Bank robber hires decoys on Craigslist, fools cops
 

In an elaborate robbery scheme that's one part The Thomas Crowne Affair and one part Pineapple Express, a crook robbed an armored truck outside a Bank of America branch in Monroe, Wash., by hiring decoys through Craigslist to deter authorities.

It gets better: He then escaped in a creek headed for the Skykomish River in an inner tube, and the cops are still looking for him. "A great amount of money" was taken, Monroe police said, but did not provide a dollar value.

It appears to have unfolded this way, according to a Seattle-based NBC affiliate: around 11:00 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, the robber, wearing a yellow vest, safety goggles, a blue shirt, and a respirator mask went over to a guard who was overseeing the unloading of cash to the bank from the truck. He sprayed the guard with pepper spray, grabbed his bag of money, and fled the scene.

But here's the hilarious twist. The robber had previously put out a Craigslist ad for road maintenance workers, promising wages of $28.50 per hour. Recruits were asked to wait near the Bank of America right around the time of the robbery--wearing yellow vests, safety goggles, a respirator mask, and preferably a blue shirt. At least a dozen of them showed up after responding to the Craigslist ad.

"I came across the ad that was for a prevailing wage job for $28.50 an hour," one of the unwitting decoys, named Mike, said to the NBC station. As it turns out, they were simply placed there to confuse cops who were looking for a guy wearing a virtually identical outfit.

Authorities eventually found the getaway inner tube (a getaway inner tube!) and suspect that accomplices may have picked up the robber in a boat. According to the NBC affiliate, police hope to track him down by figuring out who posted the Craigslist ad in the first place.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark was not immediately available for comment.

http://news.cnet.com/bank-robber-hir...st-fools-cops/

that is what i like to call a bittersweet symphony

did their homework make plans

gotta admit it is clever

Fuck me that is so clever it is crazy. However if it turns out the guy created his Craigslist account with his ISP then it's a certain Darwin award.

wow pretty good. :1orglaugh

Hope he used proxies.

Damn this could be theme for movie.

Robbery is bad but damn that's funny

lol nice

Going to start to see a LOT more of that in the near future.

the movie "Inside man" comes to mind

he got away... so i guess you could say the idea worked for him... who would of thought...

i saw one a few years ago that was pretty clever like that.

The guy had phoned old people , claiming to be a 911 supervisor. He said they were testing response times to various calls. He told the people they would be paid a cash reward if they called up on a certain date at a certain time and pretended like they needed 911, but they had to be realistic so they would get realistic re4sponse times.

So anyways the guy robs an armoured car and at the same time hundreds of people are calling in various fake crimes.

I can see all the new ads popping up in craigslist right now

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Inspiring stuff ;)

Dam I left my lucky inner tube behind :helpme





:1orglaugh

Clever idea...the money should legally belong to him :) ..

lol awesome

awesome story. thanks for posting

walks up and peppersprays an armed guard.. guy has balls and isnt there always two guards, one actually unloading the truck and the other on lookout?
sounds to me like he was lucky not to get shot...

:1orglaugh best story I've heard in a while.

I've always said "clever people don't need to rob banks because they're clever"

But in this case I'm sure the profilers realize this guy is 25-35 & an ex IT-professional with a 75k+ salary. Which is even harder for them to find right now. As that description makes up a bulk of the middle class :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh that is a pretty good plan

He probably did it from a cybercafe or hacked wireless connexion ...

I was thinking the same thing. Taking out one guard with pepper spray shouldn't be all it takes.

great success

wow thats funny

That's insane. Hahaha. Very clever.

feel sorry for the victum of the open wireless hijack....

Inside man...all the way

All I'm saying...

It wuzzent me!

That will definitely be in a movie. Gotta love the creativity

and people say you can't make money on craigslist these days!

Pretty smart

That's pretty smooth actually :thumbsup