The snatch and grab and burn technique isn’t the most sophisticated plan we’ve read about but we are talking about a man who is an accountant first (we’re guessing a very bad one) and an extremely dimwitted criminal second:
An accountant faces seven years in jail after a court convicted him yesterday of deliberately setting fire to Dh250,000 in cash and stealing a similar amount from the taxi company where he worked.
Why this particular accountant-cum-thief decided half the money wasn’t worth his trouble is unclear but what is CRYSTAL is that setting the remainder on fire was the equivalent of writing “I’M EMBEZZLING FUNDS” with a Sharpie™ across the cash ledger.
According to the arraignment sheet, prosecutors said [the accused] deliberately set fire to the money bag which contained Dh500,000. He burned Dh250,000 and stole the rest.
He was also charged with causing intentional damage and financial loss to the company. The company’s Indian manager testified that one of the employees informed him over the phone that the accounting office was on fire.
“I rushed to the company’s premises to check what happened. We had left nearly half a million dirhams in a money bag which we kept inside a wooden cupboard. The money was our drivers’ daily revenues. I discovered that half of the money got stolen and the remaining half was burned,” the manager told prosecutors.
But to be fair to our asshat accountant du jour, “a money bag which we kept inside a wooden cupboard” isn’t the most secure internal control procedure we’ve ever heard of. Let this be a lesson.