A thief has been hitting self-serve car washes across the Midwest to enrich himself by making an end-run around the automated payment machines. His technique is decidedly old school, involving a $20 bill attached to a fishing line for easy retrieval.
Police concluded the $20 bill has to be laminated, which keeps the machines from shredding it to bits. The trick involves connecting the bill to what appears to be fishing line, Ohio police have said.
The suspect entered the coated $20 bill 35 times and voided each car wash purchase to trigger a refund from the machine. Each time, he was able to pull the coated bill back out of the machine. By the time the thief was done, the machine was missing $700 in $5 bills.
In total, he’s estimated to have netted thousands of dollars, with more than $1,000 coming from just two car washes in Indiana alone.
He has covered his license plate and wipes away any fingerprints, but his face has been recorded on security cameras.
'Car wash bandit' has stolen thousands of dollars in five states: police https://t.co/2TAdHeLCt2 pic.twitter.com/O0fZ8OnIOm
— FOX 5 San Diego (@fox5sandiego) February 22, 2018
Read more about the car wash thief at Jalopnik.
(Image credit: Andrew Smith)