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One, two, three. Popping peas. How many. How many episodes is this going to be? Eight. Jesus. Hubris describes excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence. In ancient Greece, hubris referred to action that violated natural order or which shamed and humiliated the victim, sometimes for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser. In his work rhetoric, Aristotle believed that hubris was a form of disrespect and or insolence towards others, especially the gods. Thanks, Wikipedia.

It was a wonderful italian restaurant, upper east side. And the bodyguards, some of them stayed outside, and some of them came in and stood near the table. We had this big, lavish meal, wines flowing. I believe some of the men were drinking scotch. And at some point, Victor pulls out a cigar. Smoking was not allowed in New York at that point in time, let alone a cigar. So people around started complaining. Victor was like, oh, don't complain. I'll just buy your meal. I'm sure every one of these people were looking at us like, I can afford my own meal. All I want is for you to stop smoking that cigar.

In ancient Greece, nemesis was the goddess who personified retribution. Retribution for the sin of hubris. Retribution for showing arrogance before the gods. This is the pirate of Prague, an apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. I'm Joan O'Sarah.

Six VAR paper. Here's where we left our story. President Aliev's pen, Baba's pen is hovering over that piece of paper, poised to sign off on the deal to end all deals. The privatization deal that's going to awaken the slumbering azeri oil industry. It's the deal that will finally make the pumps pump, the pipes flow and the tanks fill up. And it's Victor and company who reap the rewards. Or so as investors believe. Aaron is jazzed.

They were going to privatize. They all said it was going to be privatized. Every single person.

Kathy's jazzed.

Victor described this as a slam dunk.

Collins jazzed. I bought into the mystique, the hype, the past success of Victor caught. So everyone's jazzed. Totally, totally jazzed. And Baba's about to sign on the dotted line, right? Right. Except that it seems like Baba's not quite ready to sign on the dotted line. Not just yet. There are one or two little things Baba needs first, little favors. Baba and his people need looking after. I mean, you can understand that, right? I mean, this is a big deal. And the favors, well, they're pretty small. Not a lot to ask. That's just the way deals are done in these parts, apparently.

I mean, anybody who does business in the Middle east is familiar with the idea of know you got to give back.

She.

You're friends with a sheik. You want to do a deal with him, too bad. You got to look after all the people around him. Unless you take care of the financial advisor and the accountant and the office chief and all that, they're going to sabotage you so it becomes a necessary cost of doing business.

The thinking is, you scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. And as I say, the favors, they're not big. Hey, Mr. Fleck. Aaron. My kid wants to be an engineer. And your american engineering schools, they're pretty good. Could you pull a few strings, maybe get him a spot in one?

I called the dean of engineering school, told who he was, and is there any way of getting him in? And it took a day or two, and he got in.

Hey, Aaron. My son's little girl, she adores this american boy band, and she'd just die if she could meet them.

The granddaughter loves the Beach Boys.

Are you sure you got the name of that band right, Aaron?

The Backstreet boys.

I mean, there is a bit of a difference. Anyway, the way the story goes, this government official says. Mr. Fleck, is there anything you can do? Could you arrange for my darling granddaughter to meet the Backstreet boys?

They're recording in Atlanta. I could get them in to a recording. A really special invitation back.

Sheesh. With the Backstreet boys. And another request, and it starts like this. I got a little problem. And I know your american hospitals are very, very good. What's that? The problem? Well, it's delicate. I mean, it's cosmetic. But it's important to me and to my wife. It's just a bit of surgery on.

The penis to straighten out his penis. And it worked. The operation worked.

Oy. That's a relief. Now, to be totally straight with you, we hear that one wasn't arranged by Aaron, but you get the idea. All these favors, they're small, but they just keep coming, one favor after another. That's Bakshish, right? Bakshish, Baku style. Favor after favor after favor. And there's still no deal. But, you know, the deal's complex. The wheels are turning just a little slower than anticipated. It's an entire oil industry, for goodness sake. It's bound to take time. So, Peter, when are we talking about here?

Well, Victor's famous Christmas party was December 1997. And all of this is happening the very next year. Meanwhile, Victor's using the investor's money to buy up all those vouchers.

And does he have a timetable? I mean, what's he telling his investors about when they're going to own this giant oil company, SoCar?

He's telling them always very soon. It's just around the corner. It's weeks away, maybe a couple of months at most.

