Forum: Story Ideas

it's a planned heist, and its following the criminals who are used to violence but not "professionals" as you put it.

The next questions is: Do you want the heist to succeed or not? Do you want it to be a spectacular failure?

I do want it to succeed, I've just never contemplated how to write a armored truck heist scene before.

considering the fact most armoured vehicles don't carry enough money at any one time to make the cost of bust them worthwhile, it's hardly worth it. The few rare cases where the armoured trucks are carrying a million or more they usually have a lead and trail vehicle that are also armoured and loaded with armed guards wanting to shoot someone.

I'd reconsider what you want to get out of the scene - do want them to end up with a load of cash to squabble over or what?

I'm speaking from both discussions with armed security guards working for Armaguard in my state and with what I've seen happening with shipments when I still lived in the city. If they have 20 deliveries of $100,000 they split them up and make multiple runs for a number of reasons, one of which is insurance coverage. The insurance to cover $2,000,000 run is more than 4 times the insurance of covering a $500,000 run because the lower the amount on board the less likely is to be a target. It also allows them to run without the lead and chase vehicles and crews.

A major shipment from the National Mint to Sydney was like a major military operation with all of the extra security crews etc, while the local runs around the city had no extra guards. In fact, the only reason some of the banks used armoured truck delivery was due to the insurance not covering anything over $9,999.00 dollars if it was done any other way. Get a delivery of $10,000 or more and it came by armoured truck, but rarely did a local bank get more then $25,000 in a drop.

On the other side of the coin, when I first started work full-time it was at a local bank and the banks often sent up to $5,000 grand between them at the local level to help out with short term cash issues as it was quicker and easier than getting a delivery from Head Office. Several times I stuck paperwork in my pants pocket, and bundles of notes in my inside jacket pockets and took a walk up the street with one or two thousand dollars being transferred because they needed extra notes at short notice.

I've seen the convoys for major shipments from the mint, and when I spoke with those involved with setting up the security they said it was copied from what was done in the USA for big shipments. I've also looked at the inside of empty armoured trucks while being told about how they operate with the interior segments. As to the way they do the local deliveries, that I had to rely solely on what I was being told.

I also suggest you go back an read what I wrote before. I didn't say they split $100K between several trucks, but that they split $2 mill being multiple trucks so each truck would have less then $500K as that was lower insurance rates and required less security. With the insurance companies insisting on security service to deliver $10k and above and few local banks take deliveries larger than $20K at a time.

I suspect you are trying to read more into what I said than what I wrote.

Yes, my first job was with a bank, but not all of the many jobs I've had over the decades. At the time I inspected the trucks I was working for the Commonwealth government as a civilian employee in the Department of Defence and the visit was arranged by others higher up the chain of command.

I never said the trucks make runs of a single client each run, just that they didn't make huge cash runs. Keeping the total cash load on hand under a half million could easily mean a run to service dozens of clients. It may be we use a lot less cash than you do per capita. We certainly have smaller cities and less people. The only major cash hauls I ever saw or heard about with loads in the millions was the major trips organised by the mint, and they had high security. When I worked in the bank I was in a branch office and our total cash on hand was never huge, I suspect what they carry on hand now is a lot lower than back then as there's a lot less need for cash in our society today. Heck, by law the huge cash handling for wages is no more as all permanent and regular staff have to be paid by electronic bank transfer, which means over 90% of all purchases are now done by electronic means. I suspect there's few runs to or from banks today than back then. Also, the value of money had reduced a lot since I was last involved with banking or security.

A large enough explosion underneath it will flip any vehicle, no matter how heavy.

True, but to be large enough to do that it'll probably be large enough to damage the frame such you need heavy machinery to cut your way in, and if it's powerful enough to split the vehicle open the cash will be spread over an acre or two as well.

You've never seen man portable welding/plasma cutting machines have you?

No, but I've seen reports of truck mounted gear that were built for on-site work in special situations like building collapses etc. Thus they wouldn't be available to the crooks and the heist a waste of time.

Yea, i understand what you're saying, I'm trying to remember all the movies i've seen involving armored car heists and i want to make sure i don't go half arsed with it.

There are about 10 times as many armoured car heists in movies than in real life. Most manage by having heavy vehicles like garbage trucks etc block the target vehicle in then focus on getting access and unloading the take on site. That doesn't work in real life because they've been built as multi-room vehicles for decades, and not the single space ones they use in the movies. Today, to get at the cash you have to bust through 2 armoured walls.

low centre of gravity. Thus they're extremely hard to knock over

I read "knock over" as to rob, not flip the vehicle on its side.

