Video Released of $150K Coin Theft in PA

Sunday a coin dealer returning from a coin show in Maryland stopped at a restaurant in Cumberland County, PA for a bit to eat. While he and his wife were inside eating thieves broke into their car and stole $150,000 worth of coins. Click on the link in the article to view the video.

[h=1]Police release video showing rare-coin theft in South Middleton Township on Sunday[/h]

The dealer parked his car in the front row directly in front of the restaurant (probably so he could keep an eye on his car while he ate) but that did not deter the thieves (who more than likely followed him from the coin show and waited for him to stop somewhere to eat). The thieves stopped their vehicle in front of the dealer's car to block anyone in the restaurant from being able to see the theft. It took only a matter of seconds for one of the thieves to break a window and take the coins.

 

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Sucks, but he fails for not keeping an eye on the car or not parking it closer

 

Sad part is, they will probably crack the slabs and take most out of the county/state for melt at those BUY GOLD SILVER here places or a private buyer who hold them for a long time.

or....they are idiots and post them on craigslist or ebay maybe they will get back to there rightful owner

 

The victim is actually lucky that they did the robbery when/how they did. If the dealer made it to his shop or home, there could've been a hostage situation or worse; the thieves could've killed he and his wife.

-LTB

 

The dealer probably watched the theft go down and couldn't stop it because it happened so fast. And I don't know how he could park any closer to the restaurant without parking on the sidewalk.

The lesson to learn here (if you are a dealer returning from a coin show) is to go through a drive-through when you need to get something to eat. Instead of taking the most direct route home, you should make a few deviations (pull over and stop for a while, make a U-turn every now and then, pull into shopping center or apartment parking lot, etc.) so you might be able to tell if anyone is following you and maybe shake them with your maneuvers.

 

I have never been to a coin-show, but in situations like these, you just have to use common sense. Check your review-mirror once in a while, and if you see the same vehicle trailing you, try to shake them. If that doesn't work, try huge shopping areas, and such, and if that fails, call the police and describe the vehicle, and have a passenger read you the License Plate #.

But always remember, NEVER go to your house. That can turn ugly REAL fast. Always be careful in whatever you do.

In this world, it is better to be safe than sorry.

 

I definitely follow that procedure when it seems like someone is following me. Some may call me paranoid, but I call it better safe than sorry.

 

You can never be Paranoid. To combat that, I like to use the shooting that happened in Carson City (Where the National Guard Members were killed. Knew 'em all, but different story.) Two out of the 3 were OEF Veterans. They were unaware of what was happening in the Ihop, and were subsequently killed. If a Service Member can be taken down that easily, imagine what could happen to the regular person?

I make it a habit to keep my head up, and look at my surroundings, and take different routes home (I have to walk everywhere). I don't do this because I am paranoid, I do it because of the other people that are out there, and what can happen in a split-second. I have had some VERY close-calls with people, but that doesn't stop me.

What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger!

 

That is sad, but it's also evident they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew which vehicle they would get, most likely even before the show, I would think, then confirming the vehicle at the show, and planning that the dealer would want to eat somewhere). They knew they had to do it fast.

If I was the police I would want to know if the other shows the dealer had gone to had been pretty much the same, where they would routinely stop at a place to eat. As well as other employees of their place.

Also, I wouldn't judge the dealer with parking it there. On the surface, it looks like a good place, in between a number of other cars and probably visible from the place they were sitting. And probably thought that no one at the restaurant would know they had the coins in the car, so why would someone pick theirs? In fact, I think that they probably did watch it go down, but didn't know right away, while it was going on that their vehicle was being broken into. Possibly thought that the other vehicle had stopped for a moment to try to find a place to park.

What a shame, but is good that the robbers did it there instead of planning it for the shop or the home.

In this case, I don't know what could be done short of hiring an armed vehicle and guards to transport the coins that would have deterred these robbers.

 

The dealer did absolutely nothing wrong! These guys would have found another spot regardless of how openly their car was parked. The brazenness of these crumb bums really torques me. I hope it is a federal crime too. With that video and the Penn. SP and FBI iI hope they get caught and put in a place where they have to have sunlight piped to them.
I truly hope , somehow, that most of bthe coins will be recovered.

 

I dont blame the dealer for doing anything wrong either. The thieves have the upper hand in these situations. The guy went his entire life without ever being stalked like this and then one day out of the blue, somebodys watching.
Im just a buyer at shows and I tend to keep an eye on my rear view mirror. I usually stop different places too on the way home.
Luckily I have to cover some distance and have several wide open stretches where often times Im the only one on the road. It would be much more difficult to spot a tail in a larger urban environment.

