I'm not arguing that his actions should necessarily be glorified, but I'm completely unsurprised that they were, and I think there are some very clear reasons w

I'm not arguing that his actions should necessarily be glorified, but I'm completely unsurprised that they were, and I think there are some very clear reasons why (beyond just saying it'll get clicks): - First, I'm sure many people view it as a "robbing the rich" type situation, and it was completely non-violent. Those gold bars certainly were not from some small business owner making his nightly deposits. With economic disparity such as it is these days, I'm not surprised at all that people would find that amusing and root for the criminal in this case. (Of course, the problem with such "robbing the rich" situations is that the rich often recoup their losses at the expense of the not-rich. But many people either don't know or don't think about that when they see a "rob the rich" situation.) - Also, it was a pretty brazen broad daylight robbery itself, due to the weight of the gold, and the video of it was pretty amusing to watch, with all the effort and breaks needed. - Finally, this story is from an local NYC news channel, and NYC is the US metro area with the most Ecuadorians, by a long shot. That is not to say that Ecuadorians should or do necessarily feel pride when following this story, but it's at least a local (to a subset of NYC) interest piece because of his nationality.