Let's investigate the felons that were foolish enough to hire a hitman on craigslist, steal a penguin from a zoo and post their own mugshot on Facebook, as we check out the dumbest criminals that got away with it until they didn’t!

Fugitive Caught After Updating Facebook Status

We all know a social-media addict who can’t go a day without posting about their lives. But in some situations, being terminally online can land you in serious trouble. Back in 2009, a conman called Maxi Sopo went on the run after stealing $200,000 by committing bank fraud in Seattle, Washington. He did that by convincing his friends to lie about their incomes so they could acquire loans for expensive cars.

But instead of actually spending the cash on the luxury vehicles, they fraudulently used it to fund a trip to Las Vegas instead. They say ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’, but Sopo didn’t stay in Sin City for long, as when he discovered the authorities were investigating his crimes, he decided to go and hide out in Cancun, Mexico.

However, instead of laying low, Sopo started partying in nightclubs and boasting about his lifestyle on Facebook, as he uploaded pictures and posts about his escapades. The posts revealed he was in Mexico, but Sopo’s location was set to ‘private’, so the Police couldn’t figure out exactly where he was.

That is, until the criminal made the dire mistake of sending a friend request to a man he met at a party, who turned out to be a former US Justice Department Official. The police spotted the former official on Sopo’s friend-list and recognized him, so they contacted him to explain the situation. He then confirmed that while he had no idea Sopo was a fugitive, he had met him in Cancun.

That led the cops to Sopo’s location, and the fuzz finally found and arrested their man in 2010; before convicting him of four counts of fraud. Ultimately, Sopo received a 33 month sentence plus a hefty $150,000 fine for his crimes, and it’s crazy that he was caught over a couple of Facebook posts and a seriously misjudged friend request.

Archivist Charged With Stealing Historic Documents

Working as an academic is prestigious, intellectual and boring. So in 1997, a Civil War expert and New York State Archives employee called Daniel D. Lorello decided to spice up his life by turning to crime. Lorello started stealing historical artifacts at work and selling them on eBay, and his loot included a letter from 1823 that was written by the former Vice-President John C. Calhoun to a general from New York.

Calhoun served under the Presidents John Adams and Andrew Jackson, so the artefact is a pretty special piece of American history and in 2008 Lorello sold it for just $1,700. But ultimately, Lorello was the one who paid the price. A former history teacher called Joseph Romito found the eBay listing and instantly recognized the letter. He knew that it was supposed to be held by the New York State Library, so it was obvious that the person selling it on eBay AKA Lorello had stolen it.

In hindsight, attempting to sell stolen artefacts to history nerds who know everything about them is pretty stupid, and Romito’s discovery led to a full-blown Police investigation. That uncovered that between 1997 and 2008, Lorello had swiped over 1,600 rare books and documents right under everyone’s noses!

Unsurprisingly, he was promptly arrested, sentenced to up to 6 years in jail and slapped with a $125,000 fine, but the authorities were only able to recover 90% of the materials that he’d stolen and sold. So, it looks like Lorello will go down in the history books too, as his actions have caused over 100 of New York’s precious artefacts to go missing forever!

Outspoken Defendant Gets Point Across

In 1985, a criminal called Dennis Newton had to face the full-force of the law, when he misspoke while on trial for Armed Robbery. Newton was suspected of robbing a convenience store in Oklahoma, and when he went to court, he thought it would be a great idea to do away with lawyers and represent himself.

At first, he was arguing his defense pretty well, but when the manager of the store testified that Newton was the thief, the criminal broke out in a rage and shouted ‘I should have blown your head off!’ A shocked silence settled over the courtroom, and as Newton realized he’d just admitted to his crime, he lamely added ‘, if I’d been the one that was there.’ Following his outburst, all bets were off, and it took less than half an hour for the jury to sentence him guilty and recommend a 30 year sentence.

Woman Used Craigslist To Hire Hitman

Most people have only ever used Craigslist to sell some unwanted furniture and hire a handyman. But in 2008, Ann Marie Linscott from Grand Rapids, Michigan posted a seemingly innocent advertisement on the site offering freelance work, that concealed a criminal request. When three people responded to Linscott and asked her what the job was, she explained that she’d pay them $5,000 to "eradicate" the wife of a man she’d fallen in love with.

Linscott had an affair with a guy called John back in 2005 and fell for him but he left her to go back to his wife. So, Ann Marie turned to Craigslist to violently and permanently break-up their marriage. Unsurprisingly, the three respondents immediately reported Linscott to the cops, and her post was all the evidence the authorities needed to charge her with 12 and a half years in prison for the intent to end life.

Drunk Tourists Steal Penguin From Australian Sea World

Every now and then, it’s fun to let loose and have a wild night out. But in 2012, Rhys Jones and Keri Mules partied a little too hard and had a wild-life night, when they got drunk and stole a penguin from the SeaWorld in Queensland, Australia. The Welsh tourists were on vacation when they drunkenly broke into the park and swum with dolphins, set off a fire extinguisher in a shark enclosure, and finally, kidnapped Dirk the penguin and took him back to their apartment.

Drunk tourists steal penguin from Australian Sea World by The Telegraph

I’ve had some bad hangovers, but as the Brits woke up and found Dirk waddling around they must’ve been filled with regret. They initially tried caring for the penguin by giving him bread and putting him in the shower, but eventually they gave up and abandoned Dirk under the nearby Southport pier.

The duo would’ve gotten away with it but they posted videos of Dirk onto Facebook, which were reported to the police, so they were consequently arrested and fined over $650 each. The judge deemed that the tourists didn’t act with malice, so they actually weren’t convicted of a crime, although they probably won't be welcome back in SeaWorld anytime soon. Dirk was eventually found under the pier, before being returned to his enclosure and reunited with his girlfriend, Peaches.

Convicted After Death Bed Murder Confession

Honesty isn’t always the best policy, and sometimes, telling the truth can ruin your life. Just ask James Washington, a 61 year old inmate at Turney Center prison in Nashville, who had a terrible heart attack back in 2009, while serving a 15 year sentence for attempted homicide.

For most people, going to prison and having a heart-attack sounds like a worst case scenario. But, as Washington lay on his deathbed, he made his situation a thousand times worse by revealing his deepest-darkest secret to a prison guard. The 47 year old convict really thought he was going to die, so he confessed that he was the man who committed a brutal homicide that had gone unsolved since 1995.

The investigation had been abandoned due to a lack of DNA evidence, so Washington decided to finally clear his guilty conscience. But to his surprise he made a full-recovery from the heart-attack, and when his health started to improve the authorities were able to charge him with the crime.

Washington tried to take his confession back after he survived, but the damage was done and his 15 year sentence was upgraded to a life sentence of at least 51 years for the 1995 case. So, when Washington was released from hospital he returned to prison with no release date in sight, and he’s still locked up today all due to his honesty and the wonders of modern medicine.

Financial Adviser Steals Millions From Bank & Clients

Graham Price was just a boring guy with a boring job until the 58 year old Englishman decided to break bad and steal $13 million from a bank. That real-life Walter White worked at a British bank called Halifax as a financial consultant, which is a fancy way of saying he provided financial advice to customers.

But, instead of giving genuine advice, he preyed on unsuspecting clients by telling them to invest money with him personally, while promising that he could use his financial know-how to double their investments. Then, he would spend their money on luxury vacations, new cars and a serious gambling problem that primarily involved betting on horse races. When his investors started demanding their returns, he’d use the money from his newer investors to pay them back, like one big pyramid scheme.

He took around $4.2 million from clients, and when that cash eventually ran dry, he started siphoning funds directly from Halifax, stealing $9 million from the bank while he worked! Incredibly, he managed to run that operation from 2001 to 2004 without being caught. But one day, an auditor inspecting the bank came across a piece of paper tucked into a safe and they found it was a handwritten IOU note from Price, that openly stated he’d ‘borrowed’ $9 million from Halifax.

The thing is, Price was so addicted to gambling that he truly believed he was going to win big and pay the bank back. So, he left the note in the vault to explain that he hadn’t stolen the money and he was merely borrowing it until he won. He’d hoped the bank would understand and let him off easy, but unfortunately, Halifax and the police didn’t accept that explanation. So the piece of paper just acted as a confession as Price was promptly arrested and jailed for 12 years in 2005.

Unfortunately, some of Price’s clients never got their money back, and his scheme completely bankrupted them. But the criminal wasn’t overly apologetic. He told the police that he’d been ‘arrested too soon,’ and he would’ve been able to pay it all back if he was given another week to bet on horses, as he definitely would’ve won.

Chick Bank Robber

Unfortunately, not everyone can restrain themselves from posting everything online; and in 2012, a 19 year old called Hannah Sabata successfully stole a car and over $6,000 from a bank in Nebraska before posting about it on YouTube. In a video entitled ‘Chick bank robber,’ Hannah vividly described how she took the car and robbed the bank with a gun, before showcasing the stolen money on camera.

Chick Bank robber by Jellee Beanie

She also said she was going on a shopping spree the next day, but she never got to go to the mall, because the cops saw the video, drove to her house and arrested her the very next morning. Sabata was ultimately sentenced to 10-20 years in prison for the bank robbery, showing the world exactly what you get for boasting about your crimes online. In fact, the only thing that I approve of from her video was her mention of how much she liked the band Green Day.

