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Posted: 09-11-2011 12:21 Post subject:

Car thieves who posed with stolen vehicles for Facebook page are caught when victim tips off police to site
By Hugo Gye
Last updated at 1:14 PM on 8th November 2011

A pair of thieves have been jailed after posting photos of themselves on Facebook posing with cars they had stolen.
Damon Keegan, 20, and 18-year-old Aaron Wilhelm meticulously planned a series of raids targeting luxury vehicles across Greater Manchester.
But all that planning was undone when the photographic evidence of their crimes, and messages linking them to the thefts, were discovered by police.

The pair were arrested last Christmas after being linked to a break-in by the footprints they left in the snow.
But while they were on bail they continued their crime spree, taking pictures of cars that they or their associates had stolen.

Police were alerted after the victim of a raid who had received a tip-off that Keegan and Wilhelm were responsible directed them to Wilhelm's Facebook page.
The thief had changed his profile picture to an image of himself posing in front of the victim's stolen car.
And in images recovered by detectives from mobile phones and Facebook, the pair were also linked to cars taken in raids on various houses in the area between February and May.

The haul included a Mercedes, three top-of-the-range Audis, a Volkswagen Scirocco and a Renault Clio, with a total retail value of nearly £200,000. Messages sent to Keegan on Facebook suggested he was stealing cars to order.
Keegan and Wilhelm, of no fixed address, admitted eight crimes, including three burglaries, three offences of handling stolen goods, and two thefts. Both were said to be sorry.

Keegan, 20, who has nine previous convictions, was sent to a young offenders' institution for 50 months while Wilhelm, who has 10 previous convictions, will spend 40 months behind bars.

Sending them down, Judge Martin Steiger said: 'Such is the security of modern cars that it's not possible to be "hot-wired" - so those bent on stealing high-value cars either have to rob the owners of keys or burgle their houses to get them.
'It's a singular feature of this case that many of the cars stolen were photographed and these images circulated.'

DC Paul Jackson CID said: 'Keegan and Wilhelm caused misery for a lot of people and committed numerous burglaries and car thefts over a short space of time, totalling £200,000.
'They believed they could get away with their crimes and were arrogant enough to post pictures of themselves posing with the vehicles on Facebook.
'However, it was only a matter of time before they were caught and faced justice.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058885/Car-thieves-posed-Facebook-stolen-vehicles-caught.html#ixzz1dCph5RKi

Posted: 13-11-2011 11:06 Post subject:

Criminals fall for beer sting
Chesterfield police trick 19 awol suspects with offer of free beer
Beatrice Woolf
The Guardian, Saturday 12 November 2011

Nineteen suspected criminals have been arrested after they were tricked by police who lured them in with a hoax offer of free beer.
Derbyshire constabulary sent letters to dozens of suspects who had evaded detention for several months, inviting them to ring a marketing company offering a free crate of beer. But when suspects called the number, they were unwittingly put through to Chesterfield police station.

A time and date was arranged for the promised free alcohol to be delivered to them, but those awaiting it, at locations in Chesterfield, Staveley, Alfreton, Ilkeston, Sheffield and Nottingham, were duly arrested. Twisted Evil

The sting was carried out as part of a month-long campaign targeting serious crime across north Derbyshire. Alleged offences committed by some of those arrested ranged from burglary and robbery to serious sexual assault.
Chief Inspector Graham McLaughlin, leading the operation, said: "These suspects are people who have managed to evade arrest for some time, so we have used different tactics to find them. It has been very cost-effective as it can take a lot of time and money to track people down.
"We use a variety of methods to arrest those suspected of committing criminal offences and we will continue to use new tactics when necessary."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/12/police-beer-trap

Posted: 13-11-2011 12:00 Post subject:

This story was covered in some of the Scottish newspapers last weekend:

Posted: 23-11-2011 17:14 Post subject:

Posted: 22-12-2011 21:17 Post subject:

Posted: 24-01-2012 09:58 Post subject:

Shoplifter told hi-viz jacket was a mistake
8:10am Tuesday 24th January 2012

A Falmouth shoplifter was told his choice of wearing a high-visibility jacket when he went out to steal Christmas presents for his family had been a mistake.
Warren Bayliss, 30, of Pendarves Road, Falmouth, had taken five bottles of after-shave valued at £150 from Boots – secreting them about his person and then leaving without paying for them.

