris: Oh, yeah. Some of them were, like, big and then. And, you know, and, like. Like, secret rich, you know, type people. You don't even know that.

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Kayla: So.

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Chris: Fucking richest. Rothschild, maybe? Probably. And as the story goes, I guess, like, one of these guys, like, I'm just sort of speaking to your point here about, like, people buying in and being, like, a culty atmosphere, I guess. This guy never wanted to have.

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Kayla: A.

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Chris: Trade, a stock trade where he lost money. Like, he never. Like, he had this thing where he's like, I only ever have stock trades where I make money, where I buy low and sell high. I've never bought high and sold low, and I'm sure as hell gonna not start now. Or, like, it was.

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Kayla: That's not how it works.

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Chris: I know. It was like how I think a.

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Kayla: Lot of people have that in their heads, though.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: Like, I think that a lot of people that get involved in, like, real estate and property think that, like, oh, this is an investment. That's like a sure thing. When it's like, no, it's not.

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Chris: Right. Nothing's a sure thing sure.

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Kayla: It's. It's still like investment.

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Chris: There are some things that are more sure things than others, and I. Stock isn't one of those.

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Kayla: It's volatile. It goes up and down like everybody knows.

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Chris: I got the impression that it was very much like one of those rich people or of invincibility type things. It's like, I'm rich. I only make money on my stock. This really warped reality. So that's why I bring it up as the warped reality of.

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Kayla: Yes. And apparently Ponzi schemes are not just for Richie Rich Wall street types like that. Sometimes they involve worms and worm poop.

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Chris: Did the worms get defrauded?

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Kayla: Oh, no, the worms all got defrauded. There's a class action lawsuit from the charismatic leader.

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Chris: Like a really.

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Kayla: It's a big earthworm.

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Chris: Like a really sexy worm.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: No. Much of my research today comes from a 2017 article by journalist Chris Bennett. And I also referred to Atlas Obscura, the Herald Tribune, oklahoman.com, comma, wave, three.com, comma, the New Yorker, and more. So let's dig in like a wor.

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Chris: That's good.

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Kayla: Farming and agriculture is a complex, complicated endeavor. It is a 100 billion plus dollar industry, and with that much money and with that much business, you know that there are scammers and schemers looking to turn a profit around every corner.

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Chris: Of course.

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Kayla: In 1998, a man named Greg Bradley and his wife Lynn founded B and B worm Farm in Meechler, Oklahoma. The company sold worm contracts to growers. Essentially, growers could buy a group of starter worms from B and B, as well as a grower's manual worm harvesting equipment, and they would have access to a help line, like, learn how to be a worm farmer.

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Chris: That sounds like a cool business model.

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Kayla: Yeah. The growers would grow and breed said worms, and the contract stipulated that B and B would buy back all the worms that the growers produced for, like, seven to nine a pound.

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Chris: I.

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Kayla: So the idea was that, like, B and B worm farm had end user clients that required large, needed large volumes of waste eating worms. So he would contract out these growers to build up the worm population, buy back the worms, and sell it to these end user clients.

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Chris: So the end user clients were people that had waste disposal needs.

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Kayla: We'll get to that. But, yes, that's the idea. Like, people, like companies organizations that had large scale waste that needed to be processed.

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Chris: They needed a shit ton of worms.

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Kayla: They needed a shit ton of worms. So the initial contract for the growers ranged from, like, $15,000 for 100,000 worms, $60,000 for one and a half million worms, and like these.

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Chris: Oh, my God, that's a lot of worms.

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Kayla: These contracts went, like, all the way up to $100,000 and more.

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Chris: Wow.

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Kayla: And it was sold as a surefire investment for the growers. Like, invest in your worm farm now, and in a year when you've bred hundreds of thousands or millions of more worms, you'll sell them back to me, you'll make a huge return on your investment. Everybody's going to make a lot of money here. And with Greg Bradley's end user clients always in demand, always in the market for high volumes of worms, there's no way this could fail.

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Chris: Right? Okay, so there's two aspects. There's the end user clients with waste disposal needs, and then there's also folks that. That b and B will send their worms. Will send worms to as, like a. Like a seed pack.

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Kayla: Yes.

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Chris: And then they will take that seed pack of worms and over the course of a year, turn it into shit ton of worms.

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Kayla: Yes.

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Chris: And then those worms go back to b and B, where they pull them all together and sell them to fucking conagra, whoever needs them.

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Kayla: Correct. Okay, so that all makes sense.

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Chris: Yes.

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Kayla: Okay, let's keep going. Greg Bradley had trained in the art of vermiculture at a prior company, Vermitrade, so he had the chops to back up his claims, like, he knew how to raise these worms. The company first advertised in magazines and newspapers, obviously on the Internet, in the early days via word of mouth. And like, they steadily grew, more and more farmers across the south central and southeastern United States bought worm contracts and took their girl kits home, like, ready to get to work. But it wasn't big enough for Bradley yet. Like, he. He knew. He. He knew he had a surefire thing here. He needed something to take it to the next level. Like, he needed star power.

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Chris: He needed a loan from a Rothschild bank.

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Kayla: No. He needed worm. Star power.

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Chris: Worm star power. What's worm star power? Earthworm, Jim.

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Kayla: It was Earthworm, Jim. No. Enter Kelly Slocum. Kelly Slocum is a self made worm master. She is sharply educated in all things vermicomposting and well known in the community for her intelligence, her speaking ability, and her evangelizing about all things worm. So while Greg Bradley was, like, decent, smooth talking salesman, he needed, like, legitimization to level up. And so in 2001, this is, like, about three years after he started, headed to Slocum's home state of Washington to pitch her on his company and get her involved.

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Chris: So she's like a worm angelist worm. I was gonna say worm celebrity. But yours is better.

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Kayla: She's a worm celebrity.

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Chris: Yes. So in the worming, community warming world.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: Like, people, you know, have.

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Kayla: People knew and trust.

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Chris: People knew and trusted who this person was. I was gonna say worm zine, because I don't, I guess. What was this? Okay, now there's the Internet.

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Kayla: So there's the Internet.

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Chris: People were doing what blogs? I don't even know.

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Kayla: Yes. Usenet. I don't know. Quote. This is from Kelly Slocum. I've heard Greg described as charismatic, but I found him to be an average joe that misused words and stretched his vocabulary too far.

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Chris: That is charismatic.

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Kayla: Nothing about him stood out, but nothing raised red flags. I was skeptical, but the incredible potential pulled me in and overrode my concerns. Slocum was particularly impressed by Bradley's end user buyers. Traditionally, in vermiculture, like, that's where the rub lies. You can grow a bunch of waste eating worms, but can you find a client who needs them, especially at this level of volume?

