Since this thread is about stupid criminals I will tell you about one that I dealt with.
My business is in industrial fasteners. One day during lunch time two men came in and were roaming around the store (we're both retail and wholesale). While the store is only 5,000 sq ft there is a lot of shelving in there. With only a couple of employees there because of the time of day, it was simple enough for one of the men to walk out with a camera that I had there behind a desk. The other guy was interested in a large nut and bolt bin but the girl he was talking to didn't know how much to tell him it was. She said that she would call him with the price so he gave her his business card.
When I got back from lunch I saw that my camera was gone. My son quickly went to a nearby pawn shop to see if it might be there. We were told that 2 men had brought one in that they wanted to sell but that pawn shop didn't want it. My son then went to another that was just a couple of blocks away and he saw it there. When the police came we gave them the man's business card and told them that it was at a particular pawn shop. When they went there they found that not only had they recently sold the camera to them the one guy gave the shop his real name. When it matched the name on the business card the police retrieved the camera and gave it back to me.
Some criminals really are not too bright. The police had all they needed.
