On the evening of February 2nd 2011 a man . stands in the corner of a casino restroom he's counting three large wads of cash online . he's only known under a pseudonym oceans spray 25 he's a multi-millionaire lives a life . of luxury and drives a Suzuki GSXR in Las Vegas he feels safe Untouchable suddenly , he he's a commotion on the other side of the restroom door without hesitation he rushes for the nearest cubicle he must hide because without realizing it he's just made a mistake . a tiny mistake with serious consequences if he's not careful it will cost him everything FBI investigators have been waiting for this moment for months authorities and multiple casinos . across Vegas have worked tirelessly for this opportunity will the hunt for Vegas's biggest Thief finally come to an end it's the year 2000 and an Italian American student is on a trip home is Colorado with his mother and her people it's quiet but right now , he's visiting his father and his father his stepfather his uncle they've all done well nice , suits nice cars nice houses they all worked hard they're respectable self-made men who are always given him a life lesson and now it's time for him to grow up but tonight he's out in Vegas where his dad lives and that means casinos and inside those it's nice to dream that you've already made it just like the guy next to him on the craps table he'll never know his name but he's about to change , his life forever now craps is a casino dice game where players bet on the outcomes of a role or a series of roles of a pair of dice playing against the house there are different ways to bet from . the total of your next role to whether specific numbers will come up but this guy is betting on , one of the longest shots in the game a hard eight the odds that he'll roll two fours before he rolls a seven the most common outcome of a two dice roll or a soft eight like a six and a two a 9 to one . the kid watches transfixed as the man starts with a single $5 check he bets A Hard Eight rolls and wins now he has $50 and he should walk away but no he lets it ride he bets the $50 on another hard , eight and wins again and now he has $500 the crowd is growing the craps tables are always where the , party is and right now this is the place to be to the kid's amazement the man bets a hard eight . again and wins the crowd explodes he goes again and wins and it's Mayhem the man has become an . instant hero his $5 becoming $50,000 to hit hard eight once was improbable to hit it four times in a row was nearly impossible it's one in 1,679 616 to be exact so surprise surprise the casino , is hardly paying its dues but the guy's $50,000 richer so now he walks away why wouldn't he and so does the young Italian American a picture clearer than ever forming in his mind one day when he's , earned his chance just like all of his family Role Models he too will play like this like he doesn't care his name is Tony Carleo fast forward to August 2009 and back in the small working city of Port Bell Colorado Tony's dreams have not yet come true in fact his life isn't just going nowhere it's heading down the toilet it fast there's been some bad luck along the way the car crash got , him hooked on the painkiller oxy conon and the financial crash of 2008 left him with a tonne of . debt but mostly it's just been bad choices and one dumb scheme after the next a one-man disc business called DJ Tony Mike a limo hire company gold key limousines with its very own motto what goes on in the limo stays in the limo and now drug dealing Coke ecstasy he left over Oxycontin the truth is . he knows he's a let down an idiot and everything has failed and so he files for bankruptcy almost , at Rock Bottom almost but not completely because whilst his parents are divorced they both still love him and they encourage him to keep going one last role of the dice to grow up and get a proper job in medicine so he sells whatever hasn't been seized Pockets his last $30,000 and jumps in his , car it's a 12-hour drive to the start of his new chapter so plenty of time to think he'll be living , with his dad with a $1,000 per month allowance while he completes his studies at the University of Nevada it's time to get serious destination Las Vegas on the board in his dad's spare room he pins up some motivation a photo of his cousin orgie dead from an overdose over which he writes the . words succeed for me and for a couple of semesters he does good studies hard meets a nice girl keeps , his $330,000 the trouble with Vegas though is well Vegas in late November 2010 there's a 2E break . from class he's still taking Oxycontin and when he's not studying he gets flat lonely and where's the cure for that right on his doorstep 24/7 the casinos in a matter of days he loses half his . bank roll there are strippers and a lot of drugs soon only endless lines of OxyContin and cocaine . keep him upright he's a mess and his dad stops his allowance and the way Tony sees it that forces . his hand so now here he is with his last $112,000 inside one of the most luxurious casinos on the . Strip the bagio the bagio may not have the history of Caesar's Palace or the N life of the MGM Grand but when it comes to keeping the high rollers happy is hard to beat hosting bigname players and , celebrities Galore like Phil Ivy and Doyle Brunson Ben Affleck and Paris Hilton it all means there's . a lot of money in the house Tony just needs some of it and first up is the poker table the better , players see him coming through and he soon loses $6,000 at midnight he switches to Blackjack him , versus the dealer means that apart from that all important Edge that the casinos like to keep hold of is a 50/50 game but it's a game he loses game and again and again and an hour later he has nothing Tony sits with his head in his hands he's lost everything he needs Coke and that doesn't

