Monarch Casino Spa – Black Hawk in Colorado became the scene of the largest casino heist in the state on March 12 after a cage cashier drove off with $500,000.
Cashier Believed She Was Following Orders
An inside job or a casino personnel becoming a victim of a well-executed con job – that is for investigators to find out but what happened at Monarch Casino on that morning is unprecedented and hard to explain.
Investigating the missing money, a Division of Gaming inspector wrote in an affidavit that casino cashier Sabrina Eddy appeared in the video footage at 12:45 in the morning, grabbing bricks of $50,000 each from the casino vault, carefully placing the stacks of money in a box and then taping the box shut, reported 9News.
Around 12:55, Eddy walked out of the casino cage carrying the box, went to the parking garage, got into a gold minivan and drove off. An hour later, she returned to the cage and grabbed four more bricks of bills, rounding the total amount of money taken to half a million, and drove off again.
According to the affidavit, 44-year-old Eddy believed she was doing nothing wrong as she believed she was following orders from casino personnel, Monarch’s head of operations and a cage manager.
Eddy told investigators that there was a phone call on the casino’s phone from a man claiming to be the Monarch’s head of operations who told her the money was needed to solve an ongoing issue with a UPS order and if the problem was not solved, the casino would “be in breach of contract.”
At the same time, she was exchanging texts with another man who she believed was a cage manager and that man confirmed the story about the problematic UPS order, playing a part in convincing her that the money is needed for the business.
Well Executed Con Job?
Both men told her that the money should be delivered to a lawyer and acting on their instructions, Eddy drove the box to St. Anthony’s Hospital where around 4:36 in the morning, she gave it to a man who came to her door, the affidavit further revealed.
Officials from Monarch Casino confirmed a theft occurred but did not provide any further details due to the ongoing investigation. Spokesperson Erica Ferris commented that businesses sometimes experience “unfortunate things” and until this moment, Monarch Casino was fortunate to avoid such things.
Division of Gaming’s spokesperson Suzi Karrer refused to comment on the story and did not provide answers to any follow-up questions.
Ron Kammerzell, a former head of the Colorado Division of Gaming and now a regulatory consultant for the gaming industry, commented that he had never heard of a casino theft of such magnitude since 1991 when casino gaming in the state became legal.
“For something like that to happen, it would have had to defeat a number of different levels of casino controls within the property,” he said.
Eddy, who was apprehended on a theft charge, remains in arrest as she has not made bail.