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Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

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Kayla: According to Bradley, he had a number of buyers keeping b and b going, and slocum was impressed enough. Like, they've been going for three years. People are buying in. People are getting paid. Like, she got on board, okay. And business boomed. Like, with such a reputable figure in the vermiculture world now acting as the face for b and b, the company expanded at breakneck speeds. So less than a year later, B and B had distribution centers set up in twelve states and hundreds, if not thousands, of farmers clamoring to get in on the deal. So the distribution centers were where the farmers could then, like, take their worms to be processed, take their worms, process the worms, and be paid.

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Chris: I'm assuming that they go all into one big worm bucket, and then that worm bucket goes to these end user clients, these mysterious.

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Kayla: It's like, you take your worms, you bring your worms and all their dirt, they get put into a machine that separates the worms from the dirt. The worms get weighed, and then you get paid. You get paid, like, seven to nine a pound per pound of worm.

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Chris: Doesn't sound so bad.

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Kayla: The article in the Daily Scoop by Chris Bennett refers to Bradley as a pied piper and a star pied piper of worms, making it clear that he had the ability to turn even the sincerest of doubters into true believers. One farmer, Floyd Warrick, is quoted as saying, I met him face to face, and I told him I didn't believe what he was saying about worms. Bradley boldly said, if you don't believe it, then I don't want you as a customer.

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Chris: Oh, classic.

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Kayla: Weyrich then bought 300 pounds of worms and built over 100 vermiculture boxes. Weyrich even sold back worms he produced for $8 a pound. Like, everything seemed to be going great.

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Chris: Yeah, this seems like it's all going.

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Kayla: I want to get in on this.

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Chris: So far, so good, man.

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Kayla: And that was, in large part, again, to Bradley's connections to end user buyers. Right, but who were these buyers, pray tell?

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Chris: That's exactly what I'm wondering.

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Kayla: Well, according to Bradley, he had connections to composting companies and recycling plants across the south, so big organizations that could use these worms. But his biggest get was the country of Sierra Leone.

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Chris: So.

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Kayla: Wait, what? Yeah, the entire country of Sierra Leone.

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Chris: They all just need a lot of worms there.

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Kayla: He told Kelly Slocum that Sierra Leone was setting up a countrywide waste management project, and B would supply the millions of worms they needed.

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Chris: That is so genius.

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Kayla: Whole country. The government of this country needs all these worms.

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Chris: But, like, the way he presented it, though, like, at first, it sounds absurd, but actually, when he.

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Kayla: Where else is Sierra Leone gonna get their worms?

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Chris: Yeah, and the way you said it, too, it's not like Sierra Leone needs worms. It's like Sierra Leone has a waste management project. Government projects are big. There's always big bids.

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Kayla: Yeah, Sierra Leone. Bradley sent one of his associates across the ocean to take pictures of progress, and Kelly did find it odd. Kelly Slocum did find it odd that the photos were of buildings and people in Sierra Leone. Nothing official, nothing wormy. Nothing wormy. No processing plants or whatever. But when Bradley got her on a conference call with the Sierra Leone minister of agriculture, she was convinced. Whoa. The Sierra Leone minister of agriculture was like, yes, we need these worms from BNB. We're setting up this whole thing. It's gonna affix our soil. We're gonna be able to feed the whole country. It's gonna be great.

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Chris: Okay, so, I know I'm gonna get. We'll get to that. This question, but was that person on the phone a actually, Sierra Leone's? Agricultural minister who was in on the deal. B, just a fake accomplice that.

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Kayla: I think it was Ashton Kutcher. I think this was an episode of punkt, right?

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Chris: Was it Ashton Kutcher? Or C, was it. I guess it could be the agricultural minister who thinks it's real, too.

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Kayla: Right? Right?

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Chris: I don't know.

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Kayla: We will get to that.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: Okay, so by this point, B and B had growers in 40 states.

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Chris: Oh, my God.

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Kayla: That's almost the entire country.

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Chris: Huh.

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Kayla: And a real life buyer for everything that they could produce. Growers were getting paid. Kelly Slocum was keynoting vermiculture conferences and holding growing seminars. Life was good.

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Chris: Good job, man. The end.

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Kayla: Until it wasn't.

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Chris: Yeah. That's how Ponzi schemes tend to. Yeah. Yeah.

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Kayla: In 2002, worm growers who had been with B and B for a few years started experiencing payment delays when they would deliver their worms.

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Chris: I've heard this story before.

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Kayla: When farmers would reach out to Bradley directly, he stopped returning their calls. Anxiety bloomed across the country as glowers demanded their contractual return on investment and instead received nothing.

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Chris: Yeah. Yeah, this tracks.

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Kayla: As the most prominent board member, Kelly Slocum began asking hard hitting questions like, what's happening? Where's the money? What's going on? But Bradley continued to duck. And I think he even got, like, a bunch of amish people in on this. Oh, I think there was a bunch of amish grower contractors.

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Chris: I mean, that makes sense. They do a lot of farming.

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Kayla: They do a lot of farming. And I think it's like, this is good for people who, like, you know, how sometimes farming is seasonal, and sometimes you have, like, extra space that you can't be using for farming at that time. Or maybe all of your pigs got a blight or something, and, you know, you just have, like, a bunch of extra room. Like, this is a great. It seemed like this is a great way to kind of, like, get some control. I can do these worms. I'm gonna get my return on investment back. It's like, farming is kind of risky in a lot of ways. This seemed like not a risk.

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Chris: Right? Right. Or. Yeah, a way to, like, mitigate it. Yeah.

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Kayla: Then one day, Kelly Slocum received an email she was not supposed to see.

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Chris: I love those emails.

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Kayla: It exposed Bradley's end user buyers as nothing but lies. Slocum was accidentally cc'd on an email between Bradley and some inner circle associates, I think just like his friends.

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Chris: Okay, so he wasn't alone in perpetrating this crime. He had.

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Kayla: Nah, it was, like, him and some buddies, they were discussing how the Sierra Leone situation was a ruse, like, they were falsifying shipments to the country and not a single worm had ever crossed the border. Like, there was no deal in Africa. And Bradley was working overtime to keep that a secret.

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Chris: Mm mm.

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Kayla: So Kelly Slocum reads this over and realizes, oh, shit. All of those, like, initial doubts. I had a. Those were correct. I have been had. This is disgusting. We're defrauding people.

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Chris: Did she. She didn't lose. Is this, like, just a reputation? Cause she didn't, like, buy into it.

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Kayla: She did not buy into it, okay? This person didn't know. She's not a farmer. She was just, like, a board member.

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Chris: Okay, okay.

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Kayla: She wrote up a resignation email that she was, like, gonna send it out to the b and b grower base to be like, this is fucked. I'm out. Had a girl, but Bradley beat her to the punch. Apparently he noticed that she had been included in the emails after the fact, and he sent his own blast out to the grower base.

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Chris: Smart.

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Kayla: Stating that Slocum had been fired for embezzlement.

