Here’s a story about a guy who robbed six banks in New Jersey but only on Thursdays. “No reason was given for choosing that particular day,” notes the A.P. article. Perhaps he knew something about how the banks did business; perhaps his astrologist told him Thursdays were lucky; perhaps it simply fit his schedule.
In any case, it reminded me of a story I once heard about an Iowa bank employee named Bernice Geiger, who was arrested in 1961 for embezzling more than $2 million over the course of many years. The bank happened to be owned by her father. Bernice was reportedly very generous, giving lots of the money away. Upon her arrest, the bank went bust. Sent to prison, she was paroled five years later, and moved back in with her parents, who apparently were forgiving types.
Geiger was reportedly exhausted by the time she was arrested. Why? Because she never took vacations. This turned out to be a key component in her crime. As the story goes — this was told to me by a retired Sioux City cop, though I’ve never been able to confirm it — the reason she never took vacations was that she was keeping two sets of books and couldn’t risk a fill-in employee discovering her embezzlement. The most interesting part, according to the cop, is that after prison Geiger went to work for a banking oversight agency to help stop embezzlement. Her biggest contribution: looking for employees who failed to take vacation. This simple metric turned out to have strong predictive power in stopping embezzlement.
I wish I had more details, and/or I wish I knew how true this story may be. But the point is that, like cheating schoolteachers or colluding sumo wrestlers, the people who steal money from banks sometimes leave telltale patterns — whether it’s a lack of vacation or a string of Thursdays — that point the finger right at them.
and 
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On a smaller scale, used to work for a (now bought-out) national bank down south, in a branch. We had a teller pocket $4000, apparently on a whim. She was able to successfully cover up the shortage in her drawer for over a year by never taking more than five days off in a row, by which she avoided a drawer audit – until she had to miss extended time for a relatively serious illness, at which point she was caught.
“Burnice Geiger, who was arrested in 1961 for embezzling more than $2 million over the course of many years.”
Which is equivalent to about what- maybe $100 million now? She certaintly was a busy lady…
Actually, it is a Federal Reserve banking regulation that all essential employees take 2 consecutive weeks of vacation every year for exactly this reason; fraud prevention.
I’m suprised some sort of redundancy isn’t required in the financial sector (e.g. all activity must be handled by two people).
Or, some sort of rotation (e.g. the same person can’t deal with the same accounts/trades/books forever.)
There is a Realtor office my wife worked at where all four owners basically “switch” jobs (president, treasurer, secretary, etc) each year and rotate positions to avoid this problem.
Frank Abagnale, of “Catch Me if You Can” fame, wrote a second book entitled “Art of the Steal.” It details may instances of this same “no vacation” principle applied to embezzlers. A fantastic read.
When “60 Minutes” recently ran a story about an FDIC takeover of a failing bank, I hit on a perfect bank robbery scheme: visit a bank on a Friday night and pretend you’re the FDIC coming to seize it. You’d need a team of people dressed appropriately, but the management of a failing bank would probably be befuddled enough to fall for it. Then you “count” up the cash and leave.
Trader Joe: “Commercial employees on the investment banking side of J. P. Morgan are required to take two consecutive weeks off each year for this very reason.”
Wow. Don’t banks also do internal audits, fer chrissake?
talking about patterns, i was told that during its bailout by the french state, the reportedly bankrupted Crédit Lyonnais has witnessed a sharp decrease in robberies against its branches in the next following years. Could not check it, but the idea that the bank financial situation influences the cash in its branches is fun, and gives the robber some rational economic behaviour
Would be fun to check, if this phenomemon (i could not checked it) would replicate in current times, when all banks have virtually failed.