"This is the lock you got from your parents when you were 8." "I could chew through this lock." Hal Grades Your Bike Locking (2003). Hal (and Kerri) Grade Your Bike Locking (2008). Hal Grades Your Bike Locking 3: The Final Warning! (2009) Skip to the last one unless if you're not truly dedicated to locking minutiae. (via)
posted by maudlin on Jul 17, 2009 - 59 comments

Bank insider steals 200 billion - a director in EBank in Eve Online has stolen 200 billion ISK (approximately 10% of deposits), engaging in real money trading to fence his loot. Equivalent to ~US$12,000, the theft has left Ebank with concerns over liquidity, security, auditor failure, and a run on the bank by investors. Unlike the real world, there is no government bail-out.
posted by Argyle on Jun 15, 2009 - 93 comments

Scotland Yard called him the the Napoleon of Crime. The Pinkertons called him the most remarkable criminal of them all. Adam Worth started as a pickpocket in New York and eventually became one of the greatest criminals of all time and the inspiration behind Sherlock Holmes' nemesis Professor Moriarty. [more inside]
posted by Arbac on Jun 3, 2009 - 9 comments

The commercials are all over television — and they certainly are attention-grabbing. They’re the ones where the heavy, bald guy is sitting in his easy chair talking in a squeaky female voice about all the clothes he bought — including a bustier. Or the little old lady speaking with the gruff voice of a younger man about the sweet motorcycle she now owned. Identity theft is a serious crime — one that is occurring with an alarming frequency. The Identity Theft Manifesto explains how criminals get your personal info, and what you can do about it.
posted by netbros on Jun 1, 2009 - 15 comments

Couple flee after bank mistakenly gives them 10m $
posted by johannahdeschanel on May 21, 2009 - 112 comments

Back in 2002, 4 interns pulled off an unusual heist: they stole a quarter tonne of moon rocks under NASA's nose, which reads like a surreal pulp. [via jwz] [more inside]
posted by myopicman on May 14, 2009 - 24 comments

Did "Auto-Tune the News" guy accidentally write Coldplay's Viva La Vida? Michael Gregory, aka Auto-Tune the News guy (previously) talks about how his shower singing was turned into something eerily similar to Viva La Vida. [more inside]
posted by spaceboy86 on Apr 24, 2009 - 46 comments

someonestolemybike.com Videos of folks who have had bikes stolen. Kristy chased the thief down and got hers back.
posted by fixedgear on Feb 12, 2009 - 30 comments

Will the declining economy trigger a wave of burglaries? The answer seems to be a definitive maybe. There's no doubt, however, that property crime is a popular pastime of late. [more inside]
posted by MrVisible on Nov 24, 2008 - 41 comments

Caught on Video: Stealing Obama Sign , and again, and again, and again, and this crazy lady, here, here, and here.! WTF . . . over.
posted by augustweed on Oct 19, 2008 - 121 comments

An entire beach in Jamaica has been stolen. Although much of the sand has been found, it is estimated that it will take up to 100 years for the beach to be rebuilt. People now think that there is a coverup operation. [more inside]
posted by ooklala on Oct 18, 2008 - 26 comments

Igor Kenk was arrested for bicycle theft in Toronto on July 17. Here's an audio documentary that includes an interview with the man himself: Steal This Bike (be warned, a lot of profanity, and a little pretentious). [more inside]
posted by Chuckles on Jul 29, 2008 - 46 comments

£17,000 damages for victim of fake Facebook profile. Matthew Firsht found a fake facebook profile created in his name, and he has successfully sued the person who did it. Amol Rajan knows exactly what having your facebook online ID 'stolen' feels like, as do many others. Are your social networking friends always who they say they are?
posted by dabitch on Jul 29, 2008 - 31 comments

Now Viacom will STEAL your movie Viacom has claimed ownership of an independent filmmaker's film and now she has to fight them for it. They allow her to leave it on YouTube but they claim ownership and they get to collect data on who's watching.
posted by njohnson23 on Jul 22, 2008 - 47 comments

How did this man end of with a copy of the most iconic book in the English language? He says he got it from a friend in Cuba, but the Folger Library has identified it as the copy of Shakespeare's First Folio stolen from Durham University in 1988. Turns out that stealing the book is much easier than selling it.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jul 20, 2008 - 17 comments

