Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Couple Arrested for Eating Rare Iguana...on Facebook

by Evan Shamoon on February 11, 2009 at 10:38 AM



People are weird.

The latest oddball story concerns an American couple's meal of an endangered iguana that landed them in Bahamian jail. Like so, so many other idiots, they were caught after the country's officials saw pictures of the feast on Facebook.

The couple -- Vanessa Starr Palm, 23, from Illinois and Alexander Daniel Rust, 24, from Indiana -- posted incriminating snapshots that included "the suspects catching an iguana, parts of an iguana on a grill, two men eating the iguana pieces, and a man and a woman cleaning what appears to be undersized conch," according to police. It's unclear exactly how it got to the police, but apparently many people reported it.

Palm and Rust have been charged with violating an animal protection act and were released on $500 bail each. They'll be back in court next Tuesday. As if that wasn't enough, a Bahamian official said the pair "could also be charged under U.S. law which makes it illegal to commit an offence in a country that has a relationship with the U.S." Good.

While we usually stick to tech, we'll impart some travel advice in this case: stick to the buffet. [From: The Chicago Tribune]


The iguanas are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Florida.

Note to self: Stop eating so many iguanas. [From: Metro.co.uk]

Facebook Crime and Punishment

    Self-Incrimination
    Do we really have to explain this? Just look up the shoplifter who posed with her stolen merchandise, the many photos of drunk underage teens, and, most recently, the album featuring a couple who killed and ate an endangered iguana in the Bahamas.

    Blackmail
    Sending any personal info or incriminating pictures to someone on Facebook is a huge mistake for many reasons. One of the worst possible outcomes is getting blackmailed for money, sex, or, well, anything these sickos dream up. Really, whether they're using a fake profile or not, it's a horrible idea. Read up on the story of an 18-year-old who blackmailed 31 male classmates after he posed as a girl and asked for nude pictures. That's lesson enough.

    Impostors
    Sure, it can be harmless to impersonate a celeb online or create a fake profile for a movie character. But seriously, there's a definite line you shouldn't cross when pretending to be someone else and it can lead to dire consequences for you. Maybe it's not as extreme as the Moroccan man who was jailed for 43 days after creating a fake Facebook profile of a prince, but you never know. Just steer clear of it.

    Self-Incrimination
    Do we really have to explain this? Just look up the shoplifter who posed with her stolen merchandise, the many photos of drunk underage teens, and, most recently, the album featuring a couple who killed and ate an endangered iguana in the Bahamas.

    Suicide
    Social networking sites has been blamed for a lot of things, fairly and unfairly, but in our opinion, the worst offense has been their indirect involvement in suicides. Obviously, there are a lot of factors responsible in each case, but there does seem to be links between social networking and a rash of suicides, and obviously tehre's the case tragic of Megan Meier, who killed herself after a classmate's mom impersonated a teen boy and harassed her over Myspace.

    Nigerian Scammers
    Oh, you thought this only happened via poorly worded emails, right? WRONG. Once people got wise to their old ways, these con men are turning to social networking sites for new targets. This time, they're hacking into people's accounts and impersonating them to ask for money, usually with some weird sob story. You can check out a transcript of one of these conversations here.

    Cooperation
    Even if the law isn't on a case, a victim, his friends, or empathetic strangers might be. Since it's easy to get word out for anything online, people are using blogs, forums, and social networking sites to help track down criminals. In one such case, a vehicle thief was tracked down by a bunch of anonymous car enthusiasts after the victim posted his story on a forum. In the end, they identified the guy through his Facebook profile.

    Murder
    We've reported on numerous incidents of people getting in trouble because of their online behavior. Now, people are becoming victims because of what they're doing on the Web too. In England, a man was convicted of murdering his estranged wife after she changed her relationship status to "single." So, be careful of who can see your profile and what you're doing, no matter how harmless it seems.

Tags: animals, bizarre, crime, facebook, iguana, social-networking, top, web, weird

Comments

52

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular