347 Items Tagged

Crime and Punishment

Site of the First Train Robbery in the West

Lured here by the promise of tens of thousands in gold, Jesse James started a quintessentially American trend of robbing trains in-motion.

Restoration of Historic Italian Palace Interrupted by Mob Arrests

The Camorra gets into the preservation racket.

Erik Shilling May 5, 2016

An illustration from one of Rose Mackenburg's articles for the <em>Winnipeg Tribune.</em>

The Female Ghost Buster Who Rooted Out Spiritual Fraud for Houdini

How Rose Mackenberg took on phantoms and fakes.

Tony Wolf May 5, 2016

Village Mayor Arrested for Stealing 111 Road Signs

It's a curious case.

Erik Shilling April 27, 2016

The Rise of Pirate Libraries

Shadowy digital libraries want to hold all the world's knowledge and give it away for free.

Sarah Laskow April 21, 2016

The birdlegger cops to his cargo.

Smuggler Caught With 11 Songbirds In His Pants

The aspiring birdlegger was trying to sneak his captives into Taiwan.

Cara Giaimo April 18, 2016

Where the Missing Millions Went After Britain's Biggest Gold Heist

Newly leaked documents reveal a complex money-laundering scheme.

Erik Shilling April 4, 2016

The Story Behind the Bulletproof Photo Craze

Men shot each other all the time, it seems, for publicity photos in the 1920s.

David Goldenberg March 31, 2016

Teens making off with the innocent UFO.

Watch a UFO Get Abducted by a Local Teen

The Roswell, New Mexico landmark was found smashed to pieces in a ditch last Wednesday.

Cara Giaimo March 29, 2016

Found: 68,000 Smuggled Python Skins

They are worth around $48 million.

Sarah Laskow March 28, 2016

An egg, cracked... just like this case (maybe).

crime and punishment

Police Might Have Solved Baffling Case of Phenomenally Accurate Egger

It took months of stakeouts, surveillance, and eggshell forensics.

Cara Giaimo March 24, 2016

Marm Mandelbaum, the Queen of Fences, ran her own school for criminals.

New York's First Female Crime Boss Started Her Own Crime School

Marm Mandelbaum, the Queen of Fences, turned street rats into professional criminals.

Eric Grundhauser March 23, 2016

The Strange Tale of Echo, the Parrot Who Saw Too Much

A mobster's pet is said to be in hiding. Could the bird be a witness in court?

Laurel Braitman March 22, 2016

Private Eyes Tell Us About Digging Through People's Trash

It turns out this technique isn't just good in movies—it works in real life, too.

Dan Nosowitz March 18, 2016

crime and punishment

The Rise of Police Tape, And Why We Ignore Warning Signs

From cigarette packaging to wet-floor cautions, warnings have become pervasive.

Ernie Smith March 14, 2016

crime and punishment

Harvard, IKEA, and the Battle For Romania's Forests

Bribery, toxic assets, and thousands of acres of timberland.

Erik Shilling March 2, 2016

The Modern Manhunt Began With An Arrest by Wireless Telegraph

Morse code messages and bowler hat cameras were the Twitter and cellphones of the Edwardian police chase.

Ella Morton March 2, 2016

crime and punishment

The Criminal Origins of a Better Erection

In the 1920s, a prison doctor did some very bad things

Jessica Pishko February 26, 2016