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nbk2000
November 6th, 2002, 03:45 PM
While hanging out at the store, the armored car couriers came in to pick up the days receipts.

Well, one of the guards was retiring in a couple of days, and I asked him what's the most he'd ever transported.

$200,000,000 in cash between two federal reserve banks. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

And

$500,000,000 in bearer bonds to an airport for a corporation. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> :D

HOLY SHIT! That's a lot of dough folks!

So, 4400 pounds of (assuming) hundred dollar bills has been driven around in what amounts to a steel box on a small truck chassis.

The reason for the MAD is so that, in conjunction with a means of weighing a moving vehicle (pressure on a pressurised hose across the road), and knowing the gross weight of the vehicles with normal load, the MAD would allow you to know if that extra two tons of weight is either bills/bonds (valuable), or worthless coinage.

See, when a mass of metal moves through a magnetic field, it distorts that field. Well, a 2 ton mass of metal coins moving through the earths magnetic field would also cause a distortion.

If you know an armored car has a ton of extra mass than when empty (figuring 350 pounds for the two guards), and the MAD doesn't register more metal mass than a known empty armored car produces, than you know the vehicle is fat with cash! :)

Any flaws in this logic?

zeocrash
November 6th, 2002, 04:01 PM
no flaws in the idea, but if you were going to heist a bank van, surely you would find out information telling you when and where a van full of bills / bonds is, in advance.
you dont see many armed gangs handing around doing MAD checks on passing bank vans.
though it could be usefull for identifying decoys, so you still have the element of suprise on the real van.

chemwarrior
November 6th, 2002, 04:13 PM
I can just imagine NBK sitting there wait for the numbers to pop up saying the weight of the truck. "Look there. I think we've got a nice large chunk of change!" All the while reaching under the desk for the a M-14 (or whatever he feels like carrying).

Now if there is only a way we could actually orchestrate something like this....lol

Jhonbus
November 6th, 2002, 04:15 PM
Assuming the armoured car to be a solid box of metal, can another mass of metal within the box be detected, given that it is shielded from any magnetic fields by the car itself? Does the electrical contact between the coins and the car's chassis have any effect on whether or not it can be detected?

zeocrash
November 6th, 2002, 04:42 PM
i belive that the contents of the truck can be detected, as the metal inside the truck would have an effect on the magnetic anomily of the truck.
i'm not sure how portable accurate MAD detectors are though

nbk2000
November 7th, 2002, 07:56 AM
I've seen MAD plans in those UFO nut magazines. You can buy them for a couple hundred bucks, though I'd invest the 10% (RTPB, though maybe not that much! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> ) on a high end scientific magnetometer and do plenty of dry runs first.

The AC isn't a faraday cage since it's not totally sealed. It has plenty of glass which would allow the magnetic field to penetrate into the interior.

From what I've learned, there's only 7 Federal reserve banks in the US. Therefore, the possible routes cross-country through which these cash shipments can go is limited.

There'd have to be a chokepoint in the geography of the interstate system through which ALL traffic would have to flow through, either a bridge or tunnel. This would be the point at which the MAD would be set up.

Also, bills have a microencapsulated freon embedded in it to allow for it's detection by the Feds. Same thing could be used against them.

Perhaps a standard type metal detector could be adapted. They can differentiate between ferrous and non-ferrous metals. US coinage is non-ferrous, and steel vehicle bodies are ferrous. So, if your detector picked up a large mass of non-ferrous metals...let it go.

What would be the ultimate (though an impossibilty...for now. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> ) would be to use a high powered flash x-ray or gamma ray camera like that used by the nuke labs to catch implosion phenomena. These cameras can see through a foot of steel and catch things at microsecond speeds.

So it could very easily see through an entire AC and tell you what was inside, bills or coins. 'Course, the intense radiation pulse would kill the guards within the day. :D Added bonus.

zeocrash
November 7th, 2002, 01:50 PM
yeah but it would be a bit of a bummer if you ended up with a manslaughter charge, from scanning a carrier full of dimes

pyromaniac_guy
November 7th, 2002, 04:51 PM
a couple issues here that i see are as follows:

-a mil in hundreds only weighs in at 10kg or so... the potential diffrence of weight of a vehical, based on full tank of gas vs empty, and skinny security guards vs guards that sumo wrestle in their spare time would allow for an uncertainty of maybe tens of millions$ in determining the value on board based on weight.

