CrimeLess – "The Most Inconvenient Way to Get Rich"

Podcast: CrimeLess (iHeartPodcasts + Smartless Media)
Hosts: Rory Scovel (comedian) and Josh Dean (journalist/podcaster)
Date: January 14, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode dives humorously into “the dumbest way to steal a quarter million dollars”—by literally stealing millions of coins. Josh and Rory break down two outrageous—but real—heists where thieves wound up with an absurd volume of physical money in the peskiest possible denominations: dimes and commemorative $1 coins. Through banter, audience asides, and a surprising educational bent on crime logistics, the hosts analyze the thefts, the criminals’ (lack of) planning, and how a simple heist turns into a logistical and legal quagmire when your loot is basically pocket change.

Key Discussion Points and Story Breakdown

1. “The Dumbest Way to Steal a Quarter Million Dollars”: The Philly Dime Heist

Segment: Starts at [02:37]

• Set-Up:

  • Josh asks: “What is the dumbest way to steal a quarter million dollars?” ([02:49])
  • Rory jokes: “Create a crypto meme coin and get elected President of the United States.” ([02:58])

• Context:
  Four Philly men—Rakim Savage, Ronald Bird, Hanif Palmer, and Malik Palmer—affected with dreams of big-time crime, notorious group chats, and no clear plans.

• Heist Details:

  • They belonged to the Omerta gang (named after the Mafia code of silence).
    Josh reads racketeering’s definition: “A type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary or otherwise illegal...coordinated scheme or operation—a ‘racket’—to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit.” ([07:13])
  • Their usual MO: overnight cargo truck theft. They often had no clue what was inside, sometimes stealing “hundreds of pounds of frozen shrimp” and “75-inch Samsung flat screens.” ([09:15])

• The Mint Truck Incident ([11:03]):

  • A driver parked an 18-wheeler filled with US Mint dimes (fresh from the Philadelphia branch) in a Walmart lot and went home to sleep.
    • Rory reacts: “That’s insane... Maybe try to get 100 miles in or leave it at the mint and just pick it up in the morning.” ([11:45])
  • The theft: Six men use bolt cutters, open the trailer, and discover six tons of dimes—about $750,000 in total value.
    • Josh: “6 tons of tiny silver Harry Truman dimes. How much money do you think 6 tons of dimes is?” ([12:23])
    • Rory (guess): “A quarter million?”

• Logistical Nightmare:

  • Pallets are too heavy to lift, so they spill dimes while separating them into smaller bags. Dimes are everywhere—they end up stealing roughly $234,000 but leave more behind in the parking lot. ([13:06])
  • Rory observes: “Imagine picking up thousands and thousands of dimes off the ground in a Walmart parking lot. That’s only like $5 worth.” ([13:57])

• Laundering the Loot:

  • The criminals, proud and oblivious, send photos of themselves swimming in truck beds full of dimes and screenshots of news reports about their own crime. ([15:42])
  • They use Coin Stars and local bank branches to convert dimes into cash:
    • The maximum single Coin Star payout they got: $990.44, meaning “It would take them at least 236 visits to deposit all those dimes.” ([19:44])
    • They also tried making deposits of $1,400–$1,500 at banks. Rory: “$1,400 in dimes is about 70 pounds. Think large dog…nine-year-old boy.” ([20:26])
  • Josh notes their mistake: “In order to deposit the bags of dimes, Malik...supplied his name, phone number, address, and a copy of his driver’s license.” ([21:21])

• Investigation and Arrest:

  • Police are tipped off by the group’s own texts, Coin Star surveillance, bank deposit patterns, and detailed documentation of their loot.
    • Rory quips: “Oh, he’s got one of those bags with a dollar sign, with the money sign on the outside, like those canvas bags. Cartoon bag.” ([21:45])
  • Arrests follow in October. The case is designated “complex”—“maybe because they had to count all the dimes, they just stuffed them all back into those little tubes.” ([22:40])
  • Case remains unresolved at air date due to its bizarre and “complicated” nature.

Notable Quotes

• “They may as well have added prosecutors to the text chains with how fully they were documenting their crimes.”
  — Josh Dean ([10:35])
• “They got a fuck ton of shrimp for sale.”
  — Josh (paraphrasing the crooks’ text) ([09:33])
• “You could be sitting on a million dollars and you don’t even know.”
  — Rory ([04:27])

2. “Bluey Bucks” Down Under: The Australian Commemorative Coin Heist

Segment: Starts at [27:22]

• Set-Up:

  • The Royal Australia Mint announces a limited “Bluey” $1 coin (Dollar Bucks) with only 100,000 minted for a worldwide kids’ show phenomenon.
    • Josh: “To celebrate the show’s worldwide success...Royal Australia Mint plans the release of a limited edition $1 coin. And to be extra cute, they’re calling these coins dollar bucks.” ([28:16])

• Theft Details:

  • On a delivery to Brisbane, a half-ton, $63,000 load of Bluey coins (“Dollar Bucks”, worth $387,318 USD) vanishes between Canberra and Brisbane. ([29:31])
  • When the truck arrives, the coins are gone; an inside job is suspected.

