Do burglars really use gas to put the occupants to sleep?

Factual Questions
141

Here’s a tip from the US State Departmentfor a safe trip abroad:

State department travel advisories are not often based only on rumors and hearsay. If they added that there is a good chance it was based on genuine cases. But like all of this, of course I can’t personally vouch for the US State department, nor do I have access to the same documents and reports and Interpol databases that they do, nor have I ever personally been gassed while sleeping and robbed at home or abroad.

On the alleged gassing of Vieira’s family: French police, working daily in that region on that and other cases, as professional law enforcement persons, said:

Again I have no first hand proof why the police are operating under this theory, access to the evidence they do, or any first had experience with being gassed in the south of France, but police spokespersons generally don’t go on public record with unproven theories stated as being facts. Of course I also can’t prove that this statement was ever made, that it wasn’t a forgery, that the reporter didn’t just make it up.

The 1909 burglaries in Brooklyn where the robbers used the built-in natural gas delivery system built into homes and apartments to knock out occupants of their homes and rob them seem very likely to be true to me. Is anyone disputing the veracity of that particular case? Since it was in NY in 1909 it can probably be researched further than that initial report.

The gas used for heating/cooking is probably also not considered a very effective way to knock people out among our experts here. Probably, in fact, very much less so than the substances police today claim that robbers have used in some cases to gas their victims, like Ether or Fentanyl. It is also highly flammable, incredibly dangerous for both the victims and robbers. The whole idea is outrageous, stupid, and downright criminal. Which is why the guys who did it went to jail. As I said in a previous post, prisons are full of people who did idiotic things that were impractical and stupid. I would be very surprised if at no time in history some pea brain didn’t try to spray a can of ether under the door of a sleeping victim in the hope it made them sleep sounder. This, even despite SDMB posters seeing the flaws in the plan from a mile away.

142

Minor point, but why are you assuming Bob is American? Since bucketybuck is Irish and has worked on Bob’s company’s trucks, I was assuming that Bob was Irish too. Which would mean he was covered for French healthcare.

Also, I don’t think it means anything that Bob can’t be arsed tracking down his medical/police reports, after several years, for the satisfaction of posters on a message board he doesn’t even use. I think gassing is pretty unlikely, but no matter what heppened, I don’t see any reason why he’d be digging up reports (if bucketybuck’s friend has even asked him to).

143

The use of natural gas from the house’s own natural gas supply system as claimed in the article would remove the logistical difficulty associated with lugging gallons upon gallons of anaesthetic to a job site. However, the article makes or implies other extraorindary claims. Namely, over the course of a claimed 60 burglaries:

[ul][li]the burglars always turned the gas off before leaving. No victim ever observed the gas valves to be open after discovering they had been burgled.[/li]
[li]There were never any explosions.[/li]
[li]There were never any fatalities, either.[/ul]That last point is extraordinary. Natural gas is not an anaesthetic, it is an asphyxiant. If someone passes out upon exposure to natural gas, it is not because they have been anaesthetized, it is because they are being asphyxiated. This is an entirely different medical condition, one that cannot be endured for long before resulting in permanent brain damage or death.[/li]
Finally, note that in the particular burglary that resulted in their capture, there was no mention of gas being involved, and in fact the detective’s wife readily woke up when the authorities started scuffling with the burglars in the hallway.

The article is painfully vague about the “evidence that gas had been pumped into the air conditioning system.” What sort of evidence? what type of anaesthetic was used? I cannot asert that this didn’t happen, but the newspaper article by itself does not constitute extraodrinary evidence. Extraordinary evidence would include the details of what the authorities reportedly found at the scene (e.g. a xenon gas cylinder), and/or a toxicology report indicating the victims had metabolites of anaesthetic in their systems.

The difference is that if a story asserts that a ladder was used to facilitate a burglary, it’s not an extraordinary claim, and therefore does not require extraordinary evidence. ladders are cheap, easy to use, never poison burglary victims or blow up their houses and leave little evidence behind (provided the crooks take their ladder with them when they’re done). So when the physical evidence indicates the point of entry was a window ten feet above the ground, it’s completely reasonable to believe that a ladder was involved, even if no witness ever saw a ladder at the scene.

