The Alleged Liquor Thieves Who Fell For The Ultimate Bait-And-Switch
There's the old saying: "Crime doesn't pay." In some cases, it's unfortunate to say that some thieves can get away with their crimes and make out like, well, bandits with their ill-gotten gains. In other cases, however, the criminals may find themselves the "suckers" at the end of the day.
A Florida man's sweet scheme, for example, wound up with his face pasted all over the evening news when he was discovered to have broken into a restaurant to help himself to a pan of cobbler, lava cake, and a tub of ice cream — all done while he was shirtless, of course (via ABC 9 WFTV). A man in Oregon was arrested for ripping open a package of cookies, eating half of its contents, and then fleeing the store. His attire? A shirt featuring none other than the Cookie Monster himself (per WDRB). The blue cookie-loving Muppet's good name, fortunately, wasn't scathed. It seems that not even celebrities are safe from bizarre food-themed crimes, as was the case of someone hijacking Guy Fieri's car (presumably in an attempt to find the fabled Flavortown).
For three thieves in Houston, their attempt at nabbing a bottle of expensive liquor seemed to have been successful — or so they thought at first.
The suspects made off with a worthless decoy
According to the New York Post, the theft occurred on May 23, when three men walked into a liquor store. The men seemed interested in a particular bottle of liquor — one totaling around $4,200 dollars — locked in a display case. One of the men managed to convince an employee to open the display case and remove the bottle, perhaps pretending to be a paying customer, before pulling the bottle from the employee's hands. The men, with the expensive bottle in tow, quickly fled the store.
While this would be a terrible, brazen heist, there's no real concern about what the men stole. The supposedly expensive bottle in the display case, explains KHOU-11, was a decoy, and what the men made off with was actually worth incredibly little. While the suspects are still at large, their "big payout" isn't something that's going to come to pass any time soon.
This far from the first time an expensive bottle of booze has been pinched. A California woman lifted a $4,000 dollar of Cognac from a steakhouse back in March, although the ending of that story was a bit different than the aforementioned Houston theft.