the.com/robbery
the world's oldest hustle, now mostly done in suits and spreadsheets
means The act of taking someone's property by force, threat, or stealth — theft with menace attached.
from From Old French 'roberie,' the act of plundering, built on the verb 'rober' (to rob, to steal), which traces back to a Germanic root — the same family that gave English 'reave' (to plunder) and 'bereave' (to rob someone of). That Germanic source originally carried the sense of seizing spoils, often spoils of war. So the word was born among raiders, not pickpockets — a reminder that robbery began as something armies did before it became something muggers and, per the essence, suits did.
- legal line
- requires force or fear, not just theft
- odd target
- bank robberies average a few thousand dollars
- failure rate
- most robbers get caught within years
- word origin
- shares roots with the word robe
- safest now
- bank robberies have plummeted since the 1990s
great train robbery — british heist in 1963 where thieves stole £2.3 million from a royal mail train
al capone's vault — chicago mobster's secret safe opened on live tv in 1986, found to be empty
parker center bank robbery — 1997 north hollywood shootout where two heavily armed men robbed a bank of america in los angeles