I don't want anybody to incriminate themselves, but is there really a way to be a career criminal without being in a well organized "gang" ? I've been racking my brain about ways to make money (illegally) for "research purposes" and it seems it is rather difficult to do it alone (or say with one more person). The reason I think it is better to be alone is that your accomplices can't then fold on you at some later point. But most people have at least one friend/partner they could really trust, so lets say you have 2 people to work with?

Finding low risk activities which pay well is rather difficult, so I find it hard to believe any well off people could be career criminals in the above scenario. If you wanted to be a criminal would it be better to join some well organized group and go with all the risks associated with that? Or is a standard job the best choice to make money in most peoples opinions, with a few side crimes here and there?

Work alone, steal stuff, get stuff through the customs, but stay out of violent crimes. Being a corporate criminal is your best bet :D

You will need to go to an organisation, someone has got to pay for your stolen cars, drugs or weapons.

You can also open a junkyard and buy/sell stolen car parts, and use this as an excuse to have huge containers on transatlantic ships :D

Watch Scarface and remember not to get high on your own merchandise.

First of all, start small.

There is no point doing a big heist if you get guild ridden of liberating a bar of chocolate from your big chain supermarket.

Read the RTPB as well as the 48 Laws of Power. Personally, while it is nice to believe in fanciful notions of friendship and such, you shouldn't have a partner. If you do, it needs to be more than friendship e.g. you're holding something over him/her that would put him/her away for a long time. Leverage and all that.

Never get your woman involved. Never. Its just easier that way. If you need to explain where you are going at 11pm at night, have an agreement that "I'm working" or "going to a mates" is all the answer she needs. You bring home some money and she has plausible deny-ability.

You will need to know the right people. While it would be easier to be in an organization as Frunk suggests, remember you are on a payroll then. Other people know about you. You are then just an expendable piece of meat. Either make yourself necessary, or be on the watch to getting fucked over all the time.

Personally, I would work alone, but you do need to know the right people. People that take whatever illicit substances are your first port of call. Organize to meet their dealer. Either become friends with him or buy shit off him (if you're into that). If he deals a lot of things, he will eventually go to a buy where he needs a "standoff". A "standoff" is a person that basically is there for presence. He makes sure that his dealer doesn't get fucked over by the other one. The other dealer may, or may not have a standoff depending on how much is going.

5 grams of meth might have 1 unarmed standoff in your party. 50kg of meth will have easily 10 standoffs on either side, armed with whatever you can imagine and wearing body armor. Depending how much your dealer makes off the deal, you might get a fair bit of money.

After that, branch out into collection e.g. you are the person that goes and visits other people and makes them aware that they owe your dealer money. If you've got the heart for it, you can always do follow up collections where if the person hasn't paid up by the agreed time, you go break something for him.

God knows where it goes after that. It is dangerous, and you might be safer (maybe) learning chemistry and just brewing various things up. That is where the money is at. Make sure NOONE knows where you live. If you can, don't live anywhere.

OK, I admit, I have always wondered what it would be like to be Tony Montana :D :D . Probably it would be funny for a while, but I can see how people could quickly become caught up in that way of living and end up killing themselves (not literally) But through their so called dirty deals, off shore bank accounts and villas in Italy. you get greedy to the point you can't stop.

The most important would be to have finesse and tell when something is going sidways. Start by watching the movie Swordfish with John Travolta :) (gooooood movie). I am curious as too how much of all this "organised crime" is actually real. If you were to throw yourself into this world, hell, you better be fully ready. Eyes in the back of your head, skills of assassination and so on. What you see in the movies isn't reality, and you have to realize, that if you get shot, you dont get up again.

One of the easiest ways to generate income, legally for research is to form a non-profit organization and milk the funds dry, look at Red Cross, Unicef, Salvation army, etc. Other organizations are religious based, the overhead/compensation consumes most of the funds, you just need a good spin doctor or public relations outfit to keep up the social appearance.

Work alone, steal stuff, get stuff through the customs, but stay out of violent crimes. Being a corporate criminal is your best bet :D

You will need to go to an organisation, someone has got to pay for your stolen cars, drugs or weapons.

You can also open a junkyard and buy/sell stolen car parts, and use this as an excuse to have huge containers on transatlantic ships :D

Hmm.. what about befriending a guy who runs a junkyard... do most of them deal in "hot" items? Or should I just ask around and suss it out.... without looking like a crim in case they are undercover or something. :D

Violent crimes are some of the easiest though. Like mugging people at ATMs.. thats about $800-$1000 each pop there if you choose your target. Car jacking and then getting them to run to an ATM - thats a car + cash. An armored vehicle could probably be done by 2-3 people if you really plan it (like ambush them when they are filling an ATM).

Robberies of stores and stuff like that.. not sure if that's worth it at all... too risky due to cameras and hours they operate. Banks.. well .. maybe some country banks might be suitable.. but most would be very risky. I like options where you have a 90-95% chance of success, not like 10%. There is also the amount of times you do something vs one big heist. eg Do you mug 100 people at ATMs for 100K or one armorguard.

Two words, Identity Theft.

All the rewards almost none of the risks. That being said I really would like to cut off the balls of some of them, so I guess there is the risk that you accidently steal my identity, I find you and you are missing testicles. Every job has its risks I guess :D.

Hmm.. what about befriending a guy who runs a junkyard... do most of them deal in "hot" items? Or should I just ask around and suss it out.... without looking like a crim in case they are undercover or something. :D

Violent crimes are some of the easiest though. Like mugging people at ATMs.. thats about $800-$1000 each pop there if you choose your target. Car jacking and then getting them to run to an ATM - thats a car + cash. An armored vehicle could probably be done by 2-3 people if you really plan it (like ambush them when they are filling an ATM).


Yes, junkyards often take hot items. The owners are always shady sob's who don't care about buying sewer grates.


Violent crimes are BAD! You can get 10 years for beating someone and stealing 50$ but almost nothing for stealing two millions through financial fraud.

It is still very hard to live off of crime. Also, remember the laws of supply and demand. If nobody sells X in your neighboorhod, sell it.

A little victimless white collar crime is ok, but if you take to mugging people, etc, then IMO you are human scum and get what's coming to you if you're shot :) . Just a thought.

The most important thing, of course: trust nobody. People can get an lot less loyal when they're facing time in prison.

If you want to be a career criminal, get elected. :D

Seriously, the best crimes are financial ones, but the usually requires you to be an insider in a position of trust...manager/CFO/accoutant/etc, of a bank/S&L/trading company.

That, in turn, will require you to have a business degree, which means college, which means a lot of money to start with.

That, in turn, will require you to have a business degree, which means college, which means a lot of money to start with.

The most prestigious University here (McGill) costs 3 000 $ a year tops. Most other okay colleges can go from 300$ to 500$ a session, and there are two sessions per year.

This is called socialism. Welcome to Canada! :D Health care is free too and you can steal 42 millions from private investors, hide it in the Bahamas and get away with it, like this guy from Norbourg http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/ressources/images/normales/l/la/051014lacroix-norbourg_n.jpg
Thus, any professional criminal should start with this simple step:

MOVE TO CANADA!

