0:06

Alright.

0:09

It's the Gilder Day in New York. Folks

0:12

are milling around some Park Avenue

0:14

mentioned with all their high society friends.

0:17

Listening to an orchestra while enjoying

0:19

a fancy dinner. Suddenly,

0:22

a waiter comes around serving a bowl of

0:24

tiny black pearls. It's

0:27

caviar. Those little

0:29

salty fish eggs. And

0:31

I gotta be honest, I never really understood

0:34

why people eat it. But back

0:36

then and even now

0:38

is considered the height of fashion to

0:40

have some. Russian sturgeon

0:43

caviar is certainly the most famous with

0:45

its buttery smooth taste. But

0:48

this caviar, well,

0:50

it ain't from Russia. It's from the Midwest.

0:54

Specifically, Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin's

0:57

largest lake has been teaming with Sturgeon

0:59

for hundreds of years.

1:02

So sturgeon is, I think, the

1:04

best way to describe it, it's almost like a

1:06

dinosaur. Like, it's a prehistoric fish

1:08

and these things can grow to be bigger

1:10

than six feet long. They're massive.

1:13

Jake Princeton is a reporter that's worked

1:15

for number of publications, including Appleton

1:18

post crescent. They got like spikes

1:20

on their back. They look like a dinosaur.

1:22

People acquired a TAEUS forged flesh.

1:25

They liked it smoke. And they

1:27

loved its eggs. So much so,

1:29

the locals call them black gold.

1:32

They don't mature until they're older than other

1:34

fish. Typical lifespan for males is

1:36

fifty five years. If females

1:38

get even older, they can reach eighty to a hundred

1:41

and fifty years old, which means

1:43

the replacement rate isn't as high as

1:45

other species So it's very hard to

1:47

have a really thriving population

1:49

of sturgeon in any lake sturgeon anyways,

1:51

in any freshwater. By

1:54

the eighteen seventies, overfishing alongside

1:57

pollution and dams blocking spotting

1:59

spots meant that the population

2:01

had dropped by thousands.

2:03

So local wildlife groups decided to step

2:06

in. They tried to set up hatcheries

2:08

to boost numbers. Wisconsin's government

2:10

eventually banned birds and fishing in nineteen

2:12

fifteen. But if there's

2:14

something Wisconsin Heights really love,

2:17

it's fishy. Various

2:20

sportsmans groups started lobbying the local

2:22

government asking to be allowed to continue

2:24

the tradition of spear phishing. By

2:27

nineteen thirty one, the government acquiesced

2:30

and made new rules that allow for sturgeon

2:32

to be caught during a brief window. But

2:34

stop people from profiting from the catches,

2:37

and it worked. For the last ninety

2:40

years, numbers of sturgeon and Lake

2:42

Winnebago have been growing. The

2:44

entire program has been managed by one

2:46

entity. The Wisconsin Department

2:48

of Natural Resources, otherwise

2:51

known as the DNR. And the

2:53

whole operation is under the of

2:55

its head biologist, is

2:57

a role that's been filled with

2:59

people dedicated to preserving the health

3:01

and well-being of surgeon. And

3:04

in twenty twelve, Ryan Koenig,

3:06

a longtime D and R employee, was

3:08

put in charge of the whole operation. He's

3:11

the lead biologist in charge of the Lake

3:13

Winnebago system. There's kind of like

3:15

this generational passing of

3:17

the torch of the sturgeon management.

3:20

What has been a really successful program

3:22

actually Ryan was responsible

3:25

for about sixty DNR staff. And

3:27

the team's efforts meant that even though twenty

3:29

three of the twenty seven species of sturgeon

3:32

are critically endangered, The numbers

3:34

in Lake Winnebago are healthy. The

3:36

Winnebago system is actually unique

3:38

in that it's the only freshwater

3:40

I wanna say it's the only system in the world that

3:43

has a population like this, but Ryan

3:45

was the one who was leading it at that time.

3:47

All these guys were very close knit

3:49

very tight. It was almost like a father's

3:51

son relationship. Sportsman

3:54

in the area referred to as

3:56

the wait for it. Sturgeon

4:00

General. Yeah.

4:02

Could have seen that coming. Eight

4:04

spring, He'd go out to the lake in the early

4:07

hours to check on the spawning fish. He'd

4:09

recruit volunteers to help protect the

4:11

fish against poaching He led extensive

4:13

tagging efforts to track population numbers.

