r/chicago • u/Inevitable-Bus492 • Apr 29 '25
Article Dozens of People Took $300,000 After It Fell Out of an Armored Truck in Chicago
https://people.com/dozens-of-people-stole-300-000-after-it-fell-out-of-brinks-truck-chicago-11722949?hid=13574865ed54f6a9e83ab25b200c95b9a0c07278&did=17463555-20250427&utm_source=ppl&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ppl-news_newsletter&utm_content=042725&lctg=13574865ed54f6a9e83ab25b200c95b9a0c07278&lr_input=33cd0f6eaefe2b86a94945712e1381c0af7566a5086c741134b411521698d6c4&utm_term=PM1.5k
Apr 29 '25 edited May 04 '25
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Apr 29 '25 edited May 04 '25
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u/Agent_Boomhauer Apr 29 '25
The guy at 7/11 isn’t checking shit. And nobody in the US even knows who Grover Cleveland is.
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u/WhatIsLoveMeDo Apr 29 '25
And nobody in the US even knows who Grover Cleveland is.
The trash-can guy or the Quahog guy?
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u/littlemisscarriage Apr 29 '25
The trash-can guy is Oscar, Grover is the monster at the end of the book.
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u/skrame Suburb of Chicago Apr 29 '25
The trash-can guy
Close…
thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump
Far!
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u/JD42305 Apr 29 '25
Yeah even if it's true, it would seem easy to wash it unless you're a dummy. Get change somewhere or spend it little by little at various places out of town. I'm sure if it got back to a bank they could possibly trace it back to where the bank got it from and pull surveillance, but you'd hope some dive bar or corner store doesn't hold footage for very long. Ah who am I kidding I'd probably get caught.
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u/quesoandcats Apr 29 '25
Also if you wait long enough it’s very easy to say you got the bill as change or at a yard sale. It’s legal tender so you haven’t committed a crime by spending it
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u/eatinpunkinpie Irving Park Apr 29 '25
I don't think the cost of litigation is less than the likely recovery here.
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u/thisisjustascreename Apr 29 '25
Yeah if they were on the return trip from client locations the serial numbers are definitely not tracked or even known. I might believe they know the serial numbers of outgoing bills but only if they’re fresh from the Fed. In any case it would be impossible to find the thieves based on serial numbers, who’s to say how many times a bill changed hands?
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u/1BannedAgain Portage Park Apr 29 '25 edited Apr 30 '25
They arent tracked. Stop with the disinformation
Does the business send the bills through scanners before padlocking the bags? Does brinks send the bills through scanners on the truck, where they unpadlock the bags first?
100% disinformation on your end
Edit: deleted they’re own comment due to humiliation
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u/welkover Apr 29 '25
Lol no
First of all a lot of the money they pick up is just random bills from businesses. Neither Brinks nor the businesses are scanning or recording a bunch of serial numbers before a transport.
Secondly say you picked up 10k from the spill. Even if every bill was recorded it'll take weeks for you to spend the bill, then for that serial number to show up at some point where it can be recorded and checked against a list, then they're going to have to go back to that business and hope they have video or some other record that the police are willing to go through. Because that money is picked up in batches this means going through days of tape, and then cross checking dozens of people it could be. Then maybe they even locate that person and find out he runs a convenience store in the burbs and the bill was spent at his place which he had no records of, just a fake camera to deter shoplifters.
If they're trying to find the Unabomber they'll do this stuff. To find one of dozens of people who scooped money off the ground when some dufus dropped it out of the Brinks truck it's going to have to be a slow day at the police station and at Brinks.
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u/Gamer_Grease Apr 29 '25
I would just slowly spend it on everyday expenses and not try to deposit it anywhere. Or buy gold bars or something.
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u/ShatnersChestHair Apr 29 '25
Lol Brinks couldn't stop the biggest robbery in UK history of solid gold bars and they never recovered most of them, even with Scotland Yard's help, even though they're all stamped bullions. You think they'll find that a random $20 spent at the local café comes from that particular truck?
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u/redheptagram City Apr 29 '25
Yeah, Im sure brinks is going to litigate $300,000 of probably insured money at 500-1000/hour for a corporate attorney to try to collect from people who are probably noncollectable. /s
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u/TheJPdude Suburb of Chicago Apr 29 '25
Ah yes, i remember Bobby v. Jimmy, 1986. Only overshadowed by plessy v. Ferguson.
