casino thief lives posh
Casino Theft

There are very few planned robberies, thefts and heists where the robbers, thieves, or hijackers elude capture for even a few months once their identities are known.

In this age of electronics and big government, it’s the sobriety checks and profiling, it’s the missed stop sign, the 15mph Sunday speed limit in front of Churches, and anti-cigarette smoking laws that eventually flush out just about everyone on the run.

This is precisely why an 18 year old theft of almost $3 million dollars, all in non-sequential cash, from an armored car in front of the Circus Circus Casino in Las Vegas is so remarkable. According to casino gambling news, the mastermind of this brazen theft, Roberto Solis, has never been caught.

Solis is far from a sympathetic figure, no Robin Hoods here. He is a convicted murderer. Ironically convicted of murdering an armored car guard in a completely different armored robbery, for which he was sentenced and spent nearly a quarter of a century in Folsom prison.

He paid for his crime, and a year after walking out of prison, he again went after an armored car, and succeeded this time without anyone getting hurt.

Some may say that prison taught Roberto Solis how to be a better criminal, how to meticulously plan every aspect of a crime, and how to always have backup plans – all learned through 24 years worth of daily lessons from professional habitual criminals.

Perhaps Roberto Solis spent 24 years planning his next heist in a way that involved no weapons and no potential for violence. With the available police resources, theft is not as big of a priority as murder or armed robbery, so it’s definitely a smarter move to focus more on escaping and staying off the radar to enjoy the cash and freedom.

Whichever the case may be, this is exactly what Roberto Solis did: after 24 years in prison, he came out smarter, more disciplined, capable of thinking strategically, and relying more on skill rather than chance and on tactics more than brute force.

The Las Vegas Casino Robbery

Roberto Solis, after spending 24 years in Folsom prison for a botched armored car robbery where the driver will murdered, had enough time to plan and tweak his next big score. Pumped up by prison steel he quickly found the young American Indian girl to worship the ground he walked on – the 20 year old Heather Tallchief.

The couple, after spending six months in Mexico meticulously planning every second of the robbery, went to Vegas. Tallchief, a sexy girl with a clean criminal record, easily got a job driving an armored car which delivered cash daily to major casinos on the Vegas Strip.

Tallchief, who came from a wealthy tribe, rented a warehouse for a bogus business which armor proofed cars, charted a private jet and on October 1st, 1993 the couple struck.

While Tallchief sat behind the wheel of the armored van in front of the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino, her two coworkers went inside. When they came out, Tallchief and the armored van with over $2.9 million inside were gone.

The pair jumped aboard their rented private jet in disguise and eventually landed in Miami. In 2005, 12 years after the robbery, Tallchief, who has a child with Solis, self-surrendered and was sentenced to 6 years in prison.

Robert Solis has never been caught and is allegedly living in luxury outside the United States after investing the money stolen from Circus Circus casino in a number of lucrative ventures during the 1990’s internet gold rush.

It is rumored that he was even a silent partner in the early USA online casino software, but whatever the case may be, nobody disputes that he is alive and is not living the life of a cornered rat on the run, but probably getting a tan on some exotic tropical beach where the sun shines all year around (just as your humble writer is about to do [the beach, not the casino heist]).