Dumb crooks

We had a service guy in yesterday to do a pm on the printer and he told me a funny story about one of his coworkers.

These service guys all drive leased mini vans full of tools and spare parts. They're not marked with company logos or anything like that, just typical nondescript vehicles that you'd see anyone driving. One morning several years ago this guy gets ready to go to work and finds his van missing. He calls the police and they asked him to come down and fill out a report. The guy hops in his truck and heads down to the police station and as he's driving down the road he sees a pile of boxes by the side of the road. He slows down to look and Lo and Behold, it's all of the stuff from his van. All of his spares and most of his tools, just laying by the side of the road. He stops and loads everything into the back of his truck and then continues on to the police station.

While he was filing out the police report he got to talking to one of the cops and telling him about finding all of his spares by the side of the road. The officer asked him if he had a spare key for the van. Thy guy told him yes and the cop said "Come with me, I think I may know where your van is." So he goes and gets in the police car with the cop and they go for a ride out through a rough section of town, nothing around but tarpaper shacks and ratty looking trailers. Finally, they got to the end of a long winding road and there sat the van in the driveway of a crappy little house.

The policeman pulled up and said "There ya go, go steal your van back."

"What? I can't do that!"

"Sure you can, you've got the key."

"Don't you need to dust it for fingerprints or something?"

"Nah, we know who did it, we'll pick him up later, go on and get your van and bring it to the station."

The guy goes over, gets in the van and first thing he notices is that the thief filled it up with gas. When they get back to the police station they started looking it over to see if it was damaged in any way and find that one the back tires, which had a slow leak in it, has been repaired. Inspection of the interior reveals that it's full of audio equipment, which, come to find out, was stolen from the church the guy attends.

So, to recap, he got a full tank of gas and his tire fixed out of the deal. He also had to inventory all of his spares (which is something they have to do periodically anyway) and got the speakers and equipment from the church back.

They let him take the equipment back to the church. While he was unloading it the preacher arrives. He starts in with a lot of shouting and carrying on. "How'd you do this? I just reported it stolen!"

"Well, pastor, I tracked 'em down and stole it back."

He never did let on any different. To this day, that preacher still thinks he tracked the miscreants down and recovered the church property.