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Chris: Oh, my God. Oh, I thought you were gonna be like, he sent his own email, you know, explaining the situation or whatever.

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Kayla: No, he just besmirched her. Yeah, he was like, she appropriated company funds. She and her husband bought a bunch of cars. They bought a bunch of rolexes. They're out of here. And there's, like, sick attempt to discredit her. Now if she goes, like, well, he's a liar, she looks hard.

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Chris: The well is poisoned.

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Kayla: Yeah, she doesn't look reputable anymore. With Kelly out of the picture, Bradley needed to scrounge up a new legitimizing face of the company, and somehow he managed to convince Oklahoma congressman Wes Watkins of B B's mission. And Wes representative Wes Watkins joined the board.

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Chris: Wait, so what happened to. To Kelly? Did she, like, hold that thought?

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Kayla: Okay, for now, she's in a holding pattern.

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Chris: Okay, okay.

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Kayla: She's over here. She will come back. So we've got Mister Watkins now taking her place. Like, Mister Watkins was described as a true believer in b and in Bradley himself. And he's even quoted as saying that the company was going to solve world hunger.

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Chris: Yeah, this all tracks with the cultiness for sure.

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Kayla: A farmer interviewed for the Daily Scoop remembered him saying, quote, we're sending worm fertilizer to Africa and it's going to make the ground productive and save people. With this new face in place, Bradley continued to try and grow the business, but his failure to pay his growers really did catch up with him. You can get as many faces as you want, but if you can't pay.

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Chris: Your people right, at some point. Yeah.

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Kayla: On April 14, 2003, the Oklahoma government petitioned for a permanent injunction against b and B. Apparently, a year earlier, Oklahoma had placed a cease and desist order on new grower contracts. Smelling the. Smelling the wormy poop, the whiffs of the scam. Yeah, smelling the whiffs of the wormy poop. But Bradley ignored it. And between August 13, 2002, and April 14, 2003, they sold $14,078,000 worth of new contracts.

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Chris: Oh, my God. That's big money.

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Kayla: Yikes. Yeah, it's very big money. What's worse, though, is that Oklahoma also discovered that b and B was $23 million in debt. Not exactly a good position for a company to be in when they've got thousands of growers showing up to collect on their investments and sell back millions of worms.

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Chris: Oh, so that's debt beyond what they owe to their contractors.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: Wow.

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Kayla: No good.

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Chris: So, in the parlance of the Patreon content, that's bad debt.

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Kayla: That is bad debt. You bad. In Kentucky alone, 800 growers bought into contracts with b and B. And with that huge number of farmers now expecting payouts, the state government stepped in. So they sought to involve. The government sought to involve itself investigation of the company to protect its citizens.

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Chris: So Oklahoma did, and now Kentucky did as well.

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Kayla: Correct. Apparently, Bradley had capitalized on a trend of the state's farmers moving away from tobacco growing. So, like, kind of how you and I talked about, sometimes farmers will phase things in and out. And so there was a movement away from tobacco growing, and many of these farmers turned to b and b as like, well, I'll do worm farming then. But now every grower contract was defaulting. When farmers tried to drop their hundred, like, farmers would go. They would drop their hundreds of pounds of worms off of the distribution centers, and they would be turned away. It would just be like, go home. Take your worms home. There's nothing here for you. There's no money. No one was getting paid.

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Chris: How much did they pay for the worm kits?

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Kayla: It was anywhere from 15,000 to 100,000 plus.

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Chris: Oh. Oh, that's substantial.

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Kayla: Yes.

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Chris: That's not a small number.

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Kayla: No. These farmers were now facing earth shattering debt with no recourse.

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Chris: Oh, that's a big number.

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Kayla: Yes. Yes.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: So with Kelly Slocum, like, knowing about the shady dealings going on with hordes of farmers bearing down on him with pitchforks and with multiple states investigating him. Like, Greg Bradley was under immense pressure. Just imagine for a moment what this would feel like. Your walls are crashing. Your billion dollar walls are crashing down.

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Chris: That was one of the things I was wondering when I was listening to the Bernie Madoff thing. Sure. Their brains must just work differently where they shrug the pressure off.

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Kayla: How do they not all have heart attacks?

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Chris: I don't know. I think that they just.

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Kayla: A lot of people call this guy a sociopath.

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Chris: Yeah. I think that's what it is. I hate to do that. I hate to pull the sociopath card here.

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Kayla: There's something different about the way this brain works.

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Chris: Can you not collapse into a gibbering mess unless you truly, honestly do not give any shits?

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Kayla: Right? I mean, yeah, I can't imagine it either. So it's like I'm just picturing this guy. I'm picturing a normal guy. So I'm picturing somebody being like, oh, no, what do I do? My brilliant business plan is fucked up. Why has the bottom fallen out so violently? How am I gonna pay back all of these farmers if me, myself, and millions of dollars in debt? Like, what am I gonna do?

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Chris: Is that what B and B stands for? Brilliant business.

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Kayla: Brilliant business. So what do you think Greg Bradley did?

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Chris: I don't know. Based on the way you just presented that whole thing, I'm assuming he's gonna do something really dastardly or he's gonna be two middle fingers and escapes to Sierra Leone or something. I don't know.

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Kayla: He died.

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Chris: Oh, he died.

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Kayla: Oh, Greg Bradley died.

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Chris: Okay. Yeah, that's one way to get out.

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Kayla: Of your debts at the height of the crescendo at age 40. At age 40, Bradley died of an infection in an Oklahoma hospital. The obituary touted b and B, calling it a, quote, multi million dollar company, and stating that, quote, b and B has become the largest grower of earthworms in the world.

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Chris: Did they not get the memo?

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Kayla: The company currently has more than 2400 growers in 43 states. There are also 20 distribution centers that support these growers, and the company has recently began expanding internationally. Bradley was cremated and buried quickly.

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Chris: Did the worms get him?

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Kayla: And he was fed to the worms. The investigations into b and B now fell on Bradley's wife, Lynn, who took control of the company. Did she know?

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Chris: Was she in the inner circle?

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Kayla: I don't know.

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Chris: Or was this.

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Kayla: I really don't.

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Chris: Cause, like, holy shit, man.

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Kayla: I think that I'm gonna assume that she did.

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Chris: I hope so.

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Kayla: I think that she did. I actually. I really do think that she did. We can talk about it in a second. So, Tennessee added itself to the list of state governments looking into the company, and by May 2003, at least ten states were suing or investigating b and B company went bankrupt, obviously, and investigations just kind of petered out, like, largely due to the fact that, like, the person of interest died, was gone.

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Chris: But, I mean, the organization was still around. I guess the organization.

327
00:34:28,181 --> 00:34:29,085
Kayla: They're gone now, too.

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00:34:29,197 --> 00:34:34,261
Chris: Okay. There's nothing else to. They went away to steal from the company. That is millions of dollars in debt.