As we were talking about Joke Theft, here's an interesting case. It appears that the Daily Show may have stolen a joke from Penny Arcade. [more inside]
posted by Caduceus on Jun 20, 2008 - 105 comments

Take the Funny and Run , a history of notorious joke-thieves from Milton Berle and Robin Williams to Denis Leary, Carlos Mencia (previously) and Dane Cook.
posted by Navelgazer on Jun 10, 2008 - 53 comments

To Catch A Thief. How a Civil War buff's chance discovery led to a sting, a raid and a victory against traffickers in stolen historical documents. Related article: Pay Dirt in Montana. And photo gallery.
posted by amyms on Apr 27, 2008 - 20 comments

Koro, previously, has gripped the streets of Kinshasa, Congo. Unlike the 1967 Koro Epidemic in Singapore, which was blamed on tainted pork, the afflicted men in Kinshasa have blamed the psychosomatic penile shrinkage on witchcraft by a rival sect, and responded with attempted lynchings. In order to prevent bloodshed of the kind seen in Ghana a decade ago, police have responded by apprehending the alleged sorcerers. [more inside]
posted by Navelgazer on Apr 25, 2008 - 36 comments

"I mean he quite literally -- and in no way do I exaggerate when I say -- [Paul Simon] stole the songs from us." [more inside]
posted by Sys Rq on Apr 19, 2008 - 75 comments

A trio of thieves have made off with over $150 Million in art from E.G. Buehrle Museum in Zurich, Switzerland. The four stolen paintings are Cézanne's The Boy in Red Waistcoat, Degas's Viscount Ludovic Lepic and His Daughter, Monet's Poppy Field Near Vetheuil and Van Gogh's Blooming Chestnut Branches. This comes only two weeks after 2 Picasso pieces were stolen in Pfaeffikon, Switzerland. No one has been caught in either thefts. [more inside]
posted by dogbusonline on Feb 11, 2008 - 30 comments

Juststolen.net "was created by police officers to provide the best possible asset tracking and property recovery services in the world. JustStolen.net is an innovative tool designed to easily register assets in order to facilitate their recovery if they are lost or stolen. JustStolen.net joins forces with online auctions to help identify stolen property."
posted by tristeza on Dec 6, 2007 - 7 comments

For 200 years, the city has been the center of a shadowy network of bone traders who snatch up skeletons in order to sell them to universities and hospitals abroad. In colonial times, British doctors hired thieves to dig up bodies from Indian cemeteries. Despite changes in laws, a similar process is going strong today. (More on the unsettling subject of the human bone trade from the author of the first link, and his Wired article too. And Photos.) Via the excellent Sepia Mutiny.
posted by serazin on Dec 4, 2007 - 15 comments

You wake up in the morning and step outside for a breath of fresh air. Groggy and coffee-less, it takes you a moment to notice that your yard has been invaded by lawn gnomes. Don't be a victim. Conversely, become a part of the problem. Missing a loved one? [more inside]
posted by baphomet on Nov 3, 2007 - 17 comments

Hooker raped & robbed by justice system. Apparently, if you're a prostitute and you're gang-raped at gunpoint, that's not actually rape, but "theft of services". In Philadelphia, judge Teresa Carr Deni ruled exactly that in a case where a woman posted a Craigslist ad offering sex for money -- but when she met with her John, instead of the agreed upon exhange, he pulled a gun on her, raped her, then invited four other men to rape her as well. As if this weren't sad enough, a near-identical case -- with the same defendant -- came up four days later, and the prosecutor decided not to even try it as to not put the woman through the misery of being so resoundly denied justice. Devolution is real, spuds.
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me on Oct 20, 2007 - 61 comments

Did Win Butler (of Arcade Fire) steal some guy's basketball? Blogger says he did (with comments), Wil Butler (Win's brother) says he didn't. Drama!
posted by GuyZero on Jun 5, 2007 - 71 comments

John Waddell went to show his friends his latest masterpiece "The Gathering" only to find it stolen. Bronze statues can take Waddell 10 years to create and the piece was worth $384,000. The statues which made up the piece weighed between 750 lb - 1500 lb which could make the thieves up to $32,000 from the scrap metal, a minor fraction of their real worth. It is not the first time thieves have used art for scrap metal.
posted by Count on Mar 5, 2007 - 27 comments

