The 10 most bungled robberies ever

Earlier this year Money Central bought you the 10 most infamous heists. But what about the less successful attempts at robbery? From a pregnant woman in rubber gloves to cousins robbing their family’s post office, there have been many unlikely – and unsuccessful – criminals. Here are Times Money’s top 10 bungled robberies from around the world.

1. “Macclesfield’s dumbest”

England 2008: Mark Ridgeway – a man branded as one of "Macclesfield’s dumbest" burglars by a local police officer – has been the infamous perpetrator of two bungled robberies.

Last year Ridgeway broke into a campsite in Adlington, Lancashire, where his accomplice scribbled his name on the wall for all to see. On that occasion, he was caught by police fleeing while wearing a stolen T-shirt.

The following year, he used a crowbar to break into his mother’s house. But according to the Macclesfield Express: “The brazen burglar paused to steal food and prepare himself a buttie before fleeing with more than £150 cash... leaving incriminating fingerprints everywhere.” Ridgeway later pleaded guilty to the charge of burglary of a dwelling.

2. Bread rolls

Australia 2008: A man and woman in Melbourne were sent to jail earlier this year for the attempted robbery of the Cuckoo restaurant at Olinda - appropriately carried out last April Fool's Day.

Benjamin Jorgensen, 38, stole a bag he thought contained $30,000, but in fact contained only bread rolls. During the hold-up he shot his accomplice, 36-year-old Donna Hayes, in the buttock.

Both pleaded guilty to armed robbery. Victorian County Court Judge Williams told the hearing the robbery was a complete fiasco and the two were a pair of fools.

3. Goodfella wannabes

USA 1992: A mechanic and a security guard from New York decided to rob their local convenience store after being inspired by Goodfellas, the gangster film (pictured above). However, the owner of the store instantly recognised the men, who brandished a BB gun and made off with just $75 before making their getaway in a car belonging to one of the men’s sister. Police waited for the men at their home, where they were arrested after their red Volare drove up containing the $75 loot.

"It wasn't the detective work of the century," acknowledged Detective Kenneth Meyer of the Eighth Precinct.

4. Rubber gloves

USA 2008: Last month a 20-year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of robbing Titusville Credit Union. A woman disguised with a baseball cap, rubber gloves and sunglasses went into the union and attempted a robbery – but police soon caught up with her and she was arrested.

Incredibly, witnesses said that the woman was heavily pregnant and had left a toddler in the car while she allegedly committed the crime.

5. Electric shock

China 2006: The robbery of a power supply office in the Jiangsu Province went horribly wrong for two criminals after one of them decided to urinate on a mains switch on his way out, causing burns and electric shock. A duty officer at the office called police, who took the injured man to hospital and the other into custody.

6. Asda stick up

England 2008: Ryan Eddison, 21, was described in court as a "low level criminal who was completely out of his league" after trying to hold up a security van containing £75,000 at an Asda store in Rawtenstall, Lancashire.

In full view of shoppers, the security van driver was able to set off the emergency alarm, which lead to the Eddison and his accomplice fleeing in their stolen getaway car. The vehicle was then torched and abandoned – but the fire went out, leaving the men’s fingerprints in tact. Eddison was sentenced to four years in prison.

7. Keeping it in the family

Scotland 2008: Two cousins who robbed a post office owned by their family were described as “comic” by prosecuters in court. "To rob one's relative's post office in broad daylight in front of numerous witnesses in a small town like Tranent where everyone knew or recognised him almost beggars belief," Simon Collins told the High Court in Edinburgh.

The men had pounced on the post office’s security guard one morning, as he was delivering £20,000 of Sterling and Euro banknotes to the shop. But they did not realise a nearby resident had spotted them donning their balaclavas and had alerted police. The pair were later caught and jailed for a total of seven and a half years.

8. Black wig

USA 2008: At least the perpetrator of this failed robbery attempted to disguise himself. Huy Trong Luong, 39, of Jersey City, donned a black wig, sunglasses, a black Dolce & Golbana hat, women's make-up and a black jacket for a series of bank robberies – seven of which were successful.

He was eventually caught after a bungled attempt to rob a bank in Chatham, when police pulled over his getaway minivan to discover the offending disguise on the backseat.

9. “Hand the muny over”

Scotland 2006: A man who robbed a Glasgow bookmakers with a plastic bottle in a rolled-up newspaper committed a "a particularly ill-thought out" offence, his defending lawyer admitted in court.

