Anyone that has ever watched an action movie will almost certainly be used to the idea of seeing films about people robbing banks. It is a tale as old as time, with Westerns specialising in stories of people that have chosen to head into a money lending establishment with some sort of weapon in the hope of emerging richer a short time later. In many ways, it is a robbery that makes complete sense, given how much money is likely to be available to be taken from a venue such as a bank, even in spite of the security.
Another venue that often has large sums of cash on the premises and is therefore ripe for such shenanigans is a casino. Casinos, just like banks, have often been the subject of films about heists taking place at them, such as the entire Ocean’s Eleven franchise of movies. As with banks, the stories that feature in Hollywood films are often based in reality, such is the notion that ‘stranger than fiction’ actually applies here. Many nefarious types have decided that they wan’t to get rich by robbing a casino, as we’ll explore here.
When Jose Vigoa Took on the Bellagio
The Bellagio is one of the most instantly recognisable casinos in all of Las Vegas. Thanks to the fountains that operate in front of it, it has featured in movies, tourist photographs and even press releases about the place known to many as Sin City. Given the well-known nature of the venue, you’d think only a mad person would attempt to rob it. Perhaps, given the fact that he was later sentenced to four life-sentences, that is exactly the label that should be placed on the head of Jose Vigoa, who did exactly that in 2000.
Working with accomplices named Luis Suarez and Oscar Sanchez, Vigoa attempted to steal both cash and casino chips from the Bellagio in a heist that can’t really be referred to as a well thought out plan. If you’ve watched the likes of Ocean’s Eleven, you’ll be used to the idea of such master criminals staking out a casino, looking at the various flaws in the security system and devising a method of robbing the place that would allow them to get away scot-free. That is pretty much the opposite of what happened here.
In many ways, this robbery was little more than an opportunistic one, with the trio jumping over the cashier’s counter and grabbing money and chips worth around $160,000. Vigoa was already a wanted man, so he didn’t bother wearing a mask. The three men fled the casino, leading to a chase, with Sanchez being caught almost immediately. Vigoa and Suarez were also caught soon enough and the former was given four life sentences, having been involved in a string of other casino and armoured truck robberies.
The Judge’s Son That Tried to Steal $1.5 Million
Perhaps it is the Bellagio’s very notoriety that makes it such a target for heists from criminals. It is once again the location of a story, this time involving the son of a Municipal Court judge. Appearing in court under the name Anthony M. Assad, the son of George Assad reportedly parked his motorcycle outside the valet at the casino before walking around 500 feet to a craps table. There he pointed a handgun at the ten or 12 patrons and three or four dealers in attendance and demanded that they hand over their chips.
He scooped them up off the table before running out of the Bellagio, having taken chips with values as high as $25,000. If the robbery itself wasn’t brazen enough, Anthony M. Carleo, as the perpetrator was also known, rented a room in that very casino and began staying there. The robbery took just seconds, with Carleo’s face being hidden by his motorbike helmet. It was the same modus operandi that had been used by a robber at the Suncoast Casino a few days prior, leading police to believe that it was the same person.
The problem with robbing casino chips, of course, is that sooner or later you need to try to cash them in. The Bellagio was immediately on the lookout for anyone attempting to cash in large value chips, whilst the casino’s owner, MGM Resorts International, decided to discontinue their use. Carleo attempted to sell the chips that he had stolen rather than get them exchanged at the casino, but the person that he was trying to sell them to was an undercover police officer. He was arrested on charges of robbery with the use of a deadly weapon, burglary with use of a deadly weapon and trafficking in a controlled substance.
Heather Tallchief & ‘The Perfect Crime’
In the October of 1993, Heather Tallchief was 21-years-old and was working as a driver for the Loomis Armored Car Company in Las Vegas. Her job was to refill the Automated Teller Machines that were present in casinos up and down the strip. During a stop at Circus Circus Casino, Tallchief should have picked up her partners once their job was finished. Instead, she drove off in the truck, taking the $3 million or so with her. Her workmates initially assumed that she’d got lost or been involved in an accident, perhaps being stuck in traffic.
However, when CCTV footage was reviewed, it showed Tallchief leaving the casino and simply driving off. It was decided that she’d fled with the money, so authorities raided her apartment and discovered fingerprints belonging to Roberto Solis. Solis, 48 at the time, had shot and killed an armoured car driver 24 years earlier and wrote several books whilst in prison. Solis and Tallchief met in San Fransisco, which is where they began planning the crime. Within a couple of hours of driving off from Circus Circus, Tallchief and Solis met at McCarran Airport.