4:16

In twenty fifteen, he

4:18

even won the fisheries biologist of the

4:20

year award. Ryan's department

4:23

also collected huge quantities of the

4:25

sturgeon eggs for research purposes. They'd

4:27

use them to track the health of the sturgeon

4:29

population. Aside

4:31

from research, there were a number of laws in

4:33

place to protect the fish's eggs.

4:35

Fishermen can turn them into caviar,

4:38

either by themselves or by going

4:40

to a processor. But

4:42

they were banned from selling it or

4:44

bartering for it. You don't want it to turn

4:46

into a commercial industry. That's the whole reason

4:48

that there's that in place. Researchers

4:50

saw Ryan as one of the most important people

4:53

involved in the field of sturgeon conservation. In

4:55

his decade in the role, He contributed to

4:58

numerous scientific papers on the fish.

5:01

But that all changed when

5:03

the US fish and wildlife service

5:05

working alongside the DNR received

5:07

some information that not everything

5:10

was as it seemed with the sturgeon

5:12

general. Uh-oh. This

5:15

whole thing kind of starts

5:17

with game wardens, asking

5:19

questions about why the scientists

5:21

are keeping eggs from people who are

5:23

registering their fish. It looked

5:26

like Ryan and others were

5:28

bending the DNR rules to the

5:30

point of breaking. The first thoughts

5:32

are holy cow. Why did

5:34

they think they were gonna get away with this?

5:37

I'm also suede, and this is

5:39

cheap. The podcast where we

5:41

ask, is it ever okay

5:43

to break the rules? This

5:45

week, Wisconsin's illicit caviar

5:47

trading ring. Don

5:58

Herman has lived around Lake Winnebago

6:00

his whole life. He says he

6:02

appreciates the close knit

6:03

community. The cold weather, and the

6:05

beautiful landscape. It's

6:08

like a great plane, a

6:10

desert with snow on it. We you

6:12

can look across lake ten miles on clarity.

6:15

So winter wonderland looking

6:17

over the lake. As the owner of

6:19

SunDive and ice service, he usually

6:21

spends his winters pulling out vehicles

6:23

that have fallen through the ice and he

6:25

loved it. I'm still here

6:27

and I'm sixty five years old and

6:30

that's why I don't have a place in Florida because I

6:32

still like the cold weather. Prappy called me

6:34

crazy, but I did stop scuba

6:36

diving through the ice last year, though, I I

6:38

dove through the ice for forty one years to

6:40

hook up cars. Don

6:42

is the vice president of Oshkosh's

6:44

Otter Street Fishing Club, and

6:46

I'm sure they got some flight jackets. Don

6:49

has been volunteering with the Wisconsin Department

6:52

of Natural Resources, the DNR,

6:54

for over twenty years. He's

6:56

seen firsthand how biologists Ryan

6:58

Koenig's conservation efforts have helped the

7:00

local surge in population. Every

7:03

year, Don volunteers to help tag

7:05

Fish to track their numbers. They

7:07

actually caught me to surge in whisper. I get

7:09

in the water and I catch them and I rub their

7:11

bellies and calm them down to put them in the net

7:13

so they can take them and measure them and put them back

7:15

in the water. Sportsman

7:17

like Don. Look forward to a period of

7:19

two weeks every winter when the DNR

7:21

lets fishermen hunt sturgeon with a

7:23

spear. The whole thing can

7:25

last for up to sixteen days, or

7:28

until the sportsmans spear enough fish

7:30

to hit a cap the DNR sets every

7:32

year. During that

7:34

couple weeks, there's fifteen thousand twelve

7:36

to fifteen thousand people out on a lake.

7:39

Spirit fishing has a long history

7:41

in Wisconsin. The current

7:43

methods, they've been passed down through

7:45

generations of families and have been used for

7:47

at least a hundred

7:48

years. And now, although

7:50

it's highly regulated, last

7:53

year, there were twelve thousand

7:55

Spears that headed to Lake

7:57

Winnebago to try their luck. They

7:59

harvested over eleven hundred sturgeon.

8:02

It's a

8:02

sport that goes way back from

8:05

with a grandpa's spare, and

8:07

then a dad's beard, and not a grandkid's

8:09

hair, and it's just like like deer

8:11

on, you know, people come from

8:13

all over the world to do it. In

8:15

the days before the season begins, local

8:18

volunteers like dawn plowed the snow

8:20

from the ice. Then thousands

8:22

of fishermen arrive. Their first

8:24

job is to get through the thick ice.

8:26

So they grab a chainsaw, cut

8:28

a two foot wide hole, and set

8:31

up some sort of portable shelter.

