This is the complete, edited & augmented transcript of e00X of the PSK Podcast, in which Graceann Bennett interviews author Gregory Roberts about topics and details of his True Crime / Prison memoir, Pirate Soldier King. This segment focuses on ECONOMY IN PRISON / BARTER.
INTRO
Graceann Bennett (00:01)
All right. Welcome to Pirate Soldier King!
I’m your host, Graceann Bennett, interviewing author & serial entrepreneur, Gregory Roberts.
Gregory Roberts (00:11)
Hello, Graceann.
It’s good to be here.
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RAW TRANSCRIPT
Graceann Bennett (00:00.697)
Alright, okay, we’re rolling with Gregory Roberts here. This is Grace Ann Bennett, and for another episode of Pirate Soldier King.
Gregory Roberts (00:10.754)
Huzzah!
Graceann Bennett (00:12.657)
Great to see you, Gregory.
Gregory Roberts (00:15.18)
Excellent to see you again, Gray San, as always.
Graceann Bennett (00:18.045)
So today we’re going to talk about, you know, they always say it’s the economy, stupid, right? So we’re going to talk a little bit about the economy and then we’re going to talk about… No, but it’s about the economy. Comma, stupid. Yes. So, uh, I mean, you’re, you went to prison, right? And did you, you take all your stuff? So you have no money.
Gregory Roberts (00:27.566)
You calling me stupid?
Graceann Bennett (00:47.709)
Like how does it actually work to like buy things, do things in prison?
Gregory Roberts (00:47.95)
Well,
Gregory Roberts (00:55.406)
Yeah, there’s kind of two major economies in prison. One is that you do actually, your people can send you money, put money, what’s called on your books. So you have an account in prison that it can only be used for three things. You can spend it on buying songs for your MP3. there’s…
There’s like three computer terminals for like 128 men. So you wait in line to use the computer and it limits you to 15 minutes, but you can browse and buy songs for your little MP3 player. can actually buy email credits. Now these emails are like heavily censored and read. Like you hit send, it takes like 24 hours when they read it and screen it for, you know, crimes and things and
and sometimes edit it before they send it to your people. But there’s an email system that’s antiquated and that costs like, I don’t know, like a quarter per email or something. And then there’s commissary, which happened, theoretically happens every 14 days. And in reality happens about every 45 days. It’s hit or miss because of riots and because of lockdowns and whatever.
Graceann Bennett (01:49.712)
Okay.
Gregory Roberts (02:13.858)
This prison drama. like basically when you go to store, it’s called going to store, you like really load up on everything you can because you don’t know how long it’s going to have to last you. And that’s just like basic food and clothing. Like you can buy socks and shorts and t-shirts, like nothing. It’s all gray and white. Like this is the only colors. yeah, you can buy clothes. can.
If you bribe the right people, you can buy your MP3 player or a watch. And you can buy food. Like all kind of nasty junk food, but also like coffee, most importantly, instant coffee. Yeah, like bags, huge bags of instant coffee.
Graceann Bennett (02:55.769)
instant coffee.
So people are pretty caffeinated in prison.
Gregory Roberts (03:03.758)
Well, let me put it this way. So the coffee costs like $9 a bag. If you’re on lockdown for 60 days, you can sell that bag for $50.
Graceann Bennett (03:09.565)
Mm-hmm.
Graceann Bennett (03:14.653)
I can imagine. Yeah, I would probably not want coffee.
Gregory Roberts (03:16.396)
Yeah, I mean, people want their coffee and it’s the most common drug in all of prison. Like everyone’s drinking coffee all day long, every day.
Graceann Bennett (03:28.569)
Okay, that makes sense. and then what if you don’t have money? So you had family that had money, so do you end up with more money than someone else that comes from a poor family or that don’t have a family?
Gregory Roberts (03:42.84)
Yeah, absolutely. Yes, yes. I mean, I actually had money on the outside that I made my brother my executor of my estate so that he could access my accounts. So I basically got a wire transfer of all my assets to him. it wasn’t like they didn’t have to pay for me. I was paying for myself. yeah. So I basically gave myself an allowance of like
like a couple hundred dollars a month so that I had that constant flow.
Graceann Bennett (04:13.693)
And then what if you’re in like a big drug gang or something like that? Like how much money do they get?
Gregory Roberts (04:20.91)
I mean, there wasn’t, so the most that the feds will allow you to have on your books is $99,999.99. And there was, yeah, and there was a guy, would, know, he, cause it’s like a status symbol, he’d be like, Hey man, look at my books. And you’d go over to the computer and be sure enough, $99,000, you know, 327. Like it was crazy. And he always had that. whenever he went down below 98,000, just poof, another, know, 2000 hit his books.
Graceann Bennett (04:28.647)
So we’re gonna melt that much.
Gregory Roberts (04:51.075)
So.
Graceann Bennett (04:51.901)
And then what is that person doing from the economy standpoint? So that’s like billionaire row or there’s people that are like the, is it like strata from an economic strata standpoint or how does it?
Gregory Roberts (05:03.244)
I mean, certainly, yeah, yeah. You know, the rich people, well, there’s two, like, there’s money and there’s power, right? So like, let me put this way. Like, was, my neighbor, my cell neighbor, who was on the angle, so like, this is my cell and this is their cell. So we could look out our window and look into their cell. so we could like sign, use sign language in prison when you’re in lockdown, because you can’t hear anything, so you’re like,
Graceann Bennett (05:12.733)
Okay.
