The Dumbest Criminals of All Time

Last time, we looked at the most genius crimes in history. Today, we're going the other way.

A man who thought lemon juice made him invisible. A burglar who checked Facebook in the middle of a break-in. A gang that drove a digger into a building full of undercover police.

These are the dumbest criminals of all time. And every single story is real.

We'll go through it in four parts. Robberies that fell apart, big heists that flopped, criminals caught by their own phones, and the ones who got way too comfortable, or completely stuck.

Robbery Fails: The Invisible Man

Robberies that fell apart. Pittsburgh, 1995. A man named McArthur Wheeler walks into a bank in broad daylight. No mask. No disguise. And he robs it.

Then he does it again, at a second bank.

He wasn't worried about the security cameras at all. Because he had a secret weapon.

Lemon juice.

He'd rubbed lemon juice all over his face. His logic? Lemon juice can be used as invisible ink. So surely it would make his face invisible to cameras too.

He reportedly even believed it would only work as long as he stayed away from heat, just like invisible ink.

It did not. The footage went out on the local news, and he was arrested that same night.

When police showed him the tapes, he was stunned. All he could say was, but I wore the juice.

Police checked whether he was on drugs or confused. He wasn't. He just truly believed in the lemon juice.

And here's the wild part. His story inspired two psychologists, David Dunning and Justin Kruger, to study why people overestimate their own abilities. Today it's known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Robbery Fails: The Signed Note

Robbers often hand the bank teller a note. It's quiet and simple. Just don't write it on anything with your name on it.

In North Carolina, a man pulled up to a bank drive-thru and passed over a demand note.

The note was written on the back of a paycheck stub. His own paycheck stub.

He'd tried to scribble over his name. But police said it was still clearly readable.

The teller didn't hand over any money. Police ran the name, found he already had a warrant out, and arrested him after a short chase.

Rule number one of crime, apparently. Don't sign your work.

Robbery Fails: Mom, Can You Pick Me Up?

In Florida, a 22-year-old man walked into a convenience store and told the cashier he had a gun. He never showed one.

The cashier calmly opened the register and showed him. It was empty.

So he left with nothing. He walked to a nearby supermarket, and did the only thing he could think of.

He called his mom, and asked her for a ride home.

Police arrested him a week later. He told them he'd come up with the robbery idea while walking to the store.

Robbery Fails: The See-through Mask

Every robber knows the basics. Cover your face. One robber in Georgia had the right idea, and the wrong material.

In 2018, a man robbed a video game store with a clear plastic bag pulled over his head as a mask.

A see-through bag. His whole face was perfectly visible on the security cameras.

Police posted the video online and asked for help identifying him. They told people they could call in a tip once they stopped laughing.

Robbery Fails: The Worst Getaway Plan

Here's a getaway plan that's hard to beat. In 2019, a man robbed a bank in Riverside, Illinois.

The bank was directly across the street from the police station.

Witnesses called it in, officers walked straight out of their building, and police found him hiding in a backyard just six minutes after the search began.

Robbery Fails: The Deposit

In Delaware in 2021, a man walked into a bank and passed a note to the teller saying it was a robbery.

Then he walked outside, went straight to the bank's own ATM, and appears to have deposited the cash into his own account.

He robbed the bank, and then put the money right back in the same bank. With his name on the account.

He ran off behind the shopping center, and troopers caught him the same day.

Robbery Fails: The Wrong Tunnel

Digging a tunnel into a vault is a classic heist move. But you have to dig in the right direction.

In Australia in 2013, two men dug toward a jewelry store, hoping to break in from below.

They broke through the floor and popped up in the wrong building. A KFC next door.

They grabbed about two thousand seven hundred dollars from the restaurant, and police arrested them soon after.

And here's the best part. It was reportedly their third failed attempt on that same jewelry store.

Heist Fails: The Diamond Raid

Big heists that flopped. London, November 2000. The Millennium Dome is hosting a diamond exhibition, including the Millennium Star, a flawless diamond worth around two hundred million pounds.

A gang came up with a plan straight out of a movie. Smash through the wall with a construction digger, grab the diamonds, and escape across the River Thames by speedboat.

On the morning of the raid, they drove a big yellow digger straight through the fence and into the side of the Dome.

They ran in with smoke bombs and sledgehammers, and started smashing the glass.

What they didn't know was that police had been watching them for months. And about two hundred officers were waiting for them.

Police had even used the timing of the river tides to work out which day the gang would strike.

Officers were disguised as cleaners and staff. Some were hiding behind a fake wall.

And the diamonds in the case? Police had already swapped them for fakes.

The gang was arrested on the spot, including a man waiting in the speedboat on the river.

