Anecdotes
Candid Camera Robbery
While setting up for a "Candid Camera" segment in a bank one day, Peter Funt (the show's host) was astonished to find himself in the middle of an actual robbery. As Funt looked on dumbfounded, the staff - naturally assuming that the robbery was a practice run of a practical joke - began clapping. So astonished was the robber that he actually dropped his gun and raced out of the bank!
Final Request
Shortly before his execution by firing squad, the notorious murderer James Rodgers was asked whether he had any final requests. "Why yes," he replied. "I'd like a bulletproof vest."
Bugged
While visiting Moscow to play the Russians in the historic Summit Series (in 1972), the Canadian hockey team was assigned a room in an elegant hotel, which they suspected had been bugged:
"We searched the room for microphones," Phil Esposito recalled. "In the center of the room, we found a funny-looking, round piece of metal embedded in the floor, under the rug. We figured we had found the bug. We dug it out of the floor and heard a crash beneath us. We had released the anchor to the chandelier in the ceiling below."
Secret Police?
Averell Harriman, America’s ambassador in Moscow, was shadowed everywhere by secret police. When invited to visit a British diplomat at his country estate during the winter season, he thoughtfully advised his shadows that a four-wheel-drive was needed to access the property. Nonetheless, the police set off after Harriman's jeep in a standard-issue sedan. Shortly after, they became stuck and an agent set off on foot. In the beginning Harriman drove his vehicle slowly so the man could keep up but he soon became concerned that the man would freeze to death. The ambassador offered the secret agent a lift, promised not to tell his superiors, and the two rode together for the remainder of the journey.
Silent Grandma’s perfect crime
A pensioner stole £10,000 from a bank in Peru without anyone noticing. Nicknamed the Silent Grandma, she stole the money from the Sul-Americano Bank in Lima, reports Terra Noticias Populares.
After waiting outside the bank manager's office until he left, she entered, took the money and departed. After looking at CCTV footage, the only conclusion the police have reached so far is that the woman seems to be around 65 years old. A spokesperson said: "She was extremely discreet. We are beginning to think she committed the perfect crime. But we will study the footage over and over to try and find out more about her."
Dumb Luck
"Two gangsters, James Gallo and Joe Conigliaro, set out to murder a stool pigeon, Vinny Ensulo, alias Vinnie Ba Ba, alias Vincent Ennisie.
“On November 1, 1973, they jumped him on Columbia Street, Brooklyn, and took him for a ride. Gallo pointed a gun at his head from the right, and Conigliaro covered him from the left. The car swerved violently. The two gangsters shot each other. Conigliaro, hit in the spine, was paralyzed. Every year after that, Vinny Ensulo sent wheelchair batteries to Conigliaro. A small card with the batteries always said, 'Keep rolling, from your best pal, Vinny Ba Ba.'”
Steamship Snapshot
An Englishman was accused of murdering a friend in Rio de Janeiro harbour. One evening he returned in his yacht with the body of his friend who, he asserted, had been killed by falling from the masthead. An oar was missing, and doctors said that the wound might have been caused by such a weapon. And the friends had quarreled two days before.
But it fortunately happened that a passenger entering the harbour on a steamship had taken a snapshot which included the yacht. When developed, a black spot was visible against the sail. This, on enlargement of the photograph, appeared quite distinctly as a man falling from the masthead towards the deck. As a result of this extraordinary coincidence, and on the evidence of the photograph, the accused man was, of course, acquitted.
Acoustic Kitty
In 1966, the CIA hatched a plan to discover Russia's Cold War secrets by installing bugging devices in a cat. "Acoustic Kitty," they hoped, would allow them to eavesdrop on secret conversations from window sills and park benches.
"They slit the cat open, put batteries in him, wired him up," recalled former spy Victor Marchetti. "The tail was used as an antenna. They made a monstrosity. They tested him and tested him. They found he would walk off the job when he got hungry, so they put another wire in to override that."
Moreover, when Acoustic Kitty, a tomcat with an eye for the ladies, wandered off in search of the opposite sex, more wires were implanted to detect and bypass his lusty urges.
After exhaustive testing, the cat, finally ready for his first assignment, was set loose in the street, followed by a CIA support truck loaded with expensive monitoring equipment, and was promptly run over by a taxi cab.