329
00:34:34,324 --> 00:34:36,132
Kayla: Yeah. What can you do?

330
00:34:36,261 --> 00:34:37,092
Chris: Okay.

331
00:34:37,261 --> 00:34:43,149
Kayla: In the meantime, however, the investigations turned up quite a few troubling tidbits about b and b worm farm.

332
00:34:43,268 --> 00:34:43,949
Chris: Oh.

333
00:34:44,029 --> 00:34:54,928
Kayla: In its five years, the company had raked in around $25 million in grower contracts. $25 million. Selling worms to people.

334
00:34:55,063 --> 00:34:56,540
Chris: That's a lot of worms.

335
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:08,540
Kayla: That money funded a lavish lifestyle for Greg and Lynn Bradley and also supported a family member's auto parts business and also funded an adult entertainment company in Las Vegas.

336
00:35:09,720 --> 00:35:11,032
Chris: What. What is this guy?

337
00:35:11,096 --> 00:35:18,814
Kayla: It seemed like maybe Greg Bradley wasn't just, like, a bad businessman. He was just a bad man. Like, he was like, I'm gonna steal all these farmers monies so that I.

338
00:35:18,822 --> 00:35:20,190
Chris: Can, like, my porn.

339
00:35:20,310 --> 00:35:22,730
Kayla: Porn and, like, give my family dollars.

340
00:35:23,830 --> 00:35:26,654
Chris: What the fuck, dude? Yeah, that's. That's some sociopath.

341
00:35:26,702 --> 00:35:38,270
Kayla: Yeah. Turns out Bradley had been slapped with a decease and desist in regards to vermiculture before. Oh, yeah. I remember in the beginning, we're like, oh, he worked for a company called Vermitrade, and then he know. He knew the ropes.

342
00:35:38,350 --> 00:35:38,750
Chris: Yeah.

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00:35:38,830 --> 00:35:48,832
Kayla: Yeah. So he. Both Iowa and Nebraska cease and desisted him when. When he was. When he was at Vermi trade. Presumably, Bradley had already been, like. He'd been shady from the beginning.

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00:35:48,896 --> 00:36:02,344
Chris: Right. This is the other thing I don't get is it seems like we continuously run into these guys where it's like, some. Like. It's like, yeah, this is a shady dude. And then they'll, like, you know, skip town or whatever and go start something somewhere else, and, like, people will do exactly zero due diligence.

345
00:36:02,392 --> 00:36:02,968
Kayla: Yep.

346
00:36:03,104 --> 00:36:09,024
Chris: And they just get to. It's. It's like these, like, traveling, like shucksters.

347
00:36:09,112 --> 00:36:10,400
Kayla: Yeah. He's like a snake oil salesman.

348
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:10,808
Chris: Yeah.

349
00:36:10,904 --> 00:36:12,392
Kayla: He's like an old timey guy.

350
00:36:12,496 --> 00:36:12,888
Chris: Yeah.

351
00:36:12,944 --> 00:36:20,020
Kayla: In that regard, like, going around the country, being like, step right up and buy a worm, and then you'll be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.

352
00:36:20,140 --> 00:36:21,708
Chris: We have the magic worms head b.

353
00:36:21,724 --> 00:36:24,708
Kayla: And B. I mean, they did. It worked for some people at the.

354
00:36:24,724 --> 00:36:27,680
Chris: Beginning, and then that's how Ponzi schemes work. Kayla.

355
00:36:28,180 --> 00:36:54,048
Kayla: So speaking of Ponzi scheme, there were issues with the company's structure. Remember how it worked? So Bradley would sell a small parcel of worms to a grower, who would then take those worms and breed them into a larger colony of worms over a year or so, and then they'd sell those worms back to Bradley to get sent to the end user. Okay. Yeah. Well, like a pyramid scheme. That shit just doesn't work. The math don't math.

356
00:36:54,144 --> 00:36:54,648
Chris: Yeah.

357
00:36:54,744 --> 00:36:55,700
Kayla: Redworms.

358
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:58,232
Chris: Was there even any end user at all?

359
00:36:58,336 --> 00:37:02,720
Kayla: We'll get to that. Okay, redworms hatch, like, every one to two months.

360
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:03,264
Chris: Okay.

361
00:37:03,352 --> 00:37:06,136
Kayla: And they breed exponentially, right?

362
00:37:06,288 --> 00:37:07,216
Chris: Right, okay.

363
00:37:07,288 --> 00:37:29,584
Kayla: Exponentially. We all know what that word means. Now, living in COVID pandemic, Peter Bogdanov, the owner of Vermico, which is supposedly an ethical worm growing business, says, quote, if Bradley's math was correct, the world would have been awash in worms in no time. It's kind of like how we've talked about mlms before. It's like the recruiting structure. It exceeds the amount of people on earth.

364
00:37:29,672 --> 00:37:34,280
Chris: Right. And it doesn't take that long to get there because of the exponential growth. Yeah, that's very similar sounding.

365
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:39,366
Kayla: With the exponential growth of these worms, like, there's not going to be an end user client for this amount of worms.

366
00:37:39,398 --> 00:37:41,742
Chris: We're just gonna have a giant ball of worms. We're all walking around.

367
00:37:41,806 --> 00:37:48,342
Kayla: They're gonna eat us all. They're gonna take over everything. It kinda sounds like a nightmare. That many worms.

368
00:37:48,446 --> 00:37:49,126
Chris: Wormworld.

369
00:37:49,198 --> 00:38:01,798
Kayla: Wormworld. I don't like it. I don't think we should be doing this. And what about those end user clients that you were just asking me about? It's my guess Bradley had such unique relationships with.

370
00:38:01,934 --> 00:38:13,626
Chris: Because this is a Ponzi scheme. My guess is they didn't exist. Why would you think that worms from Farmer John were just going to farmer Bill when he bought a new contract?

371
00:38:13,738 --> 00:38:15,650
Kayla: Why would you think that?

372
00:38:15,770 --> 00:38:18,010
Chris: I'm just speculating.

373
00:38:18,170 --> 00:38:30,010
Kayla: Okay, so we know that Sierra Leone was false, right? Like, there was nothing going on with Sierra Leone. I think he did really send somebody there to take pictures, but that's why the pictures were just of, like, buildings and people and not like, anything real, right.

374
00:38:30,050 --> 00:38:31,178
Chris: It's like tourist photos.

375
00:38:31,234 --> 00:38:36,308
Kayla: Remember how Kelly Slocum got on a phone call with the Sierra Leone minister of agriculture?

376
00:38:36,434 --> 00:38:36,952
Chris: Yes.

377
00:38:37,056 --> 00:38:39,000
Kayla: Yeah, that was just fake.

378
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,032
Chris: So it was just like, that was Ashton Kutcher.

