Thoughts and Prayers?

Yeah, not my style...

The big story this week is a million-dollar heist at a card show in Dallas. Now, before you start seeing Jesse James and his gang raiding the convention center, guns ablaze, it wasn’t that; someone walked off with a million dollars’ worth of dealer Ashish Jain’s inventory in a briefcase during break-down. As summarized on Sports Collectors Daily:

“As the show was coming to a close, the Texas-based dealer says three men lingering in the area worked to distract his two sons and other person who was helping him at the show while another swooped in and grabbed the box that held the cards. … “The man seen taking the case from under the table in the middle of the square of tables had been stacking chairs near the booth for over an hour, and we thought he worked there,” Jain wrote in a post on X Sunday night. “These guys had been scoping us out all day.” Jain says that became evident after he reviewed security footage of the area after the theft. …. He indicated the men he believes were involved in the theft even changed clothes during the day. “It was predetermined, and targeted because they knew exactly what case to take, which contained a large portion of my inventory.””

Now, should I preface my remarks with "thoughts and prayers" for the victim? Maybe, but it isn't my style. I totally cop to being an indelicate, rude, judgmental jerk; my wife’s pet name for me is "asshole". But being a failure as a human being doesn't disqualify me from commenting on what happened and trying to learn from it. There are a lot of questions about what led to the theft that may never get answered publicly, but I guarantee you that an insurer will raise them when it examines the claim (I’ve represented insureds in first party theft loss cases against their insurers). So, please understand that I am not condemning Ash. What I am doing is attempting to understand how this happened and whether there are any teachable moments from it, other than that people are shitty, which I already know; I basically paid for my collection by suing shitty people.

Another reason why I may be perceived as judgy and unsympathetic in my assessments of events like this is because one of my roles as outside general counsel for various corporate clients has been analyzing potential liability risks and insurance coverage pitfalls associated with criminal activities that may take place at their businesses: theft, embezzlement, wire transfer fraud, phishing, etc. In other words, I have thought about this stuff a lot because I get paid to do so in conjunction with cybersecurity and physical security consultants. They are tasked with hardening the target that our client presents; my job is determining whether their proposals might create legal issues, and to investigate whether a bad outcome resulted from employee dishonesty, lack of proper security and control procedures as recommended by experts, or non-nefarious failure to follow existing procedures. I have been trained to think like a predator because in a very real sense, I am a predator. I hunt predators and fight predators (other litigators) for a living, so empathy for prey is not my default setting.

With that perspective in mind, here’s how I see the situation:

With all of the criminality that we’ve seen over the last few years in the Hobby, security is more important than ever before and merits some real consideration. One of my favorite sayings is "luck is the residue of design" [Branch Rickey]. There never should have been a situation where a million dollars in a briefcase was not in someone’s hand or at least under someone's close and undivided control at all times, just as there never should have been a situation where Memory Lane basically entrusted $2 million in cards to the staff at a Best Western for safekeeping.

One reason why I turned down an offer to be part of a show promotion group last year here in L.A. was my concern over security costs that I felt any promoter will need to absorb. We were in the middle of a wave of armed robberies and flash mob smash and grabs, and I did not want to be responsible for deterring that from happening at a show. If I was to run a show now, or if I represented a show promoter or host facility, given what has repeatedly and recently transpired at various shows, my recommendations would include the employment of active security measures, not merely relying on a contractual liability waiver and telling show participants to secure their own stuff overnight. All of the shows I work now as a vendor are at government-run facilities where the local PD operates directly and very visibly inside the venues throughout the show, set-up and break-down. I would not be so keen on setting up at a place where there isn't an armed law enforcement presence very visible and right there.

But I digress. Let’s turn to the events in Dallas.

Let's first be clear on what this was and what it was not. It was not any form of violent assault-based theft [armed robbery, home invasion, smash and grab, etc.]. It was not a casual theft, as would be the case when someone sees a stack of cash sitting there and grabs it without a preconceived plan. It was not a burglary, which is technically the wrongful entry into an empty private area followed by the removal of items from that area, such as cutting into a body bag, breaking into the car, entering a storage area and taking a parcel, etc. What happened to Ash is best analyzed as an opportunistic theft. The thieves identified a weakness in his security and exploited it without the use of violence, the threat of violence, or entry into a secured or private area.

