Not CSI, But HSI

Last night the US government agency that tracks stolen artwork, dinosaur bones, Egyptian mummies, and other antiquities and valuables trafficked illegally around the world was profiled in this segment from the CBS Evening News. ("HSI" is shorthand for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations division.)

Revelations About Europe's (Damned) Counterfeit Capital

"According to the ECB, since the euro was introduced in January 2002, more than half of the six-million-plus fakes withdrawn from circulation (well over 300 million euros worth) can be traced back to the clandestine print shops located in and around Giugliano, [Italy]."

"For as long as the 100,000 or so residents of Giugliano can remember, the town has been in the iron grip of the Camorra, the violent organised crime syndicate... The Mallardos also cornered a rewarding piece of the action in the hugely lucrative 'eco-mafia' racket that has seen millions of tons of highly toxic industrial waste trucked in from factories in northern Italy and illegally dumped on farmlands around Naples. One of Italy’s most fertile agricultural regions, whose beauty and serenity had entranced Goethe, was heavily contaminated by a devil’s cocktail of dioxins, asbestos, and lead and caustic solvents...  Giugliano was already at the centre of what the Italian media dubbed 'Il triangolo della morte'—the triangle of death. Rates of cancer, infant mortality and autism are now running far above the national average."

You can read more in Newsweek HERE. 

"Your Couscous Is To Die For!"

"A husband tortured then killed his wife — because she 'did not know how to cook couscous,'" according to THIS story today in the New York Daily News.

Lorena Bobbit Today (No Going To Bed Mad)

Can it really have been more than 20 years since Lorena Bobbitt became a household name in America after she chopped off her husband's penis and tossed it in a field?

I had vaguely remembered that her loutish husband had gone on, following surgical reattachment, to become a 'porn star.'  But I never really heard much about her ever again.

I would not have predicted that she's settled down with another man for the last 16 years, and has an 8 year-old daughter, apparently. But I was a lot less surprised to read this quote from her in the New York Daily News today HERE. "Believe it or not, I actually had quite a few gentlemen who wanted to date me."

'Date' her?  Sure.  But imagine how harrowing that first real argument must've been for her new man,  once they later went to bed.  (Perhaps he insisted on a "no going to bed mad" policy.)

Fake Art Worth Real Money

"It's a fake, yes, but a very important fake. Just because it's a fake doesn't mean it's not valuable, socially and culturally," explains the curator of a new exhibit of prized counterfeit artworks, which this CBS Evening News segment from last night highlights raises intriguing questions about, "what is art?"

(I also thought that the distinction between 'fake" and 'forgery' in this context was interesting.)

Man Exposes Himself At Arby's: Trend?

THIS local news article, about a 30 year old man who apparently exposed himself to an Arby's employee while at their drive thru, got me wondering whether this sort of thing was common at fast food restaurants in general, and at their drive thru windows in particular.  Apparently, it is.

HERE's a story from April 2011 about a 43 year old Delaware man who walked into a McDonald's  in Newark with his fly open.  Oddly, I thought, when he fled he hopped on his motorcycle in the same state of undress, apparently. And HERE's another local news article from 2006,  about a 28 year old man who went through the drive thru at a McDonald's in New Britain, Connecticut with his pants unzipped. And HERE's local news about a similar occurrence at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania in 2011.

And this plague of crime is not limited to McDonald's. (Nor is it exclusively a young man's game.) HERE's a story from December 2013 about a 62 year old man who exposed himself in a KFC/Taco Bell in Georgia. And HERE's yet another local news story from Illinois just a few days ago about a  man who exposed himself illegally at a Taco Bell drive thru.  Twice.

$50M Paintings, Stolen in 1970, Recovered This Week

An Italian auto worker for Fiat bought a couple of paintings for $100 back in 1975, at an auction of items from a train station's lost and found.  He had no idea they were stolen masterpieces, apparently, and they hung in his house anonymously for almost 40 years thereafter.  Now retired, his son recently sent them to be appraised, and that led ultimately to the revelation that the two paintings were actually a Gaugin still life and a Bonnard, worth a collective $50M today, that were stolen from a British aristocrat back in 1970.

You can read more, including interesting details about the original 1970 theft, HERE.

