‘It’s Tiger King Meets Ace Ventura’: The Wild True Story Of The World’s Largest Insect Heist | Television

ONE the room is filled with thousands of giant, weird beasts that seem like your worst nightmare (or one of Ant and Dec’s Bushtucker Trials of I’m a Celebrity). It’s also the starting point for Bug Out, the latest true-crime documentary series, set in America’s first bug zoo, the Philadelphia Insectarium & Butterfly Pavilion. Prepare for a mystery with more quirks than just a swarm of worms.

The show focuses on the moment in August 2018 when the owner of the museum, Dr John Cambridge, arrived at work and took double photos when he realized his room, which should have been full of creatures, suddenly empty of course. The glass tank is closed, the shelves are empty, the display is cleared. Thousands of live bugs, worth an estimated $50,000 (£38,000), were stolen. It was the largest insect theft in history.

Many of the animals missing are rare, large or potentially deadly – in some cases, all three. The thieves’ behavior included scorpions, scorpions, rhinoceros cockroaches and a six-eyed sand spider. That spider is one of the most venomous spiders in the world, with a rattlesnake-like bite. There is no known antidote.

Ambitious director Ben Feldman – not to be confused with his eponymous actor, AKA Jonah from Superstore (“One of my interviewees was very disappointed,” he laughs) — was working as a lawyer in Philadelphia, his home city, when the news broke. Its value as a story he could film made his ears perk up.

“I have heard about the museum,” the 37-year-old said via video call. “Lots of school trips go there. It was set up by a former cop named Steve Kanya. Back in 1975, he had a pest control company called Bug Off. As a publicity stunt, he put his ‘Catch of the Day’ on the shop window – a giant cockroach, a swarm of termites or whatever. He noticed cars pulling over to the side of the road to look at it and thought, ‘Huh, there’s something here.’ It has grown into the first insect camp in the country. ”

When he heard about the theft, Feldman contacted Cambridge. “He immediately said, ‘There’s so much more to this story.’ So I just kept pulling the cord. I realized it was just an effect title. I never expected such a crazy roller coaster ride.”

The incident became so national news that Jimmy Kimmel and Amy Poehler joked about it on late-night TV. The FBI has set up a hotline to deal with the problem. The museum has received thousands of dollars in donations from sympathetic citizens.

During their investigation into this one-of-a-kind robbery, Philadelphia police lifted the rock to uncover a small group of bug poachers, obsessive collectors, and illegal smugglers. They soon surmised that, like half of all workplace robberies, this was probably an inside job. But which museum employee is to blame? And where were the 7,000 errors?

Those under the magnifying glass include Kanya, who thinks Cambridge tricked him out of possession. The documentary also revealed that the museum’s entomologist, Wlodek Lapkiewicz, had an illegal trade in illegal species by mail. Another employee, Michael Kinzler, had a previous conviction for theft from an employer. Chris Tomasetto and Alison Mumper, a sweet couple with insect tattoos, are also suspected of leading a mutiny.

Their colleague, Kelvin Wiley, is famous on social media for making mistakes slither past him – and quit immediately after the theft. In one scene, Wiley accidentally opens her mouth and a giant, hairy tarantula crawls out. It offers one of many “WTF?” Of Bug Out moments. “There was a gasp from the camera crew,” Feldman said. “I showed that episode to a friend last week and as soon as the spider showed up he said, ‘This is going to be a hit.’ He was pushed back a lot.” Another memorable scene shows a panicked employee discarding a giant African snail – illegal in the US – in a creepy style. “It’s about the size of a dog,” Feldman said. “Like something out of Star Wars.”

Cambridge, meanwhile, has a delicious use of the phrase. He described one former co-worker as “an extremely bad human being” and another as “a giant bag of assholes”.

An unexpected story of death threats, embezzlement and organized crime. Feldman tracks money from Australian buggers to criminal gangs in Mexico. There was a failed police raid. Giant scorpions and poisonous scorpions, sent illegally from Africa by post, escaped in a postal van. At one point, a federal agent – brilliantly named Ed Newcomer – captures the world’s most wanted butterfly smuggler, Yoshi Kojima is famously elusivein a honey trap – even though Newcomer was outspoken and married.

Bug Out took three years to make and led Feldman to give up his career as a lawyer to become a full-time film producer. Like a ruthless killer, it unfurls a web of lies and exposes the bitter feuds behind the scenes of a seemingly sane museum. Feldman tells the extraordinary story in four 35-minute specials about the beggar’s beliefs and, so to speak, famous.

Bug Out continues the trend away from “murder” crime documentaries towards road-based yarns, possibly online dating scams (The Tinder Swindler, Sweet Bobby) or identity fraud (Invented Anna, Puppet Master). They are both appealing and pleasing to the eye and equally revealing about human nature, but without an unpleasant aftertaste. “This isn’t the kind of real murder-based crime that we’ve seen hundreds of times,” agreed Feldman. “I have put Bug Out in its own category. Its Tiger King Meet Ace Ventura. ”

The story features some scorpion-like stings on the tail, and Feldman believes the full extent of the scandal has yet to surface: “I think there’s a lot more to come.” No spoilers, but the climactic episode features a dizzying carpet-pulling scene and some very intense confrontations. “There was definitely an atmosphere in those conversations,” he said. “That’s where my legal training comes in handy.”

Bug Out is on IMDb TV, Amazon’s free streaming service, from March 4