Bellagio Bandit Caught

[Dan Abnormal]

They finally caught the dude who stole the chips - From YAHOO

LAS VEGAS – The man accused of holding up a posh Las Vegas Strip casino was living large after the heist, gambling away hundreds of thousands of dollars, until he got caught trying to hawk his stolen chips online to [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]poker [COLOR=#366388 ! important]players[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR], authorities say.
Anthony M. Carleo, the bankrupt son of a Las Vegas judge, was arrested this week on allegations that he ran out of the Bellagio hotel-casino with $1.5 million in chips during a gunpoint heist Dec. 14.
An arrest report for the helmeted bandit says Carleo lost about $105,000 at the resort over the next month — including $73,000 on New Year's Eve. He stayed at least one week at the resort in late January, enjoying meals, drinks and rooms furnished by the casino.
"He likes to gamble," Las Vegas police Lt. Ray Steiber said as he described for reporters how Carleo, 29, was nabbed late Wednesday on the same casino floor from where the chips came.
Carleo wasn't armed and offered no resistance when he was taken into custody.
Police recovered $900,000 in chips of different types — the ones stolen ranged from $100 to $25,000 — and can account for $1.2 million, Steiber said.
He said police were still looking for the black motorcycle they say Carleo used to make his pre-dawn getaway. Steiber wouldn't say whether police still believe the same man robbed the Suncoast casino in northwest Las Vegas at gunpoint early Dec. 8, although police previously said the same person was suspected in both heists.
According to the arrest report, Carleo's downfall came after he tried to broker sales of the highest value chips of $25,000 through a well-known Web forum for poker players.
Using the handle "Oceanspray 25" — a reference to the beverage company because $25,000 chips are known to gamblers as "cranberries" for their color — Carleo traded e-mails and phone calls with another user who eventually led him to police, the arrest report said.
It said Carleo sold five $25,000 chips to an undercover officer, and told him he had robbed the Bellagio.
Carleo's father, Las Vegas Municipal Court Judge George Assad, issued a statement saying he and his family were "devastated and heartbroken to see my son arrested under these circumstances."
Assad said that as a working judge, he couldn't comment about "any pending legal matter as it relates to anyone, including my son."
"I can say that as a prosecutor and a judge, I have always felt people who break the law need to be held accountable," he added.
Jail records showed Carleo was being held under the name Anthony M. Assad. The name was also used in Carleo's bankruptcy filing.
Carleo is a former real estate broker and student who declared bankruptcy in Colorado in May 2009. On his bankruptcy filing, he listed among his personal belongings a .40-caliber Taurus pistol.
His bankruptcy filing said Carleo received at least $19,000 from his father over a three year period, but owed nearly $188,000 in debts. The case was closed seven months later, and the firm that represented him in that case said Thursday that it was not currently representing him.
It wasn't immediately clear whether Carleo had a lawyer.
Voting records in 2010 showed that Carleo lived at the same address as his father in Las Vegas.
His bail was set at $15,000 on felony armed robbery and burglary charges. Court spokeswoman Mary Ann Price said he was due Monday for an initial appearance in Las Vegas Justice Court.
Carleo won't be required to appear when a judge reviews the charges against him on Friday, Price said.
A police statement early Thursday said Carleo would face a drug trafficking charge. But Steiber said that officials decided not to seek that charge, but he did not specify why.
Experts and police noted after the heist that stealing $1.5 million in chips isn't like stealing $1.5 million in cash.
Chips are unique to [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]casino [COLOR=#366388 ! important]properties[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] and are generally not interchangeable, although state regulations let casino companies redeem sister properties' chips with some restrictions.
Bellagio has since replaced its $25,000 chips and announced plans to discontinue in April those designed like the ones stolen, setting a deadline for the thief to try to use them.
Steiber said investigators followed numerous tips in the case, and on Dec. 23 interviewed a Salvation Army bell ringer who tried to cash a $25,000 Bellagio chip. He told police that a man he didn't know put the chip in his pocket while he was manning a charity collection bucket.
Bellagio officials would not say whether [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]MGM [COLOR=#366388 ! important]Resorts [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]International[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] properties, which include the posh hotel-casino on the Strip known for its fountains, are among Las Vegas casinos that embed radio frequency devices inside the tokens.
Police said it took less than three minutes for the robber to pull off the heist.
He entered the casino from Flamingo Road, strode fewer than 500 feet to a [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]craps [COLOR=#366388 ! important]table[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR], brandished the handgun at the 10 to 12 patrons and three or four dealers with chips piled on the green felt, scooped up the loot and ran.
Casino security officers didn't confront the robber, but a ceiling security video camera followed his path out the door. Police say a 911 call was placed to police while the man was still in the casino.
He was gone by the time police arrived.
___
Associated Press writers Cristina Silva and Ken Ritter in Las Vegas and news researcher Judith Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.

