Search results
Jul 19, 2005 · The bunco squad is those policemen who investigate confidence swindles. In use from the 40's through the 60's. Not usual among law enforcement today. The original "bunco" was a dishonest gambling game. Perhaps a variant of banco, from Spanish banca, which is a card game similar to "monte".
Much like the Gold Rush, most people who set out to get rich with Bunco were left swindled or penniless. By the 1920s Prohibition, Bunco became a favorite game in speakeasies and underground bars. This led to the rise of Bunco Squads to root out swindlers, fraud, and alcohol peddlers. Here’s how.
an informal name for a police department dealing with fraud; fraud squad. The so-called training ended abruptly as detectives from three bunco squads raided the office. She did have a real concern that at any moment the bunco squad might knock on the door and take her off in cuffs. Collins English Dictionary.
While the term “bunco” is still sometimes used — usually about a Bunco Squad – it’s a separate activity. It should really be considered a distinct word, meaning, and derivative unto itself from the original Spanish “banca.” Bunco has always been a game of confidence and unpredictability, like poker.
During the 1920s and Prohibition, bunco was re-popularized as a gambling game, often associated with speakeasies. Law-enforcement groups raiding these parlors came to be known as "bunco squads". Bunco saw a resurgence in popularity as a family game in the 1980s.
Bunco Squad is a 1950 American crime film directed by Herbert I. Leeds and written by George Callahan. The film stars Robert Sterling, Joan Dixon, Ricardo Cortez, and Dante, and features Douglas Fowley and Elisabeth Risdon. The film was released on September 1, 1950 by RKO Pictures.
Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD) 30 June 2/5: [headline] Bunco Squad. 1910 Oakland Trib. (CA) 18 May 3/2: The chief said that Flannery had nothing to do with the appointment of farrell on the bunko squad.
The term "Bunco Squad" referred to the detectives who raided these establishments! After prohibition Bunco group activity declined in the major cities of the country, but spread to the suburbs as housing development and the migratory population expanded nationally.
Sep 18, 1994 · For the city's major crowd events, the squad goes out in teams, the only way to have a chance against the better pickpockets, who work in cunning bands of sentinels, hand-off receivers and the...
noun. bun· co ˈbəŋ- (ˌ)kō. variants or bunko. plural buncos or bunkos. Synonyms of bunco. : a swindling game or scheme. bunco transitive verb. Synonyms. con. fiddle [ chiefly British] flimflam. fraud. hustle. scam. shell game. sting. swindle. See all Synonyms & Antonyms in Thesaurus. Examples of bunco in a Sentence.