Back on topic, I think this forum would call this the most obvious way to make money from crime.
1. Get an education in chemistry or chemical engineering and then use the Internet and this forum to get the info they didn't teach you.

2. Get 1000$ and make/buy everything you need to start a semi-pro drug/explosive business on the side from your regular job. There's a demand for this stuff, it's just obvious. A chemical engineer can make much better drugs than a drug friend with a ghetto rig. Sell your to the local street gangs who, unlike the Mafia, can't get their hands on explosives and high quality synthed drugs normally, and even less at wholesale price.This is if you have no qualms about getting people killed with your own bombs. Remember to go wholesale and don't sell your own stuff on the street. Leave that to the gang punks.

3.Since you will be so deep in shit already, you might as well fill your basement with some illegal/legal drug-producing plants. Use your imagination and start something like a (legal)salvia or (illegal)Cannabis active element extraction plant. The street is already filled with all kinds of crap, make your crap HIGH QUALITY. Make hash so pure it will bubble away. Make perfect solutions of salvinorin-A or press it into pills and sell that as a party drug while it's still legal.

Conclusion: Whatever you choose to do in life and in crime, do it RIGHT! If some punks can rob money and make drugs, you can do it better if you aren't an half-brained dumbass. It's a damn good thing for the authorities most intelligent people only THINK about commiting crimes, because if we actually did they would be fucked.

By the way,
*Of course, this is all hypothetical, I don't want to pressure you to break the law or do anything illegal.*

I don't like the idea of stealing $1000 from a person at gunpoint a hundred times. This is crime like the blingbling niggers do. You demean yourself to their level, and deserve to die if you do it. There is better crime than ape crime.

The answer is drugs and computer crime. Physical violent crimes have extremely high risk and relatively low reward. Being a middle-man between two drug dealers is probably the best thing you can possibly do. Buy low and sell high...you can pick up pills of X in Europe for under $2/pill and sell them back in the states for $10/pill - all you have to do is get it across the border.

Do what I did become a bail bondsman there�s good money in it if you know what you are doing. In 2 years you can open up your own business and let me tell you there is a lot of money to be made but its risky.

If you right a $500,000.00 bond and the guy runs and you cant catch him your out $500,000.00 dollars just some thing to think about.

++++++++++

You write a check for the right amount.

You're also missing some ' marks there. ;) NBK

The best crime is production of "needed" materials. Build bombs, guns, and make drugs. But do it in very stable clean environments so that no evidence is linked to you. If you have a competetor plant evidence on one of the devices to point to him. Kinda like on bourne supremacy how the one bomb doesnt go off but it has someone elses fingerprint. Sneaky guy. A lot, and I mean a lot, can be made by the manufacturing of those three crime essentials.

sirthomasthegreat posted:

The best crime is production of "needed" materials. Build bombs, guns, and make drugs.


Hehehe, being a retired LEO I can tell you if you make Bombs, Drugs or sell Guns you'll be known by the local LEOs within 6 months. Two reasons:

1. 90% of the people you do business with won't keep their mouths shut in the normal course of their "street business". And 99% will give up your name if they get in a jam and they think it will get them any kind of a deal.

2. Too make money you need repeat business and an expanding business as this isn't a "one time deal" and the more you do and the more people you do it with increases the chance someone lets your name slip one way or the other.

How the hell do you think LEO's make 90% of our cases ... Someone TALKS! I don't give a damn if they only know your "street name" because once I have it, I now have something to work with, to investigate, to ask questions about. Damn people, being an LEO means I KNOW the same people YOU know and some of those people are my CI's (confidential informants).

It may take me several months of asking questions and sifting out the street talk to put a "real" name to YOU. THAT'S my JOB, I get PAID to do that, I have all the time in the world to find you once I know YOU exist. No matter what you do YOU leave a trail of some kind. The more people YOU do business with the bigger the trail gets. The more drugs YOU sell the bigger the trail gets. The more bombs or explosives YOU sell the bigger the trail gets. The more guns YOU sell the bigger the trail gets. Get big enough and the DEA or BATFE gets into the act.

Every time I hear something new it goes into a Note Book and I go through 5 or 6 Note Books a month at least. When I get enough info on one subject I start a file, it might only have your street name, or a description of the vehicle you drive and the "new" product you put on the street. Maybe one paragraph on a sheet of computer printout. Over the months I'll get more info on YOU, where YOU do business, who YOU did business with, how often YOU do business and how much quantity YOU do. Much of it will be street gossip, some BS, some not.

Now I have a case to work, and YOUR it. Now I'm actively looking for YOU, every time someone gets busted I'm asking them about YOU. One in five will give me something I didn't know about YOU. I'm out on the street asking my contacts about YOU, I'm handing out $10 here and $20 there just for a piece of info they will now be listening for. Now I'm not just looking for YOU but 3 or 4 people are looking for YOU. In general within 90 days I'll know who YOU are and where YOU are. Once I have that it's only a matter of time before I have a warrant for YOU. Then the fun begins and all this time I'm getting PAID to find YOU.

Don't be an Idiot, Street Crime only gets YOU into jail or dead. White collar crime pays the bills and most of the time I won't even know YOU exist.

If it's big enough for two, it's too big to do!

Well I can tell you that the most I have sold was oregano to this kid and made him think it was marajuana. I do not do this, I was meerly suggesting it. Also since you are retired how are you going to make a file on me, or was that for emphasis. And lastly, what if you were meerly to "point" people in the right direction, would that be illegal?

I have to agree with Trever here...

Just don't.

Today, there's no reason to resort to crime to make money. It just doesn't pay as much a getting a damn job, unless you're Scarface. Making 50k$ a year from selling drugs 200$ an ounce takes a lot of drugs. You can also become a professional welder and make 50k$ a year with no risk at all.

My point is just this:

If you HAVE to, just do it better than anybody else.

Being a career criminal is easy. Hell, the prisons are full of career criminals.

The problem is that career means doing it as a living, and anything you do as a living has it's inevitable toll to be paid.

It's better to be a skilled amateur. :)

Take your time, plan your job, properly invest, practice practice practice, and do it only ONCE.

Anything that requires you to deal with others, for help or as suppliers/customers, sets you up for a bust.

Used cash or precious metals are the only things you want to take. Anything else requires dealing with a fence, and they'll rat you out in a heartbeat to save their own ass.

Drugs are even worse, as you're dealing with skanky dope fiends on one end, and suppliers who are targets for fedgov agents. Now you can get fucked from either end.

Remember the RTPB's.

Like the guy at the top said, dont get high off your own supply, and dont be greedy. Watch the film LayerCake and you'll see what I mean.

I lived in a bad area up until I was 20, and my family has a name for itself in 1 of the UKs biggest citys, and they always taught me 'if I want to sleep well, surround myself with family'. Thats the best advice I've had so far. I have a best friend who is practically family, I tell him what I tell no one else, and he's never let me down, and it goes both ways. We have grown up together since the age of 10months, and have spoke to each other every day since. True friendship is hard to get, but once you have it, its not going anywhere.

Drugs are a poor trade, everybody and their nympho are doing it, and its a dirty trade that can leave too many trails that can come back and bite you in the ass.

