In today’s world of sophisticated technology, commerce, and communication, the innovative boundaries of the criminal mind seems to have no limit.
Predators upon society quickly adapt to the changes and try to find new ways of committing the same old crimes of stealing, fraud, identity theft, human trafficking et al ad nauseum. The main issue to remember is that it’s the same old crimes, but with a different twist.
For police to effectively protect citizens, they must be much like the fictitious Sherlock Holmes who would get a step ahead of his nemesis Moriarty by discovering the crime, figure out how he did it, and beat him at his own game. That is essentially what some Independence Police road patrol officers did recently with a common thief who used the Internet classified advertisements called Craigslist. Craigslist is an internet site where people can advertise jobs or items to sell, among other things, and have interested customers contact them to discuss purchases, trades, etc.
The criminal in this case thought he would be clever and commit several scams on different people by offering an 8gb iPod Touch for sale at a price lower than retail store offerings. The suspect would receive a call from the victim, and he would of course give a false name, and he would make arrangements to meet the victim in a public area. The suspect would demand the victim to show him the money and give it to him, then have the victim drive him to an apartment complex to allegedly pick up the iPod. Once at the apartment complex, the suspect would simply get out of the car and never return with the iPod or the money.
The price was low enough that victims may not bother with reporting it out of embarrassment for being so gullible and chalk it up as a lesson learned. The suspect also thought he was being clever by setting a price below the amount that would make it a felony when he stole it that police would not go to great efforts to track him down. Such was and is not the case in Independence, unfortunately for him.
The officers studied three of the cases that had been reported about the suspect, and his modus operandi, and made plans for setting a trap for him by posing as a would-be buyer for the 8gb iPod Touch. The officers made contact with the suspect through Craigslist and offered to buy what he had again advertised. The price was agreed upon, the location was set, and the cat and mouse game of several calls between the suspect and the officers began.
Eventually, the suspect arrived and had the officer move to a different location in order to escape any possible trap in case he was dealing with police. The reason for the cat and mouse game of phone calls and so much time before he made contact was that he was watching and using surveillance upon the officer/victim and location to see if it was safe. Too bad for him the officers anticipated such and had laid the trap to be flexible for any unforeseen change in plan. Once the contact was made at the secondary location, the arrest was made and officers discovered the suspect was a wanted person having committed other crimes in other places.
Independence Police Officers are proactive in their approach to tracking down criminals and that is why former U.S. District Attorney Todd Graves once said of IPD that it is, “the 800-pound gorilla in the metro area,” that may criminals fail to notice before it’s too late.
Independence, MO —
