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00:00My heart was pounding, we were going 90 miles an hour down residentials.
00:05But you don't win in a high speed chase with the cops by out speeding them.
00:09You win by out crazying them.
00:11The cops wanted us bad and they were about to get their wish.
00:17I defrauded the US government to earn a 300 million dollar arms contract.
00:25I created the world's most notorious festival, Fyrefest.
00:28I lied to investors costing them 26 million dollars.
00:33It is the most exhilarating feeling that I have ever felt in my life.
00:39When the federal government comes after you, they will do anything to take you down.
00:45We have sold thousands of tickets, what are we going to do?
00:48This was not just business anymore, it was matters of life and death.
00:52I am getting cut to shreds. It's like trying to crawl through a cheese grater.
00:58My name is JD DeLay. I stole millions of dollars worth of cars and became addicted to out running the law.
01:13I grew up in a rough neighborhood in Eugene, Oregon.
01:16As a kid, I was an absolute menace. I was super hyperactive. I lived for chaos and I was definitely all over the place.
01:25When I was about 16 years old, I started hanging out with the wrong crowd.
01:29People who were making insane amounts of money from crime.
01:33That's when I really started to get into trouble.
01:34I had this buddy named Mike. Mike was the type of dude that every dude wanted to hang out with.
01:40He had a slick mouth. He had like that steroid sort of build.
01:44He was a football player that just turned into a full on gangster.
01:48And this dude would roll up in a different car every single time that we would meet up.
01:53It didn't take me very long to figure out that he didn't own any of these cars.
01:56He was stealing these cars. It was such a high risk, high reward thing.
02:00And that's something that I had always chased.
02:03I was immediately fascinated with the idea and the process of stealing cars.
02:07He said, man, if you want to go out with me tonight, you can work with me.
02:11You're going to be working. You're not going to make as much money as me, but I will show you.
02:15It was kind of like an internship into crime.
02:19So I went out with Mike to steal a car for the first time and he told me I was just going to be on lookout.
02:24But I didn't realize that we would be stealing a car like literally out of somebody's driveway while they were in their living room.
02:32So we drove over there together and we parked about two blocks away.
02:36We walked over to the car and he said, just keep a lookout and whistle if anybody's coming.
02:42And I've never been a lookout before.
02:44And I didn't know if I was supposed to like act casually.
02:46Do I keep my hands in my pockets?
02:48Like I was kind of nervous about this and it felt really awkward.
02:51But the whole thing happened so fast.
02:54Before I knew it, this dude walks right up into the driveway and I'm literally looking at the people through their living room window.
03:02Like I can see them.
03:03If they weren't watching TV and they looked out the window, they can definitely see us.
03:08And I'm just thinking, this is crazy.
03:10He had the door lock picked immediately.
03:11Mike gets the car in neutral and it just starts rolling backwards out of the driveway.
03:18And I'm running up to it and I jump in the passenger seat before it's even stopped moving.
03:23And before I'm even fully in the car, he has the ignition picked.
03:26This took him like 12 seconds and we are taking off down the road fast.
03:32I really wasn't expecting Mike to be driving that fast.
03:36I mean, if you're going to steal a car, shouldn't you kind of obey other laws?
03:40And he wasn't obeying any of them.
03:42I mean, I know that we were going at least 90 miles an hour down residentials.
03:47He was just flying and my adrenaline and my heart was pounding.
03:50You could feel every single molecule of your body.
03:54I was like, this is amazing.
03:55This is what I want to do.
03:59From the very first second that we drove off in that stolen car, I knew that I wanted to steal my own cars.
04:04I didn't want to be a lookout.
04:06I wanted to be the active participant in doing this.
04:09So I asked Mike, you've got to show me how to do this.
04:11Like I need to know what you're doing.
04:14So Mike took me under his wing and he taught me exactly step by step what you need to do to be able to steal your car.
04:21So I'm going to explain to you guys exactly the method that I used to steal cars only because it's not something that you can actively do today.
04:30In about 2005, 2006, all cars started putting transponder keys.
04:35They made that transition to battle car theft.
04:38But back in the early 2000s, we had a method called shaved keys or jiggle keys.
04:45We used to take these keys and we would shave them down so that we could jiggle the tumblers.
04:50And that's the way that we would trick the cars and the locks into thinking that this was the key for that car.
05:02So the first time that I'm going out to steal a car on my own, when I was 16 years old, I was really nervous.
05:07I had gone out and done the lookout thing.
05:10I had done them with Mike having my back while I stole cars.