Street crime is just as bad. Where Im from we had knives, guns, gas pulled or used on us but that never stopped me. Its all about the fight in the dog, not the dog in the fight. You could jump a little weedy looking midget and end up getting served.

As NBK says above me
Take your time, plan your job, properly invest, practice practice practice, and do it only ONCE.

this is something that will help you, listen to the man. And never, ever take risks if you are unsure of the consequences should it fail. I, myself wont take risks, I plan, plan again and strike. Measure twice, cut once!

Just take your time, think about what your doing, be confident and tell nobody but your partner whats happening.

I'll leave it to TreverSlyFox to tell you why that was so stupid as to be deserving of a ban, though I'll let you stay (this time) so you can explain the logic behind your obviously first-hand knowledge on the subject. :p

I suggest Harry Houdini's "The Right Way To Do Wrong" it was written in 1906 but the concept still aplies. You can download it from google books here:
http://books.google.com/books/pdf/The_Right_Way_to_Do_Wrong.pdf?id=j5_XHZImTqcC&output=pdf&sig=3MSdjSVPNMChc7sW2GbPRF0iam8

hope it helps

Being resourceful in the area I live in, I have made some spare money selling scrap metal. I do this by looking out behind auto repair shops and in dumpsters for metal to sell.

The obvious that everyone hears about is people stealing copper wire or steel from construction sites and selling it to a scrap yard. You can make some spare cash by selling scrap from the trash but nothing that would make you rich. I recently dreamed about a less risky way than stealing from construction sites and more profitable than the trash.

In the United States before 1982 and in Canada before 1997 pennies were nearly pure copper. After those dates they changed the composition to contain mostly zinc and only small amounts of copper.

Out of $25 USD in pennies i got about $8 worth of copper pennies. I would assume the rate would be much higher in canada since they were copper up until 1997. Copper at my local scrap yard sells for $2.20/lb while it takes 158 pennies to equal a pound. This could be a substantial profit if done on a large scale. This would be very difficult to trace and would have a low risk of getting caught.

However, copper isnt the easiest thing to melt having nearly 3 times the melting point of zinc and wants to oxidize when melted. It is illegal to sell currency in its current form, but melted down to ingots shouldn't be a problem. I don't think finding an easy way to melt down copper without oxidizing should be too hard for people on this site.:D

syfilius,

From what little contact I've had with "real" contract killers there seems to be two types. The plain old Psycho that happens to "fall" into the trade like several of the Mafia "hit men". And then there is the "Trained" killer that are former Military Spec Ops that worked for the CIA before going "freelance". Of the two types the former Spec Ops type seem to be a lot more successful. In general they made a lot more kills and a lot more money before they were caught.

If you think the Hit Man series of Video games or the Movies that Hollywood puts out has anything to do with real contract killing your in for a big surprise. Even if you went and spent the years getting the training how do you plan to get your first few jobs? It's not like you can open an office and put your ad in the Yellow Pages. Without a reputation who is going to call you or even know you?

Without the right contacts your just another kid on the street with fantasy ideas. There's only two places you can really start, either Organized Crime or Military Spec Ops with a bit of work for the CIA. Anything else and you'll probably get busted in some "Sting" operation on the streets.

Going through that type of training to become a "hitman" isn't worth it. However, the want to serve your country and better yourself are worth the effort. Actually, becoming a "hitman" comes more as an after thought when you get done with the training. Plus you're so fed up with that type of bullshit anyway you don't even have the urge to kill people, but just live a normal life. I love being a civilian again ;)

And the only movies to watch for close to realistic quality are Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down, and other movies of that type. And they're full of pain and agony, just like what happens in real life. Killing people is not what movies make it out to be, its a very depressing and sad enterprise, (believe me, I know) especially if the person you're killing is unarmed. So think about taking someones life before making the decision to become a career criminal.

I'd have to say that a bank would have to be the way to go. There are three main parts to a bank robbery: disguise, exit, and follow through.

Disguise is keeping your actual physical features from being known. This includes tinted contacts, growing a beard beforehand and shaving immediately afterwards, getting your hair dyed or bleached beforehand, using bulky clothing to disguise your weight, and using thick-soled boots to disguise your height. Speak as little as possible, make your demand with a note. Once there is any chance that an alarm could have been pressed, you should give yourself no more than three minutes before you leave.

Exit includes the procedures for taking the money. The most common thief-tracing mechanisms are sequential bills and dye packs. Dealing with sequential bills is part of follow-through. Dye packs, on the other hand, need to be dealt with before leaving. The best way is to provide the teller with several Zip-Loc bags to place the cash in. It's much harder to slip in a dye pack, and even if they do, most of the money will be protected. Another way is to realize exactly how dye packs work. They are kept stored on a magnetic plate. Removing them from that plate arms them for detonation. Detonation is triggered by a radio transmission from an emitter at the entrance to the bank. This can be foiled by using a solid money-transport, such as a briefcase, that you have lined with magnets. Alternately, you could create a Faraday cage in the lining of the briefcase. If you want my advice, go for the plastic bags.

Follow through is where many bank robbers stop being careful. The getaway vehicle should be disguised to prevent easy recognition. The most simple way of doing this is by using different license plates. You should be able to pick up a set of old, unregistered plates at a local flea market or yard sale. These plates only go on the car for the robbery, and should never be used again. After you have made a clean escape, check the bills for sequential numbers, distinctive markings, and other potential evidence that this was stolen money. Should you have received 'tainted' money, all is not lost. The easiest way to turn it into 'real' money is with a normal person. Ask someone if they have change for a $20. Reimburse people for things. Let your buddy borrow 50 bucks. The next level is just about any place that's open 24 hours. Head in on the graveyard shift, that is more often filled with the sort of people that management is trying to keep away from as many of their customers as possible. The next level is any place with an overworked cashier. Haste makes for poor work, after all.

If you want legitimate money, the easiest, though most lossy way is to buy a bunch of scratch off lottery tickets. The odds are good enough that you'll keep a fair amount of the money, and they can be cashed in at any gas station in the state, usually.

If you want to be a career criminal, get elected. :D

Seriously, the best crimes are financial ones, but the usually requires you to be an insider in a position of trust...manager/CFO/accountant/etc, of a bank/S&L/trading company.

That, in turn, will require you to have a business degree, which means college, which means a lot of money to start with.

I couldn't agree more with the elected officials bit. They get put in a position of power & subsequently milk the system dry to fill their own pockets. :Lucky B's:

Check this schmuck MP out (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6673989.stm) who bought a quad bike for just under $7000, then claimed it back from the taxpayer as expenses. When he was found out, he tried to get a bill in that would prevent all their expenses & claims from being made public.

I've always wondered this though, say you managed to get card/bank details, although you don't actually have the physical card in your possession. How exactly would you go about getting the money from it? The only real feasible way to me is buying things online then getting them delivered to an alternate address. They arrive, then you sell the goods for cash! I can see a few problems with this, such as constantly needing to find new addresses. While people won't be willing to pay top price for the goods. Haggling to get them at half price or less. Is there any other simple ways that I'm blindly overlooking in which you could maximize the funds with less hassle & risk?