I read "knock over" as to rob, not flip the vehicle on its side.

Me too, 'as in a robbery movie'.

AJ

I read "knock over" as to rob, not flip the vehicle on its side.

if I meant to rob I'd a said knock off, not knock over - knock over is toput on their side or roof.

If the OP had specified knocking over a bank, you'd have been struggling ;-)

AJ

If the OP had specified knocking over a bank, you'd have been struggling ;-)

and thus we hit the wall of different regional slang terms.

If the OP had specified knocking over a bank, you'd have been struggling ;-)

In the movie "Michael," the archangel Michael knocked over a bank. Literally. :)

It's interesting how many phrases starting with 'knock' mean 'rob'.

Knocking off a bank could mean stealing money or someone getting wet ;-)

AJ

It's interesting how many phrases starting with 'knock'

And what about "knock up"?

I guess after you knock over an armored car you then have to knock it back up.

Some Copy/Paste Wikipedia information on funding The Order for those that think all armored cars carry smaller amounts.

They were also hitting large shipments of cash not going to local deliveries, but interstate shipments going largely from California to Oregon.

In the early 1980's, when almost all transactions were cash or check, and very little "money" was exchanged electronically. So a lot of payrolls were still converted into cash, so large shipments of cash were a fairly common thing to happen.

This simply does not happen today as it did 40 years ago. When I was a manager of a "dollar store" a few years ago, almost 2/3 of our daily transactions were done by card and not cash.

I studied that organization quite extensively in the 1980's, and they not only got a lot of money, they also changed how many large cash transfers happened.

And their "biggest haul" was in one of those robberies. Notice, after the one "big haul", the other two only got a combined total of only $300k.

Also, the routine for large transfers has changed drastically since that era. Back then they used conventional "armored cars" to make the shipments, and used back roads with the idea they would less likely to be hit on those.

Today, on the occasions they do make such large cash movements by road they take major freeways. And instead of traveling in a conventional "armored car", they use disguised armored cargo vans. Instead of standing out, they blend in like any other vans on a busy freeway.

That was really only possible into the 1980's. Not in the current era.

William Pierce may not be a familiar name to most people, but one of his most famous books is much well known. "The Turner Diaries", which was the "blueprint" that Timothy McVeigh used in the OKC bombing in 1995.

For well over a decade, I closely followed this group, and all of the spin-offs that arose from it. And a great many of them are connected in one way or another. Point in fact, the widow of Robert Matthews, the founder of The Order later took up with a boyfriend Buford Furrow. Who in 1999 drove from Washington to California and shot up a Jewish day care center there, killing a postman and injuring 5 others (mostly children).

I have a specific hatred for scum like that, and have been following the links between them for decades.

The focus on money is a bit short sighted. Far more than money gets moved around via armored car. New York diamond district for instance probably has more armored car traffic than the surrounding banks combined. Precious art, critical documents and data, to mention a couple more.

True, but the great majority of regular runs are cash to banks and the like as most of the objects de art are special runs organised at relatively short notice, and most of the diamond runs are usually organised at short notice as well.

I don't know much about "regular runs" as you call them.

There's no longer the big demand for cash deliveries the way there used to be due to electronic banking now. When we still had regular cash wages for most staff there were regular armoured truck deliveries of cash to banks and wages services to have the money for pay packets to be paid in cash each week or fortnight etc. Also, most local banks had regular monthly deliveries of cash and coin or pick ups of cash and coin depending on if their bank was a regular supplier or regular receiver of hard currency during the month. Banks in industrial area paid out more money than they got in while banks in shopping centres received more money than they paid out. Thus the banks had regular collections and deliveries, and the armoured truck services had regular schedules for such runs. They would usually book a few banks in the same area for the same day.

From what you say about the Lloyds consult, that sounds like a special run to be set up, setting up security for special runs.

The last time I saw a significant armoured truck shipment with extra security that was not a mint shipment it was for the delivery of a bunch of major artworks to the NSW Art Gallery for a special exhibition, and they incurred a huge cost in extra security for it as the newspaper at the time estimated the exhibition as being near $500 million for the works on loan, let alone what they normally had on hand.

There's no longer the big demand for cash deliveries the way there used to be due to electronic banking now. When we still had regular cash wages for most staff there were regular armoured truck deliveries of cash to banks and wages services to have the money for pay packets to be paid in cash each week or fortnight etc.