The characterization of different forms of larceny is important because they have different security consequences. Nothing deters strong-arm theft short of visible, active, armed measures: if you are going to get mugged, you are going to get mugged unless the mugger realizes that there is a real risk of getting hurt or killed in the effort. Nor will locks deter a determined burglar; a police detective once told me that locks are meant to deter casual thieves because a determined burglar will simply break the lock. Showcases and body bags and other passive measures one should take at shows are meant to deter casual theft and opportunistic theft by making someone up the stakes to a burglary or robbery to get the items. It will deter most of the thievery you would encounter at a show. But not this sort of opportunistic theft. The key to that is to try and prevent the opportunity from arising.

It has been suggested that the thieves knew precisely which briefcase to grab, That is a reasonable conclusion, and is a big red flag from a security standpoint. We all pack and move our inventories the same way nearly every time. I find out what is most efficient for me and I repeat it. If the million-dollar briefcase was the victim’s standard packing method, all the more reason to have very specific procedures in place to safeguard it. For example, Mr. Mint used to have a bobo in his booth whose only job was to watch the briefcase with the flash cash in it; that's the guy he called to when he needed to bust out some Benjamins and dazzle a seller.

I actually considered the question of how to safeguard my showcase cards before the first show I worked post-COVID because 50% of the value of the items I was bringing fit into a single gun case. I won’t explain what I did but the case never left my hand from the moment I pulled it out until the cards were in the body bag at my table, and then from the moment they were packed out to the moment they were back in the car with me. In other words, I forced a potential thief to resort to robbery to get that case.

As far as can be seen from the security videos of the incident, no one was dedicated to watching the million-dollar briefcase or the other items beside it. There were three workers and the owner there. The owner was nowhere to be seen in the videos. We do not know the specific allocation of duties as between the three workers, but none of them were anywhere near the case when it got ripped, nor were any of them watching it. Was anyone tasked directly with securing the briefcase and other inventory? That may be the key security failure in this case, not delineating duties when a portable and very valuable object is exposed. Ever watch an armed transport crew pick up money? They carefully avoid distractions from the moment the cash bag is in hand until they are finished loading it into the armored truck. Leaving a million dollars in a suitcase in care of three workers who were also supposed to break down the display without a clear security protocol and delineation of duties may have inadvertently created an opportunity. Apparently, the theft took place an hour into breakdown. Meaning that a million dollars was left lying around for an hour. Not for a few minutes, for an hour. That is another huge red flag.

Now, one reason the crew that ripped the case may have known what to look for is that Ash advertises heavily. Advertising is a conundrum. Dealers have taken to making and posting detailed videos of their inventories on social media to plug upcoming shows. I understand the need to publicize what you have for sale and where it can be purchased. However, that is itself a reason for a serious security effort in advance of the appearance. If you are going to broadcast to the world that you are going to be in a specific place at a specific time with a million bucks in easily ported merch, you are painting a target on your back. I think we all need to take these issues seriously.

Again, I feel it is incumbent on me to explain that I do NOT have inside information on what happened, just a lot of experience cleaning up after clients have been victims of thefts and rip-offs. All I have is what the video shows, and what it shows from my perspective is either a lack of well-defined controls or a failure of implementation of existing controls. I sincerely hope the cards are found and returned to Ash, and that the thieves get their pee pees smacked hard and repeatedly. Maybe break their arms and dump them down an abandoned mine shaft; that’s what was done to opal thieves in the Australian outback.

Some folks in the Hobby are perturbed by discussions like this one, or by people throwing in their $0.02 about what why it could never happen to them. I am not bothered by the comments about "what I would have done" because it is a normal psychological reaction called a 'control fantasy'; we all process tragic events that befall others by imagining what we would have done differently to prevent the bad outcome. It is a coping mechanism.

I am critical of the reactions to the effect that we are not allowed to talk about what happened except in the sympathetic, uncritical, hushed tones of someone consoling a widow. That doesn't work for me. No amount of victim-speak should prevent a critical analysis of the theft. There has been a rash of robberies of people in various cities around Los Angeles who are wearing gaudy, expensive watches and jewelry; recall my remarks about the guy who was so decked out at the Ontario show in February that I didn’t even want to stand next to him just in case the bullets started to fly when (not if) he got robbed. It is not their fault that they were robbed, of course, and to suggest that I am saying that is facile and reductive, but it is not victim-blaming to acknowledge reality. Wearing a $25,000 gold and diamond Rolex is a display of wealth that may draw unwanted attention because there are predators out there and they are always, always on the hunt. The same holds true in the Hobby. The fact that Ash was a victim of a crime is terrible, but it is not a reason to not ask critical questions about how it happened and try to learn from it.