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Greater Metro Philadelphia’s Rich Heist History.
Cheesesteaks, soft pretzels, and armed robbery?
That’s right, while Pennsylvania’s crime rates remain under the national average in 2023, robbery doubled in Philadelphia between 2021–2022. In fact, the Greater Philadelphia Region has played a significant historical role in bank heist history, and also the prevention of them.
That trend continued last month in a very generous way when a tractor-trailer carrying coins was broken into and robbed at Philadelphia Mills Shopping Center. Approximately 2 Million dimes (over $200,000 in cash) were stolen from a parked truck while the driver rested before a long delivery drive to Florida. Additional coins were left strewn all over the Philadelphia Mills Parking lot.
Heists are nothing new to Philadelphia and the surrounding region.
In September 1789 while in the midst of the yellow fever pandemic, a sum of $162,821 was stolen from the Bank of Pennsylvania Vault at Carpenters’ Hall. The culprit was Isaac Davis, whose partner in the heist died of yellow fever right after the robbery. Davis drew attention to himself by depositing the stolen money in the very same bank that was the target of the robbery!
After returning the stolen money, Davis was pardoned and never served any prison time. The heist would be America’s first…
