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Multimillion-dollar L.A. heist was seamless, sophisticated, stealthy
- oldpersonintx 3y ago[dead]
- 55555 3y ago> “There aren’t many places this amount of cash can go.” Sure, buddy.
- yieldcrv 3y agoThis spring’s music festivals with some phantom Will Call sales can clean this money into unquestioned revenue on the books A few thousand last minute tables “sold” at Coachella side parties will do the same LA / Socal has so many things and a big enough spread out enough economy to wash any amount Can use a design studio “by appointment only” with some phantom customers and phantom projects the studio is paid for I could keep going. who put my email in my bio, that’s weird
- nwiswell 3y agoNone of this works if the serial numbers were recorded when the cash was put into the vault. Take your first example: the music festival promoter shows up at his bank with a duffel bag of cash -- that's not unusual until suddenly every single missing serial number lights up the bank's cash handling systems. Busted. It's possible to launder marked cash, but it has to be in such small quantities that it's always plausible that it was simply spent in circulation, which in practice dramatically limits the speed with which it can be laundered. Probably the single most straightforward approach to dispose of marked bills would be to swap for unmarked cash with someone who doesn't care, like an overseas drug lord. But man, good luck with that.
- Gasp0de 3y agoJust bring it out of the country. Many third world countries use USD as a side currency, just spend it there. Buy a few houses in Syria, a few businesses in Ecuador, sell them when you need clean money.
- blackhawkC17 3y agoNo it doesn’t work that way. You assume they can just move $20 million+ in cash out of the country just easily, then go to Syria of all places (and hope a terrorist or rebel group doesn’t murder them and take the cash) or Ecuador (and hope a cartel doesn’t do the same). Many armchair money launderers on HN cooking up unrealistic schemes.. There’s a reason real money launderers charge up to 50 cents on the dollar. It’s f** difficult.
- walterbell 3y agohttps://insightcrime.org/news/chinese-money-launderers-mexico-cartels-move-millions-secret/ https://insightcrime.org/news/chinese-money-launderers-mexic... > While the involvement of Chinese money-laundering rings in handling drug proceeds from Mexico is nothing new, a number of recent court cases in the United States have revealed crucial information about how these schemes work ... weekly pick-ups from representatives of Mexican criminal groups, made in cash ranging between $150,000 and $1 million, with an average of $500,000. These were made in large cities including Chicago, New York and Atlanta ... network of Chinese-owned businesses in the United States and Mexico ... transfer a correspondent amount of money through Chinese banking apps. This happened entirely through the Asian country’s domestic banking system ... “It’s the most sophisticated form of money laundering that’s ever existed,” one of the US sources told Reuters.
- sandspar 3y agoThis is also literally one of the most complex, relationship-based, and opaque to outsiders communities on the planet. Try to wrap your head around the unimaginable clout and favor calling that this took to develop. "Exclusive" is an understatement. Nobody has free access to something like this.
- gosub100 3y agoI'm thinking a simultaneous laundering at Vegas, Atlantic City, and other gaming venues could launder tons. Drop a few hundred into a slot machine, play a few games, hit cash out. Take the ticket to a cash dispenser machine and leave.
- yieldcrv 3y agoPersonally I think this is viable, but the sister comment rebuttal is that the stolen cash serial numbers would be flagged I don’t think they would be but I’m trying to play along and work around that too
- gosub100 3y agoThe bill validator in the slot machine will not flag a serial number. It won't be caught until the bills hit the bank. But once they deduced that casinos were being used, Barney Fife would be hot on the trail.
- yieldcrv 3y agoSo what’s the solution? Casinos file currency transaction reports over $10k and trying to stay under $10k is illegal structuring too, if flagged There is still a trail with that method. there are gaps in the AML/KYC framework but I don’t think this a good one
- gosub100 3y agoI am not suggesting going over $10k at the cashier's desk. The automated ticket cashing machines can easily handle $500-$1k amounts. I'm also not suggesting all $30MM could be washed in one casino in one day. I do think a few people could wash $100k in a day or 2, depending on the size of the operation. 2 edits: wash isn't really the right word because you still can't prove where you got it. Secondly, you'd potentially be showing yourself on video so that's a significant risk.
- 3y ago
- sschueller 3y agoThe US sent pallets of cash to Iraq and that disappeared so a mere 30 Million won't be very hard.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bryanrasmussen 3y agogovernments have significantly greater abilities to disappear cash than private citizens.
- spacecadet 3y agoyeah they literally print the shit
- euroderf 3y agoToo much work and specialized equipment. Pallets are simpler.
