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Worst (or Best?) Criminals Ever Arrested for Stealing 2 Million Dimes, a "Trove of Frozen Shrimp", and 6 Refrigerators

NY Post - Four men have been charged for allegedly swiping $234,500 in dimes from a tractor-trailer — the latest in a slew of oddball heists in which the crew has been accused of swiping truckloads of beer, tequila and even a trove of frozen shrimp. 

Far be it from me to take the side of some low-life, scumbag criminals. Criminals from Philadelphia no less (go Diamondbacks). But I like the cut of this gang's jib. These aren't your run of the mill gang bangers. These aren't simple brute force, smash-and-grabs to make a quick buck. These are what I would classify as "hair-brained schemes". They're like a team of doofy robbers from an episode of Scooby Doo who hatch a plan to rob the local gumball machine man as he drives around town collecting his quarters. I can picture them right now. Some short bald guy with a thin mustache who sounds like Wario sitting underneath a lamp in a dark basement, explaining his latest ruse to his idiot henchmen.

"Listen here dummies. Everyone wants to go after the dollars. Everybody thinks dollars are where it's at. But the real money is in dimes."

Everything the article says about these guys makes them sound more and more like they're from a movie. 

During the night, four thieves made off with a hefty portion of the six-ton shipment of dimes, leaving hundreds of thousands of the coins scattered across a Philly roadway as they moved millions of dimes from the tractor-trailer — which they forced open with bolt cutters — to their own white box truck, per The Inquirer.

In the weeks after the theft, thousands of the dimes were converted into dollars at Coinstar machines in Maryland, and in at least four different banks across suburban Philadelphia, according to an indictment unsealed Friday obtained by The Post.

A trail of dimes scattered about the streets of Philadelphia, leading detectives from Coinstar to Coinstar until they finally caught up with the culprits. I bet they would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling law enforcement officers. Or if they weren't delayed by a comical argument between Henchman #1 and Henchman #2 over who gets to ride shotgun and control the radio. Or whatever dumb way cartoon criminals get caught.

But dimes were only the tip of the iceberg. They were robbing America of all the most inconvenient and unliquidable (don't think that's a word) items they could get a beat on.  

The men have been involved in a series of similar crimes, making off with unwieldy hauls of frozen seafood, beer and liquor from other trucks whose drivers stopped in the Philadelphia region to get some sleep amid their cross-country journey.

Two weeks before the dime heist, Savage and the Palmers stole six refrigerators off a trailer, and eight days later Byrd attempted to sell off frozen shrimp he looted, The Inquirer reported.

You really gotta know a guy who knows a guy if you're planning to flip a trove of shrimp on the black market. And 6 refrigerators? And 2,500 pounds of dimes? There's far too much equipment needed to move that discretely. Come to think of it, these men might have had something else planned. It's possible they were looking to start a restaurant. They had shrimp, beer, liquor, 6 refrigerators to store it all in, and 2 million dimes in seed money. I'd take a Tinder date to that bar. 

Credit to these criminals for modeling their syndicate off of cartoon villains who 100% of the time get caught in the end. They could have taken the easy way out. Mugging civilians in dark alleys, holding up gas stations at gunpoint, robbing banks. But what's the fun in that? They wanted a challenge. I can respect that.

P.S. -- Do you know that the clearance rate on bank robberies is 60%? That means 40% of bank robbers get away with it. That seems far too high. I had an ex who's brother was arrested for robbing a bank when he was younger (with a gun). He went to jail for a year and a half. I ended up hanging out around him multiple times. Super nice guy. His family would crack jokes like, "Well this kid over here's robbin' banks" and everyone would laugh. That was always strange to me. But anyways, if you have a 40% chance of getting away with a bank robbery, and if you get busted you only go to prison for little over a year, and when you get out of prison everyone has a good laugh about it, that makes me think it might be worth a shot. Just pop into a Chase Bank with a Ronald Regan mask and a gun, then surf on out of there like Johnny Utah. (I may have blogged that story already so apologies if you've heard it before.)