05:13But this was the first time that I was actually doing this like 100% by myself.
05:18And I had a knot right in my throat.
05:20I'm walking up to that car like I own that car because that's exactly what I'm trying to project to anyone who could possibly be watching.
05:30My heart is pounding 80 miles per hour.
05:33I put the key in the door and it just opens immediately.
05:38I get inside.
05:40I sit down.
05:42I put the key in the ignition and it's even easier than the door.
05:45And that's when I start to feel the adrenaline really take over.
05:50I start the car.
05:51I put it in reverse and I start pulling out and boom, I'm gone.
05:58The first car that I ever stole, I got $600 for.
06:01When I first started stealing cars, I had like two different people that would buy them and they were taking them and they were using them for parts.
06:08All I had to do was get the car to the warehouse where the people were taking the parts, drop it off with them, collect my money.
06:15And I never had to see it or think about it ever again.
06:19After stealing that first car, I was completely and totally addicted to the money that I could make because it wasn't just stealing one car a night.
06:26We would go out and steal anywhere from three to eight, possibly 10 cars a night.
06:31I was making anywhere between 12 and 15 grand a week.
06:34I was on the ride of my life because I was making a ton of money.
06:39I met a dude named Buck and he had just gotten out of prison for stealing a car.
06:44Buck was a big dude.
06:45He looked kind of like a young John Wayne if John Wayne was on meth and a convict and completely tattooed and all swolled up.
06:52He actually had multiple people who would buy stolen cars, so Buck and I decided to start working together.
06:59We were going out every single night.
07:01One night me and Buck were out after this new car.
07:03We specifically wanted a Honda Del Sol.
07:06We've heard great things, so we find one.
07:09We get on the street and we start trying to see how it goes, man.
07:12We're pushing it to see what it can do and this thing has absolutely nothing.
07:15We're about to pull over and ditch it when all of a sudden there's a cop car behind us.
07:23There wasn't a discussion.
07:25What it comes down to is, do you want to go to jail or do you want to go home?
07:29And me and Buck were on the same page.
07:31We wanted to go home.
07:33So Buck immediately slammed on the gas.
07:35But this thing was zero competition for this cop car.
07:38With the lack of speed, the only thing that we knew that we could do is try to outmaneuver and outcrazy this cop.
07:45You don't win in a high speed chase by out speeding them.
07:49You win by outcrazying them.
07:51You want to hit red lights and you want to blow through that red light.
07:55You want to find one way streets and go the wrong way down the one way street.
07:58If you're becoming enough of a danger to the community around you, the cops have a legal liability to pull back the chase.
08:05This cop wasn't having any of it though.
08:09He knew that we were outmanned and outpowered and that's when he was able to pigeonhole us into getting on the freeway, which was breaking the number one rule.
08:18You never get on the freeway in a high speed chase because you might be able to get away from that one cop car, but you're never going to get away from the radio.
08:25We got on the freeway and this car was like topping out at maybe 90 miles an hour, which was not good.
08:33That's not what we wanted to do.
08:34We were used to going much faster.
08:37We see the cops coming up on the next freeway entrance trying to get on the freeway and we just barely make it in front of them so that they can't block us off.
08:46Luckily, everybody's still behind us.
08:48But at this point, we have three arresting agencies behind us.
08:51We have Eugene police, we have Springfield police and we have Lane County sheriffs all behind us.
08:58All I see when I look back is an ocean of red and blue lights.
09:02It looked like a giant rave was chasing us at a high speed.
09:06Might as well be going backwards.
09:08At this point, I already know that we're screwed and so does Buck.
09:11I yelled at Buck, we have to get off at the next exit.
09:14He looked at me and he said, I don't know what the next exit is.
09:16And I'm like, take it.
09:18It doesn't matter.
09:20Well, it turns out it absolutely did matter.
09:23This exit is a KOA campsite.
09:26There's literally nothing there but a campground and we are going as fast as we can down the road.
09:31And we're running out of road.
09:34The road ends up dead ending into a big thick patch of blackberry bushes with a telephone pole right in the middle of it.
09:44Buck looks over at me and he tells me, I'm going to bank this car as hard as I can into those blackberry bushes.
09:51And I said, run it, homie.
09:52The car on my side ended up hitting the telephone pole right on my door.
10:02Buck immediately opened his door.
10:04He jumped out.
10:05I tried to open my door and my door would not open.
10:08I'm feeling so trapped.
10:10I am in a panic mode right now.
10:12I get out the driver's side door immediately into waist high blackberry bushes and I just start crawling as fast as humanly possible.
