This is where some kind of facial recognition software would come in handy. Maybe post his picture on Facebook and see if anything comes up.
Posted on 02/27/2018 10:21:20 AM PST by nickcarraway
Since last fall, police in several states have been looking for a man they believe is using a laminated $20 bill attached to some fishing line to steal thousands of dollars from self-serve car washes.
There’s very little information about what exactly happened in this dashcam video, but it appears…
The latest on the multi-state car wash bandit came Monday from the Indianapolis Star, which said the man was caught on surveillance cameras at car washes in the city of Moorseville on Aug. 4 and Jan. 26.
“We’ve only really had two dealings with him, but he’s a large pain,” Mooresville Police Department Detective Donald Kays told the Star.
Apparently the man’s such a pain, that authorities can’t even say how many car washes he’s hit. The suspect’s method is fairly ingenious, per the Star:
On July 10 the man stole $700 from the Splash N Shine in Boardman Township, Ohio, a suburb of Youngstown. Surveillance images released by police show the man holding a bill that appears to be laminated in plastic.
The man “continuously used a $20 bill to trigger a purchase then hit refund,” Boardman Detective Richard Romeo said in a wanted poster urging the public to help identify the thief.
The man canceled the transaction, collected the change and then fished the bill out with a stringlike piece of plastic.
Police concluded the $20 bill has to be laminated, which keeps the machines from shredding it to bits. The trick involves connecting the bill to what appears to be fishing line, Ohio police have said.
The suspect entered the coated $20 bill 35 times and voided each car wash purchase to trigger a refund from the machine. Each time, he was able to pull the coated bill back out of the machine. By the time the thief was done, the machine was missing $700 in $5 bills.
In total, he’s estimated to have netted thousands of dollars, with more than $1,000 coming from just two car washes in Indiana alone.
Weirdly, the suspect conceals his license plate and even wipes away his fingerprints—but he doesn’t cover his face. Police in two states have clear shots of his mug as he pulled the scam.
Authorities in Boardman, Ohio, said last October the suspect’s a white man in his 50s or 60s, heavy-set, balding, and bespectacled. At one point, he drove an early 2000s blue Dodge Grand Caravan.
After several months, the situation has apparently left Mooresville Police Detective Chad Richhart baffled. The detective suggested to Fox 59 in Indiana that the suspect’s probably evaded arrest for so long because he’s “not from around here.”
“These communities he’s hitting, he has no ties to,” Richhart said. “So that’s why nobody can identify him.”
Thanks for educating us on how to do this....
Can I get a link to the YouTube demonstration video?
They always find a way around security.
Gee, I think I’ll try it.... /s
Gotta give the guy credit for doing a bit more than the ol’ smash and grab.
This is where some kind of facial recognition software would come in handy. Maybe post his picture on Facebook and see if anything comes up.
Obviously he works on these machines to know the mechanisms to allow his laminated bill to be pulled out
Way to go richhart- blame your incompetence and stupidity on the public's not giving you his name, address, SSAN, and driver's license number.
I was in downtown L.A. 2 weeks ago and it was before 6 pm. BUT I had to buy something for the GF before the store closes. Had to put coins in the parking meter...
A homeless black dude suddenly comes from behind and says “Its all good, i got this”. He sticks a simple tool: a cup stirrer TAPED with a 10 cent coin so the coin was dangling looking like a key. He says “45 minutes good?”. I just nodded and he stuck it at an angle that got me the 45 minutes. I paid the guy a buck.
He says he sells it to food trucks and anyone who can pay $5. He shows me a ROLL of dollars, probably around $100 plus. I said to myself, this guy is smart but how come he’s still living in a tent in the street?
I’m shocked.
You can hit a “refund” button, and actually get a refund?
I always get the machine equivalent of “ROFL!”
I’m sorry, but we are going to have to start hanging thieves.
There are too many of them, and they aren’t afraid of prison.
Dad?
If I were a judge I would sentence hint to 3 years of hard labor washing police cars.
He definitely peaked in 5th grade! We used to do that with quarters in pinball machines for free games. We taped a piece of thread to a quarter with scotch tape. Drop the quarter in the slot and carefully let it fall until it hit the wire that made the game counter. If it got stuck in the slot while you pulled it up and down to rack up games, just hold the coin return, pull the thread real hard and the quarter would fall down the return slot. My mom couldn’t figure out why her sewing thread and scotch tape kept disappearing! We were 12, LOL!
In the first episode of Futurama, Bender used the same technique in the suicide machine.
Local county inmates love washing cop cars It alleviates the boredom. Heard about a guy that lost his privelege for whistling at a girl while washing cars. Sheriff’s daughter.
Completely agree.
LOL!
Probably his way of managing overhead - literally!
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