come cheap and a new way to get back on track big money fast and he remembers that guy at the craps . table 10 years earlier and thinks if he could do it I could do it and at that moment right there in . front of him inside the bagio he sees how it's a plan that cannot fail like a lot of gamblers down . on their luck Tony has often had this fantasy the one where you're fresh out of chips so you simply . reach over grab a free handful and as simple as that you're back in the game hell he'd even , joked about it so why not just do it he think hard could he really what would he need to pull , this off the answer not much it's beautifully crazily simple he doesn't have much left but he does have a gun just to make the transaction as smooth as possible and he also has a motorbike . a black Suzuki GSXR with a top speed of 170 mph perfect for a speedy exit because you don't want , to be hanging around when you've just robbed a billion dollar business propped up by the mob . and over the next couple of days he decides if he can get in and out and recognize there's nothing . that could go wrong so is he really doing this on the 9th of December 2010 it looks like he is he , dresses all in black hops on his black bike and weaves through the Vegas night he's heading out of , town to the West Vegas suburbs summer then he's on his way to change his life he doesn't go too fast , because he doesn't want to attract attention and besides his heartbeat supplying all the speed he needs it's a roller coaster ride of adrenaline before he can change his mind he reaches his . destination the Sun Coast Casino a laidback low security locals joint 10 km from the hustle the , strip is a place he knows well he Parks his bike outside the entrance jumps off helmet on keys in . in the ignition pulls the gun out of his waistband walks inside counting his steps just 45 like he'd . rehearsed and gets to the cashier once there he tells them to reach into the drawer grab stacks of , cash and put it into a bag in a single minute it's all over and just 45 steps back out to the bike , there's no security or at least they don't get involved most casinos will not go near an armed , robber they're reasoning weapons or liability will just call the police so he heads into the , night $199,000 Rich up and the police have no leads for the first time in his life he feels like . a winner back in his dad's spare room he spreads the money out at $2,000 payday just like that he , took a chance and boom he should spend the money carefully and lay low but he doesn't he gets right back into planning because the truth is for Tony this is just a warm-up and 5 days later on the 14th of December 2010 he's at it again this time though he plans to hit the jackpot and for this , he'll be heading back to where he spotted it where the big money is in the Bellagio taking 6% of . all Casino cash in town it's making well over $2 million per day so how much are they really going , to care if just a little slice takes a little walk it's 3:50 a.m. when Tony arrives once again he . Parks his bike keys in ignition helmet still on there's always room for manners and for staying CT . so he gives the security guard a friendly wave and she waves back and then he heads inside at a bris , jog not though to the cashier it's too far it will take too long and notes ay too instead he heads , 200 ydd to the very same place where it hatched his plan the High limits craps tables there are a . few high rollers unaware of what's about to happen and then right there sitting on the table just as . his fantasized is a huge pile of chips he pulls out his gun and shouts for people to get out he , starts shoveling handful after handful of chips into a backpack he Scoops wide and he Scoops fast it takes just 15 seconds and then he runs 200 100 yards back through the casino waving his gun at , the valet but there's no sign of any havo Heroes he gets back back on his bike down Flamingo Road . into the desert night there are some flashing blue lights at first a quick police chase but then he's . gone and they'll never catch him especially at those top speeds again 170 mph soon he's home to count out his jackpot it's incredible more than he'd ever imagined $1.5 million and he knows . for sure they can't identify him what he doesn't know though is that he's just made a crazy mistake . it's something straight out of Hollywood a thief is on the run with over a million dollars in Las . Vegas casino chips it's a Hollywood size Heist so soon it's all over the news with the culprit being tagged the bagio Bandit but who is this guy he did the Sun Coast too a local casino so he must have , local connections a mother a father but who there is still no leads all the casino and the cops , have to go on is what's been stolen and that's where Tony's problems begin with the chips themselves casinos like chips that can be used in their casinos only not only are they , usually branded that way they often contain scannable radio frequency identification or RFID , tags so whilst they can't be tracked they won't work anywhere else Tony knows this though and it's , fine because he's not planning on going anywhere else he's already known as a player at the bagio , now he just heads back there and plays a little more often pokem only with their chips which he's , stolen because how would they know something else the casino chips have in common though is the color code with different value chips coming in in different colors it can vary but at the bagio it starts with $1 whites the ones Tony was after though were $100 blacks all the way up to the $1,000 yellows and $5,000 Grays and that's all fine too though getting rid of the smaller value chips is easy and the more he plays the more he spends the easier it is to slip in those bigger . ones too then he heads to the craps pit table number five the actual scene of his very own . robbery he can't help it and he discovers that he's all that anyone is talking about you think ,

