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35 Oddly Specific Crimes You Couldn’t Pull Off With the Perfect Heist Team

You can certainly try!

35 Oddly Specific Crimes You Couldn’t Pull Off With the Perfect Heist Team

January 26, 2024

You might spend years of your life planning the perfect crime. Or maybe a crime of opportunity will fall right into your lap. Either way, your safest move is to just read this list and live vicariously through these criminals.

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35

GERALD, MISSOURI, HAD A METH PROBLEM. THEN BILL JAKOB CAME TO TOWN. Не said he'd clean things up, and didn't bother with warrants or regular procedure. That's because Jakob wasn't a cop at all, just a borderline delusional loser from Illinois. CRACKED.COM — Source

34

AN OFF-DUTY COP WAS KILLED AT A ROBBERY. QUESTIONED, A WITNESS WAS SHOCKED. You know what happened, he told the investigator. You were there! Yes, it turned out the officer, Antoinette Frank, had robbed the restaurant, killed the cop (working as a guard) and several others, then came right back while on duty. CRACKED.COM — Source

33

Lions

ETHIOPIAN KIDNAPPERS TOOK A 12-YEAR-OLD. THEN THEY RAN INTO A PRIDE OF LIONS. They fled. For half an hour, the lions just kinda ... hung out with the kid, lounging about with seemingly no intention of devouring her. A police sergeant said it seemed as if the lions had left the child unharmed as a gift. CRACKED.COM — Source

32

RYE WARDLAW BROKE INTO AN ESCAPE ROOM. 59:57 НЕ COULDN'T GET OUT. Apparently he damaged the back doorknob, then couldn't figure out the lock-which was not controlled by a complicated puzzle-on the front door. Не called 911, claiming he was calling from his panic room because his house was being robbed. CRACKED.COM — Source

31

AGNES WESTLUND WAS BLUDGEONED TO DEATH. POLICE ARRESTED HER HUSBAND. Then forensic analysis came back. She had the hair and saliva of a moose on her. Poor Agnes had been randomly kicked to death by a moose. A drunk moose-the local gardens were strewn with fermented apples. CRACKED.COM — Source

30

NORBERT WITTE TRIED TO SHIP A FERRIS WHEEL. ... A FERRIS WHEEL STUFFED WITH COCAINE. He'd bought East Berlin's biggest amusement park and ran it into the ground, winding up $20 million in debt. Unfortunately, he was as careless about smuggling as ride safety, and was easily caught by undercover cops. CRACKED.COM — Source

29

TWO FRENCHMEN DIED OVER STEAK DINNER. POLICE SUSPECTED FOUL PLAY. Actually, the older man choked to death on a chunk of steak. This could've been fixed by his younger companion, but he was busy dying of a heart attack triggered by the sight of his friend choking. CRACKED.COM — Source

28

RAFFAELE MINICHIELLO HIJACKED A PLANE. IN THE AIR, НЕ BECAME A MEDIA HERO. Apparently, his hunkiness more than made up for a little sky piracy. Italy refused to extradite him, and the home trial quickly turned into a circus. Girls were swooning on the courthouse steps. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

ANN RULE VOLUNTEERED AT A SUICIDE HOTLINE. SIEMENS TUV WXYZ PORS SHE AND A COLLEAGUE BECAME FAST FRIENDS. A few years later, she was working on a book about unsolved murders. One victim called the killer Ted, and his description matched her old colleague. She tipped off the police, who promptly arrested the man, Ted Bundy. CRACKED.COM — Source

26

HOLMEDEL HIGH SCHOOL HAD A MAD POOPER. THEY KEPT POOPING ON THE TRACK FIELD. Cops finally caught the culprit right before 6 AM, trousers down. It wasn't a student, but the superintendent of the school district. His choice to do this truly defies logic, especially since it cost him a $150,000 annual salary. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

WAYNESBORO CATS KEPT GOING MISSING. ALL WERE RETURNED UNHARMED... ALMOST. The cats all came back shaved. Owners reported that their cats had become understandably suspicious of humans afterward. Residents have said that they can't conclusively point any fingers, but they do have theories. CRACKED.COM — Source

24

QUINCY GREEN WORE AN ANKLE MONITOR. AIRNESS : IT PUT HIM AT HOME AT THE TIME OF A MURDER. But he was the murderer. How'd he get there? Не just took off his prosthetic leg and replaced it with a backup. That's right, the police had attached the bracelet to a prosthetic, removable leg instead of his real one. CRACKED.COM — Source

23

IN 2017, MOMA FOUND TWO PHOTOS MISSING. 12 THEY HAD A COMBINED VALUE OF $105,000. There were no eyewitnesses, no security footage, not a single clue. It was the perfect crime ... for about four days. After that, the photographs were anonymously returned to the museum, completely unscathed. CRACKED.COM — Source

22

JACQUES MESRINE ESCAPED PRISON. THEN НЕ CAME BACK TO FREE ALL HIS FRIENDS. Не was finally captured, but this time they couldn't even hold on to him long enough to sentence him. Не escaped from the courtroom during trial by smuggling a gun into court and holding the judge hostage. CRACKED.COM — Source

21

JAMES WASHINGTON WAS ABOUT TO DIE. NOTHING TO LOSE, НЕ CONFESSED TO MURDER. Then Washington closed his eyes and... didn't die. Instead he found himself charged, convicted, and slapped with an automatic life sentence for the murder he'd committed 20 years earlier. CRACKED.COM — Source