10:20And within like 10 yards, I've already lost my shoes and pants.
10:26I'm in nothing but a t-shirt and boxers trying to claw my way through all of these blackberry thorns.
10:32It's like trying to crawl through a cheese grater.
10:35I am getting cut to shreds.
10:37But I know what's behind me.
10:40Prison is behind me.
10:42I hear that they have a dog behind me.
10:44So I am clawing my way through this as fast as I possibly can in the darkness.
10:48And that's when I hear it.
10:51I hear Buck start to scream.
10:53Get your dog off me.
10:55Police dogs, when they bite you, they lock on and they are absolutely vicious.
11:00Like they tear chunks out of your skin.
11:03There was nothing that I could do for Buck.
11:05So I kept crawling and all of a sudden gravity just took over me and I was going head first down.
11:10I hit a couple rocks and then I hit this creek.
11:15This water is freezing cold.
11:18It was winter.
11:20It was like 2 in the morning in the state of Oregon.
11:23Soon as I hit that water, I knew that I was going to get hypothermia.
11:26I wasn't going to be able to get any farther.
11:30I had to find somewhere to hide right now.
11:33Once I got to the other side where I was covered by blackberry bushes, I could see everything happening down below.
11:39And I see an absolute ocean of blue and red.
11:42It is just cop car after cop car after cop car.
11:45And I knew that my body was shutting down.
11:48My mind was shutting down.
11:50Hypothermia was kicking in.
11:52The last thing that I remember hearing was them calling my name over a megaphone because they had found my pants with my wallet and my ID in it.
12:00And they were saying, Mr. Delay, this is a search and rescue mission now.
12:05You are going to die.
12:07Just turn yourself in.
12:09It's in your own best interest.
12:11And that's when I lost consciousness.
12:15I don't know how long I was out, but I do know that the sunlight starting to come in is what woke me up.
12:25Every single molecule in my body hurt.
12:28I was a shade of blue that I had never seen in my skin before.
12:32At this point, I had realized that it was a life or death for me and I needed to get warm.
12:37There was no sign of the cops.
12:39I just needed to hitch a ride out of there.
12:40The problem with trying to hitchhike when you're covered in mud and blood and you're not wearing pants or shoes is that people think that you're crazy and they don't want to pull over and give you a ride.
12:51I was praying and begging for somebody to stop and pick me up.
12:57And I don't know how far I had walked or how long it had been when I heard the cops behind me.
13:03I turned around and they were standing behind their doors with their guns out pointed directly at me.
13:08They said, Mr. Delay, get down on your knees.
13:10We will shoot you right now.
13:13I knew that this was it.
13:14I knew that this was the end of the road.
13:17I had played with my life for so long and now all of that was crashing down around me and I knew that I wanted to live and that I couldn't live this way anymore.
13:28My name is David Packhouse and I defrauded the US government to earn a $300 million arms contract.
13:36The movie War Dogs was based on my life.
13:44My dad is an Orthodox rabbi, so I grew up in a very religious family.
13:48I'm one of nine children.
13:50Orthodox men are required to go to temple three times a day.
13:55Every single day.
13:57And so what a lot of the kids would do, myself included, is we would sneak out during prayers and entertain ourselves.
14:03And that's how I met Ephraim DiViroli.
14:06Ephraim was loud, obnoxious, funny, kind of annoying.
14:12But as long as his pranks weren't directed at you, he was entertaining.
14:16He brought a lot of fun to an otherwise boring situation.
14:20I definitely felt that the religion was a prison.
14:23Because they control literally every aspect of your life, I realized that this wasn't for me.
14:27I wanted a life of excitement and adventure.
14:30So in 2002, I told my parents I'm done and I want to go to a normal university.
14:38When I was about 22 years old, I bumped into Ephraim again.
14:43And he said, oh, you should come work with me.
14:46Because I bet I'm making way more money than you.
14:48He opens up his computer, he logs into his Bank of America account, and it had $1.8 million sitting in his bank account.
14:59And he was still just 18 years old.
15:02So I realized, well, this guy obviously knows something I don't.
15:07So I told him, teach me what you know, I'm in.
15:10Ephraim got kicked out of high school when he was 16 for smoking weed.
15:16And he got sent off to work for his uncle.
15:19His uncle owned a big pawn shop in South Central LA.
15:22While working in the pawn shop, Ephraim became obsessed with guns.
15:26He learned every single gun.
15:28He started buying guns and selling guns, flipping them online using his uncle's business.
15:33And he started making some money for his uncle and for himself.