Half Wits
As a former law enforcement officer, John Miller (author of The Cell) had considerable experience monitoring wire taps. The Mafia, well aware of the prevalence of stool pigeons and narcs in the family business, often employed codes, using innocuous words to describe such things as guns and kilograms of cocaine. The police were not always fooled. Indeed, Miller was once privy to the following conversation:
So you got any more of them... shirts?"
"Yeah, we got some nice shirts."
"How white are they?"
"They're very white."
"How much?"
"250 each."
"OK. We'll take three and a half... shirts."
Man fell in love with judge
A Romanian man launched more than 100 court cases after he fell in love with a judge. Sandu Gurguiatu, 47, says he kept starting new cases because he wanted to keep seeing Judge Elena Lala. The bachelor, from Focsani, Vrancea county, said he fell for the judge the first time he entered her court three years ago.
He told Libertatea newspaper: "It was, I daresay, love at first sight. I fell in love like a fool and when I heard she was married I didn't know what to do to keep seeing her. Then it came to me. The only solution was to see her in court, so I began studying the law and calling into justice the company where I used to work. I started over a hundred lawsuits and thus I could see her almost every week."
Cluck Luck
In 2004, a lawyer for Manuel Urbina told a court in the Philippines that 67 kilos of cocaine found hidden in a chicken cage did not belong to his client. "The drugs were in the possession of a rooster and two hens," he said, "and the law is very clear that whoever is in possession of the drugs is the one who should be accused." Prosecutors dismissed the claim.
Fingerprints
On his ninetieth birthday, George Bernard Shaw was visited by Scotland Yard's celebrated Detective Fabian. To mark the occasion, Fabian suggested that Shaw's fingerprints be recorded for posterity. Incredibly, so faint were Shaw's prints that no impression could be made. "Well," Shaw playfully declared, "had I known this sooner I should certainly have chosen another profession!"
Trivia
After evading New York police for a year, Michael LaRock was finally arrested in February 2002, after calling them from Auburn, Georgia to brag that he would never be caught. When he called back a second time, he was startled to find Auburn police at his door. Dispatch supervisor Carol Perry later explained how he was caught: "We have caller ID."
Elderly hit and run driver was registered deaf and blind
A hit and run driver who ran over a policeman in Romania turned out to be registered deaf, blind and 84-years-old.
Aurel Blidaru was on his way to collect his pension when he hit the off duty police officer in the western town of Timisoara. He left the policeman lying in the road with a broken leg and drove off with police patrol cars in pursuit. Officers said they could not believe it when he finally climbed out of the car wearing dark glasses and carrying a white stick.
Bildaru, who was now been stripped of his driving license, said: "I didn't realize that I'd hit someone. I had a feeling I heard some kind of a noise but I thought it was coming from the car engine."
He added: "I've been driving since 1950 and I've never had any problems. I am registered as deaf and blind, but can still see a bit out of one eye, and I know the route so well to the bank that I don't usually have any problems. And I can hear fine - if people shout at least." He said he was planning to ask for his license back and was prepared to re-sit his driving test if necessary. He said: "I have never had any problems before."
Generosity James?
On one occasion Jesse James and his gang sought food and rest at a lonely farmhouse. The woman there gave them what food she could and apologized for the poor hospitality. A widow and deeply in debt, she was even then waiting for the debt collector to visit her to demand $1,400, which she could not possibly afford to pay.
Jesse James had the spoils of one of his bank raids with him. He gave the astonished woman enough money to pay off her debt, telling her to be sure to get a receipt from the debt collector. Then he and his gang withdrew to watch the road leading to the farmhouse.
Along came the debt collector, looking very grim. A short while later he emerged from the farm, looking altogether more pleased with himself. Jesse James and his men stopped him, recovered their $1,400, and rode off.
Willie $utton
The notorious bandit Willie Sutton was once asked why he had decided to rob banks. Sutton's reply? "Because that's where the money is."
Clowns robbed guards and joined carnival
Five robbers dressed as clowns stole £100,000 from security guards as they tried to load a cash machine with money in Mexico.
The five 'clowns' escaped by joining a street carnival with the thousands of people in fancy dress, reports El Universal. The clowns and guards exchanged gunfire in the robbery in Ciudad Carmen and one of the three guards was injured.
A police spokesman said: "They ran away and joined a street carnival party where many people were disguised as clowns, so it was impossible to distinguish them."