20

VASSILLIS PALAIOKOSTAS STOLE A TANK. 11= 826207 НЕ USED IT TO BREAK HIS BROTHER OUT OF JAIL. This capped off a grand criminal career that started with blockading the police station so he could rob a jewelry store while the police failed to escape their own building. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

Number Theft

A THIEF KEPT STEALING ADDRESS NUMBERS. 10 THEY ONLY EVER STOLE 1's AND O's. Around Christmas, one resident found a trash bag on their stoop, filled with metal ones and zeroes. There was no note and no reason why the numbers were returned, so the neighborhood was just left with more questions. CRACKED.COM — Source

18

SCOTT SIMON PICKED A FIGHT IN A PARKING LOT. THEN TOLD BUDDIES TO SHOOT THE OTHER GUY. This came as a great shock to Simon's girlfriend, as well as the police, who were listening from her pocket. She had accidentally butt-dialed them. CRACKED.COM — Source

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17

DNA

DR. SCHNEEBERGER ASSAULTED PATIENTS. BUT HIS DNA WASN'T A MATCH. Then police finally tested his hair instead and got a match. It turned out the doctor had inserted a tube of someone else's blood into his own arm, and he'd used this each time to fool the police with someone else's DNA. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

THE MOST WANTED MAN IN AUSTRALIA: НЕ WAS JOHN DENNING, AND НЕ LOVED FAME. Не went on TV. Не went to a prison art exhibition while the head of the country's prison system was there. Не taped demands to police HQ (he planted his fingerprints on the glass to prove his identity). CRACKED.COM — Source

15

The city of Bemidji, Minnesota has a little theft problem regarding the street signs for Stoner Avenue and in the span of 10 years, the city spent $20,000 just to replace all the stolen signs. STONER AVNE Their solution? Higher poles. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

In Lisbon, Portugal, authorities have not been able to stop people from stealing ceramic tiles known as azulejos, which have been part of the city's culture for decades. Thieves have been ripping them off the walls and selling them for hundreds of euros on the black market. CRACKED.COM — Source

13

GRACKED.COM 1 в The Temple of Heaven Park in China had to install dispensers with facial recognition software in their public restrooms after years of supplies being rapidly depleted by toilet paper thieves. — Source

12

Major League Baseball

When an intersection in Williamsport, PA. was transformed into a baseball diamond with bronze player statues to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Little League Baseball... PEOPLE KEPT BREAKING AND OFTEN STEALING THE BAT OF THE BATTER STATUE. Security cameras were eventually installed to monitor the statue, which was then repaired with a thicker, steel rod support. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

People went strangely bats**t crazy after a shortage of avocados hit New Zealand. Specifically, the criminal kind of crazy. Both professional and amateur thieves raided orchards and sold the loot on the black market, costing the growers thousands of dollars. GRACKED.COM — Source

10

In certain parts of China, ghost marriages for deceased bachelors (so they won't end up alone in the afterlife) are still a thing. Because of that, bodies of women are illegally dug up to be sold for profit. A fresh corpse can be sold for up to 20,000 yuan ($3000) in the black market. CRACKED.COM — Source

9

Columbia University students have been using to-go cups to steal Nutella from the university's dining halls since the day the chocolate-hazelnut spread was offered. - - - - | - - - This costs the university $5000 per week. CRACKED.COM — Source

8

The region of Sava, Madagascar is a hotbed of vanilla thefts. After the global price for vanilla soared by more than 500%, so did the number of thefts. The crime aggravated the local farmers so much that caught thieves face the prospect of being beaten to death by them. CRACKED COM — Source

7

The constant vandalization of a statue of 25th President William McKinley was a small Northern California town's inside joke for decades. The Arcata, California statue was vandalized so often that it stopped being worthy of coverage in local papers. The statue was the center of controversy in the liberal town because of McKinley's harsh treatment of indigenous people and his dedication to Manifest Destiny. The vandalization only came to an end in February 2019, when the city sold the statue to the city of Canton, Ohio. CRACKED.COM — Source

6

The town of Fucking, Austria has a public sex problem. Fucking English-speaking tourists flock from all over to giggle at the town's name. And also to bang in front of the signs. The locals had to install CCTV cameras to deter sign thieves, and any other, uh, criminals. CRACKED COM — Source

5

People keep leaving their loved ones' ashes at the Jane Austin House. While it's legal to scatter ashes in public places in the UK, you need to have permission from the property owner, which nobody has. CRACKED.COM — Source

4

We've all taken a handful of sand home after visiting a beach, but sand theft in Sardinia got so bad that local authorities imposed a fine of 1,000 EUR (1,100 USD) for taking a bottle of the stuff. But the visitors still can't resist taking such souvenirs. More than 2,000 pounds of sand were found in tourists' luggage in the summer of 2017. GRAGKED.COM — Source

3

35 Oddly Specific Crimes You Couldn’t Pull Off With the Perfect Heist Team — Source

2

IF YOU LIVE IN THIS HOUSE IN WESTFIELD, NEW JERSEY... YOU WILL RECEIVE DISTURBING LETTERS FROM A STALKER KNOWN ONLY AS THE WATCHER. One such letter reads... My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s and my father watched in the 1960s. It is now my time. POLICE HAVEN'T YET IDENTIFIED A SUSPECT. GRACKED.COM — Source

1

35 Oddly Specific Crimes You Couldn’t Pull Off With the Perfect Heist Team — Source

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