All language subtitles for American Greed s09e03 Easy Being Green

In this episode of American Greed, one
crafty con man makes some serious green

in green energy.

Rodney Haley exploits a government
program promoting biofuels. I think Mr.

was surprised at how easy it was to make
an extraordinary amount of money.

by doing essentially nothing.

After selling fake energy credits, Haley
takes spending into overdrive. On 6 -1

-2010, he gets a deposit from
ConocoPhillips for Renzi cells for $231

The next week, he buys a Lamborghini for
$230 ,000.

It's a wild shopping spree backed by
stolen millions.

The obvious question comes up when you
see all these cars pulling in your

neighborhood. It's like, what's this guy
doing?

And later...

In America's swankiest zip codes, a cat
burglar strikes in the dead of night.

When I opened the doors to the silver
closet, in the bottom two drawers were

missing. That's when I said, Eileen,
we've been robbed.

For master thief Blaine Nordahl, no
window is too small.

That's all the room that he needs.

No wall too high.

Blaine could probably be successful in
any profession.

He just chose to be a burglar, and he's
good at it.

For three decades, Nordahl turned
thievery into stellar business.

But how long can he keep it up?

Blaine could be 80 years old, walking
down the street with a cane, and he's

still going to be breaking into homes,
stealing sterling silver.

The Fields of White Marsh is a quiet
subdivision just north of Baltimore.

When a young man named Rodney Haley
purchases a home here with cash in 2010,

neighbors like Rob Comadari take notice.

One day, a big old truck shows up. I
shouldn't call it old. It was pretty

pretty new. Then a Rolls Royce shows up,
a Ferrari, a Lamborghini.

two Maseratis, two Bentleys.

Before you know it, there was 14 cars
sitting in front of our houses here.

Soon, the quiet street out front begins
to resemble a bustling luxury car lot.

In front of the house down there in the
corner, and they were on this curb right

here, down here. I mean, they were lined
up.

For me, it became an inconvenience or a
pain in the rear because you're coming

home from work, you're pulling up the
street, and you've got to work your way

around this person, that person. You
don't want to hit anybody.

It was a nuisance. It was a big
nuisance.

Comandari and others begin to wonder,
what's going on with the new guy on the

block? Well, I mean, I think about it.
You know, is this a neighborhood that

supports 14 cars in front of your house?
No, it's not.

The obvious question comes up when you
see all these cars pulling in your

neighborhood. It's like, what's this guy
doing?

The story behind Rodney Haley's riches
starts about 50 miles south in the

nation's capital.

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed
legislation aimed at boosting the

production of renewable fuels.

Using ethanol and biodiesel will leave
our air cleaner.

And every time we use a homegrown fuel,
particularly these, we'll be helping our

farmers. And at the same time...

to be less dependent on foreign sources
of energy.

Under the new program, oil companies are
mandated to do one of two things.

They can make a required amount of
renewable fuel themselves, or they can

credits that existing biofuel producers
generate when they make renewable fuels.

These credits subsidize the production
of biofuel. They're called Renewable

Identification Numbers, or RINs.

As a result of the program and the
credits that were afforded, a lot of

individuals said, hey, this is an
opportunity for us to make some money.

number of people got into this type of
cottage industry.

One person who sees an opportunity to
cash in is Rodney Haley.

In 2009, he starts a company called
Kling Green Fuel, where he claims to

biodiesel and sell Renz.

To get a sense of the scope of such an
operation, American Greed visited a

in Georgia that belongs to a company
called World Energy.

Here, 30 employees churn out biodiesel
24 hours a day.

They start with agricultural products
such as used cooking oil, poultry fat,

soybean oil.

They mix in chemicals, then heat the
mixture.

The result is biodiesel.

For each gallon they produce, World
Energy can sell one and a half rins,

in 2014 fetched prices of around 50
cents each, but have also traded at much

lower prices.

This is important stuff, that we find
alternatives to fossil fuel.

And every drop that we make has to be
produced, it has to be distributed, it

to run through trucks and rail cars and
pipes.

And these are pretty sophisticated
businesses.

Rodney Haley's sophisticated business is
born in March 2009 when he registers

clean green fuel with the Environmental
Protection Agency.

He says he's collecting used cooking oil
from 2 ,700 restaurants and turning

French fry grease into fuel.

When he applies to be part of the
program, no one from the EPA comes to

his production facility.