Gregory Roberts (05:31.694)
you’re spelling out words and things. So we could communicate with them and those were kind of like our buddies, but he was also like one of the absolute biggest G’s on the yard. I didn’t quite understand the extent of that until we were like on lockdown day seven and they let the kitchen workers back into the kitchen. Like when you’re on serious lockdown, you just get like these frozen baloney sandwiches. Like that’s it. Like a pack of cookies and a
like a bologna sandwich that was frozen like seven years ago and you’re just getting in a little cardboard box. That’s food. It is awful. Yeah, it is awful, but it’s what you get. So that’s when I’m on total lockdown. first one, the first things they do is reopen the kitchen and the kitchen workers go. So this is day seven. We’ve been eating bologna sandwiches for seven days or cooking the food we got from commissary. And this little Hispanic guy like scurries up to the
Graceann Bennett (06:04.669)
That sounds awful.
I’m going
Gregory Roberts (06:30.602)
sell across from me with this huge bag, like a huge laundry bag. And he starts like a waiter at a five-star restaurant. He like pulls out a whole chicken, like a cooked chicken. He’s like, hey, I have chicken. You want the chicken? You know, I got the chicken for you. It’s excellent. We cooked it perfect with the spices. And then he like pulls out a box of 12 eggs, which I’ve never seen in prison, like other than that. He’s like, how many eggs do you want, boss? I got all the eggs you want. These are awesome. These are like AAA fresh.
Graceann Bennett (06:48.86)
No.
Graceann Bennett (06:53.213)
Thanks.
Gregory Roberts (06:59.616)
and then butter and milk and like everything from the kitchen. And he’s presenting it to him with this like flair and the boss is like, yeah, give me one and half chickens, I six eggs, I three blocks of cheese, I want a whole block of butter. You know, and he’s just, and so he puts this in a second bag. And then, you know, after the whole presentation and everything, he ties the bag to the door, to like the lock on the door.
Graceann Bennett (07:02.109)
What?
Gregory Roberts (07:28.366)
and scurries away. I’m like, hey man, I wanna buy some eggs. He’s like, no, no, know, it doesn’t matter your money, you’re not El Jefe, you know. I’m like, okay. Eventually I befriended that guy and was able to buy like a few eggs and things, you know, so then 15 minutes later, the guards come up to this guy’s door, right? In the gangster’s door and they’re like, hey, you got delivery, man. And they unlock the door in the middle of a lockdown.
Graceann Bennett (07:37.789)
for a hard work. Yeah.
Gregory Roberts (07:56.962)
and they let him come out and get his bag of goodies. And he drives it and goes to the sale. And I’m like, so that is the economy of power. There’s no cash there. That was just like, that guy’s the boss. He gets whatever he needs. He had a guitar. He had like paints and canvases. I mean, he was also on year like 23 of a 25 year sentence. but he was, yeah, he was the boss man.
Graceann Bennett (08:20.935)
where did you get all that power from?
Gregory Roberts (08:24.022)
Well,
So there’s street gangs and prison gangs. had done what’s called putting in the work on the street gangs. He had already ascended to a fairly high level on the street gangs when he got put in prison. He didn’t rat on anyone, which usually means you actually take the fall for other people. Because let’s say five guys commit a crime, two of them get arrested. If they don’t rat out the other three, basically the families of the three who didn’t get caught support them in there. They’re like, hey, you saved my husband.
25 years of his life, we got you covered. Yeah, and then, you know, because of just his personality and how people operate, he ascended very quickly within the prison gang ranks, and he was basically the head of all the Hispanics on the yard. I mean, of, you 1,200 inmates, he headed up the Hispanics, which are about a third of the inmate population. So, you know, he had that power, and people of that level…
Graceann Bennett (09:00.824)
wow, okay.
Gregory Roberts (09:26.567)
communicate with the bosses at other prisons as well. It’s a coordinated effort.
Graceann Bennett (09:32.473)
Okay, so it’s just like any kind of world that exists outside the prison. Leaders are born or they just, people are natural born leaders, right? They have charisma, they have weight, they have all the, huh.
Gregory Roberts (09:44.524)
Yep.
Well, it’s actually the word is politics. And like so many prison terms, these are nouns that are turned into verbs, but like, I’d be like, hey, what’s, you know, what’s, what’s so and so doing? And it’d be like, he’s politicking. He’s politicking like a motherfucker. And it took me so long to understand. I’m like, what do you mean politicking? Like that’s, that’s not like, I know politics, but politicking? And it took me like, I’d say more than a year to actually really understand.
Graceann Bennett (10:07.399)
Yes.
Graceann Bennett (10:11.346)
Yes.
Gregory Roberts (10:15.374)
But again, I study my dictionaries, politics is the art of wielding and manipulating power. That’s what it is. And so it’s like using every tool at your disposal, every social engineering tool, every manipulation tool. Some people respond better to physical threats. Some people respond better to gifts. It’s figuring out in your race what all the dials are for all the people and then being the top dog amongst that.
Graceann Bennett (10:43.389)
Okay.
Gregory Roberts (10:44.078)
And so that’s politicking. And then the other part of politicking is making sure that there’s right relations between the races and the gangs.
Graceann Bennett (10:53.597)
Wow, okay. So back to the economy then. are you just like, the regular people kind of operating on one level and just trading things around and then you have the big guys doing it, working out with something else? Like, how does that?
Gregory Roberts (10:57.198)
So this.
