432: Larry Lawton | From Jewel Thief to Honorary Cop Part One
The Jordan Harbinger Show
Jordan Harbinger
4.8 • 12.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2020
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Larry Lawton (@LawrenceRLawton) stole over $18m in diamonds and spent 11 years in some of the toughest federal prisons in the country. He works with The Reality Check Program to keep youth out of trouble that would land them in prison, and is the co-author of Gangster Redemption: How America's Most Notorious Jewel Robber Got Rich, Got Caught, and Got His Life Back on Track. This is part one of a two-part episode. Stay tuned for the rest later in the week!
What We Discuss with Larry Lawton:- How young Larry fattened his wallet with $125 a week in 1972 (equivalent to over $750 a week today) with various scams, thefts, and hustles.
- How Larry wound up getting into the jewelry robbery game, and what he did to maintain control over the situation when he had a gun pulled on him his first time out.
- Why Larry spent over $10,000 to get a professional education in the jewelry trade when he decided this would be the focus of his criminal career.
- How a business owner can ensure their place isn't the one chosen when a potential robber is casing businesses in search of an easy target.
- How Larry would plan and execute a heist when he was a career criminal, and what he would do afterward to hide his trail from the inevitable investigation.
- And much more...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is brought to you by Microsoft Teams. |
| 0:03.1 | When there are more ways to be together, there are more ways to be a team. |
| 0:06.8 | Coming up on the Jordan Harbinger Show. |
| 0:10.0 | So if I rob a million dollar picture, I couldn't get 30,000 bucks for a million dollars. |
| 0:15.3 | 10% is a hundred thousand. I couldn't get that. And I'm going to take an order of heat you're |
| 0:20.0 | going to get for robbing stuff like that. And then where do you get rid of it? That's the key. |
| 0:24.0 | You couldn't get rid of it. I'm sure there's less than this bias for everything out there. |
| 0:28.0 | Maybe some eccentric billionaire in Spain that puts it in his basement, |
| 0:32.4 | goes down and he jacks off to it. I don't know. Listen, in my criminal career, |
| 0:36.8 | what I wanted is you get it, you get rid of it, and you get the money, and goodbye. |
| 0:41.4 | You don't hold things. You're not a retailer. |
| 0:47.8 | Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories, |
| 0:52.4 | secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. If you're new to the show, |
| 0:56.2 | we have in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game. Entrepreneurs and astronauts, |
| 1:01.0 | spies and psychologists, even the occasional jewel thief, and each episode turns our guest wisdom |
| 1:06.6 | into practical advice you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works, |
| 1:10.8 | and become a better critical thinker. Today, Larry Lotton, he's got to be the only ex-con in the |
| 1:15.9 | United States to be sworn in as an honorary police officer, and he's the only ex-con ever to be |
| 1:22.0 | recognized on the floor of the United States Congress for his work with helping young people |
| 1:26.5 | and law enforcement agencies. Larry Lotton spent 11 years in some of the toughest federal prisons in |
| 1:32.2 | the country, but let's be real. That's not why we're here today. We're here today because he stole |
| 1:36.9 | over $18 million in diamonds. Today, we'll go inside the mind of one of the most prolific jewel |
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