First off, did you know there is a black market for luxury cheeses? Angie shatters Theresa’s understanding of things when she shares the “Grate Cheese Heist of 2024.” Listen to how a massive amount of artisanal cheese is stolen and unaccounted for.
Then Theresa shifts gears and shares the WWII story of Agent Zigzag. This British citizen, Eddie Chapman, moves from criminal to German spy to British double-agent. There are love affairs, blowing up factories, and lies. This story has it all.
This episode pairs well with:
The great butter and cheese fire of 1991
Great Maple Syrup Heist
The SAS raid no one knew about
Odette Samson
Transcript:
Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast. The podcast were two compulsive, absolute unhinged maniacs without knives. Join forces and tell each other history stories we’ve only recently learned. I’m host one. I’m Teresa and that’s…
Angie: I’m Angie. I have a string cheese and I’m host two.
Theresa: Yeah, could you wait, Edly, until after your intro before you inject cheese into your mouth? I can’t. It’s part of the show. I’m glad this is an audio podcast and you’ve introduced eating. Ha ha! Aren’t you so excited? I can’t wait for this next rash of reviews because they will be a rash. Well… Yeah.
Angie: Good news is good news…or what is that? Good…any publicity is good publicity?
Theresa: Sure, it is now. It is now. I believe I went first last week when we covered the Great Madison Butter Fire of 1991. Yeah, you did. I just checked. No, I’m going to go back to doing some needlework and listening to you regale me with whatever it is you choose to tell me.
Angie: I’m just asking ahead of time. Do you need a palette cleanser?
Theresa: Good question. No, I don’t actually. This time I am pretty stinking good.
Angie: Okay, well, I’m… I am so excited to tell you my story. Okay. I’m going to come out the gate with a quote from Scotland Yard and then I will tell you my sources.
Theresa: I know that we’re on different centuries because of the conversation we had in text yesterday, but I do have Scotland Yard in mind as well. That is awesome. I’m so excited.
Angie: Are you ready for my quote? Good. Never mind. Okay. On Monday, this is the quote from Scotland Yard. On Monday, the 21st of October, we received a report of the theft of a large quantity of cheese from a manufacturer based in Southwark.
Inquiries are ongoing into the circumstances. This is a recent quote. From 24. Oh, from 2024. My sources.
Okay. 63-year-old man arrested in UK, cheese heist, NPR by Rachel Trisman and Juliana Kim. This is November of 2024. And just for the headline, the great cheese robbery. Man arrested after 24 times of cheese, totaling $390,000 that’s stolen in London by Gabriella Rudy from October 24. Question. Interrupting cow question. Go.
Theresa: Did you choose this story because you’re like, I, what great cheese events occurred?
Angie: So this has been on my list probably since April when I heard about the cheese heist and was laughing so hard last week when you were talking about the cheese fire.
Theresa: Because you realized that I could have easily jumped in and taken the cheese heist from you.
Angie: Easily. And I was like, I got, I got to go. But then I laughed even harder when I realized we were discussing how there’s not enough greats anymore. So I am giving you the great cheese robbery. However, it is not G-R-E-A-T.
It is G-R-A-T-E because again, we have a sense of humor and so is the press. He great cheese robbery of 24. My other, my other sources are the Neil’s Yard Heist when luxury cheese is being targeted by criminals. That is from the BBC. It is also from November of 24. And an Al Jazeera article by Dwayne Oxford October 24. The great cheese heist who stole $390,000 of cheese.
All right. There is also a really delightful article in here from the Dairy Heard by Taylor Leach, which was just out in August of this year. And apparently the Dairy Heard is like the foremost authority on dairy information coming out of the UK. Okay. So you heard it here. I was like, okay, I didn’t, I didn’t know. I didn’t know those things.
Okay. So this is the 2024 UK theft of tens of tons of Premier cheese, which happened to be a very wonderfully sophisticated scam. So basically here’s the story sometime between June and July of 2024, a dairy farmer called Patrick Holden. He gets an email from a purchaser for this French supermarket chain. And this guy wants to buy 22 tons of his half or cheese. This happens to be the cheese that Holden specializes in.
Like this is his jam, right? This is a ward winning cloth bound artisan cheese that comes sealed in a layer of lard that has been aged for 18 months. This cheese is so special that it comes with like its own, like its own serial number. A quick Google search basically describes the tags that are attached to these cheeses as quote, cheese tags for our artisanal wheels, our Artisanal identifiers.
Yeah. Artisanal wheels are crucial identifiers acting like ID cards that track the production like date batch facility for cheese makers. They are often used using food safe casein labels that stick to the rind and then or their printed paper or plastic tags with all the batch number info on them. That’s like just attached to the wheel of cheese. Browne Percival, who is a buyer at Neal’s Dairy who I’ll mention again in just a few minutes says this cheese is quote, one of the most special cheeses being made in the UK.
And I just think that it’s hilarious that there’s like a conversation about this. Now for Holden, the cheese man, this is a big deal. This is the biggest order he has ever received. To the point that Holden remembers thinking, you know, because this order supposedly comes from France, his thought is quote, finally people on the continent are appreciating what we do. And I would just like to take a second to acknowledge the fact that the English still call the mainland the continent.
Theresa: Now, but see, that makes sense to me. You know what I mean? It does.
Angie: I just never really thought about it before like you hear about it in like doubt and abby like we should take it to the continent. But like, I didn’t realize we’re still saying that
Theresa: this feels weird to me because this would be like the French calling me and saying, Hey, that bubble wine that you make, we want to import a bad of it. Like, but you want my stuff in the land of your stuff? Yeah.