-diffrent coins have diffrent magnetic signatures, you would have a very difficult time distinguishing between a load that carried a pile of 100$ and coins that strongly affected a MAD vs a load that was just a bunch or more mad-ening coins...

-the issue of a faraday cage is a actually a non issue... a normal faraday cages sheilds against an E feild, not a B feild, unless the cage is made up of a magnetically non permiable material... there is an alloy called high mu that acomplishes such magnetic sheilding... but i'm willing to be it isnt standard equipment on anything but maybe the presidents nuclear safe bunker

nbk2000
November 8th, 2002, 04:34 AM
When you're planning on jacking a quarter BILLION dollars or more, the scale of things is very different then your run-of-the-mill robbery.

Obviously, if you had the RTPB 10% to invest in this, you wouldn't need to do it because you're already stinking rich and are just getting greedy. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And a couple of years and a million or two invested wouldn't be out of line, considering the payoff.

200 million in hundreds weighs 4,400 pounds. Even more if they throw in smaller bills. Even if you had two guards who weighed 300 pounds each, and 50 gallons of fuel variance, that's 900 pounds variance. If you measure the AC as weighing two tons over it's gross weight, and the MAD isn't registering a very high variance in the magnetic signature, than I'd bet it to be full of paper.

Remember, you're not going after the chump change of a million or two, you're going after THE BIG BUCKS. The kind of shit that would make you a legendary criminal, like the Great Train Robber(s) or Al Capone kind of legendary.

Even if you failed, you failed in grand fashion! Anyone can fail at robbing a convenience store, but not any idiot can fail at jacking a half-billion in bearer bonds. No, that takes special kind of idiot. An audacious and daring idiot! :D :p

You'd go to prison for the rest of your life, sure...but you'd be a greatly respected person on the inside. Someone that others would make room for at the TV bench, give their desserts to at the chow hall, and other gestures of prison respect. That, and you'd be a teacher that others would pay for your advice and learning on the matter. You would not be broke, that's for sure.

And you'll get the book deals, movies based on your exploit, and other tokens of the fame that's so important in american society.

Jhonbus
November 8th, 2002, 05:06 AM
You certainly have a vision, NBK :)
It just seems a shame we've discussed it here now. If some time in the future, a huge sum of money gets stolen by this method, I fear the jack-booted thugs will be kicking down every forumite's door to take them in for "questioning"... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" />

pyromaniac_guy
November 8th, 2002, 12:57 PM
Dumb question maybe...
since you are talking about transfers between the fed reserve banks, would huge quantites of coin even be an issue? If a 2 ton shipment were to carry a roughly equal amount of quarters, nickles, dimes and pennies, we would be talking about what, maybe 20k worth of change (as a ballpark guess, if it was 4400 of .25$ anone the value would be around 70k$). obviously all the monies from the mint have to be distriburted through the fed. 20k$ worth of change is NOTHING. Are you sure they dont have other methods of delivery of coin?

nbk2000
November 9th, 2002, 05:36 AM
Considering the huge amount of money, I wouldn't be surprised if the couriers didn't know about the shipment till the moment it was loaded up. This would only be prudent, if only to prevent blabbering that might lead to a jack. More likely so the guards can't plot to retire to the Seychelles Islands. :D

So it's very unlikely you'll be able to find out far in advance when the shipment is going to happen.

The MAD is to seperate out the large cash shipments from the routine coin deliveries to casinos, banks, etc. You're right, it's chump change, but it still goes by courier because it's money and the insurance companies won't cover the theft of it unless it was stolen from a courier.

Another use of MAD may be to detect when there IS a large amount of metal. More specifically precious metals like gold and platinium.

Stake out a precious metals repository or large regional dealer with your weight gauge and MAD. Scan the AC as it goes in. If it gains a ton of weight and causes the MAD to go crazy when it leaves, you've got an excellent canditate for a jack. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Marvin
November 12th, 2002, 09:57 PM
Ive been thinking about this for a while, and I dont think magnetism will work well enough to tell. There are a few other ways though....

