The days of Jesse James, Butch Cassidy and Bonnie and Clyde are long gone – and I am not just talking about the Wild West.

According to the FBI, numbers show that bank heists have dropped by around 60% in the past 25 years, and that robbers are getting away with less and less loot.

In the past 10 years, numbers have shown that the take has dwindled to nearly half, averaging around $6 500 (R90 000).

While that may seem like a lot, the problem is that the risks have started to outweigh the rewards.

Gerald C. Clark, a former FBI agent and now an assistant professor of criminal justice at Gannon University in Pennsylvania. weighed in on the situation:

Bank robbery is now largely a crime of the desperate. Today’s bank robber is the person who needs money now or the drug user looking to get that instant high.

But that doesn’t mean banks aren’t being robbed at all. According to The Washington Post:

Experts said old-fashioned bank robbery is also declining because thieves are finding more-profitable and less-risky ventures. Some are targeting ATMs, and others are turning to cybercrime, committing virtual heists from the comfort of their basements.

A 2015 IBM report listed the financial-services industry as the third most-targeted for cybercrime. The Internet security company Kaspersky Lab reported last year that a single hacker collective was able to steal about $1 billion from dozens of banks around the world, even ordering ATMs to spit out cash at set times to be collected by mules employed by the gang.

That one attack easily dwarfed the $26.3 million the FBI says was taken during the more-than 4,000 bank robberies in the United States in 2015. The proceeds from bank robbery are now so low that British economists calculated that the average robber is earning little more than the minimum wage.

Yup, say hello to our new friend, cybercrime. Here are stats comparing the two:

Robbing banks just ain’t what it used to be, hey?

And it’s not just money that is being stolen from banks, but personal information, too, which is used to gain access to your personal accounts – or sold to interested parties through the black market.

That’s why it’s so important to have guys like NEWORDER on your side, whether it’s for personal or corporate reasons.

Or you can just keep you money under your mattress.

[source:washingtonpost]