I do industrial intelligence collection (HUMINT specialist) and everything I have EVER done for my clients is 100% within the letter of the law. Seriously, I know the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 like the back of my hand. Why break the law when you can make more money off a spotlessly clean record? Think about it. Chump change is still chump change, illegitimately earned or not.

For example, as a licensed, bonded, armed private investigator I can A) have legal access to a whole panoply of law enforcement databases forbidden to the general public and B) own a gun permit which allows concealed carry above and beyond ordinary concealed carry (i.e. on federal property, in bars, etc.) Now I ask you: why fuck all that up over some two-bit criminal scheme? I'm no more an obedient sheep than you are, but have a finely tuned appreciation of the nuances of risk vs. reward.

There's one small thing a lot of you seem to be forgetting: I can assure you you sure as FUCK better make sure you don't try to make a victim out of the wrong person. Let's just say it's very, very dangerous to assume everybody is going to sit back and take it like a sucker.

I hate to break this to you Syph, but 50k is pure Hollywood BS. In many places, the street value of a human life is shockingly, nauseatingly low. If you want to kill people and make money at it, do a tour in the armed services, retire, and become an international mercenary/soldier of fortune.

NBK: community and state colleges aren't too expensive: if you take CLEP tests, you can test out of up to two years of basic classes for next to nothing i.e. the price of the exam. (I studied on my own and really maxed that shit out.) Everybody can get hardship financial aid...I never paid a cent. Also, my work paid for 3 full years' worth of a doctorate, stipend included. A highly-intelligent guy like you could have a handful of degrees if you wanted them.

I suggest that you hack a hosting service and then with the help of a browser exploit (tons for IE) automatically download a rootkit (preferably one that utilizes the kernel instead of the windows API to circumnavigate detection and communication channels.) Then with luck you can get a couple thousand computers. A computer can be sold for 0.10 or even more, it just depends where you are selling. This of course is purely theoretical and should not be followed. This post was posted for informative reasons only.

I've always wondered this though, say you managed to get card/bank details, although you don't actually have the physical card in your possession. How exactly would you go about getting the money from it? The only real feasible way to me is buying things online then getting them delivered to an alternate address. They arrive, then you sell the goods for cash! I can see a few problems with this, such as constantly needing to find new addresses. While people won't be willing to pay top price for the goods. Haggling to get them at half price or less. Is there any other simple ways that I'm blindly overlooking in which you could maximize the funds with less hassle & risk?

Well, if the card is an American Express, you can pull probably up to $1000 cash from it with nothing more than the name and card type (platinum, student, etc.), the manner involved keeps you from being able to do it again, though. You call their customer service line, and you tell them that your out of town for vacation or some conference or something, and your wallet got stolen. You give them the name, and then you ask them to have some money ready for pickup at a local Western Union location, and then cancel the card and send a new one. Best way is to start with a high number, then ask if you'll be able to pick up that much without an ID, because your ID was in the stolen wallet. Take a cab to the WU they send you to (remember not to have a wallet with you) and simply pick it up. The card will now be flagged in the AmEx system, if you try anything with that card number again, expect the police to be waiting for you. There's pretty much no way that you can get caught doing this, and if you're going to be caught, it'll be during the phone conversation part, when there's no way for them to arrest you.

If the rightful owner tries to use the card while your waiting for the cab, and they are quick enough, they can arrest you both and let the courts sort things out later. This will, of course, go badly for you.

If you do buy swag with the cards, selling the merchandise even for 50% of its retail value is still infinite profit on your end. Occasionally we get people selling "cheap" steaks freshly shoplifted from wherever. It's a scrub move, getting a few bucks from going door to door selling fresh meat since you could earn the same making an honest living.

My theory is only steal what you really need or can't do without. Eeking out an existence doing this low level stuff is bound to get you in the clink sooner rather than later. If you are worried about selling delivered merchandise for a loss on the streets, then save your newly purchased swag for after Christmas: they often don't require a receipt at this time (say it was a gift) and you can get full price + tax - a small restocking fee for some retailers. Naturally a retailer will only accept in returns what they sell, so plan ahead and order something that can be returned, or better still, order from the retailer (someplace common like Best Buy, Sears, Wal Mart).

Technically, maybe. But remember, you told the American Express people that the card had been stolen, and should be cancelled. It is not possible for them to move quickly to help the person who is actually holding the card, and the majority of the suspicion will be placed away from you. After all, a thief doesn't call a card in as stolen, request that it be cancelled, and a new one sent to the address they have on record, and oh, incidentally, he'll need a little bit of money while he's on vacation/away on work/whatever. I'd put odds of actually getting caught on this below 1%.

One thing about the dodgy deals you get offered, you generally don't get the adapters and leads required for the small electronic items. Since these generally set you back nearly as much as a new device, there is sod all reason to buy a knocked off one, since it is secondhand, you are taking a risk, and it might well work out to be more in the short term.

Push them down to no more than 20% of the RRP. Any more than that and you are wasting your money, since you could probably wait for a sale and get it brand new for half the RRP. Plus you know it works!

The best thing to do? Get them to go and steal your wanted item for you, and offer them 25% of the RRP. That way, they take all the risk, and you get the item you want, new.

Well it's that time of year again when I drop in to visit a while before I once again disappear into the dead of night.

I was going to start with a positive post to anther thread, but I can't help but ranting about this one.

Now I realize even NBK seems to be having some fun with this.. but since when do we ever consider ourselves criminals (or even find the idea amusing)??? This forum is/was known for the professionallism of discussing E&W... but now one of the most popular current threads is about "being a career criminal???

Ah well.. guess that's just my thoughts.. off to post something a little more useful.

I found it most amusing simply because most of the posts in this thread are likely from high school students living with their parents talking about how they'd do all these hardcore crimes and make it big. Unfortunately for their testosterone fueled adolescent fantasies, they don't know what the hell they are talking about. If they did, they wouldn't be posting here. :)

However, the few posters who DO know what they are talking about saved the thread, and I found those posts to be very useful and informative to me. While it does fall somewhat outside of RS's original subject matter it has expanded so much in the long time it's been on the net that to me, this thread seems to have it's place.

As a reminder:

Anyone who makes energetic materials, or devices that use them, is committing a felony, unless they are servants of the State, or licensed thereby.

Therefore, make AP, and you're an automatic felon, whether or not you've ever been caught doing so.

Make AP repeatedly over the course of years, and you're a career criminal. :)

Maybe... but there is a rule that says every suspect is "innocent until proven guilty". And I intend to not be proved guilty ;)

I have read a good book lately, regarding the subject of this thread.(By good I mean: 8 on a scale from 1-10). It details criminal organizations and their characteristic (illegal) activities. From the Russian Mafiya to the Cali cartel. Ofcourse the title of the book says it all.

(Every career criminal need a successful enterprise)

Here's the link:

Transnational Criminal Organizations, Cybercrime, and Money Laundering
James R. Richards

http://rapidshare.de/files/23612711/JRRichards.rar.html

EDIT: Almost forgot. The subtitle of the book says: handbook for law enforcement officials, auditors and financial investigators. So the book mainly focuses on the money laundering scheme of the criminal organizations (financial/non, wire transfer, etc) mentioned above with the purpose of educating the "next generation" of investigators.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/

A website ran by CourtTV.com, it has countless pages on every type of crime and criminal imaginable. :)

There it is, the ultimate career criminal, the "largest street gang in America," the police. It's a career, most are criminals. The intoxicating power of a badge and a gun can tempt the most honorable of men. Roughing up a suspect, entering a home without a warrant because you think you "heard someone in distress," or planting evidence on someone you just know is guilty, but can't prove are also heinous felonies every cop commits. It's easy to break the law when you're the guy upholding it.