Gregory Roberts (11:07.672)
There’s not many regular people at Beaumont. And there’s many, so the store economy is like the legal economy. That’s where you have money on your books, you buy stuff at store. But like you said, what about people without money, right? Well, they had a couple options. They could gamble. There was all kinds of services, you know, where they could, I mean, you know, like the blacks played dice all the time. You’d gamble on dice.
Graceann Bennett (11:10.329)
Yeah.
Graceann Bennett (11:21.478)
Right.
Graceann Bennett (11:33.789)
Mm-hmm.
Gregory Roberts (11:35.47)
They’d loan you money to gamble, you know, because… And people get into like $4,000 of debt gambling. Like, and that would be an issue.
Graceann Bennett (11:45.015)
I think we talked about someone who put themselves in solitary because they owed too much money from gambling.
Gregory Roberts (11:49.86)
it’s common. I mean, yeah, like it’s called PCing up, which is a terrible thing. But yeah, if you get, mean, once you get, if you’re more than like 2000 in debt and they realize you have no way of paying it and you’re not going to pay it, then you’re going to get hurt pretty bad. And if you realize that as the person who owes the money, it’s never the right thing to do. mean, it’s…
It’s the chicken shit thing to do, but you basically just walk up to the CO’s office and you say, hey man, I’m about to get killed. Put me in a safe place. Yeah. And they zip you out to the jail inside the prison and you you don’t get yard anymore. You don’t get commissary, but theoretically you’re safe. But you’re also, it’s called getting PC’d up or checking in. That means like, and that follows you. So you won’t go back on the yard on that prison.
Graceann Bennett (12:24.839)
Really.
Graceann Bennett (12:35.633)
Wow, okay.
Gregory Roberts (12:44.29)
but you’ll go to another prison, and then they’ll find out that you PC’d up at Beaumont, and then they give a green light on you, et cetera. So the second economy is the drug economy, which is like,
Graceann Bennett (12:55.925)
I thought you were going to say legal. That’s why people are actually in prison.
Gregory Roberts (13:00.526)
Yeah, but prison does not stop addiction. I saw more drugs in prison than in most of my experience in the free world outside of Burning Man. Drugs are everywhere in prison. Some of the people with $100,000 on their books, a large part of that is from drug sales.
Graceann Bennett (13:11.197)
Okay.
Graceann Bennett (13:15.485)
Mm-hmm.
Graceann Bennett (13:23.419)
Wow, okay. drugs, how did drugs fit into the economy then in prison?
Gregory Roberts (13:29.902)
Because drugs are expensive. Like, I’d say prison prices are like four times to five times street prices. So like a cigarette might be like three dollars for one cigarette. Like a hit of meth would be like forty dollars, maybe fifty. Heroin, again, like fifty bucks. know, so these are…
Graceann Bennett (13:36.861)
Hmm.
Graceann Bennett (13:54.461)
about doing heroin like with needles in prison.
Gregory Roberts (13:57.674)
yeah, well a needle will cost you a hundred. So the only way to get needles was to go into the hospital and steal them. And you you got caught a lot, but when a needle got stolen, it got brought on the tier, that’s called a rig. You know, we’d make a whole like syringe and everything for it. That’s called the rig and everybody shares the rig. Which is why many people have tuberculosis in prison because, you you try to clean the needles and
Graceann Bennett (14:00.646)
What?
Graceann Bennett (14:21.053)
wow.
Gregory Roberts (14:26.914)
like the one fire stuff, people, addicts don’t care. Yeah.
Graceann Bennett (14:30.909)
Okay, so that’s crazy. Okay, so drugs, like that’s a big economy. And then…
Gregory Roberts (14:35.662)
Yeah, so for drugs you would basically like you would have your people wire their people money on the outside you communicate it in code on the phone and You know once that was confirmed you’d get your drugs
Graceann Bennett (14:49.213)
So what’s the code, like what’s the example of a code on the phone? How do you order up some money? Like what would you do?
Gregory Roberts (14:56.246)
I mean you just get the person’s like online handle and you tell your person that handle and you give them a number like you know whatever the dollar amount is and you’d say hey I’m gonna call you back in 24 hours or 48 hours like just confirm to me that that went through and it was a long process because your person would have to confirm to you that they sent the money then then your dealer on the inside would have to confirm with their person that they received the money
Graceann Bennett (15:00.285)
Mm-hmm.
Graceann Bennett (15:15.739)
Anyone’s in trouble?
Gregory Roberts (15:24.75)
And it was also very trust-based because sometimes their girlfriend, whoever it was, like, they just take the money and run. They’re no, I didn’t get any money. And you’re like, wait, no, bullshit. My person sent the fucking money. Like, we’re going to straighten this out.
Graceann Bennett (15:36.733)
huh. huh. But so, you didn’t have those problems, like your people were pretty reliable on the outside. On the money front.
Gregory Roberts (15:45.066)
All people were certainly reliable on the outside, yes, and there’s all kind of, you know, as you might imagine, complications. I mean, it’s easier with like Zelle and things these days, but, you know, back then it was all kind of new, like money transfers and stuff. And a lot of people on the outside are not technically savvy, you know, so even when the money hits their account, they can’t even see it or they get confused. so, you know, it’s, and it’s this tense thing because you’re…
Nobody really knows, right? Like I trust my people and they trust their people, but these two people are saying different things. And we can’t get another phone call for 36 hours, so I guess we’ll just have to, you know.
