The Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia was left reeling after $32 million (AUD) was stolen from them in a clever heist which involved multiple parties and a cunning plan. Sadly, it was not quite cunning enough, as the high-rolling gambler who perpetrated the crime was caught out, and the Crown Casino is in the process of recouping their money.
When word got out about the heist, the media was awash with comparisons to the movie Ocean’s Eleven in which eleven criminal colleagues, led by Danny Ocean, conspire to simultaneously rob three major Las Vegas casinos. At the Crown Casino, however, there were just three men involved – a high-rolling gambler playing in the high-stakes rooms, someone who infiltrated the security cameras from a remote location, and the dealer, who made sure that the cards could be seen by CCTV. Between the three of them, the gambler managed to net a cool $32 million before walking away from the table. He has since been arrested, along with the dealer.
The question remains, however, is this the biggest casino heist of all time? Galacasino.com wanted to find out. Whilst Danny Ocean and friends managed to get away with large sums in the films, it is not often in real life that criminals get away with the goods. At $32 million, the amount of the heist is rather mind-boggling, with few other crimes coming close to that amount.
In another heist in Las Vegas, Heather Tallchief and Roberto Solis managed to get away with $2.5 million from the Circus, Circus casino. Another inside job, Heather was a driver for Loomis Armoured Car Company, refilling ATMs at various Las Vegas casinos. In 1993, in her second month on the job, she drove off with the cash. Two hours later, Solis and Tallchief chartered a jet to Denver from a local airport, and disappeared. Despite numerous investigations by the police they couldn’t be found, until 12 years later when Heather turned herself in claiming she’d been brain-washed by Solis, and served 63 months in prison for the theft. Solis is still at large.
The exact details of the Crown Casino case are still being investigated, but one thing is for certain: however sophisticated casino security may be, it is not immune to inside jobs. Casinos still have a way to go until they are fully secure, and the criminals are always trying to get one step ahead.