The Ecstasy of Influence, A Plagiarism
posted by Captaintripps on Feb 24, 2007 - 20 comments

Joe Rogan vs. Ned Holness What do you do when a famous comedian is stealing jokes? If you're Joe Rogan, you climb onstage, embarrass him in front of his audience and post the entire exchange to your MySpace page.
posted by dhammond on Feb 14, 2007 - 171 comments

Teh Intarweb suXXors! Macleans, the venerable Canadian magazine of declining circulation, declares the Internet a failure. But they're not bitter.
posted by GuyZero on Oct 27, 2006 - 95 comments

"The Scream" has been recovered. (First discussed here)
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Aug 31, 2006 - 29 comments

Newsfilter: $75,000 in Bull Semen Is Stolen From Frederick Farm. Oy Vey. (via)
posted by growabrain on Feb 4, 2006 - 23 comments

Massive fraud, theft, corruption in Iraq rebuilding ...Iraqi money gambled away in the Philippines...spent on a swimming pool that was never used...US$700,000 in cash in an unlocked footlocker...millions to companies that never submitted required competitive bids or that were paid for unfinished work...paid US$14,000 on four separate occasions for the same job...US$1.3 million wasted on overpriced or duplicate construction or equipment not delivered..."needlessly disbursed more than US$1.8 million" of the estimated US$2.3 million spent for renovating the library...from new auditor reports from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
posted by Kickstart70 on Jan 30, 2006 - 48 comments

Alistair Cooke's bones have been stolen by a modern day gang of bodysnatchers. A sad and gruesome posthumous news appearance for the ever-dignified Letter from America presenter.
posted by penguin pie on Dec 22, 2005 - 37 comments

Books return home. Librarians do a little dance. Back in 1919, Collyer's Eye was the first newspaper to report the details of the Chicago Black Sox scandal. This year, as the Sox neared the end of their 88-year pennant drought, bound volumes containing one of the few remaining copies of the newspaper disappeared from the library of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. This week, thanks to an apparent attack of conscience on the part of the thief, they mysteriously reappeared on a desk inside the University's main reference room. Libraries aren't always this lucky.
posted by MsMolly on Dec 9, 2005 - 6 comments

With the apparent theft of ancient maps from Yale and the Getty admitting to displaying stolen antiquities from Italy, what does the blackmarket antiquities trade look like?
posted by raaka on Oct 5, 2005 - 18 comments

Petrol prices hurting your wallet? Try stealing it instead! A Sydney man has been accused of siphoning 1,000 litres (265 gallons) of fuel from a service station into a large home-made tank in his van. Police allege the 36-year-old man used a Toyota Town Ace van to take petrol from a service station's underground tanks. Another 44,000 litres of fuel (or there about) is yet to be accounted for though.

Police allegedly found fittings and equipment inside the van that could be used to steal petrol from service stations, including a home made tank.

Hard times huh? Sorry there's no photo to go with this. The guy's van is an awesome sight though. Best I've got is streaming video via ABC News (Windows HQ or LQ).
posted by sjvilla79 on Sep 19, 2005 - 25 comments

What has happened to Iraq's missing $1bn? "The money missing from all ministries under the interim Iraqi government appointed by the US in June 2004 may turn out to be close[r] to $2bn... Many Iraqi soldiers and police have died because they were not properly equipped. In Baghdad they often ride in civilian pick-up trucks vulnerable to gunfire, rocket- propelled grenades or roadside bombs. For months even men defusing bombs had no protection against blasts because they worked without bullet-proof vests. These were often promised but never turned up."
posted by Rothko on Sep 18, 2005 - 20 comments

BurgerTheft! Fuddruckers steals a flash based clone of BurgerTime from an indie developer without telling him. But rather than download it and host it themselves, they just point directly to his version of the game, which is spectacularly dumb. For a short time only, you can view the results if you click here. Wait till the annoying animation ends, go to the "Fuddrockers" tab, and try to play Burger Time.
posted by jonson on Sep 2, 2005 - 79 comments

That would explain the $3000 dollar curry on my mastercard statement. Some Indian call centres are making a bit the side. Seems a fairly obvious scenario in retrospect.
posted by strawberryviagra on Aug 14, 2005 - 20 comments