The standard metal detector circuit is an aircore transformer. You set the null point at the voltage over the secondary in air to zero. If you introduce some ferrous metal into the loop it has a much higher permiability than the air. This essentially make the transformer better than it was before, the voltage over the secondary increases which shifts the meter over the zero point. Ferrous metals are a huge difference from air so a small amount makes a big difference. Non ferrous metals are more of a problem. If you introduce a non ferrous metal into the gap becuase its conductive and the frequency is high, you get eddy currents in the metal which reduces the voltage in the secondary. This is a much smaller effect gram for gram but its the only way to detect not ferrous metals this way. Even quite a large amount of non ferrous metal will be swamped by a small amount of ferrous metal.

Ok, next effect is what nbk is suggesting. You can use sensative magnetic sensors to detect the change in field resulting from a mass of metal moving through the earths magnetic field. This can be made to work very well, even with hall effect devices which are fairly cheep. You can get fairly sensative hall effect devices with a working range of about 50 microtesla (earth field) for around $50 each. If you want to go for more accurate devices, youd use alkali vapour magnetometers which are a fortune, but are many orders more sensative, with resolutions in the 10s of picotesla range.

Theres a problem though. The steel box they are in effectivly kills everything magnetic and electric dead. Its not 4Pi sheilding but the gaps dont alow anything in unless your holding the probe right next to them, magnetically its almost perfect becuase of the massive difference between ferrous materials and air. The only materials that truly sheild from magnets are Type I superconductors, but highly permiable materials 'short circuit' the magnetic flux you want to be looking at. Mu metal is just an example of a very highly permiable material (the trade off is that is has a crappy saturation value which is why people dont make transformer cores out of it) used for sheilding devices from the earths magnetic field. Add to all this that being steel the van probably has a large perminent magnetic field of its own and the numbers dont seem workable anymore. No matter how sensative the detectors the signal will be useless.

The method I would suggest might be made to work for problems like this, is neutron activiated gamma spectroscopy. You irradiate the van with a fast burst of neutrons, and have a large gamma spectrometer neer the van as close as possible to do a spectrum of the resulting gamma. That spectrum would tell you what metals were present, and roughly how much of each along with most other elements. Theres a few element gaps in the method, carbon and hydrogen would not show up, gold and copper definatly would, nickle and iron probably would, Id need to check data for them and if it could be aranged for a reasonable capture time, eg &gt;10mins the burst of neutrons required would not need to be large enough to cause noticable radiation sickness symptoms in the passengers/public. Having said that, I would not be neer this when it when it went off.

This isnt cheep, even compaired to potassium vapour magnetometers, but 10% buys a lot of physics kit.

pyromaniac_guy
November 12th, 2002, 10:36 PM
Marvin,
I dont have alot of experience with commerical nuetron activation equipment, but how large a source at what kind of distance would one need? it would a be an almost trivial matter to build a system to put out a billion nuetrons a second or so, obviously the flux is going to fall off rapidly with distance, but hey, if you could put the thing in a box truck that pulls up NEXT to an armored car, you could get not to far away from whats inside....

as far as the spectrometer goes, watch dovebid.com I have seen a few go for fairly trivial prices before...

althought you would still need to find a way to monitor the weight of the vehical to see if it has any signifigant load in it... maybe a camera system to look at the rear tires to see if there is any more bulde than normal, indicative of alot of weight ont he back axel... then again it would such to use such a system to only find out the tires were low on air :)

Marvin
December 3rd, 2002, 09:03 PM
The situation is too complicated to make guesses without a simulation program, and I dont have one. Some undergraduate physics experiments from the US provide some info, as do a number of declassified documents from lanl. Its possible to get meaningful results using a 10^6 n/s source in a water tank but this is very much at the low end and long time side of the equation. 10^14/sec poses a very serious health risk. Seeing most elements can be done with a source that can be built at home and uses no restricted materials, copper is rather more annoying and requires high energy neutrons from which the only convenient source would require tritium.

