A twist in DB Cooper plane hijacking case

[Bud]

Turns out the guy may had been a fellow engineer

http://www.king5.com/news/crime/new-evidence-was-db-cooper-boeing-employee/385924766

Wiki page with the story background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper

[EEVblog]

Interesting!

[strangersound]

What strikes me as odd is that you'd think that $200K they delivered him in ransom would have been marked, serial numbers noted, and all the usual stuff. 1971 wasn't like now, but it was pretty well into the currency game, so I doubt they would have delivered $200K that didn't have the potential to be traced. So he would have had to have laundered it, fenced it, or whatever to exchange it into clean money he could use. And somebody along the way would eventually notice since 1971 bills would have been pulled out of circulation by any bank they hit, which would trigger the FBI/SS.
And it also seems like that wasn't a very big sum to request, considering he was obviously in a position to demand more.
$200k is a lot, but hardly enough to survive on for decades as a fugitive. 

[T3sl4co1l]

Yeah but Boeing wouldn't have been making their own CRTs, would they?  Anyway, lots of potential tech items on that list, also many that show up in medical context (e.g., barium sulfate), pyrotechnical (potassium chlorate, barium chloride) and so on.  (Pyrotechnics would be a conspicuous, but actually fairly odd source of a bomb -- would he have packed a display shell in his suitcase with an ignitor and fuse?  Would one even damage a plane?  Of course there's always the possibility of making a more purposeful bomb, or using, well, a more purposeful, purpose-made bomb -- a salute is basically 100% flash powder -- but would that be easy to make, given whatever security / inventory / control a pyro facility might have..?)

Also not clear on the amounts/proportions.  Probably they have more information on that.  100k is a pretty good sample size, even if it includes random stuff the tie was exposed to before, during and after the incident.

Tim

[boffin]

Bzzzt  I call BS

The team has identified particles like Cerium, Strontium Sulfide, and pure titanium.
“These are what they call rare earth elements. "

Back to chemistry class.  Ce is a rare earth, the other two aren't.

Perhaps a little visit to University of Nottingham's "Periodic Table of Videos" on YouTube would help these guys

[G7PSK]

Those rare earth metals are commonly found in lighter flints, and it does say in the Wikipedia article that he lit a cigarette.

[EEVblog]

What strikes me as odd is that you'd think that $200K they delivered him in ransom would have been marked, serial numbers noted, and all the usual stuff. 1971 wasn't like now, but it was pretty well into the currency game, so I doubt they would have delivered $200K that didn't have the potential to be traced.

They did record them.
Some kids found a roll years later in the bush and the serial numbers were confirmed.

[EEVblog]

$200k is a lot, but hardly enough to survive on for decades as a fugitive. 

Maybe he was a disgruntled fired Boeing engineer and figured that's what they owed him?
Reminds me of this:
https://youtu.be/zvw3fs1GJvg?t=2h4m13s

[strangersound]

$200k is a lot, but hardly enough to survive on for decades as a fugitive. 

Maybe he was a disgruntled fired Boeing engineer and figured that's what they owed him?
Reminds me of this:
https://youtu.be/zvw3fs1GJvg?t=2h4m13s

Unrelated to DB, but the shit these people do to get around copyright algorithms is constantly evolving.  I have to say the method in the clip you posted is better than the white spot thing...which is tolerable for something good enough, but still annoying. 

[nctnico]

What strikes me as odd is that you'd think that $200K they delivered him in ransom would have been marked, serial numbers noted, and all the usual stuff. 1971 wasn't like now, but it was pretty well into the currency game, so I doubt they would have delivered $200K that didn't have the potential to be traced.

They did record them.
Some kids found a roll years later in the bush and the serial numbers were confirmed.

A TV show called expedition unknown did an item on the DB Cooper case recently. They high lighted various angles of the investigation but since the show is aired on travel channel there is also a lot of room for the scenery.

[JoeO]

A scary part of this report is that the stuff that was found on his tie, was probably breathed into his lungs and also the lungs of people who did this kind of work for a living.
35 years of this soot can't be a good thing!

[ajb]

$200k is a lot, but hardly enough to survive on for decades as a fugitive. 

Let's see, in inflationary terms, $200k in 1971 is equivalent to $1.18mil today.  Looked at another way, $200k is 22x the median annual household income in 1971 ($9030), and in those terms it's worth a little bit more at $1.23mil today (22x $55,775). Plus it's tax free, so essentially worth 43% more than the same amount in pre-tax wages (median individual tax rate in the US is 31%).  Depending on age at the time of the hijacking and spending habits afterwords, that could probably be stretched for the rest of the culprit's life, especially if invested.  If nothing else, it would be a pretty substantial nest egg, or enough to get you pretty well started in a new life if you were willing to go back to work eventually.

[nctnico]

@ajb: you forget the money has to be cleaned first because the bills where obviously registered. Spending the registered bills would leave a clear paper trail (yes, pun intended).

[strangersound]

@ajb: you forget the money has to be cleaned first because the bills where obviously registered. Spending the registered bills would leave a clear paper trail (yes, pun intended).

That was my thought, to get it laundered would come at a heavy percentage. At least 50%, if he was lucky. And the bundles found were $5800 worth. That was the only money ever found. The rest never turned up. That was literally the only thing ever found, no traces of his chute, or anything. Just those bundles of cash, which were 3 bundles all found in a single hole on a riverbed north of where he would have jumped. The one documentary I watched suggested the money and him all washed out to sea, but I find that pretty hard to believe. The theory they gave to explain those bundles of bills was a quite a stretch of the imagination and any reasonable odds.
My guess was he left a few bundles in that location to lead the investigation and/or prove he made it. As for the money, that cash would eventually be pulled by a banking institution to be destroyed. The only way it could have been laundered is by somebody that would have been pretty high level in a banking institution or the government...
Laundering dirty money acquired through the black market or other off the record means isn't all that hard, any front business can handle it...pizza place, construction business, contracting of any sort...all you have to do is generate paperwork for fictional jobs to give the money a source. But laundering money that has the serial numbers logged by the FBI/SS and whoever else is a whole other ballgame. That requires somebody way on the inside.

Maybe he didn't even care about the money, and like Dave suggested, he was settling a grudge against the airline. Interesting case. They say the FBI closed the case some years back and has no intention of reopening it, but they did note it was the only unsolved airline hijacking in U.S. history.