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Feds: Brink's Employee Makes Off With $196,000 In Quarters (cnn.com)
dfsmith writes: CNN is reporting today on the prosecution of a man who stole $196,000 worth of quarters from his employer in Alabama. Apparently the Brinks facility kept large bags of the coins for the Federal Reserve (about 1 ton each), which the accused emptied and refilled with beads (leaving some coins visible in the bag's window). Dennis faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. That's a million-quarter fine, or 216,000 more quarters than Dennis stole.
Notwithstanding the enterprise of purchasing and transporting that many beads, you've got to wonder: how would you go about this heist, and what would you do with the proceeds?
Notwithstanding the enterprise of purchasing and transporting that many beads, you've got to wonder: how would you go about this heist, and what would you do with the proceeds?
I could park... FOREVER
As recent college students know, laundromats almost always accept quarters as a mechanism for buying machine time, so laundering the proceeds must have been particularly easy and convenient. This guy is obviously a cerebral master of crime.
The bags were stored on skids in the doubtless aptly named Coin Room. An April 2014 audit of the coin inventory showed that four of the bags had been filled mostly with beads. Those bags each contained only $1,000 in quarters, which had been strategically situated so the coins were visible through a plastic window in the necks of the bags, according to federal authorities.
Diabolically clever scheme unravels under the slightest scrutiny.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Well, what I would have done would have been to go to Las Vegas and spend it in the slot machines, but the first time I went to Vegas as an adult I found to my disappointment that the slot machines no longer had slots anymore, and they made the same coin-falling-into-cup sound whether or not the player won.
Not that anyone cares, but that basically was the straw that broke the camel's back for going to Las Vegas without any real reason.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You could launder the money in slot machines, then cash out in bills.
"Notwithstanding the enterprise of purchasing and transporting that many beads, you've got to wonder: how would you go about this heist, and what would you do with the proceeds?"
For starters, the quarters would be handy for calling your lawyer.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
And racist. Racists love quarters.
Can confirm. I own a couple of car washes and those racists keep stealing my quarters.
What a half half-wit!
And Republucan. Their kind steals constantly.
They're so stupid. So stupid.
If it's the same Stephen Dennis I know, and it probably is since I don't think there's two in this area that both work for Brinks, then you're talking about someone from upstate NY. You can shove that generalization up your ass.
Strictly speaking, he'd have no trouble laundering the money. They don't have serial numbers and its not like they'd have a dye pack in there.
The problem is that he'd be limited to buying fast food with his earnings for the next 50 years because I don't know how much effort you'd need to actually turn that much money into a more portable form. I don't think there are enough Coin Star machines between there and the West Coast to do it.
You can tell that this guy had like 1/10th of a really good idea knocking around in his otherwise empty skull and failed to realize that it wasn't nearly enough to make this even remotely feasible. Of course, that's why there are few true criminal masterminds out there. It's easier for someone that smart to actually make money with a real job.
Upstate NY is full of stupid racists too.
If you took out two pocketfulls of quarters each shift, then converted them to cash in a Coinstar machine on the way home, this makes the whole problem much more manageable. That's easily an extra $50-75.00 each shift.
Live in Albany. Can confirm. This place is infested with Republicans.
I'm no metallurgist, but it looks like the most commonly circulated quarters are 75% copper and 25% nickel. You could melt them down, extract the copper somehow, and sell it for probably a lot less than $196k, but still a decent profit.
In a completely unrelated story, CoinStar announces an extra $20,000 in profit from machines around the Alabama area...
The real thing to steal is the penny stamping machine, now that's how you make money!
Did the Brink's employee see Superman 3 by any chance ? ^_^
What's the difference? Both places are backwards and suck.
I'm glad the FBI is protecting us from his kind.
Bring them -- in roughly $100 batches -- to various CoinStar machines in your and the surrounding counties. Sure, you'll lose 11%, but that's 11% of free money.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Survivalists hoard quarters to get the silver.
Should this ruffian be apprehended, I believe the correct punishment, as warning and deterrent to others, is that he be drawn... and quartered.
That's a million-quarter fine, or 216,000 more quarters than Dennis stole.
Nerdgasm: 216,000 is 60 cubed !!!
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. -- Emerson
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Have gnu, will travel.
"The Best Way To Rob A Bank Is To Own One." by William K. Black
"You come to us today telling us "We're sorry. We won't do it again. Trust us". Well i have some people in my constituency that actually robbed some of your banks, and they say the same thing." -- Representative Mike Capuano quoted in The Inside Job.
