World's Dumbest Criminals

Jewelry, gadgets, cigarettes— and a free television—all attracted the attention of this year’s….

Better Than Free

LAST SPRING, an undetermined number of misguided thieves broke into a store after shop hours in Zeist, Holland, and ran off with a television set. Clearly, they did not know that they had entered a “give-away store”—part of a recycling project—where everything is free. On top of that, the television they had stolen was broken! They have not been caught.

Vanity Did Him In

THINKING NO ONE was looking, the 26-year-old bearded thief took a pair of headphones off the shelf in an electronics store, went into a dressing room— out of sight, or so he thought —and put them into his pocket. So far so good: if only he hadn’t given into vanity! As he was leaving the dressing room, he looked in the mirror and, unbelievably, became concerned with how dishevelled his beard was.

Grabbing an electric shaver off a nearby shelf, he quickly trimmed his beard. Sadly for the thief, the clerks in the Vantaa, Finland, store had noticed his strange behavior, and he was pulled aside when he tried to go through the checkout. The headphones were discovered in his pocket. The man has been charged with shoplifting and property crime. The shaver, having been used, could not be sold.

Very Sneaky

SUITCASES belonging to passengers on buses going to Beauvais Airport outside of Paris were being pilfered. Police were baffled. When and how could a thief get into the luggage compartment of the bus, steal from suitcases, and then get out again, without being seen?

Then, an observant driver noticed a passenger with a backpack and an enormous suitcase, with something inside that was moving! He alerted the authorities. Police stopped the man as he arrived at the airport, and found his rucksack contained laptops, money and valuables. His suitcase contained a “curled up individual.”