Actually, most runs are still to and from retail stores.

Almost all chain stores use drop safes, and those are picked up by armored car. Also they often do other deliveries to those locations, like coins. I was a manager at a "Dollar Store" a couple of years ago, and we had 3 armored car visits a week.

They probably left the depot with several thousand in coins and bills, and returned to the depot (never stopping at a bank) with a hell of a lot of money (in addition to checks which some still use).

Electronic banking has nor really reduced it as much as some think. Primarily, that has replaced checks and credit cards more than cash itself.

And there are other businesses that still deal in a lot of cash, like amusement parks. A huge percentage of money spent there is still in cash. Cards at the ticket booth, but most other purchases are still cash at those.

Electronic banking has nor really reduced it as much as some think. Primarily, that has replaced checks and credit cards more than cash itself.

Maybe Australia is leading the world with electronic banking. By law all wages for permanent staff and regular part-time staff have to be paid via electronic banking, and that's been the case for a few decades with the government and big businesses paying that way for a have been made by credit card or debit card with a large number of regular bills being made via e-banking over the Internet. Heck, there are some business that no longer handle cash at all, and there are many people who don't carry any cash on them at all.

The downside of the change in cash operations has been many banks in smaller towns have closed down. In the rural town I now live in there is no bank at all, yet 50 years ago there were 2 banks in town. In the much larger town I lived in before this one there still are 2 banks, but back in 1960 the town had six banks in it. That is true across the country. While a few of the banks closed due to mergers that only affected about 10% of the total bank closures of the last 50 years, and most of the merger closures were in the cities.

For years the biggest handlers of cash has not been the big shopping malls, but the pubs and registered clubs, and their cash handling has been dropping off each year due to fewer clients paying in cash. (note: registered clubs are like the RSL club etc and not night clubs). Hell most roadside fruit stalls now have electronic payment systems on hand due to people not buying because they didn't have the cash on them.

On a personal basis, I've not been in a bank for 5 months, and then that wasn't to get cash but to resolve an issue with my account. I can't remember the last time I paid cash for something, We're not at a cashless society, but we're well on our way to one.

By law all wages for permanent staff and regular part-time staff have to be paid via electronic banking

Many people in the U.S. don't have checking accounts. That's why cash is still dominant for them (there's a good chance they don't have credit cards either).

Many people in the U.S. don't have checking accounts. That's why cash is still dominant for them (there's a good chance they don't have credit cards either).

Apart from business accounts, few people in Australia have chequeing accounts now, that's why we do so much business with debits cards and other EFTPOS activities as well as Internet banking. There's very little cash business today because everyone gets paid by direct deposit and it's so much more convenient to just use the debit card instead of going to look for a bank and withdraw cash. There are now many businesses that don't handle cash.

Convenient yes, but with but some very severe drawbacks.

all systems have their good points and their bad points. For me to get cash from a bank I have to drive over 100 kms, yet I can do all my normal bill paying and weekly shopping without needing a single coin or note due to using EFTPOS and Internet banking.

It's more and more becoming an international criminal system.

yes, and it's one pushed by the government.

I wish I could blame it on the younger generations, but it's the old folks I see most often pulling out the cards to pay for things. Like everyone, they bought into the notion that it's easier and safer.

Credit cards are easier and safer.

And if you choose a credit card wisely, you earn money on every dollar you spend. My standard VISA gives me 2% back (the year is only half over and I already got back $725), but another VISA I have that usually pays 1.5% back has certain merchants listed for the quarter where you earn 5% back. So this quarter when I shop in a grocery store I get 5% back.

The only problem with credit cards is for those who don't pay the balance each month. The interest they're charged is usury.

Credit cards are easier and safer.

Well, not counting fraud.

I know people that really had problems because they had fraud going on for months, stolen ATM card data where the crook was smart enough to make small purchases for months before "going big". Then having to try and justify to the bank that somebody who had been charging things on their account for 3-6+ months was really not them when they finally notice several thousand dollars in purchases.

This is the main reason I am very selective in where I use cards. And most places I pay cash. I have been hit in this way 3 different times. No chance of my card being skimmed and cloned if I pay cash.

I know people that really had problems because they had fraud going on for months,

You should reconcile your bill each month to validate the charges are yours and that the amounts charged are correct. So the fraud shouldn't be going on for more than a billing cycle. And if the charges aren't yours, the credit card company reverses the charges so it doesn't cost you anything. Built in insurance that you don't pay for. I worked for American Express for 20 years.

