10 mo. ago • 99%

TIL about Salim Kara, who stole over $2m of coins by using a car antenna and a magnet

www.nofreelunch.co.uk How Salim Kara Stole $2m Of Coins With A Magnet & Car Antenna

Read the crazy story of how over 13 yrs a ticket-machine maintenance man stole $2mill in coins from Edmonton LRT with a magnet & car antenna

Hacker News @derp.foo Salim Kara stole $2M in coins with a magnet and a car antenna

54 comments

Surprising that any nation’s currency would be magnetic. Coins are usually made of brass, zinc, copper, silver, etc.

67
- Steel is cheap. Copper, zinc, nickel, brass and especially silver are rather expensive.
  
  Many world coins up to about 10-50c are steel plated copper or similar.
  
  Most of the world considers it unacceptable to have a coin that costs more to manufacture than it is worth, let alone have just the raw materials cost that much. Smaller coins have often been simply removed.
  
  In the US, on the other hand, apparently the zinc industry is able to force the continued expensive existence of the penny.
  
  48
  
  The issue with the penny is that they have a powerful lobby. Not many people care enough about them to write their representatives about the issue. Let alone even email them.
  
  Not sure what's keeping the $1 bill around though.
  
  8
- I've noticed that euro coins rust in pools and ponds. Not green copper oxidize, but red iron rust
  
  12
  
  It looks like only the 1, 2, and 5c Euro coins contain steel.
  
  11
- UK lower value coins (1p, 2p, 5p, 10p) are steel (depending on when they were made) coated in something else.
  
  The higher value coins are not. I assume it's a cost thing.
  
  5
- Which coins are made of silver? That would be mad.
  
  2
  
  US quarters were prior to 1965
  
  13
  
  The first year Australia made 50 cent coins they were made of some? Silver. The next year they changed the metal used and shape. Roughly speaking a 1966 50c coin is worth $15 in silver.
  
  3
- Coins haven't been made of those for a long time. It's steel.
  
  -4
  
  I don't think the US uses steel
  
  4
Kara was effectively stealing 20% of LRT fares over the 13-year period; one in five coins that were fed into the machines by the paying public ended up in his shaving bag, amounting to around 2 million customer journeys. It seems inconceivable that he wasn’t caught sooner.

This really does seem inconceivable. I'm an industry accountant and worked in the safe room counting drawers for a supermarket and a cafeteria. I lose it when I'm not balanced, even $10 on a 200k deposit. How... How was someone not noticing 20%?? Hell he deserves it with the lack of controls in place. Maybe things were different then...

51
- It's the government, it's not their money. Finding the discrepancy is extra work which is kryptonite to government employees.
  
  16
  
  Its extra work for any employee, the government just doesnt pretend like it's going to reward you like corporate america pretends it will do.
  
  In both cases you just get more work to do, but the latter has better marketing.
  
  30
  
  This guy bureaucracies
  
  14
- This is the City of Edmonton. Having worked there the least surprising part of this story is that even when they noticed, instead of investigating further, they wrote it off as an error.
  
  6
- It's written that they did notice it but were unable to pinpoint the problem and thought it is a software bug. Reminds of a recent story where an actual software bug got post workers in the UK jail time and huge fines because they were accused of stealing that money
  
  5
  
  The Horizon thing? Yeah, that's a massive scandal, absolutely appalling.
  
  For anyone interested, here's just one of the many, many stories about this: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/18/ex-post-office-staff-tell-inquiry-of-stress-of-it-scandal
  
  6
- I work in a firm that does accounting and so far we've been accurate to the cent, every single time.
  
  3
- I think it's sort of implied by the article that there was not sophistication in the 80s to audit the money. And then the couple times the money was audited, it was chalked up to a software glitch. If this happened today, yes, it would be counted and corroborated basically daily, but in the 80s?
  
  1
Imagine if he had just bought a few lame apartments and then washed his money as rent. He might never have been caught.

31
- According to the article, he did. What got attention was when he bought a million dollar house for himself.
  
  His biggest problem was not stopping. He had already banked $2million but kept going. That's like making away with a $2m bank heist and showing back up at the same bank the next day to do it again.
  
  If he had stopped but kept working for several years, he would have never been caught because audits would have lined up while he was still there.
  
  11
‘There are about 600,000 people living in the city. You have stolen from every citizen, man, woman and child approximately $4 each.’ Associate Chief Justice, A.H. Wachowich commented ahead of passing down the sentence.

Oh no, not four dollars each

29
- That's does the math approximately billions of dollars less than corporations take from us every day.
  
  26
Kara was effectively stealing 20% of LRT fares over the 13-year period; one in five coins that were fed into the machines by the paying public ended up in his shaving bag, amounting to around 2 million customer journeys. It seems inconceivable that he wasn’t caught sooner.

That 20% seems off. Wouldn't that mean the expected income from that thirteen years would only be 10-15 million?

Maybe 20% of fares from machines? Or machines in one station? Or maybe most people didn't use machines?

23
- Most regular transit users have passes
  
  13
17.66$ per hour in 1983 is equal to 50$ per hour today which is just a fine salary?

20
- Good question.
  
  3
a capitalist hero

18
let's get this guy working on the climate problem down at NASA.. give him a set of titanium tools and a couple of supercomputers and just see what he comes up with.. outside the box thinking, that's what we need in here..

15
Ehhh. Let him keep it. Honestly, he had the patience to do it and nobody clued in for so long that in this case, he won.

11
That was a great read! Gotta admit, I’m impressed he was able to continue the scam so long.

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Having worked for the city of Edmonton I can tell you the fact that no one realized what was happening and wrote it off as an accounting error is just so....expected. That someone might be stealing from the city is even more expected.

10
You see, I was picturing something far more mundane with the headline of "stole" coins. I figured it'd be a story about somebody picking up loose change and some jackass claiming that was stealing. After reading through it I still feel for the guy but yeah, that's definitely a crime.

9
Me taking a coin out of my pocket and looking at both sides

He’s right!

5
I say good on him.

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