Angie: Okay. And I think that’s kind of how Holden’s feeling about it. But he’s also like, wow, they’re really recognizing what our specialties are here. That’s great. Now, an order this big is made through Neil’s dairy yard or Neil’s yard dairy, which is quote, an upmarket cheese seller and wholesaler. Now, Neil’s yard collects these specialty cheeses throughout the summer since the orders placed. And I should say that it wasn’t just the half for cheese. It was several specialty cheeses.
There’s Westcomb cheddar, pitchfork cheddar, and of course, then the half for it. Now, all of these, you just said that like, of course, of course, all of these, they are special. As I mentioned before, they come from small batch enterprise like the Holden family. And besides him, there are two other dairy farmers that this prize will call as being sourced from. So it’s a huge order. And it’s all three of the dairy farmers that are being sourced from. This is like the biggest order they’ve ever had and also the most crippling order they could have because in order to fulfill this order, they’re taking out their entire stock because of how long it takes to create to produce this cheese. Right?
So like it’s a thing. So according to the BBC, the first batch of half for it arrived at its London base in September. It takes up one square meter on a pallet but represents two years of effort and had the wholesale value of 35,000 pounds or $46,000 in cheese. In total, the amount of cheese that’s requested is between 20 and 22 tons, which equals out to be about 24 U.S. tons. I didn’t realize that tons were a difference but they are. Yeah, I mean, we’re American.
Theresa: We’ve got to do everything. Right. Of course we do.
Angie: So in total, that’s roughly between that cheese, that tonnage of cheese is going to be about 300,000 pounds, which is like $395,000. So it’s a lot of cheese money. By October 14th, they’ve collected all the cheese and it’s ready to leave Neil’s Dairy Yard. It’s all packed up. It’s taken by courier to a depot and then gone. Nothing. It’s vanished and they don’t know where it went. Not a clue. You would be shocked to learn that there is no real order and by October 21st, payment has unsurprisingly not showed up because of course it won’t.
Theresa: Okay, but they… Okay, small problem. Go. Typically, you get an order, you say half down, half at fulfillment.
Angie: You would think that because I thought that too. And in one of the sources, I don’t quote it, but in one of the sources, they talk about how in the cheese world, there is a lot of trust and faith put in each other. So I feel like they were never… The thought of even ever being duped was never in their mind because the supplier that this individual called from is one of the most renowned in Europe. So why wouldn’t they be trusted? So I don’t think a half down, half on delivery thing ever even went through their mind.
However, I’m sure it does now. Right? So the buyer that made the request for all the cheese that plays such a large order is of course a fake, a fraud, a phony, right? All of the things.
Theresa: A scam artist, a con artist. I’m trying to get all the words. You left a couple.
Angie: I’m sure there’s more, right? A rake, if you will. Now, since the payment hasn’t arrived, Neil’s yard has to report the theft of 10s of Cheddar. Or more specifically, this is around 950 wheels of cheese to Scotland Yard. So they are reporting away. Let me, for some context, according to the BBC, this amount of cheese is roughly the weight of four full-sized elephants.
Theresa: This is proof Americans will measure anything.
Angie: And the BBC knows it. So they’re like, yep, we got to tell them what it is in elephants.
Theresa: I respect the BBC more and more.
Angie: Me too. I was like, yes, thank you for that. We needed to know exactly how many elephants of cheese this is. So on October 22, Neil’s Dairy Yard comes out and makes a statement to the public noting that they were, quote, a victim of a sophisticated fraud. So the statement goes on.
That’s just trust. Sorry, sorry. Carry on. The statement goes on to say, the high monetary value of these cheeses likely made them a particular target for the thieves. The company is now taking steps to ensure both its financial stability and the continued development of the British Artisan and Cheese sector. Now, Neil’s Yards then post the following comments to their Instagram feed because they have one.
Of course they do. The quote says, Neil’s Yard Dairy has been a victim of a theft resulting in the loss of over 22 tons or 24 tons if you’re an American of clothed on cheddar. Over 950 wheels of half-eared Westcomb and Pitchfork Cheddar were delivered before the fraud was discovered. Despite the significant financial blow, we have honored our commitment to the small-scale suppliers and paid all three Artisan cheesemakers in full.
How nice of them. One of these other cheesemaker victims by the name of Taun Calver says, quote, it’s ridiculous. Of all the things that steal in the world, 22 tons of cheese. And then he goes on to say, what it does show, which I’m amazed about, is the value people put on these amazing Artisan foods.
Angie: Like he’s shocked that someone would want their cheese.
Theresa: I’m shocked somebody has enough room for one ton of cheese, either Imperial or American or whatever. However we qualify it. Right.
Angie: Let alone 24 tons. Like that’s a huge that’s bananas. By the end of October, the news has gone world. Excuse me. The news has gone worldwide and is sensational. It’s nicknamed the great cheese robbery. And this, of course, does not sit well with anybody, especially the foodies and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver goes with Instagram to share thoughts about it saying quote, there has been a great cheese robbery. Some of the best cheddar cheese in the world has been stolen.
And then he hops on eggs, formerly known as Twitter, to say, if anyone hears anything about posh cheese going for cheap, for cheap, it’s probably some wrong. Who’s going to report the cheese? Snitches. Snitches will report the cheese. Well, you know, you’re absolutely right.
They will. So obviously an investigation is underway. And it’s pretty clear that these scammers have posed as an agent of this respective French distributor. Like I said, they’re renowned in your in the Europe cheese trade. And the idea of organizing this major like cheese moving event would be exactly the thing that this French distributor would have been doing. So it wouldn’t have caught anybody off guard. So of course, nobody initially questions when the order comes in.
