Not without risk. The theft of the item is legal if it happens during the purge- but do you want to try doing business on purge day? If that item isn’t in possession of the buyer on purge day- having it is possession of stolen property. Selling it is selling stollen property, etc. while you’re unlikely to get caught nicking a tooth brush or your groceries- items of value or large quantities of items are likely to get caught.
I’d also doubt that in such a world the makers or sellers of things like electronics wouldn’t require they be “scanned in” by unique identifier on purchase for tracking legitimate purchases. That new phone, Xbox, even tv- the second you connect to network it’s flagged stollen. You could maybe get a way with something like a nice watch- but then again- there will be other thrives and of course psycho killer types out. You want to risk your life for a watch? And say you manage some untraceable heist- what stops others from staking out high value locations and ambushing you, or following you and raiding your home or jacking your heist in transit- or of course some random griefer who doesn’t know you have the mother load and was just going to jack whatever you had?
Ignoring any of the “after the purge” possibilities- you’re basically pulling a robbery in the middle of a war zone/riot. You either need lots of luck, or skill and equipment plus a force to provide protection- a force you trust to do so and not just turn around and take your heist and whatever they were paid. All in all there’s actually some pretty compelling reasons- unless of course you could get a large number of people organized to cooperate for the mutual criminal gain of all and trust each other. Of course.... organizing such a group outside the purge would itself likely be a crime. Back to the drawing board.
The crime you commit the day OF the purge is legal. So for example- you kill someone on Purge day. Ok. Legal. The next day you remember you didn’t take their wallet. You take their wallet. The second act is a crime because it happens AFTER the purge. Likewise- it’s fine to steal a rocket launcher and use it on purge day. But if you use said rocket launcher or are caught with it OR the ammo, or trying to buy ammo- after purge day, those are crimes.
The ORIGINAL crime may have occurred on purge day, but subsequent crimes occurring after the purge relating to that first crime aren’t grandfathered in. Say you were to lie to police or obstruct justice on purge day. They use you as a witness 3 days later and you repeat the testimony you told the police. That is a desperate crime. This principal ALREADY exists legally where immunity is granted to witnesses and such. ONLY the actions committed during the period
Immunity was granted are covered- and unless otherwise stated that immunity applies to the original acts one would be prosecuted and NOT subsequent criminal charges that could arise from that act. In other words- I can grant you immunity from prosecution for assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder for a shooting- but if a victim dies from those wounds later, a charge of murder or the like can be levied.
So while you COULD hack bank accounts on purge day, subsequent spending of that money constitutes another charge which would NOT be during the purge and this not exempt from prosecuting. This is already a thing. The bank makes an error and you find $1 million instead of $1,000 in your account. A “Nigerian Prince” deposits $2 billion for you on a bad check. In both these scenarios you did nothing overtly wrong. But once you start spending that money, you become liable for it. Once the mistake or fraud is discovered- you pay it back or else you have committed a crime.
Put a real world analog to it again- the cops find $13 million dollars in stollen money in your bank account or home. They can’t prove you stole it. So like our purge- there’s no charge for STEALING the money. But you have $13 million stollen cash Laying around and a judge or jury is going to be asked to decide based on evidence provided wether you should have known that $13 million wasn’t a gift from the tooth fairy. If you’re REAL smart about it and have a great lawyer (good luck on that since you still don’t get to keep the money,) you might get off. BUT generally speaking you don’t walk when you’re sitting on $13 million unless you can roll someone. Which you can’t. You can admit you stole it on purge day. They can’t touch you for that. But they CAN touch you for the fact that AFTER the law came back you were sitting on money you knew was stollen.
The one way I can see maybe gettin away clean would be if you hacked banks and found a legit way to launder the money during the purge. The money that comes out is clean and so there is no crime in owning it or using it after the purge. In theory anyway. There may be something they could get you.
That greatly reduces your chances of getting caught- but doesn’t eliminate the crime. Holding the money itself is a crime- and since it’s via hacking the money is digital. If if in purge world banks aren’t smart enough to snap shot closing assets pre purge and audit post purge- they will audit during the year at some point- and wether you get charged with a crime or not you’ll lose the money when the “error” is discovered. You can of course spend the money, most probably online if you can connect, next purge (since going out shopping is probably a bad idea) but...