They dance and eat as they steal. Yomango, a counter-but-consumerist-culture of shoplifting, surfaced July 2002 in Spain. It's shoplifting as a movement—taught in workshops, choreographed, organized as missions, and executed with prankish gusto on three continents. Why? One, it's civil disobedience that believes stealing to stay alive should be permitted. Two, it takes back what once belonged to everyone. Three, there's humor in it, even with the communistic undertones and its little red book. Discussion: Dark Matter, Las Agencias, and the Aesthetics of Tactical Embarrassment. A Poliedric Debate On Collabora Art. ¿Lo quieres?¿Lo tienes? (Spanish). More about Yomango: Ten Style Tips for a Yomango Life. A gallery of promos, news, and event photos. Yomango fashion show. Yomango tango. Yomango dinner.
posted by Mo Nickels on Jul 31, 2005 - 46 comments

LossofPrivacyFilter: 1) Patriot Act Expansion Bill Approved in Secret , which now provides a new ‘administrative subpoena’ authority (that) would let the FBI write and approve its own search orders for intelligence investigations, without prior judicial approval. ...Flying in the face of the Fourth Amendment, this power would let agents seize personal records from medical facilities, libraries, hotels, gun dealers, banks and any other businesses without any specific facts connecting those records to any criminal activity or a foreign agent. ..., and from the Justice Department: 2) Most health care employees can't be prosecuted for stealing personal data, and finally, 3) Citibank admits losing 4 million customer files.
These 3 examples all within the past few days--any others i missed?
posted by amberglow on Jun 8, 2005 - 31 comments

Munch's "The Scream" destroyed. (?) According to the paper Dagbladet, it has been. "The Madonna" as well.
posted by absalom on Apr 28, 2005 - 75 comments

Gas Pump Hacker. "CHICAGO -- In a bold and outrageous theft staged in broad daylight, a driver pumped about $900 worth of gasoline at a suburban gas station. The man removed the panel of a pump in Country Club Hills and manipulated the mechanics of the pump so that it would continue to pump gas without registering inside the station... Other cars then pulled up to the pump and, apparently, cut deals with the thief, who then filled up their tanks and took off..."
posted by azul on Apr 16, 2005 - 31 comments

ChoicePoint warning people that they're possible targets of fraud. ChoicePoint, Inc. the company that provided the list to help purge Florida voter records of "felons" in the 2000 election, electronically delivered thousands of sensitive financial data reports to possible identity thieves in LA. The reports contained names, addresses, SS numbers, and financial information. They're sending letters to 110,000 people across the country warning them they may be possible victims. ChoicePoint, a subsidiary of Equifax, has been discussed here before. Interestingly: "ChoicePoint, as a matter of policy, does not verify the accuracy of its data and argues that it is the user's responsibility to verify accuracy."
posted by kat on Feb 17, 2005 - 22 comments

How easy is it to steal a bike in NYC? (qt mov) New York City is home to nearly 112,000 bicycle riders, unfortunately it is also home to some of the worst bike thieves in the country. A bicycle is stolen in NYC every 68 minutes. The Neistat Brothers decided to find out just how easy it really is.
posted by splatta on Feb 14, 2005 - 59 comments

Former head of Vivendi, Jena-Marie Messier, is being investigated by the FBI for possible involvement with the infamous Gardner Museum art heist.
posted by anathema on Feb 11, 2005 - 7 comments

Nominee for the #3 position at the CIA is an "expert" in 5 finger discounts
posted by drezdn on Oct 3, 2004 - 18 comments

How safe is your pension? (UK) 'Nine million people in this country, young and old, pay a slice of their wage into final salary occupational pension schemes. But Channel 4's economics correspondent Liam Halligan reveals that most people don't realise they have no legal right to that pension money whatsoever. And some people have lost the lot.'
Think Britain's social safety net is more secure than that of the US? Think again.
Related :- Pensions Theft, a campaigning website set up by pensions activists, some of whom lost their pensions when their company went bust.
posted by plep on Sep 15, 2004 - 6 comments

"I was lost, proper lost, but thanks to Cris Formage and the fine folks at The Epsilon Program, I've found a better way to live. No more cocaine, no more heroin, no more ceaselss, boundless self pleasure. henceforth, ladies and mental patients, I am following the words of the tract!" - Maccer

Viral marketing nicely done in advance of the new Rockstar games production of Grand Theft Auto - San Andreas (some slightly NSFW words and images)
posted by triv on Aug 27, 2004 - 5 comments