These scammers literally fool everyone right out the gate at every level, like at every level. But in the late, like late in October, the week of like the 28th to the 31st, there’s an arrest. It’s a 63 year old man and he’s arrested on suspicion of fraud and false representation, as well as handling stolen goods. The man is taken to a South London police station and questioned and then released on bail.
Theresa: He’s got said underneath his fingers and a bulk of shredded serial numbers in a shoe.
Angie: It’s got to be what it looks like, right? Um, I lost my spot. Now, excuse me, more arrests are made as we enter into the new year, which is now 2025. One was a 37 year old man on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and handling stolen goods. And since then, at least five more men have been arrested with one that was interviewed under caution. So I don’t know that that’s an arrest more as it is just we brought you in for questioning is what I’m assuming that means. Now, in the meantime, all of them have been released while detectives from the Metropolitan Police Specialist Crime Command continue with their investigation and inquiries. And all I can imagine is a group of detectives sitting next to another group of detectives, one has to deal with stolen cheese and one dealing with like high vice crimes. And they’re doing the same job and that just makes me laugh so hard.
Neal’s yard dairy is still working with the police to help with identifying any of the pervs and also to recover the stolen cheese, which could have made its way to Russia or the Middle East via the gray market.
Theresa: Yeah, that’s the thing. I knew there was a black one.
Angie: Yeah, it’s like it’s marginally black like we’re almost the margin is a butter marginally.
Theresa: I know I was being. My ill attempt to humor.
Angie: Your ill attempt to humor. I’m here for it. So earlier I mentioned the cheese tags which had been removed. And so Neal’s yard dairy has put out a request to other distributors and those in the market to report any sightings of the cloth bound shutter wheels weighing either 10 cakes or 24 cakes, which is respectively 20 few pounds or 53 pounds. That said, if you see cheese without a tag, it could have been sold on the black or gray market and it’s illegal.
Angie: Now, so the, that’s fun. Didn’t have tags. I thought they were sold with tags.
Angie: It was, but the tags were removed and I don’t know at what point in the investigation, like I don’t know if they discovered that they were removed in the depot or at some other point, but they know that the tags are missing from these specific wheels of cheese. And so keep your keep an eye out for half her cheese missing its tag.
Theresa: This, this sounds like there’s a literal chop shop. But she’s been laundered. It’s been chopped into smaller bits.
Angie: It’s in your lunchable now. Yeah. So, as a fun aside, the BBC says food related crimes, which includes smuggling counterfeiting and out and out best cost the global food industry between 30 and 50 billion a year or in great British pounds 23 to 38 billion. According to the World Trade Organization, and these range from hijackings of freight lorries delivering food to warehouses to the best of 24 live lobsters from a storage pen in Scotland. But a number of these food crimes have also targeted the grade the cheese industry and in particularly luxury cheese, which is not something I thought I would ever say.
Theresa: Considering last week I talked about government cheese, luxury cheese feels like the opposite into that pendulum.
Angie: Yeah, you’re, you know what? You’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right. And so, so that’s my story of the great cheese robbery at 24. It is still ongoing investigation is still happening.
So I don’t know who’s who’s behind it all. But before you ask, there have in fact been other great cheese heists one in 2026 and at least one more in 1990.
Angie: And in 2026, you said, is he 2016? Did I say 26?
Angie: I’ve rubbed off on you. I’m projecting. I am projecting for next year. There’s going to be a great cheese.
Theresa: Scott Lanyard, if there’s a cheese heist in 2026, you heard it here first. Angie is the ringleader.
Angie: I really love cheese. So, yeah, I don’t know that any of them have been named great as in G. R. A. T. But that’s the story of the great cheese robbery of 24. And it was inspired by you and my cheese loving son.
Theresa: I’m here for that. I really am. And now I’m going to put down the shoe I’m embroidering and I will pull up my notes. Love this for me. Okay. So my story comes from a Tik Tok recommendation because my favorite ones do. This is from a Tik Tok user named Katie H. 31 38. And I’m going to be telling you the story of agent zigzag. Okay, go. Excellent. My sources. I’m familiar with the name.
Okay, good. Agent zigzag the book by bang mac and tire warfare history network secret agent man. The story of Eddie Chapman by Peter Cross and a couple of podcasts. The BBC book club, Ben Mac and tire was interviewed.
It’s titled agent zigzag and then true life spy stories from career criminal to agent zigzag. Right. Now let’s go. Eddie Chapman. This is the dude we’re going to be working with. He goes by several aliases.
I didn’t put them in there. Some of his like one of his aliases is like at Edwards, which I’m like, okay, could with fake and fake or something. Johnson, you know, like, but Eddie Chapman, he’s the eldest of three kids. He’s born November 16th, 1914 in a small English village of Bruno Bruno field. That’s probably not even how you say it, but anyhow, his father runs a local pub.
It’s called the clipper ship. The, okay. Establishment doesn’t do very well because daddy dearest tends to get high on his own supply. Unfortunately. Yeah. So he’s a bit of an alcoholic and he is said to drink more than work. As most alcoholics do.
Problematic. Now at 17, Eddie does this thing where he lies about his age, forges paperwork, joins the army. Good for him. He enlist in the second battalion of the cold stream guards after spending about nine months in uniform. The collar got a little itchy and he’s granted leave and he makes a beeline to love or to London and he starts hooking up with all the chicks. He can get his hands on.
Angie: Okay. He’s not that small or itchy, but it has a job.
Theresa: It, you know, he found the uniform chasers and he showed them how it worked. Even worse, he decides that he’s just not going to go back. He’s just going to go completely AWOL.