Alison May, prosecuting, told the court the bottles were recovered and Bayliss was arrested. His home was then searched and a number of articles of perfume and jumpers were found, having been taken from Boots and Marks & Spencer.
Bayliss admitted stealing items worth £150 from the Falmouth branch of Boots, and three other offences of shoplifting. He had previous convictions for shoplifting and burglary and had served time in prison.
Defence solicitor Robin Smith said Bayliss had kept clean from crime since 2009, when he came out of prison.

In October last year he was told he was being made redundant from his job working on a dredger.
“He decided before his redundancy became effective that he would go out and steal the family Christmas presents – jumpers, aftershave and perfume – and was made redundant the day after.”
This had been a blip rather than a descent back into his old ways.

Bayliss was given a conditional discharge for two years and told to pay £85 costs.

http://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/fpfalmouth/9478063.Shoplifter_told_hi_viz_jacket_was_a_mistake/

Posted: 06-02-2012 13:01 Post subject:

High profile crime - at the top of a ladder!

The long arm of the lawless: Window cleaner is caught on camera reaching into bedroom to steal a credit card
By Tara Brady
Last updated at 9:02 AM on 6th February 2012

This is the moment a brazen window cleaner was caught red-handed stealing a credit card from one of his customers while on his round.
Thieving Leighton Cuthbert swung from his ladder and leaned into an open bedroom window at Adrian Neal's home in Telford to grab a credit card - which he used on a £150 spending spree.

But the whole episode was caught on camera by a vigilant neighbour, who grew suspicious of the 30-year-old and the time it was taking him to clean three panes of glass.
Unbeknown to the thief, Andrew Mitchell, who lives opposite, was watching while he worked from home.
As the job dragged on, he took out his mobile phone and started recording the whole burglary after becoming suspicious about the window cleaner's activity.

Mr Neal, who works for aerospace firm Goodrich, which is based in Fordhouses, Wolverhampton, cancelled his credit card but not before Cuthbert made £150 of purchases including £42 at Domino's Pizza and topping up his phone.

Shrewsbury Crown Court heard that Cuthbert called at the home of Mr Neal, 57, in Trevithick Close, Woodside, Telford, last August to clean his windows.
Cuthbert, of Mullinder Drive, Ketley Bank, Telford, was jailed on Friday for 14 months after pleading guilty to one charge of burglary and five charges of fraud on August 26.

Janet Pitt-Lewis, defending, claimed Cuthbert stole the card to help feed his family.
'My client and his family were having acute problems with their benefits,' she said.

After the hearing, Mr Neal said: 'I thought it was the window cleaner but I could not prove it until my neighbour came out and said he had the video.'
Mr Mitchell, 57, a senior distributor for cleaning agents Kleeneze, said: 'He was a chancer because the windows were slightly open.
'It took him 20 times longer to clean the window than it should have done, which I thought was a bit strange so I started recording the whole movements. I work from home so I keep my eyes and ears open for everybody.
'It was not until afterwards that I realised what I had captured. I knew he was suspicious but I didn't know what he was actually doing.'

It wasn't until Mr Neal got back from holiday, when he mentioned his credit card had been used, that Mr Mitchell put two and two together.
'When I watched it back it became quite clear what he doing,' he added.
'You could see it in great detail. He goes about it quite brazenly and was up and down the ladder like a yo-yo.
'The police could not believe how stupid he was.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2096745/Window-cleaner-caught-camera-reaching-bedroom-steal-credit-card.html#ixzz1lbNrvs6k

Posted: 17-02-2012 19:12 Post subject:

Posted: 02-03-2012 10:22 Post subject:

Teenager trapped by letterbox becomes burglary suspect
David Young Friday 02 March 2012

A teenager found with his arm stuck in the letterbox of a house has been arrested on suspicion of attempted burglary.
Fire crews had to remove the letterbox from the door to free the 17-year-old at the property in Dunmurry, near Belfast.