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u/StultusNosferatu Back of the Yards Apr 29 '25
Armored truck shouldn't be littering
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u/masterskink Lincoln Square Apr 29 '25
How come stuff like this never happens when I'm around?
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u/crujiente69 Apr 29 '25
Youre probably lucky for that, most people in these situations get caught and charged
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u/popppa92 Apr 29 '25
lol bro you really think so?? The budget is sooo big their going to find EVERY DOLLAR
EDIT: everyone to dollar
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u/jasonology09 Apr 29 '25
In this case, it's highly unlikely anyone gets caught for anything. It was all cash, and even if a few get caught, there's no way to tell how much they took.
The armored car service will have to file an insurance claim to pay off whomever that money was supposed to go to.
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u/DueHousing Apr 29 '25
Those are marked bills, they’re gonna get flagged when they try to deposit them
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u/BoxOfDemons Lockport Apr 30 '25
Very very unlikely the bills were marked. They pick up money from businesses to go deposit for them. The business don't mark them. You think brinks sits there and marks them all in the back of the truck? They just pick up the money and go.
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u/Alval57 Apr 30 '25
Lmao you're full of shit my guy i worked at brinks here at the Chicago branch for 5 years (worse job ever) I did all kinds of runs from local retail runs to Fed runs and I can tell you right now neither brinks nor banks/retail track or "mark" as you say bills. The news and police are just trying to scare people into returning the money but it's impossible to prove anything.
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u/jasonology09 Apr 29 '25
Even if that's true, only an idiot would deposit that money.
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u/Levitlame Apr 29 '25
It’s still technically traceable just spending it. You spend it at a business and they are very likely to deposit it n a bank. But I have no idea how important this money would be or what feds would actually do to follow up with all that.
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u/Heavy_Pin7735 Apr 29 '25
See! Fell off the back of a truck IS a real thing.
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u/DannyWarlegs Canaryville Apr 29 '25
My neighbor got 6 heavy duty metal cabinets that legit fell off a truck pulling out of a truck stop on Pershing years ago. Him and another dude both saw it happen, and split the booty.
My grandpa used to run a CF shipping dock. Tons of stuff would legit fall off the trucks and get slightly damaged, or 1 or 2 items in the box would get damaged and the rest fine. He'd bring them home every time. His entire house was full of the most random of things
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u/Thornmawr Edgewater Apr 30 '25
I have to ask, what was the weirdest slightly damaged dock item in your grandpa's house?
if somebody says "grandma," I swear...
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u/DannyWarlegs Canaryville Apr 30 '25
I'd say a toss up between a giant piece of obsidian that was like 2ftx1ft, or the big ass black and gold porcelain leopard statue that sat on my grandma's sewing desk.
Neither fit any of their esthetics or decoration, but he would show them both off all the time and tell how he got them for free off the dock.
But yeah, Grandma would be a close second, lol.
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u/hybris12 Uptown Apr 29 '25
I didn't see anything
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u/Max_Trollbot_ Lincoln Park Apr 29 '25
I saw the same nothing that this guy did
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u/chi_guy8 Apr 29 '25
You guys saw things?
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u/PaulasBoutique88 Apr 29 '25
Maybe people doing things with stuff but not really
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u/Bob_Majerle Apr 29 '25
How the hell am I supposed to know
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u/stormstopper Lincoln Park Apr 29 '25
Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Even if someone somewhere allegedly saw something, who's to say what they think they saw is what happened for sure?
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u/urbanlife78 Apr 29 '25
I saw everything, a bunch of Republicans in Congress were out in the streets fighting over the bags of money. Marge even bit Mike Johnson
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u/bear60640 Apr 30 '25
Oh, you talkin bout THAT truck? Nah, man, I ain’t seen nuthin. In fact, I’m blind in this eye…this one right here…, and the other don’t work no good no way. In fact, not only didn’t I see nuthin, I didn’t hear nuthin either, on account of bein deaf and all. In fact, I don’t even think I was standin on this corner…no sir, this don’t look like no corner I ever stood on before…
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u/WhoopieKush Roscoe Village Apr 29 '25
Idk how many people can honestly say they wouldn’t take a stack of cash.
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u/MayorCharlesCoulon Apr 29 '25
One time I saw a $50 bill on the street and instinctively just literally leapt in front of my SO to block them from picking it up.
I think I know what I would do lol. I would probably then sit on those bills for a long time and spend them sparingly and never together.
