Photo: DevidDO (Getty)
Being in New York, I haven’t been behind the wheel of a car in forever, which means I haven’t been to a car wash in ages. And last time I found myself in one I was using that toy gun they set up for kids to spray water on cars. But it looks like an unidentified man hasn’t been doing that, instead he’s been stealing thousands of dollars from various car washes.
According to the Indianapolis Star, police in several states have been looking for a guy that has been using a laminated $20 bill attached to a fishing line in order to steal a ton of cash from self-serve car washes. This guy was even caught on surveillance camera pulling off this pretty damn creative stunt.
“We’ve only really had two dealings with him, but he’s a large pain,” Mooresville Police Department Detective Donald Kays said. So how does he pull off this stunt? Well take a read:
On July 10 the man stole $700 from the Splash N Shine in Boardman Township, Ohio, a suburb of Youngstown. Surveillance images released by police show the man holding a bill that appears to be laminated in plastic.
The man “continuously used a $20 bill to trigger a purchase then hit refund,” Boardman Detective Richard Romeo said in a wanted poster urging the public to help identify the thief.
The man canceled the transaction, collected the change and then fished the bill out with a stringlike piece of plastic.
In one incident, the unknown man entered the laminated bill 35 times into the machine and voided each car wash purchase to trigger a refund from the machine. And that allowed this guy to get back $700 in $5 bills. And this dude has seen a few crime shows because he conceals his license plate and wipes away his fingerprints.
Police have yet to catch up to him, but as creative as this stunt is, here’s hoping he’s caught because this guy is just stealing money from small businesses.