The answer is drugs and computer crime. Physical violent crimes have extremely high risk and relatively low reward.

Agreed, especially with the computer part, probably the least risky one if you know what you're doing.

As for tracking, nowadays people can pretty easily use someone else's WLAN to access the vast internets.

As for tracking, nowadays people can pretty easily use someone else's WLAN to access the vast internets.

Yes, that, or one can learn to uncap their cable modem. I have researched into it before (surfboardhacker.net, I do not mean to advertise), and all you need to pirate internet is an open hub to your house, aka a service from the same company as you would get internet from, such as cable tv, etc. One would then obtain a modified cable modem (legal to own, illegal to use), change configuration files, change your DNS, and that easily you have the bandwidth of your entire subdivision to your computer.

If enough people complain however (if you are very blatant of your use with it, such as 24/7 leeching, bittorrent, etc), they will try to find you, by measuring your frequency on your cable leaving your house, from what I know. It is extremely tedious, as they will have to do this to every single house. However if you use common sense, you just obtained free internet for the rest of your life. :)

I can get more in depth with this, but I know I am straying off topic here.

EDIT- Just adding to this topic, someone can very easily (hypothetically) get free phone service by accessing the TNI box in the back of one's residence (Telephone Network Interface Box). There is two phone jacks there with cable plugged in; one from the box to your residence's phone jacks, and the other from the TNI box to the network. Even by unplugging the cords and leaving, the average person would have no idea what went wrong, and not having a working phone line until the phone company comes over. All I need to access my TNI box is a flat head screwdriver. Get a corded phone and take it outside, and see for yourself how easily it is for someone to get unlimited phone service with only this basic knowledge. You could put a padlock over it, but it is only in a ~cm thick plastic housing, so anyone with enough determination (or a hacksaw) could still easily access it. I would have provided pictures, but my digital camera seems to be not working. And in addition, the boxes can be used for tapping the line, which shows in this link:
http://www.phonelosers.com/article/recording_telephone_calls/

Or for the short. And just whip your self up a beige box and get free internet. Ive even heard of people setting up cheap wifi stations on someone else's box, often without them knowing. Seriously if I wanted to make f4st m0nies Id goto wetdreams make myself some MDMA and start selling. :P All joking aside the market for restricted medicine either for abuse or for medicinal purposes is quite large.

I have read of people uncapping their modems and getting busted by the ISP within hours. They have computer analysis equipment that can pinpoint you very quick. That's not the bad part... they people that get caught, they get banned from the ISP for life. I think getting blackballed by ISPs is a far worse punishment than any criminal offense! There is only one high speed carrier where I live, if I got banned I would be royally fucked. I can't fathom crawling back to some dialup provider :(

What's the point of having an uncapped modem if you aren't going to use it to exceed your speed, but as soon as you do they will come down hard. That's like taking the kids to school in a drag racer and always following the speed limit.

(Mega, if you wish to make an alternate thread on cable uncapping, feel free)

Yep, if you have a legitimate internet connection from ISP X, they will then see the uncapping, and go "How did user y download 95GB on Saturday, despite him only having our 1.5mbit package?" You need to only have a service (other than internet) from the provider, and it is then from there, you uncap the connection. In that case, your connection is unregistered, and they can only view yours (and all the other customers) bandwidth, coming in and out of the node, which is about 3 city blocks per node, so obviously, finding you would be next to impossible, as I mentioned in my previous post. Manually checking every single line is the only way to find someone uncapping, and believe me, doing this takes a lot of time (and probably money), so ISP's will only do this as a last resort, ie many people are complaining of low speeds.

I know of at least three people who have had uncapped connections for >6 mos, and have never had any problems. And just so we know how much they are downloading, I know of one who transfers 1.5TB/mo. They say, even every few months, to change your NIC MAC, and MAC and Modem Serial (it has a modified interface), so it appears "you" are coming from different modems, locations, and computers. :). And as for them "finding you," some modified modems have a feature in them called "stealth mode," meaning their IP has no relevance to where they are (one such example, one person from MI, shows their IP is in NJ). And, if the hypothetical fed or good hacker tries to ping them to find their location, it will automatically disconnect that person. :D

And as for people getting caught and hearing about them on the news, all of them were idiots, and did not look enough into uncapping, and exercising common sense. All of these people I heard of in the news lived in the country, and obviously seeing the occasional 4MB/s spike on that node is much easier to spot, than in a highly populated area, with hundreds of simultaneous users. People doing this really isn't THAT big of a deal, but many ISP's make these huge news stories, to scare would-be uncappers away. To be quite honest, they try to scare these people away, simply because they do not want people to know how incredibly easy it is to steal their services. With modified modems these days, from the moment of opening the package, to being online (unregistered and uncapped), the process takes under 2 minutes.

EDIT- A 'modified' modem really only means it is capable of accepting new configuration files (which set your speed). Lets say you buy their 768Kbit package, or 7mbit package, or 30mbit package, your cable ISP will send your modem a small .cm file, which tells it to work within x range. For instance, here is a short list of Comcast's configuration files:Fastest Configs
d11_m_na_c05.cm 0/0
d11_m_speedtierextreme2_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 17/2
d10_m_speedtierextreme2_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 17/2
d10_m_sb5100_speedtierextreme_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 17/2
d11_m_sb5100_speedtierextreme_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 17/2
d10_na.bin.cm | 10/10 (actually 2.8mbit upload)

Normal Speed Configs
d10_m_sb5100_cbcgold_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 8.8/1
d10_m_sb5100_ccowpe_c05.cm | 8.8/1
d11_m_sb5100_cbcgold_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 8.8/1.5
d10_m_sb5100_speedtier_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 8.8/768kbps
d10_m_sb5100_speedtiertb25_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 8.8/768kbps
d11_walledgarden.cm | 8.8/768kbps
d10_walledgarden.cm | 8.8/768kbps
d11_m_sb5100_speedtier_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 8.8/768kbps
d11_m_sb5100_speedtiertb25_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 8.8/768kbps
d11_m_sb5100_ccotw1_c05.cm | 6.6/768kbps
d11_m_sb5100_ccowps_c05.cm | 6.6/768kbps
d11_m_sb5100_earthlink_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 6.6/384kbps
d11_m_sb5100_silver_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 6.6/384kbps
d11_m_sb5100_silvertb25_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 6.6/384kbps
d11_m_sb5100_ccowpe_c05.cm | 8.8/1.5
d10_m_sb5100_earthlink_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 6.6/384kbps
d10_m_sb5100_silver_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 6.6/384kbps
d10_m_sb5100_silvertb25_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 6.6/384kbps
d10_m_sb5100_ccotw1_c05.cm | 6.6/768kbps
d10_m_sb5100_ccowps_c05.cm | 6.6/768kbps
d10_m_sb5100_standard_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 4.4/384kbps
d10_m_sb5100_ccowpl_c05.cm | 4.4/384kbps
d11_m_sb5100_standard_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 4.4/384kbps
d11_m_sb5100_ccowpl_c05.cm | 4.4/384kbps
d11_m_sb5100_bronze_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 768kbps/384kbps
d10_m_sb5100_bronze_c01.cm (c01 - c05) | 768kbps/384kbps