379
00:38:41,136 --> 00:38:57,500
Kayla: It was, yeah. Bradley recruited someone, maybe someone from his inner circle to like, pretend to be that person to keep Kelly on the hook, to keep the fraud going. Literally being like, I'm the Sierra Leone minister of agriculture. We need your worms, Kelly Slocum. Only you can save Africa.

380
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:04,730
Chris: So just some dude on the phone just being like, hello? Yeah, my name is Mister Wormhouse. No, Mister Leone.

381
00:39:04,810 --> 00:39:15,938
Kayla: Mister Leone. I'm Sierra Leone. Yeah. So instead of worms going to end user clients. Yeah, it's just as you predicted. They were going to new recruits.

382
00:39:16,034 --> 00:39:21,410
Chris: Yeah, of course. And where were all the excess worms going so that we don't, like, become wormworld?

383
00:39:21,490 --> 00:39:25,010
Kayla: I don't know. Well, worms will die if you don't feed them, so presumably.

384
00:39:25,050 --> 00:39:26,922
Chris: Okay, so he just like, dumped worms into it.

385
00:39:26,946 --> 00:39:40,160
Kayla: Well, before the company fell apart, growers would buy the worms, sell them back to Bradley. He would break them down into smaller parcels and then sell those to new growers. So as long as he had enough growers buying those little parcels, he could get rid of the worms.

386
00:39:40,900 --> 00:39:44,812
Chris: You see, I've seen this. This is shaped like a pyramid.

387
00:39:44,876 --> 00:39:51,572
Kayla: Yeah. That structure is destined to crumble eventually. People are not going to buy your fucking worms. There's only so many farmers in the.

388
00:39:51,596 --> 00:40:00,126
Chris: World and you won't be able to sustain giving the money back because you don't have any income coming in from these non existent end users.

389
00:40:00,158 --> 00:40:00,374
Kayla: Right.

390
00:40:00,422 --> 00:40:00,886
Chris: Yeah.

391
00:40:00,998 --> 00:40:23,798
Kayla: As journalist Chris Bennett put it, quote, bradley was using Peter's worms to pay Paul. Yeah, Peter worms. But, yeah, it's just, it really seems to me, and we can talk about motivation a little bit, but it really seems to me that this guy was just like trying to make money. Like, obviously this is going to crack. This is like, I don't think this guy was a true believer. You know what I mean?

392
00:40:23,934 --> 00:40:25,174
Chris: Yeah. Based on his other advantages, I think.

393
00:40:25,182 --> 00:40:32,060
Kayla: That he was like, bulk a bunch of people out of money worms. And then the thing.

394
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:37,520
Chris: Why, I assume his plan was probably like, you know, skip town again.

395
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:38,220
Kayla: Right.

396
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:54,318
Chris: But, yeah, that's, that seems right to me. Based on all the other stuff he said he was doing and like, just like, how non viable this was and how much debt the company was in, it seems like his plan was to use a company to siphon money to his personal account.

397
00:40:54,414 --> 00:40:56,814
Kayla: To him, to his wife, to his family members, to his porn. Cool.

398
00:40:56,822 --> 00:40:58,646
Chris: And then, yeah, shut off the company.

399
00:40:58,758 --> 00:41:09,654
Kayla: Yeah, and, yeah, just declare bankruptcy and get out of there. You don't need to pay these farmers back, right, exactly. Oh, my God. Poor farmers leave farmers alone. I come from farmers. They're good people generally.

400
00:41:09,782 --> 00:41:11,550
Chris: Well, they don't deserve to be defrauded.

401
00:41:11,590 --> 00:41:34,804
Kayla: No. No, they really don't. So what recourse did these farmers have now that b and B had gone belly up and Bradley was dead? And I don't mean to be laughing about this, like, guy's death, but also, I mean, fuck this guy. Yeah. It's just the fact that he died is so crazy to me. Maybe the stress did get to him. Like, maybe that's what it. Maybe the stress really did get to him.

402
00:41:34,852 --> 00:41:40,772
Chris: Maybe. Maybe he's like, time's up, man. And, like, the stress went through the roof and then he got an infection and died.

403
00:41:40,836 --> 00:41:51,538
Kayla: Died because stress can do that to your. Like, stress can make your body have a harder time healing. Like, is not healthy for the body. But, yeah, these farmers didn't really have much recourse after all.

404
00:41:51,594 --> 00:41:54,514
Chris: Yeah, that was my guess. Because usually that's the case with these types of things.

405
00:41:54,602 --> 00:42:01,098
Kayla: Thousands of farmers lost savings, lost mortgages, had to scrounge and scrimp to not fall into bankruptcy themselves.

406
00:42:01,234 --> 00:42:01,946
Chris: Yay.

407
00:42:02,098 --> 00:42:28,888
Kayla: Many did. Remember we talked about it. But these grower contracts could go up to $100,000 at a time and sometimes even higher. Some people were in debt or went, were invested for like $160,000 and more. Like, these are huge amounts of money, especially when we're talking about. This is 2003, and this is in south central and southeastern United States. This is also, like. This was in Florida. This was like 43 states.

408
00:42:29,024 --> 00:42:32,820
Chris: Yeah, that's a lot of states have some farming communities. Yeah.

409
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:39,250
Kayla: These 2400 farmers were just forced to swallow the loss. Fuck Greg Bradley.

410
00:42:39,330 --> 00:42:40,282
Chris: Yeah, fuck that guy.

411
00:42:40,346 --> 00:42:43,010
Kayla: The debacle also cost Kelly Slocum her reputation.

412
00:42:43,130 --> 00:42:49,386
Chris: I mean, can't disagree with what her losing a reputation for that. Like, it sucks.

413
00:42:49,458 --> 00:42:54,834
Kayla: Right. But she doesn't deserve to lose her reputation about embezzlement. Like, she had that whole. Embezzlement.

414
00:42:54,922 --> 00:43:01,434
Chris: Oh, no, no. Of course not. No, no. I just meant, like, probably should have done some due diligence on this guy.

415
00:43:01,522 --> 00:43:47,550
Kayla: Yeah. So it was, first it was she got smeared by Bradley in that embezzlement email and then. Which is horseshit by association with b and B when, you know, when it turned out to be the work of a con man. Before Bradley died, Slocum traveled to farmers to help answer questions and, like, assuage fears. I have a quote from her. Quote. I went to these farms and met the loveliest of people. They looked me in the eye and asked, can you tell us if this is a scam? I looked back and told them, no way. And if I ever get wind of anything crooked, I will absolutely let you know. It was hubris to think I could spot a scam. And she talks about how, like, professionally, she was forgiven, essentially, by the worm community, but she still harbors a lot of guilt over.

416
00:43:48,490 --> 00:44:03,732
Kayla: I got people involved in this. I helped get people hurt, and I helped financially ruin people because I thought I could spot a scam, and I couldn't. That sucks. Even when I have all of this knowledge, I ignored those doubts because it looked good to me.

