Dumb criminal stories

[HVC]

I'd think that "dumb criminals" is the generality. It is smart criminals who are exceptional. 

But smart criminals wear suits and call themselves lawyers

or alternatively CEO's, but i wnet with lawyers

Exactly - smart criminals are those who, like CEOs, bankers, accountants, lawyers, investment consultants and the like, have figured out how to get people to give them lots of money.  

Yay, accountants! Although, really, as an accountant its hard to steal until you get higher up. Stock options, the legal way to steal from investors

[Barrister]

I'd think that "dumb criminals" is the generality. It is smart criminals who are exceptional. 

But smart criminals wear suits and call themselves lawyers

or alternatively CEO's, but i wnet with lawyers

Exactly - smart criminals are those who, like CEOs, bankers, accountants, lawyers, investment consultants and the like, have figured out how to get people to give them lots of money.   

Yay, accountants! Although, really, as an accountant its hard to steal until you get higher up. Stock options, the legal way to steal from investors

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen

[HVC]

Best part of that is the firm disbanded, but the employees just went to work for the other Big $ companies (sometimes whole departments just got hired).

[HVC]

And really, that wasn't just accountants, there were a lot of lawyers involved too. We'll split the infamy

[Malthus]

Lawyers typically steal in one of two ways - a dumb way, and a not-so-dumb way.

The dumb way is to take money out of client's trust accounts, invest it in high-risk/high reward ways, with the intention of putting the money back later (and pocketing the difference). Pretty well inevitably, these guys get caught.

The not-so-dumb way is to use the confidential info at their disposal to indulge in a bit of insider trading (usually through intermediaries). These guys also get caught, but not as often.

[HVC]

Accoutants steal in several differnt ways
But the easiest and most legal to make big bucks fast is to mess with stock option. Options open on may 15? leak bad news on the 14th, prices drop. They close two years later on june 15th? hold any good news you have until that day, prices g up. and that's just the easy way. you can also mess with how you report revenue to inflate bonuses. change reporting methods. Fun, legal, stuff like that that most people don't understand so releasing notes in your financial statements mean nothing. people see an increase in income = profit for CEO's with bonuses and options.

[The Brain]

 

Engineers don't break the law.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Wasn't there a tv show TLC about dumb crimanal activities caught on tv?

Also, does anyone recall when TLC turned from The Learning Channel into the Midget, Babies, and Police footage channel?

It first became the Home Improvement channel.

[Neil]

Wasn't there a tv show TLC about dumb crimanal activities caught on tv?

Also, does anyone recall when TLC turned from The Learning Channel into the Midget, Babies, and Police footage channel?

It was about four or five years that their older, more interesting programming finally disappeared once and for all, but the trend had been going on for the better part of ten years.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Most white collar criminals I've ever heard about getting caught were typically operating in essentially the stupidest way possible. Blatantly and clearly falsifying financial records, dealing in bald-faced insider trading that was easily linkable back to them having privileged information, etc. The reason so many of them don't get caught, to me, isn't that the ones who don't get caught are smart. I think it's just more likely that this stuff is kind of like driving drunk, you can do it 100 times and you probably will only get caught once (and that I believe is the statistic I always hear, that before someone gets their first DUI they are statistically likely to have actually driven drunk 100+ times.)

Policing everything just isn't an easy task, and they never catch them all.

A few years ago a guy was driving about 80 MPH down the wrong way on the interstate, hit a van and killed an entire family of five. He stumbled out of his truck and wandered off into the woods. He was found by state police and made the claim that his car had been stolen and he hadn't been driving that night (note the wreckage of his vehicle was a no more than a mile away and he was in the middle of the wilderness.)

[Monoriu]

A guy went to an arcade video game centre, and hid in a cornor when the centre closed for the day.  He used tools in an attempt to break the cash register, and failed.  When he tried to leave, he found that all exits were locked. 

So he called police and claimed that he was a customer who woke up to find himself locked in the place.  The police had a look at the cash register and saw through the lie. 

[Ideologue]

A few years ago a guy was driving about 80 MPH down the wrong way on the interstate, hit a van and killed an entire family of five. He stumbled out of his truck and wandered off into the woods. He was found by state police and made the claim that his car had been stolen and he hadn't been driving that night (note the wreckage of his vehicle was a no more than a mile away and he was in the middle of the wilderness.)

I knew a guy a long time ago who did something like that; he was driving drunk (or under suspension, I forget), cops attempted to pull him over, he ran, ditched the vehicle, ran home, and called and reported his car stolen.

He got away with it, afaik.

He's now dead or in jail, something to do with drug addiction as I understand it.

[Barrister]

At least up here it becomes very difficult to prosecute someone for drunk driving if you don't catch them right at the scene.  How do you prove someone didn't drink after the accident?  You have to prove they were intoxicated at the time of the accident, not at the time of arrest by police.

[Jacob]

OvB  is back? Cool.

[Malthus]

Most white collar criminals I've ever heard about getting caught were typically operating in essentially the stupidest way possible. Blatantly and clearly falsifying financial records, dealing in bald-faced insider trading that was easily linkable back to them having privileged information, etc. The reason so many of them don't get caught, to me, isn't that the ones who don't get caught are smart. I think it's just more likely that this stuff is kind of like driving drunk, you can do it 100 times and you probably will only get caught once (and that I believe is the statistic I always hear, that before someone gets their first DUI they are statistically likely to have actually driven drunk 100+ times.)

Policing everything just isn't an easy task, and they never catch them all.

There is also this dynamic to it: the white-collar criminals probably take all sorts of time-consuming precautions the first time they commit a crime, and get away with it; but as they get away with it over and over, they get lazy, figuring they will never be caught.

Or they are playing the odds. Like taking cash out of a trust fund - you can do it fifty times and not get caught, but it is sort of inevitable that you will be caught eventually.