The EPA declined an on -camera interview
request.

In an email to American Greed, they
write that Congress did not require or

the inspection of new facilities.

They also say that it was up to those
who bought RINs to verify their

authenticity. Others see it differently.

This program operated like many
government programs. It was based upon

was more on an honor system that you
were actually creating the biofuel.

or the fuel that you were supposed to
for the RIN. Somebody like Haley, for

example, he probably realized pretty
quickly nobody was watching.

That fall, the EPA lists Haley as a
registered RIN seller.

Any type of buyer could actually go into
the EPA website and actually see that

Rodney's company was in good standing
with the EPA.

Seeing this, brokers come calling.

They would assume that Rodney was a
legit business and that they had no fear

buying his rent.

Some of the firms Haley deals with
record conversations between their

and customers.

On this never -before -broadcast tape,
Haley makes a deal.

I'll just call and touch base with you,
see where you were, see what was going

on in your rent world.

I should have some more for you. I would
say, you know, of course, probably like

Tuesday, Wednesday.

If you want to, you know, go ahead and
agree on the price, you know, I'll buy

however many you got.

All right, man. I know it's around like
$778 ,000 or $780 ,000.

It's around $780 ,000, I would say,
around there. I mean, I could do $12

for them.

I'll move those to you. All right. So
when I get back, I'll send them over to

you.

Haley has just agreed to sell 780 ,000
Wrens at a price of $12 .50 each.

To generate this many credits, he would
need to make enough biodiesel to fill

nearly 70 tanker trucks.

It's a deal that brings in more than
$105 ,000.

At Clean Green Fuel, rins go out and
money comes in.

Middle of February, he gets $112 ,000.

The end of February, he gets $217 ,000.

As soon as this money comes in, he's
purchasing cars.

The money's never sitting in the
account.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, Haley
sells Rins, representing the creation of

nearly two and a quarter million gallons
of biodiesel.

The next quarter, he says he's nearly
doubled his output.

Based on the numbers that we were able
to collect, Mr. Haley would have been

approximately the third largest producer
of biofuel in the country. He was going

for the stars.

But at Clean Green Fuel, something's
dirty.

Up next.

What's really going on at Haley's
company?

You might analogize it to selling a can
of air, but Mr. Haley wasn't even

selling the can.

He was selling absolutely nothing.

Green energy has been good to Rodney
Haley.

In just over a year, he sells more than
$9 million worth of energy credits.

He plunks down thousands on vacation,
traveling via private jet.

He also spends big on jewelry, rents a
palatial mansion in California, and pays

cash for that home outside Baltimore
where he parks his growing car

In all my years in law enforcement, I've
never seen a criminal spend money so

fast. Mr. Haley was not scared about
bringing attention to himself.

It was almost like it was welcome.

In nine months, Haley picks up 25 cars
with a total price tag adding up to more

than $2 .2 million.

He buys a Rolls Royce Phantom for $149
,000 as a surprise for his wife.

In a single day, he writes a check for
$377 ,000 for two Bentleys.

He also purchases three Ferraris and a
Maserati. He actually pulled up in a

Rolls Royce the day he went to pick up
his Maseratis. That's how flamboyant

guy was.

And although he claims to be a green
energy entrepreneur, the crown jewel in

collection is a Lamborghini Murcielago,
which gets just eight miles per gallon.

As investigators will later see, his
spending is a mirror image of his

On 6 -1 -2010, he gets a deposit from
ConocoPhillips for rins he sells for

,000. The next week, he buys a
Lamborghini for $230 ,000.

As soon as this money comes in, he's
purchasing cars.

But who is the man making millions
selling rins?

In talking to brokers...

Rodney Haley tells quite an impressive
story about his background.

Just to give you a history of me, eight
years ago, I was a vice president for

Bell Atlantic.

I also worked for General Dynamics and,
you know, plain and simple, I have an

engineering degree. If it can be done, I
can think and I can do it.

This is all a lie.

In truth, Haley's fuel -related work
record is not so impressive.

In 2006, a police report says he's
arrested for stealing gas and is given

probation on a lesser charge.

Three years later, he's running Clean
Green Fuel at a headquarters a few miles

away, where he employs close to a dozen
people.

Mr. Haley's corporate headquarters
looked like any other business.

On the front, it said Clean Green Fuel.
We were greeted by a receptionist.

you would assume that he was a corporate
office for a large company.

