French Warship Fights Off Stupid Pirates October 7, 2009
Posted by Joey in Oops!, Stupid Criminals.Tags: French Navy, La Somme, Pirates, Somali Pirates, Somalia
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Nothing like a little Darwinian action on the high seas off Somalia.
Somali pirates attack French military flagship – Yahoo! News.
Somali pirates attempted to storm the French navy’s 18,000 tonne flagship in the Indian Ocean after mistaking it for a cargo vessel, the French military said on Wednesday.
The crew of La Somme, a 160-metre (525-foot) command vessel and fuel tanker, easily saw off the brazen night-time assault by lightly armed fighters on two lightweight skiffs and captured five pirates, a spokesman said.
“The pirates, who because of the darkness took the French ship for a commercial vessel, were on board two vessels and opened fire with Kalashnikovs,” Admiral Christophe Prazuck said in Paris.
La Somme is the French command vessel in the Indian Ocean, overseeing French air, sea and land forces fighting Somali pirates and hunting terrorists under the banner of the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom.
ELF: Save The Intercoms! September 6, 2009
Posted by Joey in Environmentalists, Stupid Criminals, Wacky Religious Beliefs.Tags: Domestic Terrorism, Earth Liberation Front
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Those freaks at the Earth Liberation Front took down KRKO’s AM radio towers, to save “home intercoms”. Yeah, those AM waves are killing millions, got to stop ‘em!
Jeez, what a bunch of idiots.
Activists topple towers, claim dangers of AM radio waves – CNN.com.
A group cited by U.S. officials as a domestic terrorism threat claimed responsibility Friday for knocking down two radio station towers in Snohomish County, Washington.
The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) issued a statement saying opponents of the towers argue that “AM radio waves cause adverse health effects including a higher rate of cancer, harm to wildlife, and that the signals have been interfering with home phone and intercom lines.”
“When all legal channels of opposition have been exhausted, concerned citizens have to take action into their own hands to protect life and the planet,” Jason Crawford, a spokesman for the group, said in a news release.
Squeaky Getting Out of Jail August 5, 2009
Posted by Joey in Stupid Criminals.Tags: Charles Manson, Gerald Ford, Squeaky Fromme
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Squeaky forgot to cock her .45, so she missed out on becoming a presidential assassin.
Woman Who Pointed Gun at Ford to Be Freed.
Lynette A. Fromme, who was briefly in the limelight she so craved after pointing a gun at President Gerald R. Ford in 1975, will be released from federal prison on Aug. 16, the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Wednesday.
Ms. Fromme, 60, known as Squeaky, has been held in a prison near Fort Worth, Tex., and became eligible for parole release, according to Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the agency, which is part of the Justice Department. Ms. Billingsley said she had no information on Ms. Fromme’s plans once she is released.
Ms. Fromme was an early follower of Charles Manson, the architect of seven murders in California in 1969. She had been arrested more than a dozen times before Sept. 5, 1975, in Sacramento, when she pointed a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol at Mr. Ford from about two feet away. A Secret Service agent, Larry M. Buendorf, grabbed the gun with one hand and Ms. Fromme’s arm with the other, causing the gun to fall to the ground.
The pistol held a loaded magazine, but there was no cartridge in the chamber, so the gun would not have immediately fired.
Billions Stolen in Online Robbery July 3, 2009
Posted by Joey in Culture, Internet, Software, Stupid Criminals.Tags: Eve Online
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Eve Online will be asking for a TARP bailout, I suppose.
Billions stolen in online robbery.
Space trading game Eve Online has suffered a virtual version of the credit crunch.
One of the game’s biggest financial institutions lost a significant chunk of its deposits as a huge theft started a run on the bank.
One of the bank’s controllers stole about 200bn kredits and swapped them for real world cash of £3,115.
As news of the theft spread, many of the bank’s customers rushed to remove their virtual cash.
Madoff Gets 150 Years June 29, 2009
Posted by Joey in Stupid Criminals.Tags: Bernie Madoff, Ponzi Scheme
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Good. Hanging him would be too humane.
Bernard Madoff Gets 150 Years in Jail for Epic Fraud.
Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison for masterminding the largest Ponzi scheme in history, a penalty six times longer than those meted out to the chief executives of WorldCom Inc. and Enron Corp.
Madoff appeared today before U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in New York for the first time since his March 12 guilty plea in an epic swindle that may have reached $65 billion in both real and phantom investments.
