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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)

#291

Post by TheRealPomax »

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.

If they were fishing quarters, they'd have a $44k in "side income". The coin's value ultimate doesn't matter if you're willing to steal 500 of them every single day.

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

#292

Post by wredue »

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.

The coins don’t work unless you stop production of, and start reclaiming the bill variant.

Nobody wants to carry change, so of course they favour the bill rather than the coin.

Canadians didn’t have much interest in carrying the toonie either, but had no choice in the matter.

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

#293

Post by bell-cot »

planede wrote: post #158
rgmerk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t sound like he did. Laundromats would have been ideal for this kind of, well, money laundering. In a pre-digital era, who’s going to check that the number of cycles on the washing machines line up exactly with the takings?

Correlating with water and electricity bills could raise suspicion, but yeah, it's probably harder.

Maybe? Pre-digital machines would keep no tamper-proof record of usage. And a good variety of machines in your laundromat (with varying appetites for water and electricity) could discourage all but the most fanatical of auditors.

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

#294

Post by FrankoDelMar »

foooorsyth wrote: post #242
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…

In Boston in the '90s and early 2000s, an out of order parking meter meant you could park for free. There was a sensor in the coin slot to detect jams which would in turn put the meter out of order. If you ripped off the flip up lid from a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup and inserted it into and removed it from the coin slot, the meter would go out of order. It was almost as if that's what the Dunkin engineers designed it f…

My father used to do this too in Boston, but instead by jamming the slot with some kind of paper past the point of removing it. Extra points for using the orange colored envelope you got with your last parking ticket. Definitely was not a good lesson for a similarly aged me.

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

#295

Post by cush »

codeulike wrote: post #119

Stealing 2 million, one coin at a time, over 13 years, mostly at night, by waggling a magnetised car antenna through a small slot for hours and hours, is actually hard work. Its like the opposite of The Shawshank Redemption.

Luckily for him, Canada has a $2 coin. If he tried this in the US, he’d only make $250k

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

#296

Post by subpixel »

JackFr wrote: post #230
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…

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/08/nyregion/tunnel-vision-ki... Token sucking - described by police as the most disgusting non-violent crime committed on the NYC subway.

I recall seeing that happen on one occasion and thinking, you've earned it.

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

#297

Post by rsynnott »

Waterluvian wrote: post #116

“ Sooner or later, the temptation to spend became too much and maybe thinking he would never get caught in 1992, Kara decided to trade up from his modest $136,000 home to something much more fitting of a vending-machine millionaire.” Well… what’s the point of stealing money if you can’t ever spend it?

There’s a wide gulf between a $136k house and a house that literally has an _indoor fountain_, if you’re trying to be somewhat discreet.

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

#298

Post by woobar »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #133
Scoundreller wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only necessary if you keep your job. If you don’t, there are plenty of places you can live very nicely without having to explain where all that money came from. Your neighbours will be too afraid you’ll wonder the same question about them.

And the only one you may need to explain yourself to is taxes; I have (had) colleagues working at the tax office, they're working on machine learning algorithms to detect suspicious activity on bank accounts (because the tax office has full access to everyone's transaction history, of course). They focused on suspicious repeat transactions, but I'm sure they will at some point focus on a suspicious absence of transac…

(because the tax office has full access to everyone's transaction history, of course)

In what country? It maybe possible for tax agency to request access to the transaction history in case of the audit, but I doubt they just get a feed of all transactions.

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

#299

Post by foooorsyth »

FrankoDelMar wrote: post #294
foooorsyth wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Boston in the '90s and early 2000s, an out of order parking meter meant you could park for free. There was a sensor in the coin slot to detect jams which would in turn put the meter out of order. If you ripped off the flip up lid from a Dunkin Donuts coffee cup and inserted it into and removed it from the coin slot, the meter would go out of order. It was almost as if that's what the Dunkin engineers designed it f…

My father used to do this too in Boston, but instead by jamming the slot with some kind of paper past the point of removing it. Extra points for using the orange colored envelope you got with your last parking ticket. Definitely was not a good lesson for a similarly aged me.

> My father used to do this too in Boston, but instead by jamming the slot with some kind of paper past the point of removing it

This is why the Dunkin flip up lid was such a technological innovation: my dad was worried that he’d get reported by a meter maid if they continuously found his junker purple Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight (out of place in the Back Bay) in front of meters with obvious and visible paper jams. The Dunkin lid did just enough to permanently trip the jam sensor while also being removable and reusable. It gave you just enough plausible deniability. For a while there he just kept one in his center console instead of bothering with change machines.

>Extra points for using the orange colored envelope you got with your last parking ticket

Nothing worse than seeing that neon orange envelope under your wiper blade from afar when returning to your car. Those meter maids were like ninjas.

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

#300

Post by phonon »

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.

It's a Canadian dollar, so about 20% less or so than USD at that time.
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