If it had worked, the haul would have been worth around three hundred and fifty million pounds. Instead, they got years in prison.

Heist Fails: The Giant Gold Coin

In 2017, thieves broke into the Bode Museum in Berlin and stole something huge. A gold coin called the Big Maple Leaf.

It wasn't pocket-sized. It weighed about a hundred kilograms, and was worth over four million dollars.

In the middle of the night, they climbed in through a window, smashed the case, and rolled the coin away using a skateboard and a wheelbarrow.

The whole thing took about sixteen minutes, and the alarm never went off.

One of them had even been hired as a security guard at the museum shortly before the theft.

But they left a trail. Security cameras caught one of them in a distinctive designer jacket. Police found tiny flakes of gold on their clothes. And one suspect had searched online for how to break down large pieces of gold.

Three of them were convicted. The coin, sadly, was never found. Police believe it was melted down.

Heist Fails: The Crown Jewels

Our oldest story goes all the way back to 1671, in London. A man named Thomas Blood had a bold idea. Steal the Crown Jewels.

He disguised himself as a church minister, and spent weeks befriending the elderly keeper of the jewels, even suggesting his son could marry the keeper's daughter.

Then one day, Blood and his gang overpowered the keeper and grabbed the treasures.

To sneak them out, they flattened the crown with a mallet, stuffed the royal orb down their trousers, and tried to saw the sceptre in half.

Then the keeper's son came home unexpectedly and raised the alarm. Blood was caught before he could get away.

Now here's the twist. King Charles the Second questioned Blood himself. And instead of punishing him, he pardoned him and gave him land in Ireland.

He tried to steal the Crown Jewels, and somehow got rewarded for it.

Heist Fails: The Fake Masterpiece

In 2019, thieves broke into a small church in the town of Castelnuovo Magra, in Italy, and stole a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Younger. It was worth around three million euros.

A perfect heist, right? Not quite.

Police had been tipped off about the plan. So weeks earlier, they had quietly swapped the real painting for a copy.

The thieves had stolen a worthless replica. The real one was safe the whole time, locked away somewhere secret.

Somewhere out there, a group of thieves is probably still trying to sell a fake.

And funnily enough, this wasn't the first time. The same painting had been stolen from the same church back in 1981, and recovered a few months later.

Heist Fails: The Thank You Note

Oslo, Norway, February 12, 1994. The whole country is watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics.

And that morning, two men lean a ladder against the National Gallery, climb through a window, and take one of the most famous paintings in the world. The Scream.

Then they left a note behind. It said something like, thanks for the poor security.

Pretty bold. But selling a famous stolen painting is a lot harder than taking it.

A detective from London's Scotland Yard went undercover, pretending to be a buyer from a big American museum, ready to pay a reward.

The thieves took the bait. Less than three months later, The Scream was found in a cellar at a summer house south of Oslo, and arrests followed.

Their note aged badly. Turns out, the security was just fine at catching them.

Heist Fails: The Password Spreadsheet

In 2016, hackers stole about a hundred and twenty thousand bitcoin from a crypto exchange called Bitfinex. At the time it was worth about seventy-two million dollars.

Then the price of bitcoin exploded. By 2022, the stolen coins were worth billions.

But here's the problem with stealing bitcoin. Every transaction is recorded on a public ledger. Investigators could follow the money.

And they found it. A New York couple, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, who also made rap videos online under the name Razzlekhan.

Agents got a warrant for one of their cloud storage accounts. And inside, they found a file listing the wallet addresses and the passwords to unlock them.

The government seized coins worth about three point six billion dollars, at the time the biggest financial seizure in the history of the Justice Department.

Lichtenstein admitted to the hack and got five years in prison. Morgan got eighteen months. All because the keys to a fortune were sitting in a spreadsheet.

Caught by Their Phones: The Facebook Burglar

Criminals caught by their own phones. West Virginia, 2009. A 19-year-old breaks into a house and steals two diamond rings.

But in the middle of the break-in, he notices the family's computer. And he just has to check his Facebook.

He even posted a status update. Something along the lines of, oh my god, breaking into someone's house.

Then he left, and forgot to log out.

When the homeowner got back, his profile was right there on her screen. She even noticed they had a friend in common. Police tracked him down soon after.

Caught by Their Phones: How About Me?

Police departments often post Most Wanted lists on Facebook. In 2022, a sheriff's office in Georgia posted theirs.

One man, who was wanted, was apparently upset he hadn't made the list. So he commented. How about me?

The sheriff's office replied. You're correct, you have two warrants. We're on the way.

And they were. Within days, he was in handcuffs, and the department posted the photo, thanking everyone for their help.