417
00:44:03,876 --> 00:44:23,012
Chris: Man, that is super on theme with the show, too, because it's like the whole, no matter how smart you are, and in this case, it's not even just smart. It's like, no matter how much specific domain knowledge you have, you can still be taken in by things that play to your emotions. I get. I'm assuming that's what happened with her.

418
00:44:23,036 --> 00:44:28,430
Kayla: I. Right. But even with all of that, some true believers remained.

419
00:44:29,730 --> 00:44:33,682
Chris: Oh, God. That always happens. And it's always so batshit.

420
00:44:33,706 --> 00:44:34,298
Kayla: I know.

421
00:44:34,394 --> 00:44:46,466
Chris: Like, it's always so batshit that, like, after, like, dexiom blows up, there's still people. You know, there's still the fucking, like, Nikki Klein's out there that are, like, still true believers. Like, it's so insane to me.

422
00:44:46,658 --> 00:45:08,880
Kayla: Representative Wes Watkins spoke Greg Bradley's funeral. Still fully invested in the mission of b and B worm farm. Like, we're gonna save the world. We're gonna prevent world hunger. We're gonna clean up Africa. And more than 50 b and B contracted growers from all over the country attended the funeral. People drove hundreds and hundreds of miles to go to his funeral. Like, somehow maintaining faith in this Ponzi scheme.

423
00:45:09,740 --> 00:45:10,908
Chris: Motivated reasoning.

424
00:45:10,964 --> 00:45:19,190
Kayla: Yeah. Some people believe the circumstances of Bradley's death to be odd.

425
00:45:19,490 --> 00:45:21,866
Chris: Oh, is this, like, did the Clinton mafia get him?

426
00:45:21,938 --> 00:45:31,730
Kayla: How convenient that he shuffled off this mortal coil right at the exact moment his pyramid scheme came crashing down, when he would need to pay up, when he was facing jail time.

427
00:45:31,850 --> 00:45:39,618
Chris: I mean, it's probably inconvenient, depending on how you view it, but, I mean, for him, the timing is weird.

428
00:45:39,754 --> 00:45:55,662
Kayla: The reverend who held his funeral service claims he had visited Bradley in the hospital, and he seemed perfectly healthy, like, someone who was about to be discharged. Like, this is a perfectly healthy 40 year old man. Like, he's not dying. The story around his infection was said to be from a spider bite, then from pneumonia. Growers weren't sure what to believe.

429
00:45:55,766 --> 00:45:56,846
Chris: Was it the worms?

430
00:45:56,998 --> 00:46:05,718
Kayla: But to one farmer, it was clear Bradley ain't dead. Cremation. I think he went to Mexico with millions of dollars belonging to farmers.

431
00:46:05,894 --> 00:46:10,766
Chris: I was gonna ask that at the time. Like, did he fake his death? Cause this is totally a fake.

432
00:46:10,798 --> 00:46:17,080
Kayla: Your own type of thing. I know I can't. I. Occam's razor. He probably died of stress.

433
00:46:17,780 --> 00:46:18,236
Chris: Sure.

434
00:46:18,308 --> 00:46:23,564
Kayla: But I'm more inclined to believe that this was his final scam.

435
00:46:23,732 --> 00:46:25,852
Chris: Yeah. So here's what we've talked about.

436
00:46:25,876 --> 00:46:27,428
Kayla: He left his wife to pick up the pieces.

437
00:46:27,524 --> 00:46:38,786
Chris: Right. We've talked about this on the show before. So there's sort of two different things we can do here. We can say, based on all available evidence, the man is truly dead.

438
00:46:38,908 --> 00:46:40,302
Kayla: Like, there's records of his death.

439
00:46:40,326 --> 00:47:00,158
Chris: Yeah, there's records of his death. Occam. Not just Occam's razor, but also, like, preponderance of evidence and, you know, and whatever. Like, he's. He is dead. However, if I go here and label my thoughts speculation, it's. There's definitely. I could definitely speculate that there are reasons that he wouldn't be.

440
00:47:00,214 --> 00:47:05,486
Kayla: When I read that he died, I was like, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, sure. He did.

441
00:47:05,598 --> 00:47:07,566
Chris: It definitely triggers your conspiratorial thinking.

442
00:47:07,598 --> 00:47:23,646
Kayla: Yes, yes. And, like, a lot of these farmers believe that, too. And I think when you. When you behave like a con man in every facet of your life, like, it's not. It's kind of hard to believe that you wouldn't behave like a con man in your death.

443
00:47:23,758 --> 00:47:29,622
Chris: Yeah. And the convenience of the timing and all that, like, combined with, you know, the history of conning.

444
00:47:29,686 --> 00:47:30,078
Kayla: Right.

445
00:47:30,174 --> 00:47:30,734
Chris: Yeah.

446
00:47:30,862 --> 00:48:10,056
Kayla: Journalist Chris Bennett reported a number of other choice quotes about Greg Bradley. Bradley was a smart liar from the get go. In the end, there was nothing he didn't lie about. Con men are usually inveterate sociopaths. I believe Greg was a sociopath. Worms or other means he was going to take people's money. He sucked in energy and accolades from the crowd and loved being loved. His lies turned to hell in a handbasket for everyone below. I think his plan right from the beginning was to bleed as much money as possible from growers and then disappear. That last quote is from Kelly Slocum, who worked very closely with this man.

447
00:48:10,208 --> 00:48:14,020
Chris: Was that before or after he died?

448
00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:16,968
Kayla: The quote? Yeah, it's right after.

449
00:48:17,104 --> 00:48:19,780
Chris: Okay, so is she on team disappeared?

450
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:29,326
Kayla: I think that she's saying that. I think that she's not speculating about if he died or not, but that his plan went accordingly.

451
00:48:29,438 --> 00:48:32,270
Chris: Right. Is that he just. He was going to disappear. He was, one way or the other.

452
00:48:32,270 --> 00:48:55,500
Kayla: Disappear one way or the other. That's what I take that quote to mean. The moral to this story, like all stories involving fraud and cons and Ponzi schemes and pyramid structures and financial hope and charismatic business leaders, is that this can happen again. Just in 2015, a man named James Lahorn was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in prison for fraud involving tomatoes.

453
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:56,832
Chris: Tomato fraud.

454
00:48:56,936 --> 00:48:59,696
Kayla: After he'd already set up a fraud. Real worm farm business.

455
00:48:59,808 --> 00:49:01,880
Chris: Whoa, whoa. This could happen again in the same.

456
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:05,656
Kayla: It had happened history before in vermiculture, before Greg Bradley.

457
00:49:05,688 --> 00:49:06,176
Chris: Wait, what?

458
00:49:06,248 --> 00:49:08,784
Kayla: It's like a cyclical thing. It, like, happens.