Jason Kelly targeted the bookies in an area where he was well known. After handing over a note to the cashier with the words "Hand the muny over. Theel be no trouble," he walked away with £450 before being caught moments later in a nearby street, with the money in his pocket.

10. Drug loot

US 2008: A Californian couple rang the police to report that they had been robbed at gunpoint in their own home. When the police asked what was stolen the pair listed 65 marijuana plants, nearly three kilos of the drug itself and a shotgun. Unsurprisingly, the couple, who had three outstanding warrants, were arrested.

Identity Theft: The 'Business Bust-Out'

The "bust-out" is just one of the schemes fraudsters use to steal your business identity, a crime that has gone largely unnoticed in a legal system focused on consumer ID theft

by John Tozzi

A criminal rents space in the same building as your company. Then he applies for corporate credit cards using your firm's name. The application passes a credit check because the company name and address match, but the cards are delivered to the criminal's mailbox. He sells them on the street and vanishes before you discover your firm's credit is wrecked.

The so-called "business bust-out" scam is one way sophisticated criminals steal business identities across the country (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/17/06, "Would I Lie to You? Five Cons Still Kicking"). Identity thieves increasingly target businesses instead of individuals, experts and law enforcement officials say, but federal law and many state statutes don't consider business identity theft a crime. That's because the raft of identity theft laws passed in the last decade apply mostly to individual consumers—not business entities.

A Gap in Statutes

While business identity theft can often be prosecuted under other statutes, like mail fraud or wire fraud, businesses victimized lose many of the protections afforded to consumers under identity theft laws, like access to information about their credit. Before California last year amended its 1997 identity theft law explicitly to include crimes targeting business entities, a business whose identity had been co-opted could not even get a police report. "We were having businesses being taken over and their names being used and I could not prosecute them, at least under ID theft statutes," California Deputy Attorney General Robert Morgester says.

It's difficult to say how many businesses have been victims of identity theft because most of the research focuses on complaints by consumers. Some studies say there were as many as 8.9 million individual victims nationwide last year, and estimated annual losses approach $50 billion. But the most sophisticated identity thieves increasingly are targeting businesses because the payoffs are bigger, Morgester says. Business accounts generally have higher credit limits and make larger purchases than consumers, so hefty charges by scammers are less likely to raise red flags. While most consumer frauds won't net a criminal more than $5,000, targeting a business can bring in 10 times that or more, he says—so "From a criminal's viewpoint, it's far more cost-effective to target a business rather than a consumer."

In a July 19 proposal, the Justice Dept. asked Congress explicitly to include businesses and organizations in the federal identity theft statute. "This is a real gap," says Betsy Broader, assistant director of the Federal Trade Commission's identity theft division. "The current federal law looks at ID theft as a crime against individuals."

Small Businesses at Risk

Small businesses in particular make ripe targets because they may be less savvy about protecting sensitive information than big companies that can afford to hire dedicated privacy officers. Often, small-business owners are just too busy to worry about identity theft—until it happens to their firm. "The worst thing a small business can do is think of themselves as a small business," says Linda Foley, co-founder of the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center. "You have to be a small business with a Big Business mentality."

Foley says business owners can protect themselves by keeping sensitive files under lock and key (electronic or otherwise), by restricting access only to employees who need it, and by closely watching their books. But sometimes there is little a business can do to keep from becoming a victim, as in the "business bust-out" scheme described above.

The new laws in California and the proposed federal change may give law enforcement the tools it needs to go after business identity theft. But because perpetrators can be elusive and investigators have limited resources, often the crime isn't prosecuted at all. According to a 2002 study by the Government Accountability Office, local prosecutors reported only being able to pursue a "small fraction" of reported identity thefts. Morgester says some detectives have 50 identity theft cases on their desk at once, and they must focus on the handful where they think they can make an arrest and get a conviction. If the loss is relatively small—under $10,000, he suggests—police may be reluctant to take it on. At the federal level, some U.S. attorneys have thresholds of $1 million.

Victims Must Investigate

But the best solution for businesses that have been victims of identity theft can be to do the legwork of an investigation themselves, says Morgester. Often business owners must do so anyway to recover their credit and reputation. If victims follow the paper trail and bring investigators a lead, police and prosecutors will be more willing to pursue it, he says.

"There's a lot of cases where the corporation or an individual by themselves can put together 90% of the evidence," Morgester says. "We've had a number of cases where, based on the material we had brought to us by the victims, the only last step we had to do was write a search warrant and kick down a door."