8:33

These eye shanties can be anything

8:35

from a simple corrugated metal shack

8:37

to something with all the luxuries of a

8:39

small r b. Some

8:42

fishermen bring their own, while

8:44

others written them. Once

8:46

everything is set up, The

8:48

fishes grab their huge three pronged

8:50

spear, which as you can imagine

8:52

usually looks like something Poseidon

8:54

would use. And then they drop their lure

8:56

into the water. The lure is

8:58

something shining or

9:00

little wooden models of sturgeon,

9:03

which is kinda weird because

9:06

sturgeon don't eat

9:07

fish, let alone themselves. So

9:09

I can imagine the sturgeon is looking

9:11

at this thing like this is a

9:13

funny looking version of me.

9:16

They put

9:17

anything for decoys. They can use pop

9:20

cans or whatever. They

9:22

use all kinds of stuff. People make their own

9:24

decoys, and surgeons are

9:26

very curious. The

9:29

lake gets really murky in the winter, and

9:31

sturgeon are bottom feeders. So

9:33

it's kinda tricky to see anything.

9:36

I mean, there are guys who've been out on the

9:38

lake for, like, twenty five years and

9:40

they haven't caught anything. Surgeon's

9:43

Purin is,

9:44

like, looking

9:44

up your chimney and trying to shoot a

9:47

duck. That's what it's like.

9:49

I've never tried to shoot a duck

9:51

through my chimney. But I

9:53

imagine it takes a lot of patience.

9:56

And that's what these guys needed

9:58

because they

10:00

wait and they wait

10:03

and they wait. Watching

10:05

the water for hours. And if

10:07

they get lucky and spot a

10:09

surgeon, They slammed the

10:11

spear into the water and

10:13

bam. It's very

10:16

exciting when you square one, you hit one and

10:18

it takes off. You don't even know how big

10:20

it you get it on a hole. So

10:23

all fishermen are required to have the

10:25

fish weight, their sex lob and

10:27

tagging details noted. So

10:29

They'd head to the DNR registration table,

10:32

which was at the side of the lake. Once

10:34

registered, the fishermen can keep

10:36

their catch. Traditional

10:38

states that any lucky spirit is

10:40

meant to kiss their sturgeon on

10:42

the lips. Some even

10:44

drink beer through the fish's gills.

10:47

Okay. Wait a minute. Now, I

10:50

love fishing, but

10:52

kissing fish lips. That's where you

10:54

lost

10:54

me. Remember

10:57

Ryan, the head biologist, he

10:59

was typically there throughout the season, checking

11:01

the numbers, making sure the harvest

11:03

caps weren't breached. Compiling

11:06

photos of the biggest catches, marking

11:08

down data like fish weight and length.

11:10

If the fish

11:11

is a female, Biologics might

11:14

remove any full egg sex for

11:16

research. People get a

11:18

surgeon, any unwanted eggs.

11:20

So they would give the eggs away

11:22

to someone who would process it. Nothing

11:24

any different than what they've been doing for the last thirty,

11:26

forty years. Once the DNR

11:28

is finished with their research, Any

11:30

eggs that are leftover must either

11:32

be destroyed or returned to the fishermen.

11:34

But what was happening

11:37

was These scientists

11:39

were setting out coolers at

11:41

their registration stations and they would

11:43

ask fishermen when they came, hey, do you

11:45

want to keep your eggs for

11:47

caviar. If they said no,

11:49

they'd say, well, can we take them? And if the

11:51

fisherman said, yeah, then they would take these

11:53

eggs from the fish, put them in a cooler,

11:55

While most beers do give the eggs to the

11:57

DNR, they are allowed to

11:59

keep them. The rules say that

12:01

they can process the eggs themselves or

12:03

pay a processor to turn them into caviar,

12:06

but they aren't allowed to sell the

12:09

eggs or result in caviar to

12:11

anyone. You don't know how

12:13

to process it, which again is kind of just

12:15

like stuff that's been passed down from generation

12:17

to generation, then you would

12:19

take these eggs to a processor and that

12:21

process has to do with, like,

12:23

adding salt and mixing them up until those

12:25

eggs turn like a translucent color.

12:30

There are a lot of other restrictions as well,

12:33

especially around bartering. You

12:35

see, fishermen are allowed to give caviar

12:37

to friends, but not if they're doing

12:39

a service. That

12:41

means a fisherman couldn't give a processor a

12:43

few jars of caviar as payment for their

12:45

work, but they could give

12:47

it to him as a gift. Just

12:49

as long as they also paid for

12:51

the

12:51

processing. And

12:54

when I first heard this, I thought it was

12:56

confusing, but then I thought of Living in

12:58

New York, there were subway musicians on

13:00

the platform. They legally

13:02

couldn't sell their CDs.

