US Reveals One of the Biggest Robberies Committed More Than 50 Years Ago

The robber was a bank employee who, in 1969, finished his work week by taking off with more than $200,000.

The US has identified a man who carried out one of the most famous bank robberies in the country's history. As reported by BBC, he had been wanted for 52 years.

Details of the robbery 

Ted Conrad worked as a teller at Society National Bank in Cleveland, Ohio. In July 1969, he robbed his employer.

He vanished with $215,000, which, due to gradual inflation, is equivalent to $1.7 million today.

Investigators said that he then lived a quiet, unremarkable life until he died of lung cancer in May of this year.

Conrad was only 20 years old when he committed the robbery. Reportedly, on Friday evening, as the branch was closing, due to poor security at the bank, he was able to simply walk out with the money stuffed into a brown paper bag.

When other bank employees realized two days later that the money had disappeared, Conrad also disappeared.

A manhunt followed that lasted more than half a century and featured on TV shows such as "America's Most Wanted" and "Unsolved Mysteries".

According to the US Marshals Service, Conrad allegedly told friends about his plans to rob the bank and boasted that it would be easy. 

Reportedly, he was obsessed with Steve McQueen's 1968 film "The Thomas Crown Affair" and watched it more than 10 times while preparing for the robbery.

According to investigators, after his disappearance Conrad changed his name to Thomas Randel and first fled to Washington, then to Los Angeles, and then settled in a suburb of Boston, about 1,000 km from the scene of the crime.

Investigators say he subsequently lived a quiet, unremarkable life, working for the last 40 years at a golf club and a used car dealership.

How the Criminal Was Found

The case stalled for decades until investigators, alerted by an obituary for Randel in a newspaper, were able to match documents he had filed in the 1960s with documents that "Randel" had filed recently. 

Ironically, among these documents was Randel's 2014 bankruptcy case in a Boston court.

Marshal Peter Elliott was one of the lead investigators on the case. He inherited it from his father, John, who was obsessed with finding out what happened to the audacious thief.

"My father never stopped searching for Conrad and always wanted to see the case through to the end, right up until his death in 2020," said Marshal Elliott.

"I hope my father finds it a little easier to rest in peace today, knowing that the US Marshals Service has finally brought his investigation to an end and solved this decades-old mystery," he added.