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Sorry to be cynical but trust no one. If the cash was in a place where only a few people knew about it, make a list of those few people and it's time to start asking questions. I too had a partner who "kept his books" separate until I found (upon researching the paper trail) he was losing/hiding/stealing money. I was fortunate and got it back after showing him the evidence. This guy was (past tense!) a friend. I trusted him completely until things just stopped adding up correctly.

I feel for your store owner friend and will pray for him during this difficult time.

malfred wrote:

Howlingmoon wrote:

olympia wrote:Was definitely an inside job. I hope the store is able to recover.

that's my thought. and I still don't know what they were thinking leaving a "box" of money "hidden" in the store.

It's called a safe. If you can't trust a bank. Buy a safe. Put the safe in your -house-. then buy a gun.

The suspicious side of me thinks it's untaxed earnings.

The less suspicious side of me thinks it's so he can wheel and deal in used items.

(EDIT: and to keep things off the books).

There are handful of reasons to keep that kind of cash around, and almost known of them are good. Even if it was to deal in used items, who expects to sell thousands of dollars of gaming stuff for cash without being able to get to a bank?

The lack of a safe is troubling, yet I imagine the thought process of "no thief would know where to look for this," ignoring the fact that nearly all small business theft on that scale is by insiders.

Or it's entirely as simple a reasoning as:

It could be money that was being saved for specific uses, like new tables or store armies.

Which still makes it silly not to have it in the bank, but gets rid of that pesky illegality aspect.

Or maybe he was dealing some narcotics along with plastic! ZOMG!

The downside to this all is the claims investigator is going to look heavily into the fact of Why was that much money laying around unsecured. I just thought about this. I hate to say, but with the specifics of it knowing a few investigators in my gaurd unit they would look into the fact of possible fraud. Namely because that much money was there, and B because of the specifics of what was stolen. The fact that GW boxes are not an easy snatch and grab makes it very suspicous.

This happened to an LGS around here a couple of years ago. They drove a truck through the front of the store and only took the Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, no cash or anything else. Thieves deserve whatever they incur on themselves.

I work in insurance claims and can say that any basic commerical property policy will provide coverage for stolen merchandise.

However, most property policies do not provide coverage for money or securities. Coverage for this is under separate Crime Policies a lot of people don't carry. Even so, the cash would need to be verified through forensic accounting, so if it was "off the books" so to speak, it may not be easy to prove the loss.

OT: Don't usually see work and hobby cross over like this.

I very sorry to hear that and it sucks it is so close to Xmas. IF he has insurance most if not all will be replaced, the money is going to be hard to prove though. I hope everything works out for the guy. That just plain sucks!

Cheers

Thanks, guys.

I need to clear something up. The amount of $$$ that was taken was under $1000. The amount of GeeW stuff that was taken was the 5 digit amount. No, the owner didn't have that amount in cash laying around. That would be dumb. That was my fault not being more clear. My bad.

Anywho, about being overdramatic. How would you feel about someone busting into you property and taking YOUR hard earned money and property? And w/ that being said, no more talk about the "drama" of the situation. It is what it is. You feel it or you don't.

[quote=brotherskeeper74The actions of a group of people (at least 2 if not more) has done something that does not affect just one person, it WILL affect a family!

- How did you come up with the number of at least 2 or more?

I found out that my LGS "Armoury Games" in Pickerington, OH was broken into this weekend and about 1/3 to 1/2 (guesstimate) of the merchandise was taken along w/ a substantial amount of cash.

Only a certian amount of people would know where cash is kept, or someone has a very trusting nature.

(Before anyone says anything, me talking about this was okay'ed by the owner.) Here is the kicker, the merch. was all GeeW stuff.

Ok, so you are going to look for a glut on local GW players getting some excessivly large army in your local gaming area. Yes it is christmas, but look for people who are going to just roll into your local gaming scene with ungodly amounts of product, probibly either unbuilt and scattering all over the table, or a cobbled together army that they don't exactly know what they have. Masses of product in someone who most likely couldn't afford it, or if later you start discussing the robbery, you will more then likely get a strange reaction.

There was the cash taken and a couple of boxes of Magic cards were taken along w/ the surveillance tape.

Which tells the master detective that someone who knew your owners store, where he kept the cash, knew where the security equipment and cameras were, and someone who more then likely still thinks people actually play magic, or walks in MTG playing circles. If this is the case, you will have to look over your local MAGIC: The Gathering gamers for the same reason as the aforementioned GW gamers. Someone completely newb showing up with an undgodly amount of cards that they don't know how to play. Masses of new cards, unknowing of what they have, and attempting to play it, ungodly amounts of rare cards showing up in specific games, and the local players discussing this strange little issue.