Bigfoot Trashed My Winnebago

"Police responding to a call of broken windows on a motor home in Dauphin County said they were told that Bigfoot may be to blame... The person making the complaint told the trooper that taillights and windows on his 1973 Dodge Winnebago had been smashed... Police said the man told them that after he saw the Bigfoot, he turned on an outside light on his motor home and upon doing so, the Bigfoot began throwing rocks at the light to prevent discovery."

You can read the entire local news story HERE.

High-End Art Heist Reveals Facts About Art Crime

Seven masterpieces, including works by Picasso, Matisse, and Monet worth over $100 million collectively, were stolen earlier this week from a Dutch museum. Thieves broke into the Kunsthal in Rotterdam at 3 AM and made off with the paintings before anyone could stop them. The director of the Kunsthal, Emily Ansenk, described it as, "every museum director's worst nightmare," and then went on to characterize the museum's security as "state of the art." But according to THIS Associated Press story, the Kunsthal had no security guards on-site, despite the pricelessness of the works on display inside. If Ms. Ansenk considers that "state of the art" security, I'd be worried if I were the owner of the works (the Triton Foundation) that she characterized their insurance coverage as merely "adequate."

This 2 minute story about the heist from ABC World News noted a couple of interesting tangential facts.  Apparently less than 10% of stolen art is ever recovered.  And yet the paintings are almost valueless to the thieves because they are un-saleable. As is to be expected, no legitimate dealer, museum, or private collector would buy the works.  But surprisingly, 'experts' cited in this piece aver that there isn't really a worldwide black market for stolen high-end art either. That assertion shocks me.

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Angry Man Punches Darth Vader's Wife

What's in a name?  Well, if you legally change your name to "Darth Vader," as Mark Nokes did, you can expect to make news when anything in your life goes wrong.

According to THIS article in today's New York Daily News, one of "Darth Vader's" neighbors, 35 year old Ikbal Hare, suspected that "Darth Vader" had been sleeping with his wife.  Hare confronted "Vader," apparently, and in the ensuing scuffle Hare accidentally punched "Darth Vader's" wife when she attempted to intervene.  Hare ran home, got a knife, and then went back to "Darth Vader's" house, looking for him. "Vader" fled by crawling out a back window.

Most Frequently Stolen Cars In America

According to a new study released by the National Insurance Crime Bureau, the most stolen cars in America last year were:

1. 1994 Honda Accord
2. 1998 Honda Civic
3. 2006 Ford F-Series
4. 1991 Toyota Camry
5. 2000 Dodge Caravan
6. 1994 Acura Integra
7. 1999 Chevrolet Silverado
8. 2004 Dodge Ram
9. 2002 Ford Explorer
10. 1994 Nissan Sentra

The fact that 20 year old Honda Accord topped the list and that a 20 year old Nissan Sentra completed it really surprised me.

You can read more at NBC News HERE.

Shopper Attacked In Checkout Line

"A Phillips woman accused of punching and kicking a woman in the checkout line of the Farmington Walmart last weekend is free on bail... Police said Hanson got into a fight with her husband in the parking lot and then went back into the store... Shoppers told police Hanson approached a woman in the checkout line and began yelling obscenities at her before punching her in the face and kicking her... Police did not disclose what provoked the attack."

Police may not have disclosed the motive, but I think it's pretty clear from the circumstances what underlies this "Walmart Affair."

You can read more HERE .

Methamphetamine Smuggled In "Snickers" Bars

"Long Beach resident Rogelio Mauricio Harris, 34, was arrested by federal officials at Los Angeles International Airport Friday as he prepared to board a flight to Japan... Upon closer inspection, CBP officers discovered the 45 individually wrapped, full-sized bars contained a white substance that was subsequently determined to be methamphetamine.... According to the criminal complaint, each bar 'was coated in a chocolate-like substance to make the contents of the package appear to be a real candy bar.'” 

You can read more in the New York Daily News HERE.

