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Bank Heists - Another Profession That Technology Is Killing Off
HughPickens.com writes: In 1992 there were 847 bank robberies in the UK; by 2011 that had dropped to just 66. Now Lawrence Dobbs writes in the Telegraph about how technology is killing off this age old profession. "The development of more sophisticated alarm systems and CCTV, as well as supporting forensic developments such as DNA analysis and facial recognition software, all serve to assist police," says Jim Dickie, a former detective who spent more than 30 years with the Metropolitan Police. Those who do try are either feckless opportunists or "serial offenders" who have already served time and are easily found on police databases. "Hands-on heists are a dying art, because those who have a background in it are literally dying off."
In 2015 a gang of aging jewel thieves pulled off one last spectacular job. Using a diamond-tipped drill and a 10-ton hydraulic ram, they broke into the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd vault and made off with at least £14million in precious stones, gems, bullion and jewelry in the largest burglary in English history. But the Hatton Garden burglars were caught because they used one of their own cars within view of a security camera. According to David Kelly, it's CCTV which has changed things most. "It's now virtually impossible to travel through any public space in a major metropolitan area without being captured. They're everywhere, the image quality is better, and the ability to store images for longer has increased." Then there are your physical alarm devices: motion sensors, window monitors which detect glass shattering, or devices which trigger when a door is opened. "These devices can now be deployed wirelessly – in an older building, where you might not have wires in place," says Kelly. "There are also tools at the disposal of the private sector, in cooperation with the public sector, which are perhaps not matters of common knowledge, and there's a tactical advantage to our clients in them remaining that way." Add to this the various technologies used to protect or track the loot itself – dye packs hiding inside stacks of banknotes, which explode when they leave a certain range; GPS tracking on security vans and inside cash containers – and you can see why even a hardened criminal might prefer to stay in bed.
In 2015 a gang of aging jewel thieves pulled off one last spectacular job. Using a diamond-tipped drill and a 10-ton hydraulic ram, they broke into the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Ltd vault and made off with at least £14million in precious stones, gems, bullion and jewelry in the largest burglary in English history. But the Hatton Garden burglars were caught because they used one of their own cars within view of a security camera. According to David Kelly, it's CCTV which has changed things most. "It's now virtually impossible to travel through any public space in a major metropolitan area without being captured. They're everywhere, the image quality is better, and the ability to store images for longer has increased." Then there are your physical alarm devices: motion sensors, window monitors which detect glass shattering, or devices which trigger when a door is opened. "These devices can now be deployed wirelessly – in an older building, where you might not have wires in place," says Kelly. "There are also tools at the disposal of the private sector, in cooperation with the public sector, which are perhaps not matters of common knowledge, and there's a tactical advantage to our clients in them remaining that way." Add to this the various technologies used to protect or track the loot itself – dye packs hiding inside stacks of banknotes, which explode when they leave a certain range; GPS tracking on security vans and inside cash containers – and you can see why even a hardened criminal might prefer to stay in bed.
Classic, physical bank heists may be dying out, but people are still robbing banks - they're just doing it online now instead. Why go physically, when you can steal millions from the other side of the world, where as long as you keep current to the bribes to your local crooked cops in the Former East Nowhere SSR, you don't even have to worry about getting caught. At least, not until you take a trip somewhere...
Thanks to so-called "free trade" with substandard nations and "trickle-down economics", over the past 25 years the wealth and savings of most Americans have been drained away. A lot of Americans never even had a chance to accumulate any wealth in the first place. They have no need for making bank deposits or withdrawals. They can't deposit any real cash; they don't have any! They're often unemployed, so there's no money coming in to begin with. They can't withdraw any real cash; they don't have any! They just put any purchases on their credit cards, which are likely never to be paid off.
The purpose of bank branches today is not to store anything of value. There's nothing to store! Nobody makes any cash deposits, and nobody makes any cash withdrawals. The bank branches are merely there as an office for the paperwork of debt to be signed. It's where people enter into yet another credit card or mortgage agreement. Those are the main transactions performed on any given day at American bank branches.
But the Hatton Garden burglars were caught because they used one of their own cars within view of a security camera.
At least they're keeping it old school. These days people steal things using hoverboards.
I want to smack whoever started calling those stupid things "hoverboards".
That number is wildly inaccurate. It was based on an approximate count of the number of cameras on a busy London shopping street, extrapolated to assume the number was consistent for all businesses, and guessing the number for government organisations.
Can I suggest anyone not familiar with the Hatton Gardens heist please go and read up on it. You won't be disappointed. It's the court case that keeps on giving.
It'll introduce you to the phrase "wombat thick old cunt" if nothing else.
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity