Robbing a Mom and Pop Store, Too Close to Home
45877
âBefore the Devil Knows Youâre Deadâ is a chronicle of destruction â physical, spiritual and moral.
378678
By JOHN BRANTON  A thief used a 14-year-old SUV to smash his way into a convenience store in the Rose Village neighborhood and a Minnehaha computer shop over the weekend, police said.
62422
GREENSBORO, N.C. - Four people who tried to rob a Chinese food delivery driver left him an unusual tip: a cell phone.  Ming Jing Lu arrived at a Greensboro residence with a delivery and noticed a group of people who made him suspicious, police said.
770285
LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. - A woman outsmarted an apparently drug-addled burglar who threatened her with a sword, authorities said. Robin Ricketts, 52, said she awoke early Thursday when she heard strange noises coming from her home office.
731053
Authorities disabled and blew up a device used Tuesday in a bizarre bank robbery in Hollywood, Florida.
527897
Lenders hunting for delinquent homeowners are resorting to creative methods to track them down.
365191
ELKHART, Ind. - A woman heading home from a store was surprised to find a man accusing her of stealing his van. The 71-year-old woman was leaving Wal-Mart about 9 p.m. Saturday with her great-nieces and great-nephews when a man walked in front of her van, forcing her to stop.
493141
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Talk about customer service. When a would-be robber pulled a knife on a customer in Yogi's Convenient Mart in Manchester and demanded money, the store clerk didn't reach for the cash register.
385952
On the morning of Nov. 17, Ben Adams found himself hiding beneath the retractable cover in the back of a Chevy TrailBlazer. The truck was parked in front of a warehouse in Duncanville, Texas. His friend &quot;Sam,&quot; the TrailBlazer&#39;s owner, had just finished a test drive on a 1949 Chevy truck--the same truck Adams was certain had been stolen from him four months earlier.Adams pulled out his mobile phone and dialed 911. &quot;Please help me,&quot; he said. &quot;I&#39;m at a warehouse. There are criminals all around me.&quot;The story of how a mild-mannered software developer from San Antonio, Texas,&#160;ended up running his own undercover sting operation against eBay fraudsters begins with a truck. And if the story has a lesson, it&#39;s the one told on Adams&#39;s blog: Don&#39;t mess with Texas, especially if it involves a truck.The Colbert RapportLast July, Adams sold the 1949 Chevy in an eBay auction. The buyer, who called himself Derrick Colbert, appeared to be from Georgia. And when a transport company employee showed up at Adams&#39;s door with a cashier&#39;s check for US$9,600, Adams let him load up the truck and promised to hand over the title when the check cleared.The next day, he learned from his bank that the check was a fake.Adams immediately contacted no fewer than 15 law enforcement organizations and eBay itself, but he also began some sleuthing of his own.He found that the thief had made an important slip-up. While corresponding about the truck, Colbert had sent Adams an e-mail from a second eBay address, different from the one he used to purchase the truck.Hunting Down the ThiefBy tracking the sales and purchases of Colbert&#39;s second eBay ID and contacting a Colorado dealer who had sold him a junky 1950 Chevy truck, Adams was able to track Colbert down to the South Dallas area. But he still didn&#39;t have his truck.By now, Adams had put together a 10-page packet of information and sent it&#160;to every law enforcement agency he could think of. But police didn&#39;t seem to have much interest in working on the case, and although he had reported Colbert to eBay, that didn&#39;t get him anywhere either.&quot;At this point, I was kind of depressed,&quot; remembered Adams. &quot;Every few weeks, I&#39;d do regular eBay searches for all automobiles made between 1948 and 1952 that were within the Dallas-Fort Worth area... I even searched in Craigslist.&quot;And then on November 13, his luck changed.The Big PaybackColbert had listed the pale blue 1950 Chevy for sale on eBay. Only it wasn&#39;t junky anymore, and it didn&#39;t look like the 1950 Chevy that Colbert had bought from the Colorado dealer a few weeks earlier. It looked just like a repainted version of Adams&#39;s 1949 truck. It had the same windows in back, the same missing gas cap, and the same yellow stain across the passenger side of the front windshield.&quot;It made me sick to my stomach,&quot; Adams said. He called local police, but they were skeptical. So he decided to set up a sting.First step: fake ID. He took a tip from the thieves and bought a prepaid mobile phone in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Then using a friend&#39;s well-established eBay account, he placed a couple of bids on the truck to show that he was an interested buyer. His name became &quot;Sam.&quot;He didn&#39;t want to seem too eager. In fact, he didn&#39;t want to do anything to tip Colbert off. And although he thought he might be putting his life at risk, Adams called Colbert and asked to set up a Saturday morning test drive. To be sure that Adams wouldn&#39;t be recognized, a friend volunteered to play the part of &quot;Sam&quot; during the face-to-face meeting.And that&#39;s how Ben Adams ended up hidden inside a Chevy TrailBlazer on a Saturday morning, calling 911. Patrol cars speeding to the scene met up with Adams and his friend about a half-mile from the warehouse and followed the amateur sleuths back to the truck.&quot;They probably had a two-minute window where they probably could have shut the warehouse door and hit the road,&quot; Adams said.But the thieves didn&#39;t leave, and now Adams has his truck back. And this time he plans to keep it.
596296
By Chris Echegaray, Tampa Tribune, Fla.  Dec. 10--PLANT CITY -- A burglar broke into Harmony Baptist Church and stole Christmas from the children of Hope Children's Home in Tampa.
400230
When office supplies find their way home, is it stealing? Or strategic investment of your time?
435728
Walking around a Florida strip mall, it didn't take long to find shoppers doing exactly what police say is the wrong thing to avoid having holiday gifts stolen.
503341
McMINNVILLE, Tenn. - A McMinnville married woman stole items worth tens of thousands of dollars in a string of burglaries to make her boyfriend think she had a high-paying job, authorities said.
288118
Also: Online grocers can bring you many things, they just can't deliver a profit. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
219032
When a pair of convenience store robbers use hot coffee as a weapon, a dozen other crooks steal their idea. But terrorists are not nearly that predictable. Commentary by Bruce Schneier.
232586
FARGO, N.D. - Police say two suspects in a botched burglary were caught after they returned to the crime scene. Sgt. Kevin Volrath said the two men were confronted by owners of the home they allegedly tried to burglarize Monday night, and the suspects fled.
451254
For those who frequently arrive at the supermarket check-out only to find they have left their wallets at home, help is at hand.