Four Philadelphia men have been arrested for running off with several million dimes they allegedly stole from a truck in April, the Guardian reports. We covered the initial theft right after it happened, and at the time, authorities believed the thieves had made off with at least $100,000 in dimes. Now, it appears they actually made off with more than twice that initial estimate and are accused of stealing $234,500. That’s more than two million dimes.
The truck the thieves broke into was carrying about $750,000 in dimes, which reportedly weighed about 12,000 pounds. So if you were initially surprised the thieves left so much money behind, that’s basically your answer. You’d need at least three heavy-duty pickup trucks to haul all those dimes away, and that’s not even accounting for the amount of time and energy it would take to transfer that many dimes into the new trucks.
Plus, even with the trucks, the necessary manpower and plenty of time to pull off the heist, you’re still stuck with six tons of dimes, which aren’t exactly easy to spend in large quantities. So it probably comes as a surprise to absolutely no one that the thieves had a hard time converting their ill-gotten gains into actual cash. After allegedly visiting four banks and several coin machines, they reportedly only managed to come up with a few thousand dollars before they were arrested.
The four suspects are charged with conspiracy, robbery and theft of government money. If convicted, they likely face quite a few years in jail. However, two other men who were captured on video assisting in the theft appear to still be missing. Additionally, court documents say the thieves also stole frozen crab legs and shrimp, meat, beer and liquor from other trucks in the area. Those items were reportedly sold over the internet and likely generated more cash than their poorly conceived dime crime.
