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Comment by jgh | Hacker News Reader

I'm no criminal genius or anything but as a monday morning quarterback here i feel like he got too many people involved and screwed himself. Fencing the gold you can't do much about I guess but if you're able to just do it and gtfo. Don't go around giving people money to go on a road trip to LA with you. Don't give your shady-ass girlfriend the money to hold onto. Take it with you and ditch the car on the border and walk across to Mexico. And what's he telling everyone in ecuador he stole $1.6m in gold for anyway? Sounds like the guy's lucky he got caught and never received the money.

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And what's he telling everyone

1) Ego

2) I have no scientific evidence for this but it feels humans want to confess and unless death find them first everyone will confess every crime they have done. It could be through a joke, or to a complete stranger or some other way.

What's the name for this logical fallacy? You think people want to confess because you know people who have. You don't know of many who got away with a crime and didn't confess.

Sounds like survivorship or selection bias to me.

Whats the name for assigning a logical fallacy to a post that starts with “no scientific evidence” and “it feels”?

'Less wrong syndrome'

Hmm, availability heuristic? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

Also maybe related, but in the inverse sense, is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

A friend in law school once told me that in the US a deathbed confession is treated as an exception to normal heresay rules, because (i guess ) we think someone dying has no reason to live. Meanwhile in some other countries (india?) deathbed statements are considered less reliable, because the person knows they won't have to face any consequences for lying.

If you only know about the crimes people confessed to, how would you know that everybody actually confessed to every crime they did?

How likely would it be that you could get that quantity over the border going South? Is luggage checked?

Assuming they could identify him from camera footage, he'd have limited options to keep an existing car or buy a car and stay in the US? It'd be a risk even buying a car in a friend's name.

Best bet might be to forgo a car, rent somewhere remote and informally with cash, and sit tight for a while.

I think it depends on the border crossing. At San Ysidro you can walk across and probably not get checked. I've walked across into mexico there a number of times (visa runs for TN) and never been checked, not even my passport. Granted I didn't have a bag with me. They tend to have a couple of guards who seem to check people occasionally, but I suspect if you were to walk across with a backpack behind a group of old ladies with luggage you'd probably be ok.

I drove over the border, perhaps Brownsville? I forget the name, but one of the last eastern border crossings.

Drove over in a camper van with European plates, didn't even realise had left the US until got to the Mexican side and went and sorted papers for the vehicle. No search, no check, just passports

> How likely would it be that you could get that quantity over the border going South?

I've been to Mexico dozens of times and only once was anything checked at all.

The Mexicans would've stopped him. That's why he didn't take the money with him. In his case he would've need to do a reverse coyote which I am going to guess is basically impossible with $1.2m. A boat to Cuba maybe with a flight but otherwise impossible. His best chance outside of friends or family was bitcoin.

Yikes. Bitcoin: the best for illegal transactions. That's not a positive attribute.

Might be a good thing for bitcoin (heh) if that surprises you. That was pretty much it's public face for a long time thanks to the Silk Road and various mainstream pieces about money laundering.

Actually it doesn't surprise me that much. Parents asked when bitcoin was around 10k on the way up if they should invest. I told them there will probably be value for a while because it is a money laundering Mecca, but definitely risky. For a while (up to 19k+) I thought I might have burned significant tech trust.

money laundering via bitcoin, is overhyped and not as much of an issue as people make out. cash is always going to be king.

It's not though; it's really a misconception. It's much more traceable than cash. Monero would be what a criminal would use.

I would guess that, however one goes about converting a million dollars of physical cash into bitcoin, it has just as many downsides as his other options.

I saw offers of cash through the mail for bitcoin on some dark net markets, back when I was fascinated with the Silk Road case.

I'm pretty sure his Russian gold fence could have set him up with bitcoin instead of cash in the first place, though.

Bitcoin (or more specifically, the purchasing power thereof, which is what matters when you are using it as a store if value) gets arbitrarily confiscated too, except it's called "whales dumping" instead of "government seizure". Though I suppose if he stole the money then the risk of a 50% haircut thanks to bring on the wrong side of anonymous pumpers taking profits is no big deal.

I am sure he could have just mailed it UPS, FEDEX or something.

That’s an interesting idea.

If you arrive to México in a plane you can expect random searches. I get my luggage opened around 1 in 10 times. They also use x-ray for screening luggage on arrival. If you are driving or walking sometimes you just say hello and that's about it. But I also have gotten my car searched, specially if crossing by myself. It is a bit more relaxed on Christmas time, when a lot of people cross the border.

"How likely would it be that you could get that quantity over the border going South? Is luggage checked?"

I can only speak from personal experience, but ...

As someone who has driven into, and through, Mexico many, many times (one trip was Colorado to El Salvador and back) I can tell you that it's all smiles and waves and thumbs up as long as you are driving south.

As long as you're driving south, nobody cares what you're doing or what's up or where you're going or who you are.

The moment you turn around and point north everyone cares.

I assumed as much. I suppose he would've wanted to have done it quickly before his photo was out there. Maybe stash half and risk carrying the other half.

Or, as I said, get to a more remote area, make friends, rent a room cheap, befriend the landlord and try to borrow their car for cash, and then slowly develop a lifestyle where you can make careful use of the money without divulging your identity too much.

I think the point is that your life doesn't reach the point where you steal $1m worth of gold without a few ripples of insanity appearing here or there. It appears it takes a confluence of chaos for such a heist to manifest.

You don't have to tell anyone if your face is on the news.

Here is the simple explanation: He is dump/stupid.

You wonder why the guy would not handle himself better? Well, if he was smart, then he would never think of it. He has access to the US and countless opportunities. He'd have been probably better off financially.

And he has access to NYC, he doesn't need a girlfriend.

Should've bought bitcoin.

If he thought that way then he wouldn’t be a thief in the first place, or he’d be a thief in a suit. At the very least he’d commit crimes with a less risky profile and greater potential rewards.

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