There was some movie (rather old, from 40s-50s I believe) about how a gang tried to rob a big supermarket they worked for. And after they were caught at the end of the movie, the police inspector was explaining how stupid they are with arguments like this: Imagine you stole merchandise for a 10’000 (movie was old, so I suppose that still was a serious sum), you wouldn’t be able to sell it more than for 2-3k. Then you need to rent a lorry for all night and better for a few days to move out the stolen goods, a few hundred minus. (Then some other expenses I don’t remember…) And then look at yourself, divide all what’s left among yourselves and you get a few hundred dollars each at best while risking a huge prison times.
I think that’s why gangs are more likely to just rob a truck in transit instead of burgle a facility. Same with pirates and highwaymen pre industrial, go where the cops aren’t and the goods are.
It’s got around a 60% clearance rate which is far higher than most other crimes but there are surprisingly low injury and deaths associated with them. You’d probably have more luck stealing a rich person’s phone to move money from their accounts to hidden accounts or crypto, destroy some of their property as a distraction to steal other property, blackmail them, etc.
Robbing banks is a hard job. And I’m not sure if it is very profitable…
Yeah it’s not a good risk-to-reward ratio
There was some movie (rather old, from 40s-50s I believe) about how a gang tried to rob a big supermarket they worked for. And after they were caught at the end of the movie, the police inspector was explaining how stupid they are with arguments like this: Imagine you stole merchandise for a 10’000 (movie was old, so I suppose that still was a serious sum), you wouldn’t be able to sell it more than for 2-3k. Then you need to rent a lorry for all night and better for a few days to move out the stolen goods, a few hundred minus. (Then some other expenses I don’t remember…) And then look at yourself, divide all what’s left among yourselves and you get a few hundred dollars each at best while risking a huge prison times.
I think that’s why gangs are more likely to just rob a truck in transit instead of burgle a facility. Same with pirates and highwaymen pre industrial, go where the cops aren’t and the goods are.
It’s got around a 60% clearance rate which is far higher than most other crimes but there are surprisingly low injury and deaths associated with them. You’d probably have more luck stealing a rich person’s phone to move money from their accounts to hidden accounts or crypto, destroy some of their property as a distraction to steal other property, blackmail them, etc.
smelting steel is a hard job, too, and it is not very profitable
The risk is lower, though.