Fugitive Sends Selfie To Cops Over "Terrible" Mugshot

Social media is a great way to connect with other people and it’s also a great way of connecting the cops to stupid criminals! Back in 2016, Donald Pugh was wanted in Ohio and Georgia for Driving Under the influence, vandalism and arson so it’s fair to say he was in big trouble! But he didn’t bother showing up for his trial in Ohio, which forced the police to release a mugshot of Pugh online, and ask the public for help locating him.

Pugh saw the post, and he didn’t think the photo was very flattering, so he decided to send a posed selfie to the cops and ask if they could use it instead. Pugh probably thought his response was hilarious, but it blew up online and drew lots of attention to his case, so the cops soon started receiving lots of tips from people who’d spotted him down in Florida. That allowed them to track Pugh down and arrest him, all due to his self-incriminating selfie.

But Pugh isn’t alone, and in 2016, a Florida man called Mack Yearwood made a similar blunder after committing battery in the city of Stuart. When the cops arrived Yearwood fled the scene, which prompted a manhunt.

Then as the police started investigating him online, they found that he’d updated his Facebook profile picture to an old wanted poster, that revealed he had two other warrants for battery in Citrus County, Florida around 210 miles away. So, the police obtained Yearwood’s address and tracked him down, before arresting him for the crimes he committed in Stuart and Citrus County.

Tattoo Of Murder Scene Leads To Crime Conviction

The worst kind of criminals are the ones who feel absolutely no remorse for their crimes and that description definitely fits the Californian gangster Anthony Garcia. In 2004, Garcia committed a homicide against a rival gang-member outside a liquor store in Pico Rivera. The cops had no leads, and he avoided arrest for four years until he was pulled over in 2008 for driving with a suspended license!

The police suspected that he was part of a gang called Rivera-13, so before letting him go they took some photos of his tattoos which is a standard procedure used to document gang members and keep tabs on them. Those pictures happened to reach Detective Sergeant Kevin Lloyd who’d been in the force for years, and when he started looking through them, he realized that Garcia had the scene of the 2004 Liquor Store homicide tattooed on his chest.

It clearly displayed the liquor store’s façade and the surrounding area as well as the shooting itself. Garcia’s nickname was Chopper, which is represented in the helicopter firing at the victim. Furthermore, the victim is represented as the Planters mascot Mr. Peanut, which is a reference to the fact that Garcia’s gang insultingly called members of the rival gang peanuts.

It couldn’t have been more blatant, so the cops tracked Garcia down and interrogated him, which led to his arrest! After a short trial, Garcia was sentenced to 65 long years in jail, and finally received punishment for a crime he’d committed 4-years before. He probably regrets ever walking into a tattoo parlor.

Bike Thief Arrested After Listing On Craigslist

In 2013, a 57 year old from San Francisco called Marque Moore made it clear that he had no problem stealing other people’s property. Marque was, in fact, a serial bicycle thief who’d stolen ten bikes and over 100 bike-parts from different owners, before attempting to sell them online. In 2013, he found a buyer for a stolen bike on Craigslist, and arranged to meet them at Ashby transit station in Berkeley.

But when he arrived, he discovered that he’d been tricked. One of Moore’s victims had spotted his own stolen bicycle being sold on Craigslist, so he arranged to buy it and contacted the cops. They then arranged a sting operation at Ashby transit station, and as Marque arrived for the sale the police swept in to arrest him.

Marque faced charges of possession of stolen property and he was held in jail with a bail fee of $105,000, marking his end as the Bay Area bike burglar. All because he was stupid enough to sell a stolen bike online, without realizing he was selling it to the very person he stole it from!

GPS Bracelet Leads Police To Burglar

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. But that's probably the definition of stupidity, and in 2008, a criminal was dumb enough to commit the same crime over and over again, whilst being watched by the cops!

James Wombles committed several burglaries in Miami County, Ohio between December 2008 and January 2009, and as he got away with some stolen electronics and guns he thought he’d committed the perfect crime. But the cops soon tracked him down and arrested him in his car, because Wombles had burgled those houses while wearing a GPS ankle monitor.

Prior to those home invasions, he’d previously been caught and convicted for stolen property charges in Greene County, and afterwards he was fitted with an ankle monitor that tracked his movements 24/7. As a result, when Wombles went out and committed the Miami County invasions, the police could see that he’d visited all the crime scenes. Then, they used the ankle monitor to track down his exact location to arrest him, and they found him sitting in a car filled with the stolen items, which gave them all the evidence they needed to sentence him to 10 years in jail.

