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Prince George: Why is it that no matter how many millions of pairs of socks I buy, I never seem to have any? [...] Honestly, you'd think someone was coming in here, stealing the damn things and then selling them off!
Blackadder: Heh... impossible, sir. Only you and I have access to your socks.

An inside job is a crime, usually larceny, robbery, or embezzlement, committed by a person or persons in a position of trust who is authorized to access a location or procedure with little or no supervision, e.g., a key employee or manager. The perpetrator can also be a former employee who still has specialized knowledge necessary to facilitate the crime.

Pulling off The Caper can be quite difficult even for an expert criminal. Guards can have unpredictable schedules. There are likely to be alarms and other security systems with which they are unfamiliar, or even completely unaware of. And there's always the possibility that they stage a successful break-in, only to discover the MacGuffin has been moved elsewhere.

All of the above wrinkles are made at least a little smoother when the perpetrator has an insider's knowledge of the target, or even the authority to make changes (to guard schedules, security systems, etc.) to make the target more vulnerable. This perpetrator may be a lone operator pulling off a plan of their own design, the mastermind of a team of crooks, or an "inside man" in the employ of a third-party accomplice or accomplices. If the latter, they may be a willing participant or the victim of blackmail, Mind Control, or some other means of coercion. Most of the time, the inside man (or woman) is either allowed to leave unless they blab about the caper or are killed off to prevent said person from becoming a likely POI from pointing out the real mastermind of the incident.

Truth in Television: in Real Life, embezzlement and other theft by employees is one of the top causes of loss in businesses such as retail, outpacing external theft by a wide margin.

Can overlap with The Mole when the inside man is part of an external criminal organization. Inside jobs are a common method of pulling off The Caper, with the inside man consequently being a member of the Caper Crew.

Generally unrelated to Outside Man, Inside Man, unless the "inside man" ultimately undergoes the same Heel–Face Turn as the outside man. For the film of the same name that relies on this trope, see Inside Man. The animated series Inside Job (2021) has no relation to this trope, instead being named after the "X was an inside job" phrasing of many conspiracy theories.

Note: as a trope dealing with betrayal, expect spoilers to be unmarked!


Examples

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Rebuild World: This is said by Yanigisawa after he arranges for a monster attack on the city he helps govern, which gets pinned on rebels (Alford):
    "The city management wanted to shut up the people in the middle district, the defense forces wanted to see more action and have more meaning in its existence, Alford’s forces wanted the renown, the Corporate Government wanted to explore the deeper part of the Kuzusuhara ruins, and finally the Hunters sought riches and fame. Other than for the people who were killed, that battle was a good thing for everyone, don’t you think so?"
  • Special 7: Special Crime Investigation Unit starts with a bank robbery in the first episode. Which turns out that the heist crew is using the hostage crisis to get one of their own, doubling as a bank employee held hostage, to locate a prized diamond inside.

