Police have been searching for a man in several US cities for months who they believe has been using a plasticized $ 20 bill, attached to a fishing line, to steal thousands of dollars from automated washing tunnels.
The Indianapolis Star reported the adventures of the carwash thief in the United States, claiming that it was recorded by the surveillance cameras of several car washes in the city of Moorseville, North Carolina, between August 4, 2017 and the 26 of January of this year.
"We only have two cases in which [the thief] is involved, but the truth is that it is very annoying," detective Donald Kays of the Mooresville police department told Indianapolis Star.
Apparently the thief is so annoying and has been so good at his crimes, that the authorities do not even know exactly how many tunnels he has stolen. His method of theft is quite ingenious, according to the Star:
On July 10, 2017 the criminal stole $ 700 from the "Splash N Shine" car wash in the town of Boardman, in the state of Ohio. Surveillance images published by the police show the thief with what appears to be a plastic banknote.
The thief "used the $ 20 bill many times to pay for a washing service on the machine and then request a refund," detective Richard Romeo explains, urging the public to help identify the criminal.
After canceling the transaction, he collected the money from the refund and took out the laminated ticket using what appears to be the thread of a fishing rod.
The police came to the conclusion that the ticket is laminated because otherwise the machine would destroy it. The trick is to tie the bill to the fishing line, according to the Ohio police.
The suspect entered the $ 20 bill a total of 35 times and canceled each transaction to request a refund of the machine, taking out the laminated ticket over and over again. When he finished he had stolen $ 700 from the machine in $ 5 bills.
It is estimated that he has stolen thousands of dollars in this time, of which more than 1,000 dollars has been obtained from two car washes in the state of Indiana.
Strangely, the suspect conceals the license plate of his car and cleans the fingerprints of the machine, but does not cover his face. The two-state police have detailed photos of their faces captured by security cameras while committing their robberies.
Authorities in Boardman, Ohio, announced in October 2017 that the suspect is a white man of about 50 or 60 years old, bald and wearing glasses. During some of his crimes he was driving a blue Dodge Grand Caravan of the year 2000.
After spending several months, the situation has baffled detective Chad Richhart of the Mooresville police. The detective told Fox 59 that it is likely that the suspect has been evading arrest for so long because "it's not around here."
"He has no ties to these communities that he's stealing," Richhart said. "That's why no one can identify him."