Crimes at Walt Disney World are not unheard of. In an area twice the size of the island of Manhattan, you’re going to have some amount of criminal activity. That said, most of it is fairly mundane, with most of it limited to public intoxication in a theme park or a fight breaking out, where the worst punishment ends up getting banned from Disney World.
That makes this recent case of a Disney World restaurant being robbed stand out, even before the details emerge that turn the escape into something that could have been part of a Disney movie.
A Man Allegedly Stole Over $10,000 From A Disney Springs Restaurant
According to WFTV 9 in Orlando, the Paddlefish restaurant, a seafood restaurant located in a replica steamboat at Disney Springs, Disney World’s shopping and dining complex, was robbed in the early hours of Monday morning. Employees were counting the day’s receipts just after midnight when a man allegedly entered an office, told the employees to get on the ground, tied them up, and took the money.
Security camera footage shows the man holding some sort of object, though he was apparently not brandishing a weapon. Based on the pending charge, the amount of money taken was estimated as between $10,000 and $20,000. While the robbery itself is surprising, what sets it apart is the way the perpetrator allegedly entered the restaurant and then escaped.
Robber Made His Escape Through Disney Springs Lake
When the man entered the office and stole the money, he was observed wearing a wetsuit and a mask or goggles. It’s currently believed that he had scuba gear with him and that he swam up to the Paddlefish restaurant. Upon arriving at the restaurant, he found a place to hide his gear, committed the robbery, then retrieved his scuba equipment and jumped back in the lake and swam away.
A search for the man following the robbery has thus far yielded no results. A robbery like this is obviously bizarre, given the method of ingress and escape. Disney Springs, like all of Walt Disney World, is under fairly tight security. And Disney World property surrounds the lake the man swam through, so he almost certainly came from, and returned to, somewhere on property.
Being in a replica riverboat, the paddlefish was likely the most accessible location for this sort of robbery attempt. The lake that borders Disney Springs was previously home to a nightly free Disney drone show, and is used for the Sassagoula River Cruise, which transports guests between select Disney World resort hotels and Disney Springs.
The fact that nobody was hurt, and the man apparently didn’t even have a weapon, makes the whole thing feel like an action sequence that wouldn’t be out of place in a Disney movie.