    Films — Live Action 
  • In Armored six security guard working for an armored truck company decide to steal the money they are guarding and make it look like they were robbed while transporting the money to its destination. They figure that if all of them are part of the theft, then no one needs to get hurt. However, things do not go according to plan, a witness is killed and one of the guards decides to stop the others any way he can.
  • In Cliffhanger the bad guys rob a US government plane transporting $100 million in uncirculated $1,000 bills while it is flying over the Rockies. This daring and extremely dangerous heist is only possible because one of the federal agents guarding the money is actually working for the bad guys and kills the other guards.
  • In Death Rides a Horse, Walcott worms his way into getting the state's public works fund transferred to his bank, which he plans to rob so he can be the only millionaire in the Old West.
  • Deep Rising: Finnigan eventually figures out that Hanover was working with someone on the cruise liner for the planned heist that never materialized. That person turns out to be Canton (the ship's owner), who was responsible for sabotaging the ship's systems before the monster happened to show up. His motive was to sink the ship so he could reap the insurance money since they were actually operating at a loss. This revelation infuriates the Captain, since it's entirely Canton's fault that they couldn't get out a distress signal.
  • In Dick Tracy's Dilemma, Tracy realizes that the fur robbery was an inside job when he learns the thieves had the combination to the vault.
  • Disturbing the Peace: Amanda, the new teller at the bank, is actually a member of the biker gang planning to rob it.
  • Dumb and Dumber:
    • Nicholas, family friend and advisor to the Swansons, is the mastermind behind the kidnapping of Bobby Swanson, Mary's Husband.
  • The film Flawless (starring Michael Caine and Demi Moore) follows the plan of a diamond exchange house's elderly janitor (Caine), who after his many years attending to the place knows its every security flaw.
  • In Henry's Crime, Frank, the same bank guard who caught Henry during the original Bank Robbery, spots Henry and Max scoping out the bank and works out what they are planning. He then offers to join them—letting them know when the maximum amount of cash will be in the vault and deactivating the alarms—as a way of both funding his retirement and getting revenge on the bank for refusing to pay for his wife's treatment.
  • Implied by the title, in Inside Man. It's actually averted, as the ending reveals none of the robbers were bank employees. The title actually refers to Russell's plan revolving around him remaining inside the vault after the robbery is apparently over.
  • As in the novel, the plot of Jurassic Park (1993) is kicked off by park employee Dennis Nedry sabotaging the park's security systems in order to facilitate his theft of dinosaur embryos to sell to Biosyn, one of Ingen's competitors.
  • George Peatty, the betting window teller at the racetrack in The Killing. His role is to smuggle the guns onto the track for the others and to unlock the door to the counting room so they can gain access.
  • In The Lavender Hill Mob, a meek bank clerk who oversees the shipment of bullion joins with an eccentric neighbor to steal gold bars and smuggle them out of the country as miniature Eiffel Towers.
  • The Lookout: The entire plot revolves around a bank robbery where the would-be robbers have to convince Chris, a young brain-damaged guy who works there as the janitor, to cooperate with them. They do this through a combination of the promise of financial reward, painting it as something daring to do to get out of his currently crappy life, and some feigned romantic interest from their pretty female accomplice.
  • In Money Movers, Jack Henderson discovers that an Armed Blag is being planned by Eric Jackson, a former speedway driver and a Senior Supervisor with Darcy's Security Services, his brother Brian Jackson who also works for Darcy's as an armoured truck driver, and Ed Gallagher, the supervisor of Darcy's counting house.
  • In Office Space, the protagonist recruits two of his coworkers in a scheme to rob Initech, their employer.
  • The mastermind behind the mall robbery in Paul Blart: Mall Cop turns out to be one of Blart's trainees.
  • Scorched details three different plots to rob a bank, all of which were initiated by bank tellers.
  • In The Score Jack plans to steal a priceless scepter from the Montreal Customs House. He gets a job as a janitor in the Customs House so he has access to the building and can see the security measures first hand. He even goes as far as to pretend to be mentally disabled so he appears harmless and beneath suspicion.
  • During the climax of Tiger House, it is revealed that rather being a hostage, Mark's stepfather is actually a partner in the robbery, and is the inside man in the cash depot.
  • The Town:
    • Subverted. The robbery at Claire's bank did not involve an employee accomplice but the cops think that there might have been one. When Claire quits her job, it raises red flags and when her relationship with Doug is discovered, she is accused of being that accomplice even though the audience knows she is innocent.
    • Played straight as well. The later robbery at Fenway Park involves an inside man, a Fenway employee who owes Fergie a lot of money and hopes to wipe out his debt by providing the robbers with access to the money room.
  • In Transit, one of the guards in the armoured car is in on the Armed Blag. Once he has secured the cash, Marek calmly shoots him.

