Tag: DUMB CRIMINAL

It's bad enough when someone drives around with a cell phone glued to their ear. But one Australian man recently thought he could do the Average Driving-While-Calling Joe two better. The Herald Sun reports that this man, who has not been identified by police, was pulled over by sergeant Rob Atkinson of the Chelsea Traffic Management Unit for driving while using two cell phones on Saturday ...

Remember the story about the New Zealand authorities who located a fugitive couple, thanks to the misguided Facebook status of their relative? While that mistake was out of the criminals' hands, Maxi Sopo made his own bed with the social networking site. In 2003, Sopo went from selling roses in Seattle nightclubs to committing bank fraud, making him about $200,000 richer. A natural career ...

Only weeks after Apple unveiled its new iPod Nano, a Japanese man has become the first person to be arrested using the device for an illegal, and creepy, activity. According to Fuckedgaijin, the unidentified Kobe man was arrested after using the new Nano's video camera function to peek up an 18-year-old girl's skirt. While in a bookstore, the peeping-tom somehow hid the iPod in his shoe, and ...

A former government employee amassed quite a collection of DVDs over the years, but there's one problem. They were all stolen property. Myles Weathers, who worked at a postal sorting facility in Springfield, Massachusetts, plead guilty Tuesday to federal theft charges. According to The Smoking Gun, Weathers swiped 3,012 Netflix DVDs, worth about $36,471, during his tenure as a postal worker. ...

Lots of people have asked: does all the time we spend on Facebook make us dumber? After reading about a 19-year-old Pennsylvania kid's allegedly bungled burglary, the answer just might be, yes. The Journal reports that Jonathan G. Parker was arraigned Tuesday on one count of felony burglary, after he allegedly stole two diamond rings from a Martinsburg, West Virginia home. The police didn't ...

A few days ago, we reported the story of a man who used Apple's MobileMe program, which allows users to sync several computers, to spy on a person using his stolen Macbook. Having stumbled upon that trespasser's online job application, the amateur sleuth, identified only as 'Jim,' was able to glean an IP address and other information, all of which he then sent to police. End of story, right? Not ...

Earlier, we reported the story of a robbery victim who used his stolen iPhone's GPS application to track down his purloined phone and, thus, the suspected thieves. In other crime-fighting Mac news, The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) reports that an anonymous contributor dubbed 'Jim' has gotten a tip on the location of his stolen laptop -- thanks to Apple's MobileMe, a program that enables users ...

Technology is making life a lot tougher for the average criminal. In the past, a mask and a quick set of feet were all a robber needed to get away with mugging someone on the street. While that still might work if they're only taking cash, thieves might want to let victims keep their iPhones. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, an unnamed man used the 'Find My iPhone' feature to help ...

While repairing a Fairfield, Connecticut man's computer, an Apple Store employee discovered something horrible hidden on the hard drive. No, it wasn't the new Jonas Brothers album. That's only enough to bring shame, but the images discovered on the Power Mac G5 brought an arrest. According to the Stamford Advocate, 36-year-old Raymond Miller was arrested at the Stamford Town Center Apple Store ...

Scammers have long been pulling the ol' box-o-rocks trick, packaging something heavy and worthless (like rocks) in the box of a valuable item (e.g., a MacBook, PSP, etc.). Usually, this trick involves removing the goods somewhere between the manufacturer and its big-box retailer destination, and shrink-wrapping the container. The switcheroo is only discovered when some poor consumer gets the box ...

Despite their cute and cuddly LOL Web antics, cats can be cruel and vindictive creatures, frequently toying with their nearly dead and battered prey before finally dispatching it. According to Thursday's report in the TCPalm, a Florida man recently learned this lesson in feline sociopathy when his pet cat allegedly framed him for downloading child pornography The patsy, Keith Griffin, had ...

When Colorado resident Dustin Simantob and his dad returned to their car after a three-day river trip, they found the windows busted out and their belongings, including two iPhones, stolen. While they reported the crime to the Mesa County Sheriff's Department, the 15-year-old boy decided to do some detective work of his own. In an e-mailed account of his story, Simantob told Mashable that a new ...

A recent incident in Australia has provided a new and incredibly speedy way of incapacitating sniffers who enjoy the intoxicating aroma of inhalants. On Monday, police were called to the Warburton house of 36-year-old Ronald Mitchell, who, according to the Daily Telegraph, had apparently been sniffing gasoline. Mitchell allegedly rushed the officers, who were armed with Tasers, and ignored ...

We here at the Switched offices have seen a lot of stories about stupid people, including a few about seriously dumb thieves, but this tale about some moronic criminals from Morelia, Mexico is certainly our favorite. Unlike this tale about thieves who left behind perfectly good steal-ables, our friends from Mexico didn't take anything that could possibly be construed as valuable. Employees at a ...

If a drug reference is so well known that there's a Wikipedia entry about it, chances are the cops know it, too. Unfortunately, Marlborough, Massachusetts's Chistopher J. Gray did not check the popular reference site before advertising marijuana on Craigslist. According to the Patriot Ledger, the number "420" -- a popular term that references getting high -- is rumored to have been started in ...