Basically, what we will be doing in this article is to share the firsthand experiences of some bank criminals. It is best to learn from the horse’s mouth. I hope that when experiences are shared as they are, you will be able to learn at your pace, discover things I wouldn’t have seen ordinarily. Ultimately, this piece will help you learn how to play safe in a robbery situation.
Credit Card Fraud
Kevin Hawke, a former identity thief, shared the story of how he operated. After serving prison time he wants to give back to the community by sharing his secrets so you can avoid becoming a victim of credit card fraud. When asked how much he made from credit card fraud, he said: “You can make thousands and thousands of dollars a day just by going into one or two stores and swiping a couple credit cards.”
He was further asked if his victims knew he was ripping them off, he answered thus: “I mean they would know about a week after we did the scam. A credit card would arrive at their residence in the mail and they would be like. ‘I didn’t apply for this!’ But by that time we’ve already drained the entire account.”
On how his scam worked, “We’d get somebody’s personal information. We call that a ‘profile’– that’s their name, their address, their social security number, their phone number, their place of employment. We could get an entire list of names and addresses and all that — corrupt county workers, corrupt DMV workers, people that we paid off.”
According to him, that was not the only way through which he got to steal stolen cards. He furthered: “I had a bartender or a waitress or a waiter on my payroll — somebody that I can pay a couple hundred dollars to every week. If they had what we call a ‘Big Fish’ — somebody that comes in wearing fancy clothes, pulls up in a fancy car or looks like they have money — you know when they pay their tab, the waitress or the bartender will take a quick picture of the front and back of their credit card” (D’Albore, 2017). By now, I know you’ll exercise caution with the way you flaunt your card.
Bank Robber
Magill shared the story of an unnamed robber. He claims to have at least 20 armed robberies to his credit, including banks, post offices, factories and shops. He is tall, fair haired and in his late twenties and lives in a corporation flat in North Dublin (Magill, 1978). Let’s get into his story:
I was born in one of the worst slum areas in the city. There were eight of us in the family plus me mother and my old fella. I was the third eldest. I was never interested in soccer or anything like that though later on I did a bit of boxing. It was funny even then I had some sort of complex about houses. I never bothered with them much, always thought they was too small to be worth bothering with.
“The first time I got caught we was in a shop when the old bill came and we had to leg it up and out over the roof. Me mate went through the skylight. He was a right mess. They had to cut out a 100 stitches in him in the end. While he was lying there I was screaming for the coppers. I don’t know how old we were at the time, around 12 or 13 or so I supposed.”
“No, we never ended up in court on the shop job, we just got a caution from the sergeant. But then we got caught on something or other and I ended up doing a month in St. Pats. “Anyhow I was lucky enough when I got out I got the job back that I had before on this delivery van. I was just hanging round though. Maybe I’d go out with the other fellows and do a wages snatch on a Wednesday, but then we’d blow it all playing cards or something.
“But the first time I realized that I was going to have a go full time on crime was when I got sacked from the delivery round. I turned 18 and if they’d kept me on they’d have had to pay me a man’s wages so they sacked me. So it was then that more or less I went into housebreaking. Having worked on the delivery round I knew all the houses in the area.”
After that, he was invited to join a gang of robbers. “I was accepted by the robbers because they knew I wasn’t a grass and I was invited to go out on jobs, but I always declined. But then someone came up with a stake that I’d always wanted to do. I was asked in a pub if I’d do it, so I said I would. I had a motorbike and had a personal rod myself, a .38. I’d had it for three years, well wrapped up in Dinzo tape and hidden away. I did the job during me dinner hour from work. We used to get out for dinner at 12.30 but I slipped out at 12.00 and was back so I had me alibi. So that was it really we were really going again.”
“When we got off the ground again we were doing banks, post offices, all that sort of thing. On the post offices, we’d creep into the postmaster’s house and get hold of the whole family and tie them up” (Magill, 1978).
Retired Bank Robber
Here’s another man, unnamed talking about his robbery prowess.
On what made him got into robbery, he said that “We make movies about it, and as long as innocent people aren’t hurt or killed, our society loves bank robbers. Also, it seemed like a worthy challenge. I thought it would be quite an accomplishment if I could solve the puzzle and figure out how to get away with it.”
On how he planned before going for robbery, “I researched for about five or six months prior to my first one. I studied mostly the things that people did to get caught, and I just tried to plan around those things. It’s hard to know how people get away since those details rarely make it to the news, but studying how people get caught was incredibly helpful in knowing what to avoid.”
He later gave the full process of how he operated: “Basic outline—stand in line like a regular customer – Wait for the next available teller -Hand them an envelope and tell them to give me their $50s and $100s (usually this was written on the envelope rather than me verbally saying it) – Turning around and walking out like a regular customer
No gun. No threats. No Hollywood drama. No mask. No disguise. Nothing.
Just a regular customer. In and out in the same amount of time as if I was making a deposit.
I generally chose a time of day when I thought the cops were on shift change, which was usually around 3pm. Some cities actually publish that for whatever weird reason.
I usually went to Chili’s or somewhere to eat and chill out (Caveman Circus, 2016).
References
Caveman Circus (2016). Confessions Of A Retired Bank Robber. Retrieved from http://cavemancircus.com/2016/01/21/confessions-of-a-retired-bank-robber/
D’Albore, A (2017). Crime Confessions: How I Stole Your Credit Cards. Retrieved from https://embeddedsecuritynews.com/2017/05/crime-confessions-how-i-stole-your-credit-card/
Magill (1978). Confessions Of A Bank Robber. Retrieved from https://magill.ie/archive/confessions-bank-robber