    Literature 
  • Referenced but averted in Jumper. Davy cleans out a bank vault with his teleportation power. Later, somebody theorizes in his hearing that the robbery must've been an inside job since there wasn't any sign of forced entry.
  • In both the novel and film Jurassic Park, the plot is kicked off by park employee Dennis Nedry sabotaging the park's security systems in order to facilitate his theft of dinosaur embryos to sell to Biosyn, one of Ingen's competitors.
  • In "Silver Blaze", two of Sherlock Holmes' hints are "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" (it was completely silent) and the fact that powdered opium was put in a dish spicy enough to hide its taste. Both point at an inside job, because a dog would not have kept silent had it sensed an intruder, nor could an outsider have arranged for a spicy dish to be served on that particular night.
  • In Thunderball, SPECTRE co-opts a NATO officer to steal a pair of nuclear weapons. This was subverted in the film version of Thunderball, where SPECTRE replaces the officer with a double, but played straight again in the remake, Never Say Never Again, where the officer reprogams two nuclear missiles so the warheads can be recovered by SPECTRE.
  • In Two Little Girls in Blue, the FBI start to believe that the Frawley twins were kidnapped by someone who knew the Frawleys didn't have much money but that Steve Frawley had started working for a wealthy investment firm, leading them to suspect it was set up by someone high up in the company who knows how to move and hide large sums of cash. Suspicion particularly falls on chief financial advisor Gregg Stanford - who is vying for the top job, has never been afraid to step on people to achieve his ambitions and may be in need of cash quickly if his wife divorces him - and director Norman Bond - who also covets the CEO position, hired Steve at the company above all other candidates, and had an acrimonious divorce from his ex-wife who subsequently went missing. It's Gregg, although Norman's hands aren't clean either.
  • Wet Desert: Tracking Down a Terrorist on the Colorado River: The bomber disguised himself as a member of the Bureau of Reclamation when targeting Davis Dam, making Grant suspect it may be an insider at the Bureau.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Blake's 7. In "Gold", Avon is approached by the purser of a spaceship carrying gold to Earth, who wants his help stealing it. Avon isn't above blackmailing Federation employees to provide this assistance, as we see in "Killer" and "Games".
  • Bones :
    • In one episode,the Victim of the Week had been trying to talk his girlfriend, who works at a currency exchange, to leave the back door unlocked so he and an accomplice could rob the place when nobody was there, but she refused.
    • Zack, who became a serial killer’s apprentice at the end of season 3. He was Brennan’s intern and staged an explosion to distract everyone. A chemical mistake caused it to backfire badly and leave him with badly damaged hands.
  • Breaking Bad:
    • Walter steals hard-to-get equipment and chemicals from his high school to kick-start his meth-cooking operation. The fact that there's no sign of forced entry immediately tips off DEA agent Hank that it was an inside job.
    • For a short time, Jesse skims some of the excess product he and Walt produce for Gus Fring to sell on his own.
    • It comes out that Gus Fring's operation is supplied with methylamine by Lydia, who facilitates its theft from her employer, Madrigal.
    • Later, Lydia uses her inside knowledge of Madrigal's freight shipments to tip Walt's crew off that a train hauling a tanker car full of methylamine will be vulnerable while passing through a "dead zone" with no cell coverage.
  • Crossing Lines: The two-part first season finale, "New Scars, Old Wounds," had bank secretary Anika Hauten found dead. Anika previously appeared in an earlier episode, "The Animals," where she and Carl Hickman were among many being held hostage in the bank by a gang of thugs. As the season finale revealed, however, Anika secretly robbed the bank during the hostage situation, doing so under the belief that the gang would be blamed for the theft. While Carl was accused of killing Anika, her killer was revealed to be Philip Genovese, whose account was illegally shut down by Anika, with Phillip torturing and killing Anika for robbing him.
  • An episode of CSI has the team investigating an officer-involved shooting during the robbery of a grocery store. When the surveillance tapes reveal that there was much more money in the registers than store policy recommended, suspicion quickly falls on the cashier on duty, who soon admits to being in league with the robbers.
  • Season 2 of Dollhouse reveals that before being forced to become Echo, Caroline sabotaged a Rossum Corporation laboratory with the help of her roommate Bennett Halverston, a Rossum employee.
  • In the Flashpoint season 2 episode "The Fortress", a nanny helps her criminal boyfriend burglarize her employers' home, but has a change of heart when her employers' children become caught up in the robbery.
  • Elementary has the episode "Through the Fog" where Sherlock and Joan assist the NYPD in finding out who was trying to conduct a WMD attack on the 64th Precient. Turns out that one of the culprits was a Dirty Cop trying to make an easy way to get enough money to pay off a loanshark.
  • The Equalizer. Robert McCall is protecting a witness being harassed by the ex-con he testified against. McCall says the ex-con's actions seem to be Disproportionate Retribution, so the witness admits that he was in on the crime. When the robber was caught, he identified him in a line-up because he was afraid the police would discover his own complicity.
  • In one episode of It Takes a Thief (2005), Jon is charged with robbing a mechanic's business (as opposed to houses like the show normally covers). Rather than risk setting off the alarm and having to pick a lock, Jon just bribes an employee to not set the alarm and unlock the back door. Naturally, with all the security features disabled, Jon effortlessly cleans the place out.
  • One episode of Monk features this trope taken to its logical extreme. Monk's bank is robbed and he goes undercover as a guard to crack the case. He soon discovers that the bank manager was in on the robbery and murdered as a result. But later, he discovers the entire bank staff committed the robbery.
  • In the Murder, She Wrote episode "Always a Thief", Dennis Stanton is investigating the theft of a valuable coin, which the audience is shown was actually by the owner's son. The safe was apparently blown with explosives, but Dennis quickly realises that, due to how quickly the owner came to investigate the sound, the only way the thief could have escaped is if the robbery took place before the explosion.
  • NCIS has an attack on an internet server farm in order to bug the facility. The inside man is a security guard who allows himself to be shot to make himself look like a hero instead of The Mole.
  • NCIS: New Orleans has the episode "In the Blood" where the NCIS NO office investigate the robbery of a casino many years ago in relation to Pride father, Cassius, being involved (somewhat) with the $3 million that went missing. Turns out that a high-ranking manager was involved in the robbery, who happens to be the star witness.
  • Person of Interest. Reese and Finch are trying to save a Number who is a security guard working for an armored truck company. They find out that he is about to guard a very valuable platinum shipment and they suspect that the shipment will be attacked by robbers who are likely to kill the guards. What they fail to consider is that the robbery is actually an inside job and the Number is the mastermind behind it (while many robberies are inside jobs, they seldom involve premeditated murder, the only crime the Machine detects).
  • The hijacking of the RSV Per Berger in Thin Ice took place because a mercenary was planted among the crew (seemingly on a long term basis) to shadow them and give them the signal to hijack it in Greenlandic waters.

