Japanese police recently arrested a group of unlikely criminals, three grandpas in their late sixties, seventies, and eighties accused of breaking into at least two homes and suspected of ten other burglaries.

Hideo Umino, 88, Hidemi Matsuda, 70, and Kenichi Watanabe, 69 allegedly met behind bars and decided to team up after being released in order to commit crimes more efficiently. The trio, dubbed “G3S” by police (homophonous for ‘grandpas’ in Japanese), stand accused of breaking into an empty house in Sapporo, the main city on the island of Hokkaido in May and stealing 200 yen ($1.3) and three bottles of whisky worth about 10,000 yen ($65). the following month, they allegedly robbed another empty house and stole jewelry worth approximately one million yen (US$6,400). Police is currently investigating the group’s involvement in 10 other burglaries in the cities of Sapporo and Ebetsu.

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A UK woman recently admitted to exaggerating her physical disability claims in order to receive bigger benefits, all the while competing in over 70 running events.

Sara Morris was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2005, but four years ago she applied for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) by exaggerating the extent of her symptoms in order to claim £20,000 ($25,800) that she was not entitled to. According to the evidence presented in court, the 49-year-old woman from Stoke on Trent claimed that she experienced difficulties getting out of the bath unassisted, lacked proper balance and didn’t have the power to stand in front of the gas cooker. Morris also said that she felt so anxious when leaving the house that even a short trip to the pharmacy put her on edge. She was thus able to receive £2,292.63 in benefits per month, while also participating in dozens of 5K and 10K running competitions.

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A series of thefts involving the use of ultra-realistic silicone face masks in China has ignited a debate about the legality of these widely available products.

In March of this year, four homes in Shanghai were broken into, and over 100,000 yuan ($13,760) in valuables were stolen. When the police identified the main suspect, they discovered that the 40-year-old man had a silicone mask that he had used to disguise himself as an elderly man when committing the crimes. Last month, police investigating a series of burglaries in Jiangsu Province identified a man who disguised himself as an electrical worker using a realistic mask in order to minimize the risk of being identified. These are only two examples of a growing trend in China that experts warn could lead to a crime spree unless the sale of realistic silicone masks is regulated.

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A Chinese man wanted for murder managed to avoid police detection for over 20 years by pretending to be a deaf and mute scavenger in the mountains of Hubei Province.

On the evening of May 22, 2004, a young and quick-tempered man named Xiao got into a heated argument with a neighbor in his home village of Oumio Daying, in Xianyang’s Xiangcheng District. At one point, Xiao allegedly picked up a shovel and hit his neighbor over the head with it, killing him on the spot. That night, knowing that he risked spending the rest of his life behind bars or worse, getting the death penalty, Xiao decided to abandon his wife and 11-year-old child to go on the run. He ran into the mountains of Anxi County, in Fujian Province, where he became a scavenger selling scraps to survive. To make sure he never gave anything away about his past life, Xiao pretended to be deaf and mute for the next 20 years, only smiling at people and communicating through gestures.

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An Arizona woman was recently sentenced to three years probation for trying to poison her husband by mixing bleach in his morning coffee.

Melody Felicano Johnson was initially charged with attempted first-degree murder but ended up pleading guilty to two counts of the lesser felony charge of adding poison or a harmful substance to food or drink. She admitted to putting bleach in her husband’s coffee, although it is still unclear as to why. Her husband told investigators he “believes she was trying to kill him to collect death benefits,” but he explicitly told the court that he did not want her to spend time in prison, which apparently had a major influence on the final verdict.

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A 33-year-old Florida man suspected of stealing a boat was recently arrested while trying to avoid police by wearing a blonde wig, a dress, and oversized sunglasses.

Joshua Kolotka was arrested last Wednesday in the Florida Heartland by police officers investigating a boat theft at the Old Caloosa Lodge area in Lakeport. While canvassing the area for the man identified as a suspect in the case, investigators noticed a blonde woman wearing a white cardigan over a light blue dress and large sports sunglasses exiting a house. They stopped her and immediately realized the woman was actually a man wearing a disguise. He turned out to be Kolotka and he was quickly taken into custody and arrested on two warrants, along with charges for the theft of the boat and the theft of a John Deere Gator.

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On Easter Sunday, someone managed to access the GardaWorld cash storage facility in Sylmar and steal a whopping $30 million in what is considered the largest heist in Lost Angeles history.

Canadian security company GardaWorld offers cash storage and transportation services, ensuring that clients’ money is kept safe until it can be used or deposited in a bank. Such storage facilities are among the best-guarded places in the world, featuring dozens of guards, alarms, seismic motion detectors, and state-of-the-art surveillance, making would-be thieves think twice before attempting a heist. And yet, in what can only be described as a perfect script for an Ocean’s Eleven-style blockbuster, someone recently managed to breach a cash storage facility in Sylmar and disappear with up to $30 million in cash without anyone even noticing until a day later.

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A Chinese woman is being accused of trying to terminate a co-worker’s pregnancy by poisoning her water to prevent her from taking maternity leave and thus avoiding a higher workload.

In one of the most shocking cases of work-related incidents reported in China, a worker at a government-affiliated institution in Hubei Province allegedly tried to terminate a co-worker’s pregnancy by repeatedly poisoning her water in order to avoid the higher workload caused by her maternity leave. The nefarious plan reportedly came to light when the victim noticed that her water kept tasting strange, regardless of its source. At first, she was convinced that it was the office’s water supply, but the taste persisted even after she switched to bottled water. That’s when she decided to investigate further.