And then once they bought SoCaR, what are they going to do with it?

Well, after all of this, they're not going to hang on to it. Once they fixed it up, they're going to flip it. They're going to sell it for way more than they bought it for. And then it will be the payday to end all paydays for these savvy investors. They're going to make 1050, maybe even 100 times their money.

Wow. As they say on Wall Street, 100 bagger. So Victor reassures his investors. Eyes on the prize, guys. Keep your eyes on the prize. Stay jazzed.

It sounded like. Okay, that's reasonable. This is a huge process, and they've decided to slow it down. I do not recall having any thoughts. Know this is not going to happen. It totally seemed kosher, and the government officials were validating that.

So, sure, maybe Baba's not going to sign today, but Baba's going to sign tomorrow. Relax, will you? Well, one guy's relaxed. And guess who that is? Victor, of course. Victor is super chilled. Super chilled at home in the Bahamas, while his oil deal matures and marinates in its own good time. And one way Victor Chills is with a good cigar. Any place, anytime. Outside, inside. Who the hell cares about secondhand smoke, eh, Victor? And what goes well with a good cigar? I mean, really well.

I would go over to dinner, and the next thing you know, we'd be eating lion.

Lion. Yeah. Perfect. But if lion doesn'tickle your fancy, there are other options on Victor's menu.

Camel or bear, or some other thing that I never even heard of in my life.

That's Ray Darville. Peter, remind us who Ray is.

Ray is that swash buckling marine park warden who tried to stop Victor from doing whatever the hell he pleased on this private island with only limited success. But the two of them became buddies.

Though, you know, me and Victor stood on two different sides of the fence. We'd sit around just, like, shoot the shit, and the next thing you know, the weapons would come out and we'd be shooting crossbows.

First you're eating lion, the next you're shooting crossbows. I guess that's guy stuff. In the Bahamas, Victor had every reason to feel relaxed. Even if the oil deal was taking a little longer than expected. Yeah, he had every reason to feel relaxed. And here's another reason. He didn't need to worry about his personal safety. That was all taken care of. Taken care of by one man.

Big George. Big George, the big son of a gun. George was a magnificent specimen of a human being. I mean, he was nothing short of a damn tree. He could pick me up with one hand, and he could probably do it by my throat. George was a bodyguard and one of the best. George was there for a specific reason. To eliminate any threat that would come against Victor Cuzini.

So it's fair to say that Big George had, well, a very particular set of skills. So long as George was around, Victor could relax. But there was another reason why Big George made Victor feel so chilled. Because Big George had a whole other set of skills.

He was a hell of a masseuse. This guy had studied, I don't know, with the monks or somewhere over in that area, how to channel chi and all that other stuff. Victor would. George, George, man, get this thing out of my neck. And he would straighten Victor out, and Victor would be fresh to go.

Wow. Big George certainly sounds legendary. And Ray was lucky enough to experience Big George's legendary healing hands, personally. And, boy, what hands.

So he grabs my forehead like he was grabbing a baseball. Then he takes the other hand, puts it down by my lower spine. And then everything went limp. Just paralyzed me, right? And then all of a sudden, man, it was like a wave of energy that went through my body like you could not believe. He said, I know all the pressure points. He says, I know the ones that can kill you, and I know the ones that can heal you. And he could do it with one hand. Trust me, Ray.

I really do.

That was George.

Seems Ray Darville brought something out in Victor. A side of Victor we've not seen before.

My wife, the love of my life. I mean, you couldn't hunt for a woman for a thousand years and find one like her. She's as special as you could possibly get. Stubborn as a damn brick wall, too. One afternoon, she got sick. So as it was getting dark, she started getting a little bit worse. And at that point. At that point, I realized we had a major problem. A life or death situation here. It's 60 miles away from the nearest hospital, and it's 60 hard miles.

Ray and his wife lived on a remote island in the Bahamas, and there.

Was no way to get a plane in.

He was far away from the capital, Nassau, but not far from our guy.

And I called up Victor. I said, victor, I need a boat. I need a boat now.

Not just any boat. He needed a boat that could move. And Victor had just the thing on his nearby private island.

He just told me, you get here as quick as you can.

I'll have my guys go down there.

Crank up the boat, get the boat ready for travel. I arrived there, I threw her in that boat, and we drove 60 miles, dodging islands.

Turns out Ray's wife had appendicitis. And by the time they arrived at the hospital, it was looking pretty bad. Her appendix had already burst.

