Hoax Museum Blog: Law/Police/Crime

How to break into a museum — This story is a great example of the truism that no security system can be better than the people operating it. Thieves broke into a museum at the University of British Columbia and stole gold artwork worth over $2 million. They got around the security system simply by calling the guards, pretending to be from the alarm company, and telling them to ignore any alarms that might go off that night. From cbc.ca:

Your classmate has died—but not really — I've previously noted a few cases where extreme shock tactics were used to teach a lesson. (See Fake Attack at Elementary School and Fake Terrorism Drill.) The following case isn't as bad as those earlier examples, but it still comes across as creepy for officials to trick students into believing their classmate had died in order to teach a lesson about drunk driving. From signonsandiego.com:

Plant Rights — An ethics panel commissioned by the Swiss government has determined that the arbitrary killing of plants is morally wrong. From The Weekly Standard:


The author of the Weekly Standard article appears to have some kind of conservative agenda. (He's a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, which makes him suspect in my book.) However, the basic facts about the Swiss ethics panel appear to be correct. The text of the panel's report, titled The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants, can be downloaded as a pdf file.

From my point of view, what makes this interesting is that it represents the fulfillment of a satirical prophecy. Back in 2004 I posted about the spoof Society for the Protection of Plants. It only took four years for the satire to become true.

Sue Easy — One of the big problems in modern America is that there are simply not enough lawsuits. A new website promises to end this. It calls itself "Sue Easy," because it makes it so easy to sue someone.

The concept is that instead of litigants trying to find a lawyer, which is the traditional way these things are done, the lawyers should seek out the litigants. So if you have a case, or even just an idea for a case, list it on SueEasy, then wait for attorneys to contact you. The site promises "instant legal bliss."

Some of the proposed cases that people have listed so far:


These sound like real winners.

As bizarre as the site sounds (note that I was being sarcastic about there being too few lawsuits), it's apparently not a joke. It's the creation of a guy named Sahil Kazi, whose other projects include webtronaut.com.

If SueEasy proves to be a success, eventually someone will sue it for encouraging frivolous litigation. That's inevitable.

Thief Hypnotizes Checkout Staff — The BBC reports that police in Italy are searching for a thief who hypnotizes checkout staff and orders them to hand over money.


The BBC has a video of the thief in action. It's interesting, because he pulls off his heist in full view of other customers, who are apparently oblivious about what's going on.

This is not a new method of robbery. Back in Oct. 2007 I posted about a thief in New Hampshire who was said to be using hypnosis to rob convenience stores. In that case, the thief was also Indian, which is significant because the art of hypno-robbery seems to have originated in India.

It sounds like a method of robbery that's too good to be true, but I think it is real (i.e. the store clerks aren't secretly in collusion with the criminal. They really do unwittingly hand money over to him). But I don't think the criminal is actually hypnotizing the clerks. They don't go into a trance. Instead, the method takes advantage of a psychological trick -- that if you catch people off guard, they'll often do whatever you tell them to. The British magician Derren Brown demonstrates the principle in a number of his videos. I think you need a combination of a very self-assured thief who projects an air of authority and a highly suggestible victim to get this to work.

Quick Links: Mar. 18, 2008 — Excuse of the Year
"A German lorry driver escaped a rap for driving while using a mobile phone - after claiming he was using it as an ear warmer."

Woman foretells future with asparagus
"Jemima Packington throws asparagus on the floor and makes her predictions based on the pattern. She said that some years ago she made a prediction that came true based on an asparagus pattern and realized she was on to something." Seems to me like it's as good a method as anything else.

Nostradamus delusion ends in murder
Matthew James Woodroffe-Hill believed he was Nostradamus' "son of the west". After suffering from increasingly paranoid delusions involving "spies, terrorists and mythical creatures" he stabbed a friend with a bayonet and then decapitated him.

