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-Lurid Crime Tales-

Man Robbed of $150,000 in Front of New York City Starbucks

2008-02-24

A gunman accosted a man carrying a duffel bag containing nearly $150,000 in broad daylight Friday next to a New York City Starbucks coffee shop, leaving his victim empty-handed and bloodied, WNBC.com reported.
Gee, that would have bought grand lattes for at least a third of the people in the place.
Seton Ijams, 50, had just withdrawn the money from a Chase Bank when the assailant approached him from behind, pistol-whipped him in the head and dragged him on the sidewalk as he clung to the bag, police said.

Police said the robber is between 25 and 30, was dressed in a black parka and black pants and is about 5 feet 9 inches tall, WNBC.com reported. Limousine driver Zafer Incekara, who witnessed the fight, said the gunman fired one shot at the victim before fleeing, but the bullet hit no one.
Is there any place left in NYC that is NOT next to a Starbuck's? Not as bad as Vancouver though. I read the other day that an explosion there had destroyed a Starbucks. I figured it must not have been a very big boom if it only wrecked one Starbucks.

Posted by:Atomic Conspiracy

#9 And? And?

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-02-24 16:34

#8 Recently my Mom cashed in a 100 grand CD and wanted Cash, the bank didn't have it.

Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-02-24 15:37

#7 Starbuck's raise their prices?

Posted by: Cheadderhead 2008-02-24 09:20

#6 NYC's tough gun control laws certainly demonstrated their effectiveness once again. You Go Mayor, keep the options open for income redistribution!

Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-02-24 08:40

#5 The crowd sat on their asses, sipping away, thinking mebbe this could be a reality TV episode being filmed. If it wasn't, they sure as hell weren't going to intervene. Besides, it was amusing to see this guy get walloped. Now where's the cops when you need them ? One might expect at least one to be hanging around Starbucks.

Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2907 2008-02-24 07:58

#4 Yes. Yes. Not enough. No

Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2008-02-24 04:13

#3 Shotguns? Body armor? How much do armored car guards make? Is anyone really going to take a bullet in the spine just to protect a banker's money?

Posted by: gromky 2008-02-24 04:08

#2 I worked for an armored car company when I was in grad school back in the 80s. Most of our traffic was commercial stuff for banks and businesses but we would transport valuables for private citizens on an as-needed basis. The charge was as little as $100 at the time (depending on mileage), probably about twice that now.
One eccentric type had us come to his relatively modest home for the pickup. We were required to inspect the shipment before taking custody, for any number of obvious reasons. He had a 1000-ounce gold bar and a bag of 500 one ounce gold coins stashed in a crawlspace and had decided that it might be safer to keep it at a bank. At the time, this was $600K worth, well over a million now. We duly delivered the stuff to the bank, got a receipt from the vault manager, and were on our way in less than an hour.

Btw, a commenter on another board observed sagely that "banks don't usually have that kind of cash on hand, special arrangments have to be made for very large cash withdrawals."

I assure you that this is quite wrong, but I probably shouldn't say just how wrong.

An example: We arrived at a rural bank in Texas at the height of melon-picking season, a labor- intensive and time-critical process that required huge numbers of migrant workers. The bank had run out of cash and there was a farmer waiting to cash a check for $100,000 so he could pay the workers. We left their shipment of $420,000 and started toward our next stop, a branch of the same bank in a different town. Before we got there, barely an hour later, the original bank called and said they were out of cash again and asked us to make a pickup for them at the branch. We picked up a million-two for them and took it back, adding $200 to their bill for the extra trip.

It was amazing how accustomed I got to having a huge amount of currency around, like so many sacks of potatoes or apples but harder to damage. People aren't as likely to steal veggies though, hence our body armor, handguns, shotguns, etc.

Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2008-02-24 03:35

#1 For what reason might someone legitimately want to have $150k on their person? I can't think of one. Is someone out there more creative than I am about this?

And even if you do manage to come up with some legitimate reason, why not just rent an armored car or a couple of armed security guards to do the job for you?

Posted by: gorb 2008-02-24 03:13

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