Smash and Grab Coin Robbery
pmh1nic
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This dealer left a show, was followed by two vehicles which hemmed him in on both sides, smashed the windows of his vehicle and pulled out four totes filled with coins he had taken to the show. Stay vigilant.
https://youtu.be/GMS99N7WQHYThe longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice is it possible for an empire to rise without His aid? Benjamin Franklin
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Sounds like it was a target rich environment. Nuts what is routinely going on in this country. Stay vigilant and be prepared for anything.
Having fun while switching things up and focusing on a next level PCGS slabbed 1950+ type set, while still looking for great examples for the 7070.
Society failing to do its job it better hope citizens do not take matters into their own hands the more and more this happens. Criminals will be crying when that day comes they will be the ones scared and running for their very lives. There are many more of us good people than these scum criminals. The wrath of god people may what is coming sooner rather than later....people have simply had it.
Here is Canada things are nowhere near as bad as the USA but have to figure you guys have 10 times the population almost.
Sigh...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/191237/reported-property-crime-rate-in-the-us-since-1990/
Chopmarked Trade Dollar Registry Set --- US & World Gold Showcase --- World Chopmark Showcase
Sure does not feel like crime is dropping. Based on what is reported in the news and people talking all over the internet.
It's just a matter of time before a dealer or collector uses deadly force to protect them self. I like the dealers idea about running a chain around the bags. Anything that slows them down should help.
I'm going to try to tip toe to avoid the politics. And what I'm about to say is equally applicable for both directions.
The reason that bad thing X seems more prevalent now, even though every statistic shows things have gotten markedly better, is because we have constant news feeds and videos of everything from everywhere. That didn't exist 15 years ago, much less 50.
So when bad thing X happens in Southeast Cairo, Alabama, it is awful but if you live in Hippie's Grove, New Mexico, you never would have heard of it happening. It was a local event. Now, you hear about and SEE a huge number of the ultra rare events and the brain thinks they are more common because it hears about them more often. But you might know of 95-100% of the times that bad thing X happens whereas in the past, you may never have heard of it ever.
EDIT: To put it another way, it's reasonable to think that you may hear of every single coin dealer robbery that happens throughout the country. Whether that's 5 or 50. What about the other tens of thousands of times a dealer leaves a coin show and doesn't get robbed? Or the hundreds of thousands (or more?) times that collectors leave a coin show or shop and don't get robbed?
Chopmarked Trade Dollar Registry Set --- US & World Gold Showcase --- World Chopmark Showcase
Really? Not only will I give you a question, I'll give you the answer.
Consider this... Why are crime rates going down?.. Because officials aren't reporting them. Why? Because it makes their cities look bad, that's why!
You might as well ring the dinner bell when you see these.
Disclaimer: I'm not a dealer, trader, grader, investor or professional numismatist. I'm just a hobbyist. (To protect me but mostly you! 🤣 )
I suppose anything is possible. But if the choice is between a multi-decade gradual decline (the chart I posted above is similar even if you go back further) utilizing statistics provided by the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics or a general trend of officials not reporting crime accurately for the last 40+ years for some reason, my choice is clear.
Chopmarked Trade Dollar Registry Set --- US & World Gold Showcase --- World Chopmark Showcase
Yep. The 70s and 80s were far more violent than today.
That's because there was no internet or 24 hour news in 1980.
Well I guess I’m one of the two percent that gets hit. Year after year and most years more than one time. Guess I’m just unlucky. And only once in the last eight years have they actually cought someone and it was last month.
I don’t believe their stats @lermish
Martin
If I carried a lot of inventory to a show, each container would have an electronic enable/disable explosive permanent stain die cartridge similar to what the banks use between bank notes. Disable when you arrive at your table and enable when you leave. If they steal from you hopefully they will immediately open it in their car. Perhaps it could be discharged by activating cell signal. Just sayin'. Would be worth taking some dummy cases/bags just to watch the explosion as they drive off. Too sick?
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
I get it. My wife and I had reservations to check into the below hotel two days after the event described occured. No amount of statistics or persuasion could change her mind because of the anecdotal experience.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/2-suspects-dead-reported-shooting-cancun-hyatt-hotel-rcna4630
But bad things happen sometimes. It's unfortunate but that's the world we live in. If someone has the good luck to win the lottery, it seems reasonable to expect someone else to have equally bad luck.
Chopmarked Trade Dollar Registry Set --- US & World Gold Showcase --- World Chopmark Showcase
Vans built about like armored trucks? Could lease them out....
If you have a sedan, would it be better to put the coins in the trunk instead of the back seat? I would think it would make the smash and grab more difficult.
I saw this dealer setup at a show in Peotone, Illinois last week. I wasn’t impressed with the shows security measures. Everything said mandatory id check….did they check mine? No. Simply a sticky tag they wrote my name on. I didn’t have a postcard and was simply driving by and made a 30 minute prior decision to make the 5 minute detour. Having a polo shirt with a star on it usually worn by police or security I saw this man unchaining a fence to the back lot as I was walking in. If he had a visible or ccw…that’s his choice. In no way can I imagine wearing such polo and not being armed. I expected to see him at the front or mobile inside. He was camped out at his table when I made my coin nerd rounds. I am in no way blaming the victim. It is the scumbags who did the crime that deserve….well…fill in the blanks.
There have been countless threads with ideas and protocols to follow for coin dealers. I know it may not be practical to hire Brinks to transport an inventory of raw 2x2’s and bullion to local shows. Save that for the big dealers who take out full page ads in our numismatic magazines when they are going to the large national and world shows. There certainly is a case after this theft to be made for coin dealers having an armed employee/helper to follow them home.
Chance favors the prepared mind.
I think a critical word in the heading of this graph is "reported". You can't tell me that with all the riots and looting that has occurred, and the mob of individuals running into stores and malls to smash and grab, and police unwilling to arrest and DA's unwilling to prosecute thefts unless they are over $1,000 that property crime has gone down.
Hey we got no Hippie's Grove, in New Mexico. I take issue with that
Forget all them long bearded hippie dudes I saw in Taos this past week, we be good ole red necks fer the most part...................
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Whenever you have your valuables and personal items out of sight of prying eyes it’s much better. A car trunk is a much better security measure, but limited on it’s cargo space. In this victim’s case, the perps new he had the merchandise in his possession, it was just what extreme would they go to to get it. Loss of life?
He was fingered for this theft probably before he even set up for the show. It’s a dangerous business folks, and it’s going to get much worse due to how easy it is for perps to get their hands on a lot money, easily.
Rethink your security measures that have been in place. Do they need to be modified for safety?
He was carrying a weapon, how does someone grab what 6 bins from your vehicle without getting shot?
If a shot rang out you would know if these perps were serious about their plan.
Edit: Boy was I looking at the wrong column! Chart has been revised.
I took a look at the FBI national property crime statistics, and the rise in overall property crimes is pretty amazing. Unfortunately they don't separate out collectable coins, so I used the values for "Precious metals and Jewelry". But the same pattern was seen in every category. Annual amount stolen was pretty constant at ~$1 - $2 billion per year until 2020 when it jumped. There were no values available for 2023.
Dollar value stolen 1990 - 2022 per FBI: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/property-crime
Note: I do not intend this to be a political post and am not speculating as to the cause. I was just curious as to what the FBI said about it and found the results interesting.
Very strange….almost like they changed what was being measured or how it was being measured.
The only real significant change to the nation/society in 2020 was the surge in Covid-19 and the lockdowns. Was this the driver, assuming the data is accurate and compares apples to apples?
If you re-write the definition of the word “crime”, that will have a substantial effect on the reported statistics.
@lermish, you know I respect your views even though we might each lean a different way, but you made a good point and the fact is that the modern day media outlets are looking to sell fear and panic, they’ve found that doing so is in their best financial interests.