15:36His uncle taught Ephraim how to bid on contracts.
15:41And that's how he learned government contracting.
15:44The federal government buys literally everything.
15:47They support millions of people all over the world at military bases in many, many countries.
15:52And that means supplying them food, clothing, fuel, cars.
15:56Arms are actually just a small part of what the federal government spends money on.
16:01If you want to sell arms to the federal government, then you need to go on SAM.gov.
16:04That's the website where the government posts all the things they want to buy.
16:09And anyone can provide it as long as they are properly registered with the government
16:13and give them a properly formatted proposal.
16:20Once you learn how to work the system, the sky's the limit.
16:23There were two wars raging at the time in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
16:34And they needed all this equipment, particularly military equipment that Ephraim had really great connections to.
16:40So he started bidding on all these contracts and started winning them.
16:42So my first arms-related contract was to sell rare gun parts to the special forces, which were very difficult to source.
16:52So I started calling up every little gun shop in America to see if they had these rare gun parts.
16:59There's something like 70,000 gun shops in America.
17:02So it was quite the job.
17:07We made a little bit under $60,000, which we split 50-50.
17:11Once we decided to focus just on small arms, we really hit the ground running.
17:17Ephraim and I were jetting all over the world.
17:19We went to all these gun shows, shaking hands, making connections, and holding guns.
17:24In early 2007, we saw one of the biggest solicitations from the United States government for small arms that we'd ever seen.
17:35And it ranged everything from, like, pistol ammo all the way to grenades, tank rounds, and the quantities were insane.
17:44I mean, it was like 150 million rounds of 7.62x39, which is the ammo used in the AK-47, 1.1 million grenades.
17:52And we had already delivered a lot of these items to Iraq in much, much smaller quantities.
17:59So we technically qualified to bid on this contract.
18:02So, of course, we had to go for it.
18:06After working for about two months of 18-hour days to pretty much scour the entire internet of every source of supply for these types of munitions,
18:15We came in with a 9% profit margin tacked on top at just under $300 million.
18:25We did not really think that we were going to win this contract, but we thought we have to at least try.
18:31I was at home. I get a call from Ephraim. I've got good news and I've got bad news.
18:40What's the bad news?
18:41Well, our first task order is only $600K.
18:45And I said, what, we won the contract?
18:47And he's like, yeah, mother . Get dressed. We're going to go out and celebrate.
18:51We had just won a $300 million contract.
18:59It was surreal. I couldn't believe we actually won.
19:02And I thought to myself, this is what I've been waiting for.
19:05This is what's going to make me a multimillionaire and it's going to set me up for life.
19:09But we were also panicking because we were like, oh my God, we actually have to deliver on this thing now.
19:16And it was going to be massive, about 25 times bigger than anything we'd ever done.
19:22We knew that we were going to have a major problem with the AK-47 ammo.
19:32We had to fly everything into Afghanistan.
19:34At the time, in early 2007, there was a massive spike in oil prices.
19:41That drastically increased the air freight costs.
19:44We were going to lose money unless we figured something out.
19:51It turned out that Albania was one of the most armed places per capita on Earth.
19:57Albania was trying to join NATO and NATO insisted that they get rid of all their old ammo.
20:02So they were willing to sell it for pretty much anything.
20:05We got an incredible price on the ammunition.
20:08But when we went over there to inspect it, we realized there are Chinese markings all over the boxes.
20:15And this was a big problem because our contract with the U.S. Army specifically stated no Chinese ammunition could be delivered under this contract either directly or indirectly.
20:26By the time we inspected the ammunition and discovered that it was Chinese, it was too late because it was fighting season in Afghanistan.
20:38And our Afghan allies were running out of ammunition.
20:40And so the U.S. Army was yelling at us to deliver faster, deliver immediately, it's critical to the mission.
20:46We realized, we're .
20:49Do we tell the Army about it and just ask for permission?
20:52Or do we hide it and try to sneak it under the radar?
20:56We had to make a decision.
20:57We didn't want to risk losing a $300 million contract, so we decided not to tell them about the Chinese ammunition, not to ask permission, and instead to repackage it.
21:13I'm terrified.
21:15I thought, well, this sounds super illegal and we can get in a lot of trouble. I can go to prison for this.
21:21But if we don't do it, there go all my dreams.
21:27When it comes to repackaging ammo, there are a few things you need to take into account.
21:34One, you need to protect the ammunition from corrosion, plastic bags.
21:41Number two, it needs to be put into boxes that are lightweight because that will reduce the cost of transportation.
