

The World's most Ingenious Thief - pinstriped_dude
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_masterthief_blanchard

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aphyr
You have to give the guy credit. Arrested, he escapes into the ceiling tiles,
steals a uniform, and walks out the front door. Arrested by a frackin SWAT
team, he _steals the squad car he's placed in_ and makes a run for it? Hats
off, ladies and gentlemen; we have a winner.

~~~
darien
What I'm afraid of are the multitudes of copycat buglers who may look up to
him as a role model, meanwhile causing more harm than good.

~~~
akd
The copycat buglers would play reveille as they made their escape :)

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wallflower
If you liked this story, you might also enjoy the Silver Thief.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1020547>

~~~
mroman
Thanks, it was also a good story, nothing like our geek criminal mastermind
(because he is evidently a geek) :) but an enjoyable story nonetheless . . .
can you fellows tell I enjoy true crime stories? Both entertaining and
informative, it's the only topic I read besides tech . . .

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Luc
I'm wondering if this parachuting story has got any corroboration. I searched
in German but found nothing. It's a good tale, the stuff of legends, but for
all we know he just hid behind a curtain in one of those 1000 rooms until
after closing time.

~~~
c00ki3s
Well, you obviously need to search in Austrian ;)

~~~
elai
Austrian and German are like Canadian English and American English.

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ximeng
Single page:

[http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_masterthief_blancha...](http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/03/ff_masterthief_blanchard/all/1)

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known
Wiki page of Gerald Blanchard <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Blanchard>

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sheats
Wow, I rarely read non-technical stories online. I usually just skim and move
on but this one I read every word. What is it about this type of story that is
so intriguing? I guess I just figured this type of thing only happens in
movies.

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kevingadd
I have to wonder if the guy actually wants to turn his life around. If you
look at it rationally, he got off pretty easy - 2 years imprisonment, and some
probation - and there's no way to be sure that he actually told them about
everything or gave back all of the money. With the kind of stuff he did, he
could easily have had enough money stored away to pay reasonable 'restitution'
and still have plenty left over in offshore accounts. The video recordings
suggest he probably wasn't that cautious, but it's possible.

It'd be a happy ending to the story if the guy ended up as a hard-working
security consultant trying to stop the bad guys, but based on how he's
depicted in this article - a patient, methodical crook with a knack for
manipulation - he could easily just be waiting patiently until he can go back
to what he was doing before. If he actually does work as a security consultant
for banks, that would be an easy way to stay in the loop on new security
improvements and procedures.

Hopefully law enforcement keeps a close eye on him.

~~~
scotty79
If you were him how would you make a safe transition between criminal world
and legal world that would guarantee that you will be able to sleep well every
night till you die of old age?

He is not mafia type guy. How long do you think it would take for him to start
being the target for guys that hurt people that would want to use such skill
as his?

He's a clever guy, don't you think he might be asking himself similar
questions?

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almost
I wonder how much of the story is true and how much is fabricated by the ego
of this guy. It would be all the more believable to the cops interviewing him,
they want to believe that they caught the ultimate criminal mastermind.

Of course bits of it must be true, the bits with solid corroborating evidence,
but I wonder if the truth is quite so cool and impressive?

~~~
scotty79
That's a good thing then, that he videotaped cool and impressive stuff he did
and kept records from security cameras that were in place while he was
operating.

~~~
almost
But to my mind the fact that he videotaped so much really does support the big
ego argument. It's the little things that make it all the more impressive and
maybe those things weren't directly caught on tape, the article certainly
doesn't mention any massively impressive stuff caught on tape and don't you
think they would?

All the article really mentions on tape is him going around with a bunch of
people emptying ATMs. Now, as far as positions in the criminal underworld go,
being the ATM guy is about as low level and grunt workish as you can get,
hardly the sort of work you'd expect a criminal mastermind to be doing
himself!

Of course neither of us know so this is just idle speculation, I just think
these things should be taken with a grain of salt since all the people
involved (cops, journalists and the guy himself) have a vested interest in
making it sound cooler and more impressive.

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benologist
That was a great read.