144

The police don’t often inform the public with specific details about crime scenes, and the authorities in general are reluctant to give away any formulas for knockout or date-rape type drugs during press conferences. But if the police say “evidence was found that sleeping gas had been pumped into the air conditioner” that is as good as saying “evidence was found indicating a ladder was used to enter a second story window.” as far as how much we know about it really being true.

Maybe we can begin with an agreement that since the advent of the ability to render another unconscious, in some way criminals have attempted to exploit that ability to render their victims unconscious.

An ether or chloroform-soaked rag held over the face of their victim was a very effective way for criminals to knock people out despite all the downsides of handling the chemicals, risk to life, additional charges they faced, etc.

Some drugs like the ‘mystery sleep gas’ used by the Russian government during the Moscow theater crisis have been delivered to persons through ventilation systems. This is believed to have been some aerosol form of the drug fentanyl. I’m not a chemist or anesthesiologist but I believe a single tank, like the size of a big scuba tank, would probably be enough drug to fill a small room with enough gas to knock everyone out.

The fact that we say that is highly improbable, not very rational, clumsy and dangerous, some experts claim impossible, is totally irrelevant. It already happened. It killed over 1/6 of the occupants of the room, but it happened. There were surely better ways to regain control of the auditorium with an entire military and police force at the ready, but it did happen.

The same police that state some of these cases are legitimate also say others appear to be cases of fraud or publicity stunts. I don’t understand why we assume they must be misguided, foolish, or following some agenda to make the statements they have made indicating that it definitely does happen some of the time.

I, too, would really like to see a crime scene photo of a 200 lb aerosol tank with a tube running under the door but I haven’t ever seen completely indisputable evidence like that. The police and others allege that they have. Other situations have demonstrated there are new classes of aerosol sleeping gases. Experience has shown us that criminals will try to use such things to render victims unconscious. Like many things I am forced to take the words of multiple sources with good credentials and believe their first-hand experience (as always with a grain of salt). I see no reason to outright refuse to consider the possibility that it has happened and does occasionally happen, and there are multiple fake reports,mass hysteria, urban legends, etc. about it at the same time.

145

Chloroform or anything held close to the victim’s mouths is rather different to the whole house being gassed; not easy to administer and not without side-effects but far, far more plausible than sending gas in through an aircon system which recycles air. If the policeman in the Vierra story knows what he’s talking about, and hasn’t been misquoted, then it sounds as if he is actually talking about something administered directly to the people there. Though clearly it wasn’t done very well, since the people woke up.

Do you have a link to the police alleging they’ve seen 200 lb aerosol tank with a tube running under the door?

The only case you can come up with that ‘already happened’ kinda goes against burglars using it for burglary.

146

When I mentioned the Moscow theater, I added the obvious point that it wasn’t an example of a burglary. It is an example that a ‘sleeping gas’ can be delivered through a ventilation system and has been. In this case it was an entire auditorium, with over 600 people in it, and by gassing them through the air conditioning system the authorities were able to knock out (and in 1/6 of the cases kill) the entire room. It also demonstrates that there is a new class of aerosol drugs that only begin to exist since about 2005 or so. That also seems to be the time frame a lot of these reports began appearing which may be coincidence. Being developed by Russia and having many of the crime gangs attributed to “Eastern European mafia” adds yet more intrigue to the story which may or may not be at all relevant.

Aerosol fentanyl would knock a person out far faster and more efficiently than holding a chloroform soaked rag over their face yet you do see that as plausible. If you accept the numerous reports of people who were knocked out or killed by chloroform or Ether, why would it be hard to believe that it hasn’t occurred to someone of the same mindset to attempt using a gas to knock someone out before robbing them, thus avoiding any struggle at all?

None of these cases say the gas actually succeeded in terms of how they were intended. We don’t know if maybe the victims would have slept through the night anyway. Some of the reports allege that victims woke up vomiting and with headaches, etc. But again those are just reports, it didn’t happen in front of my eyes. I’m just saying all these downsides, dangers, inconveniences, etc. are irrelevant, people do ridiculous and illogical things all the time.

