Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:16 on 2020-09-10 Permalink Reply  

• mare 09:54 on 2020-09-10 Permalink

  That’s my bank! I haven’t set foot in there for a while, use only banking apps and who needs cash these days, but it was the only bank that accepted me as a new client when I was still waiting for my permanent residency. Maybe because they were used to immigrants; a high percentage of their clients is South-American, and the staff are all trilingual. It’s not the first time they were held-up, and now everyone is wearing a mask it must be nerve-wracking for them (and other bank tellers).

• Ephraim 19:15 on 2020-09-10 Permalink

  Why do people bother holding up banks anymore? It’s not really worth the risk/reward. Most banks use Teller Assist Units, which limits how much money can be dispensed and of course, can dispense marked bills. Not to mention dye packs, GPS trackers. People overestimate the amount they can steal from a bank, it’s particularly SMALL.

• JS 19:19 on 2020-09-10 Permalink

  [Ephraim got in first while I was typing this]

  How much money do you think these guys actually walk away with? How many c-notes do those brown bags in the cartoons with dollar signs on them hold? A hundred is only ten grand. Say the take is what? 50K? – how long can they really live on that? I mean, you’re not going to put yourself through the ringer like this just to live like you’re on welfare, would you? What’s the point unless you can put yourself on “rue Easy” and live large, ordering four pound lobsters for you and your henchmen at Milo’s, flashy set of wheels, etc?

• Ephraim 19:59 on 2020-09-10 Permalink

  Assuming you aren’t using a TAU, a teller isn’t allowed to have that much money in the drawer at any time. Anything over $2K and you have to put it in the timed safe. So that’s at least another 5 minute wait, which is more risk and you have to be SUPER quiet so you can hear it click, because you only have about 10 seconds to catch it, or it relocks and you have to wait again.

• Michael Black 20:41 on 2020-09-10 Permalink

  But a lot of crime pays really badly. They’ll steal that bike because they know they can get a few dollars for it. If they went after more expensive bikes, it would bring in more money, but more work to get that greater money.

  Unless they sell an item themselves, there’s a middleman who will expect a cut.

  Holding up a bank requires little overhead, so the return doesn’t have to be that much. It’s better than having no money.

  Cashing in cans for the deposit brings in little money, but it too requires zero money to get started and generally it’s really easy to cash them in.

  Those starting with some money can afford to plot and buy (or I suppose steal) the things needed to pull off a bigger job. At some point the risk is likely bigger, because the bigger the loss, the greater someone is willing to pursue the theft.

• walkerp 21:54 on 2020-09-10 Permalink

  Precisely because of all the things mentioned above, bank robbery is a bottom-feeder crime these days and so most likely the perpetrators here are drug addicts. So not a lot of long-term strategic thinking involved.

• Ephraim 08:52 on 2020-09-11 Permalink

  Michael, it’s all about risk/reward. And the risk on a bank robbery is definitely high, but the rewards are no longer high. With a bike, the risk is minimal. So considering the risk, the reward is good. Frankly, learning computer skills and phishing has so much better rewards and lower risk than a bank robbery.

  Between TAUs and CCTVs, the risks are really high. I don’t know about Canadian banks, but in some banks they have fog systems, dropping gates, doors that only the police can unlock, etc. That brings the risk so high that most criminals won’t even contemplate it, anymore. Those dropping gates were big in the UK… having a ton or two of metal drop down at the front door and in front of the tellers, with only the police having the key, were really effective in the UK.