Picture This
Burton Gerber, a 39-year veteran of the CIA, was running spy operations in Berlin during the summer of 1958 when he and nearly all his comrades in espionage attended the wedding of a colleague. Gearing up for yet another Berlin crisis, the fatigued spies ate, drank and posed for pictures.
Afterwards, attendees asked the groom whether they could have some pictures from the wedding. 'We didn't hire any photographer,' said the groom. There was stunned silence all around.
Badge of Luck
Detective Melvin G. Lobbett of Buffalo, N.Y., shot by a .38 caliber revolver at close range, was saved when the bullet hit his badge which he had dropped into his coat pocket only a moment before the shooting.
Gang rob everything for barbecue
Thieves in Brazil stole meat from a butcher's shop because they wanted to have a barbeque. Once the gang had the meat from the shop in Rio de Janeiro they then went to a nearby shop and stole cans of beer, Folha de Sao Paulo reports. The gang also robbed a car parked outside the shop to transport the stolen goods.
German police hunt priceless caveman teeth
Police in Germany are hunting a thief, or thieves, who stole two "priceless" teeth from the skull of a caveman which was on display in a museum.
An employee at the Neanderthal Museum in Mettmann, North Rhine Westphalia, noticed one tooth was missing over the weekend but thought it had been removed for cleaning. She added it was only when she arrived for work on Monday and noticed the second tooth had gone that she alerted security.
The two teeth were hailed as "archaeological sensations" when found in 2002 and are considered priceless. The caveman was said to have lived 300,000 years ago.
A police spokesman said the teeth were taken one at a time and those responsible managed to unscrew the glass security cabinet protecting the skull twice without being seen. A museum spokesman asked about the value of the stolen teeth said: "They are worth a lot more than you would get from the tooth fairy."
Just the Facts
Cordell Hull, the American secretary of state from 1933 to 1944, was reputed to be an extremely cautious man, ungiven to advancing an inch past the evidence, as perhaps befits a secretary of state.
Once, on a train trip, Hull and a companion watched while the locomotive dragged its load of cars slowly past a large flock of sheep. Making conversation, Hull’s companion said, “Those sheep have been recently sheared.”
Hull stared thoughtfully at the animals, then said, “Appears so. At least on the side facing us.”
Swear to Tell the Truth
Professor Henry Augustus Rowland was a well-known American physicist of the nineteenth century, renowned for the sweetness of his disposition and his shy modesty. At one time he was testifying as an expert witness at a trial, and the lawyer in his cross-examination said sharply, “Now, Professor Rowland, what are your qualifications as an expert witness in this case?”
Rowland answered with a quiet calm, “In the subject under discussion, I am the greatest living expert.”
After the trial, a friend said to him, “Henry, you amazed me. It was completely out of character for you to praise yourself so.”
Rowland frowned. “What did you expect me to do? I was under oath.”
Your Money or Your Life
On one of his radio shows in the 1940’s, Mr. Jack Benny, who built his reputation as the cheapest man in the world, was stopped by a thief who said, “Your money or your life!” There was a lengthy silence, and as the audience began to get the joke, they began laughing louder and louder. Finally, just in case there were a few people who didn’t get the point, the thief said once more, “Come on, your money or your life.”
To which Mr. Benny replied cantankerously, “I’m thinking! I’m thinking!” More silence and then finally, “Take my life. I’m saving my money for my old age.”
Italian police hunting ‘Hole in the Ground’ gang
Police in Italy are hunting a gang of bank robbers nicknamed the Hole in the Ground gang because they stage their raids from the city's sewers. In their latest raid they super glued down a manhole cover to stop police following them as they made their escape underground.
The four-strong gang have struck more than a dozen times and escaped with a total of more than £200,000. In the latest incident, they emerged from a drain inside a bank in Naples and waited patiently for staff to arrive to open up the branch. They then held the terrified cashiers at gunpoint before helping themselves to more than £30,000 from a safe.
The gang escaped back down the drain they had emerged from and used superglue to stick down the cover and stop police from chasing them. A police spokesman said: "'We are certain it is the Hole in the Ground gang. The technique of using the powerful adhesive to stop officers from chasing them down their escape route held us up considerably.''