Other Config Names
d10_vacation.cm | 128kbps/128kbps
d11_vacation.cm | 1.2/128kbps
d11_abusesuspend.cm | 6.6/384kbps
d11_cleanup_c01.cm | 6.6/384kbps
d10_abusesuspend.cm | 6.6/384kbps
d10_cleanup_c01.cm | 6.6/384kbps

You would simply add whatever config you want (preferably the ones on the top ;)), and you will have that speed. Of course there are other variables, such if your computer is BPI enabled, if your node is running DOCSIS 1.0 or 1.1, etc, but that would require me to type another 5 pages. :rolleyes:

And this is why DSL customers cannot uncap their lines; instead of receiving ANY configuration files, SBC's/ATT's/Whoever's servers/hardware will directly give you x amount of bandwidth.

Maybe it'd be better to parasite someone elses cable line.

Attach your uncapped modem outside the house, using a splitter or whatever, and attach a wireless node to that modem. Hide it in the attic, crawlspace, whatever.

Then if the ISP does track it down, the evidence of service theft is in someone elses house, not yours.

What you could do is throttle your own connection close to what the advertised speeds are supposed to be. I know sometimes I don't get the speed I should, the downside of using cable with everyone in the neighborhood, and the ISP overselling the service. By uncapping your modem you could get speeds approaching what you actually pay for, but by throttling your connection and using restraint they can't boot you for using too much bandwidth since you are still within what the package offers.

I for one can't wait until 50 mile range wi-fi modems enable a national wireless freenet that crushes the cable monopolies. Let them regulate a continental sized freenet using onion routing to encrypt an anonymize all data traffic! Even if they cut access to a global Internet, all they will do is let the common man build an undernet like one gigantic P2P system where every computer user can connect to the system to exchange all the worlds warez with no way to stop it, regulate it, tax it, or police it.

My 2000 cents ;)
I define "career criminal" as one who executes criminal activities for money and doesn't get caught. One who does crime and gets caught once is either a first-time idiot or unlucky, multiple convictions, merely a drug addict or a fool. Also this is for anyone, not a C.E.O in a business or a C++ level computer programmer or a chemistry 404 graduate, although they could do it too, it just wouldn't make sense :). I've also been interrogated a few times so I really do know what I'm talking about... not the smartest thing to say with the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 before senate, but I'll take my chances and wouldn't mind being arrested for typing on the internet as that would, in my mind, legitimatize and be the catalyst for an balls to the wall war on the government.

ALWAYS WORK ALONE! Criminal activity is called anti-social activity for a reason, that is imperative, when you are being interrogated police will make up all kinds of false garbage, tell you they have an iron case and you should confess for a more lenient sentence, tell you they have eye-witnesses, etc. Their job is to get a confession and until you have experienced this firsthand and learned they are just lying, there is no preparation you can do to negate the ball-shriveling effect of being told your accomplice has ratted you out, believe me on that one. If you ever get caught keep your mouth fucking shut for numerous reasons, obstruction being the foremost, if you are sentenced and other inmates you did a plea-bargain they'll be suspicious right off the bat. Also the chance of catching two people is twice the chance of catching one. The only counter to this would be if you have two people doing a B&E and a patrol car drives by and notices something off it would be easier to overpower the officer. Also steal license plates and just sit on em, after a few months whenever you are going to do a crime and don't steal a car, which you should, steal it the day of the crime so it's not already hot, using your car is just plain stupid, switch it with the old stolen plates, that way your plates don't get called in if someone ocularly gifted enough gets the license number.

Keep a COMPLETE alias in your head. If you don't already have one make one, name, birth date, address, parents' names, favorite color, flesh out this person and literally become him/her when you do your crimes. Dress differently, walk and talk differently, BECOME a different person that way you didn't do the crime, Joe did. For a criminal being homeless is usually a good idea and can be worked for the sympathy angle... "I'm sorry officer, my house burned down two years ago, I didn't have insurance, my wife and kids left me, I was just stealing to get a little food." If you're good enough and it's your first time you may get off with a warning. The drawback of this is if you do get caught you're fucked... simple as that, so if you do this do it RIGHT; ie. when you wake up and brush your teeth recite your alias' history in your head to transform it from fiction into reality. The police will charge you with obstruction and you will be treated like a liar when they're dealing with you... oddly enough.

If you already have a tarnished reputation don't do anything, you've blown your chance, yes it's that simple, sorry. The U.S. is fucked on civil rights anyways but if you're a suspect in a crime AND you've got past convictions, charges, even suspicions you're going to get a very close look from detectives and I'm sure with the laws nowadays if they think you smell bad they can get a warrant...lol. Of course you can ignore this if you don't mind having a criminal record, jail time isn't the bad thing it's the record, who wants to work $20.00 jobs their whole life?

I don't know where you live and the terrain but if you're in a more rural than urban area B&E's are nirvana, if you have woods you are literally virtually uncatchable and as a plus you can wear a mask the entire time. In the middle of the day houses are usually empty but just in case bring binoculars, watch the house for a good 10 minutes for signs of life, if a car is in the driveway obviously ovoid it. If you see no signs of movements take off your mask, go to the driveway and ring the doorbell. If no-one answers back into woods, dawn your mask and enter said house, try not to break anything, picking is easy enough with practice and theres no time limit anyways. If someone answers the door just say you were hiking and got lost and ask for directions or something along that lines and go to another neighborhood, you don't want to risk them remembering your face and giving a detective a description, when said detective asks around the neighborhood for any suspicious characters around the time of the B&E. What to steal? The fun part :D. Electronics move very quickly and easily, video game systems and games, cameras, cell phones, etc. Alcohol can be sold to minors easily and as well, but unless you are young yourself or have a young seller this can be risky as you are contacting lots of young people, which in our paranoid society is a no-no (pedophiliac rumors draw cops like flies to shit). Instruments also catch a nice price when pawned or held onto for a couple months then listed in the classifieds. I suggest hanging onto to most of the stuff you steal anyways as a precautionary measure, just not in your house! Spare keys marked with the address and spare car keys with model, license plate # and address can be sold as well, so grab any keys on key-racks you see. Jewelery can be pawned but make sure you have a fake I.D. with a wig and colored contacts in the picture and on your person.

