Many of us will have seen heist movies in which the gangs are thwarted in their attempt to steal a squillion dollars in used notes, when an anti-theft device squirts an indelible dye all over the place, rendering the plunder worthless. What we have never seen – and forgive me if I’ve been watching the wrong movies – is the loot being engulfed in expanding polyurethane foam.
As the following article from June/July 1990 demonstrates, this was a serious proposal. But did this slightly preposterous-sounding idea actually make it from concept to reality? I have seen no evidence to suggest that it has. Online searches for either of the companies involved in its development yield little other than the patents for the anti-theft device. There is no record of Pa.je.t on the Italian Business Register. Apco Italia is still on the register – which records it has two employees – but the company has no website. And a Google Street View image of its address, from 2023, shows a small factory with a largely empty yard – barring a few pallets of what look like corrugated roofing sheets – and a wall featuring the ghost of an Apco logo. Confusingly, both Google and Apple Maps consider the location to be a petrol station, which it clearly isn’t. If any of our readers can shed some light on this this mysterious story, please get in touch …