13:05

But if you decided to give them a little

13:07

gift and they decided to give you a

13:09

CD, well, it's

13:11

just two people exchanging gifts.

13:14

As just as complicated as that sounds

13:17

for a lot of the

13:18

spirits, they felt like the

13:20

whole thing was just too much of a hassle to

13:22

be worth it. If you

13:24

ask anybody out on the lake,

13:26

hey, what's this caviar worth? They'd tell you it's

13:28

not worth anything because it's

13:30

wild caught caviar. be like

13:32

asking somebody who had a deer in Wisconsin,

13:34

like, how much is that wild venison

13:36

worse? Whatever you're willing to pay for it,

13:38

I guess. Me personally?

13:40

I don't like it. I think it

13:42

tastes like crap. So

13:45

I don't even know why how it's so

13:47

expensive. That can taste so crappy.

13:49

But I'm not rich. So maybe you gotta be

13:51

rich than requiring that taste.

13:53

So I gotta take a quick

13:55

pause and acknowledge that when it

13:57

comes to the taste of caviar. Don

14:00

and I are on the same page. And

14:02

maybe it's because I'm not rich either,

14:04

but the stuff is pretty

14:06

bad and I'm okay with it because I'm not willing

14:08

to pay all that money for something

14:11

that, as Don says, tastes

14:13

like crap. Now

14:16

it's a few weeks after the twenty

14:18

eighteen spring season, and

14:20

there's a party taking place at a bar

14:22

near Lake Winnebago. The

14:24

DNR is throwing a big gathering to thank

14:26

volunteers for yet another

14:28

successful spring season. And

14:30

there's a huge spread laid out on the

14:32

table. Smoked sturgeon, some

14:34

beers, and of course,

14:36

sturgeon caviar. The CNR

14:40

will bring stuffed it. Someone

14:42

processed the virgin eggs and they would be there.

14:44

Nobody made any money on it. If they

14:46

bring it there for the volunteers and

14:48

people would have it, There was

14:50

no money exchange.

14:52

Brian Koenig, the third gen general

14:55

biologist for Wisconsin, sold

14:57

into the room and asked for everyone's

14:59

attention. Just when you think

15:01

he's gonna give us celebratory tolls

15:03

for the season, this

15:05

guy just wants to go over some rules for

15:07

the next season. Reiterating

15:09

the limitations around bartering for

15:12

sturgeon caviar. Can

15:14

we say party pooper? Meanwhile,

15:17

a few people are giving

15:19

sideways looks at the caviar at the

15:21

table. I'm wondering

15:24

where exactly it came from,

15:27

and they weren't alone. Turns

15:29

out the DNR and US

15:31

fish and wildlife service had already

15:33

opened the case into the fisheries department,

15:35

and their investigation was

15:38

just getting started. That's

15:40

after the break.

15:44

I'm Ash, and I'm Elena.

15:47

We host the show morbid.

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17:16

It was early February

17:18

in twenty eighteen when agents

17:20

done in Esmond working under

17:23

cover rolled up to Lake Winnebago. The

17:26

agents met a spirit who goes by t

17:29

w, and t w tells them that the

17:31

local DNR staff are up to

17:33

no good. He claimed biologists

17:35

were misusing the valuable sturgeon

17:37

eggs, saying, I'm not

17:39

even gonna tell you with the eggs

17:41

they get. He goes

17:44

on to say that the DNR was pressuring fishermen

17:46

to give up any eggs from their catches.

17:48

Adding that certain researchers

17:51

have relationships with processors that

17:53

allows them to keep half of the finished

17:55

product.

17:56

It got the agents to thinking. You

17:59

think like, oh, there's the potential here

18:01

for some major malpractice

18:04

And it's like, is this as

18:06

bad as it looks? This has the

18:09

potential to fetch hundreds of

18:11

thousands of

18:12

dollars. And you go, did somebody make hundreds of

18:14

thousands of dollars from this?

18:17

So Dunn and Esben went about

18:19

finding out. The

18:22

next day, they send some undercover

18:24

agents to chat about getting some eggs

18:26

processed. The agent spoke with a

18:28

processor named Krzanesci, she

18:30

gave them two options. They can either pay

18:32

money for the processing or

18:34

they can give her a portion of the finished

18:37

product like most beers out

18:39

there. The agents paid cash and watched Krasniski

18:41

produce the caviar. That's

18:43

the whole thing with the bartering agreement,

18:45

and that's what all these people

18:47

got wrapped up into is that they were processing

18:50

these eggs in exchange for a fraction

18:52

of the eggs.

