A man in Australia who ran a bouncy house business was so
hell bent on being number one, very competitive,
he's got that competitive spirit, that he tried to take out
all the competitors by setting them on fire, literally.
Now, his name is James Balcombe, and he's the owner of Awesome Party Hire,
and he carried out a series of firebombings in 2016 and
2017 against his competitors in the hopes of destroying their businesses.
Now, luckily, he got caught, but
I do wanna give you the details about what led to this situation in which he's now
gonna potentially spend a lot of time behind bars.
So the judge in his case said Balcombe's offending was persistent.
So he was so set on taking out his rivals that he told a guy named Craig Anderson,
who he basically commissioned to set the fires,
to return to businesses if the initial attempt to
set the businesses on fire only caused minor damage.
And so one of the businesses was in fact targeted three times.
And here are some more details according to the guardians reporting on this,
many of the fires were unsuccessful, but A&A Jumping Castles was totally destroyed.
The court heard that Anderson threw a Molotov cocktail through a smashed
window at that business, causing a huge blaze that engulfed the factory and
destroyed 110 jumping castles.
Now, before I continue giving you more details,
I just wanna get this out of the way.
Luckily, no one was harmed,
no one was injured from all this nonsense that was taking place.
But I do wanna give you some more details.
The fire caused $1.4 million in damages, and
owners Michael and Aline Andrew lost everything, the court heard.
The couple were forced to close their business and
both now work casual jobs in childcare.
I don't know what casual jobs in childcare means, but it must be-
>> It must be an Australian thing.
>> Yeah, exactly, 100%.
>> If you've ever done childcare, there's nothing casual about it [LAUGH].
>> No, no, not at all.
Now, with that said, the strategy did work temporarily, okay?
So Awesome Party Hire, which is this guy's company,
was ranked number one on Google after he commissioned these attacks.
But Balcombe, he became concerned because police
would probably find it suspicious that all these
bouncy house companies are being set ablaze except for
his, so he decides, you know what?
Maybe I should set my own business on fire.
>> Yeah, it's a good idea.
>> So he directed Anderson to torch his own factory.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, the brain on that guy, right?
So three days later, Anderson was arrested, and he ended up naming Balcombe
as the mastermind behind the firebombings and the attacks on rival businesses.
And I'm really glad he did, because I believe in justice, but more importantly,
I believe in fantastic mug shots like the one you're about to see, there he is.
On face alone, of course he did this.
>> [LAUGH] >> Okay, I like how he got arrested too,
we'll get to that in a second.
>> Yeah.
>> But we could title this story, Man Burns 110 Castles At Once.
Okay, fine, they're bouncy castles.
Look, now to take a serious turn, even though it's a story about
these bouncy houses or whatever they're called and stuff, but
I was watching a movie with my daughter last night, and
the theme of the movie was, no, just talk to your opponents.
And it was this guy who was burning everything down, funny enough, right?
And that you could just talk them into being nice guys.
And I had to pause the movie and say, it's a sweet movie, I like it, and
I'm glad we're watching it, but don't do that, okay?
There are actually bad guys in the world, and so don't just listen to this movie and
go and try to talk the bad guys into being good guys, okay?
So you ain't gonna talk this guy into being a good guy,
this is clownorama, right?
Throwing the Molotov cocktails in there, man,
that massively endangers people's lives.
>> Of course, yeah, absolutely.
>> Let alone burning down people's businesses and
destroying their lives, etc.
>> Yeah, robbing them of everything they've worked toward, and
potentially hurting people in the process of doing it, potentially killing people.
What if there were people trapped inside as the fire takes place?
I mean, it's just absolutely disastrous.
But luckily, he was charged with 11 counts of conspiracy
to commit arson and he was released on bail in 2017.
Now, I wanna move on from Cenk's downer point and
talk a little bit about how he got arrested.
So he failed to show up to court for a final directions hearing,
with his lawyer handing over a fake medical certificate.
So he's supposed to show up to court, he doesn't.
His lawyer shows up to court on his behalf and he's like,
here's a doctor's note for why he's not here, and it was totally fake, okay?
>> Yeah, shocking.
>> Okay, so a warrant was issued for his arrest and he was found living in Perth,
interesting, running a fraudulent stamp operation under the name Paul Johnson,
before pleading guilty once extradited back to Victoria.
>> Running a fraudulent stamp operation under a different name, of course,
cuz there are bad guys in the world and crooks are gonna crook, and so
they should be put in a different kinda big house, if you will.
>> Yep, now, a judge has decided this week that he will serve up to 11 years in
prison for the crimes he has committed.
>> Yeah, those are serious, serious crimes, and I'm glad they caught him.
And look, in America,
whenever a big business does any kinda crime, they get away with it.
And there was an absurd case in Florida, Rick Scott,
who's now the senator from Florida, where his company stole more
money from Medicare than any company in American history, right?
And they convicted the company, they said the company is guilty, and
the company had to admit that they did all of this,
the literal robbery of the American people, right?
And they said, but Rick Scott, the CEO, and none of the executives were guilty.
>> Because corporations are people, my friends, but people are not people,
my friends.
>> So corporations can be guilty, but they can't go to jail, and
none of the people running the corporations are guilty.
So Australia, this is a long way of saying thank you for
punishing a white collar criminal.
I mean, this guy wasn't a mastermind, obviously, and
he's not running giant corporations, but at least he committed crimes for his
business interests, and you guys actually delivered justice to him, thank you.
>> Justice to him and the individual who set the fires, that Anderson guy,
he has been, and by the way, he was offered $2,000 to set each fire.
But anyway, justice was served toward him as well because he is sentenced to eight
and a half years in prison.
>> Yeah, don't burn people's houses down, even if they're bouncy houses.