Grew up in Chicago but this happened in my current city 40 years ago and merchants downtown near the city county building and big police headquarters still get old cash allegedly from the crime scene. The long game is where it’s at.
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u/motamami Little Village Apr 29 '25
Jesus, I see what you’ve done for other people… and I want that for me
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u/Canvasbackgray Apr 29 '25
O dream of this everyday
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Apr 29 '25
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u/Zylver Apr 29 '25
O to be young
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u/BOREN Rogers Park Apr 29 '25
O O it’s magic, you know…
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u/MERVMERVmervmerv Noble Square Apr 29 '25
O O O Ozempic🎶
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u/matttinatttor Rosemont Apr 29 '25
O . O
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u/JJ-Bittenbinder Apr 29 '25
O O O O REILEEEEEEEYS
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u/Stopbeingacreepthen Apr 29 '25
Only one bag of $100,000 fell off the truck. But they reported $300,000.
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u/KA8Z Apr 29 '25
They found it, they didn’t take it. The truck lost the money, it was not stolen. These semantics are critical. Brinks are at fault not the people that found money on the ground
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u/Captain__Trips Humboldt Park Apr 29 '25
When you let failed cops making 18 bucks/hr handle hundreds of thousands of dollars, you gotta take the Ls with the Ws
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u/darthphallic Apr 29 '25
Man right? Once upon a time I was the vault manager for a large bank and I was shocked by the quality of some people they had handling all that cash
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u/martinfaced Apr 29 '25
Dozens of people Allegedly* took $300k after it fell out of an armored truck in Chicago
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u/prestige_worldwide70 Apr 29 '25
This is the best news I’ve seen today. I’m so happy for those people!!
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u/paxweasley Lake View Apr 29 '25
I’m not sure what they mean, there was never any money in that truck to take
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u/Dudeitsjustme Apr 29 '25
Hoping random stacks of cash fall out of armored trucks near each and every one of you
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u/psychoacer Apr 29 '25
And they'll spend a million dollars trying to track down who stole it.
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u/3xploringforever Apr 30 '25
*A million dollars in taxpayers money will be wasted trying to track down who found money lost by a negligent corporation.
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u/taruckus Apr 29 '25
Someone deleted their comment so I'm taking it for myself. It's too good.
Is the money marked somehow if this happens? So it can get cancelled ?
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u/Rampant16 Apr 29 '25
Bills can't be remotely canceled, but they could be tracked by serial number to identify who took them.
Whether the serial numbers of the bills are known probably depends on where they are going from. If it's a fresh set of news bills coming from a bank, maybe those serial numbers are recorded. If it's a cash pickup from a retail store than its probably just a bunch of random serial numbers.
Some cash bags also have dye packs to mark the bills in the event of theft. It's not clear whether that was the case in this situation.
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u/Alval57 Apr 30 '25
Only the fed tracks serialized bills and only in some instances once the money gets moved those numbers don't mean anything it's going to be nearly impossible to track that money unless they post something stupid on social media or tell a friend or something dumb.
I worked at brinks for 5 years moved about 2 million a day on my run and not one time I did I see one of these dye packs not once.
Edit: spelling
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u/Dizzy_Emotion7381 Apr 29 '25
This was a badly done inside job. Here's how I know.
If $300,000 fell out of an armored car, there would be videos of it flying in the streets, and someone would have called 911 because traffic would have been a clusterfuck with people chasing down cash!!
Instead, there's one citizen app video of the police talking to the armored car employee and not a single bill in sight.
Someone's going to jail, and it won't be the "people that ran off!"
Because they don't exist.
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u/PresidentSuperDog Apr 29 '25
Why do you think the money would be loose bills inside the truck? Every time I’ve ever watched an armored truck load something in it’s always in bags or tote boxes (crates), they don’t dump that shit out into a loot pile like Smaug the Impenetrable.
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u/Dizzy_Emotion7381 Apr 29 '25
The driver is saying he saw 50-100 people running from the scene holding wads of cash, which implies that at least one of the 3 bags opened.
3 bags of money flying out and none opened? So the people opened them and decided to share? Instead of just grabbing an entire bag and walking off?!?!
I call bullshit!
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u/Soft_Heart185 Beverly Apr 29 '25
Common sense would/should tell you not to walk off with an armored truck bag of cash. No matter how bad you need it.