21:48We were looking for a supply of cardboard boxes, and we found a guy named Kosta Trebyshka.
21:56He owned a box manufacturing company in Albania.
22:00We negotiated a price of $100,000 to repackage 150 million rounds, and this was going to save us about $3 million in air freight costs.
22:11And we started delivering this ammunition to Afghanistan.
22:14We were on the edge of our seats. We were biting our nails. We were thinking, are they going to inspect the ammo and realize what it is?
22:26Because an ammunition expert could look at the ammunition itself and know where it was manufactured.
22:32We were terrified that the army was going to find out about this.
22:39But it turned out that the receiving officer in Kabul was not an ammunition expert.
22:45So he signed off on it.
22:47And then we started delivering three to four aircraft loads every week.
22:52The money was rolling in, and we're like, this is actually going to work. We're going to succeed at this.
22:56We're going to deliver on a $300 million contract.
23:02So Efrem was always trying to make more money, always trying to squeeze more money out of a deal.
23:09Efrem meets with a guy named Mikhail Deliorgi.
23:14We didn't know this at the time, but he turns out to be the leader of the Albanian mob.
23:18Mikhail tells him, we're not going to give you a better price on the ammunition because you already have a good price.
23:23However, we could give you a little discount if you give us the repackaging contract.
23:30We'll make a little bit of money on that, and then we can give you a little discount.
23:34So it'll be a win-win. And Efrem says, that's a great idea.
23:36That guy's fired. You're hired. Let's do this.
23:39Costa, the guy who was doing our repackaging, calls me up.
23:43I got $20,000 worth of cardboard boxes that are manufactured for this job.
23:48So can you at least buy that from me?
23:50And Efrem's like, nah, he's not going to do anything.
23:52He's a nobody. And I said, he knows everything.
23:56It's $20,000. Just keep him quiet.
23:59And he says, nah, that guy. He's not going to do anything. Don't worry about it. You just leave it to me. Don't worry about it.
24:06And it turned out that we should have worried about it.
24:10Costa got really upset, and he called up the New York Times, and he told them everything we were doing.
24:16And he called up the FBI and told them what we were doing.
24:20And his biggest mistake was that he called up the Albanian press and told them that the Albanian politicians were getting kickbacks from this deal.
24:29One week after the newspapers in Albania published that article, Costa winds up dead in a very mysterious car accident.
24:41He was on an empty road in the middle of a field, and somehow he had been run over by his own car.
24:46When I heard that Costa was dead, it was an enormous shock. This was not just business anymore. It was matters of life and death.
24:56A few days later, I get a phone call. Federal agents just raided our office.
25:06I was like, holy crap, we're .
25:12When the federal government comes after you, they will do anything to take you down.
25:16The federal government wins more than 98% of the cases that they take to trial. So that's your chances.
25:24I was going to be charged with 71 counts of fraud for 71 deliveries of Chinese ammunition.
25:31So you're looking at 355 years in prison, unless you plead guilty.
25:40If you plead guilty, we have the power to combine 71 counts into a single count.
25:46So the max you're looking at is five years in prison.
25:49So of course, it's not really much of an option. So we both pled guilty.
25:54Ephraim was also facing a separate gun charge, so he could have gotten 15 years total.
25:59Ephraim hired the best lawyers in Miami, spent a couple million dollars on them.
26:04And they eventually negotiated it down, and he got out in about three and a half years.
26:09They fined Ephraim $350,000. He got to keep the rest of the money, including my share.
26:16I wasn't pulling out any money from the company during the entire time I was working there.
26:22I had a $300 million contract with the federal government, and I put everything on the line for it.
26:30And ultimately, I made zero dollars from it.
26:33Ephraim owes me $5 million.
26:36My name is Billy McFarland, and I created the world's most notorious festival.
26:43Firefest.
26:45And went to jail for it.
26:51My parents were real estate developers, and I grew up in a suburb in New Jersey.
26:55I was a kid who was intrigued and obsessed with technology.
27:00And I grew up kind of in the early wild, wild west days of the internet, and started learning how to build my own websites as a fifth grader.
27:06I really just became obsessed that I could have what seemed like a crazy idea, and in a couple of days, make it come to reality.
27:14I started my first business at 13, building websites.
27:18I didn't understand when I started the web hosting business that people who were paying me, they needed customer support.
27:24I had a, like, Razor flip phone, so this is back in the early 2000s.
27:27And I wasn't allowed to use by phone during class, so I couldn't provide that support during the school day.
27:32I hired three adult employees.