Caught by Their Phones: The Better Photo

In 2015, police in Lima, Ohio posted a wanted notice with a man's mugshot.

The wanted man didn't like it. So he sent the police a selfie, with a message saying, here is a better photo, that one is terrible.

The photo went viral, and helped spread his face even further.

A few weeks later, after a tip, he was arrested in Florida. Presumably looking his best.

Caught by Their Phones: Lost and Found

In California in 2019, a man broke into a restaurant. In the chaos, he dropped his cell phone and left it behind.

Police found the phone, and the surveillance video, and figured out who he was.

And then the burglar did something incredible. He went to the police station to ask for his phone back.

He got his phone back. Well, sort of. Officers arrested him right there in the lobby.

Too Comfortable: The Sleepy Burglar

The ones who got way too comfortable, or completely stuck. Florida, 2014. A man breaks into a house and gathers up a bag of jewelry.

Then he spots the bed. And decides to lie down for a minute.

He fell fast asleep.

A cleaner arrived, found a stranger asleep in the bed, and called the sheriff's office.

When deputies arrived, he was still asleep, with the bag of stolen jewelry right next to him. They took his photo before waking him up.

Too Comfortable: The Burglar Who Did Chores

Most burglars take things. One burglar in Wales seemed to want to help out.

In 2023, while the owners were away, a man broke into their home and did the laundry, hung it out to dry, put away groceries, filled the bird feeders, and even replaced the toothbrush heads.

He also helped himself to their wine.

When he came back a second time, he took a shower and left the hot tub dirty. But this time, the homeowner was watching on his security cameras.

He was arrested, and his DNA tied him to the first visit as well. He was sentenced to twenty-two months in prison. The world's worst house-sitter.

Too Comfortable: The Returns Desk

In Pennsylvania, two people stole some tools from a man's home. A toolbox, and a few tools.

Then they tried to sell those tools. To make some quick money, they went to a service center and offered them to a worker there.

The worker they picked was the owner of the tools.

He thought the toolbox looked familiar, went home, found he'd been robbed, and called the police. Both were arrested soon after.

Out of everyone in the whole state, they tried to sell the tools back to the one man guaranteed to recognize them.

Too Comfortable: Stuck in the Chimney

In suburban Atlanta, a 17-year-old decided the best way into a house was the same way Santa does it. Down the chimney.

It was not the best way.

He got stuck around three in the morning, and stayed stuck for about ten hours.

In the afternoon, a neighbor heard him calling for help. Firefighters climbed onto the roof and pulled him out with ropes.

He wasn't hurt. But he was charged with burglary, and with giving police a fake name.

Too Comfortable: The Tire Trap

In 2020, a man broke into a closed tire shop in Bartow County, Georgia. Then a whole rack of tires fell on top of him.

Nobody was around, so he did the only thing he could. He called 911 on himself, and told the dispatcher he thought he was going to die.

An officer heard him yelling, got inside, and pulled the tires off him. He wasn't hurt.

Then the officer arrested him, for criminal trespass.

Too Comfortable: Locked In

In Trondheim, Norway, a 17-year-old snuck into a car dealership and climbed into a car he planned to steal.

Then the doors locked. With him inside.

Stuck, he called the police, and told them he was trapped inside the car.

Officers came, got him out, and took him straight into custody. He basically arrested himself.

Too Comfortable: The Free Football Tickets

And we've saved the biggest for last. Because this time, the police set the trap.

In 1985, around three thousand wanted people in the Washington D.C. area got an exciting letter.

A company called Flagship International Sports Television was offering them two free tickets to a Washington football game against the Cincinnati Bengals, plus a free brunch.

The company wasn't real. It was the U.S. Marshals.

The party was at the Washington Convention Center. Officers dressed up as ushers, caterers and cheerleaders. One even wore a giant chicken mascot costume.

Guests were called up in small groups to collect their prize, and once they got to the back room, they were arrested.

In one day, a hundred and one fugitives were caught. And it cost a fraction of what a normal arrest usually costs.

Out of about three thousand invitations, a hundred and sixty-seven people replied. The whole operation cost about twenty-two thousand dollars, around two hundred dollars per arrest.

All because they couldn't resist free tickets.

The Short Version

So what did we learn today?

Lemon juice does not make you invisible. Neither does a clear plastic bag. Paycheck stubs have names on them. And your mom will not drive your getaway car.

Check where your tunnel goes. Don't rob the bank across from the police station. Don't trust a building full of cleaners. Don't keep your passwords in a spreadsheet. And never, ever check Facebook during a burglary.

And if the police ever send you free football tickets? Maybe think twice.

Which criminal do you think was the dumbest?