459
00:49:08,912 --> 00:49:11,456
Chris: Is that because worms multiply so much?

460
00:49:11,528 --> 00:49:12,264
Kayla: I don't know why.

461
00:49:12,312 --> 00:49:12,824
Chris: It's why.

462
00:49:12,872 --> 00:49:35,932
Kayla: I don't know. And like, this James law horn case, like that was small potatoes compared to the multimillion dollar pyramid b and B setup. And given that the company essentially escaped the worst of it prosecution wise, it's just a matter of time before we open our newspapers and read a similar story. Of course, hardworking farmers separated from their money by a wormy con man.

463
00:49:35,996 --> 00:49:38,332
Chris: Yep. There's no consequences, so why not?

464
00:49:38,396 --> 00:49:43,284
Kayla: So remember, do the math. If the number of worms promised by the seller soon outpaces the number of.

465
00:49:43,332 --> 00:49:44,900
Chris: Like, atoms in the universe.

466
00:49:44,980 --> 00:49:48,314
Kayla: In the universe, you're probably looking at a Ponzi scheme.

467
00:49:48,886 --> 00:49:53,158
Chris: I think that's a pretty safe assumption. Beware exponential growth.

468
00:49:53,254 --> 00:50:05,374
Kayla: Yeah. It's a good lesson of 2020 to 2022. So let's go ahead and evaluate the Greg Bradley B and b worm farm Ponzi scheme with our criteria. How does that sound?

469
00:50:05,422 --> 00:50:06,310
Chris: It's a wormy cult.

470
00:50:06,390 --> 00:50:12,926
Kayla: It is a very wormy cult. So charismatic leader, high, for sure. Very high. Greg Bradley.

471
00:50:13,118 --> 00:50:16,958
Chris: Yeah. And not only Greg Bradley, but, like, he recruited a second charismatic leader to.

472
00:50:16,974 --> 00:50:18,234
Kayla: Help him and a third.

473
00:50:18,422 --> 00:50:19,018
Chris: Oh, yeah.

474
00:50:19,074 --> 00:50:22,362
Kayla: He got. He just would get people in that we could pull other people in.

475
00:50:22,426 --> 00:50:23,066
Chris: Mm.

476
00:50:23,178 --> 00:50:24,306
Kayla: So high on that.

477
00:50:24,378 --> 00:50:24,850
Chris: Mm.

478
00:50:24,930 --> 00:50:27,306
Kayla: What do you think of expected harm? Hi.

479
00:50:27,418 --> 00:50:29,730
Chris: Yeah. People fucking lost their life savings.

480
00:50:29,770 --> 00:50:34,922
Kayla: Like, people lost their life savings, lost their farms, lost their mortgage, lost their pensions. Like, not good.

481
00:50:34,986 --> 00:50:35,370
Chris: Sucks.

482
00:50:35,450 --> 00:50:36,138
Kayla: Yeah.

483
00:50:36,314 --> 00:50:38,250
Chris: But people who are feeding us, by the way.

484
00:50:38,290 --> 00:50:38,746
Kayla: Yeah.

485
00:50:38,858 --> 00:50:41,018
Chris: Like, that's. That's not good.

486
00:50:41,074 --> 00:51:03,036
Kayla: No, like, leave farmers alone, please. Please. Presence of ritual. I feel like he. So Greg Bradley was going around the country and giving these timeshare presentations. There was a lot of this. There was a lot of step right up and I'll give you a worm, and then you'll be wealthy, be on your wildest dreams. There was a lot of that going on.

487
00:51:03,068 --> 00:51:11,908
Chris: Was there a lot of jargon in language? Did the presence of Kelly Slocum, was she able to bring some domain knowledge that helped get people.

488
00:51:12,004 --> 00:51:12,652
Kayla: I don't know about that.

489
00:51:12,676 --> 00:51:18,616
Chris: About the specific words, you know, like, vermiculture certainly is a new word to me.

490
00:51:18,688 --> 00:51:19,160
Kayla: Right.

491
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:24,232
Chris: But, I mean, based on the story that I've heard here today, I would say relatively low in the ritual.

492
00:51:24,296 --> 00:51:27,460
Kayla: I think that you're right. What about niche within society?

493
00:51:28,640 --> 00:51:31,472
Chris: It's worms, man. That's definitely niche. Come on.

494
00:51:31,536 --> 00:51:34,688
Kayla: But it was in 43 states, and.

495
00:51:34,704 --> 00:51:36,288
Chris: I guess farming is, like, it was.

496
00:51:36,304 --> 00:51:40,380
Kayla: A $25 million business. It's still niche. I think it is niche.

497
00:51:41,130 --> 00:51:46,470
Chris: Yeah, but, like, if this is something that happens again and again, is that niche at that point?

498
00:51:47,010 --> 00:51:50,546
Kayla: I don't know. I think if you walk out in the street and go, like, what's vermiculture?

499
00:51:50,738 --> 00:52:06,586
Chris: But if you walked out into the rural street where you were talking to a farmer, right, then would they. You know what I mean? I almost feel like the society in question here is the farming community, and maybe it's not niche there. Maybe that's a well known thing there.

500
00:52:06,618 --> 00:52:07,270
Kayla: I don't know.

501
00:52:07,410 --> 00:52:08,730
Chris: What about fishermen?

502
00:52:09,070 --> 00:52:10,022
Kayla: What about them?

503
00:52:10,126 --> 00:52:11,134
Chris: Don't they use worms?

504
00:52:11,222 --> 00:52:11,726
Kayla: Yeah.

505
00:52:11,838 --> 00:52:12,654
Chris: Is that ever a thing?

506
00:52:12,702 --> 00:52:17,070
Kayla: People can grow their own worms for fishing? Yes. Or sell them as bait. That's part of vermiculture.

507
00:52:17,190 --> 00:52:21,790
Chris: Okay, so is that, like. I'm just trying to get a sense of, like, how I can go defraud a bunch of people.

508
00:52:21,870 --> 00:52:22,646
Kayla: You can't.

509
00:52:22,798 --> 00:52:23,158
Chris: Me?

510
00:52:23,214 --> 00:52:25,918
Kayla: I mean, why not? You'll probably die or end up in jail.

511
00:52:26,054 --> 00:52:32,370
Chris: Okay, first of all, I'm already 40, so I'm safe. Second of all, whatever. I can do what I want.

512
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:39,340
Kayla: Go ahead. I don't think you can. Where are you gonna do it? We live in an apartment. Are you saying. Are you saying it's niche or.

513
00:52:42,480 --> 00:52:54,080
Chris: I'm going to say it's. Let's say it's niche, with the possibility that if we ask a farmer that maybe we would change our mind. Okay, that's a terrible judgment.

514
00:52:54,160 --> 00:52:55,392
Kayla: Anti factuality.

515
00:52:55,536 --> 00:52:56,176
Chris: Oh, yeah.