Graceann Bennett (16:24.59)
huh. Well you told the story about how you were buying cryptocurrency. Is this going to be get you in trouble now after out of prison?
Gregory Roberts (16:30.956)
No, that’s just a funny, so, and that’s kind of a skip track. So this is outside of prison economy. Now we’re talking about like real world economy.
Graceann Bennett (16:37.66)
Okay.
wasn’t, but it wasn’t from prison, no?
Gregory Roberts (16:42.658)
Huh? Yeah, well, so what happened was, this is early on in my incarceration, and I had transferred a little bit of crypto to my brother before… I kind of had this intuition I was going to get caught. And so I was like, and I hadn’t given my brother, obviously, financial power of attorney because I was a free person. But I just sent him some crypto and I was like, look, man, like…
If I ever get like taken down, I’m going to need a really good lawyer. And this is like the deposit for that lawyer. So he had a bit of my crypto in safekeeping and I was just curious. So I’d be on the phone. I’d be like, Hey, what, what, you know, what’s ripple at? What’s Bitcoin at? Like give me the prices. And just we’d be kind of fucking around and, just, you know, saying stuff about it.
And I, but you know, like I said, all the calls are both actively monitored and recorded and analyzed in post, right? So like, I mean, I had a USB key that had, because from my first incarceration, all of my phone calls were evidence for my, you for my federal charges. So I had a USB key with like, I don’t know, like 500 phone calls on it, the full transcripts and the audio.
Graceann Bennett (17:43.921)
Gosh.
Graceann Bennett (18:02.439)
Wow.
Gregory Roberts (18:02.55)
And I was like, it was actually spooky to listen to because I knew it was being recorded. Like when you use the phone, it says, you know, this is a call from a federal prison. All calls are recorded and monitored. You know, anything you say can be used against you in new charges. You tells you that and you hear it on the phone. And you still talk and I mean, at the start I had to lecture my people like because they were very mad at me, you know, for getting arrested.
Graceann Bennett (18:16.916)
my god.
and you still talk.
Gregory Roberts (18:30.444)
and for doing the crimes, they got me arrested. And so they’d be like, remember when you robbed that bank? You know, back in. So I was like, no, no! I’m you, shh, like stop! And it was terrifying because literally, you know, they’d be talking about stuff that could get me another 20 years. Yeah, and I was, and I had, and I like, that’s when I had to yell at them and I was like, and I just say on the phone,
Graceann Bennett (18:43.067)
Hahaha
Graceann Bennett (18:51.068)
No.
Gregory Roberts (18:57.15)
anything you say can and will be used against me in a court of law. Anything. So let’s like talk about the weather and your daughter and her graduates from elementary school, you know, and, and, and nice things. Yeah.
Graceann Bennett (19:11.515)
Right. Okay. Back to the crypto. you’re doing crypto.
Gregory Roberts (19:14.318)
Yeah, so I’m aware that the calls are being monitored and I’m kind of joking around with my brother. I’m like, hey man, look. And it’s April Fool’s, by the way. It’s like April 1st, 2019. I’m like, look, bro, when we talk about Bitcoin, it’s going be apples. When we talk about Ethereum, it’s going to be oranges. And Ripple’s going to be grapes. And if it’s really juicy, then you’re going to say caramel apples and shit. And so we’re making up these code words.
Graceann Bennett (19:38.973)
Yeah
Gregory Roberts (19:41.048)
So next time we call him, like, yo man, how about them apples? He’s like, yeah, these apples are fresh. He goes, these apples, I got like 90,000 apples right now. And we just be riffin’. Well, like seven days later, I get called out of my cell. I’m like, what’s up? They’re like, your attorneys are here to see you. I’m like, okay. Like it happens, you know. And they look really serious when I enter, you know, like going in handcuffs when I’m in there. And they’re like really serious. I’m like, what’s up? They’re like,
Graceann Bennett (19:47.069)
You
Gregory Roberts (20:11.118)
We have some transcripts from phone calls to you that the FBI is actively investigating and we have some concerns and questions. These are my lawyers. I’m like, okay. And they put the transcripts of all the Apple conversations in front of me. I’m like, that was a joke. I swear it a joke. And they have like three agents on this, like, know, just drilling down and like investigating. I’m like, huh?
Graceann Bennett (20:24.061)
you
Graceann Bennett (20:31.729)
What do think you’re doing? What do they think you’re doing?
Gregory Roberts (20:36.27)
I mean, they thought I was like, you know, operating some, you know, crypto scam scheme or God knows, you know, like just, I still hadn’t gone to trial. So anything they could get against me, they were like just piling it up. Yeah.
Graceann Bennett (20:47.997)
That was just a joke. You didn’t even have to tell me the code. You could have said Ripple or Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Gregory Roberts (20:54.318)
I know it was kind of like, you it’s like you’re not supposed to talk about assassinating the president or something. So you like, you’re not supposed to talk about, I mean, especially after 9-11, right? You’re not supposed to talk about bombs and terrorism because those phones are monitored. So when I was young, a young chaotic, anarchistic buck, I used to call my dad who worked for the Department of Defense. And I used to say stuff about terrorism and bombs just to see if we could trigger the systems.
Graceann Bennett (21:08.402)
Right.
Graceann Bennett (21:22.823)
So you’re just like a little rascal from the beginning.
Gregory Roberts (21:25.656)
Well, I was. I like to think I’ve toned down a little across the years,
Graceann Bennett (21:30.525)
Yeah, and if your dad was in like a big job with the Department of Defense, then I bet he was like pretty careful on the phone with you.
