Idiot crooks make me giggle and the news seems to be filled with criminals who insist on confession to the crimes they commit…even if they do so unintentionally via a social media channel like Twitter or Facebook. If you haven’t read it already, be sure to check out @AmyLynnStewart’s great post about losing her phone, only to have a cabbie steal it and post photos on Google+. The photos are a bit on the creepy side.
In the latest screw-up, a robber created an Instagram feed with the phone he stole from a victim, only to then be identified as the thief.
In both of these cases, the victims and their friends were the ones that did the legwork and identified the thief. The big question remains as to how and when law enforcement is going to really start taking social media seriously and finding ways to leverage its power.
Have a great story about idiot criminals using social media to incriminate themselves? Share a link or the story in a comment.
Cheers!
–Sean
Brian Rich
Tuesday 16th of July 2013
The world is filled with geniuses like this man.
Joe
Wednesday 26th of June 2013
Haha! Some people just have no common sense and they deserve to be caught.
arnaz woods
Sunday 23rd of June 2013
nice post
Ralf
Sunday 9th of June 2013
The problem for law enforcement in using social media for 'research' is that their hands are often tied by privacy laws. It's different from country to country. I'm from Germany, and privacy law is really tight here. Whether that's good or bad is debatable, of course.