Cash Back Bandits
Two hold-up men went through the drive-through lane of a Jack-in-the-Box fast food outlet in Los Angeles. They ordered a couple of soft drinks and then one of the men left the car and walked to the take-out window. Teenager, Cordia Beverly Downs, was working when the thief demanded:
“Give me all your money, and if you think I’m kidding, in about two minutes, I’ll show you that I’m not.”
Miss Downs gave him a bunch of bills and he returned to the car. The engine was started with some difficulty but as the two men tried to drive away, the car stalled and wouldn’t start again. The driver got out, went back to the window, returned the money and pleaded, “Take your money back and please don’t say anything about this to anyone.” They were last seen pushing their car westbound along Fourth Street.
HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT…
- The home invader who called the psychic hotline from the home he was robbing to ask where the goods were hidden. Later that month the home owners got their phone bill with a charge for $250 to a 900 number. The police followed the number back to the psychic, who was able to identify the crook because he was silly enough to give her his name.
- The thief who was scared out of robbing a Burger King in Connecticut because he mistakenly thought that the timer going off on a microwave was a burglar alarm.
- How a bank robber in Massachusetts pulled his heist during rush hour and got stuck in gridlock. He was caught by a policeman on foot.
- The crook who sent himself to jail when he propped his feet, wearing stolen hiking boots, up on the table during his trial. His relaxed pose was taken when he realized there was no evidence to convict him – that is, until the clerk from the store he robbed recognized the footwear.
- The 350-pound man who entered a jewelry story on Long Island, pointed his gun at the clerk, announced a holdup, tripped and fell to the floor, then was unable to get up before police arrived.
- The suspect who was being questioned by police and gave her occupation as bank robber.
- The crook in Florida who hid from police in a tree on a golf course. When a golfer lost his ball in the grove the thief called out, “Hey, hey, your ball is over there.” The golfer connected the man in the tree with the police helicopters that were searching the area and turned him in.
- The Texas thief who was caught when he returned to the house he stole a TV from to get the remote.
- A robber who tried to enter a house through the dog door, and got stuck.
- The inmate on the lam who went to the hospital suffering from deep cuts and loss of blood, and when asked about the cause of his injuries replied, “escape from jail.”
- The gas station thieves who were counting their stolen money while trying to make a quick getaway, had a single car accident and went directly to jail.
- Using a welding torch to break into a safe in a department store, the burglars accidentally set the money inside the safe on fire. This caused enough smoke to trigger the store’s fire alarm.
DID YOU KNOW THAT…
- A man wearing a ski mask entered a convenience store in Miami, Florida, and demanded all the money in the cash register. When the clerk produced only fifty dollars, the robber forced all of the store’s employees into a walk-in cooler, then removed his mask and manned the checkout area for three hours to increase the take. Two local policemen were among his customers. The clever crook escaped.
- Someone tried to rob a Howard Johnson Motel with an electric chain saw, but the clerk saw it wasn’t plugged in.
- A man was arrested in Alabama for breaking into the Déjà Vu store – twice.
- An Italian man who robbed the post office then discovered his getaway car had been stolen.
- Every year, on average, forty-five bank robbers are arrested because they wrote their hold-up notes on the back of their own deposit slips.
- Armed with an axe, a stun gun, a crossbow, a can of Mace and a smoke grenade, a bank robber in Japan managed to grab over $1,000,000. Unfortunately, he was so loaded down with weapons that when he tripped during his getaway, he was easily apprehended by someone who was passing by.
- in Alamos, Mexico, any prison guard who is on duty when an inmate breaks out, is locked up for the remainder of the escapee’s sentence.
- Some crooks used a laser gun to cut open a store safe, but it didn’t work because the gun had been stolen from a Lazer Tag amusement centre.
- Two inmates sued a prison in Missouri after escaping and being rearrested. They claimed that life inside was too dangerous. “A person can only put up with this constant fear for so long until he is forced to seek safety,” they stated.
- The inmate who unsuccessfully tried to kill himself successfully sued a Michigan prison and won $1.7 million because they had “failed to prevent a suicide attempt.”
- Wearing a paper bag over your head can be a good disguise unless you forget to cut out the mouth hole so that your words can be understood, as one bank robber discovered.
- While trying to hot-wire a van in its garage in Texas, a would-be car thief accidentally activated the electronic locks and couldn’t get out. His attempts at escape were so noisy that the owners woke up and called the police. The guy was still inside when the law arrived.
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