Oddly, though, the heart of his
operation, his biodiesel plant, has no

address. At various times, he says it's
at this rented garage or at this

warehouse.

And while a real biodiesel plant is a
huge and complicated endeavor, Haley

sometimes claims his plant is located at
his home.

Rodney's garage was the standard garage.
You could actually put tanks from floor

to ceiling, wall to wall, and you would
never be able to produce the volume that

Rodney claimed.

There's no evidence that Mr. Haley ever
had a plant that produced biofuel. In

fact, all it was producing was dirty
money that funded Mr. Haley's lavish

lifestyle.

If Haley has no plant, how then is he
making RIN?

It seems he's simply generating the long
strings of numbers on his computer

using a spreadsheet program.

Most people would love this job. You sit
at home, you look at your computer for

an hour, you create some Excel
spreadsheets, and then you send them to

and they pay you millions of dollars for
your work for an hour.

Money for nothing may seem enviable.

But by the summer of 2010, brokers begin
to ask some pretty simple questions.

What's the address of the plant?

Good question. I don't know it myself.

It's 7500 Tumpalaski Highway, but
honestly, I don't know it myself.

I know that's bad. I know my corporate
address. I don't know that address.

Well, let me call you back. I'll get it
for you. Okay.

Okay? Yep. Give me a call back.

With answers like this, the brokers
aren't satisfied.

A number of the brokers were curious if
he actually had a facility.

Because of the large volumes, there was
rumor that maybe he wasn't actually a

producer. So one of the brokers actually
asked for some pictures.

Rodney said, no problem, I'll send you
pictures.

Immediately after the phone call, Rodney
searched the Internet, was able to

download a number of pictures, and then
emailed them back to the brokers to pass

off as his facility. But in fact, they
were actually another facility.

Around this time, civil inspectors from
the EPA also come calling.

Haley can't answer their very simple
questions either.

When somebody's primary business is
producing biofuel, if you ask them where

their factory is, that ought to be very
easy for them to answer. But Mr. Haley,

in fact, was unable to answer even that
basic question of where the facility was

located.

Haley first tells inspectors his plant
is here, in the heart of Baltimore's

industry. But he can't show them exactly
where.

A week later, he takes them to a
different location.

this warehouse on the other side of
town.

It hardly seems a fitting place for a
top biofuel producer.

All they saw was three empty tanks, not
even bolted to the ground, even to the

point that his water source was a green
garden hose that was hung over the

rafters.

Rodney had nothing that was even close
to what a real facility required.

Haley gives them the pictures of someone
else's facility.

saying this is what the place once
looked like.

There was obviously no production
facility. They didn't find a production

facility. But even then, there's no
evidence that EPA took any immediate

to shut down Mr. Haley, and EPA didn't
refer the case for criminal

investigation. The EPA tells American
Greed that shutting down a facility

requires court action and that their
inspectors spoke to criminal authorities

once an investigation began.

But this was at least five months later.

During this time, Haley sells more than
$4 .5 million in additional rents.

Up next, it's not the EPA Rodney Haley
has to worry about. The threat to his

livelihood is closer to home.

The lesson in this case is never get a
mom who has to walk her daughter down to

the school bus man.

For more than a year, Rodney Haley has
been making millions pretending to be a

biofuel producer.

But it turns out it's not the EPA he
should fear.

It's the neighbors he's annoyed with his
overflowing exotic car collection.

Rodney, by parking his cars, the school
bus drivers were so scared to drive

through, he thought he was going to
scratch or bump one of Rodney's exotic

And these moms and dads had to walk
their kids all the way down to the main

to get on the school bus.

In this particular case, a small
community complaint turned out to be one

largest frauds against the EPA.

Baltimore County Detective Mike Iosa is
part of an IRS financial crimes task

force. In January 2011, he first
received word of Rodney Haley and his

from a local police commander.

He and fellow task force member Rick
Henry examine Haley's impressive list of

assets. all of which are fully paid off.

Yellow F430 Ferrari.

This one was the Lamborghini. He had
$230 ,000.

And then you had the Maserati.

He had like $170 ,000.

They see that Haley is spending millions
but has no clear source of income, save

for one.

While Mr. Haley was running this fraud
scheme that generated $9 million in

proceeds for Haley, he was collecting
unemployment compensation in the state

Maryland.