[Ravensfan929]

Heard about this and honestly ditn think they would catch him after this long but should of known he would do sumthing dumb and get caught lol

[Dan Abnormal]

LAS VEGAS – The scenes that led to the Bellagio bandit's downfall look less like "Ocean's Eleven" and more like "America's Dumbest Criminals."
Bragging about a big gambling score with high school buddies over rounds of shots in Colorado. E-mailing pictures to a total stranger — dated and signed "Biker Bandit" with two $25,000 Bellagio chips. Losing $105,000 gambling at the scene of the crime in Las Vegas, but cashing out nearly $209,000 and apparently hoping the casino wouldn't notice.
The deceptively simple burglary lit up the Internet — appealing to anyone who's ever had fantasies about pulling off a major score against a [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]casino [COLOR=#366388 ! important]giant[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]. But police say Anthony Carleo's shoddy plan after stealing $1.5 million in chips unfolded like a badly played poker hand.
"At one point I think he asked me, 'What do I do?'" said Matthew Brooks, a poker enthusiast from Washington, D.C., who went to the FBI after trading e-mails and phone calls with Carleo. "And I'm like, 'I don't know what to tell you, man.'"
Carleo, the 29-year-old son of a Las Vegas municipal judge, declined to comment to reporters Friday.
Police say he's the helmeted bandit who entered the Bellagio on Dec. 14, brandished a gun and made off on a motorcycle with the chips in denominations from $100 to $25,000. He was arrested Wednesday, a day after an undercover officer bought four $25,000 chips from him, then offered an invitation — to become part of a crew that would rob casinos, including the Bellagio.
Carleo's response to officers: He'd already robbed the place.
In between the brazen heist and the arrest, as Carleo gambled and partied, the cops were hot on his tail, according to an arrest report.
Two days before Christmas, Bellagio security told police that a bell-ringer for the Salvation Army tried to cash a $25,000 chip along with a friend. The worker told police the chip was dropped into his pocket from an unknown man while he took donations from a walkway between the MGM Grand and New York-New York casinos on the Las [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Vegas[/COLOR][/COLOR] Strip.
Police confiscated the chip.
Just after Christmas, Carleo spent time in his childhood hometown of Pueblo, Colo., buying "beer and shots for everybody," according to a friend.
"He had a lot of money on him and he told us, you know he lives in Vegas and that he had just gotten lucky gambling and that he won $80,000 gambling," Tiana Woodruff told Pueblo station KOAA-TV.
By New Year's Eve, Carleo was back at the Bellagio, losing $72,000 in one night and spending a week in January at the casino living for free on the casino's dime as a high roller.
A source told police that Carleo liked to play poker and frequented the Bellagio's no-limit Texas Hold 'em tables with $10 and $20 minimum bets.
On Jan. 4, Carleo lost an $11,000 pot, then left and came back a short time later with $5,000 in chips, the source said.
His activity at the tables didn't match what he was cashing out, and [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]casino [COLOR=#366388 ! important]workers[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] noticed.
Casino chips are like gift cards — they're extremely limited in where they can be redeemed. And the Bellagio swiftly replaced its line of $25,000 chips on the floor and announced they would no longer circulate those like the ones stolen.
That's why Carleo was trying to get rid of his them on a secondary market, and he sold stolen chips to an undercover officer twice in the days before he was arrested.
After losing big at the Bellagio, Carleo told people he knew from the [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]poker [COLOR=#366388 ! important]tables[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] he was behind the heist. A police informant told officers he'd heard about Carleo from a friend.
"The friend also told the confidential informant that Carleo had mentioned that he was hurting for money and might have to do something drastic in the next several days," the report said.
On Jan. 16, Carleo approached Brooks on Two Plus Two, a popular Web forum where the heist was a hot topic, with players discussing how the bandit might try to turn his chips into real money, Brooks said. Eventually, they talked by phone.
At first, Carleo spoke vaguely at first about the chips, Brooks said, but gradually he became more specific.
"That's when I kind of got more pointed in questions and asked specifically: 'Did you do this? Is this your deal or did you just get some of the chips and you know the guy?' And he said, 'No that's me,'" said Brooks, 29.
Carleo e-mailed several pictures to Brooks depicting two $25,000 Bellagio chips — affectionately known as "cranberries" to gamblers because of their color.
"Cranberries are good for the liver!" reads the postscript on the note in the picture.
Brooks called the FBI, local police and the casino.
Carleo was arrested Wednesday night without resisting, and admitted his involvement in the robbery, police said.
Despite the suspect's seemingly unplanned actions after the heist, his return to the Bellagio wasn't all that surprising, said Dave Schwartz, a former casino security officer in Atlantic City who now runs the [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Center [COLOR=#366388 ! important]for [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Gaming [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Research[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Usually, he said, casino burglars come back to the scene of the crime to cash in chips or to try to steal more.
Schwartz said the case showed how casinos and police are more measured and methodical than hasty when it comes to catching casino thieves.
"It's not like they're going to chase the guy down in a shootout or do that kind of stuff, but they are going to follow through and eventually lead people to get tripped up," Schwartz said. "You've got to wonder what you can get away with."
It was evident, Brooks said, that Carleo didn't have much of a plan.
"It was not Brad Pitt talking to me," he said, referring to one of the stars of heist film "Ocean's Eleven." "It was not George Clooney."