Okay. And he’s eventually arrested. He spends two months in a stockade and then when he’s released, he’s dishonorably discharged and he returned to Soho and began his new career as a petty criminal.
Angie: Yes. He spent two months in the stockade? Yes. Like, I’m assuming like Brigg. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
Theresa: He goes through a series of odd jobs working as a barman. He’s an extra in motion pictures. He’s a dancer.
Angie: And I’m assuming that meant like dancer.
Theresa: A scale nightclub where he would go and like be paid by the establishment to dance with young ladies to make them stay to buy more drinks. That’s my assumption. Okay. A wrestler, basically anything that gives him access to booze and women. His two great loves in this life. That’ll work. He spends most of his free time at this bar called Smokey Joe’s and he’s meeting tons of the who’s who of the underworld. Okay. He gravitates quickly to this, this new arena. It’s during the 1930s. He really catapults into his second career.
Angie: I love the way you say that. Like, it’s like, it’s like saying he’s just going to go do that next great thing. Yeah. And I know, but by the tone of your voice, that’s, that’s not what you mean.
Theresa: No, no. He’s breaking into homes and stealing everything he can get his hands on.
Angie: The luxury cheese. The luxury cheese that are just left up on the entry table by the front door, including like, he’s also forging checks.
Theresa: Okay. Now, for his crimes when caught, he’s given like these little slap on the resentences. And like, he serves like a two month term for stealing a check and then for fraud. As soon as he’s out of jail, he’s rearrested for trespassing and locked up for another three months. So our man loved three hots in a cot.
Angie: When it works, you know, right? When it works, the book
Theresa: refers to him as an honest villain. The best kind. Yep.
Angie: Like truly, but like, okay, so they talk about how gregarious and really charismatic he is, like the kind of guy who could shake your hand, smile and pick your pocket with his other hand. Yep. Okay. Now during the same period, he joins this ruthless bunch of criminals called the jelly gang.
Angie: They found terrifying.
Theresa: Don’t they? Now, when I first heard this, I thought that is the dumbest gang name, but they were using a thing called Jellick Knight, which is an explosive.
Angie: Oh, so okay, it’s just a plate. That makes sense.
Theresa: Yep. So their M.O. is using high explosives to break into safe. I love this. Now he, Eddie Chapman refers to himself as a master safe cracker, but I’m going to go out on a limb and I’m going to say if you’re using explosives, you don’t necessarily need a delicate hand. Yep.
Angie: Mastering that is not, it’s not the same as being able to like pick the lock
Theresa: with a bobby pin. Yeah, the fine motor skill needs. Like your dexterity levels are much different. Yeah. So the leader of the jelly gang is this dude named Jimmy Hunt.
Chapman later will use Jimmy’s name when he’s trying to fool Germans during the war. So put a pin in that. A pin in it. The jelly gang proceeds to rob various upscale stores all throughout London. They steal from a furrier named Isabelle’s where they steal a number of minx and caves valued at 200 pounds.
And this is in the 30s. Next they go to a pawnbroker where the gang blew up four safes. They steal 15,000 pounds. Okay. Which I didn’t think a pawnbroker would have that much when I’m honest.
Angie: Now, I mean, it sort of makes sense. They have to be able to pay you for the thing that you’re paunting them. Fair. Fair.
Theresa: Now he loves his work so much. He’s so proud of everything that he does that he clips the newspaper articles about himself and the robberies and he files them into a scrapbook. Dude, my dad did that. Hold up. Your dad was a petty criminal. Yes. Sign bar. Carry on. This is the Angie story now. Okay.
Angie: So what I, I don’t know what kind of trouble he would get into, but he was very well like this. The young man, him like pre kids, him like early teens, young adult, him.
Yeah. Would get into so much trouble with the local like police and Sheriff’s department that they knew him by name. And often from what I’m told, it was like by association, like he would be arrested because he was in the wrong place at the right time with the wrong group of guys, but he may not have committed that day’s crime.
But like on more than one occasion, like I remember my grandma telling me one time, he was probably 17 or 18. The officer showed up at his door said, Mrs. Brewer, I’m so sorry, I’m going to have to rest your son. Could you get him to come out? And she says, yes, sir. My dad comes out willingly. They handcuff him. He gets in the car.
No problem. Two hours later, the same officer arrives back at my grandma’s house and says, dear Mrs. Brewer, I’m so sorry. I need to rest your son again. Because my dad hopped the car.
Ran around for a couple hours and then came home and took a map and went back the second time. Like my dad was the real life Luke and Boduk. Like, okay. I and so every time he got in trouble in those early years, he would clip the newspaper article that went with it and kept it like his.
Theresa: Like scrapbooked style kept it. I mean, honestly, you need to redo your family album and integrate those articles into it.
Angie: Honestly, I need to get my yes, yes, it’s his rebel yearbook. You’re absolutely right. 100%. I will have to try to find him because the articles are hilarious. Like in one that I can remember off the top of my head, some friends of his like three friends of his were involved in like a petty. House theft and my dad like showed up when the theft was over and had like really no idea that that had happened. But because he was with them when they heard the police coming, they told him to run. So he ran and was arrested like three hours later hiding under a bush somewhere. And every single time it was like, dude, I wasn’t even there.
Theresa: I mean, but I kind of was, but I really wasn’t.
Angie: Yeah, every time, like just by proxy, I’m in trouble, but I guess maybe I should be your sign to get new friends.