• Investigation:

  • Police form “Strike Force Bandit” (named for Bluey’s dad, though, as Rory points out, “Chilli [Bluey’s mom] is the actual cop on the show!”) ([30:43])
    • Rory: “And so right there, you can tell there’s just not equality in Australia.” ([31:23])
  • Early misstep: Cops raid a collector’s home and recover a small number of coins—wrong guy, he had simply bought some from eBay. ([32:46])
  • Eventually, “the most obvious answer”: 47-year-old warehouse worker Steven John Nielsen is arrested ([33:47]), soon followed by the driver (Christina Vale) as an accomplice.
    • Josh: “It was a guy who worked in the warehouse…my guess is the coins never got into the truck at all.” ([34:22])
  • Only about 41,000 coins are recovered—20,000 remain unaccounted for and are probably in circulation. ([36:20])

Memorable Moments and Jokes

• Rory on the Australian detective’s speech (NPR-mode): “That was the NPR version of saying the exact thing with zero bias.” ([32:10])
• Rory (on Bluey strike force): “Strike Force Bandit is also just a very cool name.” ([30:47])
• Rory: "Finally, at least the criminals were able to have some job equality. Not the police force." ([35:37])

3. Game Time: Crypto or Pokémon?

Segment: Starts at [40:42]

• Hosted by Lane Rose:
  The gang plays a quiz game: Is it a cryptocurrency, or is it a Pokémon?
  • Example: “Solana”—Crypto.
  • “Porygon”—Pokémon.
  • Floki? (Crypto—“You might be thinking of Froakie, which is a bubble frog.”) ([43:05])
  • “This is like you just made Monopoly money real is what it feels like.” — Rory ([45:25])
  • “We live in a world where there’s a financial system where we can play this fucking game?” — Josh ([45:17])

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• [07:13] Josh: "[Racketeering is] a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercive, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal...coordinated scheme or operation—a ‘racket’—to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit."
• [10:35] Josh: "They may as well have added prosecutors to the text chains with how fully they were documenting their crimes."
• [12:52] Josh: "So the answer is $750,000, which seems honestly a little bit low. Six tons is £12,000, I think."
• [13:57] Josh: "Imagine picking up thousands and thousands of dimes off the ground in a Walmart parking lot. That’s only like, $5 worth."
• [15:56] Rory: "This gentleman is laying down on a truck bed filled with dimes, and honestly, getting a pretty good core workout." (re: “Scrooge McDuck” photo)
• [19:44] Josh: "If this is the maximum amount they could handle in a single Coin Star trip, it would take them at least 236 visits to deposit all those dimes, man."
• [21:21] Josh: "In order to deposit the bags of dimes, Malik first had to open a bank account...his name, phone number, address, and a copy of his driver's license."
• [28:16] Josh: "Royal Australia Mint plans the release of a limited edition $1 coin. And to be extra cute, they're calling these coins dollar bucks."
• [30:43] Josh: "Police jumped into action, informed Strike Force Bandits."
• [31:23] Rory: "You can tell there's just not equality in Australia. They said, nope…it's better if we are named after [Bluey's dad] as opposed to the mother who does the exact job of what we're trying to do."
• [32:10] Josh reads Australian detective's speech.
• [36:20] Josh: "Cops recovered only about a thousand of them. But a few months later, they raided a storage unit in the suburbs of Sydney and found another 40,000."
• [45:17] Josh: "What are we doing here, people? That we live in a world where there’s a financial system where we can play this fucking game?"
• [45:25] Rory: "Yeah. This is like you just made Monopoly money real is what it feels like."

Flow, Tone, and Takeaways

• Tone: The episode is hilarious and irreverent, balancing real crime details and the absurdity of petty criminality and their attendant headaches (“It’s like finding out international currency—when you go to Canada, I just got $1,000 Canadian. I just got 400 USD dollars from Canada.” – Rory, [17:24])
• Theme: Even “successful” criminals can create unsolvable headaches for themselves by not thinking logistics through—sometimes turning a “score” into a Sisyphean task with piles of change and zero payout.
• Educational Value: Listeners come away knowing how not to launder coins, and more about racketeering and criminal group text pitfalls than they ever expected.

Important Timestamps

| Segment | Start Time | |-----------------------------------|------------| | Main Heist Story Intro/Setup | 02:37 | | Defining Racketeering | 07:13 | | Cargo Theft Details | 09:15 | | Mint Dime Heist Breakdown | 11:03 | | Dimes in the Parking Lot | 13:41 | | Attempts at Laundering the Dimes | 17:06 | | Arrests/Aftermath | 21:45 | | Australian Bluey Coin Heist | 27:22 | | Strike Force Bandit & Investigation| 30:43 | | Resolution & Unrecovered Coins | 36:20 | | Crypto vs. Pokémon Game | 40:42 |

Summary

This episode of CrimeLess is an uproarious exploration of heists where the criminals’ ‘score’ becomes a burden thanks to the weight and denomination of physical money. The co-hosts peel back the layers of both stories with humor, mockery, and a splash of actual criminology, revealing that the most inconvenient get-rich-quick schemes often have the dumbest of endings. From the “Costco of cargo theft” in Philly to the “Bluey Bucks” saga Down Under, it’s a reminder: Not all that glitters—not even dimes—is gold.