Construction site pillaging is very lucrative and surprisingly easy, you'd be amazed how many sites have just a padlocked gate as their nightly defense. A chop-saw's purchasing price is $1800.00, you can't sell it for quite that much, but it'll fetch you a fair bag of coins. Look for the big metal lockers, they look like perforated shipping crates, pick the lock and presto, you've got a veritable cornucopia of hand-held tools to be pilfered. Power tools are first priority, then safety equipment, then whatever catches your eye. These can also be pawned but if you know people in the trades industry there are lots of unscrupulous construction companies that'll buy stolen stuff. This suggestion may catch flak but stealing copper wiring is also spectacularly easy and can be done with little fear of being caught when selling to scrap-yards, just dress up like a homeless person who would normally be doing the stealing, cops don't give a fuck about copper wire that goes missing. You did say CAREER criminal, this is just the janitor archetype of the criminal hierarchy and can be used to establish contacts with junk-yards, pawnshops etc without too much risk. Nurture your criminal alter-ego, make it a real person, homeless people start small and work their way up, do the same and the pawners and junkers will be more receptive too you, that is if you don't live in a big city and can keep using different ones.

On recycling days go out and scrounge the blue boxes at night, it's amazing to see the ignorance of people; they throw out bank and credit card receipts, the credit cards that companies send out to people that just need to be activated, lots of goodies in those boxes. Stolen credit cards should be tested by making long distance calls or small purchases in stores. Try to steal them at the start of the month and milk em for a while, anything under $500.00 won't be flagged as long as it's not an out of character purchase. One of the internet pay services has a headquarters in Africa that the U.S. can't touch, I can not remember name Western Something sounds familiar although is a paradox in Africa, so you could theoretically send money there for a long time and take a vacation one year and grab it. Same could probably be done for Caiman Islands banks but they charge ridiculous fees for their secrecy. I.D. theft has been covered fairly well so far so I won't go into detail and it's not a "theoretical" specialty of mine anyways. I don't like the data trail it leaves behind if you're not extremely careful.

Drugs. I saw one post that put the price of E at $2.00 a pill in Europe, this was mildly amusing as street level dealers get it for $0.10 a pill when buying in the 1000's and mid levels buy powder by the kilos and press it into pills themselves... in America, and the thought of buying 100 pills and flying across the Atlantic with them for a minuscule profit is slightly insane. Drugs are a stupid route, the police know EVERYTHING street level, literally, it's just hard to fight a mid-level dealer who's got millions and has 8 high powered lawyers, so they have to build an air-tight case. Real simple, even if you don't mind the police knowing you're selling drugs (they do), you're not going to get big anyways, the mid-levels use the police to prune street-levels who are getting a little too ambitious; whats safer and easier to control, a drug addict who's just happy to have a couple kilos of Heroin, 50 grand and a heaty as fuck caddy with shiny rims or a non-user who's very organized, already has mules doing the legwork and a '98 mini-van? If you do want to go the route of drugs I'd suggest DXM pills, they are very, very easy to make, guaranteed to be new to whatever market your introducing it too, people frown upon the guy drinking cough syrup at the party, and conveniently has 4 completely different effects varying on dosage. For a step 1 dose you could sell 2 pills for 10 bucks, step 2, 4 for 20, step 3, 7 for 25 and step 4, 10 for 30, you wouldn't make a killing at those prices but you'd at least triple your initial capital and you could be stingy and play with the prices a bit. The steps truly are completely different so in effect you also get 4 drugs gleaned through one fairly simple process. http://www.dextroverse.org/ for info on DXM.

I don't know why people are so adverse to the more violent crimes as they are fairly easy when done correctly. Mugging is stupid imo because the places were its a viable criminal activity, dark alley, walking trail, etc. the people won't have much of value on them. If you do want to do this however do no use your fists, you may be punching a muay-thai fighter for one and get your head kicked in, but more importantly, they can make a lot of noise before you subdue them. Use a black-jack, these can be improvised with a pool-ball in a sock, a fishing bonker drilled out in the center and filled with concrete/metal, or your best bet, a collapsible baton, but these are illegal in many states. When you see someone pass by from where you were waiting, walk up from behind, put on balcavla, or mask and hit in the back of the head, this will knock them out, don't try and take their head off as the skull is soft in that area and the medulla oblongata, which controls your "life-support" functions is there and will be damaged, which is bad. Zip-strap their wrists, legs if you want, gag them with a sock, loose gag, you don't want them to asphyxiate and throw them in the bush just out of sight if on a trail, you don't want them being found to soon after you mugged em to allow a safe getaway, if in an alley same thing but place ass up, hiding gag and zip-straps in a corner or doorway so they will be mistaken for a passed out junky.

Armed Robbery and especially Home Invasions are much more viable alternatives. AR you can do with a note at a bank, if you chose too, tellers are told to be non-confrontational and submit to demands :) fucking robber banks have insurance so they don't care, money stays in circulation and ends up back in their pocket anyways lol. With a note AR can be done discretely without any customers knowing, but you can't wear a mask, so you'd need prosthetic makeup, wig, colored contacts and fat suit. With perfect replica guns being very cheap and legal a replica gun is preferable imo, you get the fear factor, although if caught and you robbed with a note it can be argued by a competent lawyer, not legal aid, that you weren't armed and should merely get attempted robbery. Don't do banks thats much to risky is my advice though there is easier alternatives. Corner stores, gas stations, etc. that are removed from the urban center and nowhere near your house are your best bet, pick one that is a fair distance from the local police station so you have at least a couple minutes to get away. If you're very smart watch it for a while, learn the ebb and flow of customers and what times it occurs at, if you're ballsy as fuck you can even ask the teller what days they empty the safe ;), or just do it at night. Steal a car or put your stashed stolen plates on your car, leave idling out front, run in with balcalva on and replica gun pointed at cashier, demand cash, flee to house or chosen safe spot, if car is stolen ditch near your parked car that is far away and in opposite directions from your real house and drive to your house :). Home Invasions can be done solo with a little preparation and scouting of chosen house. Choose a house in a rich 'hood that is removed from urban center, as most rich 'hoods are lol, watch for a day or so, learn how many people are there, how many cars are owned by the family, times arriving home from work, etc. The next night when they are getting ready to go to bed 8-9pm'ish is good, come back park a little down the street, bring balcalva, gun, zip straps and duct-tape, duffel-bag, don balcalva, ring door and point gun at whoever opens the door. Tell them not to make a sound and gather up the family, from your previous scouting you will know how many there are, get the smallest member of the family, preferably a female child, to zip-strap the other members. When this is done zip-strap that member and cut the foot zip-straps of the mother or father and get them to take you around the house showing you the valuables, which you put in your bag. When all is gathered strap and tape the guide and leave house or drive car to driveway and fill if there is lots of goodies. Use same car and location tactics as for the AR.

Sorry for the poor grammar in areas, I wanted to keep it relatively concise so I made it a semi-list format. Also sorry for the length I just wanted to contribute to the site and my chemistry knowledge pales when compared to many people on this site, whereas my knowledge of crime and drugs doesn't... not necessarily a good thing lol. Also this certainly seems like the equivalent of a "bait car" on the net with the Thought Crime Act so close to passing lol, but I'm also inherently paranoid.

If your ISP is capping you, the best method would be to call and bitch. It has worked well many a time. Of course encrypt your hard drive and traffic, but any ISP hates loosing a customer.

There are a lot of interesting points made here....

However, those of you who are in favor of violent type crimes like bank and armed car robberies are out of your minds. It is a simple matter of risk vs possible reward, and the penalties of getting caught (it does not matter how smart you are, getting caught is always a risk).