18:54

The agents realized that there was a

18:56

pattern emerging. People were

18:58

bartering for eggs around the lake.

19:01

It was something that Ryan Koenig was supposed to be

19:03

keeping an eye on. All these

19:05

people should have been getting fines and losing

19:07

their licenses. But It

19:11

didn't seem like those rules are being

19:13

enforced. If anything, Ryan

19:15

was enabling bartering to be commonplace.

19:17

In fact, investigators learned

19:20

that Koenig would allow a retired biologist,

19:22

a guy named Arthur Techlow,

19:24

to take eggs left over from

19:27

DNR Research. The pair would sneak

19:29

into the office in the middle of the

19:31

night to gather the egg.

19:32

They had

19:34

a biologist who was

19:37

retired who is going into the

19:39

lab after hours with

19:42

Ryan to take hundreds of pounds

19:44

of fish eggs. TECLO

19:47

took nearly sixty five pounds of eggs in

19:49

twenty fifteen. At about a

19:50

hundred dollars an ounce, meant

19:53

he grabbed roughly a hundred thousand dollars

19:56

worth. Can't even

19:56

imagine you gotta know what you're doing is wrong.

19:59

Why are you doing it in the middle of the

20:01

night? Like, These guys knew what they were

20:03

doing was wrong. Agents

20:05

learned Koenig had an ongoing

20:07

agreement with Tech Low. One

20:09

time, Ryan asked the retired biologist to make

20:11

fresh caviar from a fish he'd

20:13

harvested. In exchange, Ryan

20:16

let Tech Low keep some of the eggs. This

20:19

is just kinda like good old boys

20:21

stuff, handshake deals, but

20:23

there's no actual money being

20:24

exchanged. you see the potential

20:27

for the abuse and that's why it's

20:29

so serious. It was

20:31

bartering, draining simple.

20:33

And it was completely illegal in Wisconsin

20:35

wildlife law. As

20:38

investigators dug deeper, they

20:40

fed that Koenig and Tech Low had a relationship going

20:42

back years. But even more

20:45

shockingly, a lot of people had these kinds

20:47

of arrangements. For

20:49

way longer than Koenig had the

20:50

job. This had been gone on

20:53

for decades. They're

20:56

telling people we're using these eggs for

20:58

research at one of our state laboratories.

21:00

And some of them sure they were. But

21:02

once they're done using them for whatever

21:04

that research was, they either throw them away or they keep them

21:06

for themselves. They were keeping them for

21:09

themselves. In

21:10

the criminal complaint against Ryan,

21:13

numerous DNR staffers admitted to taking eggs

21:15

to be made into caviar.

21:17

Former DNR biologist and fisheries

21:20

supervisor, Ronald Brooks, said that

21:22

he was doing it up until twenty

21:24

fifteen. He'd been at the department

21:26

for thirty eight years. Another

21:29

treasury supervisor confirmed that

21:31

they'd keep the processed eggs saying that they had a

21:33

good old time with

21:34

it. They give

21:35

the caviar to bars and eat

21:37

them at meetings. They're funneling

21:39

these to quite a few different

21:42

processors. And then once they're getting

21:44

them processed and made into Caviar,

21:47

these processes are keeping them for

21:49

themselves, the scientists are taking them

21:51

for themselves, and then they're giving

21:53

them out, like, literally

21:55

at agency meetings where they're

21:57

telling people about the regulations for

21:59

this

21:59

stuff. It's just wild. By

22:02

late January of

22:04

twenty twenty, investigators interviewed

22:06

a bunch of people within the DNR,

22:08

and they were in town again to ask more

22:11

people questions. They started their day at

22:13

the house of Victor and Mary Schneider.

22:15

The Snyder's were a pair of processors who

22:17

have been working in town for decades.

22:19

Now in their eighties, the duo

22:21

opened the door to the wardens and started

22:23

tour of their setup. Mary

22:26

takes the wardens downstairs to

22:28

a workshop. It's a small space with

22:30

equipment to paint dirt and decoys

22:32

and make caviar. They

22:35

start talking. And Mary tells the wardens

22:37

all about how they process the

22:39

eggs on an agreement. They

22:41

split the caviar, giving the

22:43

spirit a half to take home while keeping

22:45

the rest. Victor turns

22:47

around and tells the agents that one

22:49

year they processed over two hundred and

22:51

fifty thousand dollars worth of caviar.