27:34They worked around the clock, eight-hour shifts each.
27:36They didn't know I was a kid.
27:37I had this really terrible, fake, deep voice that I was trying to overcompensate with.
27:42And the employees were Rex, Alex, and Juna.
27:44And everything was going great until one day, Rex was getting married, and he sent me an invitation to his wedding in the mail.
27:50And my parents opened it up, and they're like, why is my 13-year-old child getting invited to India for a grown man's wedding?
27:55I think the internet gave me this mentality as a teenager that anything was possible.
28:00So eventually, I dropped out of college, and I moved to New York.
28:04I was now a 19, 20-year-old living in Manhattan, enthralled by this world of entertainment, technology, and finance.
28:11And one of my friends was the daughter of a top fashion designer.
28:14And we all go to split our dinner bill, and she throws out her parents' black American Express card.
28:19And the whole table stopped and looked at her.
28:21The waitress came over and was eyeing the card.
28:24And I had two ideas that I didn't really know how to put together, which is one,
28:28how can I give my friends access to this experience in this network that I was finding existed as a 20-year-old?
28:36And two, how can I replicate a product that was as viral as this Black American Express card?
28:43And that's when I got the idea for Magnesis.
28:46I found a factory in China where I ordered this, like, hunk of black metal and a credit card copier.
28:53The metal came, I went to the Diamond District in New York, had some engraver shave down the metal to the size of a credit card,
29:01and engraved my name on the card, and copied my Chase debit card onto this, like, hunk of black metal.
29:06It basically was like copying a CD.
29:08I then went out and, like, used that black metal card, and everywhere I went, people were stopping and asking me, like,
29:12Oh, what is this? How do I get one?
29:14So when I was 22 years old, I founded Magnesis and started selling card memberships for $250 a year.
29:21I think what made Magnesis so interesting was the product was so simple.
29:27Your new card would have the same limitations, balance, whatever it was that your initial card had.
29:32All these young people who were trying to make something happen in the world now had this card.
29:37And I opened up this SoHo loft where, if you had the Magnesis card, you can come and work or hang out or party at night.
29:43Everybody wanted to be a part of Magnesis.
29:45That kind of created this next level of this cult concert business.
29:49Fire all started when this pilot walked into our Magnesis townhouse one night,
29:56and he told our front desk staff that he owned an airplane and that he wanted to fly me and other Magnesis members to the Bahamas for a trip.
30:04We landed on this, like, remote runway on this island called Norman's Key.
30:10And there was this magic in the air the second we stepped off the plane.
30:16The clearest blue water you've ever seen, like, the softest sand.
30:21This first trip to the Bahamas, it was the best weekend of my life.
30:24The group who flew together, we just bonded over, like, the most basic things, and it just felt so pure.
30:30And we all left, like, the best of friends.
30:33And my high school friends, the magical words,
30:36you should totally do a music festival on this island for all the Magnesis members.
30:39And we turned that into, let's do a festival and call it Fyre Festival.
30:44And that started this whole six months of absolutely, you know, wild highs and lows.
30:49Fyre seems so simple.
30:55I've been doing concerts for Magnesis members for years.
30:58I've been taking people on trips now to the Bahamas.
31:01And it just seemed like a combination of that.
31:03Doing concerts and bringing people to the Bahamas, which I love to do and I think I was doing pretty well at.
31:07I remember we released a trailer and everybody thought it was genius.
31:10Everybody said it was the best thing ever.
31:12Everybody wanted to come.
31:13The biggest mistake of the trailer was that we set a date for four months after the video came out for the festival to take place.
31:21So the reality of Fyre Festival set in very quickly.
31:25The first kind of rude awakening moment was when the owner of Norman's Key that we had an agreement with canceled the deal on us.
31:32We have sold thousands of tickets, millions and millions of dollars.
31:36Like, what are we going to do?
31:38So it went from like, this is a great idea to, oh, I need to become a real estate developer and build a city, make the water work, put electricity in and do all this in now a matter of four months.
31:49I approached Fyre Festival like it was a website where I could build a website in a couple of days, put it live.
31:55There will be problems, but that's totally okay.
31:57We can fix them.
31:59The problems range from how do we get fresh water onto the island?
32:02Okay.
32:03We went and spend all these resources to literally drill a water well and to install a reverse osmosis system to turn the salt water into fresh water.
32:10Okay.
32:11That challenge solved.
32:12The next challenge is how can we possibly fly 3,000 people onto the island?
32:16We actually chartered two 737s and we installed a terminal in Miami International Airport to fly the guests there.
