Ridiculous Crime

Sheikh Saud bin Mohammed Al-Thani had a mission: buy up as much amazing art and antiquities as possible to fill five new world class museums. The budget: infinity. Or at least that's how he acted as he overbid on auctions and swept up some of the most exquisite curios on the planet. But there's no such thing as infinite money, particularly when the cash you spend is someone else's. But it was magnificent while it lasted.

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Jan-Erik Olsson had a simple dream: he wanted to free a friend from prison. Unfortunately, the best idea he could come up with was to storm a bank in Stockholm, take hostages, and demand the Prime Minister give in to his demands. For obvious reasons, things did not go as he planned. Luckily for him, his hostages took his side against the police, leading to a standoff, and the birth of the Stockholm Syndrome.

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Rosey Grier has a habit of showing up at turning points of American history: the greatest NFL game ever played, Free to Be…You and Me, and Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 presidential run. But one night at the Ambassador Hotel made the football star a reluctant hero. It also gave him a mission he’s spent the rest of his life carrying out.

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Helen Duncan had a gift. She told the world that the gift was the ability to communicate with the dead and see the future. Her real talent was puking up swatches of fabric and brawling with clients. Either way, people paid to see her act. But then she messed with the Royal Navy in wartime, and that never ends well. She could see the future, but she didn't have getting tried as a witch on her spiritual bingo card.

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The City of Everglade City was founded by smugglers, so it should be no surprise that a century later, the locals kept that tradition going. Only by then, they'd moved on to pot smuggling. It was a highly lucrative profession, far more than fishing or crabbing, but pot smuggling was also highly illegal. Never the less, the locals were enjoying their lawless ways, right up until the feds caught wind of the overwhelming size and scale of the south Florida dope game. But while those good times rolled, what a high time the whole town enjoyed.

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Maps are beautiful, functional works of art. Even the most utilitarian paper map has its charms. But when a map has historical value, it can fetch an incredible amount. Which, of course, makes them catnip for crimers. Come navigate the world of fake maps, stolen maps, collectors, and dedicated cons.

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The police of Philadelphia were flummoxed by a new crime trend. As the crime statistics in the city were falling, one category of crime was spiking. And it was all thanks to a crew of beef pirates. The bucaneers of the tri-state area were constantly hitting big rigs and making off with highly valuable loot. The police launched Operation Beef Bandit to combat the thieves. But really it was Instagram that spelled doom for the larcenous beef burglars.

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A poet named Ern, so they say/Wrote verses that dazzled one day/But Ern, it turned out, was a hoax, past a doubt/Cooked up by two dorks just for play!

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Elmer McCurdy came of age at the end of the Old West, and as it vanished he tried to grab at that outlaw life while it was still a real thing. Trouble was, he was not good at being a bad man. In death, he became an avatar and totem of the fast disappearing Wild West. There he remained, until one day the story of an astronaut and test pilot freed him from his bizarre afterlife. 

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There's a lot of money to be made in tourism, especially in culturally rich areas like Italy's Veneto region. So what's a philanthropist/entrepreneur/orchestra conductor to do? Build a fake ancient amphitheater, of course! The Italian government, though, doesn't take kindly to that kind of scamming. Sparisci, truffatore!

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