As an order of magnetude guess, Id put my money on a multifocus single pulse source releasing around 10^10 neutrons right next to the van itself. The emitter would probably be fairly small, bucket sized, but the power supply might have to be rather larger. The results would tell you how much of each element was in the van, and depending on how you arange the detector(s) roughly where it is.

Agent Blak
December 3rd, 2002, 11:29 PM
Jhonbus,

They would certainly have there work cut out for them. It would be a very difficult task because they would have to gather up indviduals for all over the world; alive.

This would mean they would have to capture a in an animanls own hunting grounds. Essentials your back yard. You should know all the alley ways, sewer systems, etc. in your area.

We would make a craft caputre... :cool:

nbk2000
December 20th, 2002, 04:58 AM
In conjunction with using a MAD, or some other instrument, to decide when a target is worthy of your attention <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> , I thought of the utility of knowing the vulnerable areas of the AC's.

With virtually any armored vehicle, the underside is the least protected. Though knowing exactly where everything is would greatly add you in the attack.

So, one such means already in use by military/security is a videocamera assembly that is built-in to a moveable speedbump, or permanently installed in the driveway of a secured facility.

<img src="http://server3001.freeyellow.com/nbk2000/underviewer.gif" alt=" - " />

Such a device gives you this kind of view of a vehicles vulnerable belly.

<img src="http://server3001.freeyellow.com/nbk2000/undercarriage.jpg" alt=" - " />

From here you can see the fuel tanks, steering linkages, power trains, axles, hydralic/fuel lines, etc.

Now, to attack these, you could use an SC, LSC, or EFP. However, these would carry the risk of setting the vehicle on fire, which is a bad thing when you're trying to get into it to get to the flammable paper valuables contained within.

Better would be to use a water slug. This is made by using explosives to project a mass of water in a SC fashion. This technique was often used by the brits in Ireland for disarming car bombs by blowing the explosives apart. The charge would be placed on the ground underneath the trunk, and would lift the beer kegs full of explosive (common bomb container) 10 meters up into the air, right through the trunk lid.

A similar charge, though of smaller dimensions, would be used to disrupt the fuel tank or shatter the drive train, immobilizing the vehicle. Because of the water, there's no fire risk, the flames of the explosion being smothered by the steam.

But you'd have to first KNOW where to place the charge, and for this you need advanced recon of the target vehicle to determine placement, hence the cameras.

Now, I could see using an RC car with an upward facing IR camera to get the view while the AC is parked for a delivery. Vehicle scoots underneath, you do a lap or two, then boogy out of there. Later, you use a vidcap prog to get frame shots from the recorded video, and photoshop to stitch them together to get the view as above.

Next time around, in addition to a camera, the RC is carrying a water jet charge for attack.

To quote some Kung-Fu movie (I forgot which):

"The true master paralyzes his opponents, leaving them vulnerable to attack"

megalomania
December 21st, 2002, 01:49 AM
What exactly is the legit purpose of putting a video camera on a speed bump? Is it some kind of car bomb check?

nbk2000
December 21st, 2002, 02:17 AM
It's to check for people trying to sneak in/out (immigrants/prisoners), car bombs, drugs, etc.

(If you look careful at the picture above, you can see someone hiding just to the left of the left-most axle. Tilt your head to the right 90 degrees to see it more clearly.)

There's plenty of places where you could hide a camera to get the underside shots. Expansions joints, storm drain grates, manhole covers, etc. Though you wouldn't be able to get the shots on cue, you'd have to wait, possibly a long time. I'd rather use the RC scout to get the pictures on MY time.

One would want to wait a few months after doing so, so in case anyone sees the RC scout, they won't associate it with a robbery 2 days later. Also, if the guards see it, the time lapse would result in lack vigilance.

<small>[ December 21, 2002, 01:36 AM: Message edited by: nbk2000 ]</small>

Flake2m
December 21st, 2002, 11:09 AM
Instead of using a water slug. Couldn't one deploy an improvised "road patriot"?
A road patriot would be a bit more subtle because while the guards are driving they'd suddenly lose power to the truck. They'd then probaly think that the truck has broken down instead of a robbery occurring.