32:22So like that challenge solved.
32:23That's another, you know, three or four days of time and an extra $2 million of resources.
32:27We installed all these tents and we were celebrating and we managed to figure out how to get tents in the island.
32:32Then someone said like, where are people going to sleep?
32:34Now we buy the mattresses and we're celebrating.
32:37Okay, great.
32:38Oh, how do we get the mattresses from, you know, the US to the Bahamas now?
32:42So now we have to charter cargo planes to carry all the mattresses.
32:45So like every solution created a new problem.
32:47We would get so intoxicated by solving the impossible that we failed or I really failed to zoom out and realize that, okay, we pulled off the impossible twice, but now we have to do it 2,000 more times and that's just not practical.
33:00I had a whiteboard that said like, you know, X number of days until Fyre Fest and it was supposed to be like how many days until Christmas, right?
33:07But instead it was this like forever looming deadline or as the number got smaller, the problems got larger.
33:13The days were counting down, the costs were becoming insurmountable and I needed cash flow to pay the bills to keep Fyre Festival going.
33:21And I started lying to investors to get more money that I thought I needed to make Fyre happen.
33:27I inflated how much money we had and the sponsors that were interested on us.
33:31It just got to a point where every day the challenges became worse and worse.
33:35Things were out of control and a storm was brewing literally.
33:39It's Wednesday morning, the day before fire.
33:43We are putting the final mattresses, carpets, everything in the tents.
33:47Everything is looking really good.
33:49And for the first time all week, the weather report changes and it shows a slight chance of showers.
33:54You couldn't have scripted the storm any worse than it was.
33:59It was as if it was the middle of hurricane season in the Bahamas, which it wasn't.
34:03And right after the storm rolled in, one of our employees drove over a water line with a cargo truck.
34:08So as the rain is falling from the sky, our internal water system gets knocked out.
34:13And that's splashing water everywhere.
34:15The site was devastated by the storm.
34:19We knew that first plane was landing right after sunrise on Thursday morning.
34:25And I felt like our festival site wasn't ready and it didn't look good enough.
34:29Obviously it wasn't ready.
34:30So instead of having people come to the festival site in groups of 70 people off the plane,
34:34I basically took a beach on the other side of the island.
34:37I sent everybody there.
34:38We sent all of our boats and jet skis and toys and booze and everything we had to this island.
34:42And basically gave people this big party all day long.
34:45And finally, when the sun set, we said, okay, it's time to come back to the festival site.
34:49So instead of 70 people at a time, you know, sober and manageable coming,
34:54we now had a thousand people, all descending, drunk.
34:57Like a third world documentary.
35:00All trying to find their tents and we couldn't handle that overflow.
35:03And chaos ensued.
35:05Todd Phillips, the director of the Hangover movies, discovered our story and decided to make the movie War Dogs about it.
35:16I thought in real life I was a bit smarter and a bit cooler than Miles Teller portrayed me,
35:21but I really have no complaints.
35:23Other than, you know, I think I have better hair.
35:26My mom refused to watch it and I asked her why and she says,
35:30I don't need Hollywood to tell me about my son.
35:35There was just one part of the movie that my dad did not like.
35:39Jonah Hill tells Miles Teller, yeah, I was trying to get your number.
35:42Your mom wouldn't give it to me.
35:44And Miles Teller says, you were talking to my mom?
35:48And Jonah Hill goes, yeah, man, I was her.
35:51And my dad says, that wasn't a funny joke.
35:54I don't know.
35:55That was just not funny.
35:57He did not find that humorous.
35:59I'll never forget the moment where I'm standing on this milk carton trying to direct the chaos.
36:05And one of the big New York City based tabloids, they're live streaming me.
36:10And the reporter goes, you know, Billy, we have credible reports that you ran away, you know, on your yacht with cocaine and hookers.
36:16And I'm like, guys, like you're live streaming me on your website.
36:19Like I haven't slept or showered in three days.
36:21I'm standing like in the middle of the festival and milk carton.
36:23And like, we don't care.
36:24We have credible sources.
36:25And like, it was at that moment that really taught me how we were.
36:30Because at that point, reality didn't matter.
36:32And the story of fire and the failure was too good to be true.
36:37And right when I got off the milk carton, my number two essentially at fire comes up to me and said, three people had died.
36:43He had these three detailed stories.
36:45Someone got bit by a pig.
36:46Somebody got shot.
36:47Somebody got kidnapped.
36:48And like all these like details.
36:49That stopped me.