- duped 3y agoIt's not like that money was stolen though, it was spent without any kind of controls. The Pentagon disappears far more than $20 billion, the fact it was cash and the logistics in getting it to Iraq and out of the hands of the military is the only interesting part. And it's not really that surprising imo. If you need to pay translators, contractors, bribe local officials or collaborators, assets, etc in a country that doesn't have a functioning banking system you need cash. And it's quicker to deliver some pallets with a C-130 and have guys dump it into duffel bags for whatever they need then to ask Congress nicely to set up bank transfers.
- FireBeyond 3y ago> It's not like that money was stolen though, it was spent without any kind of controls. Even the USG says $6B+ was probably stolen. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/140471-iraqs-missing-money-real-whodunit https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/14047...
- cobertos 3y agoWhat do you mean? The next largest LA heist was caught because they couldn't disperse of the cash properly [1]. It's hard to spend that much money with seemingly no income stream without the IRS raising a few eyebrows. You would need a lot of planning and coordination on how it's spent and where it's spent to make it look legit. And have enough untainted income to live while you plan on how to spend the tainted stuff. [1]: https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2022-01-05/dunbar-armored-heist-revisited-how-the-crew-got-caught-essential-california https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2022-01-05/dun...
- retentionissue 3y agoHawala, habibi.
- BoardsOfCanada 3y agoFrom the article you linked it sounds more like a vehicle used to transport the money during or immediately after the robbery was what led the police to them. "Despite the daring robbery, what ended up solving it was not that exciting: An informant identified Hill as the person who rented a 14-foot U-Haul truck a day before the heist and had returned it a day later."
- gosub100 3y agoI find it hard to believe they could meticulously plan the tactical aspects of this heist but not plan for how to launder the loot. Since US cash is accepted abroad (and has more buying power) my guess is exporting it is the plan. If I were the cops I'd check Google maps records to see who was looking at the satellite view of the area before the heist.
- michelsedgh 3y agoI wonder if they catch them, these people get a longer jail time or SBF.
- cm2187 3y agoWhy would they? They stole millions not billions.
- jojobas 3y agoThere are quite a few people jailed for longer than 25 for lesser stolen amounts, typically by various three-strikes laws, multiple counts etc.
- hiddencost 3y agoThe US tends to punish white collar crime much more leniently than blue collar crime
- keiferski 3y agoIt would be interesting if someone compared/aligned this with the fact that capital tends to be taxed at lower rates than labor.
- throwiforgtnlzy 3y agoToo big to jail.* * Unless you ripoff rich or powerful people like Madoff or SBF. If your quant shops causes global financial chaos on a diffuse and global level, it's okay to use financialization trickery like LTCM.
- rocqua 3y agoWiFi jammers against security cameras is such a 'duh' once you hear it. Wifi security cameras are so easy to beat with this. And unless you alarm on any downtime it leaves you fully vulnerable.
- walterbell 3y agoSecurity cameras should be wired PoE with local NVR + decoy NVR. Wi-Fi conveniently enables x-ray vision (IEEE 802.11bf) through walls of home, making it easier for attackers to identify where valuables are stored, observe password keystrokes, etc. Any room with a safe should have EMF shielding. https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/us/burglary-tourists-visa-waivers-target-luxury-homes/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/us/burglary-tourists-visa-wai... > Prosecutors say the break-in is part of a larger issue in which so-called “burglary tourists” enter the United States .. they join sophisticated burglary rings that prey on luxury homes.. “They take advantage of the fact that most people don’t have window sensors or motion detectors on their second floors. They have WiFi jammers to stop the alarm company from being notified.. the stolen goods are often sold quickly and the money is sent back to the suspect’s home country. Most often, that’s Chile.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- GordonS 3y agoSorry, could you expand on NVR please?
- Daneel_ 3y agoNetwork Video Recorder - basically, the place where the video footage is stored. It's essentially a NAS, aka a big box of hard drives.
- walterbell 3y agoe.g. Frigate OSS with local AI using Google Coral TPU, https://frigate.video/ https://frigate.video/
- wifijammer 3y ago>Wi-Fi jammers have become a common tool of theft gangs How do these work? (I made this account to ask this)
- helpfulContrib 3y ago[dead]
- Gasp0de 3y agoEither just send lots of gibberish on the right frequency (e.g. 2.4Ghz, 5Ghz) or just send deauth packets all the time. Just google aircrack-ng deauth
- greenpresident 3y agoA leaky microwave would do the trick.
- ArnoVW 3y agoI'm sure that more creative versions exist, but a very common way is the WiFi deauth attack. The advantage is that it works on the protocol level, so you don't have to nuke the entire spectrum for the entire neighbourhood (which would attract attention) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_deauthentication_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_deauthentication_attack
- temporarely 3y agowtf. Were these protocols designed to be insecure? Reading that page, how can you mitigate against it?
