Just for Fun- America's Dumbest Criminals
Profit Ability Article Highlight

Fraud "Victim?" - A sticky-fingered crook spies an envelope in a mailbox containing a brand-new credit card. He swipes it and heads straight to the racetrack, charging two bets totaling $150 on the card. The crook is ecstatic when he wins the bet. The owner of the card doesn't find out it was stolen until she receives that month's statement. To her astonishment, alongside the bets at the racetrack was a credit for the winnings. It turns out the brilliant criminal wasn't able to cash out on the bets because they were charged on a credit card. The winnings were credited to the stolen credit card! The criminal received a 12 month sentence, and the "victim" was allowed to keep the winnings.

Nice Hat - Jack had a great plan. He would set up a phony company, establish lines of credit, and then use the credit to order expensive computer chips to turn on the black market. Jack's plan backfired when he was caught and interrogated by the FBI. When the FBI showed Jack a very clear snapshot of himself negotiating with a credit officer at the bank, the agent asked, "Do you recognize the man in this picture? "No," Jack plainly stated. "Does he look at all familiar?" the agent asked. "No," Jack insisted. "Do you recognize the hat that this man is wearing?" "No. Why?" "Because you're wearing it right now," the agent responded, a smile coming upon his face. "I need a lawyer," Jack snapped back. "That's the one true thing you've said," replied the agent, breaking into laughter.

Straining For The Truth - When police detectives in a small town in Pennsylvania were having trouble convincing a suspect to confess, they improvised. Typically, a lie detector test would be an ideal tool to help convince a criminal there's no hiding the truth. The detectives didn't have one, so they made their own. They connected two wires from a Xerox machine to a metal colander, which was placed on the suspect's head. Each time the criminal answered a question incorrectly, one of the detectives would press the "copy" button, causing a Xeroxed sheet of paper bearing the words "he's lying" to come from the lie-detecting wonder machine. Figuring the lie-detecting machinery had caught him, the man confessed to the detectives.