Posted on 02/08/2005 9:03:43 AM PST by KidGlock
Plot to cash in stolen nickels unravels when Florida store reports big deposit
MIAMI (AP) - A plot to cash in 20 tonnes of stolen nickels fell apart when a grocery store reported an unusually large deposit in one of its coin machines and a tip came in about bags of buried money, court documents said.
Four men charged in the theft of a U.S. Federal Reserve shipment made an initial court appearance Monday, as the FBI searched for 896,000 missing nickels, or $44,800. A total of $135,200 worth was found buried behind a stable and one of the men admitted cashing in $4,000, officials said. Two other men are still on the run.
The FBI said Ricardo Mendoza was driving the money truck for a contractor that had been hired by the Federal Reserve to transport 3.8 million nickels from a bank in New Jersey to a branch in New Orleans.
The truck was found empty in Florida in late December, a day after it was scheduled to arrive in Louisiana.
After the truck was discovered, the FBI alerted a company that puts coin machines in supermarkets to watch for large nickel deposits. A store in Miami called police Jan. 15 to report a deposit by Juan Brito, who said he had been saving nickels for nearly a year, an FBI affidavit reported.
The group "decided to bury the nickels to avoid being caught" after Brito's chat with police, the affidavit said.
Police then received a tip about the nickels that led them to the house where some of them were buried.
U.S. government authorities said they believe Mendoza has fled to Mexico. Diosdado Cabrera, the owner of the home where the nickels were buried, also is missing.
talk about a petty thief
Moderators:
Please correct title- should read (20 tons)
(Blame fat fingers)
"You load 16 tons, and what do you get ..."
"I bet a nickle..."
"Thats not a nickle Martini, that's sh*t"
"another day older and deeper in debt"
Someone's "If I had a nickel for every ___" came true.
Cuckoo's Nest?
good news for a change.
Of all things to steal, nickles????? Darn, it is not even worth $44,000 to have to haul them suckers around.
These crooks lost all cents.
What a disappointment!
Sales shot up 700% in Florida candy machines.
They were just stealing the nickels Americans won't steal.
"That and a nickel will get you a steaming hot cup of JACK SQUAT!"
Yep, that's the problem with stealing small denominations. It's going to take a LONG time and a LOT of painstaking effort and patience before you can finally do anything big with your loot.
What did Lucy Van Pelt know, and when did she know it?
The only logical place would be to go to casino's with nickle slots. But then after awhile they may begin to wonder why their supply of nickles keeps increasing dramatically. But that is the only place I can see where a large amounts of nickles might not be out of place.
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