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From the Archives: The Brassiere Brigade
Status: Scam
Here's a story that got a lot of attention back in 1950, but seems to be entirely forgotten today. It's the tale of the Brassiere Brigade. This was the name the press gave to a group of young women employed in the counting room of the Southern Bell Telephone Company down in Miami. The women had the job of taking the money collected from pay phones, and placing that money into automatic counting machines. A few of the women figured out that because there was no official record of how much money had been collected until the coins went through the machine, if they stuffed a few rolls of coins down their bra instead of putting them in the machine, no one would ever be the wiser.Some of the women were reportedly walking out with up to $150 a day... for years. And they might have got away with it if the police hadn't accidentally discovered what was going on.
Even when they were caught, it looked like they would still get away with it, because the police couldn't figure out how to press charges against them. Although the women had almost $10,000 in coins in their possession when caught, there was no direct evidence of a crime. The phone company couldn't prove the money belonged to them. In fact, the phone company couldn't prove it had lost any money. For a while it really did seem like the perfect crime. But eventually the police did figure out a way to charge them.
I've posted the full story in the hoaxipedia.
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Categories: Business/Finance, Law/Police/Crime Posted by Alex on Fri Nov 30, 2007 |
Comments (5) |
| More from the Hoax Museum Archives: | |||
The accountants could establish that the average take from the area was a certain amount, how did they show that there was no deviation from that average on the days the women were supposed to have made off with the money?
Posted by Christopher Cole in Tucson, AZ on Fri Nov 30, 2007 at 09:11 PM
"...It was never made clear why Rita Orr telephoned the police, though it seems that she was unaware of her sister-in-law
Posted by Big Gary in Telephone, Texas on Tue Dec 04, 2007 at 07:50 PM
Imagine dating one of these women.
This was, after all, the era of cheek-to-cheek ballroom dancing. You could find yourself with a partner equipped with an armored front and an unusually high center of gravity.
Posted by Big Gary in Telephone, Texas on Tue Dec 04, 2007 at 07:53 PM
This was, after all, the era of cheek-to-cheek ballroom dancing. You could find yourself with a partner equipped with an armored front and an unusually high center of gravity.
To me, why Rita phoned the police is the big mystery of the case. If she did know that her sister-in-law was robbing the phone company, then she must have known that calling the police to her home was a sure way to get her sister found out. Maybe that's what she intended to do, for some reason.
Posted by Alex in San Diego on Tue Dec 04, 2007 at 08:15 PM
There is a similar story from when the San Francisco mint was reopened in 1968. The mint produced coins only AFAIK; since 1975, proof coins meant for collectors. Since it was "just" coins, apparently heavy-duty security was not thought to be needed; no metal detectors, for one. It was somehow found that workers were smuggling out quantities of coins by duct-taping them to their legs. While modern proof coins are fairly distinctive to a collector (mirrorlike finish, "S" mintmark only) they would work like any normal coin in a vending machine. I would guess that mass quantities of proof coins appearing in certain cigarette machines would be the tip off.
In the mid-1990s, after metal detectors were installed, a guard was found stealing coins. Since he carried a gun, he was always allowed to walk around the metal detectors. Duh.
Posted by fishbait on Wed Aug 26, 2009 at 04:37 AM
In the mid-1990s, after metal detectors were installed, a guard was found stealing coins. Since he carried a gun, he was always allowed to walk around the metal detectors. Duh.
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