ATM Repairman Steals $200 Grand, Replaces With Counterfeit Bills

Well, this takes the cake, er-the cash.  Samuel Kioskli did what any self-respecting, desperate ATM repairman would do.  He robbed $200,000 from several of the machines that he was paid to service, and hit the road.

But that's not the best part.  To throw investigators off of the trail, he replaced the cash in the ATMs with counterfeit bills.  Those wouldn't fool anyone, however, because they were simply photocopies.  It kind of makes you wondered why he even bothered.  Kids--don't do drugs.

“He went into seven of these machines, took the cash out and replaced it with counterfeit, and not sophisticated, just simply taking some bills, placing them on the Xerox machine, cut them up and put them in its place in the machines,” said Steve Wagstaffe, San Mateo County District Attorney.

It's a wonder that he managed to evade capture for so long with a modus operandi like that.  But it would be almost a year before Mr. Kioskli would be apprehendend in Phoenix. 

His capture is a funny story in and of itself.  It turns out the San Francisco man was married and had decided there was no room for a wife in his new life.  During a routine traffic stop, things began to unravel when his name came up on a missing persons list--courtesy of his long-forgotten bride.

“Reported as a missing person, he went into the ‘Wanted Persons’ category. Then of course the investigation followed up and they said, ‘Well maybe he isn’t just a missing person.’ And that’s what led them to say ‘Well there’s a good person to target as to who might have taken the money,’” said Wagstaffe."

Get the full story from CBS San Francisco.

It would be dishonest of me to say that I don't dream of these things from time to time--not the getting caught part.  :)