Gregory Roberts (21:38.894)
Oh yeah, he had top secret clearances. He did not appreciate the joke.
Graceann Bennett (21:47.891)
So no jokes with dad. No.
Gregory Roberts (21:49.474)
Yeah, if he were see me person, like, you know, non-recorded area, he’d be like, don’t do that again. Like, I’m going to lose my clearance. This is going you know, it’s not fun.
Graceann Bennett (21:59.341)
Oh my gosh. So, okay, but you, okay, back to like our economy in prison. So the other thing we didn’t talk about is, well, one thing, when you talked about macro packets, which just seems like a weird thing for people to actually, and stamps, did you have some stamps you wanted to share? Do you have any macro packets?
Gregory Roberts (22:19.31)
Oh my God, I don’t have macro packets, but I can find some stamps, I think. Let’s see. Yeah, so essentially it’s a barter economy. So there’s one way to give cash between inmates, and that’s stamps. So when you go to a store, you can buy what’s called a flat of stamps. 20 stamps essentially for like $10, $11, whatever they are today.
Graceann Bennett (22:30.877)
Mm-hmm.
Graceann Bennett (22:46.877)
Mm-hmm.
Gregory Roberts (22:48.622)
To me it’s ironic because that’s federally backed legal Tinder, but that’s the primary cash of prison is stamps because you can’t have dollar bills or know, you can’t have any US currency, but you can have stamps to mail stuff. So stamps are like the cash and you’d go to like a friend. He’s like making burritos or something. He’d be like, hey man, that’s two books for the burritos.
That would be like a face value of $22 of stamps, but they’re all valued at like half, at basically 50 % is the exchange rate. So you buy $22 of new stamps and they’re worth $11 in prison. you just like, yeah, so these are like books here. They’re usually like wrapped in rubber bands, but sometimes in paper. A book is 10 stamps. And so here’s like,
Graceann Bennett (23:38.685)
Graceann Bennett (23:46.513)
How much is that?
Gregory Roberts (23:47.79)
Well, this is like one, two, three. I mean, this is 12. I don’t know why. Oh no, I’m sorry. This is 10. So this is a book. Cause two of these are one-sided. Most of these are two-sided. So these stamps, some of these stamps, I started collecting stamps. Cause I was like, you know, when I first got in my room, my celly explained it to me. like, man, you need some fucking cash in here. You better buy some books. So I had my people cash out somebody a hundred dollars cash on the outside and I got, you know, basically $200 worth of postage stamps.
Graceann Bennett (24:16.167)
Mm-hmm.
Gregory Roberts (24:16.622)
But they’re not new postage stamps. They’re like 30 year old postage stamps. They’re like some of these, I mean, I don’t know if you can tell, but they’re like, these things have been through the system. You know, they’re like used dollar bills. They’re worn and torn. And so I started really like getting it, you know, just inspecting them. So I had what? $200, that’s like, I had 400 stamps. And I took all the rubber bands off and I inspected them. And I was like, oh, well, you know, like,
Graceann Bennett (24:20.946)
Well.
Graceann Bennett (24:41.202)
Well.
Gregory Roberts (24:47.022)
Like 50 of these I can use to mail stuff. Like very few people mailed stuff, but I mailed like boxes out of prison. Like I mailed like, you I wrote like 30 pages a day. So thousands of pages I sent out to my people and I’d wait till it was like 500 pages, like a ream of paper. And I put it in a box and put like $15 of stamps on it and give it to my counselor and get it mailed.
Graceann Bennett (25:10.888)
huh. Wow.
Gregory Roberts (25:12.652)
But what I realized, I don’t have to ever buy stamps from commissary again because I can buy books. And while most of these stamps you can’t actually use because they’re like so beat up and glued together and stuff, you know, some of them, this is funny. So this one actually says like blood money on it. Yeah, blood money. It’s like you can pay to get somebody hurt.
Graceann Bennett (25:31.015)
What? Money? Why?
Graceann Bennett (25:37.863)
What?
Gregory Roberts (25:39.214)
Yeah, mean, you know, like one of my neighbors had a coffee can with, think, like, I want to say like 600 books in it. So that’s like what? $1,200 worth of stamps. Yeah.
Graceann Bennett (25:53.521)
in a coffee can. And people pay someone, like put a hit on someone, and they would just give you money to go beat someone up.
Gregory Roberts (26:01.262)
I mean, no, that would never technically happen. But money can move gears. I’ll just say that.
Graceann Bennett (26:08.431)
Okay. And then the one thing that I thought was, I mean, it’s less about money necessarily, but you were saying that there’s drones that drop like merchandise. there’s drones flying over the prison, like the over the barbed wire and then just dropping on the yard and there’s iPhones and like all this other stuff in there. Like how, so they bring the Apple store to like the
Gregory Roberts (26:20.354)
Well, okay.
Gregory Roberts (26:35.662)
Yeah, but I mean, but an iPhone like on like what you get an iPhone 16 today was like 1200 bucks, right? Like for us like an iPhone 8 would be like $3,000.
Graceann Bennett (26:49.639)
Can you make calls?
Gregory Roberts (26:51.596)
Yeah, yeah. No, no, I was like, as soon as I found that out, was like, $3,000, I’ll fucking buy that in a heartbeat. Because I get one 15-minute phone call every 48 hours. If I had an iPhone, I could be on the phone with my people all day, just all day and all night. Yeah, and texting and everything. Yeah. So there’s probably, I’d say, like three phones per tier.
