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In Better Call Saul S06E02 "Carrot and Stick", as I understand it, Fring's men wanted to plant evidence in Nacho's safe which could only be done if they had access to its interior so they first broke in (maybe not even necessary) and then replaced the old safe with a new one and placed the old safe's contents in the new one with the planted false evidence indicating Nacho was being paid off by the Peruvians.

Now, since neither Bolsa nor anyone else besides Nacho (and now Fring's soldiers) knew anything about the old safe and its contents, why bother with finding the same model and its contents? That is, simply pull out the old safe, put in a used one of roughly the same dimensions (so it will fit and not, for example, show part of the floor that had been under the old safe) and put whatever they wanted in the replacement? I could see for authenticity opening the old one: maybe something of interest (like the fake IDs) will be found and can be used to establish authenticity. But the make and dial location: I don't at all see why they cared.

This kind of reminds me of the movie Take the Money in Run where prisoners planning to escape approach Woody Allen's character Virgil Stockwell who works in the prison laundry -- they plan to dress as guards and want him to steal the guards' underwear because they want to do this "as realistically as possible."

Maybe this whole thing was a mistake by BCS writers or maybe it shows that Mike/Fring is not as smart as they think -- they do silly things also. But maybe too they see advantages in being more careful than necessary: there is an off chance that during interrogation, a crafty guy like Hector would ask what kind of safe Nacho had and other details -- by doing what Fring did, they eliminate the possibility that Nacho could be tripped up. So maybe that is why Fring is running a billion-dollar illegal drug operation and I am not. (Much harder to run an illegal business of a given size than a legal one, of course.)

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  • "neither Bolsa nor anyone else besides Nacho... knew anything about the old safe and its contents" — how could Mike or Gus be sure of that? I doubt they were watching Nacho's house 24/7 since he got the safe and recording everyone who went in or out. Oct 3, 2022 at 12:00

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Why did they have to replace the safe with the same model?

Gus wanted his plan to be foolproof, and replacing the safe with the exact same model will lessen suspicion that the safe had been tampered with.

It is possible that one of Bolsa's or the Salamancas' men has knowledge of what safe Nacho keeps in his home. Replacing it with any other safe is risky since it could derail Gus' plans to blame Lalo's assassination on a Peruvian cartel, and set Nacho up as the rat. Gus will be the prime suspect of masterminding Lalo's assassination if he wasn't successful in setting Nacho up as the rat.

There was no need to take unnecessary risks here. It's not like Gus can't afford that safe.

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    Yes, it is almost like the Woody Allen movie: do it as realistically as possible.
    – releseabe
    Oct 1, 2022 at 1:24
  • You are right: Gus can afford another safe. He is likely the only man in America who pays a fake couple to live in a decoy house although who knows about the really rich like Bezos -- I bet most people have no idea where he lives, exactly. If Fring has security problem's imagine Bezos'.
    – releseabe
    Oct 1, 2022 at 22:46

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