Aging '70s Graffiti Artists Still Tagging

"A generation of urban kids who spray-painted their initials all over Manhattan in the 1970s and '80s and landed in the city's street art scene are coming of age - middle age, that is... For him, spray-painting other people's property with his nickname, or tag, is almost an addiction, and danger is part of the drug... When a pair of police officers smelled the fresh paint and nabbed Ortiz, they asked if he saw himself as too old to be doing graffiti."  You can read more at CBS News HERE.

Fake Coupon Ring Busted

"Three women accused of running an international counterfeit coupon operation have pleaded not guilty. Phoenix police raided three homes on July 10 and seized $25 million worth of coupons."

You can read the details HERE, and also see their smiling mug shots, which look more like yearbook photos of middle school librarians than international criminal masterminds.

$25 million? Even if every coupon were worth $1, where were they storing 25 million coupons, I wonder?

Massive Sports Memorabilia Scam

"A federal grand jury in Chicago indicted sports memorabilia executives Bill Mastro and Doug Allen on fraud charges, alleging that the pair — once the most influential figures in the multi-billion dollar collectibles industry — routinely defrauded customers, rigged auctions and inflated prices paid by unwitting bidders."  You can read more in the New York Daily News HERE.

The focus of the story is an ultra-rare Honus Wagner baseball card that Mastro allegedly altered.  What caught my eye was the price inflation on that card over the last 25 years.

"Mastro bought it for $25,000 in a Hicksville, L.I. memorabilia shop in 1985. Its owners have included NHL great Wayne Gretzky, who purchased the card in 1991 along with Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall for $451,000... [T]he card was sold by Gretzky to Wal-Mart in 1995 for $500,000... It became the first million-dollar baseball card in history in 2000 when Chicago collector Mike Gidwitz sold it for $1.27 million to collector Brian Seigel. The card is now owned by Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, who paid $2.8 million for it in 2007." 

Why, I also wonder, was Wal-Mart buying a $500K baseball card?

Man Sets Fire To Nuclear Sub To Get Out of Work

"Navy investigators have determined that a civilian laborer set a fire that caused $400 million in damage to a nuclear-powered submarine because he had anxiety and wanted to get out of work early," begins THIS Associated Press article.

"Fury said he set the second fire after getting anxious over a text-message exchange with an ex-girlfriend about a man she had started seeing, according to the affidavit. He wanted to leave work early, so he took some alcohol wipes and set them on fire outside the submarine."

A Really Bad Morning (Guns & Genitals)

"Saturday was a bad day for Tavares Donnell Colbert. The 36-year-old Oklahoma man accidentally shot himself in the genitals, and then got arrested for it."  (As a convicted felon, he's not allowed to possess a firearm.)

You can read more on The Huffington Post HERE. The related headline made me laugh. "Guns don't shoot genitals, people shoot genitals."

Serial Chandelier Thief

If I were going to shoplift or steal, probably one of the last items I would think to target would be chandeliers, of all things.  So bulky, unwieldy, and 'jangle-y.'

But according to THIS local news story (with mug shot), a Florida man named, "Nicholas Anderson, of Land O' Lakes, went to Home Depot stores over 61 times in Pasco, Hernando, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties and stole chandeliers through ticket-switching. Anderson, 32, would replace the UPC on the chandelier with the UPC of a cheaper one and then return the stolen chandelier for store credit to pawn for cash. Detectives say the scam lasted from Sept. 1 through Nov. 23, 2011 and resulted in a total loss of over $14,000... Anderson's family told police he did it to support his severe pill addiction."

 How do you conceive of this chandelier scam in the first place, I wonder? Getting only Home Depot store credit seems highly imperfect, too, especially if you're trying to support a drug habit.

The math on this crime spree is notable as well.

He went to Home Depot 61 times and netted a total of $14,000, or roughly $230 in store credit per trip.  (That's actually more lucrative than I would've suspected.)  But he had to go to Home Depot 61 times in an 84 day period (5 days a week for 3 months), and then find buyers for Home Depot store credit slips.  (What do you think those go for on the street: maybe 25 cents on the dollar? Especially when you're flooding the local market with them every day.)

Who Stole 500 Cardboard "David Hasselhoff" Ads?

"About 550 of the cutouts were stolen from outside Cumberland Farms convenience stores in recent weeks," according to the Associated Press HERE. "The company is using the cutouts in an advertising campaign to sell iced coffee."