With that said, the FBI changed its reporting system in 2021 and much of the data has been incomplete since. Some of the worst offenders are the LAPD, NYPD, and even the Miami PD. In my opinion, the stats are rendered useless if that’s the case.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/07/13/fbi-crime-rates-data-gap-nibrs
I’m sure many of you have seen season 3 of “The Wire” on HBO, they call it “Juking the Stats”.
I don’t know about you guys, but we had plenty of technology for the past decade and I don’t recall hearing about so many coin thefts until the past year or two, it seems like there’s a new story about an incident like that every other day now.
Even Noah was deliberately and aggressively followed for over and hour after the winter Long Beach show this year, he had to make arrangements to meet at the Police Station in order to lose the tail. He had a dashcam that captured the whole thing, the plates on the car ended up being fictitious.
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The amount of theft from retail stores is astounding. 10 years ago you NEVER heard of a store closing because of theft.
It was NEVER mentioned on the quarerly earnings/analyst calls that I listen to in my job as a money manager. Now, "shrinkage" is a key metric that the analysts and PMs track.
It's gotten ridiculous to the point where the former NYPD spokesman was on CNN a few weeks ago and when the news anchors expressed surprise that thieves were hitting places like NYC and LA to steal....but spending the $$$ in states like Florida and Texas.....he explained to them that the criminals know that if they tried to steal in FL or TX....they'd go to jail.
So....they steal in more lenient locales....then go back "home" to spend their ill-gotten gains.
Unreal.
My career in retail ended about 15 years ago and we had the term "Shrink Stinks" hammered into us almost everywhere I worked.
Focusing on controlling shrink isn't a new thing, nor are budgets for it. For example, when I worked at Best Buy, the shrink budget (AKA what they expected to lose to theft, damage, etc.) was about 2% of gross sales.
"It's like God, Family, Country, except Sticker, Plastic, Coin."
It's been 25+ years but similar story working at Target in my youth.
Chopmarked Trade Dollar Registry Set --- US & World Gold Showcase --- World Chopmark Showcase
So if the number of crimes per capita decreased, but the total value of stolen property increased in the pandemic years,
then the value per crime increased in the pandemic years (assuming the total population did not jump way up).
I wonder if the stats include property damage. The popular new way to do burglary on stores is to steal a Kia and drive it through the front door of the shop....
Property damage should be under "Miscellaneous", not "Precious Metals and Jewelry", but I think the FBI just goes by the categories that the reporting agencies use. I can see a Jewelry Store being burned during the BLM riots being counted as PM&J instead of Misc, but it would be property damage and not a theft. That would only be applicable to 2020 though.
This is 100% dead on. There have been copious reports highlighting a lack of participation from LE agencies in making crime stat reports to the feds. I think we could all admit if a jurisdiction has low crime rates they’d be screaming about it from the mountain top, or across the internet anyways….
Having fun while switching things up and focusing on a next level PCGS slabbed 1950+ type set, while still looking for great examples for the 7070.
To paraphrase Disraeli: "There are four kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, statistics and statistics that come from bureaucrats."
Shoplifting and other property crimes are no longer enforced in numerous large cities so people actually get confused and think that a decrease in reported crimes means that fewer crimes are being committed.
Since 1990?
Truth is dead.
Anecdotes trump statistics. We believe what we want and reject facts that disagree with our personal assumptions.
Regardless of flaws in data collection, you have 30 years of data.
Look at the murder rate and you'll see the same trend. Are they hiding the dead people? And more importantly, are they intentionally hiding MORE dead people every year to make it look like the rate is decreasing?
Like the property crimes, there's a generally steady decrease for 30 years and an increase in the last 2.
Why is it so hard to believe that there was more crime 30 years ago?
Bit of a straw man argument, eh? We weren’t talking about the murder rate, we’re talking about property crimes. A more applicable straw man would have been burglary or armed robbery.
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Not a straw man argument if you read what I wrote. The same trend exists in ALL the crime statistics category. The problem is that everyone wants to simply dismiss the theft data so what is the point in showing it again. It is harder to argue that they are faking the murder rate. But I guess someone could just dismiss it as a "straw man" argument. The fact is that crime is LOWER today than it was in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.
