Monday, January 17, 2005

Crazy Caper

Millions of nickels stolen from Fed
Someone stole $180,000 worth of nickels! That's 900 bags of nickels, weighing 23 tons!

So, the guy who drove the truck (leaving from E. Rutherford, NJ, by the way) is missing, either a suspect or a victim, they're not sure which. Who'd kidnap a truck driver for 3.6 million nickels? It's so unlikely!
I am so amused that someone pulled off a crime with so little payoff compared to the amount of effort expanded. I mean, sure, one truck hijacked, $180,000, sounds easy, right? But no, you have to make those nickels into real, spendable cash. You just can't go around paying for your stuff at the Target in all nickels; they'd get fed up with it pretty quickly. The article talks about the difficulty of converting cash to bills:
So, if someone steals 3.6 million nickels, how does he cash them in without attracting attention? Police say it would have to be done very slowly, in small amounts and at many different places, like grocery store counting machines. And even if he were able to cash in $500 worth of nickels every day, it would still take an entire year.


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