Key point: a chunk of the evidence against the thieves was collected via wireless bugging devices.
Reading between the lines they'd also racked up an impressive stretch of prison time, individually and collectively. So perhaps were behind the curve in understanding just how modern intelligence-led policing and the surveillance state have converged to make their former profession extremely questionable.
(A supplementary point: the problem with criminology is that it's the study of the criminal mind -- but the only criminal minds available for study are the ones who were stupid enough to get caught. These guys got lucky (if the on-site security guard had done his job and checked inside the premises properly, they'd have walked into a police trap on their second attempt), but luck wasn't enough. They were still running on a classic 1970s-80s London gangland script, and were known to the Met as robbery suspects with prior form. By speaking aloud about what they'd done they basically handed the police enough evidence to roll them up. Score: old-school bank robbers 0; modern surveillance state: 1.)
> Key point: a chunk of the evidence against the thieves was collected via wireless bugging devices.
They continued to talk about it. Mistake, period. Just, no. If I ever do something illegal, I will never talk about it after the fact.
I have even had conversations with friends when I was younger:
"Hey, how did you manage to get away from <place that got busted>?"
"<incredulous look on my face> Why would you even ask me to admit I did something illegal that actually got busted by the police? And, even if I were there, why would you expect me to be stupid enough to answer?"
1) You're saying this because you're intelligent. But because you're intelligent, you're also less likely to turn to a life of crime. You can make money honestly and you have a lot to lose if you get busted. Crooks tend to be uneducated and ignorant.
2) It's easy to keep a secret that only you know. But there's usually more than one person involved in a crime. Are all of your companions in crime going to be as careful? People just can't resist talking. They want to brag. They want to tell their friends and loved ones. And as time goes on, people let their guard down.
> Also: Wall Street is full of educated guys who are outright criminals.
That is "white-collar crime" which is a different thing entirely. It revolves around exploiting the loopholes around laws, rather than actually breaking them. He is talking about "blue-collar crime" which is about outright breaking the laws. In the white crimes, no statesman can punish you since there is no legal evidence against you - the issues are with the legal framework.
Your definition of white-collar crime is way off the mark. White-collar crime is real crime. Fraud, embezzlement, and money laundering are not "loopholes around laws", they are crimes just like murder, larceny, and rape. The government brings prosecutions all the time, and there are plenty of white-collar criminals in prison and paying hefty fines.
The absence of violence (murder, rape, assault, robbery, etc.) or physical force against property (burglary, grand theft auto, etc.) is what defines a white-collar crime. They involve abuses of trust. "White-collar" just refers to the fact that people in white-collar professions are typically the ones have enough power entrusted to them to be able to commit these crimes.
Of course, there's no perfect taxonomy and you can argue all day about whether a particular crime is white-collar or blue-collar.
One aspect of the difference is that the physical force and violence with white collar crime are indirect / externalized, because the crimes involve manipulation of intangibles.
White collar crime is real, actual crime and violation of real, actual laws. It refers to non-violent, financially motivated crimes. But they're real crimes.
There is a lot of white collar crime, vs just stuff people whine about at occupy because it is unfair, which involves breaking rules, laws, etc., but depends on not being able to be detected, identified as a crime, identified as a suspect, located, sufficiently chargeable according to a GJ or civil suit, not meeting evidentiary standard for conviction, pleading to something small, or reward outweighing risk-adjusted cost. (In decreasing order of ideal white collar crime).
I don't think that's generally true - 'white collar crime' is used to refer to bankers etc. breaking the law. It's just a) hard to prosecute and b) the politicians are unmotivated to pursue it as it's their mates c) it's often institutional, eg HSBC was involved in money laundering but which individuals do you go after? If you're just looking as using loop holes probably most do that and would be annoyed it you call them criminals.
White-collar crime is also fundamentally different from violent crime and larceny, since it doesn't involve the use of physical force or violence. It's good to have the government protect people against abuses of trust, but it's secondary to protecting people against violence and theft.
While this is true in the general, there is (at least in Australia) a number of crooks I've come across when I was younger and doing things you shouldn't do that were incredibly intelligent; which is why they had others commit crimes for them, and were suitably paranoid. And were rarely caught. I assume that's likely the case in most places around the world.
