The 20 Most Secretly Brilliant Stupid Criminals

#1. Germans Pull a Fast One with Hostages

June, 1995. Four masked men burst into a Berlin bank with pistols and shotguns, and took 16 hostages. A half an hour later, they sent one hostage out with a typewritten note: They wanted a getaway car, a helicopter and 17 million Deutsche Marks (about $12.2 million in 1995 dollars). After negotiations, 5 million marks were delivered at 9:30 p.m. as a down payment. Then? Nothing.

The robbers fell silent, which was fortunate because it gave the cops time to laugh about how easy it was going to be to track them down in a helicopter and getaway car that they were providing. But as the hours went by, the tension began to mount. Had they gone to sleep? Had they finally watched the last 15 minutes of Die Hard and realized that Hans' brilliant robbery via hostage taking hadn't turned out so well? At 4 a.m., the tension was broken by a phone call from inside the bank. But it wasn't the robber. It was one of the hostages, saying he was pretty sure the robbers had disappeared.

The cops knew damn well that this might be a set up, and assembled a commando team that heroically burst in, heroically surveyed the now-empty room and heroically uttered, "Oh, fuck me."

The Secretly Brilliant:

Turns out the robbers weren't counting on that getaway car and helicopter they demanded. Instead, they dug a 384-foot tunnel to the vault, ransacked it and had split hours earlier.

Just to add insult to injury, when the police followed the tunnel, they found it ended in a garage ... inside the area the police had cordoned off, where they were examining every vehicle coming and going.

All told, around 12 million marks (approximately $10 million U.S.) was stolen. Nobody knows for sure because the thieves raided safety deposit boxes, so authorities remain uncertain about the contents, which could have been anything from jewels to the much more precious and rare nude photos of Bea Arthur.

"Wait, you want what?" -- Cracked Photoshop Department.

All the men involved were eventually captured and convicted, although most of the money has never been recovered and most of the criminals involved are already out of jail. Somehow, we suspect that money's going to magically turn up at whatever tropical island nation doesn't have an extradition treaty with Germany.

ICantSpellFCK

03/17/12 04:56 PM

Opening up this article, I thought to myself, rather dickishly, "This is going to be one of those articles that are funny in concept but not funny in writing." (It helps to imagine me saying this while wearing a top hat, spats, monocle, and a 1800 frenchmens jacket.)
The first sentence then read;
"In July of 2002, Tonda Lynn Ansley of Hamilton, Ohio shot her landlady in the head. This is generally fatal."
You have proven me wrong. You may now have my firstborn son.

TsuNoBa

03/16/12 07:26 PM

Hey, I remember a Malcolm in the Middle episode where Hal revealed he hadn't gone to work on a Friday for X years. No one noticed.

Except that ended up providing an alibi for all the crimes he was accused of.

jessica66

03/14/12 07:47 PM

-2

date,rich,here.The largest single club.find your soul mate on ----Sugarcupid-C oM- --

alcibiades2010

03/11/12 05:46 AM

-1

you forgot "and if he's a white guy, he's even safer'

03/11/12 05:30 AM

I love how basically every website says "only x years of jail" as if it's a vacation rather than a sentence. Believe it or not, having no control over your life and getting raped daily isn't a positive.

03/11/12 05:11 AM

pr0tip: promoting morons is a bad idea. That's kind of what screwed over goldman and sachs.

ParryNod

02/22/12 07:48 AM

The one about how identical twins can go into a room together and switch places is false. Identical twins have similar but distinct fingerprints. Even if no prints were found at any crime scene or on any physical evidence, the twin who was arrested would have had their prints taken at the time they were taken to the station or jail or detention center (or they would in any rich country). The police could later check to see whether the prints of the person currently in custody match the prints of the person in custody the first time prints were taken.

crunkatizeme

02/16/12 05:07 PM

-8

Well, it's pretty safe to say not one single f**k shall be given about this article.
Have a good one.

Syn

02/08/12 09:22 PM

I like that the ads im seeing on an article on crime are those "OMG you have a virus, download this" ones.

tykhjil

02/05/12 07:26 PM

-7

Women are sometimes fragile, want a real-man to protect you? Join in
---uniformedkiss*c’o’m--, here you will meet lots of servicemen and find friendship, love, romance, marriage or even more with those armed forces, police, navy, security, medical, ambulance, prison, air crew and fire fighters! You will not regret for dating with military personnel. Just sign up and nothing will lose if you don't like it. Thanks….

shamchimp28
02/07/12 09:29 PM
- +12
"Women are sometimes fragile" is how I plan to start every conversation when I inevitably become a serial killer.

jakery

02/04/12 06:32 AM

The hell? I clicked on the article and immediately got taken to the last page.

cainraw
02/23/12 10:59 AM
- +4
Check your wallet just to be safe

oiyhngh

02/02/12 09:04 PM

Why we recommend you the man in military? The reason is simple: They are not only dependable, but also romantic. They are brave and strong but also warm in heart. Now it’s new year, find your strong and warm arms for a new beginning at ----uniformedkiss*c’o’m----

crunkatizeme
02/16/12 05:05 PM
- +1
f*****g kidding me?

Augginator

01/20/12 12:00 PM

I'm fairly certain that Bala had every intention of being charged with the murder when he wrote that book. As the author mentions in the article, he couldn't find a way to get people to care about his philosophy (blurring the lines between fiction and reality) before writing that novel. Honestly, he is a complete and utter genius, albeit an insane one.

Matt Bradley

01/16/12 02:12 PM

That's so... DUMB.

Matt Bradley
01/16/12 02:13 PM
- -1
I like the Show/Hide Profanity button :)

Booboobs

12/19/11 04:11 AM

-4

This article makes me even more angry that legitimate flood victims were robbed of the insurance they spent many years paying, with insurance companies citing the fine print in their policies which stated that "flood" did not mean "natural disaster", but more like "broken pipe".
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF----

Rat69Tail

12/13/11 09:32 PM

most of this is not so much brilliance on the criminals part as it is stupidity on the parts of the athorities who should have put the pieces together sooner than they did

wendigo

11/23/11 04:09 AM

#20: It should be pointed out that being ruled not guilty as a result of mental problems in a case like this is not a get out of jail free card. It is a "Get out of jail, and instead into a high security mental health institution, until your doctors say you are better."

Notice whats not there? A number for years served. Because when someone has successfully been proven insane, they cant come back to society til they are again sane (to a degree) which may never happen.

And of course, should they find out she was faking it while in the mental institution, im pretty sure she goes to prison anyway.

Omega.Serris
11/28/11 06:01 AM
- -1
Honestly, what it the difference?

Both are more or less failing financially, so that rules out either having great conditions.

At both, you're almost guaranteed to have a psychotic roommate, only one is legally insane while the other is just homicidal.

And both of them will have an unhealthy (at least for you) interest in your butt. ("Aliens could have probed it, so I must disable them with this spork while he is sleeping!")
SeanYamazaki
12/13/11 02:37 AM
- 0
^ Mental asylums are worse, I think. I worked at one as a housekeeper one summer.