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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?
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
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.
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.