Are you really safer if you get other people to commit crimes for you? Seems like they'll pretty much always roll over on you unless you're part of an organization that can make them pay a price for doing so.
> If I ever do something illegal, I will never talk about it after the fact.
Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" should be a compulsory read for any self-respecting criminal mastermind, if anything to stop them from saying "I will never do X and they will never catch me".
> if anything to stop them from saying "I will never do X and they will never catch me".
There is a big difference between "I won't talk about my crime after the fact and make catching me easy" and "Not talking about my crime means they will never catch me."
I'm not stupid--arrogance is the downfall of many a criminal. If I commit a crime, there will be smart people trying to get me. No action will guarantee that I would never be caught. However, I can make it a lot more difficult for someone trying to catch me if I try not to do patently stupid things like actively confessing to someone.
It seems that they were identified as the primary suspects just from surveillance cameras near the scene - I wonder how successful the case against them would have been without the bugging devices.
Almost certainly yes a warrant could eventually have been obtained. UK law (well English and Welsh law at least -- I can't speak of Scottish law) tends to err on the side of "catch the bad guys" rather than personal freedom. Most people here argue that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear and would not object to a police search of their own property.
EDIT
Also I see that the article says that two of the men were arrested whilst (driving?) with some of the loot. I'm not sure of the current status of stop and search but I'm fairly sure that the police have rather broad powers that don't require a warrant to search people outside of their home.
Usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I'm definitely not your lawyer. If you are looking for legal advice then hire a solicitor.
Other disclaimer: I'm in the minority that thinks that everyone has something to hide -- even if only their bank details.
It's interesting how wrong the speculations were about robbers. Their experts thought it was a Hollywood style "Reservoir Dogs" robbery with precision planning, recruitment from the "dark web" and that the loot was likely already out of the country (possibly hidden up a horses ass). One guy even speculated that they tripped the alarm on purpose, to see what the response would be.
What turned out was pretty far from that. Still, it was worth the watch, for the recreation of drilling through the wall, decent into the elevator shaft and safe deposit box smashing.
I must have walked past that pub at least a hundred times, and immediately when I read this story it just felt very right for this particular establishment to figure in it. Not just because, well, it's a London pub and most of them would fit in to a story like this; but also because this particular pub is placed on the corner of Baron St and Pentonville Rd. Pentonville is also the name of a nearby prison – HMP Pentonville[1].
Criminals seem to actually deal with a bit of a distributed trust problem. They rely on a reputation consensus to determine trust but that seems to require a culture of disclosing what you've done (bragging).
That seems to be an interesting problem for the crypto community to have fun with.
Could a person prove that one has successfully stolen a large amount of money in an unspecified series of heists, without actually incriminating oneself with having been a participant in any given heist?
A lot of the people were uninsured with tens of thousands of dollars in assets, if not more. I'm guessing that it's because they didn't want to report the assets to the government. Is that fair speculation?
No, people assume safe deposit boxes are secure so they don't pay for insurance. There are no taxes on assets, or requirement to report them to the government.
I'm speculating that they earned money without reporting it and then used that money to purchase those assets. The gov't doesn't tax the asset you own but it would be interested in knowing if you reported the income that you used to purchase the asset.
The safe deposit box company website[1] looks like it's from the year 2000, complete with a clock in the header of the page. I guess this business was more likely to get customers through word of mouth than their website, so it didn't matter too much.
I'm not saying you're one of them, but I imagine there are people out there who would say exactly this while also "investing" in gold, and the irony tickles me.
Reading between the lines they'd also racked up an impressive stretch of prison time, individually and collectively. So perhaps were behind the curve in understanding just how modern intelligence-led policing and the surveillance state have converged to make their former profession extremely questionable.
(A supplementary point: the problem with criminology is that it's the study of the criminal mind -- but the only criminal minds available for study are the ones who were stupid enough to get caught. These guys got lucky (if the on-site security guard had done his job and checked inside the premises properly, they'd have walked into a police trap on their second attempt), but luck wasn't enough. They were still running on a classic 1970s-80s London gangland script, and were known to the Met as robbery suspects with prior form. By speaking aloud about what they'd done they basically handed the police enough evidence to roll them up. Score: old-school bank robbers 0; modern surveillance state: 1.)