22:54

They were processing people's eggs for them

22:56

and then keeping a fraction of them for

22:58

themselves, which is totally illegal.

23:01

Mary tells

23:01

the agents that they give most of it

23:03

to wait, and they don't sell any,

23:06

adding that they'd be put in jail

23:08

if they did that. But

23:10

the agents thought to themselves,

23:12

and I'm thinking to myself, and

23:14

you all are probably thinking to

23:17

yourself that

23:19

Mary, you're already breaking the

23:22

rule. I honestly felt kind of

23:24

bad for some of the processors who

23:26

went down in this. Like, there was, like, an

23:28

old couple in, like, their eighties, and they've

23:30

been doing this their whole

23:32

life. Don't think they even realized that what

23:34

they were doing was illegal. It was

23:36

the responsibility of the DNR

23:38

Surgeon biologists who were overseen by

23:40

Ryan Koenig to remind local processors

23:43

of the rules around

23:44

bartering, and it seemed like they had fallen

23:47

short. A few

23:49

days later, the agent showed up at a local bar called Wentz

23:51

on the lake. It's in a

23:53

town called Van Dine, and they have a

23:55

few questions for Sean Went.

23:58

Winn is well known around the area for

24:00

being a processor. He's been doing

24:02

it for about fifteen years and

24:04

serving caviar at his bar.

24:08

The group sits down and the agents ask Sean all

24:10

about how his processing works.

24:12

He tells them, if someone brought

24:14

in thirty pounds of eggs, they get

24:16

about half back. Went was

24:19

short to tell agents that he didn't charge

24:21

money for processing the eggs.

24:23

And agent responded, well,

24:25

what are you charged then?

24:28

He told the agents, he gets some

24:30

caviar back from the person who called the

24:32

fish. They take what they can eat and give

24:34

whatever's left to him, so that

24:36

there's no

24:36

waste. And the thing that was coming up as

24:39

I was reporting this is, well,

24:41

these eggs were gonna get thrown away

24:43

anyways. It's a shame to see such a

24:45

prized resource go to waste.

24:47

Clint told the warden he

24:49

put his caviar out at parties. He

24:51

added that he doesn't take money for the

24:54

aid. The warrants responded telling

24:56

went that it was illegal to serve

24:58

Caviar at his bar without

25:00

a wild game feeding permit.

25:01

They feel a level of

25:04

trust with these guys and they

25:06

don't see any real profits

25:09

as far as, like, monetary profits so they don't

25:11

really see the potential for, like, criminal

25:14

behavior. Around the same

25:16

time, investigators also spoke

25:18

to Koenig He told them that workers

25:20

collected eggs to do population

25:22

modeling and then returned the eggs after the

25:23

study. Now, this

25:26

made the agents pay attention. They

25:28

asked him. So if that's the

25:31

case, then why were workers

25:33

collecting eggs in the cooler marked for a

25:35

caviar processor? Kennig

25:38

denied knowing anything about it.

25:40

The agents pulled out some phone records

25:42

that prove he'd spoken to

25:44

a local processor. Can it claim

25:46

he didn't know why he made the call?

25:52

When they eventually got a hold of his phone

25:54

in July of twenty twenty, It had been

25:56

factory reset. They

25:58

believed that it was the hide information after

26:00

being interviewed by investigators It

26:02

all felt very suspect and yet

26:05

investigators didn't seem to find any money

26:07

changing hands.

26:08

There's potential to make money off of

26:11

it. But then at the end of the day, should the guy

26:13

who's in charge of the program also

26:15

be in charge of where these eggs

26:17

are

26:17

going? Probably not. It

26:20

was clear that the DNR had been

26:22

taking eggs under the guise of research,

26:24

getting them processed and bartering

26:27

with processors. While there was

26:29

opportunity to make Syria's money here,

26:31

it seemed like Koenig and the others

26:33

implicated didn't make

26:34

a penny. People are on there. They go fishing. They got wildlife.

26:37

They got birds. They'll come in the whole

26:39

bar, and you'll give someone a package of fish. They'll

26:41

buy them a drink. It's illegal,

26:43

but it's been going on for so long.

26:46

Eventually,

26:46

agents gathered enough evidence to charge

26:49

Ryan and three others in February of

26:51

twenty twenty one. We'll hear what happened

26:53

next after the break.