that guy will get away with it someone asks the guy's crazy of course he'll get caught . are you kidding he's a genius I guarantee you he's long gone by now it's all good for the ego the bagio Bandit is famous and Tony continues to lose but hell it's not his money and at the end , of each night he's still walking up to the cashier and Cashing Out 20 or $30,000 soon he's laundered . over $100,000 which he stashes in a safety deposit box he's also got the casino's attention and not . in a bad way all he spending has made him a valued customer so they start with their comps first , the steak dinners they a sweet soon he's living in the casino he robbed at their expense dressed , in their Valor tracksuit spending the money that he stole from them he's slowly giving it all back , though because he's still losing $105,000 during 18 gambling sessions in just over a month , including $72,000 on New Year's Eve in fact come January 2011 his deposit box is empty and , he's running out of chips there's not many left less than 50 and they are the problem the real . problem because as well as scooping up the medium value chips he'd planned for Tony also grabbed , some cranberry color chips each worth $225,000 the casino thinks that he could have as many as , 48 which together would be worth a staggering $1.2 million and right now they're hidden in the . homes of Tony's friends all across the city so the Bellagio decides to set a trap announcing that his $25,000 cranber are to be discontinued soon they call for all gamblers holding the chips to redeem . them by April 22nd it's a direct invite to the bagio Bandit use those $25,000 chips if you dare , and we'll see what happens happens and if you miss that deadline they'll simply become worthless plastic still though no leads a Salvation Army bell ringer called Robert Cornell tries to cash in , a single $25,000 chip that someone had dropped in his bucket but can't or won't say who but then the Vegas cops in charge of the case detective Sam Smith and Jason Nelson catch a break they get a visit from a dealer at the bagio an excitable guy from New Jersey who they nicknamed Leo after , Joe pes's character in Lethal Weapon the kind of chirpy guy who loves to be involved Leo says that . days before the robbery on the 11th of December 2010 a player at his table broke had joked man I'd like to just run over to that table and grab a bunch of those cranber and then a few days later that same guy was back and magically in the money his name Tony carleo the detectives check him out . declared bankrupt tick owns a Suzuki GSX are tick a drug problem that might make you do crazy stuff , with prescriptions for over 120 80 mg oxycontin pills a month that's also a great big tick and while in the four years leading up to the robbery Caro had lost a total of $2,900 at the Cino since . the robbery he's lost $105,000 he has to be the bagio Bandit but when detective Nelson finds out , who his father is he says damn if that's the case I better be right they need to get Rock Solid proof but how Tony meanwhile is hatching a plan he gets onto the 2 plus2 pokker forum username . Ocean Spray 25 location kada he starts making connections and when a user posts a question how many potentially worthless cranberries would you accept for a legit 5K Chip he sees his chance . he gets in touch sends him a picture to prove that he has them and asks the for a member named Matthew Brooks to make him an offer Brooks passes is but Days Later Tony's approached in the Venetian Casino by a man representing a jersey mobster named Dominic who is willing to buy he's , Italian American and full of it just like him and they immediately hit it off over the next few days they meet repeatedly to eat drink talk and negotiate and on January 30th Dominic slides . a wine list across restaurant table to Tony telling him there's some nice Selections in there , inside he finds $10,000 in cash he Pockets the money passes a $25,000 chip back to Dominic and . heads up to his suite delighted finally Tony is in business he'll sell off all the chips at . $10,000 a piece and then get out of the game Tony and Dominic stay in contact and on February 2nd . they meet again this time he back at the Bellagio downstairs in the bathrooms but on this occasion , Tony hands him three cranberries together worth another $75,000 he jokes that if his dad hadn't , stopped his allowance he wouldn't have needed to do this now he can make it up with his father and all will be good Dominic burst S A laughter and heads off but as he leaves Tony notices something . the look that Dominic gives him is a little bit strange seconds later six police storm through . the door and Tony is arrested the poker for amuser Matthew Brooks had alerted the Las Vegas Police . and Dominic is actually an officer named Mike Garo and now Mike Garo is wondering who's going to , tell his dad because of all people Tony's father is a well-known Las Vegas judge a respected pillar of the local law abiding Community named George Assad he releases a statement I can say that as a prosecutor and a judge I've always felt people who break the law need to be held accountable and , he is 23 cranber ships worth $575,000 are located at the homes of a girlfriend and Associate of Tony's and he's eventually sentenced to 9 years in Nevada's love Correctional Center the same prison that holds OJ Simpson his parents are heartbroken and he apologizes the police reports show that the bagio dealer Leo had warned Tony not to go ahead with his plan dude you watch Oceans 11 . too much this is real life and that doesn't happen but Tony Koo made it happen and he might have got , away with it if it wasn't for $1 $225,000 mistake those crampy chips which he should have left on the table or at least never tried to sell,

The Hunt for The Las Vegas Bandit