He was then taken to a police station in nearby Lisburn with the letterbox still wedged on to his hand, where it was eventually removed.

The youth was spotted by a passing police patrol at 4.10am yesterday. He remained in custody last night and was being questioned on suspicion of attempted burglary and other offences. Police are investigating several other possible attempted break-ins and a theft from a vehicle in the same area.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/teenager-trapped-by-letterbox-becomes-burglary-suspect-7468942.html

Posted: 06-03-2012 11:40 Post subject:

From the Silicon Valley Mercuary News of 3.3.2012

Stolen iPad led to huge meth bust in San Jose

By Tracey Kaplan

Surely, police must have been on the trail of a major theft ring when they arrived Thursday at an apartment complex in San Jose, only to trip over one of the biggest stashes of methamphetamine ever seized in the United States?

Not exactly.

Palo Alto police were apparently looking for a single stolen iPad when they arrived Thursday at The Woods, a sprawling apartment complex on Snell Road, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.

The cops had tracked the iPad via GPS, said Assistant District Attorney David Tomkins.

The officers didn't have a search warrant, so they knocked on the door of the apartment and asked the occupants for permission to come in. They consented, Tomkins said.

"They probably thought if they didn't, we'd suspect something," Tomkins said. "Or they thought, 'I'll let them in -- they probably won't find anything.'"

Much to their amazement, the officers found 780 pounds of crystal meth scattered around the place, worth about $35 million.

District Attorney Jeff Rosen said roughly 100 pounds or a little more of meth are recovered annually in the county, making this seizure "easily at least six years worth," he said.

"I told my dad about the bust," said Rosen, "and he said, 'They have $35 million, and they can't go out and buy an iPad?"

Police immediately arrested three people, whom they declined to identify Saturday. They then contacted the district attorney's Major

Chemists from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, suited up in protective gear, performed initial tests on the drugs, then packed them up in large boxes and brought them to a lab for analysis.

Amassed in one spot, the contraband would fit into a space about the size of a walk-in closet, Tomkins said.

Apparently, the drugs were not all converted inside the apartment from powdered d-methamphetamine into crystal form.

"It was mostly finished product," Tomkins said.

He said investigators didn't smell anything outside the apartment, but noticed an odor inside..........

Source:- http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_20096845

Posted: 09-03-2012 11:01 Post subject:

'£37 for shop, £15 for me, hee hee': Charity shop volunteer who stole thousands of pounds from the till is trapped by her own diary boasting of thefts
By Jaya Narain
UPDATED: 08:05, 9 March 2012

For most thieves, covering one’s tracks is usually the utmost priority.
But the concept was, apparently, unfamiliar to Susan Barcock as she stole thousands of pounds from the charity shop where she worked – then boasted about her exploits in a series of Dear Diary entries.

Volunteering in her local Cancer Research UK shop, the unemployed 52-year-old appeared to be a model citizen helping raise money for good causes.
But in reality she was skimming cash from the daily takings and paying it into her bank account.

She also stole thousands of pounds from an elderly widow, it emerged.
When police began investigating how money was going missing from the shop, they had only to open Barcock’s diaries to find the evidence that convicted her in court this week.

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112118/Charity-shop-volunteer-stole-thousands-pounds-till-trapped-damning-diaries-detailing-thefts.html#ixzz1oc1jT4Bn

Posted: 03-04-2012 12:56 Post subject:

Just wait until he tries to sell it!

Posted: 04-04-2012 11:14 Post subject:

I thought rhino horns were effectively compressed hair.

Posted: 04-04-2012 18:58 Post subject:

Yes, both hair and nails sre made from keratin.

Posted: 04-04-2012 21:34 Post subject: