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Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna (2022)

nofreelunch.co.uk

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Re: Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna (2022)

#281

Post by yreg »

londons_explore wrote: post #5
codeulike wrote: post #4

Kara was effectively stealing 20% of LRT fares over the 13-year period; one in five coins that were fed into the machines by the paying public ended up in his shaving bag This can't be right. How can one person steal 20% of the coins going through all the machines? Have they miscalculated the amount he took versus one year rather than 13 years?

If you're employed as a machine repairman, I assume you visit every machine pretty frequently...

Do you though? How often did these things need maintenance?

Re: Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna (2022)

#282

Post by evan_ »

toogan wrote: post #34
evan_ wrote: post #21

Passing it off as proceeds from a vending machine business was smart, I wonder if he actually had a fleet of vending machines to make that plausible. Of course you’d need to be able to show receipts for cost of goods sold… money laundering is hard!

Hm, what about vending machines with things you make yourself, legitimately without any paper trail that would show what you are making?

And ideally the deliverable would be something digital rather than tangible so your COGS are effectively zero… like a bitcoin ATM for instance… hm

Re: Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna (2022)

#284

Post by cf1241290841 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #188
whycome wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disgraceful? What if they didn't have adequate ridership numbers to use to reconcile? A lot of bus cash fares don't keep a rider number. And it was 1981.

They did; the article even points out that there were two audits that showed the discrepancies: > The failure to catch him, despite discrepancies between fares and cash raised in two audits, was put down to a belief that the errors were software glitches and, after his arrest, led to a significant amount of internal finger-pointing.

Wanna bet a few more people were doing this a bit higher up the coin stream.

Re: Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna (2022)

#285

Post by NelsonMinar »

ilamont wrote: post #217

Skimming from public transit is an old trick. There was case like this in Boston about 15 years ago that came to light as they were switching away from tokens to Charlie Cards. It was an MBTA mechanic. IIRC he was caught because it looked strange that someone kept showing up with bags of tokens to exchange for cash at one of the stations. Even with the new card system, someone figured out a scheme to steal: https://w…

For years San Francisco had a major problem with city employees and contractors stealing the money from the meters.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/robbed-blind-parking-cza...

Re: Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna (2022)

#286

Post by ac29 »

NelsonMinar wrote: post #279
macshome wrote: post #127

As an American, the part of the story that is very interesting to me is that Canadian coins have enough ferrous content to be picked up by a magnet. Wouldn’t the ability for coins to become magnetized cause all sorts of issues for the internal workings of vending machines and other coin slot using mechanisms?

As an American, the part of the story where a single coin is valuable enough to bother with is very interesting to me. Our failure over years to introduce a working dollar coin (much less a toonie) is frustrating.

This was 40 years ago and he was stealing hundreds of coins a day.

Also, I'm sure you realize, but the US has had dollar coins since at least 1971. The public never really had much interest in using them and with cash use declining, I wouldnt expect that to change.

Re: Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna (2022)

#287

Post by margalabargala »

beambot wrote: post #226
margalabargala wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy cow. 5% would be high. 30% is dizzying. You're saying that if I pick a random recently sold BC property, there's a one in three chance it's bought with cash? That's not a money laundering problem, that's a money laundering infestation.

1 in 3 U.S. Homebuyers Are Paying All Cash, the Highest Share in Nearly a Decade Just over one-third (34.1%) of U.S. home purchases in September were made in cash, up from 29.5% a year earlier and the highest share in nearly a decade. That’s according to a new report from Redfin (redfin.com), the technology-powered real estate brokerage. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231108812516/en/1-i...

Huh. Apparently it's my expectations that are wrong, not the market. Thanks, I learned something today!

Re: Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna (2022)

#288

Post by cstejerean »

andy99 wrote: post #235
Scoundreller wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s nothing, in Canada we had a guy steal half point (200g) gold nuggets… internally… from the Mint. Only got caught when he deposited lots of big cheques from a gold coin shop at his bank and they learned he worked at the Mint. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/royal-canadian-mint-emp... In 2015, this fellow was making $55k/yr, contrast to the guy in the article making $31k in 1981.

The 38k/year was the most striking part of the article. According to a (US) inflation calculator that would be 130k today https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ which seems very good for an apparently entry level job.

I think that's largely because wages haven't really kept pace with inflation.

Re: Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna (2022)

#289

Post by dylan604 »

ac29 wrote: post #286
NelsonMinar wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American, the part of the story where a single coin is valuable enough to bother with is very interesting to me. Our failure over years to introduce a working dollar coin (much less a toonie) is frustrating.

This was 40 years ago and he was stealing hundreds of coins a day. Also, I'm sure you realize, but the US has had dollar coins since at least 1971. The public never really had much interest in using them and with cash use declining, I wouldnt expect that to change.

I didn't read the "failure to introduce" as meaning no coin was created, but more as "failure to launch" in that it was just never picked up by the population. My largest concern with the dollar coins where they were too similar to quarters in size and were often used in error as a quarter. it is the primary reason I've heard to explain the lack of acceptance.

Re: Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna (2022)

#290

Post by JeffSnazz »

drgo wrote: post #63

He got away too easy if you ask me. You will need to spend a miminm of 2 years in jail for owning not stealing 500 cannabis plants

The impulse to punish other minor infringers more rather than to fix obviously antisocial draconian punishment will never cease to mystify and befuddle me.
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