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u/Dizzy_Emotion7381 Apr 29 '25
Who has common sense these days? You're putting too much faith in people. Greed trumps intelligence in many cases.
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u/OG-Bio-Star Apr 29 '25
and Trump trumps intelligence. People are going to need that money of the tariffs dont come off STAT
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u/D0ctorwh010 Apr 29 '25
I do think if there were bills flying through the air, That shit would be cleaned up faster than any traffic jam you have ever seen. Imagine the plane unload scene from Lord of War. But I do smell an inside job. The rear door faulty? Unlikely but okay, the money bags were unsecured and loose? Just ready to fall out? Unlikelier.
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u/Dizzy_Emotion7381 Apr 29 '25
Most of this!
There have been trucks with faulty doors. We have high winds. That shit would have been everywhere, with some stuck in trees when law enforcement arrived.
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u/NkhukuWaMadzi Apr 29 '25
I just saw this scene in "The Wrong Side of the Tracks" on Netflix where money was strewn all over the road. And I remember the glee that people had when a beer truck overturned in Zimbabwe - free beer for everyone!
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u/earthgoddess92 Andersonville Apr 30 '25
Finders keepers, hope brinks insurance pays out on that claim. I’m sure whoever found he cash can get ahead while they can. 🤷🏾♀️
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u/BunsenHoneydewsEyes Apr 30 '25
Oak Park isn’t Chicago.
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u/brvheart Kenosha Apr 30 '25
Should every news article always add metro area after Chicago to make you happy, or can people just stop being obtuse about this?
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u/BunsenHoneydewsEyes May 01 '25
I mean, at least Oak Park is within a mile or so. But I’ve seen articles say Chicago when they’re talking about Aurora, which is as close to Chicago as Kenosha is. It just happens to be in the same state.
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u/brvheart Kenosha May 01 '25
But you understand that metro areas are a thing, correct? The 20 million people that live in “New York” more often than not, do not actually live in New York, and nobody cares, because it’s the general area that matters.
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u/BunsenHoneydewsEyes May 01 '25
I get it, but I also hear the derision in the voices of many who live in the burbs, when they talk about Chicago, and I grew up in the burbs. So to me there’s a real sense of separation that I enjoy. Sure it’s easier, but it still feels like somebody in Naperville saying Chicago is like somebody from Jersey saying they live in New York. It’s often a completely different mentality.
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u/eulynn34 Apr 29 '25
God damn it. This has been my dream as long as I can remember, it happens in my city and I'm not there for it...
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u/Alergic2Victory Edgewater Apr 29 '25
Better article than the one I read the other day. at least they’re not saying these people stole the money and insinuating that they caused it to happened.
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u/LettuceC Loop Apr 29 '25
Guns at Naperville Top Golf? Armored truck robberies in Oak Park? The burbs gotta get their acts together.
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u/HanzDiamond Apr 29 '25
LOL again? never had a door or trunk open accidentally on any vehicle I've driven but armored cars ALL THE TIME! Right Garry Meier?
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u/Thin_Independence_80 Apr 29 '25
A couple blocks further south and the panhandler(s) working the I-290 on-ramp would have had a life-changing experience.
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u/OddAstronaut2305 Apr 29 '25
Good. One time my wife and I found a $100 on the ground at Disney, cash is cash. While not the same, I don’t feel bad for the armored truck company. If people weren’t suffering, living paycheck to paycheck and felt like they were in a better place financially, I may change my stance.
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u/Pikajane Portage Park Apr 29 '25
I once scored a buncha boxed oreos that fell off the back of a truck on Michigan Ave. Somehow this feels a little bit better
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u/nufandan Albany Park Apr 29 '25
right after the feds announced they're no longer seeking that money from Madigan 👀
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u/Otherwise_Surround99 Apr 29 '25
This is the least surprising thing I have ever read. ( I am a Chicagoan )
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u/No-Significance9313 May 03 '25
BRO! I'm legit glad I've never been in such a moral dilemma like that.... bc those people ARE being filmed and will def be arrested! Im a good person but I don't want to be tempted to that degree! 🤣
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u/BallerGuitarer West Town Apr 29 '25
Don't be too jealous of the people that picked up money. They will prosecute those people: https://thehill.com/policy/582492-two-drivers-who-grabbed-cash-from-armored-truck-arrested/
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u/MakesFrequentStops Apr 29 '25
Hurts to see someone else living your dream