Graceann Bennett (26:53.435)
So did you ever have one?
Graceann Bennett (27:02.812)
Right.
Graceann Bennett (27:10.909)
And they’re like on Instagram posting. What?
Gregory Roberts (27:20.054)
And it’s really only the gangsters have it. Because what I would realize, I told this to my Sally and he’s like, dude, if you get a phone, you’re going to have to give that phone to the heads of the gangs whenever they want it. Like, they’ll say, hey, can I please have your phone? But what they mean is you better give me that motherfucking phone, Because they’re doing deals and things. Like, they’re moving money with that. And so, like I said, like my neighbor, he had all this stuff.
But he was really like a prisoner’s, his stuff was all made in prison. He had really nice clothes and things, but it was all sewed by inmates and stuff, right?
Graceann Bennett (28:00.369)
You get like couture, like fashion. Handmade.
Gregory Roberts (28:02.936)
Well, I mean, I wouldn’t go that far, but you get like tie-dye shirts and things or dyed shirts. Like, since everything’s white or gray, like, you know, they take certain like beets from the kitchen and things and like, and like make dyes. And if you’ve got like a, like a green shirt, you’d be like, that’s like baller.
Graceann Bennett (28:19.101)
Gregory Roberts (28:22.222)
But this one dude, like, he was on the heads of the black gangs and this dude walked around with fucking Rolexes and like Air Jordans. And yeah, I’m serious. And I was like, what the? And he had like a different watch every day, like nice watch. Like, you could only buy like a Timex, you know, like ridiculous black plastic watch in prison. But he had like real jewelry and stuff. And like,
Graceann Bennett (28:22.343)
Seriously.
Graceann Bennett (28:33.01)
What?
Graceann Bennett (28:40.39)
Hello.
Graceann Bennett (28:45.767)
Yeah.
Gregory Roberts (28:51.33)
like Gucci glasses and things. So I asked him one day, I’m like, hey man, like, where’d you get that watch? And he just looks at me and he goes, Phoenix, you asking the wrong question.
Graceann Bennett (29:04.477)
Why, what was the right question to ask?
Gregory Roberts (29:06.382)
I thought about it for a while, but he was basically like, you know, like I’m not going to reveal my sources. Like what kind of an asshole question is that? Like what you need to ask is how much for that watch?
Graceann Bennett (29:21.425)
But how about the guards? If he sees someone going around the Rolex and…
Gregory Roberts (29:23.842)
That’s how he gets in, the guards bring the watches and stuff in. Now here’s the fun part. So this guy is like walking around like this and everybody knows that everything he has is contraband. Like you can’t get Air Jordans, you can’t get Rolexes in prison, what, but he’s just flaunting it. And I’m like, huh. And this goes on for, I want to say like three or four months. He’s just the baller on the tier and he’s like, like a rap star, you know, just walking around in jewelry and chains and watches and beautiful glasses.
And then one day we’re out on tier and like there’s like a special ops team of T.O. of CEOs like the the mean guys who beat the shit out of people and they just come in like a SWAT team boom to his cell and they pull everything out of his cell all his shoes all his shit put him in cuffs and we never see him again and I’m like what just happened they’re like well he just lost all his shit I’m like why
Graceann Bennett (30:14.663)
Whoa.
Gregory Roberts (30:20.974)
He said, “‘Cause he pissed off the wrong CEO.”
Graceann Bennett (30:23.793)
the CEO.
Gregory Roberts (30:24.878)
Corrections officer. A CO is a guard. So you have a unit of 128 men and technically there’s two COs and they sit in an office that’s basically like a cell with a desk in it. basically they don’t mess with us and we don’t mess with them. Like they just sit in there watching porn or doing whatever they do and we run the prison. Unless something really bad goes down. yeah. You stay away from the COs and…
Graceann Bennett (30:26.743)
Okay.
Graceann Bennett (30:36.861)
Mm-hmm.
Gregory Roberts (30:54.584)
Like I said, pretty much they stay away from us.
Graceann Bennett (30:57.007)
Okay, so but pissed him off because he was like flaunting. So you don’t want to be that flashy in prison. Probably. That sounds like a bad idea.
Gregory Roberts (31:03.98)
I don’t think so, yeah. mean, every five months they did shakedowns where they’d lock you up in the shower one cell at a time. You and your cellie would go lock up in the shower for an hour and they’d take everything out of your cell. Like everything out of your lockers, everything from under your mattress. They’d take your cell and they’d just shake it and like, tossle it and throw it on the balcony.
and then sort through it and basically throw out half of it. They’d be like, this is contraband, this is contraband, this is contraband. Because whatever they want to say is contraband is contraband. And you’d lose all your stuff. It just happened. I know, because, yeah.
Graceann Bennett (31:41.373)
Wow
So if you think about the economy, would it be like, so was it more capitalism versus like it wasn’t socialist economy? It sounds like it’s kind of Hyper capitalism. Yeah.
Gregory Roberts (31:54.934)
no, not social. I mean, it’s hyper capitalism. mean, on a local level. I mean, there was no corporations. You know, it’s just like you have an economy of a thousand men and a few guards. And yeah, you know, it’s just, I mean, it’s kind of beautiful. It reminds me of actually like we did this economics lesson in elementary school or like, okay, you’re on an island with your classmates. There’s 30 people, you know, and there’s goods and services because there’s goods and services like
Graceann Bennett (32:03.997)
Mm-hmm.