Theresa: Yeah, yeah, I would be. Okay, so back to Eddie Chapman, Agent Zig Zig. Sorry. No, no, no. I didn’t know there were others like that. Delightful detour, happy to have got on it. So Eddie Chapman, his scrapbook, all of that. It’s so pervasive that Scotland Yard has an entire group dedicated to the jelly gang. I love that. Now, before like, this was when I was doing my own notes before, you know, you went on. Yeah, I knew you were going to have a delightful tangent about this. I sit down in my notes, imagine dating a guy and going to his home and finding his scrapbook of crimes. It’s like, oh, look, he crafts. Oh, no. Oh, no.
Angie: Oh, my mom kept it. That’s the only reason I know it exists because I found it once.
Theresa: Oh, okay. So this is all delicious and I love this all. We’re going to go to 1939. Eddie Chapman is doing his Nairdwell spree and the police are hot on a trail. Now members of the jelly gang fled towards Scotland and this is where their luck runs out. They’re trying to rob the headquarters of the Edinburgh Cooperative Society. And this is where Chapman and four others are caught by policemen who heard the noise and investigated before they go to trial.
The form escaped and fled to the wilds of Jersey in the Channel Islands. OK, now Chapman’s got this huge amount of money on him. And he is now the subject of this huge manhunt across the marshes of Jersey before being captured by the police while he’s staying in the hotel.
They’ll applause. Now he and his four friends went. But before they went, he grabbed his side piece named Betty and they’re hanging out in the Jersey Island and they’re living large. Like right because he’s got all kinds of cash. He’s got all this cash.
He sends this letter back home to his girlfriend saying, hey, honey, managing something and the police intercept. They’re like, wait a minute, wait a minute, you’re in Jersey. We’ll hold on a second. We can go find you.
They go to Jersey, right? Now the side piece is this woman named Betty Farmer. Betty sees like they’re in this hotel or they’re in this restaurant at the hotel. They’re having a great time. It’s Betty, Eddie Chapman, a couple of their members of Jelly Gang. They see the members of the plainclothes police come in and Eddie Chapman goes, those look like the fuzz. So he leans over, kisses Betty, excuses himself to the bathroom, climbs out the bathroom window and she gets picked up by the police and then he’s later busted.
Angie: But okay, please tell me she slapped him when she saw him again. She comes back.
Theresa: Oh, good. Back, put a pin in that story. Okay. Now this event getting captured by the government, by the police in Jersey. This is his life, his fuzz, the five. Now, June 1940, he’s safely in jail. The German war machine rolls all the way through Europe, right? France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, they’re all under Hitler’s dominion. Now, the Lüwaffa, they begin to prepare for the invasion of Great Britain and the outlying areas.
This includes the Channel Islands. You see where I’m coming. Now, things happen. The Germans invade. They take over the Channel Islands.
Now we’ve got a British citizen locked up in jail, now under German control. My money’s on him. I mean, your money should be on him. He’s fearing for his long-term safety because he’s got him and some friends that he’s made. He writes a letter to the German authorities in the Channel Islands and he’s like, look, look, I mean, I’ve been in here long enough to be teaching myself French. Like you need me and I can be a great spy for the third right.
Angie: Have you seen this jawline?
Theresa: I mean, honestly, I’ll show you his jawline. It’s this man. If your friend said, I met this man on hinge and showed you the picture, you would be like, okay, kind of cute, but the man is going to be a smarmy psychopath.
Angie: So it’s the exact vibe I’ve been getting the whole time here. Yeah. Okay.
Theresa: Now, so Chapman writes this letter being like, hey, let me spy for you. Have you seen this? You’ve seen this? Now, he later goes on to say, if I could work a bluff with the Germans, I could probably be sent over to Britain, perhaps with phony talk even then, but I don’t pretend there was no other modus in the plan as I began to turn it over to my mind.
They did not occur to me either in the moment or in the mood. So he’s like, look, I’m just, I was trying to get back home. A con artist is a con artist. Right. Now he makes friends with this dude in prison named Fairness, right? And both him and Fairness are like, Hey, yeah, we’re in this, we’re in this. We’re like, in a double team to spy bit, it’ll be like spy versus spy, whatever it is, anyhow, they think they’re going to do this. Now they end up, they were, they had been arrested on these bogus charges of cutting telephone lines on Channel Island, which is just weird. They’re put on a plane for Paris or a train for Paris and they have no idea what’s going to happen, right?
They’re taken to this prison called Fort De Romonville and it’s on the outskirts of the city and Chapman gets interrogated by the prison staff about his various criminal activities because there’s a dossier in the jail. All right, this guy, he’s back. Now, one of the men interrogating him is this man named Dr. Stefan Grauman, who also goes by the name Von Groening. Now at the time, Chapman and Grauman, they become close friends, despite being on very different sides of the war. Okay.
Okay. Like for whatever reason, these two vibe. Now, it’s during these sessions that Grauman makes Eddie an offer. He can’t refuse. He’s like, look, I’ll get you your freedom and you’d like cash. You like money? I got lots of money. I’m going to send you back to the prison. I don’t even know what to do with the money. I got, yeah. Like we’ve got real money. We’ve got fake money.
Angie: We’ve got fake money that looks like real money. I, I will get into that.
Theresa: Now, I’m so excited. He’s like, we’re going to, we’ll send you back to Britain. We’re going to train you with, you know, all the stuff German intelligence can. And we’re going to send you on some planned ice mission or clandestine missions.
And Chapman, he’s like, look, I see a chance to get out of jail. This sounds like a great deal for me. I could act as a spot, not going to necessarily actually do it, but pretend. So he’s like, I’m going to take this offer once in a lifetime to do it for the lore. Good for him. Now, he’s like, oh, man, man, Fairmas. Oh, no, no, we’re going to keep him here. So you act right.
