Tag: DUMBCRIMINAL

Share According to Ars Technica, San Francisco resident Gregory Giusti used magicJack, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider, to make 48 harassing phone calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's California home, her Washington DC home, her San Francisco office and her husband's California office. The calls began on February 6th and continued until March 25th. In a sworn FBI affidavit (.PDF), ...

Share We gather that street-level drug dealers are not, on average, your typical Mensa candidates; however constantly navigating a criminal underworld with intent to distribute must require some level of savvy. So we suggest that, when the three New York residents who were busted after sending an errant text message to a drug task force officer get out of prison, they log on to Monster.com and ...

A Florida police officer recently used Google Earth to track down the person who had illegally dumped an old boat into an undeveloped subdivision about 15 miles from Pensacola. According to the Pensacola News Journal, after discovering the 18-foot boat, Deputy Gregory Barnes scoured fuzzy satellite images of nearby neighborhoods on Google Earth. Barnes noticed a large boat sitting in the driveway ...

The old "yelling, 'Fire!' in a crowded theater" axiom serves as one of the first, elementary lessons when discussing the constitutional right to free speech. That old standby may need a 21st century update, though, to specifically include "threats on Facebook." In January, four New Jersey high school students were arrested and charged with creating a false public alarm, making terrorist ...

Share What happens when a centuries-old crime network meets a transparent 21st-century social network? Bosses get nabbed, and 'Mafia Wars' gets real. Pasquale Manfredi, one of Italy's most wanted fugitives at 33-years old, was arrested this week after police used his network of Facebook contacts to track him down. Manfredi, who, according to the BBC, also goes by the nickname 'Scarface,' is ...

Share Degenerate crooks can make a dubious, yet highly profitable, living through the use of ATM card skimmers. Officials routinely dismantle thievery operations that generate millions of dollars in plunder. According to the Smoking Gun, New York authorities recently arrested several suspects in relation to such a skimmer ring, and -- under federal questioning -- one man pulled a boneheaded and ...

Let's role play a bit. You're a hacker and a spreader of malware. Your specialty is hijacking Twitter accounts and using them to spread spam and links to malicious sites. You've just managed to take over the Twitter page for United Airlines. In the meantime, we'll play the role of the hapless United Airlines follower who is constantly hoping to see a deal for cheap flights pop up. So, what ...

What's more embarrassing than a burglar accidentally dialing 9-1-1 on herself? Accidentally calling the police while she's in the middle of giving a lecture on how to escape the police. As 19-year-old Stefanie Vargas and her 13-year-old male accomplice were in the middle of robbing cars in Daytona Beach, Fla., the cell phone in Vargas' pocket "accidentally" called 9-1-1, allowing dispatchers ...

Share If you're going to send a ridiculous number of text messages, you had better make sure of two things: first, get an unlimited plan, and second, make sure you're sending them from your own cell phone. Failing to do either will certainly get you in a heap of trouble. Case in point, according to an Associated Press report on Huffington Post, an Iowa City man swiped a cell phone Friday from a ...

iPhones may help us survive earthquakes, but do they possess the superhuman strength to stop a speeding bullet? Well, at least one BlackBerry does. An Ohio woman was recently watching her boyfriend play around with his handgun at a Dayton restaurant, when calamity struck. As the biffie was putting the pistol back in his pocket, it unexpectedly discharged, directly at the woman's leg. Luckily, ...

Share When will criminals learn that using Facebook while they're on the lam is a terrible idea? If you really want to stay out of jail, those friend requests, status updates and application invites can probably wait. But once again, a fugitive wasn't able to resist the temptation of the social-networking site, and he's paying for it. According to the Associated Press, U.S. marshals busted ...

Every now and then, the News Cycle Gods hand down to us a gem of irony so pure and delicious that, for a fleeting moment, we're convinced that we're all living in a giant Larry David screenplay. This, dear readers, is one of those precious moments. Police in Polk County, Florida were recently investigating reports of a stolen SUV when they received a tip about the vehicle's whereabouts. After ...

Four kids have found themselves in police custody after discussing, via Facebook, a plot to blow up their high school. The students in question, who clearly have never read Switched, decided that the best place on Earth to hash out the plan, which entailed igniting the school's gas line, was a publicly viewable Facebook page. The two seniors and two juniors involved claimed that the plans were a ...

Remember the convicted British burglar who escaped from prison only to taunt authorities via Facebook? Well, the jig is apparently up for Craig "Lazie" Lynch and his social networking shenanigans. According to an Associated Press report, Lynch was arrested by Scotland Yard last night in southern England. If you'll recall, Lynch escaped from a minimum security prison in Suffolk last September. ...

We have no sympathy for criminals who slip up because of sheer stupidity (like the guy who took a time-out mid-burglary to play around on a little girl's Nintendo DS). But, in the case of one 15-year-old thief in Wilsonville, Oregon, it was a backup security app that led to his eventual arrest. Shortly after the suspect broke into a couple's home and stole two Motorola Android phones, he used one ...