If you get robbed, you are out the cash they took. If they steal your credit card, you simply call the credit card company and you're out nothing. If you lose cash, you lost that money. If you lose a credit card, you call the credit card company. The American Express Traveler's Cheque division loves the fact that people lose traveler's cheques. They bought them from Amex but never used them so Amex didn't have to pay a merchant. 100% profit.

Credit cards really are safe (and very convenient).

I once read a joke when ATMs came about that said, they used to rob you, now they steal your debit card and beat you up to get the PIN number.

Apart from business accounts, few people in Australia have chequeing accounts now

Your system must be vastly different then. As in the US, almost all debit card and other electronic accounts are checking accounts.

Between the 1920s and the 1980s we had a twin banking system of savings banks and commercial banks where the savings banks dealt on with cash and passbooks with strict government controls to protect the money so it wouldn't get lost like happened during the Great Depression. The commercial banks were where you had a cheque account and business operated and that where all the big investment loans happened. Then an ALP government (our version of your Democrats) deregulated the banks because the savings bank rules required the banks keep 80% of deposits in the bank in cash and they could only make loans for housing mortgages and personal loans up to about $20k, often for furniture and cars. The deregulation in the mid 1980s released billions of dollars into the economy for business loans and any other purpose. the available credit within the economy increased by 4 or 5 times over night. The banks have stayed that way since. With the high amount of EFTPOS availability there's no need for personal cheque accounts now, just use your debit card and pay for it on EFTPOS and now bills for things like rent and utilities are paid for by Internet banking.

With the high amount of EFTPOS availability there's no need for personal cheque accounts now, just use your debit card and pay for it on EFTPOS and now bills for things like rent and utilities are paid for by Internet banking.

In the US, the 2 main forms of accounts (business and personal) are Checking and Savings.

In most Checking, no interest is paid, but you are unlimited in the amount of withdrawals you can make (at a teller, ATM, or business. In a Savings account, you are paid interest, but limited on the amount of withdrawals you can make or there is a fee.

My long time pattern going back decades has to always have my pay deposited into savings, then transfer money from that to my checking.

In the US, the 2 main forms of accounts (business and personal) are Checking and Savings.

In most Checking, no interest is paid, but you are unlimited in the amount of withdrawals you can make (at a teller, ATM, or business. In a Savings account, you are paid interest, but limited on the amount of withdrawals you can make or there is a fee.

That's how it was until the ALP deregulated the banks and changed it all into the one style of banking.

In the US commercial banks provide both checking and savings accounts and they always have.

One of the oddities of out banking system until the deregulation was the way that every physical bank location had 2 banks operating within it. My first full-time permanent job was with the Bank of New South Wales at a branch office. There was a single physical structure where I worked, but all of the staff worked for the Bank of New South Wales corporate headquarters while those we served were customers of the Bank of New South Wales Savings Bank and the Bank of New South Wales Commercial Bank. One of the jobs I got promoted to was supervise certain aspects of the accounts and my desk had 2 sets of records beside it, one side had the details and information of the savings bank clients and the other side had the same details of the commercial bank clients. Each set of clients had different sets of services available to them, and almost all of the types of service were different.

After the deregulation everything was merged into the one bank and all of the clients got the exact same types of services made available to them.

I wonder where that structure originated from. Was it something that went way back to before banks were heavily regulated, or was it wholly an artifact of government regulations.

The was a huge mess of various banking systems prior to the Great Depression as the banks were virtually unregulated before then. When a large majority of the people lost all of their money due to the banks collapsing the government brought in some rules and set up a bunch of banking regulation. The main force behind the rules was to protect the saving of the people, so they put a lot of regulations in that area to protect people's savings from loses through business failures, which were the main cause of the bank collapses.

What happened pre-collapse was banks took in deposits then loaned the money out with most of it going to businesses, then the depression hit and businesses collapsed, they could pay loans and the banks had no cash to pay depositors as it had mostly been loaned out to businesses that no longer operated.

The regulations set up a twin banking system: savings banks and commercial banks. The aim was to protect people's money, but not so much protect business money.

The savings banks could only accept money from private individuals and charitable organisations and only dealt in cash in and cash out. They had to keep something like 75% or 80% of the deposits on hand within the banking system as cash to hand to customers as required. Most banks kept the majority of that cash in major vaults in their state HQs. They could loan money to private individuals for housing mortgages (you could get a mortgage for the house you lived in, but couldn't rent it out) or small value personal loans for a restricted number of personal use items, with the most common being for a car. A later change allowed them to invest some of the deposited money in government bonds to earn interest on it, then the restrictions on the deposits security was slowly lessened to allow the banks to invest in the money market. The banks also paid interest on the moneys deposited with them.