Most bank robberies bring in a surprisingingly small amount of money. I read somewhere that $10K is about average. For that, you are risking something on the order of 10 years incarcerated if you get caught. Seems like insanity to me. Also, how are you going to avoid getting the tear gas/dye pack that virtually every bank is waiting to hand out to robbers?

I know it is possible to get large sums of money from bank robberies, but that involves using additional people and more time in the bank....thus higher risk.

You can conceivably get rich from "one" armored car robbery. They sometimes are carrying millions. But again, you really cannot do it yourself and the risks go up accordingly. Unless you are willing to kill the personnel in the armored car, you better not consider it. If you are willing to kill innocent working men to make a buck.....well......you are an evil SOB and I would not want to discuss it further with you....

The smart money is made with scams, identity theft, and paper crimes. If you do it right, there are so many legal jurisdictions involved that investigation and prosecution are exceedingly complex. And if you do get caught and prosecuted, it is just a non-violent "paper" crime and will probably be looking at less than one year in county jail. Then when you get out, go do more in a different state.

And crimes of this sort cannot force you into a position where you need to kill someone to survive/escape.

I don't know why people are so adverse to the more violent crimes as they are fairly easy when done correctly.

Possibly because muggers and other assorted human filth deserve whatever pain they get :) . Seriously, if anyone reading this decides to take up street robbery, then I hope you die an unpleasant death (improving the gene pool at the same time).

Of course, the vast majority of people clamouring after violent crime are teenage fantasists on their mom's computer, but the point is that real burglars/muggers/rapists/etc truly are the scum of the earth.

Simple Answer, no, not really, it will probably end up with you either dying early or becoming a prison bitch, seriously, bad idea.

The very nature of "Crime" is a transgression in both the legal and moral sense. When a Crime (capital "C") is examined, whether it is an issue that Western Society calls "victimless" (that a transgression is made toward oneself as in selling one's body for purposes of prostitution) or toward another; such as robbery; some areas of social or moral transgression has been made. These are socially agreed upon issues and can change throughout history as they do when the larger community sees those laws as inappropriate or inadequate.

But generally it is agreed upon that "victim-oriented" crimes such as robbery disgust the majority of modern human communities. This is because we have no right to inflict our desire for additional wealth or gain upon another who possesses what we do not.

If upon seeing a possession of another, one individual forces the owner to relinquish that possession, society as a whole is harmed because the very fabric of society is based on individuation to one degree or another. {Socialism believes that the greater good demands a leveling of those possessions to a greater or lesser degree. Capitalism believes that possessions are the basis for social growth to one degree or another.} But generally [most all] types of social perspectives believe that individuals have no right to force their will upon another outside the scope of Law for personal gain.*

To essentially believe that just because you want something, someone - somewhere should relinquish their ownership of that thing is the very height of adolescent hedonism & malignant narcissism. This is not my view alone but the view of societies throughout history.

* This is why societies that allow for greater levels of self defense are generally viewed as having greater freedom in scope.... "The little old lady SHOULD have a pistol so she doesn't need to be a victim to a pathological young man with brawny physique."
"The very term 'Gestapo-like' tactics describes a police dynamic run afoul, therein Society suffers. This view of public robbery and victimization is correlated, often, to that of the individual thug, etc. History proves the common man tolerates neither for long.

Possibly because muggers and other assorted human filth deserve whatever pain they get :) . Seriously, if anyone reading this decides to take up street robbery, then I hope you die an unpleasant death (improving the gene pool at the same time).

Of course, the vast majority of people clamouring after violent crime are teenage fantasists on their mom's computer, but the point is that real burglars/muggers/rapists/etc truly are the scum of the earth.

Morals belong elsewhere.

3 word answers after a 5 month break belong elsewhere. You have come dangerously close to Necromancy and you will be banned if it do it again.

Home Invasions can be done solo with a little preparation and scouting of chosen house. Choose a house in a rich 'hood that is removed from urban center, as most rich 'hoods are lol, watch for a day or so, learn how many people are there, how many cars are owned by the family, times arriving home from work, etc. The next night when they are getting ready to go to bed 8-9pm'ish is good, come back park a little down the street, bring balcalva, gun, zip straps and duct-tape, duffel-bag, don balcalva, ring door and point gun at whoever opens the door. Tell them not to make a sound and gather up the family, from your previous scouting you will know how many there are, get the smallest member of the family, preferably a female child, to zip-strap the other members. When this is done zip-strap that member and cut the foot zip-straps of the mother or father and get them to take you around the house showing you the valuables, which you put in your bag. When all is gathered strap and tape the guide and leave house or drive car to driveway and fill if there is lots of goodies. Use same car and location tactics as for the AR.


(If this thread was dead, I apologize for disturbing its peace. I saw the mod-post only after reading through it and writing most of this reply, having found it under "new-posts")

Home invasions? Low profit, high risk and comes with long sentences, especially if someone gets hurt.

What kind of valuables? A couple of 100$ worth in Jewelery? Perhaps 1-2000$ in cash? By "high risk" I mean that if a person owns any kind of weapon, it'll be at his home. Not to mention neighbors (armed or not), alarm systems... Since it is a comparatively rare crime and it involves threats against families in their own homes, sentences are hard, at least here in Europe.

And it should be. Selling drugs primarily hurt junkies, weapons and explosives sold to criminal gangs will likely be used against other criminal scum. Stealing from the state or from a large company will not do much difference except perhaps reducing profits very slightly for the already extremely rich...

But to commit something like a home invasion against innocent families for just a little personal profit... That is something only true scum would do, like the two exotics who met their maker in Pasadena, Texas November last year...Perhaps OT but that 911-call is sweet music to my ears.

Back to the topic, the first problem would be to state your goals. What situation are you in and how much money do you really need? Three levels of criminality can be spotted:

1. Making an average salary, or sugaring a low salary up by relatively small scale crime like selling home brew booze, fencing or re-melting stolen metal.. Risks are here comparatively low, but so are also profits. You will likely never reach up to even a middle class household income.

2. Making enough money to stay afloat can mean many things, especially considering where you intend to live and how you intend to live. Are you intending to use the money to get an education, is the money to be a complement/buffer to your (low) salary or are you hoping to live on the annual profits from a non-touched sum of money? Too little money would not be worth the risk comparing to just taking any damn job,. and too much would require a large scale criminal activity and thus very high risks. I don't know how much a good education is in the States, but here it is something like 50-75000$, though the communistic loan system would make acquiring these criminally even less tempting. Living of profit would require 750-1M$ in Sweden, probably less in the States, perhaps 175000 if moving to a really cheap place like the Philippines and living roughly like the middle class at home.

3. Getting rich. Like Tony Montana*! Living in luxury! Even if you turn out to be an exceptionally talented criminal you'll probably end up either getting jailed by the cops, shot by your friends or poisoned by your wife... And forget about getting out in time, very few people would have the nerve to just drop out of a successful business and then keep hidden from former friends the rest of their lives.

Conclusion: Maybe, if you're really screwed for life for some reason, it might be worth the risk to commit crimes to be able to afford regaining your foothold. In all other cases, forget it.

*Actually, it's becoming a trend among exotics in my city to answer their cell phones by a loud "Tonni Montanna!", the status of the movie-mafioso seems to be the highest aspiration of most exotics.