In fact, Haley boldly uses the
unemployment benefits to make a payment

Rolls Royce.

But investigators soon learn it's
another government program funding his

ride. They look at his financial records
and see millions of dollars coming in

marked as payments for the sale of Rins.

But they find nothing to prove that
Haley is actually producing biodiesel.

Throughout our financial investigation,
you would look for different expenses

for a real business, such as the removal
of a byproduct or waste, a large water

bill, electric bill, things of that
nature. We never saw any of that within

Bailey's company.

Every one of his expenses seemed to be
more personal than business related.

It's not long before investigators reach
a simple conclusion.

His whole company, his whole idea of
making biodiesel fuel was a complete

illusion.

Haley's neighbors were once bothered by
an influx of his cars on their street.

One morning in May 2011...

they notice a new batch of vehicles
slowly rolling up. I think it was a

morning. It was like 8 .30 a .m., and I
think it was 22 unmarked cars come

rolling up the street.

The feds have come knocking.

Until now, neighbors have asked where
Haley's money comes from.

Now there's a new question.

What's a Wren?

Number one, I had no idea what a Wren
was.

Five months later...

Haley is charged with wire fraud, money
laundering, and violations of the Clean

Air Act.

He pleads not guilty and in June 2012
goes on trial here at the United States

Courthouse in Baltimore.

After a six -day trial, it takes a jury
just over an hour to find Haley guilty

on all counts.

The ultimate victims are the American
citizens who were deprived of the

of the program, which was to produce
biofuel.

and reduce reliance on fossil fuel.

The one -time CEO of Clean Green Fuel is
sentenced to 12 and a half years behind

bars.

The EPA says they've made changes to the
RIN program to limit the potential for

abuse.

Now, the con man's house sits empty.

His prized car collection is gone.

And the orgy of consumption fueled by
easy money...

has come to an end.

Greed and common sense is what got Mr.
Haley caught.

If he would have been nice with the
neighbors, not had 20 cars, he would

continued to do what he's doing today.

Up next on American Greed, the silent
thief who comes at night, striking while

his victims sleep nearby.

Literally, I was... A few feet away, and
I'll be honest with you, I keep a .357

loaded by my bed.

Bo DuBose's home is tucked away amongst
the woods on Atlanta, Georgia's

northwest side.

Inside, history abounds. My dad and I
put together what was regarded as the

largest collection of Civil War
memorabilia ever assembled in private

One night in 2013, DuBose and his wife
Eileen fall asleep to the sounds of a

powerful June thunderstorm.

As DuBose prepares to leave town the
next morning, he notices what he

to be a casualty of the weather.

When I came out on the Monday morning to
feed the birds, I saw that this window

pane here was cracked.

I kind of attributed it to the violent
storm we had had the night before.

When he returns home later that week,
DuBose learns it wasn't the weather that

broke his window.

Eileen walked into the dining room, and
she said to me, Did you move the cake

basket? And I said, no, I don't think
so, but let me look in the silver

And when I opened the doors to the
silver closet, the bottom two drawers

missing. And that's when I said, Eileen,
we've been robbed.

The thief has left DuBose's Civil War
collection alone and gone after one

and one thing only,

sterling silver.

Among the missing items is an 18th
century sterling mug that once belonged

George II, King of England.

For the thief that took it and many
other items, it's quite a haul.

The insurance company wrote us a check
for $170 ,000.

And unfortunately, that didn't cover the
total value.

Many home alarms go off when a door or
window is opened.

By entering the way he did, the thief
avoided setting off DuBose's system.

It was pretty obvious when we returned
that this was the point of entry.

And the alarm was on.

but it was only the perimeter alone, and
coming through here would not trigger

it.

The thief leaves behind no prints, but
he has left behind silver -plated items

and knives with hollow handles.

Over off the side of this far terrace,
that's where he had left the drawers to

the silver chest that still had the
knives in them, as well as the Pacific

bag that had four or five Sheffield
plate trays still in it.

What I surmise is that he got this out
the window, went down where the noise

wouldn't be as obvious, and kind of
picked through everything to make sure

he was taking was all sterling silver.
And he left what was not.

DuBose is not alone in finding his
silver missing.

All across the South, many families
learn they've joined an elite club.

They've allegedly been targeted by a man
who goes after silver inside the

country's finest homes, a man known as
the burglar to the stars.

I said, well, at least we got robbed by
the best.