The commercial banks did not pay interest on the money deposited with them and they handled personal cheque accounts and business accounts and something like 89% of the money on deposit with them could be loaned out for any commercial operation but not to personal housing mortgages. You could get a mortgage for buying and investment house to rent it out, but not to live in it. You could get a mortgage for a commercial premises to conduct a business etc.

If a private individual wanted to be able to write cheques they needed a commercial bank account, so many people had both a savings account and a commercial cheque account.

Early credit cards were issued by companies like Amex or commercial banks.

For actual service delivery the banking corporations set up a savings bank and a commercial bank within their corporate structure. The corporate entity owned the bank buildings and employed the staff working the branches and most of the corporate HQ, only a few senior managers worked for the individual banks. The cost of operating the service delivery was charged against the operations and profits of the two banks based on the amount of service and use of the banks at each branch. - This didn't affect the service delivery or how the customers saw the operations. From a user perspective it was one bank, but the legal side was 2 banks and the money was kept separate between the 2 banks within the corporate umbrella.

The government also maintained tight controls on the interest rates paid on deposits and on the different types of loans. This was most notable between the interest rates charged by the savings banks and those by the commercial banks.

That's how things operated until they were deregulated in the mid 1980s.

Then the government wanted to encourage business expansion in a time of growth, but the great majority of the available cash in the national economy was tied up in the savings bank deposits the banks couldn't loan out. I can't remember the figures thrown about at the time, but it was several times more than the total available in the commercial bank system. The main effect of the changes was a huge boost in available funds for business investment, and the jump in all interest rates charged due to the demands for the fund by speculative business activities.

Then the expansion of EFTPOS and ATM units got mixed in with all of that and a few years later we have the current system. Shortly after that the government introduced mandated electronic banking for the payment of wages and government payments. That pushed the use of EFTPOS a lot harder than anything else.

Edit to add: The physical operational structure was developed from the banks wanting to continue to operate from the physical facilities they already owned. Thus they set up the corporate operations to meet the government regulations while continuing business as usual from the customer perspective.

Savings and Loans (similar to your savings banks) also provided both.

That is also actually fairly modern.

An S&L could not offer checking accounts at all until around 1978. Prior to that they only offered loans and savings accounts.

In fact, some blame part of the S&L crisis of the 1980's on that. Suddenly they were taking on more financial liability, and less money was simply sitting and securing loans and instead was coming in and out.

And if you go back that long, most Credit Unions were very restrictive on who they would allow to join. And I know many did not offer checks, as the first one I joined in 1984 did not until 2 years later. Today, almost anybody can join a Credit Union.

Maybe Australia is leading the world with electronic banking. By law all wages for permanent staff and regular part-time staff have to be paid via electronic banking, and that's been the case for a few decades with the government and big businesses paying that way for a have been made by credit card or debit card with a large number of regular bills being made via e-banking over the Internet. Heck, there are some business that no longer handle cash at all, and there are many people who don't carry any cash on them at all.

It is no different here. But some smaller places actually charge a fee for using a card (normally .35-.50 cents), and if that system is down, you can not make a purchase. And I remember many times in the past 2 decades where the entire system went down for various reasons, regionally and nationally.

Yes, I make most big purchases ($100+) with card, but always have a decent chunk in cash and use that for small purchases. And having worked retail, I have seen this myself with others as well.

And that is what ATM cards are for. Many larger chains even allow cash withdrawals via card with a purchase. More often than I can count I will buy $200 of groceries, and also pull $100 to replace my cash in pocket.

I have worked retail off and on for over 40 years now. And the only thing that cards have really done in all those decades is replace checks. About the only place I can think of that did not take checks or cards at all 40 years ago but do now are fast food places. Those used to always be cash only, until around 1985 when the card networks finally started to be seen in them.

Plus, many also try to avoiding cards all the time because of the dangers of theft. The damned card cloners have been seen in almost anything, from gas pumps to actual bank ATM machines. Swipe your card with one of those added, and a few days later thieves are going to town with your information making it hard to cancel and get your money back. Even more so if you use your card for everything (including a stick of gum) as you may have to go through pages of purchases and sort out your own with those the crooks used.