26:55

My name is

26:58

Diego Shika, Luke. I'm twenty three

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and live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, but I was

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born in Guatemala. My adopted mom,

27:05

Lori Stern, made sure I knew where I

27:07

was from. Growing up, we visited

27:09

Guatemala and built a relationship with

27:11

my birth family. I know who they

27:13

are, but that so left me

27:15

with questions. I belong to two

27:17

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27:19

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27:21

relative defining Diego available

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28:33

podcasts or audio. Right? There's no

28:36

seeing. Oh.

28:40

It was

28:46

June of twenty twenty one.

28:48

A few months after spear phishing season and all

28:50

was quiet around Lake Winnebago. Ryan

28:55

Koenig who had been on administrative leave from his

28:57

job since February was facing

28:59

charges of lying to a game

29:01

board. A crime that was punishable

29:03

by up to nine months in jail

29:05

and ten thousand dollars in fines. He faced

29:07

similar charges obstructing a

29:09

game warden in a separate case in

29:11

Winnebago County. Sean

29:14

went the guy feeding caviar at his

29:16

bar, he faced misdemeanor charges

29:18

of unlawfully selling or bartering

29:21

aids. Mary Lou and Victor

29:23

Schneider, the caviar processes in their

29:25

eighties, were facing the same

29:27

charges. The Snyder's faced up to

29:29

six months behind bars, two thousand dollars in

29:31

fines, and losing their hunting and fishing

29:33

licenses for five years. Instead,

29:35

they reached a plea deal that would keep

29:37

them out of jail. Sean's

29:40

charges were eventually dropped as long as he

29:42

agreed to not process caviar for

29:44

non family members without a

29:46

permit. Ryan entered a

29:48

plea deal of no content and ended

29:50

up having to pay a fine for his misdemeanors.

29:53

So Canyx was find fifty dollars in

29:56

Calumet County and five hundred dollars

29:58

in Winnebago

29:59

County. A lot of people said he got off

30:02

easy The same day he was

30:04

fine, Konik announced that he was

30:06

gonna leave his position at the DNR.

30:08

He

30:08

took a job working at his family's

30:11

car Won't won't. These

30:14

guys have like

30:16

some sense of ownership over

30:18

this resource. And

30:20

that goes from the top down with

30:22

that whole group of people because in

30:24

these criminal

30:24

complaints, it's not just Ryan who's being

30:27

named. It's everybody in that

30:29

department being named. It's just

30:31

he's the one who took the fall for

30:33

it. The US

30:35

fish and wildlife investigators likely call

30:37

the whole thing a win. But

30:39

the locals? Well,

30:41

they felt differently.

30:43

Fishing groups were disappointed that Ryan

30:45

left the job. Quinnie Fishing

30:48

Club wrote a letter in support not

30:50

long after the charges came out.

30:52

Well,

30:52

the Fishing

30:52

Club is knowing what the employees from

30:54

the DNR do for the surgeon.

30:57

I know the hours, I know the dedication

30:59

they put into it. Maybe

31:01

they process the egg and then maybe it's

31:03

a little

31:03

cry, but It's not for someone to

31:06

lose their job. They said

31:07

that removing Koenig would cause waves of

31:10

distrust between local fishing groups and

31:12

the DNR.

31:13

It's like a speeding ticket far as I'm concerned. You

31:15

know, how many people speed?

31:18

Everybody gets in

31:19

the car and did the same thing as what happened

31:21

with the surgeons. That's kind of what

31:23

it is. Even the

31:24

people who protect the surgeon

31:27

felt like Ryan should have stayed in his

31:29

position. Former DNR leaders

31:31

I talked to they said, this is really serious

31:34

offense. I can't believe you'd use your

31:36

position to secure benefits like this for

31:38

yourself. But even those former

31:40

DNR officials would say, this

31:42

management is so successful that we feel like Ryan

31:45

should retain his position? I

31:48

mean, Ryan was a

31:49

guy that did so much for this urgent.

31:52

But what he was doing was technically illegal.

31:55

It wasn't causing any harm, really.

31:57

Ron's

31:57

a super good guy. I he's a more

31:59

dedicated surgeon guy I've ever seen my life.

32:02

He's the one that made the sturgeon poplar

32:04

in Wisconsin on Lake

32:05

Winnebago. To me, they

32:07

saved the sturgeon. They didn't wreck the

32:09

sturgeon. They saved it. And

32:11

it just got a wrong deal. Since the

32:14

investigation, the regulations around Stearns and

32:16

Caviar have gotten even

32:18

tighter. No. They gotta abide by

32:20

many, many strict rules. When they have a party

32:22

for the volunteers, they got a catered to food

32:24

in there. People can't bring anything in anymore.

