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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.
Rather if it hadn't been for one of the robbers being particularly stupid and driven his own car in front of a camera its pretty likely they'd have got away with the Hatton Garden heist. They're plan was actually quite sophisticated and a lot of time and planning went into it. And it wasn't a 2 minute "hands up and give us the money" job - it took an entire weekend to drill through the wall!
So I think its fair to say their technical skills were good but their HR skills were poor and they hired an idiot that brought the whole thing down.
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.
I'm supposed to think this is a good thing?? I would rather double my insurance costs. People still think automated image recognition is a conspiracy theory. People freely give up every detail of their lives for the privilege of staying connected to their friends on social media. People pay hundreds of dollars for phones that track their location at every moment. What the actual fuck is wrong with 80% of society? I can't believe this massive divergence in values. Am I literally the only person left who cares about his privacy?
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
But now the bank heists have become inside jobs, white collar and legal. Banks "lend" money to questionable borrowers and sell the loan to some unsuspecting investors, pocket the commission. The bank robbers pay themselves huge bonuses. When the loans go bad, it is the re-insurance companies, investors and eventually the tax payers who pay for it. They risk a billion dollars in loans to get measly bonus of 1 million dollars.
The real owners of these banks, the shareholders are so widespread and their power to control the bank has become so diffuse, it is basically inmates running the asylum situation in banks and other financial institutions.
We need laws to stop banks from becoming too big to fail. US Banks claim they need to get big to compete with foreign banks. Foreign banks claim they need to get big to compete with US banks. The solution is an unilateral move by USA. All banks with assets more than 1% of GDP should pay a tax to insure against systemic risks. And they should keep larger reserves. We can use free market tools and gradually deflate the big banks. Or they will be deflated suddenly by peasants with pitchforks.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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