The 200lb aerosol tank was just what I said I would like to see as evidence. The statement made by the police as to what they found has been cited already. “Police scientists found evidence that sleeping gas had been pumped into the air conditioning system” [paraphrasing]

147

As discussed upthread, the logistics of this approach are far different from the logistics involved in attempting to gas an entire house.

If you’re not a chemist or anaesthesiologist, why would you have anything at all to say about the quantity required?

Moreover, fentanyl and other serious narcotics are controlled substances; they’re not easy to come by, and if you can get ahold of them in a form and quantity capable of anaesthetizing an entire household, that’s an extremely valuable thing in itself: you could just repackage the stuff and sell it to junkies for far more than you’re likely to get by using it to rob a house. Someone smart enough, rich enough, and well-connected enough to acquire a suitable quantity of fentanyl is also smart enough not to waste it trying to anaesthetize a household containing an unknown quantity of wealth.

In the Russian hostage crisis, there was a lot of evidence that anaesthetic gas was used, starting with a frank admission by authorities. The presence of many victims suffering classic aftereffects of anaesthesia in a setting where alcohol intoxication was highly unlikely (i.e. 2.5 days after the start of the crisis) is more evidence - as was the fact that 100+ people died directly from the anaesthetic, something that hasn’t happened in all the claimed cases of residential pre-burglary mass anaesthesia.

FWIW, I’m not sure what other options they might have had: the hostage-takers were believed to have rigged the theatre with explosives.

There are several cases in African countries where authorities have confirmed that incidences of penis-shrinking (via magic, done to extort payment from victims) are legitimate. In the absence of a medical exam confirming that the victim does indeed have a micropenis (and medical records show that he had a normal penis prior to the alleged magical assault), I’m not likely to believe those police reports, either.

I’m not refusing to consider the possibility. Show me some hard evidence to support these stories, and I’m likely to be convinced.

148

State Department advisory.

Official police statements.

News reports.

Evidence it is technically possible to do, and that considerations of danger, practicality, common sense, have never meant much to criminals in any other choices they make in the way they incapacitate their victims.

That’s all I’ve got.

Incidentally, some of these alleged robberies were multi-million dollar thefts, and organized criminals have been known to have access to ‘controlled substances’ before, regardless of the law or their monetary value.

149

Oh, it’s for the country of “abroad”! Well, that is a dangerous country, you should better stay home!

Seriously, I wonder if the people who write these “tips” have ever seen a sleeper train in Europe, either 30 years ago in the 80s, or today, to suggest that gassing people there is likely. Old trains don’t have ACs, they have heating for winter and windows to slide down for summer. It’s all leaky and you could pump gallons into while half escapes. Additionally, a sleeper train only calls at two or three stations before settling down, when each coach is locked by the conductor. If the thieves bribe the conductor - until recently, most train system were state-run, so the conductors were state employees, who would be averse to being bribed.

The modern ICE trains have AC and are airtight due to the speed of 200 -300 km/h; but their AC is accessible only by the conductor with a key.

Really, if you worry about eating or drinking anything from any stranger because you might be robbed, you should either leave your 12K gold jewelery at home to attract less attention, not travel to Somalia, or “going abroad” is not for you.

This is a wonderful example of the problems of using different languages: the police officer first talks about gassing, which means filling the whole house with gas, as has been discussed so far. He then talks about spraying, which means something quite different, namely entering when the victims are already asleep and spraying something directly onto their face. This solves a lot of the problems of gassing (no big canister, no dispersion, no blow back to the robbers, no flammable vapours) and is also a different chemical-medical problem than making a conscious person fall asleep, as gassing is always asserted to do.

The doubt isn’t about criminals doing stupid things; the doubt is about criminals doing stupid things without running into trouble from physics and medicine. Stupid criminals might be able to use gas successfully one case without either blowing up or killing anybody; but a string of robberies without fatalities or after-effects, and without an accidental explosion is Hollywood, not real life.

Again, look at the counter-example of the Moscow Theater: that’s real life - the better the gas is at knocking people out, the higher the danger of knocking people out into permanent sleep = death. And that was one case with professionals knowing what they were doing and doctors standing by. For stupid criminals - stupid enough to try it - to get away with it for a long time is impossible enough that they should play lottery instead.