32:27

While on the lake, people think twice now

32:29

about trading in their eggs. They've

32:31

been a surgeon now. And if it's

32:33

got the bright bangs, they

32:35

can tell them, hey. You got good eggs in here. You know, give them a

32:37

car to who processes

32:38

them. People say, no. I'm not even gonna get involved

32:41

and they just throw them away. They're

32:43

free. Can you blame him?

32:45

Nobody wants to get caught up in a

32:47

criminal investigation? The rules

32:49

can be

32:50

confusing. So people

32:52

would rather toss the eggs than send

32:54

them in for processing.

32:57

Anytime you have a

32:59

natural resources agency, that's

33:01

gonna have a scandal like this that causes

33:03

some breach of trust. It's gonna

33:05

be huge because this whole

33:08

thing is based on trust between

33:11

stakeholders. We got decades of

33:13

successful management all brought

33:15

into question by a

33:17

strange scandal where Nobody made any

33:18

money, but they had the potential for

33:21

real wrongdoings. We

33:23

all know that There

33:25

are plenty of con artists out there that face the

33:28

music. Usually, they've

33:30

stolen money or cheated their way to

33:32

a prize. But

33:32

in this case, Ryan Koenig was

33:35

really just sharing his love of the

33:37

sturgeon and its caviar with people.

33:39

You just feel kinda terrible for him

33:41

because it's like they're getting dragged through the mud

33:43

with all of this, and it's like, was

33:45

it really that bad? As

33:47

far as we know, there was no money

33:49

exchange. And let's be honest, people

33:51

get away with a lot worse than

33:53

sharing some caviar. Here we

33:55

have this prehistoric fish

33:58

who outlay of the dinosaurs. It was facing

33:59

extinction. It was Ryan's job

34:02

to make sure that they survived even

34:04

longer, but

34:05

his biggest mistake was that he thought he had a right to

34:07

keep this public resource for

34:10

himself. The sense of

34:12

ownership over the resource person feeling

34:14

like nobody loves these fish as

34:16

much as we do. We might as well put

34:18

these eggs to good use. They probably

34:20

feel like sharing them at their supper

34:22

club, at their bars, their agency

34:24

meeting is like introducing people to

34:26

their love of this resource too.

34:28

There's part of that, but it's also

34:30

you don't own this resource. Like,

34:32

to public resource. But here's

34:34

the thing, spear phishing

34:36

exists because of tradition. Centuries

34:39

of it. The caviar

34:42

bartering, well, it's kind of the same

34:44

thing. For decades,

34:46

long before Ryan took on of lead

34:48

fisheries

34:49

biologist, there was a culture

34:51

of bartering caviar, of sharing

34:53

something you love with

34:56

your community. Ryan was the person in charge of

34:58

enforcing the regulations, but

35:00

he was also someone who clearly

35:02

valued the tradition and community

35:04

that helped

35:06

third and strive. And part of that was

35:09

caviar. So I'm

35:12

wondering is it fair that

35:14

one man should have his life upended

35:16

for a culture he inherited

35:19

from his predecessors? I

35:21

mean, how many of us really would be in

35:24

issues and suddenly shut

35:26

down things that have been going on

35:28

forever that harm

35:30

no one. Especially the fish. And

35:32

yet, he lost his job over

35:34

it. But to

35:36

go through all that

35:40

when Caviar don't even

35:42

taste good.

35:50

Hey, folks.

35:57

Thanks for listening. Just a

36:00

reminder to follow cheap wherever you get

36:02

it. And please do leave a rating and a

36:04

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Next time on cheap.

36:34

She had this author ego. So she was like this really

36:37

quiet, municipal employee by day,

36:39

and then she had this

36:42

other life. By night, she was this showgirl with

36:44

these horses and cats and belt

36:46

buckles and boots and all kinds of

36:48

things like a dolly part

36:50

and meat

36:52

sticks in Illinois maybe.

36:54

She is presented by me,

36:56

Aldo Slate. This episode

36:58

was produced by George McDonough.

37:01

The executive producers are Lizzie Jacobs and

37:03

Tom Koenig. The series editor is

37:06

Megan Dietrich. The original

37:08

idea for the show was developed by

37:10

Tom Fuller. Mixing and

37:12

scoring by Martin Peralta at output

37:14

medium. Special thanks to the

37:16

Sony legal team, our

37:18

production coordinators, our

37:20

Jennifer Mystery, and e

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care egg

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