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Scouting skills help crack crime

27/05/2009

An attempt to steal £1.2million from a bank was foiled after police used a Scouting handbook to crack the thieves’ intricate code.

An employee of Cater Allen Private Bank (CAPB) in Sheffield, accessed customer details on its computer system before passing them on to his accomplices.

To disguise what he was doing, 22-year-old Ansir Khan wrote down customers' details in code substituting letters in their names for symbols and numbers.

His partners in crime then rang up the bank pretending to be legitimate customers, before transferring large sums of money in to their own accounts.

Khan was finally caught out when police raided his home and found the codes jotted down on pieces of paper.

Detective Constable Chris Stephens, who has been involved in Scouting for over 40 years, used the Scoutmaster's A to Z, which was first published in 1958, to decipher the code.

‘It was like a light bulb came on when one of the lads in the office said it looked like a code from the Scouts,’ said the Detective.

He then paired the symbols up with the details of customers who had been defrauded.

The thieves managed to steal £707,000 but another £500,000 didn't go through.

Of the money stolen, £315,000 was retrieved and refunded.

Source: http://www.scouts.org.uk/news_view.php?news_id=188

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