Creative or just plain comical? A Florida man was recently arrested after a robbery didn’t go quite as planned. Perhaps the assailant couldn’t find a proper mask because while stealing from a store, he used a cardboard box to conceal his identity — then dropped it.
Dubbed the “Box Wearing Bandit” by some, 33-year-old Claude Vincent Griffin has been identified as the suspect, according to NBC Miami 6. Yesterday (June 4), the outlet added that the alleged criminal was arrested Saturday (June 3) in connection to a robbery at a phone repair store in Miami Gardens. Surveillance video captured a man with a cardboard box loosely covering his head, breaking a glass display case, and taking multiple cellphones. Frustrated with the ill-fitting biodegradable disguise, the assailant eventually knocked off the face covering, revealing his identity. He fled the store with 19 iPhones and $8,000 in cash, totaling $15,000.
Social media users had a field day with the footage. “Why always Florida? Did God create people there differently?” one person asked. Another quipped, “He should have thought outside the box.” In true “Scooby-Doo” fashion, one added, “And he would’ve gotten away with it, too, if he didn’t take the only thing off protecting his face.” Some wondered if “his address was on the shipping label of the box.” “At least he tried. It’s the effort that counts,” another claimed.
Jeremias Berganza is the owner of Irepair Tech, where the crime occurred at 4500 Northwest 183rd Street in Miami Gardens, Florida, and provided the news station with the tapes. Berganza did some digging in the area and found Griffin at the same plaza drinking with his friends at a nearby liquor store. The suspect was charged with grand theft, burglary, criminal mischief, cocaine possession, and resisting an officer without violence.
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