Snapchat Snitch

In the movies, criminals tend to escape from the cops with action-packed chase sequences that involve sports cars and explosions. So, it isn’t any surprise that when a criminal from Maine tried to avoid arrest by going home and hiding in a kitchen cabinet, he wasn’t so successful. In 2015, Christopher Wallace note: not the Notorious B.I.G, had been evading the cops for several weeks after committing a burglary, when he decided to sneak back home and hide out there.

However, he made the dumb decision to post about his return on snapchat, which prompted one of his friends to snitch and notify the police. The cops showed up and searched the house but they couldn’t find him. Then, just as they started to leave the property, Wallace posted on Snapchat again to tell his followers that the Police would never find him, because he was hiding inside a kitchen cabinet. The cops received another call about that second post, so they waltzed straight to the kitchen, found Christopher and arrested him, before charging him with burglary and throwing him in jail.

Bank Thief Gets Arrested During Police Job Interview

I’ll admit, I’m fairly gullible, and I’ve been tricked into thinking the word gullible was written on the ceiling a couple of times. But, at least I’m not as naïve as Alberto Lopez; a criminal who walked straight into an incredibly obvious trap that was laid by the cops.

Back in 2016, Lopez was suspected of stealing $5,000 from the bank he worked at in Cottonwood, Arizona, but he evaded capture by skipping town and moving to Phoenix. After a year away Lopez got homesick, so he decided to move back to Cottonwood and apply for a job, hoping the coast was clear. That sounds pretty foolish, and to make matters worse, the job listing he applied to was for a dispatcher with the Cottonwood police department.

When the police reviewed his application, they conducted a background check and immediately discovered he had a warrant for his arrest. But instead of tracking him down, they decided to have a little fun by inviting Lopez for an interview. Incredibly, Lopez waltzed straight into the police station in his best suit, and as he sat down to be interviewed he was put in cuffs and arrested for felony theft.

Krystian Bala: Author Jailed Over Killing He Used As Plot

Some true stories really are stranger than fiction, and the tale of the Polish author Krystian Bala is so absurd that it’s taken straight from the pages of a crime novel, literally. In 2000, Bala started to suspect that a businessman had formed a relationship with his ex-wife, so, he kidnapped him and committed homicide in a jealous rage.

But, Bala had clearly done his homework, because the police found no leads, and they dropped their investigation after 6 months. The case went unsolved for years, and it looked like Bala had gotten away with the crime. But instead of laying low, he decided to become a self-published author and write a crime fiction novel called Amok, that was based on the crime he’d committed.

The book actually became a bestseller, and when a member of the Polish police force read it, they noticed the storyline closely matched the details of the real crime and the fictional criminal was called ‘Chris’. As they investigated further, they found that the story also included details of the homicide that were never released to the public, which essentially proved that Krystian had committed the crime.

So, Bala’s own book re-opened the cold case, and it was the main piece of evidence used by the authorities as they arrested Krystian and sentenced him to 25 years in prison in 2007. I get coming up with ideas is hard Krystian, but next time you get writer’s block it's not advisable to write down your darkest confession and publishing it for the world to see!

John Dillinger Caught At The Cinema

With The Godfather, The Sopranos, and Goodfellas, some of the most famous TV shows and movies of all time belong to the gangster genre. But the life of the real gangster John Dillinger is much wilder than any movie. Dillinger and his gang were active in the Midwest during the Great Depression, which lasted from 1929 to 1939.

During those years, they were responsible for multiple homicides, robberies and three jail breaks, and he became so famous that he was dubbed Public Enemy No. 1. But surprisingly, the terrifying criminal was eventually caught in a pretty embarrassing way.

In 1934, Dillinger was successfully hiding out from the cops in Chicago. But on July 22nd, he foolishly broke his cover to go watch a movie called Manhattan Melodrama, because he was a fierce fanboy of its starring actress Myrna Loy. Appropriately, the movie was about a lawyer who has to send his criminal best friend to the electric chair and Dillinger was about to face a similar fate.

One of his female companions had tipped the cops off, and after watching the movie and coming out of the Biograph Theatre, the gangster found the boys in blue waiting for him outside. He began to run, but the feds took him down with gunfire and permanently ended his crime-spree.

Lots of people believe that Dillinger’s fate actually marked the decline of the whole Gangster era, as the police went on to catch over 25 other prominent gangsters who had aided and abetted Dillinger. So, Dillinger’s decision to go catch a movie was a pretty terrible idea and an entire period of American history arguably ended due to his infatuation with Myrna Loy.

If you were amazed at these dumbest criminals who almost got away with it, you might want to read about stupid criminals who must not want their freedom. Thanks for reading!