20 years ago, Cornell Abruzzini works as
a burglary squad detective in

Greenwich, Connecticut.

This is a goldmine for a burglar,
especially for a residential burglar.

outside New York City, Greenwich is home
to the wealthiest neighborhood in the U

.S. Any burglar worth his weight could
come out of here with tens of thousands

of dollars worth of merchandise within
ten minutes' work.

Now a cop in Norwalk, Connecticut,
Ebrudzini has been chasing one such

for almost 20 years.

For him, the case begins here.

I was called to this particular
residence in the month of August 1995 to

investigate a residential burglary in
which strictly sterling silver was

It was really nothing like we'd ever
seen before so far as a burglary.

Over the next year, he works five
similar cases in Greenwich.

In each, the thief figures out a way to
get in without setting off a door's

contact alarm.

say, a wood panel of the door itself and
not open the door, because if you open

the door, there was a chance he had set
off a perimeter alarm.

Once inside, the burglar heads straight
for the downstairs butler's pantry

or dining room.

He's looking for silver, and only
Sterling will do.

So he'd carry his own testing device
with him. Some pieces were actually

to see if it was actually Sterling
silver or Wedgwood silver plate.

Wearing rubber -tipped work gloves, the
thief leaves behind no prints.

But he does leave behind certain pieces
of silver.

Some because of their size.

No matter how you try to manipulate this
tray, you can't get it out that exit

point. Others are left behind because
they are silver -plated, not sterling.

On the way out, everything is left nice
and tidy.

You can see where he's taken out the
molding.

that held that wood panel in place. And
again, I could see here where the

molding is stacked, all parallel to each
other. Nothing he's doing here that's

unscripted. Everything follows a
pattern.

Because most families rarely use their
silver, the neat thief can go weeks

before his crime is even detected.

Abruzzini shows American Greed an
example of the types of items the

might target.

Naturally, we have the tray. We have a
coffee and a tea service. And this would

be an example of a creamer of this set.
And by flipping it to the bottom, you

can actually see the designer's mark and
where it was manufactured in the year

of manufacture, which would be
instrumental in what he'd be able to

for on the market so far as its artistic
or historic value.

Something like this normally would go in
the ballpark of about $100 ,000.

In Greenwich, Ivana Trump becomes a
victim.

Elsewhere, other reported targets
include Bruce Springsteen and Steven

Spielberg. I don't think his motive was
to hit specific people. It just happened

that he'd be in an affluent
neighborhood, and the chances are, being

type of neighborhood, you're going to
hit somebody with a lot of, you know,

financial juice.

Case files still crowd Abruzzini's home.
For him, understanding the criminal

means a crash course in high -end
silver.

There were certain items that would be
stolen, which I had never heard of.

I have yet to utilize a Bon Bon server
or even an ice cream

fork in the Abruzzini household.

At the six houses in Greenwich in the
mid -1990s...

The burglar makes off with approximately
$400 ,000 in loot.

And this is just one stop in a crime
spree stretching for thousands of miles.

We're seeing burglaries from Greenwich
all the way out to the north shore of

Lake Michigan and down to Palm Beach,
Florida.

All these points, it wasn't just random
areas. It was definitely affluent towns

that were being targeted.

For the thief, it's a busy and lucrative
venture.

You're talking between $5 and $10
million during this two -year frame.

As Abruzzini talks to law enforcement
and other hard -hit jurisdictions, he

meets a detective in New Jersey who's
been tracking the thief for years.

He actually had dealt with this burglar
going back to, I think, 83.

He looks at what we have and he says,
like, there's no question in my mind,

guy you're looking at is Blaine Nordahl.

Next, is Blaine Nordahl's crime the
ultimate rush or just plain greed?

I'm sure he gets some sort of thrill out
of being in a home, but he's doing it

primarily for the monetary end.

See more crime scene photos at pnvccrime
.com slash American Greed.

Feeling greedy?

Want more than your share of behind -the
-scenes dirt?

Follow us at American Greed TV on
Twitter.

We'll be right back.

FBI Special Agent James McCarthy first
began studying silver thief Blaine

Nordahl in the 1990s. Blaine is one of
the top burglars ever.

Here is a cat burglar who could commit
crime after crime, go through territory

after territory, and sometimes not even
leave enough clues so that people would

even recognize that they were burgled.
But Nordahl wasn't always so slick.