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Three boys, ages 11, 12 and 16, and dubbed the “Little Rascals,” were recently arrested after being turned in by their parents for robbing a Houston bank.

Most kids spend their spring break from school playing video games, watching TV, or hanging on with their friends, but three Houston juveniles decided to put their free time to better use by robbing a local bank. Police claim that the three boys walked into a Wells Fargo bank in the Greenspoint area of north Houston on March 14, passed a threatening note to a teller, and managed to get away on foot with an undisclosed amount of money. When police arrived and checked the surveillance footage, they were shocked to see that the bank robbers were incredibly young.

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Samuel Davalos Pasillas, a 47-year-old California pastor, was recently arrested for allegedly paying to men to kill his daughter’s boyfriend.

Last week, Riverside police arrested Samuel Pasillas after gathering enough evidence that he had ordered the attempted murder of the man dating his own daughter. The hit took place on October 21, 2023, in Riverside. The victim was sitting in his car when he was shot multiple times from a vehicle that pulled up alongside his. The shooters quickly drove away, but the victim survived by driving himself to a nearby hospital. He couldn’t provide investigators with too much information about his would-be killers, but five months later, police concluded that the incident was a “murder-for-hire shooting” orchestrated by his girlfriend’s father, Pastor Pasillas.

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A Nebraska woman has been charged with theft after allegedly exploiting a fuel pump glitch to get over $27,000 worth of free gas over a period of nearly seven months.

Imagine finding out one day that you can abuse a fuel pump glitch to get as much gas as you want for free. Would you do it? Well, one 45-year-old woman from Lincoln, Nebraska, sure did, and now she’s paying for it. According to Bosselman Enterprise, the corporation that owns the Pump and Pantry near West O Street and Sun Valley Boulevard, Dawn Thompson used an exploit to get thousands of gallons of gas over a period of six and a half months without anyone noticing. Somehow, the woman realized that she could access the pump’s demo mode by swiping her rewards card twice, and from there she could pump gas without getting charged. She was thus able to pump over 7,400 gallons, which resulted in a theft of almost $28,000.

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A Missouri man allegedly tried to commit insurance fraud by paying someone to cut off both his legs and stage a tractor accident to cover it up.

The Howell County Sheriff’s Office recently investigated the most bizarre case in its history. In November of last year, a 60-year-old man from Willow Springs lost both his legs after allegedly suffering a brush hog accident. The brush hog is a rotary mower usually attached to tractors, and the man claimed to have had both legs accidentally cut off by one. However, there were a few holes in the man’s story. First of all, he had literally lost his legs, as in they were nowhere to be found, which was bizarre for this type of accident. Then there was the fact that the man’s wounds were too clean to have been caused by a brush hog. And finally, the man was a known paraplegic, which raised questions about how he had managed to find his way in the way of a tractor-operated brush hog.

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A gang of six alleged armed robbers led by senior citizens in their 60s and 70s have been arrested in Italy after carrying out several armed burglaries at post offices in Rome.

70-year-old Italo De Witt, nicknamed “the German”, Sandro Baruzzo, 68, and 77-year-old Raniero Pula look more like harmless grandpas than hardened criminals, but appearances can be deceiving. Italian prosecutors claim that they were the leaders of a ruthless gang of armed robbers that specialized in Rome post offices. The gang had a very clear structure, with the three elderly gentlemen at the top, and three other experts, a key maker (66) to breach the various locks, and two bricklayers (51 and 56 years old) who handled “the hole” through which the gang entered the post offices. All members had criminal records, but the leaders had particularly impressive records that went back all the way back to the 1970s. Apparently, some people never change.

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An Italian woman stands accused of faking no less than 17 pregnancies – 12 natural abortions and 5 false births – over the last 24 years, to receive 110,000 euros ($120,000) in maternity benefits.

50-year-old Barbara Ioele has had an unusual number of pregnancies over the last 24 years, which have resulted in years of maternity leave and a small fortune in state-paid benefits. According to documents filed by the woman, she went through 17 pregnancies, 12 of which unfortunately couldn’t be carried to term. The other five allegedly resulted in the birth of healthy babies named Benedetta, Angelica, Abramo, Letizia, and Ismaele, only there is no record of them ever being registered, and no one has ever actually seen them. Barbara allegedly birthed her youngest child in December of last year, but now authorities claim she had been under surveillance throughout her late pregnancy and they have proof that she was never pregnant. They are also accusing her of having faked all 17 declared pregnancies to receive over 110,000 euros in benefits and get time off from work.

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A 58-year-old man has become the bane of restauranteurs in the Dutch city of Delft after eating without paying at least 127 times in the last few years.

Earlier this month, police in Delft were called at a restaurant where a man was allegedly trying to skip out on the bill by faking a medical condition. According to Mike Hogeveen, the bartender at the unnamed restaurant, the man caught his attention when he started buying people rounds and offering to share his food with everyone, but he really became the center of attention when he started shaking his left arm uncontrollably as if he was having a stroke. Paramedics were summoned, but upon examining the man, they realized that he was faking and refused to take him to the hospital as he had requested.

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