150

Burlgars attempting to gas people, that I can believe, as I said before. And that’s all you’ve got. It doesn’t mean that burglars can actually use gas to subdue people.

Adding intrigue is adding intrigue, not facts.

So the fact that it’s not technically possible doesn’t make any difference? Criminals operate beyond the realm of physics?

151

No he would not. All Bob has to do is contact his fleet office and somebody like me will get his window sorted tout suite. Its an international haulage company, we don’t dick about with having the drivers sort their own repairs.

Bob is from Northern Ireland, very much an EU citizen.

Why do you assume so quickly that Bob ever really gave a shit about getting the medical or police reports? He has no claim to make for medical insurance, he has no claim to make to repair the vehicle. Perhaps all Bob cared about was getting on with his job.

No I did not ask for anything like that, I only asked for the details of what happened to him. The idea that I am going to chase after him to get copies of police reports or anything like that, just to satisfy people on the internet, well, thats ridiculous to me.

152

I do agree with this in principle, and find it so far to be the biggest doubt of the stories, far more so than it would be stupid, expensive, dangerous, impractical, etc.

But my thinking is that the Moscow theater and 600+ people are much harder to knock out without fatalities than say a small bedroom and adjoining child’s room in a well insulated and only 3 people to knock out. Even with the huge challenge of a high ceiling, open, airy auditorium and 600 people under duress and not already asleep, only 1/6 were killed which is actually amazing if 100% were effectively subdued.

153

The main reason lots of people died was because the Russian authorities treated the specific details of the gas as a state secret, and would not tell doctors what they were dealing with. If the use of a fentanyl based compound had been explained, far more people could have been saved.

But the russians didn’t just knock up an aerosol gas for the situation - they had probably spent years developing this in secret. And I bet they knew how risky it was, the fact that they used it showed how desperate they were and the expectation that everyone in that theatre was as good as dead anyhow.

Burglars may consider such things, and could even try them. But after a couple of abortive attempts where victims waken because there was not enough gas (or worse, die from too much) a smart burglar would give it up and rely on stealth. It is probably easier to rely on the fact that some people actually sleep pretty heavily, and in many cases won’t wake if you are quiet. However, the sleepers belief will be that they are unlikely to sleep through a burglary, and will invent a reason for that to not happen.

Si

154

How many children have died from being overdosed by this mystery gas?

155

If you’re going to break the law of the land, why not break the laws of physics while you’re at it? It won’t add to your sentence. (And might subtract from it if you can play your cards right!)

156

As I said, the apparent lack of even one report of a person being found dead in their bed after being gassed and robbed is the main legitimate doubt that I see in the entire claim.

But it is entirely possible that it has occurred at a low frequency, through sheer luck or skill of the robbers or whatever, nobody died so far, while the majority of reports are nothing but urban legend and hysteria. My main point is that it is technically possible to do, and there are credible people saying it has been done. Amidst all the noise of false reports and urban legends, that some cases could easily have actually happened. It wouldn’t really be considered any more unusual or noteworthy by the police than if the robbers had used chloroform soaked rags or a club to the back of the head, they would just be more victims that were drugged and robbed, which they see all the time every day all over the world. We are arguing that one particular means of drugging victims is impractical, dangerous and stupid whereas all the other means we already know for certain take place are merely dangerous and stupid.

157

I wrote that it *IS *technically possible, not sure why you thought otherwise. That was kind of the point of the whole thing about the Russian authorities successfully knocking out an auditorium full of people by pumping a sleeping gas into the air conditioning system.

158

Except, I have yet to see even one police report of a criminal being arrested carrying gassing equipment, or arrested in the mid-gassing, or criminally charged for gassing someone.

This is the reason the stories are bunk. All the reports are of people who woke up with headaches to find their valuables gone, and the theory is that they were gassed and robbed while unconscious. But never once has anyone been caught committing this crime. Gassers must be a whole different type of criminal than other burglers. Other criminals get caught all the time, but gassers are the smoothest mutherfuckers in Europe, since no one has ever caught one, ever.

159

its true it happend to me here in australia

160

Oh well, if we have an anonymous personal anecdote on the internet, that changes everything. I’m 99% convinced. I would be 100% convinced if only it was an anonymous second-hand anecdote on the internet.