We all love a good story about really stupid criminals who surely thought they were committing the perfect crime without even realizing it was always doomed to fail, right from the beginning.
But there’s definitely something to be said about those criminals who are just so smart that it’s a wonder they ever got caught in the first place. If they ever managed to get caught, that is.
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Here are some of the most genius criminals and their perfect crimes, as told by cops who encountered them, and the people who admire them.
Mail fraud.
“My favorite was the guy who stole a post office mailbox off the street, repainted it, and then put it next to the night deposit box at a bank,” this person shared. “He hung an out-of-order sign on the deposit box. All the businesses came along and dropped off their deposits in the mailbox.”
Only at Wal-Mart.
“A guy had been stealing from Walmart in a pretty clever way,” this person wrote. “He would grab video games, MP3 players, beer etc. and throw them away in a trashcan in the garden section.
“The workers never checked the trash contents and he would just wait, sometimes 5 hours, until they emptied the trash in the back dumpster and hop in to get his items.”
Crazy good cover-up.
“[This guy] had a system for getting released if he got caught,” one person wrote. “After committing a crime, if the police were in pursuit and he knew he was about to be cornered, he would act insane. The police would arrest him but then send him to a mental ward with papers instructing the ward to release to police once he was cleared.
‘Once he was in the mental ward, he would cause a distraction… look for his ‘release to police’ papers, and then would literally eat the papers. When the psych evaluators decided that he was stable enough to be released, there would be no instructions to send him to the police, and he would be released to the general public.”
Destination: jail.
“This guy had attached GPS to the bottom of peoples cars who owned houses, he wanted to rob,” this person shared. “He did it to ensure they wouldn’t be showing up while he was ransacking the place.”
“I’d like to return this, please.”
“[Someone entered a store] with some cheap product to get one of those ‘I walked in with this’ stickers they used to put on returning merchandise,” this user wrote. “The sticker easily peeled off the product undamaged. They walked to the electronics department, grabbed an expensive box off the shelf and went to Customer Service.
‘They placed the sticker on the big box and asked if they could return the item without a receipt and were told ‘Unfortunately, no. Not without the original receipt.’ So they walked out.”
A little research goes a long way.
“When police showed up [to a B&E alarm], everything seemed normal, most lights were off, and there was an employee still working who explained he was there working late and must have set off an alarm.
“They almost believed him until he said ‘uhh’ before saying the name of the company he worked for. After that it was downhill but with a little more research he would have pretty much gotten away with it.”
Par-tee on the golf course.
“There’s a golf course/country club in my town that has a PGA tournament scheduled in the next couple years,” this person shared. “They have a guy repeatedly breaking in overnight and just lounging around and eating food, all on camera. The club refuses to report it so they don’t hurt their chances of the tournament coming.”
The 51st state.
“My friend moved to Israel where for a period of time it was/is acceptable to drive with an American driver’s license. He was pulled over for speeding, and when asked for his license, gave the officer his Costco card.
Officer: “Costco? What is Costco?”
Friend: “It’s the state I’m from.”
Officer: “That sounds made up.”
Friend: “Well I’m from the small state of Costco.”
The officer didn’t have a response and wound up writing the ticket to someone with a Costco driver’s license.”
Carry-on-con
“A while back, there was a series of thefts along the bus lines in my country,” this person shared. “People’s things kept going missing from one city to the next, and nobody had any idea what happened as things were presumably safe in the bottom of the bus which nobody except the driver had the access to.
‘Apparently there were two guys, one of whom was really small. The big guy would put the little guy in a suitcase, buy a ticket to somewhere, load him up with the rest of the luggage, and enjoy the ride, while the little guy went out, stole people’s electronics, jewelry, cameras and whatnot, then returned to his suitcase until the ride was over.”
“Your keys, please.”
“In England there was this car park outside a local tourist attraction,” this user shared. “A booth was set up to collect parking fees. The old man collecting the fees was a pleasant chap, never missed a day of work in ten years, rain or shine.
One day the tourist attraction hears there is nobody manning the booth. Because it is a city-owned lot, they call the city to ask where the parking attendant is. The city says ‘What parking attendant?’
Old man was never heard or seen again. He built the booth himself and manned it for ten years.”
The boy who cried “security alarm.”
“Some thieves would go and trigger the alarm of a vacant Blockbuster after they all started closing down,” this user wrote. “They did this for two weeks straight, so cops became convinced that this was a false alarm going off at the exact same time every night so they stopped rushing to investigate.
“One day we find out that the pharmacy next to the Blockbuster was broken into through the wall they shared. Not only that, but there was only one tiny section the wall that wasn’t covered in shelves and panels in the pharmacy, so the thieves had to know exactly which part of the Blockbuster wall to break through.”
Red means…go, right?
“An Australian ran a red light in Texas and was pulled over,” this user shared. “When asked about running the red light, he gets very apologetic and explains that he gets easily confused because in Australia—you know how things are reverse down there—red means go and green means stop.
The cop actually let this man go with a warning and said, ‘I did not know that! Well in America, red means stop, so don’t make this mistake again’.”
Alcohol IS pretty expensive.
“I was an RA in college,” this person wrote. “There was a student who went around knocking on doors saying something like ‘I’m an RA and [housing directors name] sent me for health and wellness checks.’ She’d find their booze, take it, and follow up with how she’s doing them a favor by just giving them a warning.
She wasn’t actually an RA and was just keeping the booze for herself.”
Blown away.
“I was working in a home improvement store when I was younger,” this person shared. “This guy came in, went to the snow blowers, took one and went to the return desk. Said he wanted to return it but had no receipt. They told him you need a receipt so he says ‘Ok, I’ll be back’, and wheels it off to car through the front door.
He did this a few times apparently. Couple places even helped him load it ‘back’ into his car.”
Address unknown.
“[This man] finds a building, goes in, chooses a floor and TRANSFORMS the exit door into an extra apartment. Puts the apartment number, fake lock, welcome rug, etc.
Puts an iPhone for sale. The person comes to buy it, he opens the door in a shower robe and says ‘Give me one second, I’m just gonna count the money’ and poof! He’s gone from the exit stairs.”