36:50And I was like overwhelmed with the motions.
36:53And the first reaction was, okay, like that's over my head now.
36:56I can't stop somebody from getting hurt.
36:58And I literally said, okay, let's cancel it.
37:00And I remember making the calls at the airplane company and getting patched into the pilot who's in the air.
37:05He's like, are you sure?
37:06We literally turned a 737 around in the air.
37:09And that was the beginning of the end.
37:11When I was told that people were getting hurt, I immediately canceled on the spot.
37:15None of it was accurate.
37:17Thank God that wasn't true.
37:18Nobody was hurt at all.
37:19But it was still the end of the festival.
37:24The next morning, I remember getting a call from one of my investors who I really cared about.
37:28And he said to me, like, you need to do these three things.
37:31Or if you don't do this, you're going to be in the front page of the Wall Street Journal on handcuffs.
37:36I knew what I did was wrong.
37:37I didn't know it was actually like a crime.
37:38I didn't know jail was a possibility.
37:40Then all of a sudden the word handcuffs came out of nowhere.
37:42It's like, oh .
37:43I think it was the first time I ever felt truly lost in the whole process.
37:48Where no matter what I did at that point, it was beyond my control.
37:52I get back to New York and I'm just like physically exhausted.
37:55It had now been this four-month sprint.
37:57And now I pass out in bed.
37:59I wake up in the middle of the night and my doorman's literally in my bedroom.
38:02He had been knocking at the door.
38:03I didn't hear him.
38:04So he came in.
38:05He came to my bedroom.
38:06He woke me up and he said, Billy, the FBI is here.
38:08And before he even knew what he was saying, he goes, I told him you live on a different floor.
38:12So come with me.
38:13I'll get you out of here.
38:14And I said, no, it's okay.
38:15Let's go downstairs.
38:17And they basically gave me subpoenas.
38:19Five or six weeks later, I was arrested and charged with wire fraud.
38:22Wire fraud means that I lied to investors to get money.
38:27Ultimately, I pled guilty.
38:28There was no argument.
38:29What I did was totally wrong.
38:30And I clearly lied, you know, clearly broke the law.
38:34I clearly let people down who I cared about, which I think is by far the worst crime.
38:38There's a saying where, you know, it takes years to build trust, but a second to lose it.
38:42That couldn't be more true for me.
38:44I was sentenced to six years in prison, ordered to pay $26 million,
38:48and I'm barred from serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded company.
38:52And I just didn't know how to process that length of time.
38:54Like, six years sounded like an eternity to me.
38:56And I knew the party was over at that point.
38:59I think the hardest part with prison is realizing it's adult timeout.
39:04Because it was a total 180 to what the life of the fire was.
39:09It was the excess, it was the experiences, the material items.
39:13And jail is the opposite.
39:15Jail is living life at the slowest pace.
39:17Jail is having absolutely nothing.
39:19But there's a lot to be learned from the extremes in life.
39:23Looking back at all of the chaos and the insanity that I lived in for so long,
39:32and all of the times that I risked my life, I just cringe.
39:36I love the life that I have today.
39:38I own my own recovery coaching business.
39:40I go back into prisons.
39:42And I speak to people when they are at their lowest and darkest moments,
39:46using my story as a way to show others that there is a way out.
39:50Trust me, I was as bad as you can possibly get.
39:53And if I could turn my life around, anybody can.
39:56And these days when I get in a car, I even buckle my safety belt.
40:00And I do feel kind of good about that.
40:02I plead guilty to a single count of fraud, and I was sentenced to seven months of house arrest.
40:15But house arrest was an incredible blessing.
40:18I felt like it was heaven compared to prison, that's for sure.
40:22It motivated me to become an inventor and invent all these things.
40:29Since then, I created a product with my brother called InstaFloss.
40:33It flosses all your teeth in just 10 seconds.
40:36Check it out.
40:37InstaFloss.
40:38If I saw Ephraim today, I would prefer not to see him today.
40:42So I wouldn't say anything to him.
40:44I would just keep on walking.
40:46Unless he had $5 million that he owed me, then I would be friends with him again.
40:51Today, I still legally owe my investor $26 million.
40:57It's a huge figure.
40:58It's obviously a life goal to dedicate myself to paying that back.
41:02I think, like, my number one blessing is at 32 or 33, right?
41:05I still have 50 years of working hopefully ahead of me to pay that back.
41:09This is not the end.
41:12Fyre Festival is back.
41:16Fyre 2 is taking place April 25th of 2025.
41:20The big difference is this time I'm not in charge.
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