Tom Simon

And so the inspector generals for the city of Chicago and the US Postal Inspection Service began kind of investigating corruption together without me and without the FBI.

in the city of Chicago building inspector's department.

And they began developing some informants within the Romanian building community.

Romanians are very good tradesmen.

And they found a house that had been just a lot of rumors about builders paying bribes and inspectors taking bribes.

And there was a common denominator, what they were finding.

There are people out there, in Chicago at least, who have a job called expediter.

Yeah.

In the most pure world, an expediter would be the person who stands in line at the city building department to get you a building permit.

Oh, that wasn't what I...

But also when it's time, as you're building a house from scratch, let's say, inspections need to happen along the way.

For instance, before you put the drywall up, the electrical inspector needs to come and take a look at the electricity, the wiring behind the walls to give it a thumbs up and say this passes this phase of the electrical inspection.

Same thing with plumbing, right?

You can't have the plumbing inspector come when the drywall's up and the toilet's sitting there.

You need to be able to take a look at the pipes.

make sure they're slanted in the right direction so gravity's working for you to get the waste out and the good water in.

It's really very involved.

And so there was an expediter named Benny.

And so Benny, a Romanian immigrant, very good-looking guy, very nice, evangelical Christian, and

I'm painting a picture for you.