The Lighter Side Of Commerce Crime

boulCrime doesn’t pay.  It’s a lesson that kids learn from their parents at an early age. And it’s a concept that an entire comic book series was built around in the 1940s and ’50s – called, appropriately enough – Crime Does Not Pay. Its narrator, Mr. Crime, always reminded the reader of that in each and every issue.

But though crime doesn’t pay, as the comic book series proved a few decades ago, it can surely be quite entertaining, particularly when the perpetrators manage to get caught.

For example…

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Smuggling 100 iPhones?

iPhones are expensive goods in China – which means there is an active black market for iPhones that are smuggled into the China from Hong Kong.  Most smugglers keep their ambitions small, but every once and a while, someone gets busted for getting a bit greedy. About a year ago it was a young man who attempted to make that border crossing with 94 iPhones strapped to his waist.

What he didn’t know about then, was the magic of Spanx.

A few weeks ago, a small woman was caught as she attempted to break that record with 100 iPhones. How does a rather petite woman smuggle 100 iPhones on her person, you ask?  Spanx and a blousy cardigan sweater. She used the Spanx to strap the phones to her body – and the sweater to disguise the fact that she had 100 iPhone under her dress.

It actually might have worked, but it was a hot day and someone wearing a big bulky sweater caught the eye of border security, who put her through a metal detector.

Customs agents reportedly also found 15 Tissot watches – because when you already have 40 pounds of phones stuffed in your Spanx – what’s a couple of watches?

The woman, notably, immediately surrendered to customs agents because she is apparently not nearly as committed to her craft as this next fellow was.

Doubling Down On Shoplifting – Dukes Of Hazzard Style

Sometimes things get out of hand.  Sometimes shoplifting a $2 bag of chips turns into a high-speed chase between a patrol car and a Dodge Charger.

Yes, these things happen.

In particular, this thing happened to 25-year-old female shopper who was hungry and was spotted stealing a bag of chips while shopping at a Walmart with her daughter one evening in early July.

A loss-prevention officer confronted her about what she had done, and what started out as shoplifting almost turned into something far worse when she ran to her car and attempted to run the officer over with her Dodge Charger.

Not once, but twice.

That then escalated into a high-speed chase – when this person, with her 5-year-old daughter in the car – fled the scene and led the police on a 90-mph chase through rural roads in the area.

She has managed to elude capture so far.

The answer to the obvious question – was the car an orange 1969 Dodge Charger with the Confederate flag painted on the top a la the “The Dukes of Hazzard” – is sadly no.  She was reportedly driving a red 2013 model, not the General Lee.  There is also no word as to whether or not she jumped any bridges during her road race with law enforcement, but we like to believe she did.

At any rate – police are searching for her in the area immediately surrounding the incident. They have posted various photos of her taken from Facebook.

We do not know if she was wearing Spanx at the time.

The Sweet Taste Of Justice

As Mr. Crime says, crime doesn’t pay for the perpetrators. But in some rare instances, crime can pay off for the victims.

Kansas State University student Hunter Jobbins was the victim of a very peculiar crime.  Someone broke into his car to steal a candy bar.

They even left a note.

“Saw Kit Kat in your cup holder. I love Kit-Kats so I checked your door and it was unlocked. Did not take anything other than the Kit-Kat. I am sorry and hungry,” the suspect wrote on a napkin.

Polite and just random enough to post to social media, where it went viral.

Flash forward – Hershey, the company that makes Kit Kat could not let such an injustice stand.  So they tweeted Jobbins that they would like to replace his candy bar.

Which they did.  In a very big way.

The company filled his car with Kit Kats – 6,500 of them to be exact.  Jobbins, for his part, mostly gave the candy bonanza away to passers-by.  He even managed to be grateful to the thief who set the events into motion.

“If the thief is watching this or has been keeping up with everything, I would love for you to just come and say hi to me because I’d love to give you a high-five or thank you,” he told Us magazine “and give you as many Kit Kats as you want because this whole thing has turned into a really cool experience.”

The Weirdest Hacker In The World

There is plenty of scary hacking out there. Criminals trying to steal personal data, state secrets, card numbers and making plans to possibly crash the electrical grid as we know it any minute now. That is very serious stuff and undertaken by very bad but very seriously trained criminals.

But some hackers don’t want millions of dollars or world domination – they just want to hear a song.  A dirty song. From the ’70s.

According to reporting in Vice.com:

“A local radio station in Mansfield, England, keeps getting hacked so that it plays something called “The Winker’s Song” by Ivor Biggun (otherwise known as ’70s TV personality Doc Cox). We’re a pretty PG publication, so we will let you look up the song yourself.

According to the Guardian, the station has played “The Winker’s Song” 103 times in the last month.  The current theory is that a rogue broadcaster could be using a small transmitter to overplay on the same frequency as the Mansfield station, thus overriding the station’s scheduled programming.

“Some people have told me that their children have started humming the song in the car,” noted Tony Delahunty, managing director of Mansfield 103.2. “We have had calls from people who have found it hilarious, while some have raised their concerns, including our competitors, and a lot of people in the industry are aghast at how difficult it is to stop these people.”

The Office of Communications – the government-backed regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries in the U.K.,  better known as Ofcom, says it is taking the matter very seriously and that it is under investigation.

So, to sum up.  Don’t smuggle iPhones – you will be caught, even if you wear Spanx. If you get caught shoplifting, don’t run, unless you want the world to see all the worst pictures you ever put on Facebook along with the announcement that you robbed a Walmart.

And if you get robbed, well try putting it on Twitter. You never know what a brand will do to build loyalty.

Have a great weekend, and keep it legal out there.