Disguised Man Robs Vegas Casino, Leaves In Taxi

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - An armed man who arrived and left in a taxi, possibly wearing a fake mustache, stole up to $33,000 in poker chips from the Rio Hotel and Casino on Thursday, Las Vegas police and casino officials said.

It marked the second Las Vegas casino robbery in just over two months, following a $1.5 million heist at the Bellagio casino in December, by an armed man who escaped on a motorcycle.

In Thursday's robbery, a man wearing a fedora, sunglasses and perhaps a false mustache arrived at the Rio at about 4:30 a.m. and grabbed chips from a gaming table, said Gary Thompson, a spokesman for Caesars Entertainment Corp, which owns the Rio.

When a dealer resisted, the man produced a gun, fleeing the scene minutes later in the same taxi, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police spokesman Marcus Martin said.

Anthony Carleo, the 29-year-old son of a Las Vegas municipal court judge, was arrested earlier this month in the Bellagio robbery.

Carleo faces three counts of armed robbery, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count each of burglary and carrying a concealed weapon.

(Reporting by Timothy Pratt, Editing by Dan Whitcomb)

Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[Ronni01]

03:33 PM on 02/25/2011

Dummies! You can't do anything with poker chips.

[Scottcluthe]

02:59 PM on 02/25/2011

This is the story of Bobby Joe and Billie Sue, two young lovers with nothin' better to do...

go on take the money and run....................

Somehow I feel casinos are way better at tracking thieves then anyone else. Takes one to know one?

[MikeyJaii]

12:48 AM on 02/25/2011

33,000, that's very little.

[wwwTHENOIREFFECTcom]

11:50 PM on 02/24/2011

He'll be found. You'd be better off robbing a bank than a casino. A bank is fine with writing off the loss - Vegas however doesn't want repeat robberies and will definitely make some type of example of this person.

[EveAngel]

11:15 PM on 02/24/2011

Ugh, not George Clooney again

[Lahonda]

12:03 PM on 02/26/2011

Nah... he usually does ten or eleven at once. Not his MO.

Plus, he'd have stopped for photos and autographs.

[democrats for life]

10:17 PM on 02/24/2011

you will see alot more of this in the months ahead. people will do what they have to do just to survive

[bkerensa]

04:16 AM on 02/25/2011

Totally true... robberies and thefts have gone up lately.

[YeWight]

06:31 AM on 02/25/2011

There is evidence to the contrary.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2651438/posts
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/09/15/unemployment-up-crime-down/

[njstarrr]

08:00 PM on 02/24/2011

Wow, the irony...Vegas get robbed!