If I were going to rob an AC that had 200mil in it I would use atleast 3 vehicles. The first vehicle would be a small truck that carries the Neutron scanner/MAD etc. The second vehicle disables the truck with a road patriot and then opens the doors. The third vehicle then transports the loot.

You would need atleast 6 guys to do this and even if you actually managed to rip 200mil out of the truck, there wouldn't be a single bank in the country that would cash it. Cash is more difficult to hide then bank bonds. Bullion is even harder to hide as far as I know.

The escape would be more difficult then the robbery because you'd have 2 tons of cash/bullion to transport.

Anthony
December 21st, 2002, 12:17 PM
It would be kinda stupid to walk to into a bank with 0.2 Gigabucks and ask to deposit it... But how many places don't accept cash?

Sure, buying a car with a briefcase of bills get a call to the cops, but sticking your new Beamer or Astin on payment plan, and giving them a cheque or direct debit every month wouldn't arouse any suspicion. You could use a bank account especially for the purpose. Distributing the money you put in every week accros several accounts would lower the suspicion.

The notes you stole would probably have their serials on watch, so you'd need to change them. Do casinos watch for stolen bills? If not, stick on a nice suit, go to Vegas change a briefcase of bills into chips in each (appear like some Texan oil tycoon...), lose (or win) some in each Casino then change them back. Doing so on a different day would help ensure you don't get your same notes back :)

I'm sure NBK has some idea for laundering this amount of money? It is an interesting field.

Might be best to smuggle the cash out of the country, where they won't be looking for the serials. But then you're the stranger with massive amounts of foreign cash...

As for the get away, if you're leaving vehicles behind then the getawway(s) should be contrasting vehicles to the ones left behind, which should be identical if possible. That way the cops are looking for a getaway which is the same as the left vehicles (natural assumption). Obviously make sure the guards don't see the getaway vehicle (if they're still alive). Also, the cops would be looking for a vehicle capable of carry 2 ton of cash, so a big pickup, van etc. So maybe best to split the loot (it's in sacks right?) between several largish family (high spec ones - quick, but not obviously so) cars. Having several car also increases the chances of some loot getting away. It also removes it all from under your (the leader's) beedy eye, but since you have the best chance of getting away (planned, and natural ability) you've got enough money and the temperment to track down and suitably punish anyone that tries to pull a fast one on you.

Maybe a car swap somewhere along the line, with each car taking a different. Meet up later, kill your crimies and nab the lot :)

A transport chopper would be an interesting getaway, but not too subtle :)

<small>[ December 21, 2002, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: Anthony ]</small>

nbk2000
December 21st, 2002, 12:36 PM
All the large AC's I've seen used diesel engines. These are (presumably) more resistant to an EM attack. Plus, there's the uncertainty of whether or not the weapon would work to immobilize the vehicle.

Last thing you'd need to have happen would be for your patriot to go zooming underneath the AC, only to discover it didnt' work, and now the guards are calling the pork down on your head, and you've got nothing to show for it.

Completely mechanical severance and destruction of the AC vital powertrain system would be best. LOP: No half measures. RPTB: No such thing as overkill. If you've destroyed the undercarriage of the AC, the results will be as obvious as a gazelle who's had its back broke by a lions bite. :D

Cash, for equivalant weight, can be many times more valuable than bullion. 454 grams worth of $100 bills equals $45,400. Compare to a similar weight of gold worth "only" ~$5,000.

The big advantage precious metals have over currency, is that metals can be melted down into any form, and have no (serial numbers/MEU chips/perfluoroboron tracers/other shit) way of being uniquely identified.

HUGE amounts of cash are bulky in volume, taking up cubic YARDS of space. Imagine collecting several hundred sunday newspapers and bundling them up into big cubes. That's what you'd have to practice moving.

Moving TONS of cash out of the country would likely not be the problem since the drug cartels do it everyday in much larger quantities. The difficulty would lie in getting it into a spendable form that wouldn't come back on you. I'd be very leary of trying to use any banking system to convert the money.

Antiqua, Panama, Isle of Man, Caymans...all of these are known "havens" for money laundering, and thus watched intensly. And it's just a matter of time till they buckle under US pressure to give up their customers, just like the Swiss did.

