An Edmonton transit employee once stole $2.3 million in a wild coin heist
It may sound like something out of a wild crime drama, but 40 years ago, an Edmonton Transit Service (ETS) employee pulled off a massive coin heist, stealing more than $2.3 million in literal pocket change.
The story began in 1981, when ETS hired Salim Kara, a refugee from Uganda, to repair light rail transit fare boxes and almost immediately began fishing coins from the machines.
A December 2010 Edmonton Journal article by Darcy Henton explained that Kara would remove the faceplates from the fare machines and use a magnet fastened to a car radio antenna to pull coins out of the boxes.
He stored the money in a leather shaving kit bag before moving it from his work vehicle to his personal car at the end of each shift. Kara typically worked nights and was often alone.
When loonies were introduced in 1987, Kara was reportedly netting a whopping $900 per day.
You may wonder how Kara managed to pull it off for so long without raising suspicion, particularly when he was walking into the bank every week with $5,000 to $10,000 worth of rolled coins. He told them the money was coming from his successful side hustle operating vending machines.
Henton reported that in 1992, Kara began building a lavish home on Osbourne Crescent, a cul-de-sac tucked away next to the Whitemud Ravine, while continuing to drive his beat-up Chevrolet Malibu. Around the same time, questions began to arise at ETS.
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A private investigator was hired in 1993 after an audit of transit fares raised red flags, with cash counts not matching fare totals. Auditors estimated Kara was stealing nearly 20 per cent of the total LRT fare revenue.
Investigators eventually watched him filling the shaving kit bag with coins from the fare machines.
Caught red-handed, Kara was arrested in 1994, and his assets were frozen; in 1996, he was sentenced to four years in jail.
In the end, he had stolen more than $2,327,890. The coins he hauled away would have weighed an esĀtiĀmated 37 tonnes.
Following the investigation, ETS reviewed its LRT cash-handling procedures, while the City also reviewed its cash-handling practices across other departments.