The son of an artist, he first started
hitting homes in New Jersey in the

while serving in the Navy.

Initially, he was just your nickel -and
-dime burglar, breaking into homes,

like, stealing appliances, stealing
electronics.

Nordahl's greatness isn't innate.

It's learned.

Every time Blaine got caught, he would
amend what got him caught and not use

that again.

For example, they made cases on him.

forensically by the use of tool
impressions.

After that arrest, he decides every
night after I use my tools in the

I'm going to throw those tools out and
use new ones. So there's no way of

directly linking him with any type of
forensics.

As a burglar, Nordahl has two attributes
that serve him well.

First is his size.

This is the actual size of a panel that
Blaine was able to remove.

As you can see, it's very, very small.

That's all the room that he needs.

Next is his brain.

I'm curious as to what his IQ is because
maybe once or twice in a career you run

into a burglar the caliber of Blaine.

He said he would target homes that had
animals. If there's an animal moving in

the house, there can't be a motion
detector on because the alarm would be

constantly going off.

I mean, you're dealing sometimes with a
spooky dude. Trust me.

In 1996, Abruzzini obtains a warrant for
Nodal's arrest for the burglaries in

Greenwich, Connecticut.

That fall, with the FBI's help, cops
take down the silver thief at a Walmart

parking lot in Wisconsin.

Even in jail, the master thief can't
keep his hands off the cutlery.

He stole a spoon from the cafeteria, and
he actually sharpened one edge of it

down so it was like a cutting tool. What
he was trying to do was he was trying

to cut through the bars, and he went so
far as to actually plan a jailbreak on

one of the Sunday afternoons when the
Green Bay Packers were playing because

figured everybody in Wisconsin would be
watching the Packers, including the

prison guards.

Nordahl's breakout attempt fails, and
eventually he's extradited to New York.

There, he works out a favorable plea
deal with the feds. You tell us all the

burglaries you did during this two -year
time frame, and whatever you tell us,

you can't be charged with further down
the road.

In these never -before -broadcast
recordings, Nordahl outlines the wide

burglaries he's committed.

Greenwich, we've covered with seven.

Okay. How many in Southampton?

I put it around 10 ,000.

Okay, so do they.

What township's in the state of Florida?

As Nardole

talks, the number of crimes he's known
to have committed grows.

He gave me 144 burglaries that he did in
36 different jurisdictions

throughout the United States, nine
different states.

Nordahl isn't just pointing out jobs he
did. He's letting law enforcement in on

some of his mysterious ways, like how he
selects a home.

Nordahl also explains what he does after
he leaves the crime scene.

The property from these three
burglaries, what did you do with it?

I'll take it to the house. Before it's
even reported, the best objective is be

disposed of everything.

You go to the crime scene at 8 o 'clock,
9 o 'clock in the morning, it's already

been done.

Everything's been disposed of,
property's already gone.

Nordahl says he drives straight from
crime scenes to a fence in the New York

area. He was basically getting between
10 to 15 cents on a dollar. His payout

for three hours work was between 10 and
$15 ,000 a night, which is not bad for a

paywall. The thief says that his fence
is moving the product overseas and that

it's going to people with wish lists.

They wanted me to get porcelain. They
wanted me to get oil paintings.

Diamonds, you name it. There was no
limit. If I had gotten the Mona Lisa, I

could have got rid of it.

So why is Nordahl only taking silver?

You have basically access to the whole
house.

Why just stop with the sterling? Because
I don't want any competition.

So in other words, you're counting on
the silver being stored in the dining

downstairs away from the sleeping
quarters. And if you were going after

you'd have to go up there.

For cops, Nordahl is giving a master
class in silver theft.

I learned a lot from Blaine over the
years. Maybe it's not that I respect

he does. I can respect the
professionalism he brings to the table.

Because of his cooperation, Nordahl is
sentenced to five years in prison.

Next on American Greed, Blaine Nordahl
may steal only silver.

But he takes something more, his
victim's sense of security.

What upset me about it was the
vulnerability you feel of being invaded.

On the east bank of the Hudson River, in
a part of New York State that Franklin

Roosevelt once called home, lies
Edgewater.

Dick Genrett, a former Wall Street
financier, bought the estate from writer

Vidal in 1969.

Well, I bought it really as a second
home. I had a place in New York City

for my work on Wall Street.