And literally, if it would have been an hour more or maybe two, she would have died.

Yeah, she would have died.

He saved my wife's life.

And what lesson did you learn from this, Ray?

With a guy like Victor, there are some parts of him that are admirable, but at the same time, there's parts of him that you can string his ass up by the yard. Know, you can be a devil and you can be the saint all in the same person.

So, Ray, how's your wife doing these days?

She's a hell of a woman. And she's still kicking. And we talk on a regular basis for the last 20 years, since we've been divorced.

Ray, that is a beautiful story. So anyway, back to Baku. It's now summer 1998 when it comes to the bakshish. All those little favors, there's plenty happening when it comes to the privatization of the oil business, not so much. A deadline's been set for the socar deal to happen. It comes and it goes. No deal. Baba's pen no longer appears to be poised. In fact, Baba's pen is back in Baba's desk drawer.

We were told the privatization of the oil company was being delayed. That was kind of the first crack.

Suddenly, Victor's investors aren't so jazzed anymore. Then there's something else. Something that makes them even less jazzed. Victor tells them when the deal does go through, their stake, well, it won't be quite as much as they had thought.

When the investors asked Victor why we've been diluted so much, and he know, this is the cost of doing business. We have to cut in. Certain people get things done. That was the rationale.

So the investors, they're no longer jazzed. Now they're jumpy. Remember Lee Cooperman? Billionaire Lee Cooperman? He's the tough cookie who invested $125,000,000. A big, big investor. Very shrewd, very smart. So Lee Cooperman, he's starting to get jumpy.

I became increasingly concerned that things were not evolving as projected. And I asked to meet with him. And I flew out with my wife to Aspen to have dinner with Victor.

To the peak house, the place with the alligator skin couches and the antique ivory and lest we forget, the secret mistress suite.

And that was an eye opener for me.

Lee was horrified because for a guy who hadn't yet sealed the deal, Victor sure seemed to be splashing the cash.

He just lived over the top. I don't relate to people like that. I just found that a complete turnoff for Lee Cooperman.

It was too much to stomach because the thing about Lee is he might be a billionaire, but he doesn't live like a billionaire.

I don't wear my wealth on my sleeve and my wealth is unimportant to me. So I have a very different philosophy. I don't fly around on private planes. I don't drive Rolls Royces. I don't buy Petris wine. I think the most expensive bottle of wine I ever bought was about $50.

Back to the old Chateau Patruce, eh? We've not mentioned it for, what, how many episodes, Peter?

Joe, we talked about it in the last episode.

Well, it turns out to be a surprisingly important part of the story, Peter.

Yeah, it's true. And it seems Victor just can't get enough of it.

Seems everyone noticed Victor's obsession with Chateau Patruce. Cassie Fleck witnessed it one night at the peak house.

He had this area dug out behind his dining room to create this very kind of ancient european looking wine cellar. I just remember bottle after bottle after bottle of Chateau Patruce and the years, the vintage were amazing.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. If you really know your wine, you'll know that Chateau Patrus is a little overrated. There are bottles of pretty good stuff for a third of the price. But Victor, he didn't care. Chateau Patruse had cachet.

He drank Chateau Patruce, he smoked cuban cigars. But there wasn't an intellectual curiosity.

Define intellectual curiosity. Kathy.

Is there sparkling wine out of California that I should be trying? If I buy a younger wine, how does it compare to the older wine? Does the older wine hold up for 20 years? Or can I leave it in my cellar for 40 years and have this when I'm an old man?

Okay, Kathy, we get it. So Victor's a man obsessed, not content with drinking it at home.

He would go to these very fine restaurants in New York, but he always would bring his own chateau Patruce because he didn't want to get to the restaurant. And maybe the wine he knew and loved was not on the list.

It wasn't Kathy's way at all.

He knew certain things. I know this is a good wine. So anyone I take to dinner when I order this or when I have it brought in by my bodyguard, they're going to be impressed.

And none of this was Lee Cooperman's way either. Back to that dinner at the peak house, Victor's place in Aspen. Lee was jumpy about Victor's conspicuous display.

Of wealth, and I became very concerned that here's a young guy living like he was in the king of the world.

