It’s pretty rare to hear about crime at Walt Disney World. Sure, there’ll be the occasional story about a fist fight breaking out, or someone doing something nefarious and being trespassed (read: banned) from the resort for X amount of time. But you rarely hear about big time crime on property.
Part of that is because Disney keeps its resort relatively tight – guests have to go through bag checks and X-rays to enter the parks and shopping areas. Another part is undoubtedly because Disney wants to maintain its reputation and works to keep “big” stuff out of the news. But when something “that big” happens – like the guy who set up camp on an abandoned island on property – word gets out.
That sort of situation just happened at Walt Disney World. Apparently there was an armed robbery at Paddlefish, one of the more popular high-end restaurants at Disney Springs, their shopping and dining district (for you old timers, Paddlefish used to be Fulton’s Crab House. Before that, it was known as the Empress Lily).
Multiple sources are saying that the restaurant was robbed early Tuesday morning by a person, dressed in goggles, a wetsuit and full face covering, who swam there, did the dirty deed, and then swam away. The restaurant was closed at the time.
PC: OCSD
WFTV reports that sources familiar with the investigation say that the man swam up to the restaurant, removed his gear, stashed it, and then entered the manager’s office. Money was being counted at the time, so it could be put into a safe.
According to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, the suspect forced two employees to go into a corner of the room. From the Orlando Sentinel:
One victim told deputies she was standing in the doorway of the manager’s office when a man came in, pushed them, and made them get on their knees.
She described the robber as a white male, 5-foot-10 and about 160 pounds, wearing all black, including a blue hat, rubber gloves, ski mask and socks, but no shoes.
A second victim at the scene told a similar story.
The thief then proceeded to take between $10,000 and $20,000 dollars, put his gear back on, jumped back into the lake, and swam away.
The employees, who were left unharmed, were able to free themselves and call police.
Paddlefish opened to guests, as usual, the next day.
The suspect still hasn’t been found.
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2 comments
Had to be an inside job, prior employee, etc. to know when they count cash at that odd time of day. Also who are all these people using cash at Disney, crazy.
I had the exact same thoughts, TBH. Also to know WHERE they were counting the money. Also, where did this guy come from? I mean, Disney has cameras literally everywhere. If he got into the water, he had to get out of the water, stash his SCUBA gear and drive away…none of their cameras have footage of that?