Gregory Roberts (32:24.972)
Like our MP3 players, if we didn’t connect them to the prison computer every 15 days, they’d just lock. So you couldn’t listen to your music. Well, there was a dude who had gotten a soldering iron from electric and some wire from laundry. And for 200 bucks, he would jailbreak your MP3 player. And so you never had to hook it up to the computer system again. And I was like, how is, what?
And he showed me, I was like, there’s no way, like, no, like there’s nothing in prison. You’re talking about these are microchips. And he’s like, no, got the, you know, my people sent me in the diagrams, the circuit diagrams, and I just take this wire and this wire and like short the chip there. I’m like, the chip? Like you’re freaking soldering a computer chip? And I didn’t believe him. was like, there’s no way, I think I even bet him $10. I’m like, no, because he wanted to charge me 200 jailbreak my MP3. And he shows it to me and I.
Graceann Bennett (33:17.725)
you
Gregory Roberts (33:22.028)
like click on it because it each one of our says like 13 days till freeze, you know, like it says your countdown and I turn on the every three players says like 2380 songs, 5620 days till freeze. I’m like, yes. And he did it with like, I’m talking about like Robin’s Caruso just like, like crazy. Yeah. The text.
Graceann Bennett (33:27.463)
Yeah.
Graceann Bennett (33:37.149)
No.
Graceann Bennett (33:46.653)
Well, that’s an entrepreneur.
Gregory Roberts (33:49.644)
The tattoo I got in prison was the cleanest tattoo shop I’ve ever been in in my life. Yeah.
Graceann Bennett (33:54.247)
Really? what was your job? Like you’re an entrepreneur. So what was, what was your, like, how did you work through the economy? Like, what, did you do to?
Gregory Roberts (34:05.486)
I didn’t really participate because I didn’t gamble. didn’t do very many drugs. I do drugs like once every six months or something for fun, like a little party. basically I didn’t, I mean, well, as an artist, okay, here we are. As an artist, there were some things I really coveted. Like I wanted a frigging red pen and a gold highlighter.
Graceann Bennett (34:09.372)
Mm-hmm.
Graceann Bennett (34:15.485)
Okay.
Gregory Roberts (34:36.31)
And everyone told me it was impossible. I finally found a guy with a red pen. I was like, I want the pen. He’s like, no, this is my cherished possession. But then after like three months of this, I was like, you know what? I said, I’ll pay $25 for a red pen, just a red ballpoint pen. And I just put the word out to everybody. was like, 25 bucks, first person to bring me red pen, 25 bucks is yours.
Graceann Bennett (34:56.189)
Mm-hmm.
Graceann Bennett (35:02.706)
Mm-hmm.
Gregory Roberts (35:03.982)
There’s actually like a black friend of mine brought it to me like a day later. He’s like, dude, in fact, I got two red pens for you. I’m like, well, don’t need one. He’s like, all right, and you’re serious, $25. I’m like, yeah, dude, here. Here’s two bags of coffee. Here’s 16 bags of mackerel. Yeah, like here it is. And he’s like, you’re serious. I’m like, I’m totally serious, man. I was the happiest dude in world. had a red pen. Like, because up until then, it was just black and white. I had white paper and black.
Graceann Bennett (35:08.912)
Uh-huh.
Graceann Bennett (35:29.262)
and what to do with your life.
Gregory Roberts (35:32.59)
So I was like, I have a red pen, this is awesome.
Graceann Bennett (35:34.685)
Okay, so even though you’re an entrepreneur in the previous life, you just ended up being just, you just wanted to keep it chill in prison from an economic standpoint. You were just like straight arrow. You’re the straight arrow.
Gregory Roberts (35:49.774)
Oh yeah, didn’t want to get, I mean I saw people go down the drugs and gambling roads and it never ends well. So I did gamble a little bit. I played a guy in chess who I knew was better than me and I was feeling myself and he was feeling himself so he’s like, all right man, 100 bucks, let’s go. For one game. I was like, it’s on man, let’s go. I ain’t taking shit from you, let’s go. And I smote him.
Graceann Bennett (36:10.471)
Whoa. Uh-huh.
Graceann Bennett (36:19.259)
Yes. And?
Gregory Roberts (36:19.502)
I check made him and I was like, that’s 100 bucks motherfucker. And he was my friend so we could talk like that. But he was actually really poor. I mean, I’m sure he had a hundred on his books, but you know, and he was like, man, I was just kidding. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like this is like, no, you and there was people there who witnessed it. was like.
Graceann Bennett (36:27.911)
Okay.
Graceann Bennett (36:38.237)
Nah.
Gregory Roberts (36:46.83)
This dude’s been watching our whole match. This dude just saw me win a hundred bucks from you. You owe me a hundred dollars. And he kind of squirmed and stuff. And I was, and he’s like, you know, give me a chance to earn it back. I’m like, all right, I’ll, I’ll, we’ll play some games for 10 bucks each. You know, but he’s like, no, next game is a hundred. I’m like, no, you’re better than me. I won the hundred fair and square. You owe it to me. So it’s my friend again. Well, he doesn’t talk about it anymore.
Graceann Bennett (37:02.983)
Mm-hmm.
Gregory Roberts (37:16.958)
And if someone owes you money and you can’t collect it, then you’re a bitch. So it was like a real problem. And people knew that he owed me money and wasn’t paying me. So I actually went to his cell and I was like, look dude, like, I don’t want to do this, but…
Graceann Bennett (37:23.165)
Mmm.