And I thought it would be a nice
retirement home, which it turned out to

Jenrette plans to one day share
Edgewater with the public.

After I pass on my next reward or
punishment, whatever it should be, it

become a house museum.

In the 19th century, the Donaldson
family lived at Edgewater, and Jenrette

gone to great pains to fill it with
their possessions.

He once traveled to Spain.

where he tracked down many of the items
that belonged to the home, including a

silver set decorated with the signs of
the Zodiac.

The silver had a lot of meaning. I mean,
I'd done a lot of research and a lot of

trips to Spain to get it, and in one
fell swoop, it was gone out the door.

Blaine Nordahl walked out of federal
prison in April 2001.

Before long...

He stops reporting to his parole
officer, and in January 2002, he makes

to the Hudson River Valley, then along a
set of train tracks, over a wall, and

into Edgewater.

This is the entry point where Blaine
Ardell came in. He cut this glass out,

this is one of five French doors he
could have entered through.

He chose this one, suggesting maybe he
knew where he was going.

Because he only had to come right up
here to the silver cabinet.

Among the items Nordahl steals is the
Zodiac silverware Gin Red tracked down

Spain.

Nordahl hits another estate just
upriver. And the story makes it into the

York Times.

When Detective Cornell Abruzzini reads
it, he calls the New York State Police.

I said, listen, I might be going on a
limb here. I said, but...

I think I know who's doing your
burglaries. And the initial trooper I

his attitude was like, yeah, right.

Eventually, with Abruzzini's help,
police in New York arrest Nordahl.

In December 2004, at the Dutchess County
Courthouse, he agrees to a plea deal

that includes an eight -year prison
sentence.

Before being locked up, he says he wants
to go straight.

When he gets out in 2010, he and his
commitment to clean living head south.

I believe he moved to the Florida area
because he had relatives down there. I

think another reason he moved down there
was to get away from the detectives

here in the Northeast that knew his M
.O. so well.

Not long after he shows up, Silver
starts disappearing in Georgia, the

Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, and
Kentucky.

What they were saying was...

A similar entry to what we had. In other
words, panels were taken out or windows

were taken out. And again, the only
thing stolen from the Holmes was the

sterling silver.

He was back doing what he does because
this is what he knows.

You know, Blaine could probably, he
could be successful in any profession.

He just chose to be a burglar, and he's
good at it.

Before long, a detective from South
Carolina finds an old article about

Nordahl and calls up Rizzini.

Once he sent me his crime scene
photographs and his narrative reports, I

you could take his crime scene
photographs, and they were basically

my Greenwich scenes from the 90s. Word
spreads among various jurisdictions that

Blaine Nordahl is on the loose.

And that brings us back to Beau DuBose
in Atlanta and the June thunderstorm.

When the alarm people actually showed up
that Friday afternoon, he said, I hate

to tell you this, but I know who did
this.

We said, you're kidding me.

He said, no, it's a man named Blaine
Nordell.

The cops are once again on Nordell's
trail.

And that August, he's arrested in
Hilliard, Florida, not far from

When we first started investigating
this, we knew it had to be a small

involved in this because these openings
are no more than 12 inches by 19 inches

where he's getting in.

Mr. Nordahl is about 5 '4", about 150
pounds.

In two and a half years, police say
Nordahl has stolen an additional $6 to

million worth of silver from victims in
six southern states.

In previous cases, he says he was moving
stolen goods through a fence to buyers

overseas. Police say in recent years, he
sent some silver to be melted down.

and sold merely for the value of its
weight.

What I hate is the fact that a real
piece of history is no longer with us.

that's why I hope that somebody else
owns it, even if it's not me, rather

have it melted.

You just hate to think that these things
are no longer there.

Now, Nordahl is here in Atlanta,
Georgia, awaiting trial.

If convicted...

The 52 -year -old burglar could spend
the rest of his life in prison.

Though his career has certainly been
lucrative, no one knows the exact amount

silver he's taken.

It's definitely within the tens of
millions of dollars. I mean, I'd say at

point it's over $50 million worth of
silver.

Nordahl once said he kept 10 to 15 % of
the value of each night's work.

He's a man who lived simply.

So what happened to all the cash he's
made? He's putting this much thought

process into his method of the
burglaries.

So you know he's putting at least as
much thought process into what he's

with that money.

Somewhere this money exists. It's just
that the connections haven't been made

yet.

It's very, very clever.

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