Folks seem to be shocked at the audacity and brazenness of the heist. Let me clue y'all in to something: all of the most successful criminals and spies (and let's be honest here - the two are the same thing, the only difference being one has a state sponsorship and the other is completely free-lance) know that brazenness and audacity work.
Being furtive and secretive invites suspicion, which leads to questioning and surveillance. On the directly opposite hand, being bold, brazen, audacious and in-your-face doesn't. That's because everyone assumes that folks who are that in-your-face could not possibly be up to no good... because they're not being furtive and secretive. Criminals and spies hide in dark alleys, right? RIGHT?
No one ever questions you under those circumstances, because clearly you are there to do what you are supposed to be doing. Otherwise, you'd be hiding and wearing cloaks and daggers. So, if you... for example... park a giant assed bucket-truck in front of a museum, and are confident enough to even leave it there overnight, then clearly you are planning either repair or maintenance work on that building. No one questions it. Who ordered that work? I dunno. It must have been someone else, but clearly SOMEONE did, else the bucket-truck would not be parked so boldly where it is! I don't have time to look into it, I'm too busy doing security-stuff to bother with maintenance workers.
Simply wearing maintenance uniforms and entering through the front entrance, however, would invite some degree of scrutiny as one passed through security checkpoints... but no one checkpoints what is clearly maintenance equipment OUTSIDE the museum. So, you ride the bucket up, kick in a window, grab the goods,and you're back out and gone before the last glass shard even hits the floor.
Other real-world examples from my wicked and misspent youth:
In trade school, a couple of friends and I would sometimes get bored with class. What's a fella to do? We would pick up our stools and leave class to roam the hallways at will. No one ever questioned it - we were, after all, carrying stools as we roamed, so clearly we were just delivering them somewhere, or possibly retrieving them FROM somewhere. No one ever asked where that "somewhere" was. Even the Principal of the place - that, I think, is "headmaster" to our UK brethren - would smile at us, and nod and wave. He never, EVER, questioned us as to what we were doing, because clearly we were doing SOMETHING!
Also at trade school, I and those same two partners in crime once took our tools and went down to the nursing classroom, knocked on the door, and told the instructor we were from the heating and AC class, and were there to fix her AC unit. Never mind that there was nothing wrong with the AC unit... she let us in to work on it anyhow, under the assumption that there had to be something wrong with it, else we would not be there.
So, we went in and proceeded to tear the unit down, and then put it back together, which gave us about an hour and a half of free time to talk to and flirt with the nursing students.
Our parting words to the instructor were: "The condensers are cleared, so it should be fine now. Y'all have a nice day!" Being the instructor for a gaggle of prospective nurses, she knew nursing backwards and forwards... but had no idea what a "condenser" was. It sounded right, and we reported success, so all was well in her world. To this day, no one but us, the nursing students we flirted with, and now you, know the real story of what happened and why.
Boldness, brazenness, and audacity are the keys to many a successful caper!
.
Being furtive and secretive invites suspicion, which leads to questioning and surveillance. On the directly opposite hand, being bold, brazen, audacious and in-your-face doesn't. That's because everyone assumes that folks who are that in-your-face could not possibly be up to no good... because they're not being furtive and secretive. Criminals and spies hide in dark alleys, right? RIGHT?
No one ever questions you under those circumstances, because clearly you are there to do what you are supposed to be doing. Otherwise, you'd be hiding and wearing cloaks and daggers. So, if you... for example... park a giant assed bucket-truck in front of a museum, and are confident enough to even leave it there overnight, then clearly you are planning either repair or maintenance work on that building. No one questions it. Who ordered that work? I dunno. It must have been someone else, but clearly SOMEONE did, else the bucket-truck would not be parked so boldly where it is! I don't have time to look into it, I'm too busy doing security-stuff to bother with maintenance workers.
Simply wearing maintenance uniforms and entering through the front entrance, however, would invite some degree of scrutiny as one passed through security checkpoints... but no one checkpoints what is clearly maintenance equipment OUTSIDE the museum. So, you ride the bucket up, kick in a window, grab the goods,and you're back out and gone before the last glass shard even hits the floor.
Other real-world examples from my wicked and misspent youth:
In trade school, a couple of friends and I would sometimes get bored with class. What's a fella to do? We would pick up our stools and leave class to roam the hallways at will. No one ever questioned it - we were, after all, carrying stools as we roamed, so clearly we were just delivering them somewhere, or possibly retrieving them FROM somewhere. No one ever asked where that "somewhere" was. Even the Principal of the place - that, I think, is "headmaster" to our UK brethren - would smile at us, and nod and wave. He never, EVER, questioned us as to what we were doing, because clearly we were doing SOMETHING!
Also at trade school, I and those same two partners in crime once took our tools and went down to the nursing classroom, knocked on the door, and told the instructor we were from the heating and AC class, and were there to fix her AC unit. Never mind that there was nothing wrong with the AC unit... she let us in to work on it anyhow, under the assumption that there had to be something wrong with it, else we would not be there.
So, we went in and proceeded to tear the unit down, and then put it back together, which gave us about an hour and a half of free time to talk to and flirt with the nursing students.
Our parting words to the instructor were: "The condensers are cleared, so it should be fine now. Y'all have a nice day!" Being the instructor for a gaggle of prospective nurses, she knew nursing backwards and forwards... but had no idea what a "condenser" was. It sounded right, and we reported success, so all was well in her world. To this day, no one but us, the nursing students we flirted with, and now you, know the real story of what happened and why.
Boldness, brazenness, and audacity are the keys to many a successful caper!
.
“Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage among his books. For to you kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned with the flick of a finger.”
― Gordon R. Dickson, Tactics of Mistake
― Gordon R. Dickson, Tactics of Mistake