But, here ya go. I'm sure everyone will believe these statistics just like they did the last ones:
Crimes at and after coin shows have been a problem since I started in this hobby in 2005 or so (and I am sure even before) and I saw something scary at one of the first shows I attended. That’s just anecdotal though.
I admire Lermish for his willingness to discuss these things rationally and tend to believe those statistics even though they are inconvenient for some. BUT it is certainly possible that property crimes are on a downward trend but such crimes at and around coin shows are up.
"Look up, old boy, and see what you get." -William Bonney.
I’m guessing these statistics come from the FBI.
Unfortunately, lots of police departments refuse to report their crime stats to the FBI for whatever reason so they aren’t factored in.
BHNC #248 … 130 and counting.
Anyone who has lived through the last 4 years and still thinks government statistics are not manipulated for political purposes, hasn't been paying attention.
I reckon that’s the straw that will break this particular camel’s back.
Smitten with DBLCs.
It's easy to dispose of the stolen goods: Ebay, Craigslist, etc. They can sell it to wholesalers, too.
1990
National Commemorative Medals of the U.S. Mint:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/medals-tokens/national-commemorative-medals-united-states-mint-1940-present/alltimeset/195526
Retail thefts are a major and growing trend where companies such as Home Depot have a passive response with managers fired as I've seen for trying to stop thieves. When storage units, etc. are found by the police full of stolen material they tell them to keep the stuff. Insurance protects some of the thefts and lawyers dictate their actions, they don't want more lawsuits.
Criminal gangs are getting more aggressive, I seriously wonder if the victims fight back that they'd want to end up in prison with far more serious charges than felonious larceny. Gangs from SA are making inroads into many communities: https://www.newsnationnow.com/us-news/immigration/border-coverage/south-american-gangs-burglarizing-american-communities/#:~:text=Crime gangs targeting US communities&text=Groups of highly trained burglars,Oakland County, Michigan, alone.
As opposed to anecdotes and editorial choices and click bait in media.
Even if crime rates are down, they are still too high for me to like them.
National Commemorative Medals of the U.S. Mint:
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/medals-tokens/national-commemorative-medals-united-states-mint-1940-present/alltimeset/195526
Shoplifting and other property crimes are no longer enforced in numerous large cities so people actually get confused and think that a decrease in reported crimes means that fewer crimes are being committed.
If you walk out of a store in California with $990 in stolen goods, you're good to go, and the clerk can get fired if he objects.
I knew it would happen.
I don’t disagree that crime was worse 30 years ago. But this chart shows the numbers are heading back in the wrong direction.
30 years ago there was a push to fight against crime. Apparently it worked.
Not for nothing but increasing the dollar amount from $500-$900 before a person is charged with a theft crime because things cost more seems like it would skew the property crime numbers.
I won’t disagree that a lot of what we are seeing is just the media making headlines. But I can see with my own eyes as well.
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I missed your last sentence, but in all fairness, you started with murder statistics and ended with a murder statistics chart. I think @breakdown makes a good point that while overall statistics might be decreasing, coin crimes certainly are not. In addition to the fact that the threshold for "crime" has been raised in many states (which certainly has an effect), most of these statistics end in 2022, and I don't recall hearing about all these coin robberies until the past couple of years. Mail theft as well - no statistic will change my mind that there's less mail/package theft than there was a decade ago.
When I was renewing my Hugh Wood policy this year as a dealer, my rep told me that the past couple years have been an anomaly with stolen packages. She said that they've had clients that haven't needed to file a claim in 20 years, and all of the sudden these past couple of years, their good luck has taken a turn for the worse.
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I agree crime has come down 1990-2019. Crime rose steadily 1965-1990 then came down after the crack epidemic of the early 90's. My point about the last 4 years is: You have no idea how bad crime is because you aren't getting any accurate info.. It might be worse than 1990 for all we know. It's certainly worse than say 10-15 years ago.
People like me have been proven right about everything that happened the last 4 years, So, I'll be trusting myself rather than the gaslighting.