How to make four million dollars disappear

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neb

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#289732 25-Sep-2021 16:29

Crypto heist: Raiders steal safe containing $4m in cryptocurrency from Westmere home

Read the story for the full details, but someone carried out a Mission-Impossible-style theft of a safe that just happened to contain four million dollars in digital tulip bulbs. Luckily the robbers won't know about that - that's four million dollars, $4,000,000, four million in case you missed it, but don't tell the robbers - with no traces left behind to identify anyone involved.

OK, it could have been a genuine burglary, but it seems more like a convenient way to vanish $4m off the books, since there's no way to prove or disprove what happened to the funds.

Scott3

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#2784228 25-Sep-2021 17:02

The situation is very suspect:

If renovations were of a sufficient scale for you to be living offsite for an extended period, leaving millions of dollars of stuff in the safe seems foolhardy.
Keeping that much value as a primarly copy (unscripted, or with the pass phrase) in a retail grade safe seems fool hardy. Safety deposit boxes are available.
Not having a backup / clone code to access that much cripto seems highly unusual. As other risks include hardware failure, and fire. Obviously in the case of a theft it would become a race as to who could pull the cripto first.
Splashing it all over the media, seem um, odd.

Nate001

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#2784229 25-Sep-2021 17:04

The whole thing seems bizarre. I've read similar comments elsewhere that all seem to say hes trying to wipe it off the books etc.

Scott3

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#2784237 25-Sep-2021 17:32

Nate001:

The whole thing seems bizarre. I've read similar comments elsewhere that all seem to say hes trying to wipe it off the books etc.

Would have to be done from the company for that to be of assistance. And it would be seen as quite odd for a rock supply & transport company to hold that much cripto.

Only two possible benefits I can think of:

1. Tax evasion, buy $4m the cripto, have it "stolen" and write it off as a loss, so no profits to pay tax on. Pull the backups, send it to a tumbler, then spend it personally when the heat has gone off. - I think It is unlikely that the company would be that profitable, and if it was, Why carry the risk? And why look like an idiot in the newspaper? Just pay your $1.3m in tax and enjoy a lifestyle that few can.

2. To extract money from the business in case of imminent failure. If business was going to fail soon, the Theft of cripto could be a way to get asserts out of the business name, for personal use when heat has gone off, but I doubt that a business that is about to fail would be able to afford to purchase $4m in cripto, so his is unlikely. And if the business did fail would look super suspicious. Criminal charges could potentially follow for trading in a reckless manor. (putting so much money into a risky assett, and storing it in such a risky way).

The above don't seem workable, and I can't think of other reasons, so I can't really see a motive for that kind of foul play.

duckDecoy

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#2784240 25-Sep-2021 18:06

This is such a strange thing to have done. What's to stop the baddies reading the paper and figuring their next move will be to kidnap the guy, remove a finger or two until he reveals the password, and pinko presto get 4million fairly untracable bucks. I cannot understand why he would reveal this whatsoever.

neb

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#2784250 25-Sep-2021 18:54

duckDecoy:
I cannot understand why he would reveal this whatsoever.

You'd reveal it if it was a scam. The whole thing is just so improbable, unless the alarm system was phenomenally incompetently set up there'd be no way they could get in via the long way round to avoid all the cameras, get to the alarm room, bypass the tamper circuit on the alarm case, disassemble the alarm, and remove the battery to kill it before it went off. In particular if you've got a room with a safe and the alarm in it the sensors would be set up for instant-trip, not an entry delay like the ones at the front door. That's why I described it as a Mission-Impossible-style feat.

And they carefully left behind just the right "evidence" to show how they'd done it. All that was missing was the empty jar of pasta sauce so you knew you could blame the Carbonara Gang for it.