A crime still exists. See- you’ll very likely not get the items you buy (take possession) the day of the purge. Meaning when you take possession there are various crimes that you can be guilty of committing. What’s more? Remember- you can’t be charged with a crime happening on purge day. However that still isn’t a legal mechanism for change of ownership. That means while you stole the money and can’t be charged with theft- that money STILL is stollen. The original owner still legally owns the funds. When you take possession of the goods that’s a crime. Just owning the goods is a crime. Selling the goods constitutes at the least conversion because those goods are legally the property of the owner of the money used to buy them- which isn’t you.
One way to think about property rights as it applies to money is this: if you break into a persons home during the purge that isn’t a crime. You can squat there and say “this is my home now!” But once the purge is over, law doesn’t recognize “finders keepers” over the title to the property the owner holds. The legal ownership of the property doesn’t transfer just because one acquired it without directly committing a crime. For instance- person A steals a coat, sells it to person B, person B sells it to person C who sells it to person D. Person D has no reason to suspect it is stollen. But if discovered the property is returned to person A, and person D must pursue damages from the next culpable person to recoup losses.
You're all sitting here trying to figure out how to hide money within an account but no jury can prove how much cash you have on hand. Either fill your account then cash out, or just break into a physical ATM. It's not nearly as secure as the bank itself, and cash is much harder to trace after the fact.
Actually.... the jury can tell how much cash you had? That’s a big thing- financial record keeping? Tracing cash? It doesn’t take an ace accountant or even a rocket scientist to see an account which has an average balance of $300 or even $30,000 suddenly jump to millions. It doesn’t even take $100k in movement of cash to trigger red flags set up by law enforcement and financial agencies to monitor cash movement. Then you say “gee... where did all this money come from? Let’s check and see how it was deposited...” A transfer from another account... that had the exact same amount more yesterday and is now claiming fraud.... you don’t need the Batman’s detective skills to put that crime together.
Now- ATM cash is harder to trace. But- asides what others have pointed out about there not being too much cash in an atm- they are very hard to break into, and you are going to need to risk being out on the streets of the purge and all the dangers of the other people out that night in order to get what? Average ATM is $10k. But.... are banks in this universe going to be so stupid to even leave money in an ATM for the purge? Maybe. It’s FDIC insured- but you’d think at some point they’d claim the damages not recoverable if the bank didn’t take prudent steps to mitigate danger to the funds.
I can’t argue that it would be much easier to get away with robbing an atm than a bank- but in context that’s like saying it’s easier to steal pennies from a liquor store change jar than to rob a place that does pay day loans. It’s true but you’d need to do tens or hundreds of times the work to get the same pay out.
As for the first comment, I'm literally suggesting absolutely no account whatsoever, just keeping cash in a box or under your mattress or god knows where. No I don't think any reasonable person would ever do this, but nothing in any purge scenario is very reasonable.
That said, if in that world you're a broke college student, then one ATM and suddenly you can afford books and a parking pass at the very minimum, tuition if you're smart, then use the money in your account from your real job for food and life stuff the rest of the year.
To those who aren't big level criminals, they're just trying to get by, it could be worth it
Honestly, most banks probably would leave the cash there, insured or not. They got the cameras... and.. like.... really!? you'd have to do so much damage to the ATM it's not like it would be hard to find... Remember the whole thing in Breaking Bad with the methhead couple? I'm not saying that's 100% accurate... but damn.
If all crime is legal, ALL crime is legal.
Immunity was granted are covered- and unless otherwise stated that immunity applies to the original acts one would be prosecuted and NOT subsequent criminal charges that could arise from that act. In other words- I can grant you immunity from prosecution for assault with a deadly weapon or attempted murder for a shooting- but if a victim dies from those wounds later, a charge of murder or the like can be levied.
That said, if in that world you're a broke college student, then one ATM and suddenly you can afford books and a parking pass at the very minimum, tuition if you're smart, then use the money in your account from your real job for food and life stuff the rest of the year.
To those who aren't big level criminals, they're just trying to get by, it could be worth it