An unnamed seventeen-year-old has been reported to local authorities after taping fish to ATM machines in Provo, Utah. The police have referred him to 4th District Juvenile Court for two counts of property damage but believe he is responsible for over a dozen incidents.
Most of the reported incidents took place between August and November 2023. An Instagram account under the handle @fish_bandit84 has documented the acts. Police found the account during their investigation and issued a search warrant to find the account holder. The suspect’s juvenile referral followed suit.
The Fish Bandit’s Instagram Antics
The account’s first post was on August 4th, 2023, and its most recent was on December 21st. Over that time period, ‘The Fisherman,’ as his Instagram identifies him, has accrued over seventy thousand followers. The bio reads, ‘Live, laugh, tape fish on ATMs,’ followed by, ‘No fish were harmed in the process.’
The account’s most recent video shows a singular fish taped to the screen of an ATM with a cigarette placed in its mouth. It currently has over 360,000 likes. Each of the fourteen posts on the account comments lightheartedly on the acts, with captions such as ‘Should I do a carp next?’ and ‘Another week, another fish.’
Another popular post flaunted three trout taped to the passenger door of an empty police vehicle. The account holder put the song ‘Sound of da Police’ by KRS-One over the video, captioning it, ‘We support our local PD.’ In the comments, he urged watchers not to tag the police department. The post has accrued over 34,000 likes and over 200 comments.
The offenses have generated a range of responses on the social media app. One Instagram user commented, ‘You’re wasting your life. I hope they charge you with everything they can, and you never get fishing rights again.’ Another commenter, since finding out about the charges pressed against the ‘fish bandit’, wrote, ‘Free my man he aint do nothing wrong’.
According to the police, the two charges against the ‘fish bandit’ stemmed from the cleaning costs of his fishy displays. Since his referral to juvenile court, the case has been closed. Police do not know the fish bandit’s motive, and believe he intended his acts to be a joke.