Lee's alarmed not just because of all those bottles of chateau Patruce. He's concerned because the deal seems to be going nowhere, yet Victor's spending like there's no tomorrow. And if you were Lee, you'd be worried, too. He and his investors have got $125,000,000 riding on this deal. So, yeah, Lee's alarmed. He's so alarmed, he decides to act straight away. Even before he leaves the peak house, he phones his right hand man, a guy named Clayton Lewis. Lewis was heading up the Ajabajan deal for Omega, Lee's investment fund.

And I got up from the dinner table, I called Clayton Lewis, who was responsible for the investment, said, what's the chance this man is living this way on our money? And he just said to me, you're crazy. Go back, enjoy your dinner. You don't know what you're talking about.

But Lee is not the only one who's getting jumpy, because this delay is getting longer and longer and longer. Peter, what's really going on here?

Okay, so at this point, the investors have been in the deal for months, and Victor keeps telling them, don't worry, don't worry. But each time a deadline set, it passes with no news. It was first supposed to happen in April, right? And then June and then late summer. And yet there's still no privatization.

To tell you the truth, Peter, I'm getting a little jumpy myself. And there's another reason everyone's getting twitchy. Because the investors say they've discovered something. Something very, very alarming. Something about those vouchers. Vouchers bought with Aaron's money and Lee's money and Rick Burke's money. Remember Rick, one of the very first investors? The luxury handbag guy. Now, if all goes according to plan, those vouchers will purchase every last drop of oil in Azerbaijan. But there's something that almost all of them had missed until now. And it's an example par excellence of the warning caveat. Mtor buyer beware.

There was a restaurant near socar chic restaurant that Victor liked. I remember a dinner there with Ricky Burke and Aaron Fleck and others. And Aaron said, you know, these vouchers expire in August 2000.

Yep. Those millions and millions of vouchers, they all had an expiration date. Every single one.

And Ricky said, I wasn't aware they had an expiration date, Victor. Well, what happens after expiration? And get this, Victor answered with one word.

Wallpaper. He said, they're wallpaper.

Ricky said, what? He said, wallpaper. You can use them as valpaper.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of.

You know. Ricky was fuming. Red tried not to show it, but that's when we knew something was wrong. The investors were really nervous that these things were going to expire worthless.

Then, according to Aaron, Victor started acting a bit off.

We looked at him and I don't know what we said, but he had these armed guards there. And from the tone of his voice and the way he talked, we thought we were going to get killed.

That was Aaron's read on the situation, and it wasn't good. Either way. He was not sticking around.

We just couldn't believe it. We just got up and ran to the airport and got the first plane left. We didn't care what it cost. We just paid them and got on that plane. 230 in the morning. We got on a plane. Deserved it.

So for the investors, it's become a whole new ballgame. Suddenly, it's a race against time. And Victor's not exactly doing much to reassure them either.

We started hearing from him less and.

Less for a couple months. I was questioning Victor. He wasn't giving me much information. He was evading us, putting us off.

Okay, so Victor seems a bit elusive, but maybe it's just a blip. He's got a lot on his mind. In any case, the Azeris are reassuring. Any day now, the number two on the government privatization committee is making all the right noises.

He called me up and said, everything is going to happen. Don't be nervous. Don't worry. I think he basically said, everything is.

Fine, but everything is not fine. There's a definite change in Victor. It is not a blip. And it plays out when he comes face to face with the british ambassador, Roger Thomas. Now, the ambassador has been badmouthing Victor's deal all over town. He's been advising people not to invest in Victor's venture, telling a bunch of us investors to give him a wide berth.

But eventually my message got back to Victor.

Now, at one time, that's the sort of thing that wouldn't bother Victor at all. Water off a duck's back. He flashed that sensational smile and went over the most ardent skeptic. It's how he made his millions, right? He could charm the birds out of the trees. Well, not tonight. Tonight Victor and the ambassador are attending a big dinner. Everyone who's anyone is there, including none other than Baba himself, the president of Azerbaijan.

There must have been a dozen of us around the table. And Victor, I mean, we'd all had a few drinks, needless to say, vodka included. And he said in a rather loud voice, why are you so against my company, Mr. Ambassador? And I was taken aback somewhat, and I said, victor, this isn't the time and place to discuss your private business affairs. Leave it. He said, no, but you're hostile. You're hostile to my company.

Boy, I'd love to have been a fly on that wall. This is not how you win friends and influence people, right? And it's a very long way from the smooth talking victor cautiony of old.