Best use, in my opinion, would be to finance further criminal enterprise. You'd have, in one step, skipped over a decade of turf wars/police infiltration/surveillance. It'd be like going from a punk stealing car stereos to head of a cocaine cartel.

'Course, that'd also be a problem in itself since you wouldn't have gained a decades worth of experience in dealing with enemy gangs/police/etc. So it's a tradeoff.

But, if you're smart enough to pull it off in the first place, and adhere to the RTPB and LOP, you'd be a fearsome force to be reckoned with anywhere in the world.

Assuming you don't kill anyone in the process of getting the loot (except your crimies, who's auto-cremated bodies are never found :) ), the statute of limitations says that you can't be prosecuted for the crime if you can avoid being arrested for 10 years. So, bury the shit in an abandoned mineshaft and blow it shut. You can dig it up in a decade and spend it at your leisure.

You might also be able to make a deal with some leader of a corrupt third world regime for immunity. He gets 100M$, you get 10 years hassle free. Fair enough trade.

Also, the Scheeyles (SP?) islands has/had a standing offer of immunity from extradition for 10M$. This only applied to non-violent/non-drug financial crimes. Assuming no one was (provable) killed, this might be another out. Though they may have withdrawn the offer due to US pressure.

Buying huge amounts of commodities at a discount from tiny countries in need of money could easily process hundreds of millions. Slowly increasing your "imports" of these commodities over years would seem like a legit increase in business, disguising the source of your wealth.

Anyone remember an old twilight zone episode (The Rip Van Winkle Caper) where these guys robbed a huge gold shipment and, to avoid prosecution, went into suspended animation for a century?

Well, after all the robbers but one have been killed at each others hand, the last guy is dying of thirst in the desert of Death Valley (where they hid out) when a flying car stops to help him. He offers them the only gold brick he has left for some water but dies before they can help him.

In the usual TZ poetic justice, the future people look at the gold brick and say "Can you imagine that? Offered that as if it were...as if it were worth something." and toss the gold bar to the side as being worthless. :p :D

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Just saw your post Anthony. Wouldn't the appropriate term be 200M$, as compared to 0.2G$. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> Only computer geeks would use "Gigabucks" when talking about "Mega-loot". :D

<small>[ December 21, 2002, 12:01 PM: Message edited by: nbk2000 ]</small>

jimwig
December 21st, 2002, 03:15 PM
more to the point

a magnetic proton precession device comes to mind.
this would (i think) detect magnetic anomalies if assembled,positioned and calibrated correctly

it would have to a hearty beast

perhaps a hall effect transducer might be rigged to detect the like but what you seem to want in conjunction would be a pressure sensor to first determine the weight

all this data and approipriate software loaded into a processor to determine just who's what's when's and where's.

and then of course an on-line comm to make one aware of the impending potentiality. and of course video to doucment the i.d. of the vehicle.

listen have fun and send it back coded if you have the time.

jimwig
December 21st, 2002, 03:23 PM
that video xray is something. gottta start watching those small speed bumps.

also a target (silhouette) identification program conjuring data into the program.

there was a program on making armored vehicles on PBS lately. this company has been around a long time and is located in Texas. they also make armoured modifications on personal vehicles. a heavy hummer. ah hmmmmm.

Altroman
December 25th, 2006, 07:06 PM
You can make an impressively sensitive single-axis magnetometer from an old degaussing coil (remember these?) and an OP-07 or OP-27 opamp. Simply hook the coil from ground to the noninverting input and configure the gain for about 1,000 or so. You can run it off of two 9V batteries for days. If you plan to use this near any AC sources, then place a Mylar capacitor across the feedback resistor to roll off the frequency response to a few Hz or so.
It's so sensitive that you can saturate the output simply by rotating the coil in the Earth's sub-Gauss magnetic field - very cool! You can detect vehicles driving by just due to the variable reluctance effect (distortions in the Earth's field created by moving ferrous material) alone.
This is good fun for kids and adults alike, since you can discretely identify houseguests who bring a hatchet/pistol/bayonet/handcuffs as their Secret Santa gifts in the same manner.