All of the GeeW stuff that ranged from 40K Eldar all the way down to the new Scaven stuff. The new army totes were taken along w/ the new Fortress of Redemption. All of the armybook and codex except for 3 of the catalogs.
Which along with the other facts in this story give one the impression that someone will be dropping it on E BAy, so that might as well be a good place to look. If you see some odd looking pricetags on the boxes, familier looking backgrounds, familier looking E mail handles and E Bay names, you shouldn't have too hard to look. If not, then they are possibly dumber then you first thoguht and will end up playing with these products at a nearby or rival LGS, or even better, actually have the balls to show back up and try to play it off. If they come back, it isn't going to be long before you and your local gamers from your store there will sniff out the guys BS and quickly DIME them out.

The cash was hidden in a special spot, in an unmarked box that only a select few knew about it. Someone asked how much was taken and the actual amount was not given but he did say it was in the 5 digits.

Which even lends more cresidence to either one or two deductions, Watson. Either it was one of those chosen few, or the Owner himself.

First off, this is not some big time company that can recoup the losses. This is a locally owned business. This is a co. that one man put time, $$$, sweat and tears into. And some piece of D'Bag, scumbags thought it would be "fun" to break in and decimate this mans life! Yes, there is insurance that will cover most of it, but still that is not the point. There is the dreaded feeling that the Armoury may be no more! And that BLOWS. Not just cause I go there and hang out. Not because me and my friends hang out there.

Which in my usually evil way at looking at the world thinking would even give more cresidence to the hypothosis that the owner did it himself. What easier way to get out of a buisness, then to trash it, steal the money, get the insurance, and dump it on the reason of being robbed. Not saying it, but this is crossing my mind as well. FACTS, my Man. Deal with facts and leave the soap opera antics alone. You want to play Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective? Then do it full bore and look at what you have, what you know of the store, look at your pool of suspects and run the facts over each and every one, and try not to let your heart get in the way of working with the facts. And NO I am not saying the owner did it, Scooby, I'm saying its one of the possibilities.

... Blah Blah Blah... yada yadda yadda....

Empathy is a good thing, but FACTS are better. Seriously, this isn't going to be the great train robbery or the Brinks job here.

Sorry if this is kinda scattered. It sucks. It sucks because I know Bruce personally. We talked about other stuff than games stuff. We talked about owning a business, about things we have in common, about being family men. It sucks for me because I know the face behind the counter on a personal level.

Which is even a better motivation to help him out and try to think about your suspects, motives, and reasoning behind why one of your local gamers pulled this stuff.

I left out the rest because there was entirly too much heart and rant in the chowder. Get your facts, think of reasons, and figure out who did it.


I have no doubt though that there seems to be a few more things in this story missing. That's on you to get together with your pal and get straight.

From what I see, you have a select few suspects, look them over, watch your local market and E bay, and start asking the hard questions and you'll have some breakthrough pretty soon.

Good luck, Holmes.

Yeah, sounds like an inside job to me.

Hidden money: Either it wasn't hidden very well, or the person knew where it was kept.
Security tapes: Either the recorder was in plain sight and unsecured (which is VERY dumb) or the person knew where it was kept or how to access it.

Pull up the tapes for the last month... Cause im willing to bet one of my hard earned paychecks that the toolbag was in the store multiple times over the last month checking you out. (If it wasnt an inside job) Then again, based on the large amount of unsecured cash in the store, im willing to bet the owner wasn't smart enough to save his tapes for longer then a 24/48 hour period before recording over them or keeping them in a secure area.

Pfft...

It's probably an unscrupulous gamer, after spending the amount of time I did in my FLGS talking with employees, I knew how to knock it over.

I would look toward TFG, it's mostly likely him. Confront him and if he doesn't admit it, take him out back and beat him with a hose.

avantgarde wrote:Pfft...

It's probably an unscrupulous gamer, after spending the amount of time I did in my FLGS talking with employees, I knew how to knock it over.

I would look toward TFG, it's mostly likely him. Confront him and if he doesn't admit it, take him out back and beat him with a hose.

Speaking of TFG...

I'm sorry I just realised something - did the OP self-censor the word 'dirtbags'.

WTF?

I believe the word would be "French for shower" bags.

Here's the thing about hiding things: it is never hidden well. People, by and large, function in a similar manner with respect to spatial decisions. That is, most people will hide most things in the same, or similar places. That's fine in certain situations, namely when you don't want an innocent to stumble upon something (like a porn stash). But when someone is actively looking for the thing in question, they will most likely run down a list of potential locations that is similar to the one considered by the person who did the hiding.

Now, if its clear that the criminals took the cash without disrupting anything else, then prior knowledge is likely. But if the store was torn to shreds, even if only the area surrounding the money was torn to shreds, it becomes harder to implicate people who knew where the cash was.

Sadly thats life. I've had stuff stolen from me before. A lot when I was in school. About two years ago someone stole about $3,700.00 worth of stuff from my apartment. I HATE thieves. I do not know how people who steal live with themselves. Probably find some lame excuse to justify actions to themself, but things like this happen. I hope he had insurance.