516
00:52:56,248 --> 00:52:57,512
Kayla: Huge. Just the biggest.

517
00:52:57,536 --> 00:53:00,808
Chris: What was the question or the quote? He never told anything but a lie or whatever.

518
00:53:00,864 --> 00:53:05,704
Kayla: Everything was a lie. Also, there's more worms. He's promising more worms than humanly possible.

519
00:53:05,832 --> 00:53:09,256
Chris: Right. This is also the criteria where we should.

520
00:53:09,288 --> 00:53:13,984
Kayla: Also the lies about Sierra Leone, like, literally staging a call from the minister of agriculture.

521
00:53:14,112 --> 00:53:35,050
Chris: Right. And this is also the criteria where we, like, shoehorn in the whole, like, motivated reasoning thing, too. And there was definitely, like, a lot of motivated reasoning here. Right. To be able to get into this, you have to be able to turn off part of your brain. That's the critical thinking part of your brain. And with the people that were left over, still believers after it all crashed.

522
00:53:35,090 --> 00:53:41,354
Kayla: Right. Yeah, yeah. Super high life consumption. I'm gonna say this is high because.

523
00:53:41,522 --> 00:53:42,706
Chris: Because it bankrupted people.

524
00:53:42,778 --> 00:53:56,440
Kayla: Well, it bankrupted people. And also, it's like, it's not. No work to take care of these worms to grow. It's farming. Like, it's not. You are buying these worms, and then you're farming them, and then you're losing $160,000.

525
00:53:57,060 --> 00:54:00,400
Chris: Yeah. That seems high dogmatic beliefs.

526
00:54:02,660 --> 00:54:04,116
Kayla: No, I don't think so.

527
00:54:04,188 --> 00:54:06,676
Chris: I don't think there's, like, a I'm right, you're wrong type thing going on.

528
00:54:06,708 --> 00:54:12,244
Kayla: I mean, there was the whole, like, if you don't want to be here, I don't want you. But that doesn't seem dogmatic. That just seems like a good sense.

529
00:54:12,292 --> 00:54:13,124
Chris: That's a sales pitch.

530
00:54:13,172 --> 00:54:13,444
Kayla: Yeah.

531
00:54:13,492 --> 00:54:14,028
Chris: Yeah.

532
00:54:14,164 --> 00:54:27,082
Kayla: Chain of victims, I'm gonna say is it's, like, in between MLM and nothing. Yeah, there's definitely, like, farmers were telling each other about it and, like, recruiting that way. And then, like, Kelly Slocum was obviously recruiter.

533
00:54:27,146 --> 00:54:27,626
Chris: Yeah.

534
00:54:27,738 --> 00:54:31,682
Kayla: Chain of victiming. So I think it's medium, maybe even high. I don't know.

535
00:54:31,826 --> 00:54:33,242
Chris: Yeah, 70%.

536
00:54:33,346 --> 00:54:36,870
Kayla: Yeah. And then the last one. Safe or unsafe to exit.

537
00:54:37,770 --> 00:54:43,914
Chris: It seems like it depends on where you were. Like, if you were an early. If you were an early warmer, maybe it was safe.

538
00:54:43,962 --> 00:54:44,194
Kayla: Right.

539
00:54:44,242 --> 00:54:49,562
Chris: But if you were getting in towards the end, if you were exiting, that meant you were exiting with your pockets a lot lighter.

540
00:54:49,626 --> 00:54:53,482
Kayla: Right. But no one was gonna, like, come after you or communicate you or.

541
00:54:53,586 --> 00:55:02,538
Chris: That's true. This criteria is more about, like, you know, can I exit and, like, maintain my social connections and relationships and not fear for my life?

542
00:55:02,594 --> 00:55:03,330
Kayla: And I think that you can.

543
00:55:03,370 --> 00:55:04,330
Chris: That's low. That's low.

544
00:55:04,410 --> 00:55:18,840
Kayla: So we've got high charismatic leader, high expected harm, medium niche, high intefactuality, high life consumption hygiene, medium to high. Chain of victims. Like, that's six criteria where we're, like, medium to high. Are we saying cult?

545
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:20,168
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. This is a worm cult.

546
00:55:20,224 --> 00:55:22,140
Kayla: Are Ponzi schemes all cults?

547
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:57,228
Chris: I mean, I think this is kind of, like, with the mlms, right? It's like, this is why all mlms feel culty. Is because they all need some of these aspects to be true. They all need to have some antifactuality going on. They all need to have some recruitiness going on. They all touch and ruin people's lives. There's a lot of motivated reasoning and a lot of like. And probably the biggest thing is that appeal to emotion, that desperate hopefulness to stop being a temporarily embarrassed billionaire. Right, right. And that's why all of them feel this way. So I would say probably yes.

548
00:55:57,324 --> 00:56:02,320
Kayla: All right. Ponzi schemes are cults. You definitely did not hear that here first, but we're saying it anyway.

549
00:56:02,980 --> 00:56:04,948
Chris: Take that, Madoff.

550
00:56:05,084 --> 00:56:07,732
Kayla: He's dead. Yeah, well, these guys all die eventually.

551
00:56:07,796 --> 00:56:08,894
Chris: Still, peon is great.

552
00:56:09,052 --> 00:56:16,346
Kayla: That's it for this episode. It was kind of nice to do something somewhat straightforward. Like, I think this will actually be a relatively short episode for us.

553
00:56:16,378 --> 00:56:17,298
Chris: Oh, awesome.

554
00:56:17,354 --> 00:56:17,802
Kayla: I know.

555
00:56:17,866 --> 00:56:18,710
Chris: High five.

556
00:56:19,530 --> 00:56:26,922
Kayla: Just remember, Ponzi schemes are bad. Don't do them. I'm sure we'll be looking like, don't make them and don't participate in them.

557
00:56:26,986 --> 00:56:28,018
Chris: Oh, oh.

558
00:56:28,074 --> 00:56:46,914
Kayla: I'm sure we'll be looking at other Ponzi schemes in the future on the show. And if you do want to get involved in vermicomposting, like maybe for a hobby or a little self care with me in the composting or to make fishing bait, you don't have to be involved in a fraud. You can just head over to the good folks on redditurmiculture and they'll help set you up.

559
00:56:47,002 --> 00:56:51,378
Chris: And if you want to talk to Kayla about it, just email us culturejustweirdmail.com dot.

560
00:56:51,514 --> 00:56:54,990
Kayla: But if someone promises to buy back your worms, run.

561
00:56:55,770 --> 00:56:59,762
Chris: Yeah, and also don't buy a worm kit for 15 grand.

562
00:56:59,866 --> 00:57:00,714
Kayla: Just don't.

563
00:57:00,842 --> 00:57:07,520
Chris: Don't do that. This is Kayla, and this is Chris, and this has been cult or just worms.