First National Bank Stadium, Johannesburg
look ma i'm writing about bank/stadium robbers again!
the year is 2013. bieber was just getting started as a Youtube Artist at the time, albeit an astoundingly acclaimed adolescent.
look- i'm not gonna make fun of the kid in this piece i wanted to do a fun one for once- SORRY HE'S 29 YEARS OLD HE'S OLDER THAN ME WHAT THE FUCK
that's not the point! the point is the cool ass heist that took place before, during, and briefly after said concert. if you've ever worked in place that "used to be" another place- say a bank converted into dentist office, you may find yourself with a weirdly secure room that's just being used as office space
and as work ebbs and flows, that office with the secure door seems like a pretty okay place to store the concession cash boxes from the weekend back-to-back showings of Justin & Jovi
so, this sounds like a pretty understandable scenario. it's not exactly a safe place to leave the money unattended, but i mean, a bank vault is pretty secure! there's cameras, key cards, the works.
now, let's adjust parameters, because it wasn't a bank vault.
it was a double-bricked room with a metal record-room door, and a drop-tile ceiling.
also, the security cameras had been busted for months. and the card readers turned out to not be too picky about which key card they were shown.
sounds significantly less safe, but i mean- i guess it still did the trick for a while! they just needed a safeish place to keep money from all the various scattered booths, until the work-week started. and it's not like anyone but the employees knew the money was being kept there
which is why it's speculated to be an inside job.
now, i'm not gonna risk blowing up these heisters' spot; this robbery is over 10 years old, and i'm comfortable saying they fall under the "got away with it" clause in Law.
this is especially fair, considering
Police incompetence helped them get away with it.
before the non-involved employees could report back into work monday morning, another breaking and entering had occurred: carried out by a group of sad SAPS
"There was a ladder in the passageway marked SMSA (Stadium Management South Africa) and investigators would spend the greater part of the day tracing its origins and examining it for fingerprints only for it to be revealed that it had been placed there in the morning by first responders. It was an entire waste of crucial investigating time."
my favourite crime scenes are the ones that police have spent hours making unusable, letting journalists and potential suspects in before even collecting evidence
"Detectives soon arrived. So too did stadium officials, the promoters and a variety of other security people. They each walked through the safe room, potentially destroying any clues that may have been left behind.
...
To my surprise, the chief executive of Stadium Management South Africa, Jacques Grobbelaar, generously allowed myself and a videographer onto the crime scene and gave us a guided tour of the break-in. Hence it does not surprise me at all that Ferguson suggests the scene was not properly contained."
i am not exaggerating at all when i say i am thankful for these boys in blue, doing the brave work of giving the culprits time to stash the money away and bounce, or even show up to work the next day and feign ignorance
"An interview process was conducted with all staff; they worked out how many people were on the site and who could have carried out the robbery. They narrowed it down to 100 individuals. Persons of interest were isolated and polygraphs carried out."
-Mandy Wiener for Eyewitness News, 2017
OH THEY GAVE THEM POLYGRAPHS Y'ALL i'm sure those results are useful!!
this is such a delightful little story of a well-thought-out victimless crime and police being too stupid to catch the culprits! i linked it earlier, but i really do recommend reading the investigative piece i was quoting from, by award winning reporter Mandy Wiener. it was refreshing to read such well-written journalism, and the video provides further insight still!
and now, to wrap, allow me to be a little poetic in describing this Successful Heist
OPERATION JON-BIEBER-JOVI
Alright, gang, here's the score:
Earnings on food & merch from the Jovi-Bieber shows coming up in a few months. That's a couple million ZAR- pretty decent money considering how easy this will be.
Let's take a brief look: on our work breaks, we'll slip into the bathroom next to the records room, where we keep the cash, and cut the supports out of the shared ceiling. Be sure to only pull the bricks and beams behind the AC unit, so nobody notices!
I've got the nearby cameras busted, and I'm giving maintenance the runaround- turns out our security keycards are actually good for use in the entire stadium! Who would've thought?
Now- Sunday night, after the show, is when we make our move. It'll be a tight fit- that's a pretty narrow gap in the ceiling, even with the lintels pulled out. So, you'll use a rope to descend head-first into the room, and jimmy open the lock from the other side.
There's an outer door, but don't worry; we've got an all-access pass, remember?
Be sure to make a mess, break shit, leave some footprints up the wall, make 'em think you climbed both in AND out- the more clutter, the better.
Confusion buys us time to stash the cash and cool off, before they realize it's an inside job. Don't worry too much- I'm sure our boys in blue will be happy to play along.
END TRANSMISSION