Sent from my Motorola Electrify using Tapatalk

 

Drive thru time if ever there was such a thing!!!

 

If you are competent it doesn't take much skills to follow someone without getting spotted and often times' it involves two cars.

 

I would. Thieves have been using this exact method to rob dealers coming home from shows for over 50 years. Dealer stops parks their car close and goes into the restaurant to eat and then watch as their coins are ripped off. It happens all the time and then the next dealer does the exact same thing. No dealer on the show circuit doesn't know of another dealer who has been robbed in this manner. But then we hear about the next dealer going into the restaurant and losing his coins. The dealers don't learn and think "Oh it will never happen to me.".

Basic security, you NEVER leave your coins unattended. If at all possible you travel with someone else so you don't have to stop. If you get something to eat you use drive thrus. You use your cell phone to make sure that there are people waiting for you when you arrive or to summon the police incase of a breakdown or flat tire. Use a credit card at the pump if you have to get gas so you don't have to leave the vehicle to go in an pay. Have a U bolt attached to the floor or frame of you vehicle that you can chain your coins to. Most robberies like this depend on speed. If they reach in and grab you case and it doesn't move they aren't going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out why and how to defeat it.

 

This doesn't seem that complicated to me...

If you're driving around with $150,000 worth of something, you should make it difficult to steal.

Just sayin'...

 

Yeah, good point. Were looking at this as having a few hundred worth of stuff in a car. This was $150,000!! The value of a nice house which can be grabbed, tucked under an arm and ran off with.
Not only do you leave somebody in the vehicle with their head on a swivel but a loaded gun on their lap as well. Maybe two people and two guns. If you must stop. Its hard to imagine anything less in this day and age.

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Or not stop somewhere to eat.

 

Or use the restroom. The thieves follow their mark until he (the mark) lets down his guard for just a minute or two. That's all the time they need.

 

You know who goes with me whenever I head to a coin store, craigslist coin buy, bank, or anything of the like?

My beloved German Shepherd. She loves car rides, and especially adores open windows to stick her head out of.

Would she hurt anyone? Is she trained? How would she react to an attempt to steal my stuff, or hurt me?

I have never answered those questions....and, amazingly enough, nobody's ever decided to find out. :too-funny:

That's kinda the point here...


I've taught many hundreds of hours of "security" in various forms or another. And there is, regardless of the target, the thieves/hackers, the network/scenario/business/setting, a very simple and fundamental rule to all security :

Your resource (data/coins/daughter/jewelry/whatever) has a value.

The attacker's time and effort has a value.

The moment the attacker perceives the former to be higher than the latter...you're toast. Period.

Don't get me wrong..I have no place in my heart for thieves. (Well..I do...but it's a cold dark place) But the victim in this case simply didn't take even the most basic of steps to secure his belongings.

Your statement above..."That's all the time they need." is exactly right. And it's WHY he got robbed. The time it took to jump out of a car, break a window, grab an armload of stuff, and jump back in the van WAS all the time they needed. Frankly, that's simply not very difficult to do. You could, quite literally, train a monkey...or even a decent dog...to pull off that heist. Get out, break glass, grab object, get in. Wag wag, where's my hot dog?

So guess what...the attacker's time and effort was very very low. Low time = low risk, low effort = low probability of failure. And the resource? Very high value.

Resource value > attack value, and surprise surprise, an attack occurs.

Forget for a moment all this "never stop for food", or "don't go potty" garbage, or whatever. What if:

1) The coins had simply been placed in the trunk? Trunk lids aren't that tough to pop, but they're a heck of a lot noisier, a heck of a lot more obvious to passers by, and decidedly trickier than "Hulk smash glass! WHAM!" All of those things drive time AND risk up.

Or maybe...

2) The coins had been "scattered" in the trunk, glove box, dealer's briefcase. A few in a metal lock box over here by the spare tire, a few under the jack, some in the box in the back seat, 3-4 slabs in the glove box, a briefcase at the table with the dealer holding 10-15 more. Now the value of any easily grabbed section of the resource is decidedly lower, AND we've increased time (and thus risk) AND complexity (and thus chance of failure).

Just a couple of very simple things would have changed the equation quite a bit. Sure...you can carry a firearm, hire a protector, drive crazy routes, and a million other things...and, no doubt, some of them are fine ideas, and would have prevented this.

But the reality is that MOST attacks are very easy and inexpensive to prevent, and this was one of them. Simply don't make it worth their while. In other words...make it difficult to steal.

 

I would try a "drive thru" for a meal if I had $150,000 amount of coin in the back seat! They couple is kinda of lucky there was a video camera cathcing this. Could have been a much worse scenario.