That response, "because that's where the money is", later became famous and was largely attributed to Slick Willie Sutton. Willie Sutton was a bank robber spanning 40 years and spent over half of his adult life in prison. In an interview in 1951 and then again in 1952, Sutton was asked why he had chosen the career of robbing banks. he answered, "because that's where the money is".
photo credit: Yaakov Lederman |
Shortly after opening, a masked man walked into the RBS branch of Bank Leumi. He went over to a teller and handed her a paper that had written on it, in Hebrew, "this is an armed robbery". Give me the money". The teller gave him a bundle of money, later announced by someone to be a sum of 6,000 NIS, and he ran off.
The police came, with a bunch of police vans and even a helicopter, but the bank robber has yet to be caught.
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I used to do security for a bank in the US, and bank robberies like this are actually surprisingly common. If the thief wants to try to make off with a lot of money (like they do in the movies), then the odds of the thief ever making it out of the building are very slim. Robbers who go after smaller amounts of money (like this guy), usually make it out and can evade police for a short time, but most crooks can't run forever. The security camera footage catches up to them and they're usually apprehended with minimal fanfare in a few days.
ReplyDeleteI dont know if it is true or not, but I was told that he was apprehended this evening in the Modiin area..
ReplyDeleteI have an account in this Leumi branch. The BEST bank branch in Israel !!! Israeli banks tend to be very lousy with management who couldn't care less (since there is no competition and its a duopoly)
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, this bank branch is FANTASTIC -- friendly and knowledgable service, people willing to go the extra mile. Once I even saw the branch manager filling in for one of his workers to make sure that people got quicker service - now WHERE would you EVER find that in Israel ?
I'm sorry to hear they were robbed, and I recommend that all BS/RBS readers move their account to this branch.
CORRECTION: NOT JOHN D. BUT WILLIE "SLICK WILLIE" SUTTON MADE THE FAMOUS REMARK (1901-1980). You would know that if you went to public school.
ReplyDeletea. I went to the school you sent me to. I didn't choose to not go to public school and get a lesser history in American bank robbers.
Deleteb. perhaps you did not notice, but I actually did 3 minutes of research using Google. In that research I discovered that the line is first attributed to John Dillinger, and only later to Willie Sutton. Both of them are included in the post.
CORRECTION to CORRECTION:
ReplyDeleteSee Snopes.
Neither Sutton, nor Dillinger said it; it was apparently made up by a reporter.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/sutton.asp