    Video Games 
  • Ace Attorney Investigations, the reason the phantom thief Yatagarasu is never caught is because all three members of the group have jobs that allow them access to the things they want to steal- defense attorney Callisto Yew knows where her clients keep important and potentially compromising documents, prosecutor Byrne Faraday knows exactly how security systems work and can be disarmed, and detective Tyrell Badd was in charge of the Yatagarasu investigation, and could easily dispose of evidence against Yatagarasu.
  • In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Edwinna Elbert, Stewardess of the Ald-Ruhn Mages Guild Hall, will give you a quest to steal a rare book from a fellow member of the Guild. Edwinna believes the book will be useful to her research on the extinct Dwemer but the other mage refuses to let her read it. Being a prominent member of the Guild yourself at this point in the quest line will help you avoid any suspicion.
  • The Casino Heist strand of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has Carl getting a job with Caligula's Casino to become the inside man for the upcoming heist. In an interesting note, he's the player character.
  • Phantom Thief Silver Cat: Ginka's original plan to pilfer the Emerald Queen involves going undercover as a maid to find its location before breaking in as Silver Cat.

    Web Comics 
  • In Gaia, as part of the plan to break the capitally Wrongly Accused Lilith out of prison, one of the protagonist gets hired in the jail.
  • Trevor (2020): The medical team suspects that Dr. Maddison, who found Trevor’s body and declared him dead, tampered with something to kill him and end their contracts, but can’t figure out what. It turns out he didn’t kill Trevor, but faked Trevor’s death, with their best guess being that he somehow tampered with the sedatives used to subdue Trevor.
  • xkcd takes the 9/11 "inside job" conspiracy theory one step further in the Alt Text to 966: "9/11 was an Inside Job" was an inside job!

    Western Animation 
  • DuckTales (2017): In the episode "Louie's Eleven!", Louie manages to get one for his plan to get the Three Caballeros noticed by a famous critic — specifically, a waitress from Funso's that he's well-acquainted with, who becomes part of the staff at the event said critic is hosting.

     Real Life 
  • "9/11 was an inside job" has reached Memetic Mutation status among both Conspiracy Theorists who believe that the U.S. government committed or facilitated the attacks and those who take pleasure in mocking them.

 
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Video Example(s):

Alternative Title(s): Inside Man

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Inside job at Prato Cathedral

A SPK crew sneaks into Prato Cathedral, which was under heavy guard. Fortunately, one of the guards was told to let them in. However, he was disposed of in the end.

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