A Desperate Gambler Held a Casino Hostage With a Bomb
The bombing of Harvey’s Resort Hotel and Casino in Stateline, Nevada, was one of the craziest cases ever handled by FBI agents. It began on the morning of August 26th, 1980, when men in white jumpsuits pretending to deliver a copying machine, rolled a big bomb into the hotel, deposited it in the middle of the employee lounge, and left.
Sometime later, an employee noticed a note attached to the delivery. It read in part: “STERN WARNING TO THE MANAGEMENT AND BOMB SQUAD: Do not move or tilt this bomb, because the mechanism controlling the detonators in it will set it off at a movement of less than .01 of the open end Richter scale. … Do not try to take it apart. The flathead screws are also attached to triggers, and as much as 1/4 to 3/4 of a turn will cause an explosion“. It went on to add that for $3 million in used $100 bills, delivered via helicopter, the bomb maker will provide a combination of switches that will allow the bomb to removed for a remote detonation.
The FBI’s bomb squad used X-rays to examine the mechanism’s inner workings. It consisted of two steel boxes containing 1000 pounds of dynamite, perfectly balanced and leveled above trigger mechanisms. It was an extremely complicated and sophisticated piece of machinery, unlike anything that explosives disposal experts had ever seen before. The bomb squad concluded that the device could not be safely removed, and had to be dismantled at the hotel. After studying the machinery for 30 hours, a C4 explosive shaped charge was used in an attempt to disarm the bomb, but failed. The explosives went off, creating a five story crater in the hotel.
The blackmailer was John Birges, a Hungarian immigrant who had flown for the Luftwaffe during WW2. He built a successful landscaping business, opened a few restaurants, and became a millionaire. However, he then wrecked himself with a gambling addiction, losing about $750,000 (equivalent to about $2.2 million in 2018) at Harvey’s alone. With his businesses on the verge of bankruptcy, Birges decided to recoup his losses by extorting $3 million from the casino ($8.9 million today). So he enlisted his two sons, and another two accomplices, and set his extortion plan in motion.
While much of the plan, particularly the bomb design, was genius, Birges was no criminal mastermind, and sloppiness proved his undoing. Among other things, he used his own van to deliver the bomb. An alert clerk at a nearby hotel had jotted down the license plate, and that put investigators on to Birges. His choice of accomplices was even worse: one of his own sons blabbed to a girlfriend that his father had placed a bomb at Harvey’s. He then broke up with her, and she contacted the FBI after learning of a reward for information about the bombing. When confronted, Birges’ sons snitched on their father and agreed to testify against him. Birges was arrested, convicted, and got life in prison without parole. He died behind bars in 1996.