Nah, it's cheaper to just smelt them down into zinc ingots. It's legal (only illegal to melt down pennies and nickels, if I recall) and having a lot of zinc ingots has an easier explanation. (Ex: So, I was going to buy gold bars for when the Apocalypse happens, but I figure that nobody needs gold, per se, but quite a few people need zinc. At least, that's what the guy I bought them off of said. I met him in a bar.)
Troy here.
TRUMP 2016!
He was probably just looking forward to *finally* having a chance at beating Sinistar and Gauntlet
Alabama Man is actually dumber than Florida Man! Who would have thought?
nice greengrocers apostrophe
http://www.oxforddictionaries....
sorry to go all grammar fascist but the name of the company is Brinks right?
http://www.brinks.com/
Man, that is a lot of chewing gum.
Casinos all seem to use electronic tokens now with barcoded chits that print out when you cash out.
There's a History or Discovery channel documentary about a guy who made slugs for casinos during the brief era between coins and electronic tokens. The guy was a retired toolmaker with a little extra money and he bought some equipment capable of making a detailed copy of casino tokens, created a die for stamping them and churned out several.
The first batch didn't work because the machines rejected its magnetic signature. He demilled the design off an actual token and had a metallurgical analysis done and found a commercial alloy used for flatware that was a close match. Those tokens worked.
He would go into a casino, buy a small amount of tokens and then play with a mix of his counterfeits and real tokens. I don't recall if he mostly made money from winnings payouts or by cashing in his fake tokens. He ultimately got caught, I think by visiting the same casino too often, but his copies were nearly indistinguishable from the originals -- I think they actually had to do a metallurgical analysis to determine which were fakes.
... or Pac-Man or Coinstar.
What else takes quarters? Soda machines.
Dude is obviously a Coke Fiend.
Now about the numbers tossed around:
"So, how does one make off with 9,800 (9774) pounds in quarters? That's almost 5 tons, roughly the weight of a pair of Toyota Priuses or mid-sized giraffes."
I don't know about giraffes, but a Prius weighs around 3000 pounds. This estimate is ~1.25 Priuses low.
More like a pair of Range Rovers...
It took me awhile to realize this was a pal of mine from high school, the thing is no one ever called him by his real name, everyone called him by his nickname. He was a bit weird, but overall a nice guy. I hope that my old pal Jingles doesn't get sent away for too long.
Not just gum though, mostly candy.
When an average guy steals money, he gets fined more than what he stole AND jail time... but when a corporation steals money, they get fined a fraction of what they stole and a slap on the wrist? America - what an amazing country.
Coinstar is all he needed
How is this either of those things?
Republican =/= Racist
Democrats are just as racist as Republicans. They treat black people like they are children and prevent them from moving up by making the jump from welfare to work be extremely expensive.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Lots and lots and laundry... and no more need to put all my clothes into one big machine and have them end up all wrinkly. I could finally actually afford to separate my whites from my darks from my towels and sheets. Oh wait, I don't actually wash my sheets. But I digress...
His punishment should include counting and rolling all those quarters - that's 19,600 rolls of quarters.
Ken
I think the challenge of this heist, aside from the massive weights involved, would be the replacing of the quarters with beads - so you're not just taking quarters out of bags (putting them into other containers), but you're also bringing IN equivalent size/weight material to replace what you've stolen. That's a brute force hack!
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
Without laundering:
That certain hotel with the vibrating bed..... check.
Every gumball and toy in the quarter-toy-gumball dispenser. All over town... check.
Parking... check.
Condom dispensers in bathrooms at gas stations... check.
twinky dispensers... check.
With laundering:
wide open... check.
well I took my time, did some quick research for southern Florida ...
we change to $$$ machines in the major supermarkets
using $75 + 1 to 24 random we come out with 2300 ( 3% variance) stops average
buy some food for the house ( 10.00 ) per stop
now the change machine will credit you the service fee
and we have about 3 stops per day on a 5 day work week
3 to 4 years of work ( 210 work year )
clearing 200 a day
and eating healthier.
I don't think I can find more than 15 supermarkets to hit in 1 week to do everything
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Here he comes.
> Live in Albany. Can confirm. This place is infested with Republicans.
Repulicans in Albany? The city of Albany, NY? Are you serious? I live in Albany, there are very little republicans here. One time, over a decade ago, I got a call from the head of the local Republican party asking me to run for the 11th ward Alderman seat. I replied, "but I am not not even a Republican", his response was "Your the closest thing we got in the 11th ward"
$100,000 in Pennies
- Written by Shel Silverstein, sung by Bobby Bare
It exchanges your money for quarters so that you can do your laundry and is open past 4 PM so that you can actually get to it.