Well that sucks. Hope he gets a fair amount of his cash back and uses some of it to install better security.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:If they knew about the security tape and the location of the cash and just what was valuable and what wasn't then it does reek of an inside job.
Don't get mad, get even. Put on your thinking cap and start sleuthing...
Then when you find leads, turn them over to the Fuzz.

Exactly what I was thinking. Very calculated attack. It's someone who knew where everything was. Also how to get to it. Usually you have the security tape locked up somewhere, in an office, etc. Did they break into that area as well?

And as a store owner myself, I have to ask: WTF was ther 5 figures of cash doing in the store? It couldn't have been from a couple of days reciepts, especially when the majority of sales these days is by credit or debit card. You're talking about a months worth of cash. At the very least that should be in a safe that is bolted to the floor.

Very much an inside job, and one of the 'very few' that knew the store well, and where the money and tape were.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

brotherskeeper74 wrote:Thanks, guys.

I need to clear something up. The amount of $$$ that was taken was under $1000. The amount of GeeW stuff that was taken was the 5 digit amount. No, the owner didn't have that amount in cash laying around. That would be dumb. That was my fault not being more clear. My bad.

Anywho, about being overdramatic. How would you feel about someone busting into you property and taking YOUR hard earned money and property? And w/ that being said, no more talk about the "drama" of the situation. It is what it is. You feel it or you don't.

Ah, now that makes a hell of a lot more sense. Should have read the whole thread.

As to how easy it would be to take a ton of GW stuff off of the racks and move it out of the store, I've done that quite a bit, probably a half dozen times at this point. A store goes out of business, we come in and buy all there stuff. Tons of miniatures on the racks. We don't bother with boxes, you use the larges garbage bags you can get. Just toss it all into them, tie the tops.

However, 5 figures of GW would take me about a half hour to bag up that way, assuming I had another guy hauling it out. It can be heavy, and bulky.

He already clarified there was 5 figures worth of stuff taken.

I'm guessing that he is coming up with it needing to be two or more people because of the amount of stuff pulled from the store. It would be difficult for a single person to caryy five figures of GW boxes quickly and do all the other stuff in time to be in and out, assuming there is an alarm system, which if it was an inside job they would know about.

I used to run a video game store and it gotten broken in to once as well. There were bars on the door and windows but they smashed the glass and slipped between a 10-12" gap between the bars on the door. They couldn't open the register and we didn't keep any more than the minimum amount for the register there overnight anyway. They did grab the Sega Dreamcast demo unit off its perch and a copy of NFL2k. Repairing the door was going to cost more then what was taken. I still am amazed someone fith through that tiny slit though.

Went in Thursday it was dismal to see the store in that shape. We are keeping a eye out, if you know the location Drew will be working Saturday you need to talk to him he is doing something special.

mikhaila wrote:

However, 5 figures of GW would take me about a half hour to bag up that way, assuming I had another guy hauling it out. It can be heavy, and bulky.

10 minutes by myself in and out.....Im willing to test it if you want MIK As a joke when some friends of mine worked at GW I would walk in and grab several army boxes and bolt out the door with them in tow. We staged it to screw with some of the regulars when I moved to the area. Was agood laugh for us at least.

Empchild wrote:

mikhaila wrote:

However, 5 figures of GW would take me about a half hour to bag up that way, assuming I had another guy hauling it out. It can be heavy, and bulky.

10 minutes by myself in and out.....Im willing to test it if you want MIK As a joke when some friends of mine worked at GW I would walk in and grab several army boxes and bolt out the door with them in tow. We staged it to screw with some of the regulars when I moved to the area. Was agood laugh for us at least.

Boxes I always found easy. Blisters more of a pain, but you can sort of push each row off and catch them in the bag. The biggest time waster is unrolling a new garbage bag off the roll. I now use contractors trash bags, less bag breakage, less time getting a new bag. For moving a store, I don't event take the blisters off the racks. You just lift the whole rack off the wall, and walk it out to the vehicle and lay it down flat.

I know it's wrong that were talking about this but just funny. Plus when you go in on a job have the garbage bags hanging from your belt that way you are ready to roll, and no unrolling.

You also have to consider they were moving all this stuff under a time limit and high stress. Moving a lot of boxes is easy, but moving them when you know any second a stray cop might be close and have to haul ass is a different story.

Any updates on this crime?

Yes. At the moment, the owner says there is a suspect that has tendered a full confession. MOST items have been recovered.

PM to Jin incoming.

Thanks, porkuslime.

As of today, the criminals have been caught. Until official statements have been given in the police station itself and charges have been officially filed, I will not flame anyone on open forums. To those of you who know me or Bruce, you can contact either one of us privately....I have been given permission to release identities, I would just rather wait for things to process before doing it publicly. However, once that happens, you all will be told so that you will be aware and can keep these people out of your own stores if you know them. For now, I'll just say that I know some of them do post on these forums.

Who is the owner of the store?

(By that, I mean who are they here on Dakka.)