The Stainless Steel Rat strikes again!
In an elaborate robbery scheme that’s one part The Thomas Crowne Affair and one part Pineapple Express, a crook robbed an armored truck outside a Bank of America branch in Monroe, Wash., by hiring decoys through Craigslist to deter authorities.
It gets better: He then escaped in a creek headed for the Skykomish River in an inner tube, and the cops are still looking for him. “A great amount of money” was taken, Monroe police said, but did not provide a dollar value.
It appears to have unfolded this way, according to a Seattle-based NBC affiliate: around 11:00 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, the robber, wearing a yellow vest, safety goggles, a blue shirt, and a respirator mask went over to a guard who was overseeing the unloading of cash to the bank from the truck. He sprayed the guard with pepper spray, grabbed his bag of money, and fled the scene.
But here’s the hilarious twist. The robber had previously put out a Craigslist ad for road maintenance workers, promising wages of $28.50 per hour. Recruits were asked to wait near the Bank of America right around the time of the robbery–wearing yellow vests, safety goggles, a respirator mask, and preferably a blue shirt. At least a dozen of them showed up after responding to the Craigslist ad.
“I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour,” one of the unwitting decoys, named Mike, said to the NBC station. As it turns out, they were simply placed there to confuse cops who were looking for a guy wearing a virtually identical outfit.
Authorities eventually found the getaway inner tube (a getaway inner tube!) and suspect that accomplices may have picked up the robber in a boat. According to the NBC affiliate, police hope to track him down by figuring out who posted the Craigslist ad in the first place.
Craigslist founder Craig Newmark was not immediately available for comment. – article
As he fled the scene, he was heard to shout, “You’ll never catch Slippery Jim diGriz!”
lol that’s great.
that’s hilarious!
Okay, as if the story wasn’t funny enough, the literary reference just MADE the post… hehe, well done.
As usual, using technology may get him caught. What would you do to make it as difficult as possible?
A public library is a good starting point, but most (if not all) require a library card to use.
How about war-driving someone else’s wireless router in another city entirely (or near the bank, to reduce psychological connections, presuming he doesn’t live near there). He’d use TOR or another onionskin routing system, and set up a near-random email and CL account (I suggest flipping through the dictionary for 2 random words, with a third for the password).
If he was really good, he’d have a false nose and padding in his shirt for the cameras (if any) along the route. I don’t think I’d have left anything behind though – impale the innertube and drop it in a hole underwater.
Anything I missed? (If it was a real Slippery Jim operation, thermite would be involved somehow.)
Well, I think the most important thing is not to get cocky. This trick worked once, but don’t try it again.
*laugh* Well, I don’t intend to try it. I am not nearly athletic enough to lead the police on any sort of chase. ;)
Hmmm… Now that I think about it, I bet this could be adapted to a sort of sinister flash mob architecture.
I smell a CSI episode in this. Let’s just hope they don’t punt it to CSI: Miami.
I was going to say, forget Pineapple Express or Thomas Crowne Affair:
These are Joker methods.
I heard about this story. I fricking died when i heard it. I kind of hope he gets away with it based on his creativity.