Angie: Yep. Okay.
Theresa: I mean, so Fairmas eventually gets into a cross concentration camp. He survives the war. I’ll just float that out there. Um, and then Chapman’s taking to a new training facility in Nantes, France. And he is living the high life because the Germans want to make this man loyal unto them. So champagne, multi-course meals. Um, he’s also trained in the fine art of espionage, wireless contraption or operations, hand-to-hand combat and secret Inc. Oh, okay.
Okay. Now he’s training under three months under the direction of Lieutenant Walter Prittoria. Now he’s got a couple of the names.
I’m just kidding. But Chapman basically becomes like adapted all of these things and he’s ready for the next step in the, in the German war. Now at one point when, in the book, when he’s learning parachute jumping, he lands on his face. As you do, jacks up his teeth, ends up having to have like, I think $6,000 in 1930s money poured into his face.
Cool. Like multiple gold teeth and people are like, we’re going to throw this in for a Brit. Like we’ve already spent too much.
Take him out back and shoot him. Like we don’t need this. We can get other ones. Yeah. Um, so he’s, he’s making enemies just because the amount of money that the right guy’s spending on them, but those teeth come in handy because unbeknownst to everybody, uh, the German signals are being intercepted by Bletchley Park and they hear about this person who goes by the code named Fritschian or little Fritz who has gotten gold teeth, who’s gotten all this stuff done, who’s going to be infiltrating Britain. And so there’s like, okay, okay. Now Chapman never knows about Bletchley Park and everything that they’ve learned about him, but put a pen in that.
Angie: I’m so far building one of those crime boards
Theresa: because you should be with like all of the strings going everywhere else. Yeah. Now, as I’ve kind of mentioned the unbeknownst to the Abwehr and Eddie Chapman, the British know all about his plans to enter England. They don’t quite know his actual identity, but they know his code names. They know where he, where he’s going to go. They have an idea of his missions and they’re able to decipher the encryption that are coming through. Now. Using their 20 committee or the double cross organization, the British are able to turn German spies who operate against their former masters under the penalty of death.
Most of these spies cooperated with Britain to save their own lives. Surprise, surprise. You know, they’re going to do what they need to do to save their height. So this chap, Chapman jumps out of a plane, buries his parachute, gathers his belongings and like basically races to the first farmhouse he can get his hands on scares the hell out of this farmer and couple who most likely don’t believe that he is indeed a downed R.E .F. pilot. Right.
Okay. Now he turns himself over to local police who call secret intelligence service. And this is where Chapman tells him story about being recruited by the Abwehr. And he’s like, but, but I could turn coat work for you guys instead.
Angie: I’m actually bored with them.
Theresa: Like they only give me champagne and take me to all the brothels when I’m bored. Yeah. I mean, I want a good English lady. Now he is sent to a secret installation dubbed camp zero to zero. And this is where all the German Asians are kept. Now it’s not near as luxurious as where he had been announced. The official name of this location is the Lachmere house. It’s a large rambling home in Hamcommon in West London. And it’s here that Eddie would be taught the intricacies of British tradecraft.
Okay. So they’re like retraining him in their stage, right? Now he tells his interrogators that his primary mission given him by the Abwehr is to destroy the Daveland aircraft works.
And this is the aircraft works that’s making the mosquito airplane. Okay. I was going to ask, okay, got it. Yeah.
Now the mosquitoes made of wood. It makes it very light, very fast, extremely maneuverable, and it pits Hitler off. Most things do. Right. And he’s told to blow up the facility. And so the British, they could help from magician named Jasper Mescaline. I’m sorry, did you say magician? I did. Okay.
Angie: Just checking. Yes. Okay.
Theresa: And this magician goes into help that Chapman pretend that he blew up the mosquito factory. Mescaline came from a family known for magical talent. Now during the war that he basically does a ghost army move. He helped ghost army move. Yep. He helped the British fool the Germans by hiding the Suez Canal. I’m sorry, that wasn’t your story? I got distracted.
Angie: Okay. Okay.
Theresa: Carry on. Time on. I’ll shut up. I put a pen in that because that could be the next one. Sound good? And then Mescaline worked closely with various components of the British military, including the Air Ministry’s camouflage section. The military’s can’t. Nope.
The Air Ministry’s camouflage section. And so I think you have to say it like that. I had to really rock into it. Now they create a set, a false set of explosions that when the German reconnaissance aircraft flies over, it actually looks like it. Like they’re painting tarps to put over everything. They’re doing small explosions like they’re ghost armying it. It’s really what they’re doing. Okay.
Angie: So just to recap, so I know I’m following the right way. He is hired by the Germans to destroy this compound where they’re making these mosquito gliders. Yep. And he makes the back of Britain turncoats and now Britain’s ghost armying to make it look like he’s done his job. Correct. Okay.
Theresa: Now, Chapman does this part. He sends a message to the Abwehr using the prearranged code that had gone well. He writes FFFFF, Walter blown in two places. And when Grownman hears the good news, he sends a congratulatory message to his favorite spy to completely fool the Germans. The British arranged for false news items about the destruction of the factory published in the London Daily Express.
Yes. Now, the paper reaches Grownman via Lisbon and he reads with interest of how well his master spy has done. You’re not ready for the next sentence. Oh, should I sit on my hands? Would you? For his exceptional work, the German government awarded Eddie Chapman the iron cross.
Theresa: Damn it!
