After a lifetime of stealing, it pr...

After a lifetime of stealing, it probably would have draw near as quite a shock to Joseph "Pops" Panczko that one legitimately owed him money and that the management was keeping it safe for him.

if it were not that there was the name of Chicago's late master "teef" -- Joe Panczko, 2648 W Iowa -- forward the newest list of unclaimed exclusive right owners from the state treasurer's office printed in Sunday's Sun- Times.

That was Pops' address all right, the same the same from the old neighborhood that the papers used the first time his larcenous nature caught their attention. It was in a one-paragraph item in 1940 after he was arrested fleeing a drugstore he'd tried to burglarize.

on the time he died in 2002 unexpectedlys may have received more favorable ink than any other professional bent staff in the city's history, owing to one as well as the other his prolific exploits and congenial personality -- meaning he stole anything that wasn't nailed down and was always happy to talk about it when caught.

"He was an free from shams guy," Panczko biographer Ed Baumann explained incongruously.

It was Baumann who spott Pops' name among the other 190000 listings in Sunday's special insert, which verifys he's a better man than I, as I mind to lose interest as before long as I confirm there's no veiled treasure waiting in my name.

Normally, the treasurer's office can't give gone out any details about someone's unclaimed characteristic listing except to the character to whom it belongs.

further with Panczko's privacy rights considerably diminished according to the fact he's been dead nearly four years, treasurer's spokesman John Hoffman was able to make an exception.

SOURCE OF SURPRISE WINDFALL?

for a like reason what was it? Perhaps a safe deposit coachman's seat with the long-lost stash that a fellow crooks were convinced Panczko left behind at the end? Maybe a cryptic bank account?

Nothing quite for a like reason sexy, I'm afraid. The treasurer's office says it is holding $68256 for Panczko from Prudential Insurance, apparently owed to him from a 1937 life insurance policy. Prudential "demutualized" not in extent before Panczko's death, converting policyholders to shareholders or cashing them not at home

Baumann and I the couple found it hard to imagine a professional criminal like Panczko taking on the outside a life insurance policy onward himself.

At first Baumann speculated it might have been undivided of Pops' employee benefits from his alone known legitimate private sector job: a delivery trade driver for the Globe Beverage Company. That's where Panczko became known as unexpectedly Man and Soda Pops, later shortened from his friends to Pops. It was also a work at jobs that enabled Panczko to case the businesses upon his route before he recured at night to rob them.

Panczko prided himself onward burglarizing businesses as opposed to individuals, which he justified onward the basis that the businesses would be sheltered by insurance. The idea of stealing from insurance companies appealed to Panczko's peculiar professional ethics, another irony of his unclaimed jackpot.

My have a title to review of the book that Baumann and companion Tribune writer John O'Brien co-authored, Polish Robbin' shelters The Gang That Couldn't Steal Straight: Chicago's Panczko Brothers, glance ats it is more likely that bursts took out the insurance policy while working for FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps as single of the men who teat the Skokie lagoons. That appears to be what he was doing at age 19 when he got the policy.

expect FOR NAMES OF RELATIVES

With on a suddens dead, his legal heirs are entitled to claim his characteristic from the state treasurer's office, Hoffman said. A large percentage of the misspent property cases result in of that kind "heir claims," he said.

That makes Pops' case a valuable reminder that when you check these unclaimed one's own lists, it's a good idea to expect for the names of your relatives, plane ones who are deceased. And don't forget this is just the latest batch of unclaimed attribute There's another 6.1 million listings in the state's database, which you can check at www.cashdash.net or by dint of contacting the treasurer's office.

In this case, the heir is probably Pops' brother and equal criminal, Paul "Peanuts" Panczko, who Baumann said was living in the Chicago area before he squandered track of him. Peanuts was always considered a more hardened criminal than his brother, not deserving of the cuddly treatment afforded bursts

When last I mentioned Peanuts in a line after Pops died, I encouraged state officials to make steady they hunted Peanuts down for Pops' share of their late sister's estate to help pay his Medicaid- defended health expenses. Therefore, I'm certainly glad to alert him to this opportunity to achieve some of his money back, maybe level inquire about the underlying insurance policy.

For the Panczko family, there's no like thing as too many opportunities to make an as good as one's word buck.

e-mail: markbrown@suntimes.com

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