- dvdkon 3y agoIt's hard and generally unnecessary to protect wireless protocols against DoS, since jamming almost always works. Military transceivers do try, but as I understand it it's well beyond just designing the protocol carefully.
- walthamstow 3y agoIt's always Easter weekend! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatton_Garden_safe_deposit_burglary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatton_Garden_safe_deposit_bur...
- onlytime 3y agoEaster weekend is arguably the best weekend to do something like this. It's not an actual holiday, so there are none of the normal precautions taken around bank holidays (bank vaults tend to have a lot of the money moved out around bank holidays), but much of your staff (and external forces, like cops) will be away outright or preoccupied. It makes the entire thing far more seamless, and gives you a better window to get away with it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- GoToRO 3y agoTell us more :)
- joncrocks 3y agoThe difference is that in the UK (where Hatton Gardens is), both Good Friday and Easter Monday are public/bank holidays. At least in the UK, it's one of the few times that there are a guaranteed 4 days of closures, given that Christmas can fall on different days of the week each year. In the UK both Christmas and the following day (Boxing day) are public holidays and the holidays will move to the next working days if they fall on the weekend. So this is the other time of year that can have 4 consecutive days of public holidays/closures.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sandspar 3y agoIn Michael Mann's secret room, a red telephone rings...
- anshumankmr 3y agoThis reminds me of the first major heist in GTA V.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Karellen 3y ago> [The burglars] targeted a Gardaworld building > Gardaworld describes itself as a “global champion in security services, Oh, the irony!
- kuschkufan 3y agoReal-world moment from the "Heat" movie script.
- otoburb 3y agoMinus the massive public shoot-out with automatic weapons.
- BonoboIO 3y agoYet
- lunaticlabs 3y agoThat actually happened in real life too. Look up the North Hollywood bank shootout. I remember being at work watching it happen live on TV (I lived in LA at the time, but was not near the shootout, this was the era of live helicopter footage of everything).
- glass1122 3y agothis is not even a drop in a bucket. USA can always print/generate more money.
- raincom 3y agohttps://archive.is/A4nST https://archive.is/A4nST
- exabrial 3y ago"Television is the explanation for this. You see this in bad television. Little assault guys creeping through the vents, coming in through the ceiling - that James Bond sh*t never happens in real life, professionals don't do that." Well it just did.
- lazide 3y agoThe north Hollywood shootouts were an example of the same thing. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout] The cops weren’t armed well enough because ‘nobody robs a bank in body armor and fully automatic weapons’. Until they did, of course. Interestingly, HEAT came out 2 years prior.
- tacocataco 3y agoSecurity is an illusion, even in the physical world. The only "winning" move is to have your stuff in multiple locations so you only lose a part of it. Underwriters Lab conducts the test and provides certification to the safe manufacturers. It also helps determine the maximum insured value you can get out of a particular safe. Their process is essentially white hat safe Crackers evaluate products. Pretty neat stuff. https://www.ul.com/ https://www.ul.com/
- sidewndr46 3y agoAgain, we're presented with a story here from "Federal and local law enforcement officials". The story quickly follows up with "Officials and crime experts said the operation appears to have been highly sophisticated". If you spend any time talking to law enforcement, the conversation inevitably goes to how dumb most criminals are. It is the position of law enforcement of course that criminals are only those who they apprehend. It is completely beyond the ability of them to understand that their could exist an entire sphere which they have no insight into at all. This is not a stealthy crime. It is not seamless and has only a meager level of sophistication. This has been all over the news for a while now. If it was anything of those things, we would never even know it had happened.
- aerostable_slug 3y ago> If you spend any time talking to law enforcement, the conversation inevitably goes to how dumb most criminals are. This is because most criminals are actually incredibly dumb. Deal with them and you'll see it, too. That said, some of them are pretty bright. Just like all of humanity, there are a spectrum of abilities found in the carceral population. However, they trend towards the lower end of the range of possibilities when it comes to innate intelligence. > It is the position of law enforcement of course that criminals are only those who they apprehend. It is completely beyond the ability of them to understand that their could exist an entire sphere which they have no insight into at all. I spend a lot of time talking to law enforcement as part of my day job, and my experience is nothing like yours. I would encourage you to expand your horizons (or not, whatever).
- agency 3y agoHow do you steal $30 million dollars without the victim becoming aware they have been robbed?
- sidewndr46 3y agoYou steal from those who can't talk to the police
- 3y ago
- hnburnsy 3y agoIf my business is to guard cash on behalf of clients, I would have 2 on site guards at all times without exception.