Angie: I just…
Theresa: He is the only British man to receive the honor. Of course. His Chapman supervisors and teachers at Camp Zero Two Zero are some of the most important members of the British Secret Service. Each one of these humans needs their own episode. We have Colonel Robin Tenai Stevenson. He’s known for the monocles. Tenai singular because of the monocle that he wears, reportedly even in bed.
Perfect. Captain Ronnie Reed, who is an expert in wireless radios. And Ronnie Reed in the book is described as so benignly average looking that you could lose him in a crowd. He was like a quintessential spy because he was so not noteworthy.
Angie: Okay, sometimes that’s so useful.
Theresa: But that’s not how you want somebody to describe you. No, but I could see how it’d be useful. Right. There’s one British officer who wants nothing to do with Chapman and he comes into the story at the end, but I couldn’t find a logical way to believe men. So here we go. And his name is Dr. Michael… Or Major Michael Wright. He’s, I guess, technically like Chapman’s handler, but they hate each other so intensely and instantly.
Angie: Sometimes you just vibe with somebody and sometimes you don’t. Right.
Theresa: Like Wright hates the fact that Chapman gets bored and says, I need you to take me to brothels because I’m tired and bored and lonely. And Wright is like, but my upstanding puritanical heart says no.
Angie: I am the son of Oliver Cromwell.
Theresa: We don’t have Christmas. That’s basically what’s happening here. Right. So they both like really just don’t jive. Now, Wright…
Angie: It could be funny that by the end of the story, they’re like best mates. No, they’re not.
Theresa: Okay. Wright writes to a man named Thomas Robertson who baby sat Chapman through his ladder seat in England, quote, the zigzag case needs to be closed down at the earliest possible moment. Oh, I should have mentioned.
Chapman is nicknamed zigzag or agent zigzag because he was so good at crossing that he could just cross back at the other moment. Right. Yeah. Now, when Chapman… I’ve mentioned this maybe once or twice. Chapman loved the ladies.
Love the ladies. No, I forgot that you said that. When he was… When he went to Jersey in the first place, he was dating this woman and he knocked her up. You’d been living with her and he knocked her up and then he gets put in jail and all that kind of stuff. Well, she ends up having a baby and he… In Guernsey? What was that?
Angie: No, not in Jersey. Is this a woman from Guernsey? Oh, no. This is the one in London or in the… Gotcha. On the mainland.
Theresa: Now, when he goes over to Norway with the Germans, he falls in love with this Norwegian woman who ends up being a part of the Norwegian resistance named Dagmar Lollum. And…
Okay. He ends up just falling head over heels in love with this woman. He later confides to Dagmar that he’s a British agent and she ends up keeping this to herself. And they would do this thing where he knew he wanted to give the British information about all these military installations. So he would take his young hot girlfriend, have her pose in front of these military installations, take pictures of her and then send those pictures. Right.
Angie: Because nobody’s going to question you taking a picture of a pretty girl. Dun, dun, dun.
Theresa: Yeah. Now, the girl back home that he got knocked up, her name’s Frida. They have a baby named Diane that he ends up not meeting until she’s like three. When he goes back to Britain, he ends up saying, I need to find Frida and Diane. I need to see my daughter for the first time in my life.
She’s already a toddler, the satin, the other. This is absolutely insane. Okay. Because I should say first, he sees Frida and Diane when he’s in Britain and he goes to the training. He’s like, I’m a double agent. I need to find my baby and my baby’s mama. He’s living in a house with members of like the police force with MI5 coming to check on him regularly and his baby mama and baby.
Okay. They are paying for his upkeep. Of course they are. When Germany says we need you to come back here, he tells MI5, I need you to take care of Frida and the baby and give them monthly stipends so they can live. And MI5 says that. So he goes back to Germany, does more training there, is sent to Norway, is partying over there, sleeping with this nice hot woman, sending pictures back to MI5. Then he’s going to get put on a mission back into Britain. So he tells the Abwehr, I’ve been taking care of Dagmar.
I need you to guys to put her up and give her a monthly stipend. So he’s got like, oh my God, okay, carry on. This man has a host in different area codes and makes various governments pay for them. I love this for him.
Good for him. I mean, it is just like, what? Now, remind me to circle back on Betty Farmer, the woman he abandoned the hotel. Yeah. Because I’m going to hold on to that one real quick.
When the Abwehr tells Chapman to return to Germany, the British government goes, you have her blessing. Godspeed. Do the thing.
Yeah. And so he goes spend some time in Oslo, Norway, and that’s where he meets Dagmar. And he ends up taking the money that the Germans give him and he buys a yacht.
He learns how to sail it. Okay. Yeah. And at one point he offers his services to kill Adolf Hitler by exploding a bomb when they attend a rally because he’s chatting with Von Groening. And Groening offers to take him to a rally and Groening has no love lost for Hitler. Right. And so, you know, Chapman’s like, well, basically I could kill him.
Well, I could take him to a rally if you want to allow the bomb at him kind of deal. Now, with all of that going on, when Eddie Chapman told Ronnie Reed, one of his handlers in England about it, it was Ronnie Reed who was like, ooh, I would not do that because you’re going to die. You’re going to die no matter what, even if you’re successful or not. Chapman responds, ah, but what a way out. Like Chapman is just like, do it for the lore. Do it for the lore. All of it.
Every bit of it. Now Winston Churchill is told about the zigzag case. And Duff Cooper, who is the leading member of the British Intelligence establishment, he said he had discussed the case of zigzag at some length with the prime minister who showed considerable interest because this is Winston Churchill, who loves Ungernemaly Warfare. Yes, he does.
Angie: And we couldn’t love him more for it. Right.