The others around the table were dead silent. I mean, they were all gobsmacked to shout across the table to an ambassador, why are you so hostile? Well, I must have hurt him.

You could cut the atmosphere with a knife. But then, just in the nick of time, an unexpected exit route. Thanks to Baba, the president started getting.

Up and we realized that this was the end of the meal and started moving towards the exit.

Out of adversity comes opportunity.

And Victor rushed off double quick. Time to stand in the line where they would shake the president's hand and have his photograph taken.

Nice move, Victor.

I ended up thinking I was very grateful that president had got up at that stage, so I didn't have to actually fight him.

That would have been one for the ages. The british ambassador duking it out with Victor Kogany. But seriously, it's an important moment because Victor's mask has slipped. So let's recap. Deadlines are promised for the deal to go through. The deadlines come and go. Victor's become a little elusive. The investors have become a little spooked. Then Victor loses his cool with the british ambassador very publicly. So now Victor's spooked. And here's something else. People start to notice that Victor hasn't been in Baku for some time, quite some time. And then guess what happens next? Remember Victor's swanky headquarters? The one with the super secure vault stuffed with all those vouchers.

Victor was closing the office, so I knew then there was something wrong.

People started getting nervous. And by the beginning of 99, I had resigned and most of the staff were gone.

Yep, Victor's shutting down the shop. Nobody likes where this is heading, because.

Then Victor sort of stopped answering people's calls.

I called Victor three or four times to ask him to come in to explain what the story is, and he didn't take the phone call.

Victor goes to ground completely. And then no more trips on the private jet, no more boozy nights on the deck of the yacht in Monaco, no more dinners in Aspen. And of course, most tragically, no more chateau Patrus. Just silence. Finally, the moment everyone has been dreading a realization. This deal to buy up SOCar, the entire oil industry of Azerbaijan, and with it, every single drop of azeri oil. This deal that's been at least two years in the making now, two years of whining and dining, charming and schmoozing, this deal that's attracted hundreds of millions of dollars from seriously smart people and some seriously big companies, they all finally have to admit something to themselves. Kathy had to admit it.

Oh, my goodness. I think this is not ever going to happen. It's not real.

Aaron had to admit it.

We knew it was over, and Lee.

Had to admit it.

It didn't happen. It was supposed to happen. It didn't happen.

The deal was toast. It was history. Lee and Aaron and Kathy and Rick and all the others, they weren't going to own all the oil in Azerbaijan. In fact, they weren't going to own a single drop. They weren't going to own a goddamn thing. And they were going to walk away with nothing. Here is an interesting fact. Remember that exchange between Victor and the british ambassador, Roger Thomas, that very public spac? Now that is very interesting, because the british ambassador could see something, something all those smart investors couldn't or didn't want to see. The whole plan to buy up SoCar, the azeri oil business, lock, stock and barrel. Well, let's just say this. The emperor had no clothes.

When I realized that the objective was to buy the state oil company, I knew that there was something completely wrong. This was ridiculous. There's no way that the president was going to sell the oil company of Azerbaijan.

Yep, that's right. In Roger Thomas's eyes, this deal, this supposed hundred bagger that reeled in all these super smart people, this deal was nuts from the start.

Sokar and the oil were the lifeblood of Azerbaijan. Now you're going to give that up to somebody? You must be joking. There's not a chance they're going to want it all for themselves.

And as for Baba, he wasn't going.

To give away the lifeblood of the country.

Oh, boy. So according to the ambassador, this plan was totally cuckoo. The ambassador could see it, seems the investors couldn't see it or wouldn't see it, and now they're down millions of dollars. But what about Victor? What could he see? Well, here's the twist, and it's a good one. Whatever he could see, Victor has anticipated this moment. In fact, he's planned for this moment because Victor has an escape route. He has an insurance policy. An insurance policy he's kept very hush hush. And guess what? He's already cashed it in. Me cash. Ok. Capitalism. Investita Meliardi Peras. You've been listening to the Pirate of Prague, an apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House and hosted by me, Joe Nocera. The producer is Ben Crichton. The associate producer is Peter Elkind. The writers are Lawrence Grisell, Ben Crichton and me, Joan O'Sera. Music is by Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis Nankmannell and Toby Matamong. Sound design and engineering by Vulcan Kizletug. Our managing producer is Amika Shortino Nolan. The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie PI. The executive producer and head of content at Blanchard House is Lawrence Grisell.