Gregory Roberts (37:39.022)
I, you owe me, now you owe me 80, right? Cause I lost two games to him at $10 each. So you owe me 80 bucks and I either want the books or I want the commissary. Here’s my commissary list.
Graceann Bennett (37:53.675)
huh.
Gregory Roberts (37:53.782)
And he’s like, dude, I’m not fucking paying. I said, then I hate to do this, man. You’re my friend, but we’re to have to go in this cell. Like, we’re going to have to catch a cell. You know, I can’t be disrespected like that. And I can’t be disrespected in front of this whole tier like that.
Graceann Bennett (37:58.219)
wow.
Graceann Bennett (38:09.073)
Mm-hmm.
Gregory Roberts (38:11.374)
But he was like a real street gangster, so he understood. He was like, and he would have beat my ass. But I had to. And it got really edged there. We were about to go into cell. He’s like, look, OK, look, look. He goes, give me 72 hours. I’m going to figure something out. I’m like, well, and this broke my heart. He came to my cell a day later with this
Graceann Bennett (38:19.162)
I’m
Graceann Bennett (38:30.759)
Wow, so many people.
Gregory Roberts (38:40.866)
like a lunch bag full of like all his treasures, like a set of headphones and a set of colored pencils, because he knew I loved to do art, a set of colored pencils that were like half used and like, all like basically all his net worth. And he’s like, look dude, this is not worth $80, but this is what I can do. And I’m really sorry. And you’re right. You know, and I apologize. I didn’t mean to disrespect you. I shouldn’t have made the bet for a hundred.
Graceann Bennett (38:44.653)
Ugh.
Graceann Bennett (38:58.941)
Hello.
Gregory Roberts (39:10.784)
even though I should have whooped your ass in chest and I’m better than you, you beat me. And if you’ll accept this, then we’ll call it good.” And I was like, yes, dude, thank God. You have come to me and you’ve apologized. You’ve done the right thing. I understand that you’re giving me pretty much everything you have. yeah, so thank you. And we did the bro hug. But that was a close call. And after that, I was like,
Graceann Bennett (39:22.022)
Graceann Bennett (39:30.909)
while.
Gregory Roberts (39:39.554)
And I had one more bet that I had to collect on that took me like three frigging months to collect on. And after that, I was like, I’m not betting anybody for, I don’t care if I’m gonna win. Winning is almost worse than losing. If I lose, I’ll just be like, hey, here’s 20 bucks, have fun. Here’s your macro. If you win, then you gotta collect it.
Graceann Bennett (39:54.717)
Wow. Ah, OK. OK, well, one is that we’re going to wrap this up, I think, because economy, guess, is a deep topic. So is there anything that people like us on the outside and yourself included now can take from how to win?
Like economically, I’m just thinking about my business and how I run my business or as an entrepreneur. Like what can I take away from this that I can apply in the real world?
Gregory Roberts (40:20.098)
Yeah, I see you.
Gregory Roberts (40:25.902)
The best thing is raise your prices. So you could buy all kind of clothes and you can get clothes tailored, right? Like you get like they sold long sweatpants, you get made in shorts, you get pockets put in them because they didn’t have pockets and all this stuff. And normally like to tailor a pair of pants to be like, I don’t know, six dollars or something or to get a haircut, it’d be like two dollars. But there’s always like I had Sally, he was like, hey, I’m the best seamstress on this fucking tier. He was a badass, by the way.
Graceann Bennett (40:28.881)
Really?
Gregory Roberts (40:54.082)
He was like, you know how you can tell a longer man spent in prison? By how well he can sew. And so he was like, but you know, I charge $20 to fit a shirt and I charge $25 to put pockets in these things. I was like, how? He’s like, cause I’m the best. And I tell him I’m the best. So you want to lessen the outside, like raise your prices, like be the best and just nail it. Cause he made a frigging fortune off tailoring.
Graceann Bennett (40:58.737)
Well, wow.
Graceann Bennett (41:15.669)
huh.
Graceann Bennett (41:21.947)
Wow, okay, that is good advice. I will raise my prices. I’m working on that. Okay, great. Well, that and holy water, yeah, we’ll drink to that. exactly, worth every penny. All right, so…
Gregory Roberts (41:25.934)
Mm-hmm.
Gregory Roberts (41:31.17)
Love in the holy water.
Gregory Roberts (41:39.118)
You
Graceann Bennett (41:43.057)
Great, well, that was great chatting with you. think in our next episode, can dive into time, time and money. Money is time. So I think they go together, right? Well, thank you for dropping some wisdom and giving us a economics lesson from your prison. Yeah, OK.
Gregory Roberts (41:58.424)
Right on. Thank you, Grayson. And you can obviously read more of it at PirateSoldierKing.com.
Graceann Bennett (42:07.545)
Exactly. And you can get more episodes and you can preorder your book and all that. Okay, great.
Until next time.
Gregory Roberts (42:17.646)
Until next time.
OUTRO
Graceann Bennett (37:04)
Okay. Exactly. Determination. Go time. Fist bump.
Put on the mask. Put on the costume.
Just jump in and go, go get that money and
go make your dreams come true!
All right. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Gregory. Amazing talking to you. Very inspiring! I hope everybody else is inspired too.
Here we go!
Gregory Roberts (37:10)
Yes. There it is. This is fun.
Thank you, Graceann.
.
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