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

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?

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

#5

Post by londons_explore » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:53 AM UTC

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...

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

#6

Post by mschuster91 » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:54 AM UTC

badcppdev wrote: post #2

That is absolutely disgraceful on the part of the accountants and programmers who should have been reconciling the cash vs sales. Over 13 years!

Discrepancies in accounting are the norm, not the exception. No large company will ever have perfectly balanced books for a multitude of reasons - too many different IT systems that sometimes but not always have the same data, humans in the loop that forget or fat-finger entries, inventory loss/theft/damage, you name it.

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

#7

Post by ipsum2 » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:55 AM UTC

> As Kara repaid the proceeds of his scam to cover the city’s insurers, he was released after 16 months.

It's hard to find any information about this since it happened 30 years ago, but I wonder if he had to pay a fine. If not, he probably made out pretty well, investing the $2 million into real estate.

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

#8

Post by londons_explore » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:56 AM UTC

unsupp0rted wrote: post #3

[flagged]

The 20% could easily be missed if it ended up looking like a ticket wasn't sold at all (ie. just 20% fewer tickets got sold).

Many railways don't keep track of the paper that tickets are sold on, because the same paper is used for printing receipts, seat reservations, free/discounted tickets etc.

Many railways also have a double digit percentage of fare evasion. Also, many railways operate partially/mostly on government funds not ticket revenue, so a 20% loss in ticket revenue wasn't a 20% drop in total revenue.

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

#9

Post by Freak_NL » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:58 AM UTC

A curious thing here is that, if this article is correct, the man spent 16 months in prison, and had repaid the amount stolen by then. It seems reasonable to assume that if he had not invested his stolen money in real estate he would not have been able to repay his debt to society so cleanly. I wonder if in the end he didn't make a sizeable profit from all of this.

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

#10

Post by codetrotter » Tue, Jan 02, 2024, 9:58 AM UTC

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...

Also, FTA:

> maintain and fix the 68 ticket machines of Edmonton’s LRT

So it’s not like the total number of machines is that crazy either.