Disguised as an elderly man and his wife, with Tallchief being in a wheelchair, they went to Denver. When authorities tracked them there, they had already fled. They remained at large for more than a decade, with Tallchief later claiming that Solis had been the mastermind behind the crime and left her with just $1,000. After handing herself in in 2005, Tallchief was sentenced to 63 months in jail for the crime. Her and Solis had a son together, which she was left to raise on her own after he abandoned her.
The Lunch Break Worth $500,000
Bill Brennan was working at Stardust Casino in Las Vegas in 1992. Something of an every man, Brennan was a diligent and hard-working employee at the venue for the four years that he worked there. Eventually, he asked for a supervisor position but wasn’t given it, resulting in him taking the time to learn about the inadequacies of the casino security system. He soon realised which cameras showed what and at what times, allowing him to put a plan into motion that was as simplistic as it was daring, involving nothing but a bag.
One day, Brennan decided it was time for him to go on his lunch. He got up, picked up his bag, slung it over his shoulder and meandered out of the casino. Unbeknownst to anyone except Brennan himself, that bag contained cash and chips worth around $500,000. There was no evidence of the crime on any of the cameras at the casino, whilst no security staff saw what had happened. It took the police several hours to even realise that it was Brennan that was responsible for the robbery, giving him the time he needed to disappear.
A manager later joked that Brennan kept to himself and only really like spending time with his cat. It is perhaps no surprise, therefore, that when police raided his apartment neither the man himself nor his cat were anywhere to be seen. The thing that makes Brennan’s robbery all the more fascinating is that he was never found, despite being on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for years after the crime. Did he disappear? Did he have an accomplice that took the money and then disposed of his body? We will probably never know.
Third Time’s (Not) a Charm
If you attempted to rob a casino and got away with it, even if you didn’t manage to get any cash or chips, you’d probably count your blessings and lay low for a while. A silly person might go back and try again, but when they failed to actually get any money on the second time of asking, they’d surely call it a day. Only an idiot or a crazy person would go back for a third attempt, yet that is exactly what Reginald Johnson did whilst attempting a heist at Treasure Island in Las Vegas back at the turn of the millennium.
Having twice attempted to rob the casino without success, Johnson did at least manage to get some money for himself at the third time of asking. He reportedly made off with about $30,000, shooting and injuring a security guard on his way out of the casino. It was all for nought, with Johnson being caught just a few hours after his robbery was completed. When the case went to court, Johnson laughed like a maniac as the footage of the robbery from CCTV cameras was shown to members of the jury during the trial.
One question that you might wish to ask is why, exactly, Treasure Island didn’t put any procedures in place to stop the attempted robbery after the first time that it happened. All three robberies were virtually identical in nature, so it is difficult to understand why more wasn’t done in order to attempt to stop Johnson from pulling off his heist. Whatever the logic behind the lack of action, he was eventually caught and sentenced to 130 years in prison. Whilst awaiting sentencing, he threw an inmate off the second-floor balcony of the Clark County Detention Center.
The Inside Job at Soboba Casino
Rolando Luda Ramos was working as a security technician at the Soboba Casino in Riverside County, California back in 2007. He had been working there for two years without ever showing any signs of planning a major heist, yet he shocked three co-workers when he pulled a gun on them and hog-tied them before taking cash from the vault. It was later revealed that the money was worth about $1.5 million, which Ramos stuffed into a duffel bag before heading out of the casino and getting into a car driven by Eric Alan Magdale Aguilera.
Ramos was tracked down by local and federal law enforcement officers, who used information from his mobile phone to discover that he was holed up in a hotel close to Los Angeles International Airport. He spent a small amount of the money that he’d stolen on cocaine and prostitutes, though authorities said that most of the cash had been recovered. Ramos claimed that his weapon was simply a BB gun that wouldn’t have hurt anyone and that he only committed the crime because he was ‘fried up’ on cocaine and adrenaline.
Both Aguilera and his live-in girlfriend, who was pregnant at the time, were arrested the day after the robbery, whilst Ramos made it a few days longer before the law caught up with him. Unsurprisingly, he was found guilty of 12 felonies, though he escaped charges of kidnapping that might have led to life in prison. He was eventually sentenced to 16 years in prison, whilst Aguilera was given 12 years. Both of the men appealed their convictions, with a judge throwing out two battery charges that had been given against Ramos.