Theresa: Now 1944, Grauman or von Groening, same same, the same person, tells Chapman that he’s going back to England for another intelligence mission. Now the ad war still doesn’t know that he’s a double agent. And it’s under this next assignment that he’s going to learn about Britain’s latest efforts to attack the German U-boats.
Because the German U-boats are going down so hard and so fast, the Germans are afraid they’ve got some special radar, maybe in planes, maybe like there’s something happening. And I’m like, we need you to go through and figure it out because we’re losing too many. Now, he’s also told to report on the effectiveness of the V-1 buzz bombs or the doodle bugs that are just wiping out London. And what is happening is when he gets back to London, and he tells the MI5 what’s happening, what his mission is, they realize that they could give false drop coordinates about what attack to start leading them further away from the center of town. Okay. So by continuing to say, oh, well, this blew up, they keep moving these bombs further and further into the countryside. Okay. Which really just shows how effective this man was. Yeah.
Angie: And how brilliant like British intelligence is in the first place. Like truth. Truth. Yeah.
Theresa: So Chapman makes it back to England June 29th, 1944. He’s dropped by a German plane over England near the town of Cambridge and he ends up making his way back to local police. And Chapman told his handlers about his new mission and like, hey, look, I’ve got to get all this information about doodle bugs.
Let’s work together. But now he’s super irritable, very tense. He wants to go back into Paris. He wants to do undercover operations and MI5 vetoes it.
And they decide, you know, Chapman’s basically more trouble than he’s worth. We should just end it all completely. Just cut ties. It’s been fun.
It’s been real, but it hasn’t been real fun. And in November of 44, he’s informed that his services are no longer needed. And he’s left with 6,000 pounds in cash from the British. And 1,000 pounds that remained from the money given to him by the Abwehr. Grownman failed to hear from Chapman after several long months of waiting, believing that his prize agent had been killed or captured.
Angie: Unfortunate on their part because he’s probably just laying on the beach somewhere. I mean, you say that.
Theresa: After the war ends, he returns to his career in crime. He’s really good at it.
Angie: He dabbled in black market activities.
Theresa: I didn’t sell luxury cheese. Probably. He’s running protection rackets in London. And he joins up with some of his old pals from before who kind of landed him a jail in the first place. Now, remember Betty Farmer, the woman he left at the hotel when he was arrested? Yeah, I was going to ask about her. He joins back up with her. They have a daughter named Suzanne.
She’s born in October of 54. And he illegally transports gold across the Mediterranean and buys a share of a ship called the Flamingo, which is used for a whole host of illegal activities. And in the 60s, the family moved to South Africa. Of course they do.
Now, of course they do. In 1966, Eddie writes a memoir called The Real Eddie Chapman Story. And he’s got to leave a ton of info out because telling everybody what really happened would be violating the Official Secrets Act. And this is heavily impressed upon him.
Angie: That’s why Major Carriola has never said anything. Truth.
Theresa: So when the book comes out, it’s kind of a flop because it doesn’t have enough detail to make it sensational and bombastic. So it just kind of like, really, this sounds like a half-hearted lie. But his story is made into a movie called Triple Cross starring Christopher Plummer. And Agent Zigzag dies in December of 1997 at the age of 83.
But his files are declassified in 2001. There’s 1,500 pages of reports. I want to read them all. Well, and it’s partly because of that declassification that Ben McIntyre was able to go through, find them and write this book.
And in one of the interviews, he said that because these reports were written by government for government under the assumption nobody would see this, they are so truthful. That’s so fun. Yep. So fun. But that is the story of Eddie Chapman, aka Agent Zigzag.
Angie: Thank you for that. I loved every second of that. And I’m still trying to figure out what side he was actually on.
Theresa: I have a feeling he, and this is something that like the book really grapples with. Basically, what Ben McIntyre is under the assumption of is that Eddie Chapman was primarily on the British side, but he was on Eddie Chapman’s side. Yeah.
Angie: That’s kind of the vibe that I’ve been getting. Like, I’m on whatever side’s going to pay me. Right. Because I’m Freddie Chapman. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I want to know what happened to the first girlfriend and Dagmar and everybody else that he…
Theresa: Dagmar never, like Eddie Chapman promises to go back to for Dagmar. He never does. And so she ends up never having a very solid relationship after that with anybody else. Gotcha. Fair. Fair. Okay. As for Frida and the baby, they end up getting… Like, I think Frida marries somebody else after the war. If I’m not mistaken, I’m going from memory now. And the government continues to give Frida a monthly check for like years.
Angie: That’s awesome. Which that is… I love that. I love it.
Theresa: But yeah, but at least he went back to Betty, but apparently was fiercely unfaithful throughout the entirety of their marriage. Shocking. I know.
Angie: But I’ve seen that one coming, I think.
Theresa: At his daughter’s wedding, he invites fun grooming. Like, they are friends. Like, to the point where like, please come to my daughter’s wedding.
Angie: Yeah.
Angie: What a whack job. That is hilarious.
Angie: And this wasn’t his daughter got married in the 60s. She was born in 54. So probably the 70s.
Theresa: Maybe, yeah. I mean, I didn’t write down when the wedding was.
Angie: Either way, that’s nuts. That’s so funny.
Theresa: Gross. I know. I know. Thank you for that. Yeah. R over to Spy. Surprise, surprise. I’m shocked.
Angie: I’m shook even. Well, if Gabbers are flasted.
Theresa: If you need your Gabbers flasted occasionally, or you want to have, you know, the shock, wipe and astound you, you should write, review, subscribe. Join us next week. Send this to somebody who also loves World War II spies, even if they don’t. And cheese. And on that note, goodbye.
Theresa: Bye.
Unhinged History 
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