“I don’t ask for any forgiveness,” said Madoff, 71, wearing a single-breasted charcoal gray suit and navy blue tie as he stood before the judge. The money manager said he deceived his brothers, his two sons and his wife, none of whom was in the courtroom. The audience burst into applause as Chin imposed the maximum sentence. Madoff was then led off by U.S. marshals.
Japanese Bond Smugglers June 28, 2009
Posted by Joey in Bailout, Stupid Criminals.Tags: Treasury Dept.
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The fishwrap of record follows up on the report that $134.5B in bonds that were smuggled into Switzerland from Italy.
Italy Intercepts Smugglers With $134.5 Billion in Fake Bonds.
“The whole thing is a total fraud,” Stephen Meyerhardt, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said Thursday. “They don’t look anything like real securities, which in any case were never issued in any of those denominations.”
The highest denomination ever issued by the Treasury Department was $10,000, he said. The Italian financial police claimed some of the paper was “Kennedy bonds” from the 1930s, but no such bonds ever existed. And the total of Treasury bearer bonds still outstanding is a mere $105 million; the Treasury has been issuing bonds in electronic form since 1986.
But none of this has stopped the rumor mill from grinding away. After reports of the seizure began to trickle out of Italy, the blogosphere sprang into action, the ponderings fueled by suspicions that the mainstream media was willfully ignoring the tale.
The story took on greater life after Italian authorities — who have refused to talk about the scandal — declined to declare the bonds fakes until they were examined by Washington. After all, although the Guardia di Finanza suspected the bonds were false, if they were not, the Italian treasury stood to profit from a law that permits the government to pocket up to 40 percent of the total value of cash or securities smuggled into the country over the legal export limit, which is 10,000 euros.
Card Skimmer in the Wild April 7, 2009
Posted by Joey in Stupid Criminals.Tags: Card Skimmer, Death Penalty
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Here’s a pretty clever hack of a Chase Bank ATM machine to add a card skimmer, complete with a tiny camera to record the PIN.
We should congratulate the criminal on his cleverness, then shoot him.
Attack of the Card Skimmers: It’s Happening Right Here, Right Now.
Sean Seibel was inside a local Chase bank where he inserted his ATM card into one of two side-by-side automatic teller machines. When the machine told him it could not read his card, it took him a bit of jiggling to get his card back. He tried it a couple more times and got the same results. Before trying the other machine, he inspected the slot of the current ATM he was using and realized that it had a false plastic cover attached to the slot. The amazing thing about the cover was that the translucent green plastic matched the card reader slot perfectly, meaning that it was made specifically for Chase ATMs. After snapping a few photos with his iPhone, he alerted the branch manager and explained what happened.
Oh, That’s Where I Put the Bulldozer March 13, 2009
Posted by Joey in Sports, Stupid Criminals.Tags: Golf
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Thanks to the golf architecture fanatics at GolfClubAtlas for the story about a bulldozer found buried in a Texas golf course, under the 13th fairway.
Bulldozer reported stolen decade ago found buried at Weatherford golf course.
Criminal charges are pending against the owners of a Weatherford golf course after authorities found a bulldozer that was reported stolen more than 10 years ago buried under a fairway.
Wes Mickle and his son, Stan Mickle, could both face felony charges of insurance fraud, said Tyler Farrell, a detective with the Tarrant Regional Auto Crimes Task Force.
Investigators searched Canyon West Golf Course after a former employee contacted the Department of Public Safety about seeing part of the bulldozer while fertilizing the course’s 13th fairway, Farrell said.
Bernie Madoff Is In Jail March 12, 2009
Posted by Joey in Stupid Criminals.Tags: Bernie Madoff, Ponzi Scheme
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And he’s likely to die there.
Good.
Bernie Madoff’s Billionaire Victims.
At least 50 victims of Bernard Madoff sat in a packed U.S. District Courtroom in Manhattan Thursday as the disgraced money manager was led off to jail in handcuffs after pleading guilty to masterminding a $65 billion Ponzi scheme.
OJ Finally Where He Belongs: In Jail October 5, 2008
Posted by Joey in Stupid Criminals.Tags: OJ Simpson
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From NPR, we find that OJ was convicted of armed robbery in Subdued Reaction To Simpson Conviction.
In a city where luck means everything, O.J. Simpson came out the big loser — and his unlucky number in a case full of bizarre twists was 13.
He was convicted of an armed robbery that happened on Sept. 13 and was found guilty on the 13th anniversary of his Los Angeles murder acquittal. The Las Vegas jury deliberated for 13 hours after a 13-day trial.
And then, as only the sobs of Simpson’s sister broke the silence late Friday, the lights went out.