Unresponsive Bystanders — Local 6 News in Orlando recently conducted a test to see how quickly people would respond to a crime. They arranged for an undercover police officer to pretend to be a burglar trying to break into cars and homes in plain view of bystanders. The results:


These results aren't surprising. Psychologists have long been aware of the "unresponsive bystander" effect. Witnesses to medical emergencies or crimes often do nothing, either because they assume someone else will do something, or because they fail to correctly interpret the situation.

In Elephants on Acid I describe an experiment that was conducted at Columbia University in 1968. Subjects were led to believe they were participating in a group discussion over an intercom system, with each participant sitting in a separate cubicle. Suddenly they heard one of the other participants having an epileptic seizure. The seizure was fake, but the subjects couldn't know that, and most of them did nothing to help, because they assumed someone else would help.

Quick Links: Stupid Criminals — Fake blind man caught driving
A 70-year-old Italian man had been claiming to be blind for 40 years in order to get an invalid's pension. He was caught when police stopped him in his car at a routine road check. When they checked his record, they noticed it listed him as being 100 percent blind. (Thanks, Joe)

Underwear on face fails to disguise
"A robbery suspect tried to hide his face with a pair of underwear but the disguise didn't fool witnesses."

Fleeing husband spotted in film
45-year-old shop owner Martino Garibaldi took £37,000 out of his family's savings and ran away with his mistress. "Unfortunately for Garibaldi an eagle-eyed friend happened to be watching the Italian comedy Natale in Crociera (Christmas on a Cruise) and saw Garibaldi and his mistress in the background during one of the scenes. His wife was informed and when she found out that the movie was filmed in the Dominican Republic she managed to trace him."

Faking pregnancy as a shoplifting technique — Detectives in Sarpy County, Omaha are warning local stores of a new shoplifting technique being used by a group of women. The women enter a store, fill up a cart with items, and then walk out. If stopped, they claim that they're giving birth. KETV reports:


Apparently they tried the same thing at a second Wal-Mart, but didn't get away with it there.

It reminds me of that Jane's Addiction video for "Been Caught Stealing". Though in the video a guy, pretending to be a woman, hides items in a fake belly. The Omaha women brazenly walked out the door with the stolen goods. (Thanks, Joe)

Is it legal to sell something you find in the trash? — The Patry Copyright blog has posted details of an interesting copyright case: United States v. Chalupnik. It doesn't, strictly speaking, have anything to do with hoaxes, except that it raises the question of whether there actually was a crime committed, or whether it's an example of a big corporation trying to invent a crime. Here are the facts, as summarized by William Patry:


So the guy took the CDs out of the trash and resold them, prompting BMG to complain that he had caused them lost sales. Does this mean that if I threw away a box full of my books, I could sue anyone who found them in the trash and sold them? That doesn't seem to make sense. After all, I threw them away, presumably forfeiting my ownership of them.

The court overturned the defendant's sentence on appeal -- but it sounds as if he still might face some other form of sentencing.

The complicating factor here is that he was a post office employee, and thus was obligated to honor the post office's promise to BMG that it would actually throw away the material.

Quick Links: Feb 6, 2008 — Restaurant removes fake surveillance camera from bathroom
"A fake surveillance camera pointing into a bathroom stall of a Second Cup restaurant was taken down Monday after it sparked concerns from the chain's executives and the Quebec government. Second Cup franchisee Francois Turgeon recently installed the decoy camera in his downtown cafe hoping to ward off heroin users who reportedly left dirty needles in the men's bathroom."

Man complains that sex doll lost its moan
"Consumer officials in Romania have upheld a complaint from a man who said his inflatable doll had lost its moan... The man had also complained that the rubber doll deflated too quickly, local media said."

Masked robber forgets to keep mask on
Brian Waltermyer walked into a bank wearing a hood. "He handed a teller a note demanding money, and the teller told him to remove the hood. He did, giving the bank surveillance cameras a crystal-clear view of his face." He was arrested soon after.

Grandma hides cocaine in bra
Big Gary writes: "The only reason this is mildly interesting is it shows the Brassiere Brigade tradition is still alive in Florida."

Banning Patio Heaters — Last year the Daily Mail ran an April Fool's Day article in which it claimed that Brits would have to pay a "carbon offset" tax if they wanted to barbecue in their backyards:


Yesterday, in a case of an April Fool's Day joke almost becoming reality, the European Union announced that it was considering banning patio heaters in order to protect the environment:


The two aren't exactly the same (barbecues vs. patio heaters), but pretty close. Here in Southern California we love our patio heaters. The slightest chill in the air prompts us to fire them up, so we can continue sitting outside. It would hurt to have to give them up.

Huffing Hand Sanitizer — A 14-year-old student at Killian Middle School in Lewisville picked up a bottle of hand sanitizer from the desk of his reading teacher, rubbed the gel on his hands, and then smelled it. According to the teacher, he "inhaled heavily."

The student said he sniffed it because it "smelled good." But the school authorities claimed he sniffed it because he was trying to get high. They gave him an in-school suspension, and then proceeded to file criminal charges against him. WFAA.com reports:


Thankfully, common sense eventually prevailed and prosecutors dropped the charges. As far as I know, it's not possible to get high by "huffing hand sanitizer." Unless, perhaps, you were to do it to the point that it deprived you of enough oxygen. I'm not sure what strange rumors the police were believing when they pursued this case. The WFAA article includes a statement from the National Institute on Drug Abuse debunking the hand-sanitizer-huffing rumor:


It reminds me of the recent Jenkem scare, in which Florida police issued a bulletin warning that local kids were getting high by sniffing the fermenting gas from human sewage.

Man Claims Blue Man Group Attacked Him — According to James Sroden, the popular Blue Man Group attacked him when he went to see their show in October 2006. He says they forced him on stage, circled him, held his neck and arms, forced his head back, and then inserted an "esophagus cam" down his throat, projecting an image of his throat onto a large screen.

Sroden says he subsequently bled from the nose, had nightmares, and lost fillings in his teeth.

The Blue Man Group's version of events is quite different. From msnbc.com:


So it seems that Sroden is expecting a jury to believe that the Blue Man Group's illusion is actually real. Maybe he's hoping the Blue Man Group will pay him something in order to avoid going to court. (Thanks, William)

Quick Links: Jan. 25, 2008 — Caught Lipsyncing
Amusing video on youtube of a guy caught lipsyncing. I like how he tries to pretend that nothing happened.


Live Frog in Lettuce
Yet another case of a family finding a live frog in their lettuce. The amazing thing is that instead of trying to sue someone, the family has adopted the frog as a pet. They call him "curious."


Fake Leg as Weapon
"Police said Donna Sturkie-Anthony took her elder sister's prosthetic leg and beat her with it."

Quick Links: January 22, 2008 — Hiding in plainview
A police officer agreed to escort a car containing a pregnant woman to the hospital only to find the car was stolen - and the woman wasn't pregnant.

An honest politician?
Ed Hamilton is running for the position of Kerr County treasurer. His campaign promise is that, if elected, he won't serve. He won't even take a paycheck. Sounds like the right man for the job.

More men opting for chest implants
At least, that's what the headline claims. The article itself gives the impression that the number of men who get pectoral implants is very small.

Is Mad Money based on the Brassiere Brigade? — Happy New Years everyone! My apologies for the absence of posts for the past week. I was on vacation, visiting family on the east coast and in Arizona.

One month ago I posted about a group of female criminals from the 1950s called the "Brassiere Brigade." They stole money from the counting room of a telephone company, where they worked, by smuggling rolls of quarters out in their bras.

I only discovered the story of these women by accident when I came across a reference to them in an old newspaper. I thought I had stumbled upon an incredibly obscure story, and it occurred to me that it was perfect material for a movie -- one of those cute "chick-flicks" that Hollywood churns out. I had visions of writing it up as a screenplay and making a fortune.

But my hopes were dashed when I recently saw the trailer for a movie called Mad Money that's coming out on Jan. 18. The movie (which stars Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, and Diane Keaton) is the story of three women who steal money from a Federal Reserve Bank, where they work, by smuggling the money out in their underwear. In other words, it's basically the story of the Brassiere Brigade in a different setting (a bank instead of a phone company). Somebody got to my idea first!!!

I'm not sure if Mad Money actually was inspired by the exploits of the Brassiere Brigade, though it's close enough not to make a difference. The Mad Money site doesn't make any mention of the Brassiere Brigade. The movie seems to be a remake of a 2001 British made-for-TV movie called Hot Money, about a group of British cleaning women who steal money from the Bank of England. The British movie claims to be based on a real-life incident, though it provides no specifics about that incident. Perhaps there was a group of female British criminals who copied the modus operandi of the American Brassiere Brigade. Hiding money in underwear may be a far more common method of theft than I realized.

Mad Money doesn't look very good, so I'm not going to bother seeing it in a theater. Perhaps I'll rent it on DVD. I think it would have been much better if it actually was the story of the Brassiere Brigade, set in Miami in the 1950s.

Quick Links: Dec. 17, 2007 — My 61 Memorable Games
A special updated edition of Bobby Fischer's book, "My 60 Memorable Games," is up for auction on eBay, and bidding has already reached $3,050. The New York Times Chess Blog wonders whether the book is real.

Giant Skeleton photo doing the rounds again
National Geographic has an article about the Giant Skeleton photo, which dates back to 2004. The article says it's now enjoying a revival. I'm even quoted, though I don't remember talking to National Geographic. However, it sounds like something I would say. It must have been a while ago that they talked to me. (Thanks, Joe)

BBC admits Lotto button is a fake
Viewers see a man press a red button to release the Lotto balls. But it turns out the button doesn't control anything at all. This was revealed when the guy hesitated before pressing the button, but the balls dropped into the spinning barrel anyway.

Private parking company issues fake tickets
"A private parking company will have to reimburse drivers who paid fake citations left on cars in free lots throughout the Bay Area... PCS employees left written notices that looked like government-issued tickets on cars that allegedly violated the posted parking rules or state laws." Wow. It's bad enough having real traffic cops issue tickets without a private company trying to get a piece of the action.

Quick Links: Dec. 12, 2007 — Sextuplet husband gets three years
Remember that couple who pretended they had sextuplets last year? The guy has now been sentenced to three years in prison for violating the terms of his probation. His wife is still at large.

Pregnant lawyer made up abduction
"pregnant Ohio attorney Karyn McConnell Hancock confessed Monday to fabricating a story about being kidnapped by three people at gunpoint in Toledo last week." I'm going to start keeping track of these fake abduction cases. There are so many of them!

Fake office assumed role of government
A fake government office in northern India was collecting taxes, providing civic services, and even issuing birth and death certificates. Sounds like a good scam. Some say there's also a fake government here in the States, installed in the White House -- but unlike the one in India, it just collects taxes and doesn't provide any civic services.

Fake Poo Crisis Hits UK
A global shortage of quality providers of fake poo has led to a crisis that has affected more than just the comedy market.

Operation Lucky Bag — If you saw a wallet lying on the ground, what would you do? A lot of people might, out of curiosity, pick it up to examine it. They might even walk away with it. But if they did, they could find themselves surrounded by police and facing arrest.

This happened to Carlos Alayo who picked up a wallet he saw laying on a New York City subway platform. When he went to get on the train, police stopped him. WNBC.com explains:

The New York Civil Liberties Union has complained about Operation Lucky Bag, suggesting that there must be better uses of police time. I didn't even realize it was illegal to take a wallet laying on the ground. I would try to find out who it belonged to and return it to them, but I wouldn't have thought it was illegal not to do this.