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andreshb
Somehow, I can't stop thinking of him as the guy from Ocean's 12 Francois
toulour <http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2973145088/ch0002220>

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caffeine
That is _hacking._

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proee
I wonder why he never tried to sell the Star of Empress Sisi. Seems he had
enough connections that someone could find a buyer on the black market no?

~~~
elai
Unique items do not sell well due to attracting too much attention.

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rmk
A bit like Frank Abignale Jr... Great story!

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viggity
There is an awesome show that aired on A&E (I think) called "Masterminds", it
only ran for a couple of years, but you can still catch re-runs of it.

Most of the criminals they profile are like Blanchard - they steal _a lot_ of
money and get away with it for a long time. About half they criminals they
profile never even get caught. It is a really good show, I highly recommend
it.

One thing I learned from the show: Crime pays. As long as you're not using
weapons to steal the goods, you'll very rarely get more than a few more years
in prison, even if you're stealing hundreds of thousands if not millions of
dollars.

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DanielBMarkham
This dovetails almost exactly into that "psychopaths among us" piece on here
about a week ago.

This is a guy that needs to stay in jail.

~~~
Cleanthes
It's unlikely that a psychopath would refuse to testify against his partners
in crime in return for a shorter prison sentence.

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mroman
I am simply amazed. The fellow, all morality aside, is simply Mr. BadAss
himself.

Two years in jail for all that! I know of people who have participated in the
sale of $10,000 US worth of Cocaine (a pittance, all things considered) and
have gotten life sentences.

~~~
kevingadd
That's because it was Cocaine, not because of the money. They could have been
giving the coke away and they still would have received a life sentence, most
likely.

~~~
mroman
I agree with your point, and I knew that - giving drugs away is distribution
and a person will get into just as much trouble for it. What I aimed to
express was how amazed I am at the way things work out in the criminal world,
and how talented AND lucky that fellow is. I mean, no violence at all, all
that money, and two years (once again, I know of cases where people have done
that long, in installments, for traffic tickets!) plus the very real
possibility of landing a well paid job afterwards . . . just amazing.

You know what I like about this guy? that he did not prey on the weak. He
preyed on those bigger and stronger than him.

Ah, to think that he could have rented that van under another name, and taken
steps to make sure there were no prints left anywhere, which is actually very
easy to do . . . this goes to show, no one, not even someone like that, can be
a one man Army . . .

~~~
mseebach
> You know what I like about this guy? that he did not prey on the weak. He
> preyed on those bigger and stronger than him.

Oh please with the righteous Robin Hood ethics. First, they were not stronger
than him, that how he got in. Second, just because you're a bank, it doesn't
mean having hundreds of thousands stolen doesn't impact anyone, or is somehow
just, for that matter. Third, what do you call framing the Brink-guy for
smoke-screen? Fourth, or withdrawing from thousands of pirated credit- and
debit cards? Fifth, or stealing a national treasure from the people of
Austria, only to stick it in a cellar, to be lost?

Even though he didn't exploit personal weaknesses in the same way a drug-
dealer does, he did indeed inflict harm on actual people.

~~~
ThomPete
It's an interesting dilemma.

One one side what he does is obviously wrong. On the other side what fantastic
skills.

With regards to the people of Austria I am pretty sure that the star wasn't
made without exploiting other people.

Things like these are not so black and white.

That story is a film worthy.

~~~
mseebach
Not really. Your skills and what you apply said skills to don't overlap.

What's a dilemma is that we only hear about these people when they apply their
skills to evil. If he'd done a career in bank security, it's very likely we'd
never have heard a word about what he did.

> I am pretty sure that the star wasn't made without exploiting other people

Sure, that's why it belongs to, and should belong to, the austrian _people_.

> That story is a film worthy.

Catch me if You Can II: The Austrian Job :)

~~~
pohl
_What's a dilemma is that we only hear about these people when they apply
their skills to evil._

It's a dilemma in the same sense that rain on your wedding day is ironic.
You've just written Ms. Morissette's comeback single.

~~~
mseebach
I'm sorry, it's a shame then :)

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mroman
And to think the guy is actually a geek if I ever saw one . . . I love this!
There are Mafia/Gang Baboons who commit violent crimes and prey on the weak
who can't DREAM of as much money as this guy made.

What do you know? Our very own geek criminal mastermind :-)

